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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump signs slew of executive orders to bail out the declining, polluting coal industry; Torrential rains and flooding cripple Congo's capital city; PLUS: Big banks quietly planning ways to maximize profits amid climate chaos... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump makes sweeping move to undercut state climate laws like California's; In the rain-soaked South, storms portend future ‘generational’ floods; White House ends funding for key US climate research body; US exits carbon talks on shipping, urges others to follow, document says; NOAA contracts being reviewed one by one, throwing the agency into chaos; Threatened carbon pipeline filed hundreds of lawsuits against landowners... PLUS: More oil and gas FAFO as crude keeps diving... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: The decision handed down by the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court last night just after we got off air was confusing, divided, muddled and, at closer inspection, as discussed with today's guest, even grimmer than it first appeared. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

FIRST UP, however, what qualifies as the brighter news of the day, believe it or not...

• Markets continued to plummet for a fourth straight day following Donald Trump's punishing, unilateral, worldwide (except for Russia) tariffs announced last week at the White House. But the push-back against his authority to issue them, granted by Congress, has begun to grow more quickly than one might have expected among Congressional Republicans.

• And, just before airtime today, a Trump-appointed federal judge ruled in favor of the Associated Press in its lawsuit against the Administration after it banned the news outlet from coverage of certain events in the White House and on Air Force One. The AP has accused the Administration of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, in response to the outlet's decision to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by its internationally recognized name, rather than as the Gulf of America as Trump has attempted to mandate via Executive Order.

THEN, we're joined by Slate legal journalist MARK JOSEPH STERN to unpack the confusing --- and troubling --- 5 to 4 opinion issued by SCOTUS last night, largely allowing Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, for now, to detain and deport migrants to foreign gulags. Stern, who describing the ruling last night as one that "couldn't be more ominous", explains that the Court's brief, split decision is "going to cause a lot of confusion, chaos and uncertainty in the lower courts, and for these migrants, who the administration is trying to disappear to El Salvador."

While the five men on the Court disagreed with the four women (including the Court's lone female GOP-appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett) on most aspects of the ruling, they all agreed, at least, that deportees must be afforded the opportunity to challenge their detention in court before removal.

The terse, but alarming opinion was issued via the Court's "shadow docket" without full briefing or oral argument, in response to an emergency appeal in a challenge by Venezuela migrants deported under the AEA with no due process whatsoever. The Trump Administration invoked the wartime law --- which, according to its text, may only be used to detain and deport migrants from countries that have "declared war" on the U.S. --- to send Venezuelans they claim to be violent gang members to a gulag in El Salvador. And while the full Court decreed that such detainees must be allowed to challenge their detention in the jurisdiction in which they are detained, it will seemingly be impossible for the hundreds now already in a prison outside of the country to do so.

The Trump Administration's view, observes Stern, is that, once a migrant is locked up in a foreign gulag, they "have had their Constitutional rights permanently extinguished. They have no right to due process or any other rights, procedural or substantive. And further, that federal courts have no jurisdiction to order any kind of relief to help them." That is the case, according to the Government in the related Kilmar Abrego Garcia matter, even when someone has been "mistakenly" deported.

There are all sorts of troubling issues wrapped up in the majority's unsigned opinion, including the fact that they simply took the Administration at its word on several key points, despite Trump's Dept. of Justice repeatedly lying to and/or thumbing their nose at direct orders issued by U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, whose impeachment Trump subsequently called for. That call led to a gentle reprimand from the Chief Justice a few weeks ago, even if John Roberts sided with the majority in favor of Trump anyway in Monday's decision.

"We, as a Nation and a court of law, should be better than this," wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her blistering dissent, excoriating the majority. "The government’s conduct in this litigation poses an extraordinary threat to the rule of law," she warned, ominously noting that it is now the official position of the Court that even "United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before removal. History is no stranger to such lawless regimes, but this nation's system of laws is designed to prevent, not enable, their rise."

Stern shares her concern, particularly about the likelihood of U.S. citizens being swept off the streets and shipped off to foreign prisons. He adds: "By the way, something like 1-1.5% of individuals detained by ICE every year are actually U.S. citizens. The burden falls disproportionately on tribal citizens and Puerto Rican people on the mainland, due to racial profiling and other kinds of stereotyping. So this is not a far-off hypothetical."

He is also concerned about what the string of recent decisions by the corrupted high court in favor of the Administration and in contradiction to lower court judges, is likely to signal.

"I am worried that the Court is just going to start rubber-stamping these Trump requests for emergency relief, and refuse to consider the extraordinary and immense harms that will be inflicted on the American people by doing so," he explains. "That five men and sometimes Justice Barrett have decided that the real problem isn't Trump and his lawless crusade. The real problem is district court judges standing in his way. If that is the approach that the Supreme Court is taking --- if they really do think that the real problem is judges and not the Trump Administration's unprecedented assault on the rule of law, then again, we are all in grave danger. It's not just Venezuelan migrants."

Much more insight, disturbing details and outrage during my disturbing conversation today with Stern.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report after deadly, widespread extreme storms and flooding over the weekend; as Trump's trade war is increasing the cost of reconstruction for disaster victims; and as Senate Republicans work to strip California of its clean air car standards...

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On today's BradCast: The pointless bleeding on Wall Street caused by Donald Trump's trade wars slowed a bit by end of day Monday after a roller coaster ride throughout the day. U.S. markets ended largely down, through not as sharply as the two days last week just after Trump announced enormous sanctions against pretty much every nation in the world (other than Russia), for no explainable reason. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Given the pointlessness of it --- with even Republican billionaires and long-time supporters turning on him --- and the lies told by Trump when announcing his tariffs, we turn to Trump-supporting callers for an explanation. Would they be willing to call in and defend this madness? Spoiler: We don't get any persuasive explanations. Though we do get some interesting lies from one Trumper and some reasonable explanation from folks who don't support him or what he's doing to the world.

Also today, the tragic story of Maryland resident Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia continued to churn late last week, into the weekend, and right up until airtime. The 29-year old father from El Salvador with a wife and five-year old autistic son (both U.S. citizens), had been protected from deportation by an immigration judge back in 2019 after escaping gang persecution in his home country. Last month, however, after detaining him in an Ikea parking lot in front of his son, the Trump Administration "mistakenly" sent Abrego Garcia to a gulag in El Salvador. Now they claim it's too late to get him back from the violent prison where, the judge noted, he faces threats from the same persecutors he'd escaped years ago. On Friday, a federal judge ordered the federal Government to bring him back. Today, just before air, Chief Justice John Roberts placed a (supposedly temporary) administrative stay on the U.S. District Court Judge's order on behalf of SCOTUS, following an emergency appeal by the Trump DoJ. Where it all ends, nobody currently knows.

