Today on The BradCast: As it turns out, Americans who voted for Trump because they supported his promise of mass deportation and detention of "the worst of the worst", don't like what that actually looks like now that it is happening --- especially now that they see that those being rounded up are usually anything but the "worst of the worst". They are often people they live and work with. And, in more and more cases, actually U.S. citizens. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among today's coverage...

• New polling from Gallup finds support for immigration skyrocketing to a near 25-year high, with almost 80% of Americans now seeing it as a "good thing" for the country. That's a 15-point increase in support from from just one year ago, when anti-immigrant sentiment helped put Donald Trump back in office with a vote by a minority of Americans. Just 2 in 10 Americans now see immigration as a bad thing, down 32% since last year. The changes in outlook are almost entirely due to shifting support from Republicans and independent voters whose views have changed along with the violent, indiscriminate ICE round-up tactics by the Administration.

• Tossing U.S. citizen children into detention lock-up for weeks at a time --- in violation of federal policy --- probably doesn't help either. That includes, California to Florida are now condemning the Trump Administration tactics and standing with their terrified immigrant communities. Ya know, like Jesus would.

• All of that comes on the heels of a U.S. District Court in Southern California on Friday issuing a ruling meant to block the "roving patrols" being carried out by ICE, with arrests often based on little more than physical appearance, the language that targets speak, or the jobs they hold (at car-washes, farms and day laborers in Home Depot parking lots). Targeting suspected unlawful migrants without "reasonable suspicion" must temporarily stop in seven counties in and around Los Angeles, the judge ruled. The White House, of course, condemned the ruling and, naturally, has vowed to to appeal.

Then, we open up the phones to callers with some good thoughts and excellent questions about all of that; about the Trump Administration's about-face on releasing "The Epstein Files"; and more...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On today's menu...

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

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

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

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

Bon appétit!...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tune in for much more today...

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Going into the weekend we knew we were in for a bizarre news split-screen on Saturday, with major protest rallies scheduled across the country and Trump's military birthday parade he threw for himself (with $40+ million of your tax dollars) in D.C. But, it wasn't just two huge stories happening at once by Saturday. It was four. We try to get you caught up on all of them on today's BradCast before opening the line to callers. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

All of the stories happening all at once over the weekend, were all thanks to Donald Trump in varying ways...

• First, on Friday night, Israel unleashed a full-scale attack against Iran, killing its three top military commanders and several nuclear scientists --- among many others. The pretext for the attack was Iran's nuclear program which, had Trump not torn up the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the hard-fought and carefully constructed nuclear deal Iran agreed to in 2015 with China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the U.S., there wouldn't even be a program for Israel to target. The strike came after Trump failed to strike a new nuclear deal with Iran, which had restarted its nuclear program after Trump reneged on the original deal. He had been begging them for the last month to agree to a new deal to limit its nuclear program that is almost identical to the one struck under Obama that Trump tore up during his first term. The ongoing volleys of missiles between Israel and Iran have also led the Trump Administration to call back the Voice of America Persian-bureau after foolishly (and unlawfully) shuttering VOA and its sister networks back in March.

• In the early Saturday morning hours, a long-time Trump supporter disguised as a policeman assassinated the Democratic leader of Minnesota's House of Representative, Rep. Melissa Hortmann, and her husband inside their own home. Hortmann, as House Speaker in 2023-2024, was a key player in passage of a host of popular progressive initiatives under Gov. Tim Walz that came to be known as the Minnesota Miracle. The same shooter also attempted to assassinate Democratic state Senator John Hoffman at his house just prior. Hoffman and his wife remain alive but in critical condition after Hoffman was shot nine times and his wife eight times. The alleged rightwing assailant, 57-year old Vance Luther Boelter, was found to have had a list of some 70 names on a target list in his car. The names were reportedly Democratic officials, both state and federal, and champions of abortion rights. Officials also say he had a number of "No Kings" flyers in the car, suggesting he might have been planning to target one of Saturday's many protests in the state. After a two-day manhunt, Boelter was captured late on Sunday in a cornfield south of Minneapolis/St. Paul. He was charged on Monday with both state and federal crimes including assassination and attempted assassination. It is just the latest example of increasing political violence by the right in the Trump Era, as warned about for years, even by his own FBI Director who conceded that domestic homegrown terror from those on the right --- not by migrants --- was, by far, the greatest threat currently facing Americans.

• The third major weekend story happening all at once that wouldn't have happened if not for Donald Trump, was the authoritarian-style military birthday parade he threw for himself (though we paid for it) that happened to fall on the U.S. Army's 250th birthday as well as Trump's 79th. It was, by almost all accounts, a sparsely attended snoozer of a parade which saw even Trump supporters streaming away long before it was over. Of course, the manhunt for the MN assassin and the war in Israel/Iran, thankfully, sucked up most of the cable TV news coverage.

