Amid life in war time, we are forced to jam several hours worth of news into today's tightly-packed, 57-minute BradCast. Join us, won't you? [Audio link to full show follows this link.]

FIRST UP... Donald Trump's ridiculously ill-considered War on Iran is already a disaster in myriad ways. It has already directly impacted at least 11 additional nations beyond Iran in the Gulf and even into Europe. It is already spiking the global price of oil and natural gas and roiling markets. Trump has no idea who will replace 86-year old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed on the first day of the new war apparently along with a whole bunch of potential successors. Trump concedes the next leader may be "as bad" as the last one. While the State Dept. warned Americans on Monday (three days after bombing began!) in more than 15 countries to evacuate immediately, airspace is closed, the U.S. is providing Americans no way to get out, embassy staffs have been cut to the bone, many have no Senate-confirmed Ambassador, leaving thousands of Americans stranded. Trump's war is already wildly unpopular among Americans, but even MAGA leaders appear to be turning against it (and maybe him). And the entire campaign now seems almost certain to end in disaster for Iranians and potentially Americans in various ways.

NEXT... The best way to move beyond the nightmare that the U.S. and world have been thrust into under Trump still remains at the ballot box, where it was Election Day today in Texas, North Carolina and Arkansas, and where voters are participating in the first statewide primaries of the critical 2026 midterm elections. (Noteworthy results on tomorrow's program.) Beyond that, the Gerrymandering Wars sparked by Trump and Republicans in Texas last year are continuing in the courts this week. Good news out of Virginia, where a state court ruled Monday that the Democratic state Legislature's Special Election set for April 21 for voters to decide if they want to draw a new U.S. House map will go forward, even as GOP challenges to the process continue. The new maps, if adopted, may flip four seats from "red" to "blue" this November. (Early voting in that VA Special Election starts Friday.) But very bad and foreboding news from the wildly corrupt U.S. Supreme Court majority on Monday. They reached into an ongoing court process in the state of New York to block a trial court order that would redraw a U.S. House District in NYC due to the dilution of Black and Hispanic voters on Staten Island and a part of Brooklyn. The case hasn't even reached the state Supreme Court in NY and yet SCOTUS has already stepped in to block it, in violation of their own precedents. This is bad news for several reasons beyond NY, as discussed on today's show.

FINALLY.... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, kicking off our 17th Anniversary celebration of the world's longest-running (and best!) radio report connecting the climate change dots over your public airwaves! Even with Donald Trump doing his best to undermine humanity and the world, we've still got some very hopeful news to hang our green hats on today! Please tune in! (And please feel free to help us as we head into our 18th year with a much-needed donation! We remain 100% listener supported, thanks only to YOU!)

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Global oil and natural gas prices surge after Donald Trump launches new war in the Middle East; War may boost renewables as an energy security solution; PLUS: Despite the Trump Administration's best efforts, the U.S. generated a record amount of renewable electricity last year... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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Okay. It's not called "Operation Epstein Fury". It's called "Operation Epic Fury". But who's kidding who here? Here we ago again. Today on The BradCast, another unlawful foreign regime change war by the U.S. is now underway in the Middle East. In this case, launched by a President who ran for office, lying over and over again that he was against such wars. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

As usual, tune in for much much more. But, among the many points made and news shared today before we get to callers ringing in on Donald Trump's new war on Iran in the second half the show...

• Yes, J.D. Vance really wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in 2023 headlined: "Trump's Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars" with the sub-hed: "He has my support in 2024 because I know he won't recklessly send Americans to fight overseas."

• Yes, Stephen Miller actually tweeted just 4 days before the November 2024 President election: "To anyone still gullible enough to fall for scummy media hoaxes: Trump said warmongering neocons love sending your kids to die for wars they would never fight themselves. Liz Cheney is Kamala’s top advisor. Liz wants to invade the whole Middle East. Kamala = WWIII. Trump = Peace."