And finally, before we turn to the phones, the remarkable story out of North Carolina, where a majority Republican state appeals court panel on Friday ordered that more than 60,000 voters should be stripped of their vote in last November's state Supreme Court election if they can't cure supposed problems with their ballots or voter registrations within 15 days. They would be robbed of their vote, but only, apparently, in the Supreme Court election. Losing Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin claims that the 60,000+ voters voted unlawfully in his contest against incumbent Democratic Justice Allison Riggs, even though they didn't. They followed all rules and laws in place at the time. Nonetheless, the 2 to 1 GOP appellate panel ordered those voters, including overseas military voters, to be given 15 days to be contacted and somehow cure supposed defects with their mail-in votes or voter registrations. This is part of Griffin's challenge to the election held almost six months ago, in which he lost to Riggs by 734 after two recounts and certification by the State Board of Elections. The matter now goes to the state Supreme Court, where Republicans have a 5 to 2 advantage over Democrats. One of those Dems is Riggs, however. She has recused herself. If the Court ties 3 to 3, the lower court ruling would stand...unless the federal court jumps in to put an end to this disturbing unconstitutional nonsense and blatant attempt by Republicans to steal another election before our very eyes...

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This one is really a debacle. It's likely criminal as well, on several levels, according to today's guest on The BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

You have likely heard by now about the group text chat that The Atlantic's Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg was somehow invited to over the commercially-available mobile phone app called Signal, in which top-level Trump Administration cabinet officials, including Donald Trump's Defense Secretary and former Fox 'News' weekend host, Pete Hegseth, discussed specific U.S. attack plans for bombing Yemen,

Goldberg detailed on Monday (free link) how he was invited into the group chat by Trump's National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz. Classified information was discussed in the conversation. But, while Goldberg knew better than to publish specifics, he explained: "What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing."

Other Signal accounts participating in the group included those for JD Vance (Vice President), Marco Rubio (Secretary of State), Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence), Scott Bessent (Treasury Secretary), John Ratcliffe (CIA Director), Stephen Miller (Deputy White House Chief of Staff), Susie Wiles (White House Chief of Staff) and Steve Witkoff (Special Envoy to the Middle East). That, as NPR reported today, the Signal app was cited in a Dept. of Defense email last week to all Pentagon employees, warning of a "vulnerability" exploited by "Russian professional hacking groups" that makes the app unsuitable for use by the military, even for non-public UNclassified information.

As luck would have it, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee had a hearing already scheduled for today, with witnesses including Gabbard and Ratcliffe --- both members of the Signal chat in question --- and Kash Patel, Trump loyalist and wildly-unqualified FBI Director. While most Republicans on the Committee were interested in discussing anything but this matter, Dems were rightly laser focused on it, including the fact that Witkoff was apparently at the Kremlin for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin this month when the text list, detailing plans to bomb Houthis in Yemen and reportedly revealing the identify of a senior CIA officer, were discussed.

We're joined today by our friend and longtime independent national security journalist MARCY WHEELER. In her piece today at Emptywheel.net, she detailed "Seven Reasons Trump's Entire National Security Team Should Resign in Disgrace" following the signal debacle. We step through each of those reasons with her today.

Wheeler was amazed that, even though the identities of everyone in the group were available to all members, nobody seemed to notice, or be troubled by, the inclusion of a journalist. Especially a journalist who Hegseth would go on to try and smear as "a deceitful and highly discredited, so-called journalist whose made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again." That, after Hegseth revealed classified war plans to him in the Signal chat and the White House has already confirmed the matter.

Wheeler charges that Trump's entire national security team in the group appears to have potentially violated Section F of the Espionage Act, which, in her words from her today, "makes it a crime to so negligently mishandle National Defense Information that someone not authorized to receive it does receive it."

"If you are so stupid as to share attack plans on a Signal thread that a journalist happens to be accidentally added to, that may be criminal," she tells me today, detailing how Section F of the Act bars the sharing of National Defense Information "through gross negligence", etc. "In other words, Pete Hegseth shares information about this attack with somebody not entitled. Because Pete Hegseth is so stupid, that might get you to [Section F]. And you had the entire national security establishment just sitting there watching Pete Hegseth do that!"

There is also the matter of violating both the Presidential Records Act and Federal Records Act by setting comments in the chat group to automatically delete after a week. Moreover, she observes, the fact that Trump claimed on Monday afternoon to know nothing about the matter, even after the story was published in The Atlantic, means that either critical NatSec information was withheld from the President, or he was simply lying when he claimed to have known nothing about it when asked for comment by a journalist at the White House. Wheeler argues that's "not plausible, because if he hadn't been told in advance, he would be firing [group chat member and Chief of Staff] Susie Wiles right now. He'd be firing Mike Waltz right now. JD Vance. He would be firing everybody who knew this was going to come out and didn't warn him. He hasn't fired any of them, so we have to assume he was lying when he pretended he didn't know anything about this." She goes on to add: "But if he didn't know anything about it, it means that he can't trust anyone around him. That all the people who are running his national security are not keeping him in the loop."

Also, the fact that Witkoff was in Russia, at the Kremlin, as a member of the group chat means that all of the accounts of other members on the list may also be compromised. "You bring a phone into Russia, they are going to compromise the phone. Sitting in the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin is really close to the top of the list of stupid things you can do with a phone when you're planning war strikes," says Wheeler. "The timing on it is quite clear. He was in the Kremlin when that list was started. Was his phone compromised? And if so, what else was on his phone? That's, to my mind, one of the most pressing questions Democrats should be asking every minute."

Tune in for much more on all of this from Marcy, including the outrage that FBI Director Kash Patel claimed during his Senate Intel Committee testimony today that he only just learned about the matter himself late last night, and that Trump's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, is likely too busy doing Fox "News" hits to be troubled with enforcing the rule of law against fellow members of the Trump Administration, no matter how much danger they may have placed the country in with their negligence and/or incompetence.

ALSO ON TODAY'S PROGRAM: Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report, covering a new round of wildfires in the very dry, very windy Carolinas this week, as Trump dismantles FEMA; a new warning about dwindling fresh water supplies thanks to disappearing glaciers as the climate continues to warm; and the fossil fuel industry calling in IOUs from Congress to block liability lawsuits from being filed against them for their roles in knowingly causing our worsening climate crisis...

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We've got a few explainers on today's BradCast. But I thought you might find it useful to be armed with some facts, truth and understanding right about now. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our explainer coverage today...

• Not long after we got off air today, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer signaled he would allow Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans to adopt a bad six-month spending bill rather than fight them, because that fight would results in a government shutdown as of midnight on Friday. It's certainly a dilemma for the Dems, many of whom seemed to come around to the decision to fight rather than fold today. Even the nation's largest federal workers union --- whose members would arguably be first and most directly effected by a shutdown --- persuasively called on Dems to do just that, arguing: "With thousands of federal workers either fired, placed on administrative leave, or at immediate risk of losing their jobs, AFGE members have concluded that a widespread government shutdown has been underway since January 20 and will continue to spread whether senators vote yes or no on H.R. 1968." Schumer's announcement that he will vote with Republicans to end debate on the Continuing Resolution Friday, suggests the GOP is likely to get the support of at least eight Democrats Senators that will be needed to overcome a filibuster tomorrow. But, we'll see if a few more Dems find the spine to stand up against Trump and stand up for Americans before then.

