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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Largest coral bleaching event on record, impacting 84% of world's reefs; Trump says he loves coal miners even while cutting programs that help keep miners alive; PLUS: Trump White House guts funding for federal climate and weather research... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Nearly half of Americans breathing unsafe levels of air pollutants; Interior Department to fast-track oil, gas and mining projects; GOP support of carbon capture fractures in Louisiana, nationally; How "beautiful clean coal" is raising costs, and killing us; Oregon House passes bill making large data centers pay for power grid costs; From China to EU, world leaders meet on climate without US officials... PLUS: The economic case for preserving America's wetlands... and much, MUCH more! ...

Will they fight for the actual health and lives of their constituents? Or go along with (literally) deadly DOGE cuts? Will they throw away tens or hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the clean, renewable energy industry in their own home districts? Or screw over their own voters and local economies in favor of Trump's tax cuts for billionaires and huge corporations? All of those questions, a few answers, and much more --- even several bright spots --- on today's Earth Day 2025 BradCast. [Audio link to full story follows this summary.]

Among our coverage...

• West Virginia coal miners are suing Bobby Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS), for recent layoffs at the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH) and the shut down of critical medical screening and job replacement services for miners. The lead plaintiff in the suit is suffering from lung disease, amid a growing epidemic of black lung in Coal Country. But with some 875 of NIOSH's 1,000 employees terminated earlier this month, they are no longer available to help move miners like him to non-dusty jobs, as required by the Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977. In addition to free screenings for lung disease and the right to job transfers, the federal law also blocks Administrations from weakening existing protections. The Trump Administration, however, doesn't seem to much care about the rule of law.

• In response to the NIOSH layoffs and shutdown of these critical programs for miners, WV's Republican U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito --- who voted to confirm Kennedy just weeks ago --- is now begging him to restore those jobs at NIOSH, many of which were in her state, and the critical medical services for miners in Central Appalachia. All of that, as Trump recently welcomed coal miners to the White House to serve as props for his announcement of new Executive Orders meant to try and force the revival of the dying coal industry ("beautiful, clean coal," as he insists on falsely describing it) and to otherwise try and knee-cap cleaner, safer, more profitable renewable energy initiatives in the bargain.

• Also part of the new Administration's celebration of Earth Day this year, Trump's Environmental Protection Agency sent letters to hundreds of EPA employees in the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights today to inform them their services are no longer needed, as environmental justice --- protecting low-income Americans and minorities most at risk from air and water pollution --- no longer aligns "with the agency’s current and future needs."

• Back in Congress, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House are facing a serious dilemma. The House Ways and Means Committee is currently tasked with cutting some $1.5 trillion in federal services to Americans in order to help pay for Trump's $4.5 trillion tax cuts to mostly benefit huge corporations and the wealthy. But many Republican members of the Committee have seen huge, renewable energy-related job growth in their home districts, thanks entirely to tax credits made available via the Inflation Reduction Act passed without a single Republican vote in 2022 and signed into law by President Biden. The majority of the tax credits to companies to spur new manufacturing jobs in the renewable energy business are, by design of the previous Democratic Administration, in "red" states and counties. But Trump has ordered Congressional Republicans to kill all clean energy funding enacted by Biden. This is a real, if under-reported conundrum for Republicans and, potentially, a very good opportunity for Democrats in response.

• But Earth Day turned out to be another very bad for chief DOGE Bro and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Just after the close of the markets today, Tesla issued its latest quarterly report. It was brutal for the company, which announced that profits fell an extraordinary 71% as compared to the first quarter of 2024. That, thanks to several reasons, though none of them as obvious as the worldwide public disgust in response to Musk's obnoxious turn late last year to the hard, Trump, MAGA right.

• As Desi Doyen is here to remind us, however, there are still some reasons to be hopeful on this year's Earth Day. At least everywhere else in the world, where new technologies and clean-energy breakthroughs are actually being supported and making remarkable progress; where nature itself is offering exciting new opportunities to fight climate change; where threatened species are making surprising come backs in several places thanks to scientists, conservationists and local communities; where cities and states around the world are making major advances in reducing pollution, and; where countries --- other than the U.S., at least --- are banding together to help vulnerable nations adapt and survive our climate crisis.

• On the other hand, Desi is also here with our latest Green News Report --- where every day is Earth Day --- to catch us up with a few stories we missed while off on Spring Break last week. Most of those stories, focused largely on the U.S., are not nearly as bright, however, especially as the world lost one of its great climate champions this week...

Happy Earth Day. Somehow.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Amid mass layoffs, federal weather forecasters still working to keep Americans safe, as extreme storms again strike across U.S.; Massive cuts at federal agencies halt research into health impacts of pollution and climate change; PLUS: Trump Administration freezes funds intended to plug America's abandoned oil and gas wells... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 'Fossil fuels are killing us: Scientists publish sweeping review of industry harms; 'A health hazard:' Oregon flooding damages a city’s sewer system; Tesla reports 13% drop in sales from a year ago; What is causing US oil production to drop?; Trump fires TVA board chair, stripping power from governing body of largest US public utility; Edison CEO: It’s ‘certainly possible’ utility sparked Eaton fire. But climate change made it worse... PLUS: E.P.A. hunt for shady deals and 'gold bars' comes up empty... and much, MUCH more! ...

A legal fight for the integrity and public oversight of elections in the Peach State has been running in federal court for nearly eight years now. As we've reported over those years here on The BradCast, it began long before Trump and his Republican MAGA stooges dreamt up their imaginary 'Stop the Steal' scheme to pretend the 2020 election was stolen from them. The long-running suit has highlighted vulnerabilities and revealed criminal actions along the way. But, as of last night, the case may have come to an end. Our guest today, however, a lead Plaintiff in the case, vows: "This fight is far from over." [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... The madness wrought by our last election continues today, however, as layoffs begin for thousands of workers in agencies overseen by the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS), now directed by vaccine conspiracist Bobby Kennedy, Jr. "The cuts include researchers, scientists, doctors, support staff and senior leaders, leaving the federal government without many of the key experts who have long guided U.S. decisions on medical research, drug approvals and other issues" at the CDC, NIH, FDA and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, among others, AP reports today. A coalition of Democratic state Attorneys General are now suing to block the scheme, which they describe as unlawful, charging it will result in "serious harm to public health" and put states "at greater risk for future pandemics and the spread of otherwise preventable disease, while cutting off vital public health services."

Raising attention to madness like that was just one of the reasons that New Jersey's Democratic U.S. Senator Corey Booker determined he needed to take and hold the floor of the U.S. Senate "as long as I am physically able." As of airtime, he was on the brink of breaking the all-time, 24-hour and 18-minute record for holding the Senate floor. Shortly after airtime today, he did so, before standing down after just over 25 hours. We share some of his remarks.

