Today on The BradCast: The critical 2026 midterm elections are now officially underway, with early voting having begun in Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas for their March 3rd midterm primaries. But Republicans are not done trying to undermine those elections with legislation meant to undercut democracy itself. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... A few words on the passing, at the age of 84, of Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights icon, voting rights advocate, and two-time Democratic Presidential candidate.

Also, a few words on what appears to be the further collapsing of support for Donald Trump, as detailed in several new polls released in advance of the Washington's Birthday holiday yesterday, and as analyzed by CNN's Harry Enten. Bottom line for the moment, Trump's approval is nearing all-time lows among the public. It is lower than Joe Biden at the same point of his first term as President and even lower than Trump's own numbers at this point during his own failed first term in office. As Enten highlights, Trump is now 27 points underwater among independent voters.

"I don't understand how this works out well for the President of the United States. When you are 27 points below water, under water, with the center of the electorate, with independents, you lose, your party loses," explained the colorful Enten on Monday. With that in mind...

NEXT... If you're losing among the electorate, the Republican Party appears to now believe, don't adjust your policies to popular ones. Just change the electorate!

After seemingly failed mid-decade gerrymandering bids last year (quickly answered by Democratic states); after recent hollow threats by Trump to "nationalize" elections (he has no such legal or Constitutional authority); after ordering the FBI to raid the election warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia in an effort to continue the charade that the 2020 election was stolen from him (they still have shown no such evidence); the GOP seems to believe they can legislate their way to a more favorable electorate this year.

Last week, the Republican-controlled House narrowly passed the so-called "SAVE America Act" [PDF], formerly known as the SAVE Act, with every Republican member voting in favor. The measure would, among other things, if also passed in the U.S. Senate, force those newly registering to vote to somehow show proof of citizenship, in person, during the registration process.

The effort is part of Trump's long-running, evidence-free assertion that millions of noncitizens are unlawfully on the voting rolls and voting against him and, I guess, other Republican candidates.

The measure would also force states to run their voting rolls through a notoriously inaccurate federal Dept. of Homeland Security tool --- originally designed for something else entirely --- known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (or SAVE) database.

That tool has, in recent months, been used by GOP-controlled states to check their rolls for evidence of noncitizen voters. In state after state, it has found almost none. Among the few that it has flagged as potential noncitizen voters, many of them turn out to be false positives, citizens who are inaccurately identified as noncitizens in the database, or noncitizens on the rolls who never voted, but were registered due to clerical error after making clear to DMV workers that they were not American citizens.

Nonetheless, the SAVE America Act, would both force use of that failed tool in all 50 states --- potentially resulting in lawful voters being removed from the rolls --- and mandate proof of citizenship when registering, despite tens of millions of Americans who have no easy, or free, access to such documents.

We're joined today by lawyer turned election integrity social media advocate JENNIFER COHN --- who has been reading through the various iterations of the newly renamed SAVE Act --- to discuss both the barriers it includes for new voters (or those who have recently moved and must re-register), the obstacles that stand in the way of Republican passage of the Act in the U.S. Senate, and what the real purpose of this insidious legislation actually is.

"Up to 69 million women could be disenfranchised by this bill because their last names no longer match their birth certificates because they've taken their husband's name," explains Cohn. She says that while the legislation mentions documents that might help women overcome that barrier, "They're tricky about it. They say, for example, that you could use a 'Real ID' if it indicates your citizenship. What they don't say is that only five states issue Real IDs that indicate your citizenship. So that won't work for the vast majority of Americans."

Passports will work, but they now cost $165 for new applicants or $130 for renewals. They also take time to obtain and require, in most cases, a birth certificate, which many do not have access to. Those may also cost time and money to obtain. But a birth certificate alone won't work either if your name has changed through marriage, or other reasons. And if you have a passport, but your name has changed since you obtained it, that will be a problem as well. Cohn notes that the Republican authors of the bill did something else that is "sneaky in the latest version of the bill. It still omits marriage certificates from the list of approved documents." So even those might not adequately offer proof of citizenship when coupled with a birth certificate during registration under SAVE.