• Yes, Donald Trump really did spend years decrying "stupid" U.S. Presidents who spent "$8 trillion" on wars in the Middle East instead of building roads and bridges and schools and hospitals in the U.S. He really did say, over and over, in 2011 that "in order to get elected @BarackObama will start a war with Iran". He really did say in 2012 that Obama would "attack Iran in order to get re-elected," and "Now that Obama's Poll numbers are in a tailspin, watch him start a war with Iran. He's desperate." That Obama would have to do so to "save face", and Trump really did declare in 2013: "Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly --- not skilled!" [Emphasis added.]

• For the record, Barack Obama never did attack Iran. But he did negotiate a deal with Iran and other major countries to successfully prevent Iran from being able to obtain a nuclear weapon, an agreement that Trump unlawfully violated and ripped up after taking office. He's been begging Iran to strike a new deal ever since. But now his polls are in a tailspin. He is trying to save face, and, because of his inability to negotiate properly, he is (unlawfully and without Constitutional or Congressional authorization) choosing to spend billions on another foreign interventionist war instead of fixing roads and bridges and hospitals and schools in the U.S.

• In fact, Trump is apparently now bombing schools and hospitals in Iran, killing nearly two hundred school girls on the first weekend of his latest misadventure, as six U.S. service members have so far been announced killed and three of our F-15s have been shot out of the sky over Kuwait, with the crews, thankfully, ejecting safely.

• So far, 555 Iranians have reportedly been killed, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. At least 11 people have been killed in Israel.

• The Supreme Leader of Iran, 86-year old Ayatollah Ali Khamanei has been killed. But the attack on Khamanei was "so successful," according to Trump, that, apparently, so were the preferred choices of the U.S. to replace him. So, now what?

• Why does Trump say he bombed Iran? Well, he seems to be making up new reasons every few hours since ordering the first bombs on Saturday morning along with Israel. To prevent an imminent attack on the U.S. by Iran? Well, that can't be. Nobody believes they have the intercontinental missiles to do that. So, he's already in violation of both U.S. and international law. To prevent them from restarting the nuclear program he claimed to have "completely obliterated" when he previously attacked Iran just eight months ago? To stop terror attacks by Iran-funded militias in the Middle East? We discuss all of the above. But he certainly didn't bomb Iran to distract media attention from his dreadful and getting-dreadful-er approval ratings as the midterm primaries are now under way, right? Certainly not as a distraction from the fact that his DOJ has been caught red-handed unlawfully covering up the release of very serious allegations by a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein that she was also raped by Trump when she was just 13-years old, right?

• As you can tell, we've got a lot to discuss today. And a lot of callers in the second half of the show who want to join in on the conversation. I hope you'll tune in...

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As insane as it was, as you may have guessed, we're talking about Tuesday's night State of the Union Address on today's BradCast. But I can say with confidence that today's show is nowhere near as long or insane or angry or boring as that crazy speech last night! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

As you also may have guessed, we are joined today by our go-to roundtable of progressive old-school bloggers, award-winning Salon columnist and Hullabaloo blogger HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, and co-host of The Professional Left Podcast, the one and only 'DRIFTGLASS'. They are with us for the full hour.

I'm not sure how much I need to tee things up for today's program, especially if you saw what happened last night. If you didn't, we'll give you a good summary at the top of the show, and you won't have to listen to more than a minute or two of Donald Trump's voice thereafter. (You're welcome).

It was, as explained, an angry, racist, ugly, hate-filled State of the Union Address that, at a record length, included astonishingly little of substance and even less that resembled truth or reality. By now, we've come to except no less from a 34-time convicted felon, adjudicate sex abuser and accused rapist of at least one 13-year old girl.

He called Somali Americans living in Minneapolis "pirates"; he called the Mayor of the nation's largest city a "Communist"; he repeatedly called Democrats "crazy" and "sick" and charged they, not he, were "destroying our country". But the most offensive point, at least to me, was likely when he described voting in America as a "privilege", as opposed to what it is: a right for every citizen and one that must be protected. From him.

As also noted, the most important news of Tuesday night may have been the fact that three more Democrats swept Special Elections for state Legislatures in Pennsylvania and Maine yesterday. In PA, in particularly, it was a route, with one candidate winning by 63 points, the other by 35 points. That amounted to two more huge over-performances by Dems, as compared to Kamala Harris' numbers in the same district in 2024. On Tuesday, the swing toward Democrats was by 34 and 17 points respectively, as this year's critical midterm elections are now just 250 days away, with primary voting already underway in several states.