• Speaking of AFGE, they and a few other unions won a big victory today. They had sued the federal government to restore the jobs of thousands of "probationary" federal workers unlawfully fired by the Trump Administration. Today, a federal judge ordered those workers, at the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury to be rehired "immediately". U.S. District Judge William Alsup excoriated the Trump Justice Department's legal justification for the layoffs and their refusal to present evidence to support their case. "It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie," railed Judge Alsup from the bench. "That should not have been done in our country. It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements."

• Yesterday, you may have seen headlines about Trump's EPA chief Lee Zeldin declaring a rollback of more than 30 important health, safety and environmental regulations. (Eg: "Trump takes an ax to more than a dozen pollution rules in rapid-fire deregulation".) In fact, none of those regulations have actually been rolled back. Yet. "Today I'm pleased to make the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history," the new EPA Administrator dramatically declared in a two-minute video filled with one lie after another, falsely describing "suffocating rules that restrict nearly every sector of our economy and cost Americans trillions of dollars." The video was released to accompany Zeldin's Wednesday essay in the Wall Street Journal offering more false and misleading details on those lies.

  Today, we step through the key lies, explain the truth about them, and what Zeldin's announcement really amounts to. No, there is no "EV mandate" and the U.S. is already "energy dominant" as it was when Trump took office after America long ago became the world's leading producer of oil, gas, coal and renewable energy under President Biden, who also adopted a number of landmark climate initiatives that increased manufacturing, boosted the economy, produced clean energy and made America safer for everyone.

  It will be a long and difficult path for Trump's EPA to overturn dozens of health and safety rules long in place, as well as the agency's landmark 2009 scientific "endangerment finding" on the adverse health effects of planet warming carbon pollution on which a number of those regulations, adopted under the Clean Air Act, are based.

  Bottom line: the Trump Administration plan, as detailed by Zeldin, will increase pollution, worsen the climate crisis, allow more deadly cancer-causing toxins into our air and water, and force Americans to pay the bill for all of it through what Desi Doyen describes as a "pollution tax". You may support Zeldin and Trump's scheme to do all of those things, but let's be clear about what their announcement yesterday is calling for.

  The fossil fuel industry --- already the most profitable industry in the history of civilization --- immediately declared their support for the effort. Few others have done so and many have vowed to challenge it in court. Now it's up to all of us to fight against these unpopular plans. Tune in today for more details that may help to give you the ammunition to do so.

• Finally, Desi Doyen has a bit more on the Trump EPA's vow to Make America Polluted Again, and much more in our latest Green News Report...

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It may be the least surprising news you'll hear all week on The BradCast, but the story still needs to be told. The Trump Administration --- which still pretends to give a damn about "law and order" --- has, in just its first month and a half, handed out "Get Out of Jail Free" cards to nearly 100 corporations mostly headed up by Trump friends, donors and "investors" in his various crypto scams. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Before we get to our guest today on his new report documenting all of that, some news...

• Following a reportedly heated caucus meeting on Wednesday afternoon, Senate Democrats emerged to declare they would not help Republicans get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster to adopt a Trump-friendly Continuing Resolution to keep the government open through September. The GOP bill fails to put any brakes on Trump's lawlessness, and Dems are calling, instead, for a month-long, clean CR at current spending levels to allow time to finish bipartisan negotiations on a full 2025 budget vote in April. On Tuesday, House Republicans adopted the GOP spending bill without Democratic votes or input and immediately left town for a recess in hopes of forcing the Senate to pass the House bill before a Friday government shutdown deadline. Today, however, to the surprise of many, Senate Dems appeared to say no. For now. (After we got off air, additional reporting suggests the Dems' seemingly righteous stand against Trump and the Republicans in the Senate may be less than it seems.)

• All of that as Donald Trump's demolition of the federal government and Constitutional Order continues apace, with co-President Elon Musk and his DOGE Bros announcing new cuts and purges at the Dept. of Education, NASA, NOAA, Health and Human Services and the EPA.

• And, where Trump and Musk are gutting public agencies and services (unlawfully in many or most cases), Trump held an unlawful White House lawn commercial for Tesla, Musk's beleaguered EV company which has seen its stock market value plummet nearly 50% since last year's election. (But that free car commercial is hardly the only gift Trump is granting to Musk. See my conversation with today's guest.)

• On Tuesday, ProPublica revealed an email sent to remaining staffers at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) directing them to shred and/or burn remaining documents at its nearly emptied D.C. headquarters. Quick court action by groups suing to block the agency's closure has resulted in an agreement [PDF] by the White House to halt any further destruction of documents for now. If you believe them.

• The Dept. of Justice is reportedly gutting its Public Integrity Section. That is the unit which investigates and prosecutes crimes carried out by public officials. Existing probes will reportedly be handed to U.S. Attorneys around the country appointed by the President, rather than be prosecuted by longtime career officials at Main Justice in D.C.

For all of Trump's vows to "restore law and order", he has been doing the exact opposite during his first seven weeks in office. From pardoning violent criminals who attacked police officers during his January 6, 2021 insurrection to firing Inspectors General, to gutting the Dept. of Justice and other federal agencies that enforce the law, Trump's most robust pro-crime efforts may be seen in the corporate realm, particularly on behalf of those corporate CEOs who have been lining his pockets with tens of millions of dollars.

We're joined today by RICK CLAYPOOL of the nonprofit government watchdog Public Citizen, where he is a Research Director focused on corporate crime and the ways in which corporate power distorts democracy.

Last week, Claypool issued a new report titled "Corporate Clemency: How Trump Is Halting Enforcement Against Corporate Lawbreakers." In it, he details how the "Trump administration has already halted or moved to dismiss enforcement investigations and cases against 89 corporations." Though he notes today that, a week after the report was originally published, that number is now closer to 100.

Cases and investigations against powerful corporations have been nixed at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (all of them, in fact); at the DoJ and SEC, including for companies who appear to have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars bribing foreign officials; at the DoJ's Civil Rights Division, as well as its Environmental and Natural Resources Division; at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and elsewhere.

"34 corporate inauguration donors facing federal enforcement collectively gave at least $34 million toward Trump’s inaugural festivities," according to the new reports, which goes on to note that "These 34 corporations collectively face 60 separate federal investigations and lawsuits." Or, at least, they did.

In addition to scores of now dismissed investigations and cases against companies, particularly with Trump-friendly CEOs, as detailed in Claypool's staggering report, Public Citizen has also created a searchable public database, called the "Corporate Enforcement Tracker," where you can follow details on the status of investigations, suits and indictments rolled back, paused, reversed or killed entirely by the Administration for your favorite companies.

Claypool describes it as "highly unusual" for an Administration to do anything like this upon taking office. "A former Commissioner from the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission remarked that they were never aware of cases being dismissed by the agency itself for any reason, other than maybe the strength of the case, not because of the content. But here, the cases are plainly being dropped and dismissed in response to Trump's Executive Order - the anti-transgender and transgender 'ideology' Executive Order," explains Claypool. "It's horrifying to see the agency that is supposed to be protecting people from discrimination seems to be actively discriminating against a category of worker they are supposed to be protecting."

Other nixed cases including chemical companies previously facing prosecution for "high concentrations of carcinogenic air pollution coming from the factory. This factory was disproportionately harming black and low income Americans. Flash forward to now, the Trump Justice Department actually put out a press release about dropping the case, essentially celebrating that this is the end of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies."

