Donald Trump's disastrous War on Iran continues to wreak global havoc on today's BradCast, with no apparent end in sight. Though election news from Tuesday continues to offer at least a ray of hope. [Audio link to full story follows this summary.]

FIRST UP TODAY... the election news. Mississippi held its statewide midterm primary elections on Tuesday with no real surprises. The more interesting news comes out of two Special Elections in other states yesterday.

In Georgia's very MAGA 14th Congressional District, the Special Election primary to fill the seat left vacant by Marjorie Taylor Greene's January retirement following her split with Trump, offered some tantalizing results. It was a 14-person "jungle primary", with all candidates from all parties running for the top two slots. If nobody wins more than 50%, those two go on to the Special runoff on April 7.

On Tuesday night, Democratic candidate Shawn Harris, a cattle farmer and retired brigadier general, reportedly came out on top of the field with a bit more than 37% of the vote. Trump-endorsed Clayton Fuller came in with just under 35%, though he was largely battling fellow MAGA candidate Colton Moore, who took just over 11%. So the Republican front-runner had some actual competition from his own team, whereas Harris largely got a free ride, at least from Dems, to next month's runoff. Interestingly, however, Democrats in the contest received about 40% of the overall vote, cutting into Trump's 37-point victory in the District's 2024 Presidential race by some 17 points!

But the overperformance by the Democratic candidate in a Special Election for the New Hampshire state House on Tuesday --- in a Trump+9 District --- is being described today as "stunning" and a "major upset" for Democrats in NH's very very Republican 7th state House District. The 13-point overperformance for the Democrat became the tenth R-to-D flip in a Special Election for a state legislature since Trump's second term began, and the third one this year alone. The GOP has seen exactly zero such flips from D-to-R over that same period.

Also today, County Commissioners in Tarrant County (Fort Worth), Texas this week heard from poll workers with serious concerns about the County's 100% unverifiable computerized Ballot Marking Device systems made by Hart-Intercivic following apparent machine failures at the polls during the Lone Star state's March 3rd primary. Longtime pollworkers are hoping to see the computer systems replaced by a hand-marked paper ballot system before this November.

THEN... it's back to the nearly two-week old, but seemingly endless --- and clearly pointless --- War in Iran. This week, Iran has predictably shutdown all shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, where 20 to 30% of the world's oil and natural gas transits out of the Persian Gulf every day. In response, as oil prices spike along with gasoline prices, the White House is attempting to convince Americans that "short-term pain is necessary for long-term gain." The White House originally said it, and their friendly GOP propaganda outlets are now endlessly repeating the phrase, without ever actually explaining what that "long-term gain" might be or how we actually get there.

We're joined today by Roosevelt University political scientist DAVID FARIS, author of, among other things, several books on Middle Eastern politics, to discuss both the foreign and domestic implications of this disastrous move by the U.S. Administration.

"This has become an existential conflict for Iran," observes a gobsmacked Faris. "And because it's an existential conflict, they are doing everything that they can to keep shipping from getting through the Strait of Hormuz. It is unbelievable that people in the Trump Administration did not know or did not believe that this could happen. It's astonishing."

Faris says he has been having "terrible flashbacks to the early 2000s" amid all of this, remembering how the Bush Administration at the time simply ignored experts who warned "This is a bad idea. Don't do this!," before the Administration kicked off several disastrous wars of choice in the region anyway.

In Trump's case, argues Faris, "He's relying on a handful of sycophants in his administration, people without any expertise in the region. He's being led by the nose, I think, by people that have wanted to do this for a long time. And who very arrogantly thought that killing the Supreme Leader would set off a chain of events that would either lead to the regime collapsing or a transfer of authority within the regime to someone more friendly to the Trump Administration."

"The fact that they thought that in the first place is, in itself, evidence that they are not being advised by anyone with any kind of meaningful expertise about this region, or about Iran in particular. That is really scary to me, because we are all on this plane."

Beyond the "short-term disruption" of oil price spikes and potential global recession, he warns, if Trump didn't foresee those dangers, it's unlikely he saw the potentially nuclear ones that could come amid a full blown civil war in Iran or, worse, a "proliferation cascade" in which the lesson for countries in the region is simply to go nuclear.

"There's lesson after lesson after lesson that says to countries that are worried about their security or worried about the United States bombing or invading them or overthrowing their regime, that the only way to prevent that from happening for sure is to get a nuclear weapon," he observes, citing ironic potential fallout following a war that was, at least in theory, partially meant to prevent Iran from weaponizing it's own nuclear energy program.

As to the promise of the "long-term gain" Republicans now tout, with little if any detail when arguing that Americans must now be willing to "sacrifice"? Faris has no idea what that "gain" might be.