• In likely --- or hopefully --- the most important news of the weekend, some five million Americans took to the streets to stand up against the President in "No Kings" protests decrying the rising fascism of Donald Trump, including his deployment of military troops against Americans on U.S. soil and his burgeoning military-style migrant round-ups by ICE. According to organizers, enormous and joyful rallies were held in more than 2,000 cities and town in all 50 states. They were almost all entirely peaceful but for a man who brandished a rifle at protesters in Salt Lake City, UT (a protester was killed); a counter-protesters who pulled a handgun on rally-goers in Phoenix, AZ; and an SUV driver who struck and injured a demonstrator before speeding away in Riverside, CA.

  In Los Angeles, late in the day, there was a bit of violence as well. But, as all reporting seems to indicate (David Dayen's at TAP was the best) it was local law enforcement officials from both the L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. and the LAPD who sparked the violence with their unannounced use of horses, rubber bullets and teargas to suddenly clear demonstrators at 4pm, hours before the rally was to have ended in Downtown L.A.

After all of that and much more, we open the phones today to our live local listeners here in Southern California to hear their own reports and personal experiences from the weekend's many "No Kings" protests...

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It's all so stupid and ridiculous. But, as discussed on today's BradCast, the stupidity and ridiculousness knows no bound now that he's won a criminal immunity ticket from the Supreme Court. So we will all pay the price until voters change the score. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

To that end, Gubernatorial primary elections were held in New Jersey on Tuesday for this November's general election. Democratic U.S. Rep. Mikey Sherrill, a Navy pilot and former prosecutor, will face off with Trump-endorsed Republican Jack Ciatterelli, who came within just about three points of unseating the state's now termed-out Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy four years ago.

Perhaps more interesting on Tuesday were six state legislative special elections held in three different states. Democrats outpaced expectations in five of them, including one in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a native American candidate trounced her Republican challenger by a landslide 69 points! The results amounted to a 50-point over-performance by the Dem as compared to their results in the Presidential election in the same district last November. In all, Dems are now running an average of about 16.4 points ahead of their 2024 results in special elections in 2025.

Then, it's back once again to the mess here in Los Angeles, which isn't really a mess at all. Or, at least, it wasn't until tough guy Donald Trump decided to pretend that largely peaceful protests against his immigration policies required him to violate the law to federalize California National Guard troops and deploy them with the U.S. Marines to support the ICE round-ups of hard-working, non-criminal migrants in the city including, apparently, children.

In a televised address on Tuesday night, CA's Governor Gavin Newsom, who, along with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, opposed Trump's federalization and deployment of troops in the city, described the President's "authoritarian", wannabe "dictatorial" tactics. He warned that Trump is now waging war on democracy and the Constitution itself, and that Americans outside of California can expect to see much the same thing soon in their own hometowns. Will Americans heed his warning?

We're joined today by fellow L.A. resident HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, award-winning Salon columnist and longtime Digby's Hullabaloo proprietor, and another OG blogger friend known simply as 'DRIFTGLASS', co-host of his weekly Professional Left Podcast. As usual, they are here for a roundtable discussion to help us make sense of it all...as senseless and stupid as it all is.

Both share thoughts on what they see as the real point of Trump's dumb but dangerous incitement of violence here in L.A., what it is meant to distract from, and where all of this is headed. Is there any chance this doesn't lead to an invocation of the Insurrection Act by Trump, so he can really violate the law, American values, rights, and the Constitution itself?

"Donald Trump simply has no reason to obey the law anymore, of any kind, for any reason," argues Driftglass. "They feel no compunction about breaking the law because there's no one to stop them" Because he was elected, after receiving criminal immunity from SCOTUS, he believes "he can do whatever he wants. It's an ugly, terrifying fact that we warned people about for years. We begged people not to do this. We still came up short, because 77 million or so people voted for exactly this."

But, will even MAGA support the deployment of U.S. troops on American streets? Something that Republicans, including MAGA, have pretended for years to oppose? "As long as Trump is doing it, they'll be for it," asserts Digby. "The minute it's not him, they'll be against it. They retired the concept of hypocrisy a long time ago."

It is going to worse before it gets better, she warns, citing Trump's top henchman Stephen Miller who, she says, "has given interviews saying that they have plotted this out. Plan B, Plan C. They've been thinking this stuff through. This is actually part of their plan. They're testing the electrified fence here to see what they can get away with."

There is, of course, much much more from both of them today, including on a couple of stories you may have forgotten about for some reason, from just days ago. For example, last Friday, less than a week ago, Elon Musk publicly accused Trump of being named in the unreleased Epstein Files. Also, if you remember, Congressional Republicans passed a bill to slash $1.4 trillion worth of health care and food assistance from low-income Americans to help defray the cost of some $4 trillion in tax cuts mostly for the wealthy, at the cost of a $3 trillion spike to the national debt.

Remember when Republicans used to care about such things? As Digby sez: "They retired the concept of hypocrisy a long time ago"...

