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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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate action champion Mark Carney elected as Canada's new Prime Minister; Oil tanker collision spills jet fuel into England's North Sea; Trump orders vast increase in logging of the public's national forests; PLUS: 1 in 5 butterflies in the U.S. have disappeared in the last 20 years... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): As Trump attacks US science agencies, ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred ushers in a fresh wave of climate denial in Australia; Climate change made South Sudan’s heat wave 10 times as likely, study finds; How one controversial pipeline in Africa reveals the state of the global fight over oil; Supreme Court rejects red states' bid to quash climate cases... PLUS: DOJ says ending Louisiana petrochemical case helps 'dismantle radical DEI programs'... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: The unspeakable corruption of the Trump 2.0 era is already under way, even before the 2024 election has even been finalized. So what are we all gonna do about it? I've got a few thoughts. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• The Biden Administration's Federal Trade Commission finalized its new rule today banning bait-and-switch junk fees for concert tickets, hotels, vacation rentals and more. The only vote on the FTC against the new rule? The man just named as Trump's incoming Federal Trade Commission Chair, of course.

• The Presidential Electors selected by popular vote in each state met today to officially cast their votes in the 2024 Presidential election in each state capital. And, though I didn't have time to mention it on air, 13 of the Republican Electors who cast votes for Donald Trump today in the Electoral College, in three different states, are currently facing felony charges for fraudulently declaring themselves to be official Electors in the 2020 election. But carrying out official duties as either alleged or convicted felons now seems to be a feature of the Republican Party.

• Convicted felon Donald Trump saw his motion to toss out his 34 state felony convictions rejected by New York Superior Court Justice Juan Merchan late on Monday. The judge, who oversaw Trump's trial for the filing of false business records as part of his hush money payoff scheme to porn star Stormy Daniels to help him cheat to win the 2016 election, denied every argument Trump's attorneys presented in their motion citing the recent ridiculous ruling by corrupt Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court that Presidents enjoy immunity for all crimes committed while carrying out official acts as President. The hush money scheme, however, took place before Trump became President, and evidence submitted by NY prosecutors during the trial regarding any official acts during Trump's first term as President was not enough to overcome the "overwhelming evidence" of his guilt presented by prosecutors, according to Merchan, who "held the line" on the rule of law, at least for now. It is now all but certain, for the first time in U.S. history, that a convicted felon will be sworn in as President of the United States on January 20th.

• But the corruption and abuse of power on display last week at a major cryptocurrency conference in the United Arab Emirates, as headlined by keynote speaker Eric Trump, the incoming President's son, is almost unfathomable. He hobnobbed with convicted criminals and others currently under investigation for financial crimes, and made clear that his family's new cryptocurrency platform, World Liberty Financial, is now open for business...wink, wink. Wanna buy off the next President of the United States? Here's a perfectly "legal" way to do so, to the tune of however many tens of millions or billions of dollars you'd like to give to the incoming felonious President. The New York Times offered mostly good coverage last week, even as few other media outlets seemed to pick up on the gob-smacking report --- and even as the "paper of record" managed to normalize this unprecedented abuse of power by the Trump Family with one of the greatest understatements of all time: at one point in their story they describe Donald Trump's new crypto-pipeline for bribery, payoffs, money laundering and political favors as little more than "a more relaxed approach during this new administration to business ethics"(!!!)

• So, what to do about all of this? Is there any way to push back? Or is this just the end of the rule of law and American democracy as we know it, as some "militant pessimists" (to paraphrase Josh Marshall in a more family friendly way), have been arguing since Trump's recent election? On that, and on all of our roles as The Opposition, I've got quite a bit to say --- more than I can possibly summarize adequately here. So, please tune in at least for that. It's important.

• Finally, Desi Doyen, who knows quite a bit about overcoming militant pessimism in her 15-year beat on the climate front, joins us for our latest Green News Report, as an "apocalyptic" cyclone unfolds in the excessively warm Indian Ocean; Malaria is on the rise again thanks to climate change; an historic ski resort in Switzerland is forced to call it quits; and, as the Biden Administration, still pushing out historic renewable energy action to the very end, its EPA succeeds in the long-overdue banning of several cancer-causing chemicals...