"It's unclear because they don't know," he says. "There's no way to communicate the stakes to the American people if you, yourself, don't have a strategic goal in mind, don't have a sense of what the fallout or the consequences might be. You're obviously not going to be able to prepare the American people to make sacrifices for that thing. The American people rightly perceived that there was no imminent threat to American national security from Iran. So this whole episode feels like it came out of nowhere."

Which, of course, it did. Unless you count the need to cover-up the damaging allegations against Trump from the Epstein Files as "somewhere". But, Faris also explains that all of this comes with an electoral price in November. If you don't like this war, "you know who to blame. Trump started this war [and] it's going to get worse the longer this goes on."

Tune in for much more on all of this, including the good Professor's explanation of why, if the U.S. is supposedly "energy independent" now, as Republicans like to claim, gas prices in the U.S. are skyrocketing anyway...

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To be clear, as we discuss briefly at both the top and bottom of today's BradCast, there have been virtually NO election years in all of American history in which the nation wasn't engaged in some sort of war or foreign conflict. So, for those who see Donald Trump's latest attack on Iran as some sort of scheme to try and undercut midterm elections this year, well, it ain't gonna work, it never has, and though he may try anything, don't be scared by his nonsense. That's what he wants you to be. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

To that end today, we cover both Tuesday's first primary elections of the critical 2026 Midterms and the growing debacle of Trump's deadly, ongoing misadventure in Iran, which has quickly devolved into a broad regional conflict.

FIRST UP... We covered many of the top-line (and some of the not so top-line) unofficial results out of Tuesday's primaries in three states today. Tune in for all of it. But, among the most noteworthy results detailed on today's program...

No real surprises in Arkansas' primaries Tuesday, though there was yet another Special Election triumph for Democrats there yesterday, with another "blue" to "red" flip in the state House, as the Democratic candidate won by some 60 points!

In North Carolina, Dems got the U.S. Senate candidate they were looking for in popular former Governor Roy Cooper, who is now set to square off against Trump-endorsed, election denying former RNC Chair Michael Whatley. Neither primary was particularly competitive on Tuesday, though some 200,000 more voters turned out for the D contest than for the R race. Make of that what you will. The November election will be to fill the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, in what is perhaps this year's best opportunity for Dems to flip a Republican Senate seat.

After some late Primary Night chicanery by Texas' sleazeball Attorney General (and Republican U.S. Senate candidate) Ken Paxton in Dallas County, it appears the Democratic Party got much of what they wanted out of yesterday's contests for the U.S. Senate. Popular Democratic state Rep. James Talarico defeated progressive firebrand Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett by just a few points. But it was enough to win the Dem Senate nomination outright without heading to a runoff. Crockett gracefully conceded and called for party unity on Wednesday.

On the other side, four-term senior Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn has been forced into a weeks long, very expensive, and likely brutally ugly runoff with Trump's wildly corrupt pal Paxton for this year's Republican nomination. Dems couldn't ask for anything more out of the Lone Star race at the moment. Runoff day is May 26. You'll need plenty of popcorn between now and then.

There is quite a bit more that we cover on this beat on today's program, from a number of interesting U.S. House primaries and the ousting of three GOP-friendly state House members by three progressive candidates in NC, to a fascinating contest between two very MAGA candidates in the same state, including a very powerful one endorsed by Trump, in a race where the current margin stands at just two votes!

Please tune on in!...

THEN... Back to the War in Iran, which continues to spread throughout the Gulf region and beyond, as it becomes clearer by the day that the Trump Administration had no clear objectives when launching the war, and even less of a clue how to get out of it, at this point.

We're joined to discuss a whole bunch of related matters by Professor JUAN COLE, longtime historian, author and Middle East expert at the University of Michigan. He is also founder and chief editor of the indispensable, long-running Informed Comment blog.

I've got a ton of questions for Professor Cole today. Among them, we discuss...

• How what Trump likes to describe as our 47-year history with Iran (going only back to the Islamic Revolution of 1979), actually goes back much further than that and yes, as Cole explains, "It's all about oil, my friend."

• Who is left to succeed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following his assassination on day one of the latest assault by the U.S. and Israel? And is restoring the deposed Shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, any kind of real possibility (much less a good idea)?

• Isn't the targeting of civilian leaders both wildly illegal under international law and a horrible idea for a whole bunch of other reasons? ("You never want to take out the leadership that you're going to be negotiating with," notes Cole, observing that even Vladimir Putin seems to understand that much.)

• Cole has argued at Informed Comment that this war "is likely to be short", since neither the U.S. nor Israel have enough weaponry to carry out this type of combat for very long. In another piece today, he notes that Iran claims to have some 80,000 inexpensive weaponized drones that they are using in a "Techno-Guerilla War". They are to produce new ones at the rate of about 400 per day. They cost about $30,000 a piece, whereas the missiles needed to intercept them cost about $1.5 million per. The math is both unsustainable and the strategy unlikely to succeed, he tells me.