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We've got a bit more on today's BradCast regarding Team Trump's attempt to distract from the many failures of his Administration by hoping to frighten Americans with the deployment of military assets against those of us here in Los Angeles. Plus, we've got a number of other stories that I suspect they would be happy for us not to tell you about today. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The City of Angels continues to hang tough against the Trump Administration, even as horrible human and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, last night, described the city of nearly four million people as "a city of criminals". The pathetic insult against the nation's second largest city came after Trump federalized 4,000 California National Guard troops against the wishes of the state's Governor, Gavin Newsom, and deployed 700 U.S. Marines to L.A., purportedly to help ICE round up migrants as part of the Administration's by the San Francisco Chronicle from Noem to Fox "News" host turned SecDef Pete Hegseth, the DHS chief requests Hegseth order military troops to actively participate in arrests and detentions on U.S. soil, an apparent violation of the law, unless the President invokes the Insurrection Act first under certain circumstances. Her letter suggests the Administration is preparing to do exactly that. Or she doesn't understand how the law works. Or both.

In 2020, after George Floyd was murdered, spurring far larger protests than the relatively minor ones we've seen here in L.A. in recent days, Donald Trump insisted it would be against the law for him to federalize and deploy troops against the wishes of a Governor. "We have laws. We have to go by the laws," he insisted at the time. "We can't move in the National Guard. I can call 'insurrection' but there's no reason to ever do that. We can't call in the National Guard unless we're requested by a Governor."

Things change. Presidencies fail. The protests against the Administration in cities large and small are expanding by the day from coast to coast.

IN OTHER NEWS THIS WEEK covered on today's program...

• U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's brother Brad Bondi bombed --- and I mean bombed --- in his run to become President of the D.C. Bar Association. We discuss what that means and why it's important.

• SCOTUS did something right by voters, for a change --- this time in Pennsylvania --- against the wishes of the Republican Party which hoped to disenfranchise voters (as usual).

• MyPillow CEO and 2020 election conspiracy doofus Mike Lindell took the stand this week to double-down in his own defense during trial in a defamation lawsuit filed against him by former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer. Since 2020, the bedding impresario and former crack addict has spent tens of millions to repeatedly echo evidence-free claims of a stolen election, including the false charge that Coomer was part of an "antifa" scheme to rig voting machines and steal the election from Trump. We've got much more for you today on all of this to remind you of many of Lindell's ridiculous lies, schemes, antics and evidence-free allegations. Though they are completely nuts, his own attorneys now seem to be hoping to use them in order to buttress his defense. Tune in for details.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, on toxic smoke from record, climate-change driven wildfires in Canada, threatening the health of residents in both their country and ours; more bad news about indoor air pollution; a new lawsuit against Big Oil for its role in a heat wave that killed an elderly Oregon woman; and the Trump Administration's curious attempt to bury a federal report on last year's decrease in climate warming carbon emissions...

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There's probably not enough popcorn in the world for the hilarious madness that's blown up over the several hours or so, since we wrapped today's BradCast. Oh, well. I guess that's what next week is for. In the meantime... [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Somewhat less amusing, if still very interesting and actually of much more importance (I think)...from today's program.....

• Lincoln Project unleashes a killer 60-second ad against Donald Trump and the Congressional Republicans' "MAGA Murder Budget".

• Democratic "landslide" in South Carolina in Tuesday's special election for the statehouse, and what the "eye-popping win" may foretell for the forces opposed to authoritarianism in the year ahead.

• SCOTUS begins its month of long-awaited decision releases before Summer recess. They start with an easy one: a unanimous decision regarding a Catholic charity in Wisconsin.

• But, as long as Republican officials are continuing to pretend they care about religion, particularly Catholicism, will the Congressional Republicans pay attention to what the editorial staff at the 60-year old, independent National Catholic Reporter outlet has to say about their so-called "One Big, Beautiful Bill"? In its unsparing and historical accurate piece, the authors describe the measure as "one big shameful bill" and "one of the most immoral pieces of legislation in recent memory," before going on to explain why. And it's brutal. That's before they close this way: "Jesus weeps over this cruelty. So do we. We must reject this heartless bargain and instead pursue policies that honor the dignity of every citizen and the collective well-being of our nation."

• Newark, New Jersey's Democratic Mayor Ras Baraka is pushing back this week against the Trump Administration with a lawsuit against Trump's former defense attorney turned Interim U.S. Attorney for NJ Alina Habba for “false arrest and malicious prosecution". That, after Baraka was handcuffed and detained last month outside of a private facility contracted by DHS to house migrants. The charges were dropped just days later due to a complete lack of merit. Or, as Habba ridiculously described it, "for the sake of moving forward."

• And, catching up with a story that broke late last week while we were off...138 bipartisan, retired, state and federal judges submitted an amicus brief last Friday calling for a federal court to drop charges against Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan. She was arrested by federal officials in late April after, they claim, she helped a migrant avoid arrest in her courthouse. Her own subsequent arrest and the charges against her, according to the former judges, undermine "centuries of precedent on judicial immunity."

• Finally, Desi Doyen is here for our latest Green News Report, with disturbing news on understaffed National Weather Service offices along the Gulf Coast as hurricane season begins; officials sounding the alarm about Trump's gutting of FEMA; and dirty deeds, done dirt cheap for the fossil fuel industry recently by our corrupted SCOTUS...