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As detailed on today's BradCast, the avenues for massive corruption by the incoming Trump Administration are, shamefully, only beginning to come into view. The fact that our corporate media so utterly failed to make such possibilities clear --- or even to simply explain to the electorate what tariffs actually are and how they actually work --- is just one more indictment that we will spend decades paying the price for. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... The final uncalled seat for the U.S. House in the next Congress, following the November 5th election, has finally been called. Republican Rep. John Duarte conceded on Tuesday night to Democrat Adam Gray in California's 13th Congressional district. It was the closest race in the House this year. As of air time, just 187 votes separate the two out of more than 210,000 cast, as Dems flipped a third seat in the Golden State this year. That leaves Republicans with one of the slimmest House majorities in history, holding just 220 seats to Dems' 215. That said, with the resignation of Matt Gaetz, and two other GOP members set to step down if confirmed to be in Trump's cabinet, the margin for passage of any of his legislative agenda may be in question in the lower chamber in the early part of next year. Just one or two defectors, or members who are out sick, could make it impossible for Republicans to get anything through the House.

THEN... We've debunked the long-ago, many times discredited 2000 Mules film --- supposedly documenting massive fraud by Democrats to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump --- over and over again in the past several years. Both state and federal law enforcement authorities have done so as well. Even the publisher and distributor of the documentary film and its companion book have pulled both from distribution and offered an apology. This week, so did the fraudulent film's director and rightwing pundit Dinesh D'Souza. He issued an apology to one of the people seen on surveillance video in the film, which claimed the man was committing a "crime" by depositing "fraudulent votes" into a drop-box near Atlanta in 2020. In fact, the man was dropping off his own ballot, his wife's and those of his adult children who lived with him --- all perfectly legal in Georgia. In his apology, D'Souza (who was pardoned for his own ACTUAL election fraud crimes by Trump!) appears to blame his partners on the film, a long-ago discredited GOP "voter fraud" fraudster group called True the Vote, for misleading him about the footage they supplied for his use in the film.

FINALLY... Donald Trump has been vowing for the past year or more on the campaign trail to institute massive trade tariffs on foreign nations of anywhere from 10% to 1000% depending on his mood on any given day at any given event. He has also, for years, been lying to the American public about tariffs, claiming they are paid by the nation whose products are taxed upon import into the U.S. In fact, as our guest today explains, they are almost always paid by the consumer in some fashion and are likely to inflate prices to boot.

We're joined today by DAVID DAYEN, investigative financial journalist, award-winning author and Executive Editor of The American Prospect magazine. He offers both a primer on how tariffs actually work (and/or don't), and how Trump plans to use them to muscle concessions and favors from other nations, beginning with Mexico, Canada and China, our three largest trading partners from whom we import some $1 trillion worth of goods each year.

"The heyday of tariffs was the 1890s," Dayen explains. "But the way that Trump is going about it, you've got to think of these tariffs as more like economic sanctions." Sanctions that could come back to bite the U.S. via a trade war if those nations decide to slap their own tariffs on our goods in return.

Trump has claimed that his recently promised 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and new tariffs of 10% on goods from China are meant to stop the "invasion" of migrants and drugs into the U.S. But that explanation, charges Dayen, is dubious at best. They are more likely intended as "simply leverage" in advance of renegotiations of the USMCA, the slightly modified replacement for the NAFTA trade treaty that was struck between U.S., Mexico and Canada during Trump's first term.

But, as Dayen reported at The Prospect last week, "there's a second piece to Trump's tariff strategy" that involves corporate importers and exporters, rather than nations. That, as he explains today, is where Trump's ability to give away tariff waivers is set to be a wildly lucrative scheme that will open the door to perhaps unprecedented corruption and payoffs from corporate interests hoping to avoid the economic pain of tariffed goods.

In his explanation, Dayen cites the famous "Cantillon Effect" which "comes down to whoever is closer to power is going to have better success in business." And now, between Trump's hotels and publicly-traded social media company and, perhaps most disturbingly, his new cryptocurrency venture --- (which a Chinese entrepreneur currently under SEC investigation for fraud, market manipulation and other violations of U.S. law just dropped $30 million into, three weeks after the election) --- it is going to be open season to buy favors and favoritism galore from the new President.

"This is what oligarchies look like," says Dayen. "This is what Russia looks like. If you're closer to the king, you're going to do better. The next four years are going to reflect this tendency."

And, yes, as he argues today, "the mind boggles at the potential for corruption"...