So ddid Trump say anything of importance on Tuesday night? Does any of it really matter? Does the SOTU itself even matter at this point?

Digby doesn't seem to think so. It was "a reality show, a wrestling match, a game show," she argues. "Virtually everything he said was a lie. It was insane. The fact checkers looked like they'd been hit over the head by a 2-by-4."

"This was a spectacle," charges Driftglass. "But it was something out of Imperial Rome. Trump slowed down and reveled in all these gory images of blood and violence. This was ancient, ugly, awful, fascist stuff. This was blood and country and revenge."

Beyond that, we actually had quite a few laughs on today's program, even though we also had to wade through some pretty dark topics, including the news of Trump's DOJ attempting (though now failing?) to hide very serious allegations in the Epstein Files of Trump having raped and assaulted a 13-year old girl.

We also discuss the Democrats response to the speech in the chamber (which seemed to infuriate Trump as his marathon remarks went on...and on) and in Virginia, where, both Digby and Driftglass seem to agree, freshly minted Gov. Abigail Spanberger delivered a very well-considered response on behalf of the party.

"He's bad at fascism, bad at governing, but he's really good at chaos," quips Digby today, as we try to make sense of at least some of that chaos. Wish us luck, and tune in for much, much more...

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Today on The BradCast: The President of the United States likes to dismiss concerns about climate change by explaining that the real threat to humanity is actually nuclear weapons. And yet, as we were reminded again at midnight last night, he's not actually interested in doing anything about that threat to humanity either. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST... before we get to our excellent guest today on that, just a quick follow up to our recent coverage regarding last week's raid by the FBI at the Fulton County, Georgia elections warehouse, outside Atlanta, where federal officials absconded with ballots and other materials from the 2020 election that Donald Trump pretends was stolen from him, because he is unable to admit he lost it.

We've been trying to get to this story all week, but just a quick notice to mention that, following last week's raid --- and the Dept. of Justice's lawsuits against 23 states attempting to force them to turn over private voter data (suits that already being dismissed by federal courts) --- all three top Administration officials who had requested time to confront the bipartisan National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) annual conference last week, cancelled their appearances at the last minute.

NASS had rearranged the conference schedule to allow for remarks by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. By Friday afternoon, however, all but Gabbard had cancelled. And just before her remarks were to begin, she pulled out as well. Maine's Democratic SoS, Shenna Bellows called them "cowards," noting, along with others, that the Administration's threats to interfere with upcoming elections is unlawful and likely to end poorly for them.

THEN... It's on to other, ahem, explosive news of the day. As of midnight last night, Trump allowed the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the U.S. and Russia to expire. The New START agreement, struck with Russia by President Barack Obama in 2010, included strict caps on the numbers of ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads each country could deploy, and included an extensive verification regime. The 10-year pact was extended for another five years in 2021 by President Joe Biden, and Russia has said they were open to another extension. Trump simply let it expire.

We're joined today by long time nuclear weapons policy analyst STEPHEN SCHWARTZ, former Executive Director and Publisher of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, keepers of the notorious "Doomsday Clock". On his excellent social media feed at @AtomicAnalyst last night, Schwartz lamented that, while "Trump has boasted for decades that he knows everything there is to know about nuclear weapons and could easily negotiate a great deal with Russia," he allowed New START, "the last treaty constraining US and Russian nuclear weapons" to expire, and "hasn't lifted a tiny finger to replace it."

"He did absolutely nothing during his first term," Schwartz tells me today. "Now, here we are again. He did absolutely nothing during his first year in office, and now we have no treaty whatsoever. I think because, first of all, he doesn't care about it, and because he views the treaty as tainted because it was negotiated by his arch-enemy Barack Obama."

"It's a great loss for humanity. It's not a win for anybody," he opines. "Anybody who thinks that getting rid of the treaty will make the United States or the world safer hasn't been living in reality for quite some time."

Welp. That sounds like Trump.

Schwartz breaks down the specifics of New START, and the dangers now posed with its loss. We also discuss, among other things, the fact that Trump's so-called "Golden Dome" anti-missile system, if Congress ever called for it to be built, is likely to make the U.S. less safe, not more so.

