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

Among today's delights...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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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It's a bit of a roller-coaster ride on today's BradCast. We begin with some good election and Trump Administration accountability news. But while Trump's latest clownishly absurd attempted corruption may not ultimately work out for him, it serves as a reminder of the rough road ahead for justice and the Justice Department itself in these United States. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... Some good news...

• On Tuesday, Omaha, Nebraska's Republican Mayor Jean Stothert was defeated in her run for a fourth term by Democratic challenger John Ewing Jr. He will become the first Black mayor of the otherwise "red" state's largest city. Stothert's attempt to leverage anti-trans hate against her opponent appears to have failed to win over voters.

• That news comes on the heels of last week's School Board elections in Texas (which we are finally catching up with today!), where book-banning, trans-hating right-wingers were voted off of School Board majorities in at least four of the largest districts in the state.

• In one of two good news updates to stories we recently covered on the show, a federal judge on Tuesday ordered some 200 federal workers fired by the Trump Administration from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) back to work. The workers ran the Coal Worker's Heath Surveillance Program which offers health screenings to miners who may have developed incurable Black Lung disease, and helps them find safer jobs and covers health costs if they have. The judge in the case, filed by two West Virginia miners afflicted with the disease, found the Trump Administration (remember when he used to pretend to love coal miners?) had no authority to unilaterally shut down the screening program mandated by the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969. NIOSH workers were reportedly back on the job today after the U.S. District Judge issued her order yesterday.

• And, in another happy follow-up story, facing a lawsuit from farmers and First Amendment advocates, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) agreed to restore years of critical climate change date --- relied on by farmers and many others --- to its website, after disappearing it shortly after Trump took office.

THEN... I don't know if we should consider it "good news" or not, but it certainly looks like Trump's plan to accept a tricked-out $400 million "flying palace" jumbo jet as a "gift" from the Royal Family of Qatar, for use as Air Force One while in office and for his own personal use thereafter, ain't gonna work out for him.

Despite his loyalist Attorney General Pam Bondi --- formerly, a $115,000/month lobbyist for Qatar --- pronouncing that the "gift" would be neither a bribe nor a violation of the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause, banning gifts "of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State" to public officials, it appears she's only half right about that.

We're joined today by our old friend RANDALL D. ELIASON, former chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption section at the DoJ's U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. He is now a professor of white-collar criminal law at George Washington University and writes at his own SidebarsBlog, where he wrote about much of this today.

He explains that, thanks to recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, public officials may, in fact, now accept "gifts" of any size or amount from anybody, without violating current bribery statutes, so long as the official does not offer anything in return. Yes, it's as ridiculous as it sounds. Eliason describes it as "absurd...but that's the Supreme Court's concept of corruption" now.

"The Supreme Court, over the last couple of decades, has narrowed public corruption laws so much that there's a strict requirement now of a link to a particular official act that you can identify and say this gift was because Trump agreed to do this in exchange," he tells me. "They could give him $400 million cash in his own bank account, and that's not a bribe anymore, unless they can link it to something he agreed to do in exchange."

"The fact is, the way the Supreme Court has interpreted bribery, it should be a bribe, but it's not, unless there was some agreement we don't know about by Trump to do something in particular in exchange. If it's just to cozy up to him, curry favor with him in general, because they are hoping for future things to happen, that's not a bribe."

"There's no question this is corrupt," he makes clear, "as most of us understand the term," but not a bribe. "Congress could have stepped in to amend those laws, but they haven't done that, for some surprising reason."

Trump's violation of the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause, on the other hand, with acceptance of a "flying palace", would be a different matter, Eliason agrees. Though the question becomes: who exactly has the legal standing to challenge that violation in a court of law?

"I think the bigger picture is that we can't rely on lawsuits to solve this problem," he argues. "It's going to take too long and get bogged down again. If there's going to be a response, it needs to be a political one. It needs to be enough people standing up and objecting and putting pressure on him that he cancels the deal. And ultimately the voters have to respond."

Much more on all of that today along with Eliason's reflections on what has happened to his beloved DoJ and the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. where used to work, soon to be led, most likely, by Fox News' whacked out "Judge" Jeanine Pirro --- and whether all of it can be put back together again when this madness ends...presuming it does.

"What's happening at Justice is terrible, and it's heartbreaking," he laments. "It violates everything that DOJ has stood for, for decades. They are pushing people out for doing nothing more than doing their jobs. Or those people are leaving, because they can't honorably stay there and do what they are being asked to do."

What would he have done had he still been at the DOJ under Trump? And will the institution be salvageable after this? Tune for his thoughts and insight on all that and much more...

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