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It's our last BradCast before time off for travel over the holiday next week. Unlike years past, it looks like SCOTUS will be late in releasing all of their opinions for this term before its normal end this week, so we won't be here to comment immediately on some of the biggest decisions (or on tonight's Presidential Debate) until after our return. But we've got plenty to cover from the corrupted rightwing Court already this week, including with a guest today who suggests the analysis by many legal experts on yesterday's ruling striking down yet another part of federal public corruption law has been somewhat misleading. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the big SCOTUS decisions still to come, is a case regarding the "Chevron Doctrine" which, for decades, has given legal deference to federal agency experts over judges or corporate challengers, when it comes to the interpretation of federal laws through rules and regulations promulgated by those federal agencies. That could all be about to change, with enormous consequences first for the EPA, but also across the entirety of the federal government --- or, the so-called "Administrative State" as rightwingers have taken to deriding it. We explain the doctrine and some remarkable ironies behind the Court's upcoming ruling, whatever it may be, today.

But the corrupted, stolen and packed rightwing Supreme Court did manage to issue several rulings today. Among them....

• The Court rejected a multi-billion dollar nationwide opioid settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family.
• In a clear win for corporate interests, they gutted the SEC's ability to carry out in-house proceedings on civil fraud complaints, requiring federal jury trials instead in an opinion likely to have far-reaching effects on other regulatory agencies as well.
• SCOTUS also kicked a Presidential election year hot potato down the road for another day by allowing Idaho hospitals, for now, to perform emergency abortions under federal law, even though the procedure is barred under state law.
• And, as we also discuss with Desi, the High Court blocked, for now, to the EPA's "Good Neighbor" rule which limited air pollution from power plants and other facilities that pollute downwind states. While the regulation has already substantially lowered pollution --- and saved lives --- in the states where it is in place, the Court prevented the EPA from enforcing it until after lower court challenges by largely Republican-controlled states and several industries are completed.

NEXT... On yesterday's show we critically covered the Wednesday SCOTUS ruling in Snyder v. U.S. [PDF], an opinion which overturned the conviction and 21-month prison sentence of an Indiana Mayor who received a $13,000 check from a company just two weeks after his city had granted them a contract worth more than a million dollars. The Court's rightwingers determined that the federal statute in question only applies to out-and-out bribery cases, where a quid pro quo was agreed upon before a public action. After-the-fact "gratuities", the Court's six Republican-appointees ruled, are apparently just fine. Or, at least, not unlawful under their reading of the federal statute in question.

While many legal analysts and experts have derided the ruling since it was issued on Wednesday, our guest today, RANDALL D. ELIASON, former chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section at the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C., now a white-collar criminal law professor at George Washington University Law School, had a different take that he posted to Twitter yesterday: "I have no problem with the Snyder decision, that 18 USC §666 covers only bribes and not gratuities. I think that makes sense."

Really? Why? Today Eliason joins us to explain why the law --- which, as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson notes in her dissent with the Court's other liberals, "imposes federal criminal penalties on agents of those entities who 'corruptly' solicit, accept, or agree to accept payments 'intending to be influenced or rewarded'" --- can arguably be interpreted as applying onlyto before-the-fact bribes, as opposed to after-the-fact "gratuities", as they are described by the Court's majority.

"I'm not happy about the outcome," Eliason concedes today. "You're right that there's been a pattern of decisions over the last more than a decade narrowing public corruption laws, and I've been critical of a lot of them. And I've been on your program being critical of a number of them in the past."

"So I'm not happy about the outcome. But I don't think the majority is being unreasonable in this particular decision. Because what this decision is about is not whether the conduct of the Mayor is a good thing, or whether it should be prohibited. It's just about the language in this particular criminal statute that Congress drafted. And it's really a badly drafted statute. It's poorly written. It's confusing. And even though the lower court in this case had upheld his conviction, several other federal courts of appeals had said the same thing, that this law does not apply to gratuities, and agreed with Snyder."

He explains that there is "a real legal distinction between a bribery and a gratuity", and that other federal statutes prohibit them both. But in this case, §666 is less than perfectly clear. And, when there is a "tie" in legal interpretation, the tie is supposed to go to the defendant who, the Court noted, can still be held accountable for accepting a gratuity under state and local laws.

"You see a lot of headlines in the wake of this decision: 'Supreme Court says bribery is okay.' No, the whole point was it wasn't bribery. It was a gratuity, which is something far less serious. And the issue was does this particular statute cover this kind of gratuity? The answer is no. I think, based on the way that statute is written, it's a reasonable outcome."

While I'm not sure I fully agree --- and even he notes that Justice Jackson makes several good arguments in her dissent --- Eliason's expertise and insight into the laws in question shed welcome light on this otherwise seemingly corrupt ruling.

On a related note, we also discuss how all of this might apply to the arguable millions of dollars in "gratuities" that members of SCOTUS, like Clarence Thomas, have accepted over the years and whether that might play into the Court majority's opinion. And how Congress, had they not become completely dysfunctional in recent years, could easily clarify this issue through simple legislation.