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Yes. I think it is appropriate, as New York Times' very conservative columnist David Brooks did last Friday on PBS, to compare Elon Musk to Pol Pot, Mao Zedong and Stalin. The number of deaths around the globe that he --- and his boss Donald Trump --- are arguably directly responsible for has not yet reached into the millions. But, according to data compiled and tracked by our guest today, it shouldn't be long. More than 300,000 are already unnecessarily dead in just 4 months since the Trump/Musk/DOGE closure of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Tune in to today's BradCast for a full explanation from the woman who has been compiling the numbers to decide for yourself. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP, however, Team Trump seems almost as eager to help Americans die unnecessarily here at home. The "Big, Beautiful Bill" they are hoping to ram through Congress in the next several weeks will cut more than a trillion dollars from health care and food nutrition for as many as 14 million low-income Americans in order to pay for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. But what bothers Republicans about it is that it doesn't cut enough, apparently, from the needy.

Today, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) came out with their scoring of the legislation, finding, among other things, that the bill, as recently passed by Republicans in the House, would increase the federal budget deficit by nearly $2.5 trillion dollars over the next decade. So, naturally, the White House and Republican in Congress are on a tear to...attack the CBO, claiming the non-partisan agency created by Congress and headed up by a Republican since 2019, are actually a bunch of partisan Dems trying to undermine Donald Trump.

That lie, put forward most directly by professional liar and Trump's WH Press Sec. Karoline Leavitt yesterday --- even before the CBO numbers were published today --- is also a "ridiculous" lie, as detailed today by WaPo's fact-checker.

THEN... You may recall Elon Musk in the early DOGE Days of February celebrating how he and his DOGE Bros "spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper." The United States Agency for International Development is (or was) the tip of the spear for critical foreign aid programs around the globe. Its small budget punches far above its weight and wins big returns for the world and for the U.S., with critical "soft-power" programs delivering nutritious food to starving populations and medicines to combat HIV, tuberculous, malaria, Ebola and much more. At least it did all of that, and more, before Musk, the richest man in the world, gleefully fed it into the wood chipper on behalf of the Trump Administration four months ago.

Since USAID's sudden shutdown, as my guest today, infectious disease mathematical modeller and health economist Dr. BROOKE NICHOLS, associate professor of Global Health at Boston University, has determined, more than 300,000 people have unnecessarily died around the globe, including more than 213,000 children. The number of chid deaths was in the 212,000 region a few hours ago before airtime, according to Nichols' Impact Counter website. The site tracks ongoing estimates of the number of those who have died since the shutdown of USAID programs, as well as the numbers estimated over the coming year. The carnage --- now tracking as more than 100 deaths per hour --- is broken down between adults and children, and many different causes of death, from HIV to tuberculosis to malnutrition to diarrhea.

Nichols herself says she was horrified by the numbers when she saw what the data at her own tracker was showing her about what she described recently to The Times of London as "100 percent preventable" deaths around the world.

"I was horrified," she tells me today about those "huge" numbers, "because they represent people. I was shocked." She clarifies that the total numbers (300,000+ deaths as of now) are "to date. That number will grow to close to a million by the end of the year if funding isn't restored in some way."

Having worked for years specifically on HIV via PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, initially begun during the George W. Bush Administration), she disputes the Musk/Trump/Republican claims that USAID's programs were riddled with "waste, fraud and abuse." Nichols says she had seen none of that. "Were there small bits and pieces that could have been programmed better? Maybe," she concedes. "But I'm sure that that is a tiny fraction of the budget. And certainly not worth throwing anything into the wood chipper and losing all these tens of thousands of lives."

On PEPFAR, specifically --- which is credited with saving the lives of some 26 million people since its launch in 2003 --- she tells me that before the program, the death toll of those, including children born with HIV, "was unimaginable. Through PEPFAR, it was a complete turnaround. All of a sudden people stopped dying. We were finally getting to the point to meeting all of these UN goals. If you're on treatment and you take your pills everyday, you can't transmit the virus. How cool is that? So we started to reach this tipping point where the epidemic was going down, it's more and more under control. And to have the carpet pulled out from under us as we get so close? It sets us back a decade."

Nichols has much more to share with us today from her home in The Netherlands, about how and why her Impact Counter came together; whether she had reason to believe any of this would be happening during last year's Presidential campaign ("No! I was shocked!," Nichols responds); and how all of this harms not only the direct victims of Trump's foreign aid shutdown, but also Americans here at home in several ways.

She also discusses the politics behind this unspeakable global disaster; the "broken trust" the U.S. is now facing "with a lot of countries, a lot of other organizations"; the mass of death threats and hate mail she has received for simply documenting the numbers; and what she ultimately hopes her work on the Impact Counter might lead to.

"I really hope that it can be used to understand and document what is happening, but also hopefully to advocate for change," she asserts. "Ultimately, I want this to be used so that fewer people die. If that's through people understanding what is happening in a political shift, that would be great. If it's from mobilizing other donors, that is also great."

All of that, as the NY Times' Nicholas Kristof reminded us back in March after he traveled overseas to personally document a number of the tragic deaths as they began to pile up, this all came on the heels of Musk's false insistence at the time: "No one has died as a result of a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding. No one."

Turns out that was just another Trump Administration lie. If a particularly horrific one.