• And then there is "the reason that the U.S. has never waged an all-out war on Iran" before this week. It's because "the Persian Gulf region is the cockpit of the world economy" with 20% of the globe's oil and liquefied natural gas resources. Production has now all but halted in the region and, Cole warns, "if this thing actually managed to go on for any length of time, you're talking about a world recession."

Hopefully, that's enough to whet your appetite. But, if not, tune in for the good Professor's thoughts on what he sees as the real potential irony of this fine mess, and how it could end up boosting not just the fortunes of China, but electric vehicles and renewable energy, which Trump "hates like the Devil hates holy water"...

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On today's BradCast: When fascism takes root, there's a whole lot more that comes with it. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP TODAY... Based on little more than a threat from Donald Trump's FCC Chair Brendan Carr to rewrite Equal Time rules for late-night talk show interviews on broadcast television, CBS, newly owned by Paramount/Skydance, is rolling over in advance. Stephen Colbert, whose top-rated Late Show with Stephen Colbert will be ending in May on the heels of the merger, says that CBS attorneys barred him from interviewing Texas' Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico on Monday, amid his primary election against Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

But all of that seems to have blown up in CBS' face, as nearly three-times the number of viewers, so far, have watched Colbert's streaming-only interview, posted to Youtube after network suits nixed the broadcast version, and some $2.5 million came rolling in for Talarico's campaign in the bargain.

Colbert himself told the story on Monday and then followed up on Tuesday. We share both segments today.

THEN... Trump and his party stormed to power in 2024 based in no small part on opportunistic, weaponized charges of antisemitism on the Left, amid campus protests against Israel's war on Gaza. After taking office again last year, that political campaign turned into a government extortion campaign against universities, colleges, law firms and other organizations who, the Trump Administration claimed, were exercising antisemitism.

But, when rightwing podcaster Ben Shapiro attempted to call out antisemites in the Republican Party and MAGA movement late last year, he was met with little more than a shrug by the 30,000 young Christian followers of the late Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk at the group's America Fest gathering in Phoenix. Shapiro was, among other things, calling out former Fox 'News' host turned podcaster Tucker Carlson for a softball interview with avowed neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, and Shapiro's former employee, turned hugely popular podcaster, Candace Owens. She has, among other things in recent months, advanced a conspiracy theory that Israel was somehow behind last year's murder of Kirk.

It gets even more twisted, as new polling and focus groups find that young Republicans and evangelicals don't seem to have much of a problem with Hitler, and even long-established GOP institutions like the Heritage Foundation, have apparently decided to stand with Carlson and Nazis. Surprised? Don't be. They also got behind Trump even after he enjoyed a Thanksgiving week dinner with Kanye and Fuentes a few years earlier.

The notion that Evangelical Republicans claim to be supporters of Israel because they support the Jewish people has always been absurd to those of us paying actual attention for the past whole bunch of decades. The fact that the lie is only now beginning to come to the attention of some in the public and media is somewhat mind-blowing.

But the slow-motion implosion among MAGA Republicans is really something to watch, and far more widespread and insane than I can adequately detail here in a short summary post.

Longtime investigative journalist ART LEVINE, on the other hand, who joins us for a very lively conversation on today's program, has published an exhaustive expose on all of this at The Washington Spectator this month, headlined "Inside the MAGA Meltdown Over Antisemitism". The piece's similarly exhaustive (if very accurate) sub-hed: "A Parade of Charlie Kirk Wannabes, Nazi Sympathizers, End Times Prognosticators, Media Grifters and Nostalgic Evangelicals Scramble for Control of Their Imploding Coalition".

Levine tells me today that it is all "insanely hypocritical," arguing that "essentially, Donald Trump might be considered the Anti-Semite in Chief, because of his own overt symbolism. If you're inviting, over to your home, Kanye West, who recently had a 'Heil Hitler' video on Twitter, and Nick Fuentes, he is an open Holocaust denier, it's just nuts!"

"There's no more fig leaves," Levine charges, based on his months of painstakingly documented and linked research. "All of the standard distancing modes between Republicans and antisemitism has dropped away."

Tune in for much much more. And bring a big bucket of popcorn with ya...

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We getcha caught up on a whole bunch of news from over the weekend on today's BradCast, before opening up the phones to callers [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among that news...

• As we'd be warning, the federal Government is now in another partial shutdown. In theory, once House lawmakers get back to the Capitol amid climate change-fueled extreme weather across much of the country, they will adopt a package of bills approved in the U.S. Senate that set new funding levels for most of the Government, along with a two week extension of current spending levels for DHS, ICE and CBP, as Democrats continue to insist on new guardrails for the goons who have been terrorizing America under the guise of Donald Trump's deadly mass deportation campaign.