On one other matter before we finish our conversation with Eliason today, he offers his thoughts on SCOTUS' upcoming Fischer decision regarding whether the statute used to charge hundreds of January 6 defendants --- including Donald Trump --- with "obstruction of an official proceeding" may be struck down by the Court. Eliason is "pessimistic" about what is likely to happen, though believes that even if the Court strikes it down for use against many of those charged for the J6 insurrection, that "there's a good chance that the charges against Trump would still survive."

FINALLY... Before we disappear for the next week, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest 'Green News Report', with more thoughts on the imperiled Chevron Deference Doctrine; Climate disaster upon climate disaster this week for a New Mexico town; and some very good news indeed for President Biden's job-creating climate law...

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On today's BradCast, we try to keep up with the damage caused both by Hurricane Ian and by the former President's team of fraudsters. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

We begin with a quick update on the still-unfolding devastation of Ian in Florida. After having crossed back into the Atlantic, the storm has gained strength and hurricane status again. It is now aiming for another landfall, this time in South Carolina on Friday. After that, we check in with an old friend who rode the storm out this week in the Sunshine State.

We're joined today from southeast Florida by NICOLE SANDLER of The Nicole Sandler Show --- and, too-occasionally, of The BradCast, where she is kind enough to serve as our guest host from time to time. Nicole tells us she "got really lucky" this time, as she lives in one of the few areas of Florida which wasn't pummeled by a direct hit from Ian, though she reports it still got very wet and windy even where she is.

Naturally, in addition to the weather, we discussed the politics --- including the climate change politics (or, more aptly, the climate change denialist politics) --- of Florida Republicans like Gov. Ron DeSantis, who famously voted against federal aid for Superstorm Sandy when he first arrived as a freshman Congressman in 2013 "before Donald Trump plucked him from the back-bench of Congress where he wallowed in obscurity." What impact will Ian have on DeSantis' re-election hopes against his Democratic challenger this year, former Gov. Charlie Crist? It's too early to say, she notes, but "at least he's not bad-mouthing the President as he takes the money that President Biden has been so freely offering."

And what of Rep. Val Demings' challenge for Florida's U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by Marco Rubio? There is, of course, much to discuss with our old friend today, including the seven Republican U.S. House Members and one U.S. Senator from Florida who have, collectively, accepted more than a million dollars from fossil fuel industry donors, as they try to block the Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring public companies to reveal the financial risks that our climate crisis now poses to their businesses. DeSantis himself, whose own re-election campaign has taken more than $800,000 from the industry, has even gone so far, according to The Lever today, to "spearhead an initiative to bar his state from considering environmental factors such as climate risks in its investment of billions of dollars of retirement savings of teachers, firefighters, and other government workers."

Will this week's climate change-intensified storm change those politics in any way?

Then, from keeping up with Ian, we try to keep up with the attempts at legal accountability for Donald Trump's merry band of GOP "voter fraud" fraudsters. Among our related stories on that today...

• The election worker in Michigan who was charged this week with tampering with voting equipment after he was seen inserting a USB drive into an electronic pollbook system at the polls during the state's August primary.
• Disgraced trump attorney Sidney Powell saw her counter-suit against Dominion Voting Systems tossed by a Trump-appointed federal judge on Wednesday. Dominion is suing Powell in a $1.3 billion defamation suit. The company's complaint is moving forward. Powell's counter-complaint, as of Wednesday, is not.
• And, a federal judge (in this case, one appointed by Ronald Reagan), ruled that a defamation lawsuit against Fox "News" and its former host Lou Dobbs may move forward to the discovery phase. This week, the judge rejected a motion by Fox and Dobbs to toss the case filed against them by a Venezuelan businessman who Dobbs had accused of executing an "electoral 9/11" in 2020, falsely charging the man was somehow linked to Hezbollah and somehow rigged voting systems from both Smartmatic and Dominion to steal the election from Trump.

Next, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with more on the widespread damage and records smashed by the climate change-fueled Hurricane Ian; a legislative crash and burn for Sen. Joe Manchin this week; a new criminal probe for CA's largest and most corrupt power utility; and the mysterious breaches of the Russian natural gas pipelines to Germany.