There is much more to be concerned about, Cohn tells me, arguing that "the media really has not caught up" with what Republicans are trying to do with the SAVE Act and just how bad the SAVE database actually is.

While I explain that I think much of this is meant simply to frighten voters into not participating in elections, to scare them, to cause chaos --- especially as I see no path toward passage of the SAVE Act in the Senate --- Cohn thinks I may be wrong, that insidious plans may be in the works to force passage against the wishes of Democrats in the upper chamber, where 60 votes would normally be needed for passage in the 100-seat Senate. (Tune in for details on those insidious plans.)

She believes that people should be freaked out by all of this. If nothing else, she argues, so that they take action to call their Senators (202-224-3121) to demand they vote against SAVE, and to help people understand that this is much much more than a simple "Voter ID bill" as Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and other wildly dishonest Republicans are disingenuously attempting to portray it to the public.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on the heels of last week's landmark rollback of the EPA's critical Endangerment Finding, which had allowed regulation of fossil fuel pollution under the Clean Air Act; and following a massive raw sewage spill at a federal facility near D.C., which Trump is attempting to blame on Maryland's Democratic Governor...

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It's five years to the day since January 6, 2021, when the then President of the United States got away with one of the most audacious crimes ever attempted in the U.S.: a failed attempt to have his own supporters violently overthrow the U.S. Government in order to help steal a Presidential election. Today on The BradCast, we hear from the federal prosecutor who tried --- and almost succeeded --- in holding him to account for those crimes and others. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Donald Trump really didn't want you to hear about those crimes. Especially from the guy who meticulously investigated them before obtaining two federal grand jury criminal indictments against the disgraced, then-former President for both the attempted election theft and his theft of thousands of pages of highly classified national security documents upon leaving office, and for his obstruction of the investigations into both matters.

It was likely no coincidence that Trump invaded Venezuela just hours after his lackeys and co-conspirators in the U.S. House, on New Years Eve, released video of more-than-eight-hours of closed-door testimony, in hopes it would stay buried there. We attempt to unbury it a bit today.

BUT FIRST UP... a few choice, incisive and amusing takes on Trump's wildly unlawful invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of its leader, from comedian Jamie Kaler and the hilariously satirical Rep. Jack Kimble (R-CA) social media account.

Also today, news on Tuesday's sudden passing of 65-year old Rep. Doug LaMalfa, an actual Republican Congressman, for seven terms, from California and a major Trump supporter. His surprise death, along with yesterday's resignation of Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and the hospitalization of another Republican Congressman, Indiana's Jim Baird, following a recent traffic accident, renders Speaker Mike Johnson's caucus perilously close to losing their House majority as another deadline for a government shutdown looms on January 30.

THEN... It's on to the December 17, 2025 closed-door testimony of Special Counsel Jack Smith before the GOP-controlled U.S. House Judiciary Committee which, no doubt, regrets the fact they had to take his testimony in order to convince Trump they were actually investigating the now-second term President's absurd claims that Joe Biden's Dept. of Justice was weaponized to prevent Trump from running for President again.

Though Smith requested public testimony in the House, as per tradition for special prosecutors following a Presidential probe --- and, in this case, two historic criminal indictments --- Republicans balked. They forced the closed-door testimony before attempting to hide the 255-page transcript and more than eight hours of video-taped testimony from Smith over a holiday.

With the aid of coverage and insight from former senior federal prosecutor Randall Eliason, independent journalists Marcy Wheeler and Parker Malloy, and a bit from the New York Times, we share audio from some of the notable testimony and revelations from the three-decade veteran DOJ prosecutor who Republican interrogators on the Committee failed to lay a glove on. But, how could they? You'll have trouble finding a more by-the-book prosecutor than Smith.

In audio clips from the hearing that we share today, Smith speaks to...