Million dollar donations to the President's Inaugural and Library Fund are "just the tip of the iceberg," warns Claypool, citing media and crypto company CEOs padding Trump's pockets with tens of millions of dollars. And that's before we even get to the favors that Trump is offering Elon Musk's many companies, previously facing dozing of enforcement actions.

"If companies know they can break the law with impunity, they will," Claypool argues. "It is a frequent precursor to corporate catastrophes. Like the crash of 2008, like Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers pushing Oxycontin, like Volkswagen cheating [on emissions tests]. The lack of oversight allows corporate misconduct to fester. If they can cut corners in ways that break the law, but they don't think they're going to get caught, they're probably going to break the law. And that's going to harm people in the process."

Claypool's report at Public Citizen concludes this way: "Corporate crime and lawbreaking can victimize millions of Americans at an unimaginable scale. The bitter irony that it can happen under the banner of a supposed 'law and order' presidential platform might be amusing if the reality was not so plainly catastrophic. This will not end well."

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On today's BradCast: What's in it for Donald Trump? Seriously. Why does he want to break the government? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

I know why Elon Musk wants to dismantle and destroy the federal government piece-by-piece (so his government contracts can't be policed or businesses regulated, etc.) And I understand Trump's need for retribution against his perceived enemies. But why does Trump want to seemingly dismantle damn near every federal agency, from the U.S. Forest Service to USAID and beyond, no matter how ham-handedly? No matter how much it grows (not shrinks) the national debt, no matter how many Americans (including his own voters) it puts out of work, and no matter how much the chaos he is wreaking continues to sink his approval ratings? No matter how much none of his flailing lowers the price of eggs.

It's certainly not in the name of "efficiency" or cutting "waste, fraud and abuse", as the evidence makes plain, no matter how many lies and quickly disproven claims about "million and millions" of dead people receiving Social Security checks or Musk's DOGE Bros claiming to have "saved" at least $55 billion in Government contracts to date. (It's more like $2 billion.) All false claims that both Trump and Musk repeat, only to have to walk them back when proven wrong, time and again.

We discuss a lot of that at the top of the show, along with a bunch of related news headlines from over the weekend, before opening up the phones today to listeners for answers to that simple question: What's in it for Donald Trump? Why does he really want to dismantle the government?

We talk to a lot of callers with a lot of differing explanations (though being controlled by Vladimir Putin seems to be a listener fave...even if it doesn't fully answer all of my questions about Trump's behavior here.)

Perhaps Trump's recently-confirmed Sec. of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, gave away the truth on Fox "News" over the weekend, when he falsely claimed that Trump ran on "reprivatizing the economy". He didn't run on that. Though Project 2025 --- which he pretended to disavow during the campaign --- certainly called for it. Is that his game? Cripple federal government so private corporations can then fill the gap and offer the same services to the American people for a higher price that includes profit to those private corporations?

Please tune in for lots of interesting discussion today. And, if you have a better explanation for why Trump wants to kill the U.S. government by gutting hundreds of thousands of government jobs and services, seemingly at random, for no easily discernible reason, feel free to let me know in comments below...

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We can't fight every stupid, idiotic, dangerous or perilous thing during the Trump Era, can we? I know I can't, personally. But I don't speak for everyone else. And one person's stupid or idiotic may be another's dangerous or perilous. An interesting debate over picking battles and who gets to decide which ones should be waged is at the heart of today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... however, speaking of dangerous, Donald Trump lackey and MAGA merchandiser (or "sycophantic suck-up" as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse accurately described him today), Kash Patel was confirmed for a ten-year term as FBI Director by cowardly, sycophantic suck-up Republicans in the U.S. Senate today. All Democrats voted against him. Just two Republicans (Collins and Murkowski) joined them.

Aside from being wildly unqualified and publishing an "enemies list" of so-called "members of the Executive Branch deep state” that he vows to target, Patel also pleaded the Fifth to avoid implicating himself in crimes during grand jury testimony regarding his role in Trump's theft of thousands of pages of highly classified national security documents; was paid $25,000 by Russian propagandists to appear in an anti-FBI documentary series; appears to have millions of dollars linked to Chinese interests through shell corporations in the Cayman Islands; and, according to whistleblower allegations cited by the Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, appears to have committed perjury during his Senate confirmation hearing.

Other than that, he sounds like the perfect choice for FBI Director! Donald Trump has done it again! Did I mention Patel also publicly vowed, as recently as last December, to "come after" journalists "who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig Presidential elections"? (So much for the First Amendment, even if Patel remains a fan of the Fifth.)

THEN... Speaking of the First Amendment and protection of the free press, we recently reported on the Trump White House's attempt to violate the First Amendment by barring the Associated Press from White House events unless and until the 178-year old international media organization agreed to change its Style Guide to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America".

On the surface, it seems like a pretty minor fight, given everything else the Constitutional order is up against. But, upon closer examination, it really is fight over basic Constitutional rights. As NYTimes' opinion writer Jamelle Bouie accurately characterized it at Bluesky, "your willingness to accept this gulf of america nonsense is an indication of your willingness to accept much worse things coming from this administration."

Meanwhile, over The Atlantic, Senior Editor Gilad Edelman doesn't have any such concerns, and even appears to be victim-blaming by suggesting the fight is one that "the AP probably should never have picked in the first place."

That brief article by Edelman recently touched off our guest today, longtime media critic, political strategist and writer, JAMISON FOSER, who wonders, in a recent article, who Edelman thinks he is to decide which fights are worth waging in the Trump Era and which are not.

"I think the nature of the situation that we're in," Foser tells me today, "and the breadth and depth of the ways that we are in trouble, and things are stacked against us --- an autocratic movement has control of our entire government, much of the news media, much of the ways that people get information online --- things are really stacked against us."

"We are not in a situation in which there are obvious, clear, easily discernible, winnable fights we can choose. So this idea that people should only choose fights that they can win --- I think people should choose the fights that feel right to them. We should all be doing a little less trying to police what fights other people are choosing to engage in, and more finding a place where we can stand up and pick a fight where we can," he argues.

"We will probably lose it," he concedes, "because we will probably lose most of them. But sometimes in the loss there is some value. In this one [AP's defense of First Amendment freedoms] there is some value. There's value in saying, 'We can't stop Donald Trump from ordering his government to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. But we can say we are not going along with that. It is racist, and dumb, and he can't make us say it. There's value in saying that to ourselves, in not giving in to his attempt to control the English language. And there's value in showing our fellow Americans that we are not going along with that."

In AP's case, all they were doing was following the Style Guide they have used for decades. And Edelman still characterized it as a "fight" they "should never have picked."

We've got much more to discuss along those lines today with Foser --- including how elected Democrats might wage more productive fights --- in what I think is a really interesting conversation. Please give it a listen.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, covering the heroic senior DoJ official who quit this week rather than violate the law by following Trump Admin orders to claw back money lawfully granted to clean energy initiatives under Biden; climate change now tripling the price of coffee and cocoa; and Trump declaring himself 'King' to cancel New York City's very successful, first-in-the-nation congestion pricing...