THEN... We've been waiting for this federal court ruling for more than a year since its 17-day trial in January of 2024. In fact, we've been waiting for it for almost eight years, since it was first filed in 2017, challenging Georgia's use of 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems. The state was the first, along with Maryland, to do so statewide back in 2002.

In 2019, the judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg, determined the state's Diebold touchscreen voting systems were so error-prone, unverifiable and vulnerable to manipulation, that she ordered they may no longer be used. In 2020, Georgia's current Sec. of State, Brad Raffensperger, defied voting system and cybersecurity experts who advised him to move the state to a hand-marked paper ballot system. Instead, with the blessing of former SoS, now Governor Brian Kemp, he moved to a new, unverifiable touchscreen voting system made by Dominion, at a price tag of more than $100 million to taxpayers. It has since proven to have many of the same vulnerabilities as the old Diebold systems. Last year's trial revealed many of those flaws.

But last night, well over a year since the trial in an Atlanta federal courtroom concluded, Judge Totenberg finally issued her 33-page ruling [PDF], lauding the plaintiffs for their "dedication to ensuring that Georgia's elections are conducted in a transparent, safe, and reliable manner," before dismissing the case entirely due to what she described as a lack of standing by the Plaintiffs to bring the suit in the first place. "Ultimately, Plaintiffs failed to establish at trial that Georgia's continued use of the [touchscreen Ballot Marking Device] will likely cause them to suffer a legally cognizable injury," she wrote in her order's Conclusion. "The Court therefore lacks jurisdiction to consider the merits of Plaintiffs' claims."

"Although Plaintiffs have not ultimately prevailed on their legal claims, their work has identified substantial concerns about the administration, maintenance, and security of Georgia's electronic in-person voting system," Totenberg ruled. "These investigative and educational efforts have prompted meaningful legislative action to bolster the transparency and accountability of Georgia's voting systems."

We're joined today --- as we have been many times over the years to discuss this case, and its many startling revelations and news-breaking findings --- by longtime election security and transparency champion, MARILYN MARKS, Founder and Executive Director of the non-profit good government group, Coalition for Good Governance, one of the case's lead Plaintiffs. Marks seemed as gobsmacked, confused and disappointed by all of this today as we were in the hours since last night's release of the judge's order.

"We haven't really absorbed this blow yet," she tells me. "After eight years to find out, 'Oh, you had no business to be here to begin with, here in court.'" Marks did her best, nonetheless, to explain the court's ruling. "She's basically said, 'You've got the right to vote. You've got the right to cast a ballot. But you don't have the right to know who you're voting for.'" That, a reference to the unreadable QR codes printed out on each ballot by Dominion's touchscreens, supposedly containing the voter's ballot selections. That QR code cannot be read or approved for accuracy by voters, however. Instead, they are asked to verify their selections on the human-readable portion of the computer-marked paper. But those selections are not used to tabulate election results.

Marks cites a 2022 race in which voters for Michelle Long-Spears, a candidate for Georgia's DeKalb County Commission, selected the candidate's name on the touchscreen, saw it on the computer-printed ballot as their selection, but could not tell that the QR Code actually registered a vote for her opponent.

Throughout the years-long course of this case, Marks, in her role as Plaintiff, helped reveal a number of troubling matters, from the fact (as demonstrated in court) that voters at the polling place are able to hack GA's Dominion touchscreens with no more than a ballpoint pen; to expert findings that resulted in a warning about these systems issued by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; to the tape-recorded confession she obtained from an Atlanta businessman who detailed his role in a scheme to unlawfully access and copy the code for the proprietary statewide voting system in Coffee County, GA, and share it over the Internet with fellow MAGAs after the 2020 election. That man, Scott Hall, was one of several criminal co-conspirators charged along with Donald Trump in Fani Willis' RICO case against him and 18 others. Hall, Sidney Powell and other Trumpers pleaded guilty. Marks was the one who first revealed the now notorious Coffee County breach during the course of the case that was dismissed last night.

"Back in her decision in the Fall of 2020," as part of this case, Marks explains today, "right before the 2020 election, [Judge Totenberg] was saying that with these [new Dominion] systems, it is a matter of when, not if, this system is going to be hacked. She talked about how it cannot be audited. She went through many, many warnings for the state, that essentially this was not a good system. She seemed to agree with us on the merits for the last eight years, but now says, 'You shouldn't have been here anyway.'"

Marks asserts that Totenberg appeared to agree with Plaintiffs on the merits throughout the case and its eventual trial, as attorneys for the State, representing Raffensperger, failed to rebut Plaintiff's many world-class voting system experts and their testimony. "I don't think I read anything where she felt that [Raffensperger] presented compelling facts. Our experts presented unrebutted facts. [The state's attorneys] really had nothing other than, 'You guys are election deniers. You don't have standing. Y'all haven't really been hurt.' There was really no rebuttal on the experts' findings."

In fact, despite claims by the State, the Plaintiffs in this case never challenged the results of any election. Rather, they presented an airtight case that the systems used in Georgia can be manipulated, violate voter secrecy rights, and can't be known to reflect the intent of any voter after an election. Those unrebutted facts, which Totenberg appears to have agreed with, were not enough to overcome her final ruling --- after nearly eight years and countless findings in favor of the Plaintiffs --- that they can't show they suffer any harm with the use of these systems.

Marks says she is still discussing the matter with attorneys, but suggested she may appeal the case to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals which has already, in a previous ruling in this case, agreed that Plaintiffs did, in fact, have standing.

For the record, Republican state lawmakers enacted a law last year that bars the use of QR Codes on ballots by 2026. Marks, however, explains why that provision is likely to put upcoming elections at legal risk and is unlikely be effectuated, as the state Legislature has, to date, failed to appropriate the nearly $70 million the law calls for to only somewhat correct Raffensperger's Touchscreen Follies.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the Trump Administration declares they will be shutting down FEMA (in this middle of this year's hurricane season!); is closing coal mine safety offices around the county; and overturning landmark fees on oil and gas drillers' climate-warming methane pollution...

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On today's BradCast: The Trump Administration may have chosen the wrong group of Americans to launch a "war" against, including taking jobs, benefits and health care from them. But that's just one of the reasons Republicans now seem to be running scared of their own voters in upcoming special elections. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

On Thursday, the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced plans to lay off 10,000 employees. Along with cuts at departments within HHS, such as the FDA, CDC, NIH and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, some 20,000 federal jobs are earmarked for slashing. The Dept. of Defense has already fired thousands of probationary workers (though a federal judge found the firings unlawful), and the IRS has been ordered to cut 6,700 workers. That alone will cost the U.S. hundreds of billions in lost revenue.

But, so far, no other federal agency has set their sites on firing as many workers as the Dept. of Veterans Affairs which, according to an internal memo at the beginning of the month, is planning to slash an astounding 80,000+ jobs, many of them held by veterans themselves. And they are pushing back.