"The Golden Dome is the latest iteration of decades of efforts to try to use technology to eliminate the political problem that gives us the ever-present threat of nuclear war," Schwartz, author of Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 explains. "But it only works --- if it works at all --- against weapons that are flying through the air. It does not work on anything that would be coming at you from under water [such as Russia's Poseidon drones, developed in response to the threat of a U.S. defensive missile shield], nor for that matter would it shoot down planes that would be carrying nuclear missiles or nuclear gravity bombs."

It does, however, result in adversaries building even more advanced and more numerous offensive weapons systems to ensure they can overcome such a defensive system.

There's a whole lot more with Schwartz today, including: his assessments of the various nuclear threats now posed by China, North Korea, Iran and others, and whether the U.S. under Trump remains the greatest nuclear threat to the planet; why it would be such a terrible idea for Trump to restart U.S. nuclear missile testing, as he vowed last year; and much more.

Tune in for our excellent, enlightening, educational and, at times, chilling conversation with Schwartz today.

FINALLY... We close with still more nuclear related news --- this time, nuclear energy --- and the Trump Dept. of Energy's secret change to nuclear power plant safety rules, in our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen, on that and much more!...

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We've been arguing in various ways on The BradCast in recent months that our ignorant, thin-skinned, cruelly incompetent, man-baby clown, pedophile protecting President is growing weaker by the day. That, of course, doesn't make him any less dangerous. In fact, it makes him more so by the day --- or even hour, at this point. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We're joined today for our first horrifying and occasionally hilarious visit of the year with two of our favorite roundtablers and very smart fellow old-school bloggers HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of The Professional Left Podcast.

We try --- wish us luck --- to make sense, any sense, of the past 24 to 72 hours or more, as brutal violence by Donald Trump's dangerously inept ICE thugs in Minneapolis intensifies and he threatens to misuse the Insurrection Act against peaceful, "Minnesota nice" protesters, even as the state's wartime Governor stands in the breach; as the President of the United State's tyrannical menacing of our NATO ally of Greenland (and NATO itself) grows darker by the day; as he outrages his far-right base by appearing to all but abandon protesters in the streets of Iran that on Tuesday he instructed to "KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!", vowing "HELP IS ON ITS WAY", only to toss them all under the regime's knife by Wednesday, while either hundreds or tens of thousands are reportedly being slaughtered; and, as his corrupt, show-of-power invasion, takeover and/or theft of Venezuela and its dirty oil, less than two weeks ago, already begins to (at least temporarily) fade into the blurry, bloodstained rearview mirror.

That's not all. But even that much is a lot of ground for one short hour. But these are no times for the faint of heart.

Among a whole bunch of well-informed and sagacious commentary, today's program also includes a few bloodcurdling turns of phrase such as "this is Stephen Miller's baby", "Donald Trump is the vessel", "the bitter harvest of that lie", "a dumb place to start their revolution" and, yes, "a cornered rat is a dangerous rat".

Tune in to hear who said them, in what context, and if any of us is able to make any sense of any of this madness right now.

If nothing else, Desi Doyen joins us at show's end for our latest Green News Report...which always makes perfect sense...

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On today's BradCast: It's been less than two weeks since he ordered the U.S. military invasion of a sovereign nation, killed about 80 people, kidnapped their leader and his wife to put them on trial for something or other here in the U.S., claimed he now "runs" their country and controls their natural resources, to exploit and sell as he pleases, the money from which will be held in offshore bank accounts controlled by him. Oh, and he's now declared himself "Acting President" there. And we almost don't discuss any of it anymore, because he's moved on to his next several imperial conquests, not to mention his deadly militarized assaults of thousands of people who live in U.S. cities, including American citizens. As Jon Stewart recently asked in exasperation, "What are we even doing here?!" Good question, Jon. [Audio link to full program follows this summary.]

Before we try to make some kind of sense --- any kind of sense --- of all of that, a few other news items of note today...