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Before it disappears amid Trump's never-ending chaos, a bit more insight on today's BradCast regarding last week's "Thursday Afternoon Massacre", when at least seven longtime veteran prosecutors at DoJ chose to resign rather than enact improper orders from Trump's hand-picked, acting political apparatchiks installed to head up his weaponized Dept. of Justice. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... We take a few minutes today to rebut several blatant lies that Donald Trump has been telling over the past 24 hours about Ukraine, its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russia's three-year old invasion of its sovereign neighbor, and the money spent by the U.S. to date to help the war-torn democratic nation retain that sovereignty.

Trump now appears to be switching the official U.S. position in the conflict, siding with the invaders --- Russia and its corrupt President Vladimir Putin --- against Ukraine and our stalwart, longtime European allies in the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.

Among the many lies Trump has told about it all over the past 24 hours:

• Ukraine "started" the war. (False.)
• The U.S. has spent $350 billion in support of Ukraine's defense. (False.)
• Zelenskyy is a "dictator" with an approval rating of 4%. (False and false.)

Tune in for specific rebuttals on each of those points and more. But, on that last one, in fact, Zelenskyy's popularity in his country, at 52% as of December, outpaces Trump's in the U.S. where our President (who actually aspires to be a dictator!) has seen his approval ratings slip and his disapproval ratings spike (by 10 points in just four weeks since taking office!), according to new Reuters/Ipsos polling out today.

THEN... At least nine senior Dept. of Justice prosecutors --- many of them Republicans tapped for acting positions by the Trump Administration --- have resigned since last week in response to inappropriate orders from Trump's hand-picked acting Deputy Attorney General, Emil Bove. Seven of them chose to leave rather than sign on to a motion to drop criminal charges against NYC's Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted by DoJ last year on a series of corruption charges related to alleged favors to Turkish interests in exchange for air travel, luxury hotel stays and campaign contributions.

In recent months, however, the Democratic Mayor has been cozying up to Trump, offering to help with his deportation of immigrants in NYC. In exchange, Trump has ordered the DoJ to drop all charges against him, claiming Adams' indictment was constraining deportation efforts and was merely an effort by the Biden Administration to interfere with the unpopular Adams' reelection changes later this year. Bove has absurdly asserted, on behalf of the Trump Administration, that the indictment of a Democratic NYC Mayor by a Democratic U.S. Attorney last year, following a three-year probe, was evidence of "election interference" and the DoJ's "weaponization" under Biden.

The astonishing events of late last week, as all of this unfolded at both the DoJ office in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and Public Integrity unit at Main Justice in D.C. --- where five top prosecutors quit rather than sign on, and Bove threatened to fire every single prosecutor if nobody volunteered to sign the paperwork to drop the charges against Adams within an hour --- were so dramatic and disturbing, we needed to call in a ringer to help us try to make sense of it all.

We're joined today by our friend and veteran federal prosecutor, RANDALL D. ELIASON, formerly Chief of the DoJ's Public Corruption and Government Fraud section at the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C., now professor at George Washington University Law School, newsletter author at the Sidebars Blog and "Great Courses" lecturer on White Collar Criminal Law.

"One of the many remarkable things about this case is the memo from Bove [which] is just so blatant in its rationale that it's startling --- mind-blowing --- to think that you would even put this in writing," explains Eliason, referring to the clearly unlawful "quid pro quo" described by Trump's Acting Dep. A.G. in his memo to Danielle Sassoon, Trump's Acting U.S. Attorney at SDNY until she resigned after refusing the order. Bove made clear that charges against Adams were being dropped in exchange for his help on mass deportations.

Bove was Trump's personal defense attorney before being named as Acting Deputy A.G., was formerly a federal prosecutor at SDNY himself. In his memo to Sasoon, he charges, remarkably, that she was failing to "uphold the Constitution by disobeying direct orders implementing the policy of a duly elected President" and had "lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the Department of Justice.”

"He has got it exactly backwards," Eliason argues. "All prosecutors know that they swear an oath to the Constitution, not the President. You can't just disregard that oath."

"We don't swear an oath to the President or the President's policies," he continues. "The principled thing to do for a person in Sassoon's position is exactly what she did. If you give me an order that I can't in good faith follow, that is going to require me to violate my obligations, I can't carry out that order."

Eliason has much more insight to offer here, including why he disagrees with those who suggest Sassoon might have better served justice by staying at her post to push back against excesses of the Trumpers; whether he personally experienced anything like this during his lengthy career at DoJ; and what "the willingness to use the justice system for political ends" forebodes for the agency going forward in the Trump Regime.

"I was telling my students today that this is something I think they'll be talking about in fifty years, like the Saturday Night Massacre. This is such an earth-shattering event inside Justice," he tells me. Tune in for much more!...

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Incredibly, many Trump-supporting MAGA dupes still believe any of this is being done in the name cutting government "waste, fraud and abuse" --- much less "efficiency" in the federal government. As discussed on today's BradCast, I guess there are still millions who won't give a damn about any of it unless --- more likely, until --- it effects them directly. And it will. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

As David Dayen helpfully reported last month at The American Prospect, if you fired every single federal worker in existence --- all 2.3 million of them --- you'd save about $271 billion per year. While that may sound like a lot, it's just 4% of the annual budget. Of course, we'd lose much more in uncollected tax revenue, unprosecuted fraud in the private sector, lives lost, just to name a few big points. And, of course, Americans, such as Social Security recipients would lose a lot on a personal level when there was nobody left in government to send out their monthly checks.

But, as Republicans have been telling us (lying to us about) for decades now, the federal government has just become too bloated. It must be cut down to size, even if it's randomly done through mass firings at every federal agency, of anybody viewed as legally fireable (whether they are or aren't doesn't matter.) But here's another fun fact from Dayen: in 1960, amid the Golden Age of America's middle class, the federal government comprised 4.3% of all workers. Today, that number is just 1.4%.

Other than that, our government is huge, bloated and out of control! Who needs all that air traffic safety, security of nuclear weapons, food inspections, safe drinking water, disease tracking, cancer cures, law and order, disaster response, medical care, education, Social Security checks or life-saving weather reports and climate data? The federal government is just too "big". Let's gut it all! Legally or otherwise!

Much more on all of this --- and some of the heroes (even Trump-appointed ones!) trying to block and/or call attention to the worst of it --- on today's program, as culled from, among others, some of the following source material...