We're joined today by former Congressman MAX ROSE (D-NY), a decorated former U.S. Army platoon leader and combat veteran who now serves as senior advisor to VoteVets.org, the nation's largest progressive nonprofit veterans organization. Last week, the group launched a six-figure, multimedia ad campaign in the districts of five different Republican veteran members of Congress, calling them out "for being complicit and dodging their constituents as Elon Musk's DOGE aimlessly fires Veterans across the country."

Given Rose's background, before discussing the VoteVets campaign, thousands of vets already fired from federal jobs, and GOP cuts to a series of hard-won services and benefits, I had to ask for his thoughts on the ongoing Signal scandal and what might have happened to him, as a platoon leader in Afghanistan (or to any other rank-and-file member of the military), had they used a commercially available texting app to discuss specific times, locations and methods of upcoming planned attacks as it was revealed this week the Administration's top NatSec and Defense cabinet officials did.

"Any level of the military would have been fired for that," Rose tells me. "But I think there's a deeper point here. Which is everyone likes the notion of disruption and innovation, and that is how this administration sold themselves. But the truth of the matter is that what we're seeing is recklessness, destruction, and a disregard for everything that was actually effective."

He offers thoughts on whether Trump's high level cabinet officials, such as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Sec. of Defense Pete Hegseth should be fired, and whether the specific details shared in the group text --- with a journalist present --- was classified or not. "They are just openly talking about extraordinary events that are set to occur later on that day, that have geopolitical, strategic national security ramifications," he says. "It is beyond stunning. And it's exactly the opposite of what they sold themselves as. It's amateur hour."

As to the benefit cuts and firings that many veterans are already facing, thanks to the "recklessness" of the Trump Administration --- some of which are discussed by veterans themselves in VoteVets' new video ad --- the Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient is even more disappointed.

"Let's talk about the great tragedy of firing these veterans, who have served in uniform. Many of them served in harm's way, and they made an extraordinarily heroic and consequential decision to continue their service --- not just to our great country, but in service to their fellow veterans --- by dedicating this next portion of their career to the VA. Donald Trump ran on how much he loved veterans, how much he was grateful for their service, and now he's turned around in the early days of his Presidency and has decided to fire tens of thousands of them."

"The truth of the matter," Rose continues, "is that what they want to do --- the VA being the second-largest federal government department --- is they want to destroy it. They want to privatize it. They claim it's because the VA is an underperformer. But the stats tell exactly the opposite story. The statistics say that the VA consistently records higher quality metrics compared to peer institutions and higher ratings of patient satisfaction. That's why the veteran community is almost universally aligned in support, in not just preserving the VA but building upon it."

"This Administration's war on veterans," doesn't end there, he argues. "They decided to cut the PACT Act in the last Continuing Resolution, the budget deal, which was a monumental bipartisan piece of legislation to make sure that services are provided to veterans suffering the consequences of manning burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. They decided to cut the Small Business Administration, negatively impacting veterans ability to access small business loans. They decided to cut HUD and grants related to services for homeless veterans. So the list goes on and on."

As to how all of this may affect the political and electoral landscape moving forward, including among veterans, 6 out of 10 of whom voted for Trump in 2024? Tune in for the former Congressman's thoughts on that. But, as Rose asserts: "People should be digging deep. They should know there is hope for Democrats to bounce back. They should know there are extraordinary candidates raising their hands across the country, reaffirming their commitment to service, many of them being veterans."

AND, SPEAKING OF UPCOMING ELECTIONS... Republicans seem to be getting really nervous about next week's Special Elections in Florida to fill the vacated seats of former Reps. Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz, even though both are in deep red districts where Trump and both former Congressmembers easily won their elections just five months ago. Latest evidence of their concern? Today, Trump withdrew his nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik for U.N. Ambassador, to make sure her seat in a Trump +15 district in upstate in New York doesn't get flipped in an upcoming Special Election, given the razor-thin majority Republicans currently hold in the U.S. House. She is really bummed. Sad!

AND, FINALLY... Record, unprecedented, climate change-fueled wildfires are raging in South Korea. The blazes have already killed 27 and destroyed more than 300 structures, some of them historic, including a 7th century temple complex. As if that's not bad enough, Desi Doyen is also here with our latest Green News Report, as the Trump Administration has simply omitted climate change from their newly released U.S. National Threat Assessment Report; the EPA's rollbacks to air and water pollution rules are set to cost hundreds of thousands of American lives; and as the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court gives yet another offering to the fossil fuel industry responsible for so much of this deadly mess...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump White House announces arms-for-rare-earths deal with Ukraine; Spring is getting warmer across the U.S. due to man-made climate change; PLUS: Trump E.P.A. moves to ditch scientific finding that climate change endangers public health... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump’s seven most anti-environmental moves --- and how to push back; Scientists issue warning to public about 'high-risk' events that could demolish local economies: 'Remember the effect on people'; Trump’s reversal of EV program could carry a hefty $1B price tag; Despite historic rains in 2023, aquifers deep beneath L.A. area remain depleted; Trump warned of a "bloodbath" in the auto industry if he wasn't elected --- now he's engineering one... PLUS: Extreme heat linked to accelerated aging in older adults, study finds... and much, MUCH more! ...

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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In the second loss for Big Pharma in less than a month, the Trump-appointed Chief Judge of the Delaware U.S. District Court rejected a Constitutional challenge to a law adopted by Democrats in Congress and signed by President Joe Biden which allows for the negotiation of drug prices for Medicare.

Last week, in a 45-page Memorandum Opinion issued in AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals v. Becerra, Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly summarily rejected the drug manufacturer's assertion that provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), authorizing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to negotiate prescription drug prices, violates the pharmaceutical industry's 5th Amendment rights.

The 5th Amendment provides that no person shall "deprived of...property without due process of law." A person (in this instance, a corporation) cannot be unlawfully deprived of a property right that does not exist.

The IRA, which President Biden signed into law on Aug. 16, 2022 --- an Act that every House Republican opposed --- reversed a provision of the Medicare Part D law, enacted in 2003 during the George W. Bush administration, which statutorily prevented CMS from negotiating prescription drug prices.

According to a press release issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the government's ability to negotiate pricing is essential given that "the United States pays three times more for prescription drug prices than any other developed nation." The conservative federal judge in Delaware ruled that the 5th Amendment due process clause doesn't create a pharmaceutical property right to force the federal government to agree to pay those higher prices...

Our guest on yesterday's BradCast nailed it. The stolen and packed U.S. Supreme Court did, in fact, strike down one of the Biden Administration's vaccine mandates today (the one that allows employees to not get vaccinated if they choose), while narrowly approving the vaccine mandate for all health care workers at facilities that receive federal funding. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The Omicron surge continues to rack up both record infections and hospitalizations. Death counts are now on the rise as well. Though there are hopeful signs that some parts of the U.S. may be peaking or plateauing, and that, in a few weeks, the surge may plunge as quickly as it initially spiked over the past few weeks. The advice this week from the Los Angeles County Health Director to hang on for just a few more weeks and avoid any non-essential public gatherings, particularly indoors with the unvaccinated or those at high risk of severe illness during that period, is likely good advice for everyone in the nation at this time.