• And then they came for the journalists... Donald Trump's FBI raided the home of a Washington Post reporter on Wednesday, seizing her laptops, her phone and her smartwatch, as part of a supposed classified documents leak investigation requested by the Pentagon. The Post's Executive Editor described it as an "extraordinary, aggressive action [that] is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work." The New York Times characterized the raid on a journalist's home as "a significant escalation in the Trump administration's tactics in seeking information from the news media." The journalist, Hannah Natanson, as AP explained, "has reported extensively on the federal workforce and recently published a piece describing how she gained hundreds of new sources --- leading one colleague to call her 'the federal government whisperer.'"

• Here we go again?... In Qatar today, some personnel at a major U.S. air base that houses thousands of troops are reportedly being advised to evacuate immediately, amid growing unrest in Iran, the killing of hundreds of anti-government protesters by the ruling regime in Tehran, and Trump's vows to those protesters that "help is on the way." The base, Al Udeid Air Base outside of Doha, was targeted in Iran's response to the U.S. attack on nuclear facilities last July.

Then, as Mad King Trump saber rattles with both Iran and, perhaps even more incredibly, our NATO ally of Greenland, there is still the matter of his recent invasion of Venezuela less than two short weeks ago, and the power vacuum left in its wake as he tries to convince reticent American oil companies to go plunder the nation's vast oil reserves.

None of it is lawful. And, of course, none of it makes any sense. But, also, none of it is over, even if he, we, the media have, for the moment, moved momentarily on to other Trump-induced nightmares.

"This isn't close to over," argues my guest today, NICHOLAS GROSSMAN, International Relations professor and political scientist at the University of Illinois. He is quick to compare Trump's rush to praise himself for the attack and abduction of Venezuela's President, Nicolas Maduro, to George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech in 2003, just after the initial assault on Iraq, before the nation would quickly devolve into years-long, deadly chaos and violence.

"Tactically," Grossman concedes, the operation in Venezuela "was very impressive. But not strategically so." He describes reports in recent days of runs on banks, stores, and paramilitaries in the streets, arguing that the "competitions for power" are just beginning. "The situation is likely to devolve rather than stabilize. Or just have a spate of violence, and then at which point the regime re-stabilizes. It's unclear why that would be better than where it was with Maduro in charge."

Grossman, who teaches classes on terrorism insurgency, national security policy and 21st century technology and warfare, wrote about Trump's unlawful assault last week, detailing how it is likely to make things worse, not better, in Venezuela, the United States, and elsewhere in the region.

Moreover, he tells me today, despite Trump's rhetoric, all of this is unlikely to result in a rush of American oil companies to exploit the nation's resources. "This is where the lack of any sort of follow-on plan creates such a problem," says Grossman. "There is not a reliable security situation there, especially long term. There's not reliable rule of law." Add that to a glut of oil already on the market keeping prices (and profits) low; a particularly dirty and difficult-to-refine crude available there; and it seems unlikely that any of this will actually pay off for anybody.

So, why, in fact, was it done in the first place? On that, argues Grossman: "It doesn't really need to be only one reason. It's many things possibly at once. A lot of it, I do think, is demonstration of power. Because they can."

"Nothing Trump and his administration have done have seemed to conceive of national interest in the same standard way that Presidents, various leaders, voters of both parties, had in the United States for many years. There's 'because I can, because then people will be more afraid of me, because people will be more likely to pay me off.'"

He speculates on other explanations as well, and rings in on where Trump's militaristic tirade is likely to bring the U.S. next, even if things begin to further devolve in Venezuela at the same time.

"The biggest effect seems to be that it has emboldened him. And emboldened actors such as Pete Hegseth, where they don't think anybody can stop them. And they certainly don't care about violating norms, or the long term risks of upsetting the international order."

There is much more troubling stuff to chew over in my broad conversation with Grossman today. I hope you'll tune in...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New study warns that climate impacts are accelerating across the volatile Middle East; Congressional Republicans give another big gift to Big Oil in Alaska; Feud between MAGA and MAHA grows over Trump EPA's rollbacks of toxic chemical rules; PLUS: Despite Trump, U.S. utility-scale solar deployment hits new record... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Deadly Asian floods are no fluke. They’re a climate warning; Days after COP30, Brazil weakened Amazon safeguards; Federal judge strikes down Trump's anti-wind directive; Science journal retracts widely cited study that claimed Monsanto's Roundup is safe; States push to end secrecy over data center water use; Plastic pollution could more than double by 2040, report finds... PLUS: Trump climate policies are driving up insurance costs for homeowners... and much, MUCH more! ...