• AP: Delta jet flips upside down on a snowy Toronto runway and all 80 aboard survive
• Rolling Stone: FAA Employees Say Trump and Musk's Firings Are Dangerous
• AP: Trump fires FAA air traffic control staff, just weeks after DC crash
• NYT: Adams's Lead Prosecutor Quits Defiantly: 'It Was Never Going to Be Me'
• WaPo: Mass resignation marks a new kind of defiance in the second Trump era
• WaPo: High-ranking D.C. federal prosecutor resigns in protest
• WaPo: Musk's DOGE seeks access to personal taxpayer data, raising alarm at IRS
• WaPo: Top Social Security official exits after clash with Musk's DOGE over data
• NBC: Department of Homeland Security preparing to fire hundreds of senior leaders this week
• Bloomberg: US Health Department Layoffs Expand to Medicare, FDA
• NBC: CDC 'disease detectors' among hundreds fired as Trump administration ramps up agency cuts
• Politico: Mass firings continue across nation's health agencies
• Guardian: NOAA imposes limits on scientists, sparking concerns over global forecasts
• The Hill: EPA fires nearly 400 workers after OPM order
• The Hill: EPA puts employees who tackle pollution in overburdened communities on leave
• The Hill: National Science Foundation cuts 10 percent of staff
• Wired: National Science Foundation Fires 168 Workers as Federal Purge Continues
• AP: Trump's firing of 1,000 national park workers raises concerns about maintenance and operating hours
• SF Chronicle: Yosemite halts camping reservations, with no timetable for their return
• Fox 13 Utah: 'Crisis' at Zion as mandated job cuts hit popular national park
• Reuters: USDA probationary staff fired at three agencies, sources say
• NBC: USDA says it accidentally fired officials working on bird flu and is trying to rehire them
• The Oregonian: At least 600 workers to leave Bonneville Power Administration, spurring concerns about transmission grid
• CNN: Hundreds of FAA probationary workers fired by Trump administration, union says
• AP: Trump wants states to 'clean up forests' to stop wildfires but he cuts funds

Other than that, slow news day.

Also, on similar notes, we close today with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, as the costs of our climate crisis continue to mount in from coast to coast in recent days; Trump's FEMA is already denying critical disaster aid; and the Administration is desperately trying to find fired Dept. of Energy workers after figuring out that they were the ones who safeguarded the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile...

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As usual these days on The BradCast, thanks largely to the planned chaos of our Felon-in-Chief, there's more going on than we can cover. We try to stay focused on the most important and/or least covered stories. But late this afternoon, thanks to some remarkable politically thuggery at Trump's fully weaponized DoJ, and some remarkable courage in response to it, we've got a humdinger of a story to cover as well, as it broke just before airtime today. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Here are some of today's stories. (Though tune in for much more!)...

• A U.S. District judge in D.C. late last night, blocked the Trump Administration's termination of Hampton Dellinger, head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which helps federal employees avoid violations of the Hatch Act, and helps ensure whistleblower protections for them. Judge Amy Berman Jackson described Hampton's removal as "plainly" in violation of the law.

• Following up on a story that broke at the end of yesterday's program, more details today on a rare victory for Donald Trump in court these days, after a federal judge dismissed a challenge by several federal labor unions to Trump/Musk's so-called "buyout" offer that was sent to some 2 million federal employees. The Judge ruled the unions didn't have the standing to sue. With that obstacle out of the way, for now, and some 75,000 workers reportedly accepting the offer (we'll see if they ever get paid or if the scheme is found to be unlawful through a separate suit), the Administration has reportedly begun mass firings of hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

• Republicans in the U.S. Senate confirmed health menace Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, giving the longtime anti-vax conspiracist, oversight of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) among many others. All Dems voting against him. The only Republican to do so was Sen. Mitch McConnell, a polio victim as a child. That, as another "completely preventable" measles outbreak is now underway in west Texas, where all of the victims are said to be unvaccinated children. Kennedy's elevation as the nation's top health official also follows the head of Samoa's medical system charging that Kennedy lied during his Senate confirmation hearings regarding his involvement in a massive measles epidemic that killed 83 people on the island nation in 2019. Most of those killed were children under 5 years of age. All were unvaccinated for the most contagious infectious disease known to humans, one that is otherwise fully avoidable with the MMR vaccine, developed in 1971, which our new HHS Sec. has spent years advocating against.

• Then, the remarkable BREAKING NEWS out of New York and D.C. late this afternoon...

  Earlier this week, as we reported, Donald Trump ordered the DoJ to drop its felony indictment against NYC's Democrat-ish Mayor Eric Adams. He was charged last year with five criminal counts including bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations from Turkish interests. Most believe that prosecutors have him dead to rights, though he's pleaded not guilty, has refused to resign and is even running for reelection in November.

  He's also been buddying up to Trump since last year's election, and the 34-time convicted felon turned President has taken the unprecedented step of ordering his personal defense lawyer turned Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove (pictured above right), to make the corruption charges against Adams go away, as the wildly unpopular Mayor has vowed to help Trump with his immigrant deportation efforts in NYC.

  But the Acting U.S. Attorney in charge of the very independent Southern District of New York (SDNY), Danielle Sassoon --- a Republican former clerk to the late, far-right Justice Antonin Scalia and a member of the far-right Federalist Society --- refused to drop the charges against Adams. In a remarkable 8-page letter [PDF] to Trump's new Attorney General, Pam Bondi, requesting a meeting with her, Sassoon accused Bove of acceding to a "quid pro quo," said she was "confident" that Adams was guilty as charged, and that prosecutors were also preparing to charge him with destroying evidence. She said would resign, rather than drop the charges against Adams if that's what DoJ was insisting upon.

  In accepting her resignation, Bove wrote in his own extraordinary, Orwellian, 8-page letter to Sassoon, charging that she was somehow violating her oath of office by "disobeying direct orders implementing the policy of a duly elected President." In fact, her oath is to defend the Constitution and rule of law, not one of fealty to a President. Bove further alleged that the courageous Sassoon was insisting on "pursuing a politically motivated prosecution" (the charges against the Democrat Adams were brought last year by a Democratic U.S. Attorney appointed by Joe Biden) and that her refusal to dismiss the criminal charges --- for Bove's clearly stated political purpose! --- was "a disservice to the nature of this work and the public's perception of our efforts." He also promised that the DoJ would now investigate her.

  But, that's not all. After that, the case moved to the DoJ's public corruption unit in D.C., where two five more top officials, "The acting chief, three deputy chiefs and a deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division who oversaw the section" also refused to drop the charges against Adams, choosing to resign instead. Good for them as well!

  As of airtime, Adams remained indicted, six senior DoJ officials promoted by Trump have resigned in protest, and who knows where this all goes from here?!...

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the impact of climate change is reshaping U.S. real estate markets (bigly!); the Trump Admin is failing to hire thousands of seasonal firefighters before fire season; and Trump is rolling back money-, water- and energy-saving appliance standards again. And receiving a ridiculous "tongue bath" in the bargain from one of his top, most sycophantic cheerleaders at Fox "News"...

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Today on The BradCast: Congrats, America! Bribery, influence peddling, petty corruption, money laundering, fraud, conflicts of interest, even attempted cop-killing and much more is all, effectively, now legalized in these United States! At least if you're on the right team. [Audio link to today's show follows this summary.]

In his Inauguration speech, just three (looong) weeks ago, Donald Trump declared: "The golden age of America begins right now." Apparently he meant the Golden Age of Corruption. For him. And his chosen pals.

But, first up today, a correction to one point from yesterday's show (see the quick version of that correction at the bottom of yesterday's show posting).