• The lack of "weaponization" of the DOJ under Joe Biden, and the actual weaponization and death blows that the new Trump Administration is now reigning down on it over the past year since returning to office.
• His "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" that Trump committed --- and would have been convicted of --- both the crimes related to January 6 and the classified documents case, had Smith not been forced to dismiss both cases after Trump's reelection.
• How the witnesses he would have presented at trial on the attempted theft of the 2020 election were all Republican allies of Trump.
• How Trump "exploited" violence on January 6th.
• How it was Trump himself who "chose" which Senators' phone call toll records would be probed in the investigation, and how none of those members were "spied" on, as now falsely claimed by Trump and Congressional Republicans. (Toll records detail only what number was called, when, and how long the call lasted. As Eliason explains, it would have been prosecutorial malpractice to not subpoena those records. Smith's investigation never "wire-tapped" any member of Congress, as recently and falsely claimed by Trump and his fellow GOP scam artists.)
• How Trump was entitled, under the First Amendment, to lie about a "stolen" election. But that he was not legally allowed to use those lies in furtherance of inducing his followers to commit crimes, such as storming the Capitol to obstruct the certification of Biden's victory or attempting to kill the Vice President.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our first Green News Report of the new year, with a collection of "while we were out" headlines to get us caught up for the new year following the warmest Christmas in recorded U.S. history...

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My ears are still ringing after the President of the United States spent about 20 minutes barking at me last night. But the show --- in this case, the final BradCast of 2025 --- must go on. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

VERY QUICKLY... Some final election results for the year, as a Democratic union leader and U.S. Army veteran won a special election on Tuesday for a state Senate seat in Kentucky in a more than 47-point landslide over his Republican opponent! Gary Clemons won almost 73% of the vote, according to today's unofficial results. Granted, it was in a Democratic leaning area of Louisville, but one where Kamala Harris won by just 6 points last year. So, it amounted to an approximately 42-point shift in favor of Team Blue. In Kentucky. That should help propel the Resistance into the critical mid-term election year of 2026.

THEN... Two of our favorite guests are here today for an end-of-year roundtable, of sorts, as we wrap up a...well...tumultuous year, to put it far too nicely, as we try to make sense of whatever happened last night during Donald Trump's weird, lie-filled, prime-time tirade and a whole bunch of other stuff at year's end.

We're joined once again today by fellow old-school bloggers HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of the Professional Left Podcast.

AP noted last night that Trump has frequently said he believes more Americans would back him if they simply heard him describe his track record. Well, I think everybody heard him last night. Even if they had their TVs off, since the guy was shouting so loud. What he was shouting, however, was mostly a string of ridiculous claims and a whole bunch of numbers, many of which were made up out of whole cloth.

In his mercifully brief, but endlessly angry remarks, he said "at levels never seen before" or "at record levels" at least 7 times; referred to at least 11 different "records" that he claims to have broken over the past year; cited "history" --- as in, "never before in American history" --- at least 12 times; and blamed Joe Biden for most of his own failures at least 7 times.

Whether anybody is more inclined to back him after hearing that "record" --- (new polling out yesterday from PBS/NPR/Marist found his overall support at just 38%, AP/NORC clocked him in at just 36% approval) --- than they were before last night remains to be seen.

"I couldn't guess about his supporters, because I've lost all sense of anything making sense amongst the American electorate," quips an enjoyably cynical Digby today. "These people are crazy. And so is he. I am just looking at this and thought what kind of person watched that gibbering clown last night and thought, 'Wow, that is a great president'?"

"It is clear that Donald Trump has made a career out of lying to people. Now he's just a living sales pitch. But you can't out-shout kitchen table math," argues Driftglass in regard to last night's speech, before somewhat countering himself. "On the other hand, if you've ever read 1984, it's just a matter of telling the rubes what you want them to think. They are so sunk-cost bought-in to Donald Trump, they know if they don't believe it, the whole thing crashes down."

"There's a thing in aeronautics called the Jesus Nut," he continues. "It's this bolt-nut combination that holds the entire helicopter assembly together. Without it, you'd better pray to Jesus because you're going down. Donald Trump is that to them. He is the thing holding it all together. So whatever crazy crap he says, they have to believe it, they have to go along with it, because the alternative is the abyss."

When we move to the topic of whether Republicans are going to accept the Democrats latest attempt to help save them from themselves by extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies that Trump and the GOP cut --- with monthly premiums now set to skyrocket for tens of millions of Americans in the new year --- Digby believes that "Republicans are not coming to their senses."