It's our last BradCast today before our Thanksgiving break. And, frankly, it was a very different show than the one I went to bed last night pondering for today. Blame the pathetic, desperate, criminal coward in the White House. Again. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Today, in several posts to his failing social media site, an increasingly unhinged Donald Trump, the President of the United States, called for six Democratic members of Congress --- four House members and two Senators, all distinguished veterans of the U.S. armed forces or intelligence services --- to be killed.

Their "crime"? Advising U.S. service members, in a 90-second video on Tuesday, that they may --- indeed, they must --- "refuse illegal orders."

It's not particularly controversial. But today, Trump, who is floundering in virtually every aspect of his job, pretended to be outraged, repeatedly describing the comments from those Democrats as "SEDITIOUS", describing them as "TRAITORS" and calling for them to be put to "DEATH!" (That, even though he pardoned actual seditionists that he incited to try and overthrow the U.S. Government on January 6, 2021.)

In addition to his own words, Trump also elevated another wingnut loon on his social media site who declared: "HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!"

Just two months ago, Republicans pretended to be furious about political violence and words that might lead to it following the murder of a far-right Republican activist. But, since Trump is now calling for the deaths of Democratic members of Congress, his lackeys and quislings at both the White House and in Congress are joining Dear Leader. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, pretending to be furious today, for example, falsely charged that those six elected officials and distinguished veterans "encourage[d] young troops to disobey orders". He forgot to mention that the orders in question are unlawful ones, as the Dems repeated over and again while reminding those "young troops" of their oath to defend and follow both the Constitution and rule of law, and encouraging them: "Don't give up the ship."

I had a word or two to say about all of this on today's program. So did a lot of other folks both in and out of Congress, some of which we share as well.

In not unrelated news on today's show...

• NBC News reports that the senior military attorney for the U.S. Southern Command, which has, so far, killed more than 80 people in boats off the Caribbean and Pacific coasts near Venezuela, determined that U.S. strikes on small boats said to be carrying supposed "narco-terrorists" (as the Administration describes them) were unlawful. His opinion, however, was overruled by Trump's political appointees in D.C. The service members who participated in those extrajudicial killings could, as the lawyer reportedly warned, eventually face accountability under U.S. and/or international law.

• TPM's Josh Kovensky reports that federal prosecutors in Chicago have dropped a whole bunch of supposed "domestic terrorism" cases against people who protested against Customs and ICE agents in Chicago in recent months. Among those who saw their charges dropped: A woman who was shot five times by a CBP officer who bragged to colleagues about it afterwards, and who falsely claimed the woman participated in a convoy of cars that "rammed" and "boxed" the federal agents in. And a 70-year old Air Force vet initially charged with felony assault, which was later downgraded to a misdemeanor and finally dropped all together by Trump prosecutors on Thursday.

• Last week, we told you about the Trump Administration's draft plan, reported by Washington Post, to open up off-shore oil drilling along the entire coast of California, off the West Coast of Florida (in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, not on the Atlantic side near Mar-a-Lago, of course), and off of Alaska in the pristine High Arctic region, where responding to a spill or a Deepwater Horizon-like disaster would be all but impossible. Today, the Administration officially unveiled the proposal and elected officials --- including both Democrats in California and Republicans in Florida --- vow to fight the effort.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as this year's U.N. climate summit wraps up in Brazil; as Iran faces an historic drought in Tehran that could result in the evacuation of some 10 million people; and as the developing world is now turning to China for billions of dollars of investment and development in clean, cheap, renewable energy, since the Trump Administration has taken the U.S. out of that increasingly lucrative industry.