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Storm clouds continue to gather, even as there are fewer and fewer government scientists to warn us about what is actually coming. On today's BradCast we offer more than a few warnings of our own. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Don't buy Elon Musk's pretend attack today on Donald Trump and the Republicans' so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" as "a disgusting abomination". Musk doesn't really mean it. (He's just trying to save his drug-addled hide after the waste, fraud and abuse of his deadly, unlawful and wildly destructive DOGE scam.) But don't let that keep you from enjoying the fireworks anyway!

• Big kudos to Miami's NBC6 for featuring veteran South Florida meteorologists John Morales' chilling warning about the "cuts, gutting and sledge hammer attack on science" by the Trump Administration and, specifically, to NOAA and the National Weather Service that, he explains, are already "degrading" the quality of forecasts as hurricane season is now under way.

• Speaking of hurricane season, Trump's newly tapped, entirely inexperienced head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency --- a military guy by the name of David Richardson and the fifth person to hold the position since Trump's re- election --- reportedly told FEMA staffers on Monday that he had no idea there was such a thing as a hurricane season in the U.S. Following Reuters exclusive on that yesterday, a spokesperson from FEMA's parent agency, DHS, claimed Richardson was just joking. But...was he really? If Trump's newly sworn-in Social Security Administrator, Frank Bisignano, offers any hints, the lack of knowledge of the people tapped to run these critical agencies may be far worse than you may think.

• Some elections and democracy news today from overseas that is likely to have ramifications for the U.S. in various ways. In a closely divided election for President in Poland over the weekend, voters narrowly chose Karol Nawrocki, a rightwing historian and staunch nationalist. He will have veto power over Parliament, headed up, since 2023, by liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

• In The Netherlands, ultra-right party leader, Geert Wilders, quit the governing coalition in the Dutch Parliament today over his complaints that migration policies weren't cruel enough. The stunning move has touched off a governing crisis until new elections can be held later this year. The nation's liberal opposition party, however, seems to enjoying the fresh chaos.

• One year to the day after South Korea's conservative President stunned the nation by declaring martial law --- before the move was undone just hours later --- voters elected liberal party leader Lee Jae-myung on Tuesday to be the nation's new President. The disgraced former President, after facing impeachment charges, is currently standing trial on charges of insurrection, which is punishable by death or life in prison. Must be nice.

• Finally, Desi Doyen is here for our latest Green News Report, with predictions of a long, hot summer; Canada's wildfire season off to an early and terrible start (and already affecting northern U.S. states); a village in Switzerland wiped off the map last week due to a glacier collapse, thanks to global warming; and the Republican plan to raise your dirty energy prices via their "Big, Beautiful Bill"...

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We're back for today's BradCast after a week off during which many things happened. Some good. Many more less so. It'll take us about a month to get caught up. So, we better get started. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST... A bit of news from over the weekend and into today...

• In Colorado on Sunday, in what authorities are describing as a "targeted act of violence", at least 8 people were burned by an attacker in Boulder with a make-shift flamethrower and Molotov cocktail device. The victims were demonstrating in support of the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza since the October 2023 attack on Israel. The alleged assailant, quickly taken into custody, was said to have shouted "Free Palestine" and "End Zionists" during the rampage. On Monday, law enforcement officials said he would be charged with federal hate crimes and 16 state charges related to attempted murder.

• News of Sunday's attack in Boulder came just moments after news reports from Gaza that more than 20 Palestinians had been killed and more than 100 wounded near a food distribution site recently set up by the Israeli government amid desperate conditions in the war torn enclave. The deadly attack, attributed by news reports to the Israeli military, comes amid continuing, if failed, third-party talks between Israel and representatives of Hamas seeking a temporary truce, the return of hostages, and increased distribution of aid among a desperate populace in Gaza.

• Ukraine on Sunday acknowledged what appears to have been a pretty massive --- and clever --- explosive-laden sneak drone attack deep inside of Russia, reportedly damaging some $7 billion worth of strategic bomber aircraft at several air bases. The Ukrainian-made drones were apparently snuck into the air bases via the roofs of wooden sheds and released by remote control. The Ukrainian offensive comes on the heels of deadly, long-range attacks by Russia, reportedly against both the civilian population and critical infrastructure, deep inside of Ukraine. On-again off-again peace talks continue nonetheless in the more than three-year old war following Russia's full scale assault on its sovereign neighbor in early 2022.

• Here at home, some encouraging (for the moment) news out of the corrupted rightwing U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday, the Court rejected petitions to hear appeals of two Second Amendment-related rulings upholding state restrictions on semiautomatic assault-style rifles and large-capacity ammo magazines out of Maryland and Rhode Island. The usual far-right suspects --- Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch --- dissented the decision to allow the lower appeals court rulings to stand.

THEN... But speaking of the corrupted, extremist, rightwing activist Supreme Court, two emergency rulings issued on its so-called "shadow docket" last week remind us, yet again, that this Court has little interest in upholding precedent, whether it's decades-old precedent or even their own from just one year ago.