"I think that the vast majority of the Republican caucus, in both the House and Senate, are happy to let the subsidies expire because they know they are going to lose next fall. They see the writing on the wall. And they figure, 'The one thing we did was we destroyed Obamacare.' That's been on their agenda from the very beginning. If they get nothing else out of this whole mess, they get that. They destroyed Obamacare. They don't care about how many people suffer, because this is their Great White Whale. Or Great Black Whale, I guess, in the case of Obamacare."

Driftglass, who explains that his ACA monthly premiums are set to quadruple next year for him and his wife thanks to the GOP's cuts (from about $700/month this year to more than $2500/month next year!), believes that Trump's own supporters "are going to take a huge hit, but they are going to go look for scapegoats, not solutions. And that is tragic. And it's dangerous."

He is also wistful about what has happened over the past year. "This country is now a different country than it was in 2024," he observes. "We have become a different place. We've lost our innocence. This happened after the Viet Nam War, the Civil Rights Movement. Fundamentally, this country has changed in ways we do not understand yet. And whatever happens after Trump, it is going to be a different place than you and I grew up in. And part of that is that there is now a solid block of 36% of the American public who are just insane."

We have much more insanity to try and make sense of on today's program. From the house of cards that Speaker Mike Johnson is barely hanging on to; to the release of the Epstein Files that, by law, is supposed to happen tomorrow (both Digby and Drifty are dubious, to say the least); to why it is that Indiana Republicans actually stood up to Trump's threats and refused to gerrymander their U.S. House map; to what could possibly reverse Trump's seemingly quickly sinking fortunes (and health) next year.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen helps us close out the show with our final 'Green News Report' for 2025, at the end of a program that hopefully gives you lots to chew on, worry about, think about, plan for, fight for or laugh about until we return in 2026...

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Today on The BradCast: It's difficult to notice --- or trust your own eyes --- when it all happens in slow motion. At least until it happens quickly. But, yes, the wall continues to crack. Day by day. Brick by brick. [Audio to full show follows this summary.]

Among the many stories covered on today's program...

• One of the worst headwinds that House Speaker Mike Johnson and his Congressional Republicans will be facing next year, in their hopes of hanging on to their narrow majority in the lower chamber, is their cuts to Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) subsidies that are set to expire at year's end. It will skyrocket the cost of premiums for millions of Americans beginning on January 1. Today, Johnson announced his own caucus in the House could not agree on a fix, all but guaranteeing there will be no such fix until next year earliest. Congress will be recessing until 2026 at the end of this week.

• On yesterday's Rachel Maddow Show, she was somewhat misleading in her suggestion that last night at midnight, December 15th, was the last chance to sign up for a health care policy under the Affordable Care Act to ensure health care coverage next year. In fact, the Open Enrollment period for Obamacare --- for both new policies or to change a current one --- continues until January 15th next year in most states. Though, depending on which state you are in, coverage may now not begin until February under a new policy. In several states, however, which run their own exchanges (rather than forcing resident to purchase policies via the federal exchange), including California, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Washington D.C., you can still sign up for policies (or change current ones) before the end of the year to see them take effect as of January 1. Costs are going to go up either way for millions of Americans, thanks to Republicans in Congress refusing to extend subsidies that would prevent monthly premiums for policies purchased via the Obamacare marketplaces from doubling or tripling in many cases from what they were this year.

• Donald Trump and the U.S. Military's murder spree on the high seas continued on Monday with three new attacks on three supposed drug boats near the coast of Venezuela, bringing the number of people killed by our completely unlawful attacks to at least 95. In related news on Monday, Trump signed an Executive Order "designating fentanyl as a Weapon of Mass Destruction", in hopes of adding some --- any --- legal justification to both his murder strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, and a promised eventual attack on supposed "narco-terrorists" in Venezuela (even though fentanyl is not produced or trafficked from there.) Also relatedly, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday said he will not release video of the unlawful second strike on an alleged drug boat from September 2nd, when the U.S. fired on two shipwrecked survivors following an attack earlier in the day, a huge violation of both U.S. and International law.