As noted, we'll be taking some much-needed downtime in the week ahead. But, while we're "gone", please have a happy and safe Thanksgiving --- and remember the advice from those six Dems in their video yesterday: Don't give up the ship!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Crunch time in the UN COP30 climate summit in Brazil, as coalition proposes roadmap to phase out fossil fuels; Iran faces historic, unprecedented water shortages; PLUS: The developing world is turning to China for clean energy technology... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump’s anti-green agenda could lead to 1.3 million more climate deaths; Trump administration makes major changes to a report it commissioned on FEMA reforms; Keeping promises on renewables, energy efficiency and methane 'would avoid nearly 1C of global heating'; Energy Dept. loans $1 billion to restart Three Mile Island nuclear reactor; AI boom threatens to entrench fossil fuels and compromise climate goals; Sodium-ion battery storage for ultra-low temperatures; How to lower energy costs: break up the electrical-grid cabal... PLUS: Rare GM EV1 saved from the crusher is going to be driveable again... and much, MUCH more! ...

News is coming in from every direction on today's BradCast, though there does seem to be a recurring theme throughout: a wholly corrupt Presidency. [Audio link to today's show follows this summary.]

Among today's delights...

• In the wake of another mass shooting yesterday in New York City, a Reuters exclusive finds the Trump Administration's Dept. of Justice cancelled tens of millions of dollars in gun violence prevention grants last April, as established in 2022 under Joe Biden via the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The DOJ has also cancelled tens of billions of dollars in grants for mental health programs. Thoughts and prayers are largely all that remain.

• Remember that tricked-out, $400+ million flying palace jumbo jet bribe that Donald Trump accepted (in violation of the Constitution's foreign emoluments clause) from Qatar to use as a "free" Air Force One? Looks like that "free" plane --- which Trump plans to keep for himself after leaving office --- is costing U.S. tax-payers about a billion dollars to ready for His Majesty's use. And it looks like Trump is now stealing that money from funding previously appropriated for maintaining and updating America's dilapidated Cold War-era intercontinental nuclear ballistic missile stockpile.

• Senate Republicans this week are fast-tracking approval of a lifetime appointment for Donald Trump's personal criminal defense attorney turned senior DOJ official, Emil Bove, to become a federal appeals court judge. That, after a third whistleblower came forward this week with yet more evidence regarding Bove's corruption at DOJ, including dismissal of corruption charges against the NYC Mayor, and Bove's instruction to DOJ prosecutors to violate court orders if necessary to advance Trump's unlawful mass deportation agenda. [Update: After airtime, just as I was getting ready to hit publish here, despite whistleblowers and scores of former judges warning against his appointment, Senate Republicans confirmed Bove for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.]

• The great satirical song writer Tom Lehrer died this week at the age of 97. We take the opportunity to enjoy a momentary respite from the rest of the day's madness to enjoy a couple of his wildly clever --- and often still timely --- tunes today.

• Today, just as Project 2025 called for, Trump's EPA Chief Lee Zeldin officially submitted a corrupt proposal to the White House for overturning the EPA's landmark 2009 "endangerment finding". The 2009 scientific finding currently serves as the legal underpinning for virtually all federal regulations meant to curb the greenhouse gasses that are warming the atmosphere at an alarming pace and creating deadly climate chaos. This is a very big deal, as we discuss today. Though I'm hoping to get into more of the legal ramifications of this move on tomorrow's program.

• Finally, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report documenting just some of the latest deadly effects around the world hastened by the unfettered burning of fossil fuels and the endangerment it causes the public, thanks to emission of climate warming gasses such as CO2 and methane. Oh, and Donald Trump (because he believes they mess up the view from his golf courses) is killing both clean, renewable wind energy projects and the tens of thousands of jobs that go with them...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Massive algae bloom and marine heat wave are decimating South Australia's coast and fisheries; Iran grapples with water crisis and extreme heat; Wind-driven wildfires force evacuations in Greece, Turkey; PLUS: Donald Trump's irrational hatred of wind energy is killing jobs across the U.S.... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump Environmental Protection Agency moves to repeal finding that allows climate regulation; Cheap Tricks for Hard Problems: Picking up nickels in front of the climate steamroller; Black women fight for life in Houston’s most toxic neighborhood; As Trump shrinks FEMA, local emergency managers say they're barely getting by; Fishing groups push to delay protections for endangered right whale to 2035... PLUS: The Drying Planet: New data shows huge swaths of land across the globe are quickly drying... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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