That is especially true now that the non-medical experts at the U.S. Supreme Court seem dead set on preventing actual experts charged with protecting workers from helping to protect millions of them.

As Slate's ace legal journalist Mark Joseph Stern predicted on yesterday's BradCast, the packed Republican Supreme Court did, in fact, put a stay on President Biden's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) mandate for workers at large companies with more than 100 employees to either get vaccinated or get tested weekly. The other case heard during emergency oral arguments last week, the Administration's Health and Human Services mandate for vaccination of all workers at health care facilities that accept Medicare or Medicaid funding, was narrowly allowed to remain. Chief Justice John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh joined the Court's three liberals in a 5 to 4 opinion [PDF] on that one.

Today, we step through the absurdities of the Majority opinion from the Court's rightwingers on the stayed employer mandate [PDF], as well as the even more absurd --- but dangerously so --- Concurring opinion authored by Justice Gorsuch with Thomas and Alito, as well as the furious Dissent, jointly penned by Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan.

"Underlying everything else in this dispute is a single, simple question," the Dissenters wrote, 'Who decides how much protection, and of what kind, American workers need from COVID–19? An agency with expertise in workplace health and safety, acting as Congress and the President authorized? Or a court, lacking any knowledge of how to safeguard workplaces, and insulated from responsibility for any damage it causes?"

The stinging Minority dissent derides the non-expert Court Majority for being the ones to decide that the non-experts in Congress, as opposed to the experts at the Executive Branch agency charged by Congress via specific statue to protect workers, must make specific medical decisions through legislation for those workers. It is, of course, madness. Especially, as the Dissenters note, the Court's "Members are elected by, and accountable to, no one," whereas those at OSHA are not only experts, but "responsible to the President, and the President is responsible to—and can be held to account by—the American public."

Tune in for all the details. But the good-ish news for the moment is that only three of the Court's rightwingers were willing to sign on to the idea that statutes granting Executive Agencies the power to regulate things should be ignored when there is a "major question" at stake, as we discussed in some detail with Stern on Wednesday. But that good-ish news may not stand for long, as the Court will hear a case next month with even broader implications, as to whether the EPA, despite its statutory charge by Congress, is allowed to regulate pollution that is causing our climate emergency and much more. As we detailed yesterday, we are, in fact, watching the far-right "deconstruction of the Administrative state" before our very eyes.

Then, in what would, during normal times, be our lead story today, we quickly cover the arrest of Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia outfit, who, along with ten others in his group, were charged today "seditious conspiracy" for their part in the Trump-incited attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, as part of Donald Trump's plot to steal the 2020 election.

The federal charges are the most serious to date in relation to the January 6 attack and are precisely what our guest from several weeks ago, Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel, told guest host Nicole Sandler was likely to soon happen, as the Dept. of Justice and Attorney General Merrick Garland continued a painstaking bottom-up probe. And yes, we did interview the Oath Keepers' Rhodes on this program back in 2016. Here is a link to that lively, if occasionally testy, interview.

And, in one more related matter on an absurdly busy show (restructured about five times before air today as news kept breaking!), GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy, who recently told a reporter he "wouldn't hide from anything" when he asked if he was willing to speak to the bipartisan House Select Committee investigating January 6th, refused to cooperate with a voluntary invitation on Wednesday to speak with the Committee. In response to the news, Carl Bernstein (of Watergate's Woodward and Bernstein) told CNN on Wednesday night that the Committee already "has the goods" on McCarthy and what he said to Trump on Jan. 6 "and McCarthy has lied about it since."

"So, we have a real conspiracy, a real cover-up, real stonewalling in excess of anything we saw in Watergate," said Bernstein...who should know.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, which is packed with even more news during the final few minutes of today's program...

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Well, we start today's BradCast with some encouraging news. At least until our guest arrives. [Audio link to full, must-listen show follows this summary.]

First up, the investigators are closing in. In Congress, the House Select Committee investigating Trump's January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol are now "requesting" an interview and documents from House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, centered on his communications with Donald Trump "before, during and after" the insurrection.

Meanwhile, down in Georgia, Fulton County (Atlanta) District Attorney Fanni Willis also appears to be closing in on Trump and his fellow conspirators regarding their attempt to steal the 2020 election in the Peach State. In an interview with AP published on Monday, Willis said her team is making "making solid progress, and she’s leaning toward asking for a special grand jury with subpoena power to aid the investigation." She also believes a decision will soon be made on whether to indict Trump and several others. (Meadows? Giuliani? Lindsey Graham?) “I believe in 2022 a decision will be made in that case,” she told AP. “I certainly think that in the first half of the year that decisions will be made.”

And on Tuesday, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported "that attorneys for former President Donald Trump have now met in person with the Fulton County District Attorney's office in Georgia." The meeting reportedly took place last month, around the same time that Trump issued an unhinged, seemingly out-of-the-blue statement that few knew what to make of: "All the Democrats want to do is put people in jail. They are vicious, violent, and Radical Left thugs. They are destroying people's lives, which is the only thing they are good at...their DA's, AG's, and Dem Law Enforcement are out of control." Suddenly, his remarks makes a lot more sense.

Welp...That's about it for today's encouraging news, before we are then joined by the great MARK JOSEPH STERN, legal journalist for Slate on what appears to be Steve Bannon's dream of the "deconstruction of the Administrative State" about to come true.

Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on challenges to two separate COVID-related Biden Administration mandates. One applies to businesses with more than 100 employees, requiring them all to either get vaccinated or take weekly tests for the virus. The other requires vaccination for all workers at health care facilities that accept money from either Medicaid or Medicare. Both rules were set to take effect as the Omicron surge has led to record pandemic hospitalization numbers. The first was issued by way of regulations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the second via the Health and Human Services Administration (HHS). Both are based on authorities granted to the Executive Branch agencies via statutes adopted by Congress. Though none of those statutes, passed years ago, include the word "COVID" in them. So now they are both being challenged by Republican state Attorneys General as unconstitutional over-reaches by the Administration.

Based on tea leaves read during Friday's oral arguments --- with two of the challenging attorneys infected with COVID and arguing remotely --- Stern believes it's possible the employer mandate could survive, but that the health care mandate is likely to be struck down.

But buckle up for today's conversation with Stern about all of this, because these cases are a much much larger than simply about the COVID mandates, even though they are likely to save hundreds of thousands of American lives unless struck down by the Court. These challenges squarely target the so-called "Administrative State" which, as you'll recall, Trump's disgraced Senior Political Adviser Bannon vowed in 2017 that they planned to "deconstruct". That may finally be about to happen, thanks to Trump's stolen and packed Supreme Court.