On Friday, in what dissenting Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson referred to as a "plainly botched" ruling by the majority, the Court allowed the Trump Administration to end legal protected status for about half a million migrants in this country from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The Court does so even as litigation continues in the lower court, challenging the Dept. of Homeland Security's lifting of lawful protected status in the U.S. granted by the Biden Administration. On Thursday, half a million migrants were here perfectly legally. On Friday, they suddenly became subject to Trump's mass deportation goon squad, allowing them to be removed from the country --- even though they may eventually win their case! So much for the irreparable harms that are supposed to be considered amid ongoing litigation in such "emergency" rulings.

That ruling came the day after the Court's rightwingers undercut their very own ruling from just last year that, itself, had overturned decades of Court precedent known as "Chevron deference". In last year's case, the Court majority ruled that judges, not federal agency experts, are better equipped to decide whether various regulations suit the intentions of Congressionally-adopted statutes. The landmark ruling last year overturning Chevron had long been sought by corporations seeking to undermine environmental and other regulations. But on Thursday, after a lower court used its newly gained deference to decide a federal agency's regulations weren't strict enough, the High Court decided the experts at the agency in question should once again be granted deference.

As our guest today, veteran legal journalist CHRIS GEIDNER explained in his Law Dork newsletter late last week, now the Court can pull one lever "when the conservative majority believes an agency has gone too far" but when it believes "a lower court goes too far" it can pull last week's newly invented lever "and explain that the lower court did not provide sufficient deference to the agency." As Geidner tells me today, "It is truly a 'heads I win, tails you lose' situation."

In short, it the activist rightwingers on SCOTUS continue to simply make it up as they go along, overturning any precedent, old or new, in order to achieve their desired political outcome.

Geidner joins us to make sense of all of that; share his thoughts on why last week's Trump nomination of his former defense attorney, Emil Bove, to a U.S. Appeals Court is "a line that cannot be crossed"; and for a summary of the big cases that will be receiving full opinions from SCOTUS this month as their latest term wraps up before July...

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Well, it's our last BradCast for a week or so, as we prepare for a muuuch-needed stand-down next week after Memorial Day. But we make up for it by packing a lot into today's program, with two of our favorite (and your favorite) guests. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We're joined today again for one of our semi-regular (irregular?) round tables with our old-school, right-about-everything-for-20-years blogger pals, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, award-winning columnist at Salon and her own Digby's Hullabaloo blog; and the notorious 'DRIFTGLASS', blogger and co-host of the weekly Professional Left Podcast from Flyover Country, Illinois.

As noted, we cover a whole lot of ground today, including both important and incredibly dumb news alike! Among the important news...

• DoJ Team Trump attorneys are upbraided in court by a U.S. District judge in New Jersey for indicting Newark's Democratic Mayor Ras Baraka on ridiculous trespassing charges, vowing last week to bring him to trial, only to drop all charges this week. At the same time, they then went on to indict Democratic Congresswoman LaMonica McIver on ridiculous charges stemming from the same incident two weeks ago at an ICE detention facility in Newark. Those charges will also likely be dropped eventually, and Trump's former loser defense attorney, now interim U.S. Attorney in NJ, Alina Habba, will likely find herself upbraided again.

• After Trump spent years campaigning on promises to not touch Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, House Republicans earlier today barely passed Trump's budget bill that --- you guessed --- will slash both Medicare and Medicaid by more than a trillion dollars, taking away health care from as many as 14 million Americans. That, in order to help pay for tax cuts to wealthy people while ballooning deficit spending by about 4 trillion dollars. (Digby: "It's a complete travesty, and I think everybody knows it.")

• The Trump Regime's ongoing horrors and errors and blatant, thuggish, authoritarian violations of court orders regarding his clownish yet cruel and unlawful mass deportation efforts. (Driftglass: "This is a mass weapon attack, like raining missiles down on an enemy target. Some of it is going to get through. And they'll get most of what they want.")

• Qatar's $400 million bribe to Trump in the shape of a Boeing 747 "flying palace" that may never be used as Air Force One, but that he hopes to keep for his own personal use after his Presidency. "Emoluments," like "groceries," is such an old-fashioned word. (Driftglass: "He's just a giant greed hole of need and narcissism." Digby: "It sure sounds like 'I'd like you to do us a favor though...'")

• And, oh, yeah, Republicans on Thursday also nuked the filibuster in the U.S. Senate by ignoring the Senate Parliamentarian to pass a law with a bare majority that, according to Senate rules, requires 60 votes for passage. And they did so in order to ban California's clean air laws. So much for states' rights. That, despite the fear by many Democrats of nuking the filibuster to protect Voting and Reproductive Rights for all Americans when they last controlled the Senate. (Digby: "Senate rules are dead. So get ready. We are in such untrod territory.")

As you might imagine, both Digby and Driftglass have quite a few thoughts on all of the above, as well as on the Dumb News we cover today as well (apologies in advance)...

• Trump's Director of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, doesn't know what "habeas corpus" means.

• Republicans are pretending to be horrified by former FBI Director James Comey posting a photo of someone spelling out "86 47" in seashells on a beach. (Ya know, just like those "86 46" t-shirts rightwingers used to pimp. Says Digby: "This is a Republican thing, and they've been doing it forever." See her "Art of the Hissy Fit" from 2007 for more.)

• Trump is attacking and threatening Bruce Springsteen. Bruce Springsteen!