Finally, as if that's all not enough, some breaking news at the end of today's show. The wildly corrupt Trump-appointed judge overseeing the former President's attempt to quash the DoJ's criminal probe investigating thousands of documents he stole from the White House and stored at Mar-a-Lago, issued another insane ruling in Trump's favor. This time, she overruled the Special Master --- the chosen by Trump and appointed by her --- who had ordered Trump's attorneys to offer evidence to back up Trump's claims that documents were planted by the FBI and/or declassified by Trump before he took them from the White House. Judge Aileen Cannon also pushed back the deadline for Special Master Raymond Dearie to complete his work until mid-December, despite Dearie's plan to complete his review of the documents in question by mid-October...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Republicans and Joe Manchin quash nomination of a climate hawk to the Fed; Methane emissions from coal mining far higher than previously thought; ExxonMobil loses another court bid to stop climate change legal probes; PLUS: Lake Powell hits new historic low, threatening hydro-power supplies... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Moldova, Ukraine Hail Connection to EU Energy System; Koch, Halliburton, Subway, others fund Putin's Ukraine war. Boycott them.; The Big Sneeze: Climate Change To Make Pollen Season Nastier; The Sarah Bloom Raskin debacle is another strike to Biden’s climate agenda; $75 Million For Residents Whose Homes Were Built On Toxic Landfill; Texas And Other States Want To Punish Fossil Fuel Divestment; Somalia's Worst Drought In Four Decades Means Millions Need Aid; As Drought Deepens, Californians Are Saving Less Water... PLUS: Let's go on an Energy Adventure!... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: A good answer to the question of how the hell we got here. We have an FCC that appears fully captured by the very (rightwing) corporate entities it is supposed to be regulating while overseeing control of our public airwaves. [Audio link to show follows below.]

But first, before we get to our main story today, which is a scoop you probably haven't heard about elsewhere, Donald Trump's own FBI Director Christopher Wray testified in the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee on Thursday that he is unaware of any evidence to suggest widespread absentee ballot fraud is underway. That runs completely contrary to the President of the United States' continued, persistent, repeated, evidence-free claims that Democrats are running some kind of massive absentee ballot fraud scam to steal the election from Trump.

On the other hand, Donald Trump was and is trying to steal the U.S. Census from the people of the United States. But on Friday, a federal judge ordered a stop to it, based on testimony and email from Census Bureau officials revealing that the Commerce Department's order for the Constitutionally-mandated decennial head count to be prematurely ended this month would result in fatally flawed headcount data. The Trump Administration has been trying to complete the tally in time to turn it over to the President for final approval by the end of this year, to avoid the current deadline of April 2021 when Joe Biden could be in office to approve it instead. The attempt to force an under-count, according to critics, would bastardized U.S. House seat apportionment, as well as thousands of state legislative seats and the distribution of some $1.5 trillion in federal spending for the next ten years. It would also result in the under-count of minorities and the shifting of political power to white, rural Republican districts.

And speaking of politically captured federal agencies, earlier this week at The BRAD BLOG, award-winning journalist turned media reform activist SUE WILSON broke the story of a "Petition to Deny" license renewals filed against three broadcast television stations in the Baltimore market. The petition, filed by longtime, D.C.-based Republican communications attorney and former FCC official ART BELENDIUK, charges that the giant, rightwing corporate TV station owner Sinclair Broadcast Group is unlawfully violating the Telecommunications Act [PDF] by secretly owning or controlling three stations in the Baltimore market, when they are only allowed to own one.

Belendiuk and Wilson join me on today's program to explain how the far-right Sinclair, which own Baltimore's WBFF, also secretly controls the ownership of Cunningham Broadcast, which nominally owns WNUV and Deerfield Media, which holds the license to WUTB in the same market. Belendiuk explains how that violates federal restrictions on media ownership, while noting that his "Petition to Deny", filed in Baltimore in hopes of blocking the stations' licensing renewals, is just the first such Petition, given that Sinclair is pulling the same corporate shell game scam with stations all across the country.

"You can have relationships with other stations in the market, but they're carefully regulated by the FCC," Belendiuk tells me. "But Sinclair has gone way beyond that, down to the point of setting the salary of the president of Cunningham. That's not the kind of thing you do at arm's length. Cunningham, which is the main partner of Sinclair, has twenty stations in twenty different markets and they're all paired with Sinclair. So this isn't a Baltimore problem, it's just that the petition had to be filed in Baltimore because of FCC reasons. The first place you could file was in Baltimore."

Wilson detailed in her recent report how, under the FCC's regulation of the Telecommunications Act, "In a single local broadcast market, one company may apply to own two stations --- if there are nine or more stations in that market. [But] Baltimore has just eight stations, and three of them are actually owned by Sinclair."