We dive too far into the legal and Constitutional and political weeds to adequately summarize here, but the argument comes down to who has the Constitutional right to "protect the general welfare" of the citizenry on matters of public health (and much more). Is it Congress, which has no expertise in these matters? Or the Executive Branch agencies created by Congress and filled with such experts? Ironically, the ultimate body who will make this decision is going to be the Judicial Branch, which, like the Legislative Branch also has no expertise in these issues.

All of the COVID mandate challenges are based on legal doctrines such as the "major question doctrine" and the "nondelegation doctrine" (both explained by Stern) which, unlike the General Welfare clause, do not actually appear anywhere in the Constitution at all.

"There is nothing (in the Constitution) that requires these principles, and certainly nothing that gives the federal judiciary the power to decide what the Executive Branch gets to do and not do under Congressional delegations," Stern explains. "All of this stuff has been made up. It was made up a long time ago, and used to block New Deal programs under FDR, then immediately abandoned and discarded for nearly a century. Only in the last few years has it been revived by so-called 'originalists' who are seeking to box in Democratic Presidents and prevent them from issuing any kind of policy."

"We are talking about a really recent revival," he continues. "Because as recently as the early 2000s, the Supreme Court unanimously disclaimed any real version of the non-delegation doctrine, and a majority opinion written by Antonin Scalia [of all people!] basically said 'We don't have any expertise, it's not our job to tell Congress what it can and cannot entrust the Executive to do'. We are only about two decades out from that, and the entire conservative legal movement has turned on a dime and decided that, in fact, the courts have this intense obligation to police the boundaries between these branches, even though there's nothing in the Constitution that permits it, much less requires it."

The Scalia majority opinion in question, which Stern "encourage[s] everyone to read" is 2001's Whitman vs. American Trucking. "It is a very clear explanation of why the federal courts have absolutely no business mucking around in this kind of cooperation and negotiation between Congress and the Executive Branch. Twenty-one years later, everyone has decided to ignore that opinion on the Right and pretend like it never happened."

So, what will it mean if the Court now decides that experts at Executive agencies mandated by Congress to exercise their expertise may not do so? The fallout could be enormous and terrifying and go well beyond COVID and these two cases. By way of one example, Stern notes, next month the Court is about to hear a case where "the Biden EPA wants to restrict carbon emissions at power plants. While federal law gives the EPA vast authority to regulate and restrict all kinds of toxic and harmful emissions from power plants, it doesn't explicitly say 'carbon'. It says the EPA needs to decide what counts, and we will defer to their expertise."

But, Stern notes later in our conversation, "this does not start or stop with carbon. This goes to every toxic chemical on the planet, which Congress simply does not have the time or expertise to list. So, anytime you're thinking about the amount of benzene, or methane, or whatever horrific chemical you want to talk about in the water supply, the air supply, that stuff is regulated by the EPA, not directly by Congress. And if this Supreme Court goes as far as I fear it will, we are going to have a lot more unnecessary deaths because of a horrific amount of pollution that the President is going to be told that he simply cannot curb."

And, yes, even that is only the tip of the melting iceberg. It also goes farther than the EPA, to dozens, if not hundreds of other federal agencies and regulations on labor rights and much more, as Stern details. "But that is what these Justices seem to want, and that is the road that we are already following down," he warns. "We live in a juristocracy, my friend, and we are only just beginning to see the downstream consequences of it."

As noted, buckle up for this one...

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Justice isn't gonna demand itself, apparently. So we're happy (if that's the right word here) to continue doing it ourselves on today's BradCast, along with a bit of help from an actual, longtime homicide prosecutor. [Audio link to today's full show is posted below this summary.]

But, first up, the mess the perps have left us with. New COVID cases are on the rise again across much of the country in recent weeks, even as the death rate is falling. But deaths tend to lag infections, which has officials concerned as we head into the holiday season once again. We take the opportunity to catch up on where the nation is in that regard, with recommendations for all to get booster shots as soon as feasible, and fresh, empirical, conclusive evidence that masking up is still the best non-pharmaceutical defense against the disease for both the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.

In slightly brighter news, of a sort, Oklahoma's Republican Governor actually did the right thing on Thursday, if only at the last minute, by granting clemency to 41-year old Julius Jones who had been scheduled to be killed by state the today for a crime that occurred more than 20 years ago. Just hours before he was to be put to death, Gov. Kevin Stitt converted his sentence to life in prison for a murder that Jones has insisted he had nothing to do with. His case gained notoriety following a three-part documentary produced by Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis that aired on ABC in 2018. The clemency was also appropriate after the state had paused its capitol punishments following horrifically flawed executions by lethal injection in 2014 and 2015. After restarting them last month, a 60-year old prisoner convulsed and vomited as he was killed.

But speaking of murder by the government, a week or two ago on The BradCast we were joined by our friend, author and progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann, to discuss his case for mass second degree murder against Donald Trump for what he described as the disgraced former President's purposeful mishandling of the COVID pandemic in 2020. Thom's case is largely predicated on evidence revealing that, after initially taking the coronavirus seriously, the Administration changed course once they came to believe the disease was far more fatal against minorities who lived in blue states --- in other words, those who were unlikely to vote for him last year anyway.

Since we spoke with Hartmann, there has been additional damning evidence unearthed against the Trump Administration's COVID response, released by the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, based on testimony from a number of both current and former Administration public health officials. The new information from those officials includes testimony, for example, from then White House COVID Task Force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, who reportedly believes that at least 130,000 lives could have been saved, had the the Administration taken appropriate action. Other officials have reportedly detailed how the White House blocked the CDC from sharing health guidance with the public while officials were even instructed to delete emails regarding directives on the pandemic response.

One of the maddening questions that arose during our discussion with Hartmann was why it seemed to be falling to a couple of radio hosts to even be building this public, legal case of accountability for mass murder by Trump in the first place. Where were the state prosecutors? Where was the Dept. of Justice and Attorney General Merrick Garland? Were we completely off-base in even suggesting criminal liability for mass homicide by a former President? That, as Hartmann conceded that he was, by and large, taking his best guess, as a layman, at whether charges for homicide by Trump should consist of first or second degree murder or something else entirely.

I heard from a number of folks after that program with thoughts on our conversation, including from several attorneys, two of whom had somewhat differing views on Trump's criminal liability. One suggested that, indeed, second degree murder charges seemed to fit the crime, while another felt that Trump had no direct culpability in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Or, at least, that it would likely be very difficult to prove any such culpability. We share the thoughts from both today.