• And the dumbest news of all this week: Jake Tapper has a book about Joe Biden and a super-duper, totally important right now, conspiracy cover-up of his physical --- and, allegedly, cognitive --- decline while in office.

Don't worry. I didn't give away the best lines or hottest takes on either the important or dumb news, so tune on in!

And finally, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report with nothing but really good --- okay, really bad --- news to kick off Summer!...

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Today on The BradCast: While Trump's mass deportation boondoggle gets worse, more cruel, more corrupt, more unlawful and more unconstitutional by the day, the increasing threat to U.S. national security, thanks to his Administration's unprecedented censorship of climate science, may soon collide with a "physical reality" that may make ALL of our problems far worse --- including immigration. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... The Administration continues to characterize those being deported as criminal felons and sexual assaulters who entered the U.S. unlawfully, even if available evidence often suggests otherwise. Moreover, the convicted criminal felon and adjudicated sexual assaulter in the White House continues violate the law and Constitution himself with each passing day. He should be deported --- though allowed the due process of law he has always received, even as he denies it for everyone else.

Unlike the Administration, we offer evidence in support of our serious allegations: As the New York Times reported last night, emails from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's Chief of Staff reveal that her office attempted to manipulate a national intelligence analysis they didn't like --- which revealed Trump to be a liar --- regarding migrants from Venezuela and Trump's unlawful invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove them without due process.

That news comes on the heels of a stunning new analysis from the right-leaning Cato Institute finding that at least 50 of the Venezuelans Trump deported to a maximum-security torture prison in El Salvador were in the U.S. lawfully. They included construction workers, cooks, delivery drivers, a soccer coach, a veterinarian and a makeup artist, most of whom used the U.S. Customs and Border Protection app, called CBP One, to schedule an asylum appointment from outside of the country to seek lawful entrance into the U.S. That's 50 out of just 85 migrants whose entrance circumstances Cato was able to figure out. More than 200 migrants have been sent to El Salvador without Constitutional due process and in violation of court orders.

And all of that preceded still-breaking news over the past 24 hours or so that the Administration has violated yet another judge's orders by sending migrants from Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba and Mexico to South Sudan, a nation in the middle of a bloody civil war, where the U.S. State Department warns Americans "Do Not Travel", and where those migrants are not from. They were reportedly given less than 24 before being sent to a third country in violation of orders from the U.S. District judge overseeing their cases.

THEN... While the Administration is pretending to combat national security issues by deporting make-up artists and soccer coaches, actual national security issues are being exacerbated by their censorship and attempts at unpublishing climate science that you and I have paid for.

As my guest today recently explained, writing on the "silencing and censoring of environmental threats to U.S. national security" for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (the keepers of the infamous Doomsday Clock), for well over half a century, U.S. intelligence and military agencies, under Presidencies of all political stripes, have been documenting and warning about changes to the climate that threaten national security. Now, Donald Trump is attempting to "cancel" climate science --- actually censoring the words "climate change" from all government documents --- and ignoring and/or shutting down internal warning mechanisms regarding increased environmental threats to national security.

Our guest today is renowned climate scientist DR. PETER GLEICK, who is attempting to sound the alarm about the Administration's "silencing and censoring of environmental threats to US national security." He is an author and co-founder of the non-profit Pacific Institute research center, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a McArthur Fellow, and much more that I don't have space to list. (But see his website!) He has written dozens of scientific articles over the decades and has testified about the related matters before Congress.

"From a political point of view, between Democrats and Republicans, there's a very strong difference and emphasis on energy policy, on environmental policy," Gleick tells me when I ask about the timeline of the rise of climate denialism. But, he adds, it was "nothing like we're seeing today. What we're seeing today is fundamentally different than anything we've seen before."

"Even throughout both Democratic and Republican administrations in the past, the military and intelligence community have been very good about this. They see their job fundamentally as understanding and preparing for threats to the United States. All of those defense and intelligence assessments, throughout those administrations (since President Johnson), have repeatedly highlighted a clear understanding of two factors: One is how environmental issues may cause U.S. forces to get involved in conflict --- with failed states, with population displacements and migration, with impacts that lead to threats to our own security."

"The other category is how environmental threats may affect US military forces and bases and operations. Sea level rise we know is already flooding the naval bases in Norfolk. They are raising docks because they know sea level rise is a reality. They've seen extreme events damaging air force bases and destroying airplanes. They are aware of those threats, and they have been very good, throughout almost all administrations, about highlighting those threats in the national security assessments to the public," says Gleick.

But now, under Trump, things have very much gone sideways. We've got a Sec. of Defense who doesn't seem to understand that national defense is about more than simply cultivating manly warriors to fight on battlefields. And, for the first time, climate threats are no longer even being mentioned in National Security Strategy reports. The Congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment may not even been published by the Administration at all when it is legally next due, in 2027. Gleick has worked on previous Assessments and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences which advises on the project. But says, this time, the scientists who volunteer to work on the report are being dismissed and that there may or may not even be a new report. "The Trump Administration doesn't seem to pay much attention to the law at the moment."

"If there isn't one, we know what the science of climate change says. What we'll be missing are just the latest updates, the most recent climate science that tells us even more about what the consequences of climate change will be," he explains.