• Trump's not-insane, very powerful, and very low profile White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, had a whole bunch of pretty shocking things to say about Trump, his policies (both foreign and domestic), his top appointees (from Vance to Bondi to Vought), his retribution campaign against political foes, and much more in some ten interviews reportedly given over the past year to an author who has written a book about WH Chiefs of Staff over the years. A number of Wiles' eyebrow raising remarks from those interviews were published by Vanity Fair today and D.C. is abuzz trying to figure out what it all means.

• As still more bricks in the wall appear to be falling out, a number of Republicans, including MAGA loyalists past and present, have seemingly turned --- gently or otherwise --- against Donald Trump's deranged, repulsive remarks on Monday about the murder of Hollywood legend Rob Reiner, who was killed just hours earlier on Sunday along with his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, in their Los Angeles home.

• Finally, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report as climate change-fueled torrential rain, flooding and levee failure plague the Pacific Northwest; Trump continues his very selective and political approval for federal disaster aid; and as New York City's congestion pricing program (which Trump opposes, natch) continues to clear the air in Midtown...

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Not that I hope to tip off our degenerate authoritarian oligarchy on today's BradCast. But if the Republican Party still believes in math (and it's unclear if they do), there was more very bad news for them in Tuesday's elections this week. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Unapologetically progressive Democratic candidate Aftyn Behn appears to have lost the Special Election race for the U.S. House in Tennessee's very "red", GOP-gerrymandered 7th Congressional District to stalwart Trump Republican Matt Van Epps on Tuesday. Unofficial numbers suggest she lost by about 9 points.

Sounds like a rout. But, in fact, it really wasn't. Trump won the district last year by 22 points, meaning there was a 13 point shift toward Democrats on Tuesday, precisely the average shift that we have seen toward Dems in all of the Special Elections for U.S. House this year. There are 14 counties in TN's 7th CD. Everyone of them shifted towards the left on Tuesday. That, after Republicans were forced to dump a lot of money into what should have been an easy contest on Tuesday.

While House Speaker Mike Johnson pretended not to be concerned about any of this --- "They were really trying to set the scenario that there's some sort of wave going on. There's not. We just proved that there's not." --- actual math really does suggest trouble ahead for the GOP in next year's critical 2026 midterm cycle.

With that average 13 point shift toward Democrats in special elections this year, we do a little bit of mathing on today's show. For example, last year, in the 2024 U.S. House general elections...

• 28 Republicans won their races by 10 percent or less.
• 64 of them won by 12 points or less.
• And a whopping 92 Republicans won by just 15 percent or less last year.

With a razor-thin 3 vote advantage heading into the new year, no wonder several GOP-controlled states are attempting panicked mid-decade gerrymanders, and that the corrupt Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court are likely to help them. But new maps may ultimately make their problems worse, not better, if this year's elections are any indication. Safe Republican districts made less safe with new gerrymanders to steal districts from Democratic voters may end up backfiring. Of course, I won't dismiss Democrats' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory between now and next year. But when Johnson says, "This doesn't concern me at all," he is either lying, in denial or incredibly stupid. And he's not all that stupid.

"This is one of the biggest flashing red light warning signs we've seen yet for Republicans," a far more realistic GOP strategist observed last night. Much more on today's show.

As if that's not enough, in a stunning runoff election on Tuesday in Georgia, the Democratic candidate easily unseated the incumbent Republican Mayor in the suburban city of Roswell, outside of Atlanta. She will be the previously deep "red" city's first Democratic Mayor in nearly 30 years. But don't worry, Mike. All's well!

Also today, our disgusting racist President said a whole bunch of disgusting racist things at the White House on Tuesday about Somalia and the American Somali population in Minnesota and elsewhere, repeatedly describing them as "garbage", "people who don't work," and people who should "go back to where they came from." Where many of them came from is a war-torn nation in Africa, with thousands seeking refuge here in the 90s. Most of them are now American citizens, with many living in Minnesota, where Trump's degenerate federal jack-booted immigration thugs will reportedly be targeting them, specifically in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, with upcoming raids.

State Governor Tim Walz --- who Trump last week described as "retarded" --- as well as the Minneapolis Mayor, its Chief of Police and many other officials and immigration advocates are vowing not to roll over to Trump's racist immigration hooliganism. Similar raids are reportedly being launched this week in New Orleans, where residents are also hoping to push back against Trump's increasingly unpopular thuggery however they can.