We also heard from others who noted there was, in fact, someone else making a public case to bring homicide charges against Trump for some time. Specifically, we were pointed to longtime Washington D.C. homicide prosecutor, Glenn Kirschner, who now has his own podcast called Justice Matters. Kirschner spent some thirty years prosecuting murder cases, eventually becoming D.C.'s chief homicide prosecutor. On today's program, we share a clip from a podcast he released last December, shortly after revelations that the Administration had largely given up on trying to stop the spread of COVID and were, in fact, hoping that it would spread widely in order to eventually achieve herd immunity. That, even as infectious disease experts believed at the time that reaching herd immunity would take years and, literally, millions of American deaths before enough of the population would have enough immunity to halt the spread.

At the time, Kirschner used his podcast to explain what he saw as a clear cut case of what he described as "criminally negligent" or "criminally reckless homicide" (noting that the crime has different names in various jurisdictions). He explained how both Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence, who headed up the White House Coronavirus Task Force at the time, were "criminally responsible for needless coronavirus deaths" by the end of last year and the deaths of some 350,000 Americans at that point.

In his December 2020 podcast, Kirschner shared his belief, as a former prosecutor, that both Trump and Pence met the tests for such charges. Today, we continue to ask if any current prosecutors --- whether at the state or federal level --- are actually working to build such a case. And if not, why not?

Finally, we're joined by Desi Doyen for our last Green News Report before next week's Thanksgiving holiday. (We'll be taking the week off in desperate need of recharging our batteries and making up for family time lost during the worst of the pandemic last year.) Among the stories covered on today's GNR: disastrous extreme flooding in the Pacific Northwest on the heels of disastrous and deadly extreme heat in the same region just months ago; the Administration's controversial court-ordered oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico; and President Biden's trip to Detroit to this week to promote both his new infrastructure plan and new, American-made electric vehicles...

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On today's BradCast, the end sure seems nigh for the indescribably corrupt, terrorist-supporting National Rifle Association, after some big news out of a federal courtroom in Texas this week. If it's too soon to discuss the news, I hope they'll understand that we're sending them our thoughts and prayers. [Audio link to full show is posted at end of summary.]

But first up, some more good news today, even if you'd be forgiven if you hadn't noticed, given the lack of media coverage. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, announced this week that the Biden Administration has "drastically reduced" the number of unaccompanied minors being held in Customs and Border Patrol facilities by nearly 90% over the past month. From almost 6,000 at the end of March --- when much of the non-wingnut corporate media had taken their cues from the wingnut media to declare a "Biden Border Crisis!" --- to fewer than 600 children held in CBP cages as of Tuesday. After covering the "crisis" in breathless headline after breathless headline at Washington Post over the past month, the paper noted the good news in an 8 paragraph squib that is almost impossible to find amid a long blog page of Tuesday news items, and comes days after both CNN and NYTimes and others (though probably not Fox "News") had already noted the development.

Then, some more news that --- given everything else going on --- has flown a bit under the radar. Amid the NRA's ongoing bankruptcy trial in federal court in Texas, a U.S. Dept. of Justice official from the U.S. Trustees office --- which enforces federal bankruptcy law --- has told the judge she opposes the gun group's petition for Chapter 11 protection. The unusual declaration may all but quash the NRA's hopes of going into bankruptcy in a corrupt scheme to avoid legal accountability in New York. State Attorney General Letitia James sued the NRA last August to dissolve the state's 150-year old "charitable" organization, due to wildly corrupt violations of the state's charter for non-profits. The NRA had hoped to receive bankruptcy protection from the federal government in order to duck the suit by closing shop in NY and reestablishing themselves in Texas, which apparently welcomes cartoonishly corrupt "non-profits" with open arms. (With a state Attorney General who is currently under indictment himself for state felony securities fraud and facing a broadening FBI criminal probe for corruption of his office, that should come as little surprise.)

The latest NRA news, of course, was a stunner to the group as it was revealed in court near the end of their trial this week. It also comes on the heels of another series of mass shootings in recent months. But good luck finding any news in recent years that doesn't. It does underscore, however, the absurd scam that the NRA's Wayne LaPierre has been pulling off against his own duped members for decades now (with millions of dollars in expensive vacations, hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on fancy suits, sweetheart contracts for himself and his friends, all on the NRA's dime) and the far worse con that they've been pulling off on the American people in their corrupt, willful misinterpretation and lies about the 2nd Amendment.

The late, conservative U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger knew about it. He said during an interview in 1991, the 2nd Amendment had been "the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud on the American public by special interest groups that I have seen in my lifetime." The current Chief Justice, however, may be willing to play along with that fraud in an upcoming NRA challenge, just accepted by the Court last week, that may upend more than 100 years of state gun laws barring weapons carried outside of the house without a permit.

We're joined today to discuss all of that --- and how, and if, Joe Biden and the Democrats can possibly take action on gun safety legislation in this environment --- by IGOR VOLSKY, author of Guns Down: How To Defeat The NRA And Build A Safer Future With Fewer Guns. He is founder of Guns Down America, and details today the astonishing news emerging from the NRA's attempt to escape accountability in NY, while suggesting that this may really be the end for the NRA gun lobby as we know it.

He accused me "understat[ing] the kind of revelations we've heard from the bankruptcy trial, in which Wayne LaPierre, NRA board members and many other top NRA officials admitted to many of the just jaw-dropping allegations that were made against it by the NY Attorney General. Just to underscore, one the admissions that really stunned the courtroom was the current NRA president admitting that she shred and burnt documents because she feared they could be used against the organization."

"The great fear, according to insiders, that at least Wayne LaPierre has, is that the next wave of charges are going to be criminal and that he's going to find himself in an orange jumpsuit," Volsky reports.

"They also took a very unusual approach for an organization that claims they can no longer pay their bills," he says. "They publicly said they're as strong as they've ever been, they're still the nation's premiere gun rights organization, but that they were simply using this maneuver in order to get outside of the New York Attorney General's jurisdiction and move to Texas, where the laws are much weaker. That's not how one uses bankruptcy. That's not the way bankruptcy law works." It's also very likely another violation of the law.

So, what do its members think of all of this? And who will replace the NRA if they really are shut down for good? Those are among the separate questions we discuss as well, along with much more related to this topic.

Finally, speaking of rightwing grifters, good government group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) has obtained records from the Secret Service, suggesting that, while Donald Trump may no longer be in office, he is continuing to steal a whole lot of tax-payer money for himself and his company. While the children of most Presidents no longer receive Secret Service protection after a new President is sworn in, before leaving office, Trump signed off on protection for his kids and three top appointees for and additional six months. Those kids do a LOT of travel and spend a LOT of time at Trump-owned properties --- in Bedminster, NJ, Palm Beach, FL, and Briarcliff, NY, to name a few --- and when they do, guess who receives tens of thousands of dollars from the Secret Service for accommodations?

Yup. The Trump grift never ends...