We discuss a number of concrete ways in which the climate crisis is already a threat to national security, from conflicts over water and water systems; the disappearance of Artic ice leading to expanded military basis by Russia; decreased agriculture productivity resulting in famine and, yes, mass migration that the U.S. has already begun to deal with.

"Climate is no longer a hypothetical threat to the world, national security, and international security," he argues. "It's increasingly an important component of that threat, whether you believe in it or not."

But, Gleick offers some hope. Scientists, including himself, have been diligently working to prevent the "wholesale deletion" of government climate data; he believes that "the remarkable revolution we are seeing in the renewable energy industry is unstoppable" and while Trump may want to "revive the coal industry, that's just not going to happen"; and whether Trump hopes to "cancel" climate science or not on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, he will be unable prevent the world from seeing the unavoidable physical reality of what lies ahead.

"Physical reality will happen," he laments. "Bad things that otherwise would not have happened are going to happen. People are going to get sick and die. There will be conflicts we are not prepared for that we could have been prepared for. Whether those realities swing the pendulum far enough back so that some sort of rationality can be re-established --- I hope that's the case. But I think it's dangerous times."

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I'm sorry to have to add to our "And Then They Came For..." series on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

First it was "And Then They Came For the Judges..." last month, as Trump's goons arrested, hand-cuffed and frog-marched Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan off to face criminal charges, alleging she helped a migrant evade arrest by ICE in her courthouse. She is now challenging that indictment with a motion last week arguing she enjoys absolute immunity for official acts, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's absurd --- but binding --- "Presidential Immunity" ruling in Trump v. United States last year.

Next it was "And Then They Came for the Mayors..." last week, after Trump's goons hand-cuffed and frog-marched Newark, New Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka off to jail, ridiculously charging him with "criminal trespass" after he arrived at a private facility contracted by ICE as a detention center, which the Mayor says the company doesn't have proper city permits to operate. After his dubious arrest, Trump's former defense lawyer turned Acting U.S. Attorney for NJ, Alina Habba declared Baraka's guilt on social media, claiming: "NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW".

But, on Monday, she dropped all charges against Baraka and announced new charges instead against NJ's Democratic Congresswoman LaMonica McIver. Habba had previously claimed the Representative had "body slammed" one of the masked federal agents who had shown up to arrest Baraka last week during a scrum when supporters had surrounded him. Apparently, McIver refused to plead to a lesser charge, so an 8-page indictment [PDF] was filed yesterday on two counts of felony assault, including "assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement" during the incident.

The first-term Congresswoman decries the charges as "purely political" and vows to fight them. I suspect she will win and that her charges will also soon be dropped, just as Baraka's were. But we'll see.

We're joined today by attorney (and former Republican) KEITH BARBER, who has been covering these matters over at DailyKos, where he writes under the name of "KeithDB". He has reviewed much of the publicly available video of the incident in Newark, reviewed the charging document against McIver, released this afternoon, and sees a lot of problems with the federal government's case --- and the prosecutor overseeing them. "Alina Habba couldn't find her way around a court room with the help of GPS," he tells me.

Barber says he has seen no evidence of a "body slam" by McIver, and is critical of the public statements made by Habba about both the Baraka and McIver arrests. He explains the remarks are in violation of DoJ rules and guidelines "designed to protect the due process rights of the defendant."

He also describes both of the incidents as nothing less than "fascism" meant to intimidate those who would stand up to Trump. "This is a tyranny of an autocratic President, something that the founders of the United States of America worked hard [to avoid] when they developed the Constitution, to make sure that this country did not have an autocratic President. We had a bad history with kings, and we didn't want another king in this country with a different name."

Barber charges that Trump is "using the powers of his office to suppress opposition" and, he argues, his thuggery IS WORKING. Tune in for much more on that and all of the above!...

NEXT... While Trump's team of incompetent law enforcement officials are rounding up those who would oppose his mass, unlawful detention and deportation regime, the head of his own Dept. of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, literally does not know the meaning of habeas corpus as guaranteed by the Constitution. A stunning exchange today in the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee with Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) reveals that Noem believes "Habeas corpus is a Constitutional right that the President has to be able to remove people from this country."

As it turns out, it means almost the precise opposite of that, as we discuss.

THEN... A few thoughts on Paramount Global owner Shari Redstone's pressure on CBS News and 60 Minutes to settle Trump's pathetic $20 billion lawsuit against the venerable investigate news program regarding an interview last year with Kamala Harris that Trump didn't like. But the pressure from Redstone to settle the suit --- so that the Trump Administration might approve a pending Paramount merger with Skydance Media --- comes after Redstone hypocritically declared two years ago, at an award ceremony celebrating Freedom of the Press, "that press freedom is never guaranteed, that it must constantly be defended, and that it often comes at a significant cost, both personal and professional."

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with news on internal agency warnings about FEMA's lack of preparedness ahead of hurricane season, which begins in less than two weeks; The good news of Trump's flip-flop on his previous blockade of a major offshore wind project in New York; and China rising as America falters under the incompetent leadership of our new, and already failed, Presidential regime...

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