Finally today, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report (after we had to preempt yesterday), with news on the end of disappointing U.N. climate talks in Brazil; the rising death toll following two simultaneous climate change-fueled typhoons in Southeast Asia; and the Trump Administration's latest plans to pollute your air and poison your drinking water...

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It's no easy feat getting caught up on The BradCast after just one week off during the madness of the Trump Era. But, hey, nobody said fighting to save democracy amid an attempted authoritarian takeover by a crazy, brain-poisoned, power-mad, criminal cretin was going to be easy. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

With far more to cover than we had time to catch up with, we did our level best today and took a bunch of great callers to boot! But that requires focusing on the stuff that really matters and, well, putting off the rest for another day, if ever. And the stuff that really really counts right now, in my opinion, remains the fight for democracy and voting itself.

To that end --- and many others --- we covered quite a bit of ground in very short order today. Among the many stories we touched on before opening the phones to our first post-Thanksgiving callers...

• Today, a federal appeals court unanimously upheld a lower court ruling finding that Alina Habba, Donald Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer turned U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, was unlawfully appointed.

• That ruling follows on last week's court ruling that Lindsey Halligan, Trump's even more unqualified personal insurance lawyer turned U.S. Attorney in Virginia, was also illegally appointed. That ruling subsequently resulted in the dismissal of Halligan's absurdly corrupt criminal indictments against Trump's foes, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

• Trump's belligerent, unqualified Defense Secretary and former weekend Fox "News" host, Pete Hegseth, may be in very big trouble for reportedly issuing unlawful orders to "kill everyone" in the Administration's first unlawful attack on supposed drug runners in boats in international waters off of Venezuela in the Caribbean. (More on that, I suspect, in the days ahead.)

• A quick catch-up on the various battles in the Gerrymandering Wars since we left --- in Texas, Indiana and North Carolina.

• Following the shock resignation of former(?) MAGA stalwart Marjorie Taylor Greene a week or so ago, Punchbowl News reported that a senior Congressional Republican is warning that the House GOP is "a tinder box." That "morale has never been lower" and that Republican House Speaker "Mike Johnson will be stripped of his gavel and they will lose the majority before this term is out." We'll see about that. But it's anything but inconceivable, at this point.

• Speaking of, in tomorrow's Special Election for the U.S. House in Tennessee's 7th Congressional District, progressive Democrat Aftyn Behn was said to be within two points of Republican Matt Van Epps, according to new polling last week, in a District won last year by Trump by a whopping 22 points! I wonder why morale is so low among Republicans in the House these days.

• Never mind polling. Let's look at some actual numbers following Democrats' rout of Republicans in the November off-year elections last month. A deep dive by Politico into 268 county, town and village executive seat races last month in New York --- including in deep red counties, towns and villages --- found that Dems out-performed 2017's "blue wave" election in the state, flipping, for example, more than 50 executive seats from "red" to "blue" last month. That, compared to the GOP flipping just one (1!) seat from "blue" to "red" on the same day.

• Another appeals court panel ruling while we were off --- this one from judges nominated by both George W. Bush and Donald Trump --- upheld a lower court ruling finding that a ridiculously frivolous lawsuit filed by Trump and Habba against Hillary Clinton and James Comey, claiming they tried to steal the 2016 election (or something), will, in fact, result in a one million dollar fine against the pair.

And finally, we open up the phone lines to listeners, who are, apparently, in a very lively mood after a bit of rest over the holiday weekend. Enjoy!...

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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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Things are not going well for the President of the United States. As revealed by the mostly breaking news stories covered on today's BradCast, today may be seen as one of the worst days he has ever had. Here's hoping for more such days. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

• Tuesday began pleasantly enough, with Donald Trump offering Saudi Arabia's crown prince a royal welcome to the White House in advance of a black tie dinner, despite the fact that the CIA determined that Mohammed bin Salman likely personally approved the 2018 bone saw murder of Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi. After the regal parade of Saudi and U.S. flag-draped black horses and a rare flyover by six U.S. fighter jets to celebrate the arrival of the killer prince and major Trump Family business partner, Trump berated a reporter for daring to ask about the murder. He claimed, appallingly, that "a lot of people didn't like" Khashoggi anyway, that bin Salman "knew nothing about it", and, even if he did, hey, "things happen."