Sinclair, which officially owns almost 200 hundred TV stations across the county in more than 100 markets, largely in the South and Midwest, first came to national prominence when they mandated their hundreds of otherwise trusted local TV news anchors to read a script on air about "fake news" being a threat to democracy, back in early 2018. As their stations are affiliated with various networks such as ABC, Fox and The CW, local viewers often have no idea they are actually watching a Sinclair station, with a far-right corporate owner controlling the local station's newsroom.

"What's really at stake here are the diversity of voices that we the people get to hear on our local TV stations," Wilson explains. "Local television news is really the medium that most of us trust more than any other today for our news. This is really cutting away at that kind of trust, when you allow one company to own so many stations." She says "the law is clear," but the FCC, whose chairman Ajit Pai was appointed by Donald Trump, is failing to enforce it, even though the details of the sham ownership of the stations and companies controlled by Sinclair were discovered in both FCC and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents, according to Belendiuk's petition

"The commission is aware of this," Belendiuk insists. "Enough is enough. it's time for the FCC to stop looking the other way."

The self-described "political conservative" also shares the progressive Wilson's concerns about the dangers of the lack of diversity over our public airwaves. "In many markets --- take Columbus, Ohio --- they own two major network affiliates, Fox and I believe an NBC station. That means every day at 6 o'clock there are two local newscasts going out holding one political view. That's not what the Communications Act intended. The Communications Act intended that there should be a diversity of views. If there's a Sinclair with a clear rightwing view, there should be another station that has a middle-ground view, and one that maybe has a leftwing view. There shouldn't be one voice."

He goes on to discuss the serious "impacts" all of this has on our politics and elections. "It really, really matters to the people of Columbus, Ohio. And they're being deprived of the information they need to vote for the candidate of their choice. Whether you're voting Republican or Democrat, that vote should be an informed vote. When you control the local news, which is really what I see as the problem, then I'm no longer getting that kind of information that I need to make an informed decision."

Belendiuk notes that station license renewals, which come up every eight years, will also be happening soon in other markets around the country where, he says, "any citizen can file a petition saying why they don't serve --- and this is in the Communications Act --- 'the public interest, convenience, or necessity'," before he details how Sinclair has been repeatedly fined by the FCC for other violations over the years when they were found to not be acting in the public interest as mandated.

Sinclair has until October 1 to respond to the Petition, after which the matter will either be decided by the FCC or, if they ignore or attempt to whitewash the complaint, by a federal Appeals Court, Belendiuk vows.

There is much more on all of this in today's show, including information on how you can reach him and take action locally if you feel, like he does, that "enough is enough".

Finally today, because this week has been more than "enough", we end with the overdue return of one of our favorite Trump-era musical satirists! Randy Rainbow sends us off into the weekend with a tune that we dare you to get out of your head after you hear it...

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Baltimore's crowded TV market highlights the shell game that media goliath Sinclair Broadcasting plays across the nation to illegally dominate the information Americans can consume over our public airwaves. The agency tasked with overseeing those airwaves, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has long turned a blind eye to allow Sinclair, the very powerful purveyor of rightwing propaganda, to violate US law.

Congress passed the Telecommunications Act [PDF] so no single television company could dominate the news and information available to "We the People" in any single market or even nationwide. Under the law, a single TV company is permitted to reach no more than 39% of viewers in the United States over all. In a single local broadcast market, one company may apply to own two stations --- if there are nine or more stations in that market.

Baltimore has just eight stations, and three of them are actually owned by Sinclair: WBFF, WNUV, and WUTB.

Sinclair lawyers (who also represent Cunningham Broadcasting and Deerfield Media) will say Sinclair owns WBFF, Cunningham owns WNUV and Deerfield owns WUTB. But, in a September 1 legal Petition to Deny the renewal of all three stations' licenses, due to both the shell game and the lies Sinclair has told to protect its unlawful ownership, Republican attorney Art Belendiuk researched Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents to prove that both Deerfield and Cunningham are actually both controlled by Sinclair.

"Sinclair controls three television stations in Baltimore, while the FCC rules do not permit it to control more than one," the petition, filed on behalf of local viewer Ihor Gawdiak, argues, while detailing how the shell game of nominal ownership by the other two companies is simply meant to mask Sinclair's violation of federal law...

On today's BradCast, I’m your guest host --- Angie Coiro, of In Deep with Angie Coiro --- while Brad and Desi are on the road.

I’m glad to have JODI JACOBSON on hand, from Rewire.News. Like me --- and like you, maybe --- she watched the whole Brett Kavanaugh circus today, and shares her impressions with us. She’ll be back again tomorrow.