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As Washington State's Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell suggested last week, the phony GOP uproar over Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM)'s nomination by Joe Biden to become the first Native American Secretary of the U.S. Interior Department is a 'proxy fight' over something else entirely. It might be over the dim future for fossil fuels. It might be over the fact that Haaland would be the first indigenous cabinet member for any Presidential Administration in U.S. history. Or it might be the fact that the GOP, without any real governing philosophy or values, is simply flailing to find relevance. We discuss all of the above with our guest on today's BradCast.  [Audio link to full show is posted below summary.]

But first up today, some late breaking news following on our conversation on yesterday's show with Dr. Karl Krupp of the University of Arizona's Zuckerman College of Public Health. He argued that, while COVID numbers have (thankfully) fallen precipitously in recent weeks from our horrifically deadly surge in the Fall, we may now be on the verge of "screwing it up all over again." Both he and top federal officials at the CDC see the previously-declining numbers beginning to plateau and/or tick back up in recent days, as states and cities are, once again, prematurely lifting restrictions.

Late news today both supports his worry on one hand, and somewhat mitigates it, a little bit anyway, on the other.  This afternoon President Biden announced that he has helped to broker a deal between Johnson & Johnson and Merck, the two pharmaceutical giants, to speed manufacture of J&J's newly-approved one-dose vaccine. Aided by his implementation of the Defense Production Act, he declared on Tuesday, the two companies, along with Pfizer and Moderna, will create enough vaccine for every American adult by the end of May. That is two months earlier than the Administration previously projected.

While that is certainly encouraging news, it is somewhat blunted by the idiot Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott's announcement today that, in direct contravention of warnings from scientists and federal health officials, the Lone Star State is immediately ending its statewide ask mandate and allowing all businesses to reopen to 100% capacity again. That, even as TX is still seeing about 7,600 new cases each day and averaged 227 COVID-19 deaths a day over the past week.

As Dr. Krupp warned on this program yesterday, we could see new record highs in the near future if we begin "screwing it up all over again". Both he and I, hoped his fears would be wrong. We'll find out soon enough.

In the meantime, Republicans continue to slow-walk top appointments to the Biden Administration, including his new head of Health and Human Services, despite the historic (and once again worsening) pandemic we are still battling.  Clearly, Republicans don't care. But what they do care about is fossil fuel production by the companies which fund their campaigns. To that end, last week's confirmation hearings for Rep. Haaland in the U.S. Senate's Energy and Natural Resource Committee were both revealing and maddening, especially for those in the Native American community.

Members of Indian Country have been watching her grilling in dismay and occasional fury as the first Native American nominated to head up any Cabinet level federal agency was falsely derided during her confirmation hearings last week as a "radical," largely by white, male GOP Senators who are, themselves, radically out of touch with even their own constituents' desire for more renewable energy and less fossil fuel development. Louisiana's Sen. John Kennedy went so far as to deride Haaland as a "neo-socialist, left-of-Lenin whack job" (before attacking Biden's now-abandoned nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, for posting mean tweets some years ago.)

But are the almost-certainly futile attacks on the New Mexico Congresswoman about more than her not-radical-in-the-slightest position on fossil fuels? We're joined today by journalist, activist, and artist JULIAN BRAVE NOISECAT,  Vice President of Policy & Strategy at Data for Progress, as well as a member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq'escen and descendant of the Lil'Wat Nation of Mount Currie. We discuss what lies behind the pathetic pushback against Haaland's nomination and why it is such a monumental moment for so many Native Americans around the nation.

NoiseCat has recently written about the pointless and embarrassing attacks on Haaland in her confirmation hearings at both The Nation and Washington Post, where he charged that  "Republicans’ depiction of the first Native American ever nominated to the Cabinet as a 'radical' threat to a Western 'way of life' revealed something about the conservative id: a deep-seated fear that when the dispossessed finally attain a small measure of power, we will turn around and do to them what their governments and ancestors did to us."

We discuss all of that and more today with NoiseCat, who explains the horrendous historic role that Interior has held in the genocidal treatment of American Indians, and the important mission that it now carries out for all Americans, but especially those in the West. (It is also home to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.) "Never before in the history of Interior have we had a Native person on the other side of the desk," he tells me. "And I think Native tribes are very hopeful we can make some further headway in correcting the nation-to-nation relationship between the United States and its first peoples."

He also explains, by the way, why "Republicans might actually be burning their own wagon" in attacking Haaland.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as hundreds of thousands in Abbott's "free" Texas are still fighting to obtain water, two weeks after a winter storm knocked out power and water in the Lone Star State; the battle for water for thousands in Jackson, Mississippi after the same storm; and the natural gas industry's desperate attempt to keep their aging empire from collapse...

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Donald Trump was found guilty by a huge, bipartisan 57 to 43 verdict in the U.S. Senate of having incited the deadly, attempted January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. On discuss on today's BradCast, 7 Republican Senators joined all of the Democrats in that majority finding on Saturday, affirming that Trump attempted to overthrow the U.S. Government and the 2020 Presidential election. Nonetheless, due to the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a two-thirds vote of the Senate is needed to secure a conviction under the rules for Impeachment, our disgraced former President was "acquitted" of the charge he was found guilty of during his second Senate Impeachment Trial. [Audio link to full show is posted below summary.]

We discuss what happened on Saturday in detail today, and take a bunch of calls from listeners on the matter. But first up, we cover the catastrophic winter storm --- featuring crippling snow, record cold and power outages for millions, particularly in Texas --- amid the ongoing COVID pandemic and attempt to distribute vaccinations to tens of millions of Americans. Native Texan Desi Doyen, co-host of our Green News Report, joins us to explain what's going on and why scientists tell us that it is happening.

Also, even while still on the Trump Accountability beat (as we've previously noted, this is going to take a while), we cover a bit of Biden Administration news today, including the quiet weekend withdrawal of Trump-era work requirements for Medicaid, as pushed and allowed to some states by the previous Administration, and the re-opening of the Healthcare.gov exchange to accommodate new "ObamaCare" signups during massive unemployment wrought by the pandemic. That, as the very popular American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief and stimulus package, moves toward passage with or without Republican support in the Senate and (thanks to pushback from the House Progressive Caucus) without the potential cuts to the promised $1,400 relief checks which Republicans and some of the more conservative Democrats were previously considering.

Though an occasional kick to the head is required, it does seem like --- at least for now --- Democrats are "getting it" when it comes to the nation's bipartisan desire for big and bold action from lawmakers in D.C. Even conservative Democratic Rep. Richie Neal, Chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, is now calling for new, monthly cash payments totaling $3,600 per year for every child under age 6, and $3,000 for children from 6 to 17. We hope Dems continue to offer the progressive policy the country yearns for, and we're glad to see progressives pushing Democrats when they need to.

Of course, Democrats have yet to learn all of the lessons they need to, as revealed by the Saturday snafu when House Impeachment Managers easily won a bipartisan vote to call witnesses at Trump's second Senate Impeachment Trial, only to cave shortly thereafter. There were arguably legitimate reasons to not call witnesses --- even if we would have preferred to see that happen. But to get everyone's hopes up, only to dash them --- without figuring out the concerns in advance --- was an inexcusable self own.

