September 30th: A date that will live...next week. Apparently, it all comes down to next Tuesday. On today's BradCast, among other things, we detail why September 30th is so important to not one, not two, but three major stories in the news today. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among those stories...

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to an exclusive report today from WaPo and later confirmed by others, has ordered hundreds of the U.S. Military's top generals and admirals --- and their top enlisted advisors --- stationed in the U.S. and at commands across the globe, to convene for an "urgent" in-person meeting at the U.S. Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, next Tuesday, September 30th. None of the military personnel have been told why the meeting has been called or why those leading important posts around the world couldn't simply attend via the Pentagon's secure teleconferencing system. Some officials are concerned about national security issues in the event that something breaks out next week, while the top leaders posted to Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific regions are back in Virginia, meeting with Pete for some unknown reason. Hegseth has been firing scores of top military brass in recent weeks, and has pledged to cleanse at least 20% of the top officers corps, particularly those he believes may not share the same political beliefs as the Administration, at what is supposed to be a non-political institution. One source quipped that next Tuesday's mysterious meeting is "being referred to as the general squid games."

• That mysterious military meeting, on September 30th, happens to come on the final day of the federal government's 2025 Fiscal Year, when, if Republicans don't agree to a spending deal with Democrats, the government will shut down and begin furloughing federal workers as of midnight. Democratic leaders are insisting that any spending deal include the extension of enhanced premium support for some 25 million Americans who enjoy access to healthcare via the Affordable Care Act; the restoration of draconian Medicaid cuts enacted in the Republicans' "Big Beautiful Bill"; and a mechanism to ensure Donald Trump and/or Congressional Republicans don't simply rescind any spending agreed to by Democrats after they help Republicans reach the 60 votes needed for passage in the Senate. For their part, Republicans aren't even trying to negotiate with Democrats. Earlier this week, Trump used an insane, horseshit-fill social media post to call off the White House meeting previously scheduled with Democratic leaders today. And now the Administration has issued a memo to federal agencies suggesting they plan "mass layoffs" if the government shuts down next week, as seems almost certain at this point. Democratic Leaders Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Hakeem Jeffries in the House, however, say they aren't falling for the Administration's "lawless" threats. They have good reason for that argument.

• This morning, CNN published a report (apparently based on a single, Administration-friendly source), claiming that Attorney General Pam Bondi had "reservations" about indicting Trump's political foe, former FBI Director James Comey, as Trump has publicly insisted she do. I was busy explaining why you should be skeptical of the reporting on Bondi's supposed "concerns", and why any such indictment of Comey would be wildly corrupt (no matter the charges), when news broke mid-show that, yup, Comey has now been indicted. Why is September 30th important to this story? Well, it was on September 30th, 2020, that the Administration is claiming Comey lied to Congress regarding the DOJ's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. The five-year statute of limitations to bring Trump's revenge charges (as weak as they clearly are) against Comey, runs out as of next Tuesday, September 30th, 2025, five years after his contested remarks to Congress. Thus, Trump's corrupt remarks to Bondi over the weekend: "We can't delay any longer … JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!"

• In non-September 30th related news, a federal judge this week ordered the Trump Administration restore more than half a billion dollars worth of federal research grant funding to UCLA. The funding, appropriated by Congress but unlawful blocked by the Administration, is earmarked for medical research grants on Parkinson's disease, cancer, cell regeneration in nerves and other areas meant to improve the health of Americans. Trump had previously offered to settle his ridiculous claims of discrimination and antisemitism against UCLA, if the University of California system coughed up $1 billion dollars and instituted favored Administration social policies. Gov. Gavin Newsom described the attempted shakedown as extortion. This week, a federal judge declared it almost certainly in violation of the federal Administrative Procedure Act.

• And finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, on the heels of Trump's insane anti-renewable energy, pro-fossil fuel rant at the United Nations this week; and much more...

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The May 3 article that appeared in UCLA's campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin, was disturbing but not surprising. The LAPD stood idly by as a group of "tear gas" wielding, pro-Israel "counter-protesters" violently attacked a pro-Palestine protest encampment. The attack reportedly went on for nearly four hours before the LAPD moved in, not to stop counter-protester violence, but to breakup the encampment.

In a formal Statement, staff members of the UCLA History Department noted:

The history professors chastised both University of California administrators and the LAPD for their "disregard" for "students' safety and their right to express their views."

The professors weren't the only ones to express concern for law enforcement's failure to intercede as pro-Israel "counter protesters" violently attacked the encampment. California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to the Los Angeles Daily News, "called for investigations into [why the] pro-Israeli counter-protesters' attack...was allowed to rage for several hours with little to no police intervention."

Sadly, the story, as recounted by the Daily Bruin and the UCLA history professors, is on the continuum of well over a century of right-wing bias on the part of local, state and federal law enforcement against those who exercise First Amendment rights to engage in non-violent strikes or in peaceful, anti-war, environmental, and civil rights protests....