Speaking of Rewire, this story posted there late today is deeply affecting. Watching Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s life get shredded, five Congresswomen spoke up to publicly identify themselves as victims of sexual assault or domestic violence. Rep. Alma Adams of North Carolina said so very simply that this is "just part of her job representing her constituents."

This hour I present to you the contrasting statements of the accuser and the accused. A tentative but strong, conciliatory and polite woman (asked about taking a break, she replied "Does that work for you? I’m used to being collegial."), and an angry, bellowing, interruptive, hostile nominee for a lifetime position on the U.S. Supreme Court. As Brian Behar tweeted: "Can you imagine what the reaction would've been if Dr. Ford had behaved even half as hysterically as Brett Kavanaugh or Lindsey Graham?"

Speaking of Twitter: you’re welcome to view my analysis of Brett Kavanaugh’s tell-tale face. I tweeted that thread before he took his seat at the hearing; then, every time I glanced at his face, it only confirmed for me his wrath at having his power, privilege, and entitlement questioned in the slightest. I guarantee you: countless women have seen that face in the worst of all possible circumstances, and you never forget it.

Until tomorrow, then...

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Today on The BradCast, on the last full day of the Obama Presidency, we continue to try and keep our eye on U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Donald Trump cabinet nominees and the extraordinary conflicts of interest almost every one of them seem to have. [Audio link to show posted below.]

Contentious hearings continued today in the U.S. Senate with Treasury Secretary nominee and billionaire former Goldman Sachs partner Steven Mnuchin facing tough questions from Democrats (and even some Republicans) over allegations of fraud and "widespread misconduct" against him and his bank, OneWest, during the Great Foreclosure Crisis. Also today, during his own confirmation hearing, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, Trump's pick to head the Department of Energy, conceded that he was wrong for calling for the agency to be shut down when he was a GOP Presidential candidate. And, while it's being reported that he had no idea what the DoE actually did when he accepted the offer to head the federal agency that oversees the nation's nuclear program (Perry is said to have previously understood them to be in charge of oil and gas production), he also appears to be changing his mind about the threat of climate change after speaking with some actual scientists as he studies up on his new job.

Then we're joined by Craig Holman who, as Public Citizen's Government Affairs watchdog, recently sent letters to the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), seeking an official probe into purchases of health care company stocks made by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Trump's nominee to head Health and Human Services, at the same time the Congressman (and Rep. Chris Collins of NY, who also participated in the questionable investments) were working on legislation that may have been designed to help the very same companies.

Holman also shares a new, previously unreported observation about an ethics provision enacted by President Obama on his first day of office, requiring all Administration personnel to sign a pledge recusing themselves from taking any actions that might affect their former employers or clients. But that order, which Holman credits for keeping the Obama Administration so scandal free, is now apparently being ignored by the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) in their vetting processes for incoming Administration officials.

"I have run over all the OGE ethics reviews of all the new Trump nominees," Holman tells me, "and it isn't mentioned. It just vanished, as if it doesn't exist. It's still an ethics order with the authority of law. Trump hasn't gone into the White House yet to repeal it, but somehow he's convinced the Office of Government Ethics just to look the other way."

More details from Holman today on that and on Price's questionable --- and perhaps even, criminal --- investments, and which government agency, if any, might actually be able to bring some accountability for them.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with more on the flood of Senate confirmation hearings for Trump's team of climate science deniers --- and one last gift President Obama left for the planet on his way out the door...

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On today's BradCast, Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of State, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, has filed papers to "divest" from the oil giant. But a closer look at his filings suggests he may not actually have cut all ties and interests in the profits of the only company he has ever worked for until now. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

First today, apparently it's still not "terrorism" when a non-ISIS American carries out a mass shooting, as was the case last Friday at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport. The alleged shooter, a veteran of the Iraq War and former National Guardsman, killed five and wounded six others, even as Republican Florida lawmakers press for more guns in airports and elsewhere.

Then, as many as eight of Trump nominee's are all set to come before U.S. Senate committees this week for confirmation hearings, pretty much all at the same time, and even before the U.S. Office of Government Ethics has even completed the background checks for many of them for the first time since the OGE was created. That, despite unprecedented corporate conflicts of interests for virtually all of the cabinet-level and top advisory positions being filled --- not to mention the first press conference in six months scheduled by Trump at the same time, along with the Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's plan plan to hold a budget "vote-a-rama" concurrently with all of the above.

One of the nominees set for truncated confirmation hearings this week is Exxon's Tillerson, who last week filed papers with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) explaining how he plans to divest from some $180 million in Exxon stock. While Tillerson's attorneys describe the scheme as a way to sever ties with the oil giant, Public Citizen's David Arkush finds a discrepancy in the legal filings that suggest Tillerson may still have reason for allegiance to Exxon, rather than the well-being of U.S foreign policy.