• Around the same time, on the other end of Pennsylvania Ave., victims of Trump's longtime best friend and convicted pedophile, the late Jeffrey Epstein, were rallying on the steps of the U.S. Capitol with the lead, bi-partisan co-sponsors of a bill mandating the Dept. of Justice release the "Epstein Files". One of the survivors, a Trump voter who was introduced to Epstein when she was just 14 years old, described the President as a "national embarrassment". The bill was finally to be voted on today, after months of attempted obstruction by both Trump and supposedly very Christian Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. Today's vote happened only thanks to a Discharge Petition signed by a majority of House members (all Democrats, 4 Republicans) demanding it. Despite Trump's months of cover-up, blocking the DOJ from releasing the files that he could have ordered released in full at any time, the four sentence legislation was adopted nearly unanimously by the U.S. House in a 427 to 1 vote. Apparently, nobody other than Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) wanted to be regarded as having voted to protect pedophiles.

• Within hours, remarkably, the U.S. Senate, without debate, adopted the same bill by another veto-proof margin. The measure was passed by unanimous consent before heading to Donald Trump's desk for his signature. You think he'll hold one of his big signing ceremonies to do it?

• With all of that seemingly very good news, we echo the caveat I offered on yesterday's show. A provision in the legislation (the third of four sentences) allows the DOJ to "withhold certain information" including "materials that would jeopardize an active federal investigation." As luck would have it, just last week, months after Trump's DOJ declared there was nothing left to investigate in the Epstein matter, and days before Trump would pretend to flip-flop to favor the bill, he asked his corrupt Attorney General Pam Bondi to open an investigation into the involvement of his political foes with Epstein. She complied within hours, of course. On Sunday, Republican co-sponsor of the Discharge Petition in the House, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-LA), warned the new investigations might prevent the DOJ release of the files. Today, before the vote, at the presser on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) --- who deserves credit for taking on the President by keeping her name on the Petition --- warned same. That, after Trump's pretend change of heart on Sunday calling for the release of the files by instructing Republicans to vote for the bill so that lawmakers "can have whatever they are legally entitled to". The latter part of that phrase, observed David Kurtz today, is "doing a lot of work there."

• As rare as successful Discharge Petitions are in forcing votes on bills that the House Speaker refuses to bring to the floor, it happened yet again on Monday! A majority of House members, with the help of a few swing district Republicans signed on to force a vote --- within seven days, as required by House rules --- on a bill that would roll back Trump's Executive Orders earlier this year blocking collective bargaining rights for most federal workers.

• But things got even worse for Trump as today wore on. This time on the Gerrymandering Wars front. A three-judge federal appeals court panel in Texas blocked the new Trump-ordered gerrymander of the state's already gerrymandered U.S. House map, finding it to be an unlawful and unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Following a ten day hearing, the 2 to 1 ruling by the court panel, written by a Trump-appointed federal judge, blocked the new map from going into effect for the 2026 election --- at least for now. The new map was written by the GOP state Legislature to flip five, largely minority House seats from "blue" to "red" next year. It resulted in California voters recently adopting a new map, in an overwhelming statewide vote, to flip the same number of seats from "red" to "blue" in response. That map --- and perhaps a similar one now in the works by Democrats in Virginia --- will stay in place next year, unless otherwise blocked by a court for some reason. Texas' Republican Governor Greg Abbott vowed to appeal today's ruling to his friends on the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court.

• The ruling in the Lone Star State comes on the heels of the decision late last week by the Republican leaders of the Indiana state Legislature, to not redistrict the state's already very red U.S. House map in a Special Session this year, despite heavy pressure from Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. The decision resulted in social media threats by Trump against both men, and a swatting attack against one of them. Despite that dangerous situation just hours after Trump's initial threat --- and his laughable opposition to political violence --- he issued another similar one against Republican lawmakers in the Hoosier State on Sunday.