Then, we step quickly through a few crime-related turns for Trump and his cronies today alone. Steve Bannon pleaded guilty to one New York state felony charge related to a fraudulent scheme in which he helped steal millions from hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters to supposedly build a wall on the U.S. southern border during Trump's first term. The plea agreement, if he behaves, will result in no jail time for Bannon who was previously charged [PDF] with related felony crimes at the federal level until preemptively pardoned for them by Trump on the last day of his first term. Repeat offender Bannon served four months in federal prison last year after being convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to answer subpoenas from the House January 6 Committee. After his sentencing today, he called on Trump's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to weaponize the DoJ against New York prosecutors Alvin Bragg and Letitia James.

Today, Trump also gave a full pardon today to Illinois' corrupt former Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted on felony charges related to trying to sell Barack Obama's U.S. Senate after he won the Presidency in 2008. Trump previously sprung Blago from his 14-year prison sentence with a commutation, six years early, during his first term.

Also today, Trump's personal defense attorney turned Acting Deputy A.G. corruptly ordered the DoJ to drop all charges against NYC's Democrat-ish Mayor Eric Adams on charges related to doing favors for Turkey in return for free airplane trips and hotel stays around the world.

Both Blago and Adams have each cozied up to Trump in recent months and today, they received their prize. The rest of us received the message that criming --- particularly public corruption --- is just fine as long as you say nice things about Donald Trump after getting caught.

But, if you didn't get the message, our quick summary of just some of Trump's most corrupt, pro-crime, anti-rule of law activities from just his first three weeks in office, from Day 1 right up until today, should help. Including...

• Pardoning all of the violent January 6 offenders on his first day in office;
• Firing Inspectors General from more than a dozen government agencies;
• Dropping DoJ prosecutions in progress for Republican elected officials (and even some Democratic ones that have cozied up to him);
• Firing scores of senior DoJ and FBI officials so far (he will be removing many more in the days ahead);
• Ordering all work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) --- the folks who police Big Bank, Credit Card and Payday Lender fraud on behalf of American consumers --- immediately stopped over the weekend;
• Signing a new Executive Order on Monday halting all enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA), the law meant to prevent bribery by Americans and American Companies of foreign officials. (Trump's order describes the federal law as an "excessive barrier" to U.S. commerce!);
• Quietly removing the head of the Office of Special Counsel at the Justice Department last Friday, (That's the office in charge of overseeing whistleblower complaints against the government and enforcing laws meant to tamp down on undue political influence);
• And, the removal of the Director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) just last night. (That's the office that polices integrity and conflicts of interest of Executive Branch officials.)

There is much more, of course, including, I'm sure, much we don't even know about yet. But there's a starter. And, of course, many of the acts summarized above --- in addition to making Trump's personal criming much easier --- are also, themselves, unlawful, even if that may take some time for the courts to sort out. Whether Trump obeys court orders that he doesn't like, or chooses to trigger a full blown Constitutional Crisis instead, remains to be seen.

To discuss America's new Golden Age of Corruption, we're joined today by longtime public corruption and ethics expert CRAIG HOLMAN, Ph.D., Capitol Hill lobbyist on Government Affairs for the nonprofit watchdog Public Citizen. He steps us through some of Trump's most recent corrupt acts, such as the Friday firing of OGE Chief David Huitema who was finally confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a 5-year term in December, after Republicans blocked a vote for more than a year following his nomination by President Biden. Holman, last year, was instrumental in finally helping to push Huitema's confirmation through GOP obstruction in the Senate.

"The Office of Government Ethics serves a very fundamental purpose," Holman explains, "to try to educate and make everyone in the administration --- over 140 different federal agencies --- understand what the ethics rules are, understand what the conflict of interest code is all about, and then help public officials comply with those types of rules." Well, no wonder Trump hopes to neuter that office!

"What we're seeing here --- besides utter chaos on Capitol Hill --- is a full-scale assault on accountability, oversight, and the checks and balances. It goes way beyond the Office of Government Ethics. It's already affected the Office of Special Counsel, 17 independent IGs have been fired," Holman tells me, before adding: "And, by the way, almost all of these firings have a direct financial impact on Elon Musk. So we're seeing the conflict of interest code being torn apart. Every agency he's gone into, all those agencies were overlooking Elon Musk's business practices. The people who were in charge of that have since been fired from these agencies."

We cover much more today in my conversation with Holman, including what interest Congress (specifically, the Republicans who currently control both chambers) may have in all of this, as their own Constitutional powers are being stripped away from them; whether Trump will actual obey court orders as they come down against him; and whether the Humpty Dumpty of our Constitutional order will ever be able to be put back together again, after all of this is finally, mercifully over.

The situation is "dire," warns Holman today. "We are on the very precipice of losing American democracy here. In the first Trump Administration, he sounded like he wanted to end democracy, and by the end of it he actually tried throwing a coup d'etat on Jan. 6th. This time around, he knows what he's doing. That's why we've seen this flurry. He's just marching unrestrained over our democratic norms and our democratic institutions. This is a very dire situation we are seeing here."

As if all of that news isn't swell enough, we close today with Desi Doyen's latest Green News Report on the heels of the hottest January in global recorded history. Enjoy!...

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Today on The BradCast: The last 4 or 5 days since Elon's DOGE Bros have, with the apparent permission of Trump, started taking command and control of computer systems and databases at federal agencies --- including the U.S. Treasury's system which pay out nearly $6 trillion per year --- have been, to say the least, chaotic, disturbing and insane. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

As we discussed yesterday, Trump, his co-Prez and their flunkies are unlawfully taking over and disassembling the U.S. Constitutional order and its Administrative State. In response, however, their lawless overreach also seems to be having the effect of coalesce the Opposition in a number of ways...

• Career federal agency insiders and whistleblowers are either pushing back against assaults on their agencies or otherwise informing the public of what is happening inside them;
• Civil lawsuits are being filed by both affected individuals at the agencies and by outside groups attempting to enforce the rule of law, informing the public of what is going on inside those agencies in the bargain.
• Public pressure is being brought to bear on elected officials through phone calls, attendance at protest rallies, etc.
• Democratic elected officials seem to be having a fire lit under them by all of this, and are finally beginning to lead rallies and take other actions in their overdue Opposition roles.

That is not an exhaustive list. For example, the free press, where we still have one, also play a key role in all of the above. In helping to let you know what is actually happening, public perception and opinion can change. From a wildly disinformed electorate last November to, perhaps, a more accurately informed populace as we all move forward and take action on those things, with at least some of the urgency that this historic moment demands

An Opposition is emerging. How effective and sustained it will be remains to be seen. But, I believe the outlines are finally beginning to coalesce. At least, I hope that is the case.

Today, we report some of the stories, connect some of the dots, and share some of the signs of that emerging Opposition, through a number of breaking news items over the past 24 hours or so...

• Trump's dumb new tariffs on China are bouncing back, raising energy prices for Americans.

• Disgraced Gen. Michael Flynn's stunning threat against insiders at CIA, FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who dare speak up against Trump's wildly unqualified nominees for HHS (RFK Jr.), Director of Nat'l Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard) and FBI Director (Kash Patel).

• After the Acting FBI Director last week tried to courageously stand up to Trump's personal defense lawyer turned Acting Deputy AG at the DoJ, the Bureau turned over answers to questionnaires from some 5,000 employees who were assigned to work on January 6 cases. The head of the FBI's New York field office vows to defend his agents against the Administration's unlawful purges. The FBI Agents Association advises its members: "Do NOT resign or offer to resign." Lawyers for DoJ prosecutors and FBI agents threaten to sue against "violation of due process rights."

• Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) vows to place a "blanket hold" on all of Trump's nominees to the State Dept. until the Administration pulls back its attack on --- and DOGE Bro takeover of --- USAID.

• Trump prepares an Executive Order to shut down the Dept. of Education, even though he can't actually do so without approval by Congress, which he will not receive. Musk's DOGE Bros have reportedly now moved in there as well, and are said to be scheming to cut spending and staff while accessing sensitive computers systems with personal information on millions of students who have received financial aid.

• Federal employee unions and advocates for retired Americans sue to block Musk's DOGE Bro takeover of the U.S. Treasury Department's payment system. And who is it who has gained access to the incredibly sensitive computers that handle payments of some $6 trillion, annually, in Social Security checks, Medicare payments, veterans benefits, tax refunds, federal worker paychecks and almost everything else the U.S. pays for? Apparently, it's a 25-year old employee of Musk's named Marko Elez who has remarkably been allowed to obtain full access and Administrative privileges to the system, to cut off payments, and even rewrite the incredibly sensitive and (previously) highly-guarded code that handles some 95% of spending by the U.S. Department insiders are flabbergasted and speaking to the press about what is going on.

All of these stories, as terrible as they are, actually include positive indications of an overdue Opposition finally beginning to assemble.

And, before we go, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, on how Trump's dumb tariff threats on imports from Canada imports are spiking energy prices; how the Administration is literally deleting "climate change" across the entire federal government; how Trump's deranged California water stunt has dumped billions of gallons of water, much of it into the oceans and none of it to Southern California (where our reservoirs are already full!)...

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With apologies to Rick Wilson, whose weekend social media quip I've stolen for the headline of today's BradCast, I'd say both things are true. We are both overwhelmed and under attack. In a way that the United States has never been under attack before. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

The "attack", of course, is coming from inside the house. In this case, from inside Donald Trump's White House. Or, at least from his extra-Constitutional White House henchmen: Elon Musk and his band of personal employees, none of who have been elected to anything or approved by the U.S. Senate or anything else. And yet, this band of miscreants that call themselves the "Dept. of Government Efficiency" or DOGE, some just literally out of high school, are unlawfully taking over the command and control functions of independent federal agencies in the Executive Branch, including the one that at Treasury that controls the nation's actual checkbook and its payments of more than $6 trillion each year. That system includes checks to federal workers, Social Security and Medicare payments, tax refunds, foreign aid and much much more.

They are doing all of this, apparently, with the lawless President's blessing. It is a Trump-approved attack on the rule of law, our Constitutional order, and, of course (the enemy of all MAGA!) the "Administrative State".

Doing my best today to overcome some local transmitter issues here in L.A. and technical issues inside our flagship local KPFK studios during our live show, I tried to put into stark perspective what appears to be unfolding --- what we know and what we don't, some of the heroes standing up in opposition --- over the past 72 or so unprecedented hours since we last spoke.

Here are just some of the media reports I was culling from. You'll have to tune in to hear how all the pieces fit together, what they portend moving forward, and for a quick listener call or two at the end...

• "Senior FBI official forcefully resisted Trump administration firings" - NBC NEWS
• "F.C.C. Chair Orders Investigation Into NPR and PBS Sponsorships" - NYTIMES
• "US health websites, datasets taken down as agencies comply with Trump executive orders" - CNN
• "More USAID staff ousted after Trump administration dismantles aid agency" - REUTERS
• "Trump and Musk move to dismantle USAID, igniting battle with Democratic lawmakers" - AP
• "Elon Musk's Team Now Has Access to Treasury's Payments System" - NYTIMES
• Historian Heather Cox Richardson puts a lot of this into perspective in her "Letters from an American" newsletter for February 1.
• Journalist Josh Marshall of TPM reports on several conversations with "people in the key executive departments" over the weekend, as Musk and his DOGE boys were taking over control of everything...

As noted, that's just a bit of today's source material. And a bit of what has happened over these past 72 hours. Tune in for much more today and, no doubt, on tomorrow's program, as Trump's attack on our Constitutional democracy, with the help of co-President and heavy Elon Musk, continues...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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Well, he did vow retribution against his "enemies". Today on The BradCast, we cover, among other things, Donald Trump's unlawful "Friday Night Massacre" of independent Inspectors General at Executive Branch agencies, his "Monday Massacre" of dozens of prosecutors this afternoon at the Dept. of Justice, and as much of note that happened in between that we find time for, along with speaking to callers on the back end. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the many stories covered today...

• Trump calls for ethnic cleansing in the Middle East, telling reporters on Air Force One over the weekend that he would favor "cleaning out" Gaza by sending Palestinians from there to other Middle Eastern countries. All the better to build sea side golf resorts in the strip of land that was previously home to more than two million.

• In case you didn't notice last week (I wouldn't blame you) Trump, with a stroke of his Executive Order pen, ended anti-discrimination programs across pretty much the entirety of the federal government, as originally (and successfully) instituted via Executive Order by Lyndon B. Johnson back in the Civil Rights era. Calling it "a reversal of 60 years of progress" and "a blatant step backwards," Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) said in a statement, charging Trump's order "gives federal government officials and complicit federal contractors a green light to engage in discriminatory practices that exclude minorities and women from employment and contracting opportunities."

• The laughably unqualified Fox "News" weekend co-host, accused sexual assaulter and public drunkard Pete Hegseth was confirmed as Sec. of Defense by Senate Republicans late on Friday night. All Dems voted against, and there were only 3 Republican defectors (Murkowsky, Collins and McConnell). That resulted in a tie vote which broken in Hegseth's favor by Vice President J.D. Vance. It was only the second time in U.S. history that a Presidential cabinet member faced a tie vote. (The first was Betsy DeVos' nomination for Education Secretary during the first Trump Administration.)

• South Dakota Governor, puppy killer, and ridiculous liar Kristi Noem was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Sec. of Homeland Security over the weekend. As DHS chief, she will oversee U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP); the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); the Transportation Security Administration (TSA); U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); the United States Secret Service (USSS); the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG); and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), among others. I'm sure it will go well. All Republicans voted for her. Six Democrats (Fetterman, Kaine, Kim, Peters, Slotkin and Shaheen) shamefully voted in support of this corrupt, inexperienced Trump stooge.

• On Friday night, news broke that Trump had fired about 17 independent Inspectors General at agencies across the federal government in violation of the law (U.S. Code, Title 5, Section 403(b)) mandating that, while Presidents can fire Inspectors General, they must notify Congress in writing 30 days in advance before doing so, along with "substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons" for such removals. But, of course, who is going to enforce the law against the lawless Trump?

• Speaking of which, on Monday, just before airtime, news broke that Trump's interim apparatchiks heading up the Dept. of Justice were sending out firing notices to more than a dozen prosecutors who worked with Special Counsel Jack Smith and those who prosecuted hundreds of January 6 cases.

We've got a whole bunch of related news and background in between and amongst all of those stories, before callers weigh in today on all of the above and more...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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