"In the agreement between Exxon and the trustee [set to keep Tillerson's holdings while he serves as Sec. of State]," Arkush finds wording "that would leave him with a clear incentive to still favor Exxon as Secretary of State."

"He has viewed the entire world through the lens of what's good for Exxon," Arkush explains after detailing the concerns with the SEC declarations. "A lot of people look at that record and are critical of the fact that he has no government experience and, technically, I guess, in a certain sense, no foreign policy experience. I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is he does have experience...He has spent 41 years working at a single company that has a single motive, which is to make money by finding oil around the world, digging it up, and burning it." He goes on to optimistically warn: "We are headed toward utter disaster."

Finally today: Hollywood takes a stand against Trump and in favor of press freedoms...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Two new hurricanes breaking records in the Atlantic and Pacific; U.S. House Science Committee chair now investigating the SEC for investigating Exxon; India signs on to the Paris Agreement; PLUS: City of Angels gets on path to 100 per cent renewable electricity... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The Paris climate agreement is entering into force. Now comes the hard part; Trudeau Unveils Carbon Price as Canada Acts on Paris Pledge; Only 1 in 5 people hear people talk about climate change at least once a month; Exxon faces a first-of-its-kind lawsuit over climate deception; Peak salt: is the desalination dream over for the Gulf states?; The planet hasn't been this hot for thousands of years; A Curious Plan to Fight Climate Change: Buy Mines, Sell Coal; Timber Company Tells California Town, Go Find Your Own Water... PLUS: Yes - Donald Trump Is a Threat to the Planet... and much, MUCH more! ...

We have a number of encouraging items on today's BradCast, believe it or not, regarding elections and campaign finance for a change.

But first today, after an emotional debate in South Carolina, the Confederate flag will finally come down at the state capitol on Friday - clearing the way for debate on stuff that may actually reduce gun violence, racism and terrorism. But in the U.S. House, it's business as usual as the GOP fails on a Confederate flag-related amendment.

After that, another reminder why Internet Voting would be a disaster, and a bit of Trump news (which I know you crave every single moment --- don't lie!), some very good news today from the Florida Supreme Court on redistricting and even more good news from the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. on campaign finance.

Hamline University professor of political science and law David Schultz --- author of last year's Election Law and Democratic Theory and the upcoming Presidential Swing States: Why Only Ten Matter --- joins us to discuss those cases and four important steps he's laid out which could be taken immediately to reform our nation's campaign finance embarrassment. The best news: none of the steps require either a Constitutional amendment or our broken Congress! (Though it might require the President of the United States to step up.)

Among those steps, the FCC, for example, could immediately require free airtime for candidates over our public airwaves. "About 60-70% of all the money that will be spent in Presidential elections will be spent on media advertising predominantly on television," Schultz explains. "Forty years ago, the average time that a candidate got on the national news to describe his or her position was about a minute. Now it's down to about ten seconds."

"Requiring that free air time would be perfectly Constitutional" in exchange for licenses granted by the FCC. "If the FCC can move on Net Neutrality, it can move on this." But that's just one of several executive agencies which the President could instruct to take action without the need for Congress or amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Plus: Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on the terrible climate position of the latest Democrat to enter the 2016 Presidential race and much more...

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Guest Editorial by Ernest A. Canning

Newly introduced legislation would permit Wall Street wolves to drive off America's financial shepherds.

It is perhaps useful to think of the Wall Street executives who swindled their own investor/clients and nearly devoured the world's economy as predators.

One response to their predations has been exemplified by the Occupy Wall Street "move the money" campaign in which billions of dollars have been transferred from the "too big to fail" Wall Street banks to local banks and credit unions. Another response has come from former Wall Street broker/dealers, who, repulsed by a fraudulent system that created and sold toxic assets to unwitting investors even as their firms bet against the assets, opted instead to become independent Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) who will only accept fees from their own investor/clients to whom they owe a fiduciary duty to disclose all potential conflicts of interest.

Introduced by Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), the Chairman of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee and the number one fundraiser from commercial banks, finance/credit companies, and mortgage bankers and brokers during the 2011-2012 election cycle, the so-called "Investment Advisor Oversight Act" of 2012 (H.R. 4624) claims that it is meant "to amend the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 to provide for the registration and oversight of national investment adviser associations."

In reality, however, the bill represents nothing less than an effort by the Wall Street wolves to drive off these financial shepherds so that they may feast on a field of unprotected sheep (the consumers of financial products)...