• Finally, also not great news for Trump in today's Green News Report with Desi Doyen, as Trump's joke of a FEMA Director is pushed out after just six months; the U.N. climate summit under way in Brazil (which the U.S. sent no representatives to) declares it will finally be taking on climate disinformation by the fossil fuel industry and its supporters (like Trump); and that, speaking of, new documents reveal Exxon has been quietly funding climate denial and disinformation campaigns across Latin American for years...

As noted, it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for Donald Trump, which is generally a very good day for the rest of us, as described with much more context, detail, insight, color, sound and special effects on today's program. I hope you'll tune in...

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

Among our coverage today...

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

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

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

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

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

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It's another busy day on The BradCast But what else is new? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... The U.S. House was finally back in session on Wednesday for the first time after the nearly two month paid vacation ordered by GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson during the nation's longest ever federal government shutdown. It should soon be over with tonight's House vote on an 11-week stop-gap Continuing Resolution --- at least until all of this happens all over again when the CR times out at the end of January.

With the reconvening of Congress, Arizona's newest Representative, Adelita Grijalva (D), was finally sworn in, nearly two months after her Special Election. As promised, she immediately became the 218th member to sign a Discharge Petition that, with signatures from a majority of the House, will now force a vote on the release of the Epstein Files being held by the Dept. of Justice and covered up there by order of Donald Trump. He reportedly appears multiple times in the DOJ's investigative files into the late child sex predator and Trump's longtime best friend, Jeffrey Epstein.

A vote to release those files should happen within seven days under House rules. But before Congress even reconvened today for the first time in weeks, several previously unseen emails written by Epstein were released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. They reveal, among other things, Epstein asserting back in 2011 that Trump "spent hours at my house with" a victim whose name is redacted from the documents released today. And another email from Epstein in 2019 declaring "of course [Trump] knew about the girls."

THEN... New York City's Democratic Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani ran on a so-called "Affordability Agenda" including promises of a Rent Freeze for about 30% of the city's tenants; Free and Faster Buses; Free Universal Child Care; and a pilot program for City-Owned Grocery stores across the five Boroughs.

So, how affordable for NYC is the Affordability Agenda promised by the charismatic 34-year old Muslim and self-declared democratic socialist who won by a landslide last week?

We're joined today by our old friend RICHARD (RJ) ESKOW, longtime columnist, host of the weekly Zero Hour television and radio program, and former lead writer for Bernie Sanders' 2016 Presidential campaign.

Eskow did the math on each of Mamdani's four top-line Affordability Agenda items, concluding that, at least three of the four of them, are "surprisingly affordable". Even the fourth, he finds, is also easily affordable if both city and state officials are willing to play along. That one will require raising taxes on millionaires in the city (who currently pay the same percentage of their income as a resident earning just $50,000) and on corporations, whose taxes will be raised to parity with the rate charged by neighboring states like New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire (while still remaining lower than they were before Trump's 2017 tax cuts).

"Every revolution should come this cheap," quipped Eskow after his analysis.

We run through the presumptive costs of each of the new Mayor's headline programs, discuss how they will be paid for (one of them should actually make money for the city), and why it is that these not-particularly-radical programs caused so many Republican (and many "conservative" Democratic) heads to explode during Mamdani's remarkable campaign.

These are programs for working people that "can make New York City a city for everyone again," Eskow tells me. "It's all doable. It's all affordable. The rest is just scare tactics."

He explains how the billionaires who went to war against Mamdani during the campaign simply "don't want to give up the money. It wouldn't cost them any more a year, it's a marginal tax, an incremental tax. They don't want to give up that 1%. They don't want to pay their property taxes on their luxury apartments."

"But more than that," argues Eskow, "it is the presentation. That working people deserve to have an affordable, pleasant, decent life in New York City, like they did for 200 years. I think that's what threatens them the most. And that's where the struggle comes in."

We also discuss how ginned-up fears about fairly unremarkable "democratic socialism" --- which rightwingers and billionaires like Trump tried to turn into "COMMUNISM!" during the campaign --- are both wildly misleading and little more than another scare tactic.

"If you like Social Security, if you like Medicare, if you want to strengthen and expand those programs, you may be a democratic socialist," he explains. Tune in for much more...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)