Nonetheless, Democrats won an historic 57-43 majority in the conviction votes, with an unheard of seven Senators from the opposing party joining all of the Democrats and independents in finding Trump guilty. Even the snake Mitch McConnell was forced to admit that, yes, Trump incited the violence at the Capitol. Though he still voted "not guilty", falsely and ridiculously claiming that it was unconstitutional to hold a trial after the impeached Executive Branch official was already out of office. His claims were even more grotesquely absurd given that he was the one that prevented the trial from happening while Trump was still in office.

So, what happens next? Will Trump ever face real accountability for his many crimes, including an attempt to overthrow the U.S. Government itself? If so, how, when and by whom? (Our own Ernie Canning has a few ideas today.) We discuss and open up the phone lines today to listeners to discuss that and other related matters on today's lively BradCast. Enjoy!

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On today's BradCast: How bad is Donald Trump's Administration response to the COVID-19 crisis? Bad enough that "a guerrilla network" of high school kids seem to be doing a better job of getting some much-needed life-saving protective gear to medical workers than the federal government itself, at least in one state so far. [Audio link to show follows below.]

If you tried to fail any worse than the Trump Administration and his GOP acolyte Governors around the nation (Hello, Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis!), you'd be hard-pressed to fail as thoroughly as Trump has managed to, in virtually every aspect of the COVID-19 crisis. His deadly incompetence is continuing to help drive up infection rates, hospitalization rates and deaths in the U.S., even now, some five months into the pandemic. In Florida, the state's incompetent and very Trumpy Governor is at least finally admitting that they do not have nearly enough rapid tests to keep up with the explosion of new cases in the state after DeSantis reopened opened businesses far too early in the spring. But, even as FL hit a national record on Sunday of 15,300 newly confirmed cases in a single day on Sunday (more than most entire nations!), he continues to keep hospitalization rates a secret, despite promising last week to begin reporting them transparently to the public.

For their part, the Trump Administration is at least pulling back on one element of their shambolic crisis management. After being sued by 17 states this week, the Administration has walked back its vow to withdraw visas from foreign exchange students attending schools which refuse to open their classrooms to deadly in-person classes five days a week beginning next month. Other than that, the Administration response continues to go from horrific to even more horrific, if that's even imaginable.

NBC News reports today that, according to internal Health and Human Services documents they've obtained, shortages of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) persist across the country as cases and hospitalizations and death rates continue to surge in major metropolitan cities and rural areas alike. The Strategic National Stockpile and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are still only able to fulfill about 30% of the requests for PPE for front-line medical and long-term care facility workers across the country, according to the federal documents, despite the President's ability to invoke the Defense Production Act to commandeer manufacturing facilities to meet the nation's needs.

Meanwhile, some high school kids in Atlanta, Georgia have taken it upon themselves to actually do something about the problem. We're joined today by SHOURYA SETH, high school senior and Chief Operating Officer for Project Paralink, a grassroots organization built with his friends to combat the coronavirus pandemic with the decentralized production producing and distribution of PPE to health workers. So far, they've managed to manufacture and donate more than 420,000 units of PPE, from face-shields to masks to more than 1,500 locations.

They've also gained some corporate support for their efforts, which are now joined by nearly 1,000 volunteers in the work to distribute much-needed protective gear in at least four states, to date. Seth says they have distributed to Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama, though he tells me today they've recently begun working with California, New York, New Mexico and the Navajo Nation as well, for what they describe as "decentralization for social good" and "localized disaster relief".

Recently, he explains, "some hospitals had gone back to the position where they were only left with one week of supplies. And it was just, you know, really frustrating to see that the federal government was not doing anything about it." The project's ultimate goal, Seth explains, is to replace, or at least augment, FEMA's efforts with "Parapod Relief Stockpiles" all over the nation. He describes the project as "a guerrilla network of sorts [to] get the PPE supplies delivered faster than the federal supply chain." He also tells me that Paralink has already even outpaced FEMA in at least one respect in Georgia.

"Recently we actually passed FEMA in the donation of face shields," says Seth. "We didn't really see any coordination, at least on the gubernatorial level or the city level. On June 11th, FEMA put out a public press release, giving out state-by-state PPE data. When we looked at Georgia, what we found out was that FEMA had, at that time, only been able to produce 189,000 face shields, while we had been able to produce 370,000 face shields, essentially doubling the output. And the funny part is, some of the donations we made were to FEMA! So while we had been overproducing we had also been donating to FEMA!"

Seth tells us how how the project came about as an effort to improve food delivery logistics before the COVID crisis struck. They then decided to modify their algorithms to turn to PPE manufacturing and delivery.

"Just before the surge of cases, we started to notice a very, very slow downward trend in the cases. And we realized a lot of people, like Dr. Fauci, were talking about a second wave of the pandemic coming during the winter. We wanted to create the stockpiles in states to prepare for the future," he says. "A lot of the Republican-controlled state governments were ignoring those warnings, but we understood according to virologists, according to common sense, the cases were going to rise again." So, they sprung into action.

Seth also offers his own feelings about whether schools should be opened for in-person classes, as the Administration is now insisting upon, and asks for your help in growing the project. "If you have any sort of questions, inquiries, or ways that you can help us out, reach out to us!"

So, if you're worried about the next generation, today's conversation is likely to make you feel much better about their ability to handle --- and fix --- so much that we've already screwed up for them.

Then, another bit of encouraging and progressive news, this time from the Joe Biden Campaign today. The presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee announced a massive climate plan aimed at combating climate change and spurring economic growth by overhauling America's energy industry with a proposal to achieve carbon-free renewable power across the entire country by 2035. The ambitious plan echoes that offered during the Democratic primary campaign by then rival Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington state. The ambitious progressive plan would more than doubles the resources and halve the time-frame that Biden had previously proposed during the campaign. The effort to tackle our climate crisis would also, as Desi Doyen explains today, serve as a massive infrastructure jobs engine to help the U.S. climb out of the pandemic, it's accompanying economic crisis, and systemic racism, as the proposal requires that 40 percent of the money spent on clean energy deployment goes to historically disadvantaged front line communities, which have been among the worst and first victims of the climate crisis. It's a New Deal-like proposal that some might even call a Green New Deal --- if that phrase didn't startle delicate Republicans so.

Finally, we close with our latest Green News Report, as the nation attempts to deal with an extended extreme heat wave amidst our coronavirus crisis; as oil and gas companies go belly up, while both leaving environmental disasters for tax-payers to clean up and making sure their executives get huge bonuses on the way out the door; and as one venerable environmental group goes all in on ad buys highlighting Trump's deadly, parallel denial of both COVID-19 and climate change...

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