• Puerto Rico's pop/rap superstar Bad Bunny won a whole bunch of big awards at Sunday night's Grammy Awards and spoke out, movingly (much of it in Spanish), against the cruel deportation horrors of the Trump regime. Many other artists did as well. Trump is threatening to sue some o them. Bad Bunny --- a pretty good bunny, as it turns out --- will be making Trump and MAGA's heads continue to explode this Sunday, as the most popular artists on the planet headlines the Super Bowl halftime show.

• Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year old Ecuadorian boy used as bait by ICE officers to try and lure his mother out of her house in Minneapolis before he and his father were shipped down to an ICE detention facility in Texas, was ordered to be returned home, along with his father, over the weekend. In his ruling, some of which we share today, the federal judge excoriated the federal Government. Liam is now back in Minnesota, though his school was closed today due to a bomb threat. Moreover, a measles outbreak at the family detention center in TX has been reported. Hopefully, Ramos and his father will be okay.

• There were a couple of runoff Special Elections over the weekend in Texas. In one, for the U.S. House in a very "blue" Houston district, Democratic Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee easily defeated a fellow Democrat. Once sworn in to the seat held by Rep. Sylvester Turner until his death last year, the GOP's already incredibly thin majority margin will become thinner still. House Speaker Mike Johnson will be able to lose just ONE vote and still pass a measure on a party line vote.

• But, also in Texas on Saturday, in a state Senate seat in a very "red" district which Trump won in 2024 by 17 points, Democratic labor union leader Taylor Rehmet defeated his Republican opponent, who enjoyed a full-throated endorsement from Trump, by more than 14 points! That is a stunning 31-point swing for Democrats in a very Republican district near San Antonio, against a MAGA-endorsed candidate, deep in the heart of Texas. Think any GOPers are noticing yet? The day after the election, hilariously, Trump claimed that he knew nothing about the race. "I'm not involved in that, that's a local Texas race," Trump tried to gaslight a Fox "News" reporter, hilariously claiming, "I don't know anything about it."

• On Sunday night, in a long rambling post on his failing social media site, Trump announced he would be shutting down the Kennedy Center (he calls it the Trump Kennedy Center) for two years due to much-needed renovation. All of it, complete and utter lies, as detailed on today's program. In short, he is shutting it down, because it has collapsed after he unlawfully took control of it, as both performers and patrons have fled from his hot, obnoxious mess.

There is a lot of other news along the way today, before we then open up our public airwaves to callers, who also have quite a bit on their minds!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Polar vortex returns to slam much of the US with extreme cold and storms; New study warns of 'global water bankruptcy'; Mozambique grapples with extreme flooding; PLUS: Donald Trump peddles intensely stupid lies about wind energy... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Half of fossil fuel carbon emissions in 2024 came from 32 companies; House votes to repeal ban on mining near Boundary Waters wilderness in Minnesota; Geothermal a valuable, but overlooked clean energy source; CAFOs: This is why our rivers are turning into sewers; Winter drought grips the U.S.; California exceeds clean car goal despite declining federal support... PLUS: New rules: less ice, more ICE... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Our final round-up of the Gerrymandering Wars at year's end, as we head into the critical 2026 election year following a big, disturbing, redistricting ruling by the corrupt Republican SCOTUS majority. Also today, similarly disturbing news regarding our petty President's latest scheme to undermine life-saving climate science. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... News broke last night that Donald Trump has ordered the dismantling of the world-renowned National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, due to what the fossil-fueled Administration ridiculously describes as "federal climate alarmism".

NCAR was created by the National Science Foundation in 1960 as an independent executive agency funded by Congress, as global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels was already becoming an increasing concern. Even one of the few climate scientists known for his climate change skepticism described NCAR today as a "crown jewel" for the study of atmospheric chemistry and physical meteorology.

The climate science community is, as Hill Heat journalist Brad Johnson reports, "in complete shock" about this "insane move" to undermine science and put millions of lives at risk.

But, believe it or not, while shuttering the 65-year old institution will certainly serve the White House's fossil fuel industry masters well enough, the move actually seems to have as much to do with Trump's twisted vendetta against Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on behalf of brain-poisoned former MAGA County Clerk Tina Peters. She is currently serving 9-years in prison related to breaking into and making unlawful copies of voting system hard drives in a failed attempt to prove fraud during the 2020 election.

Yes. It's all as ridiculous and self-defeating as it sounds. But, that's Trump. Scientists vow to fight the move, even as Trump will likely have to count on his corrupted SCOTUS to allow him to force his will on yet another federal agency created by Congressional mandate to be independent from the Executive Branch.

THEN... As you know by now, afraid of being seen as a loser yet again next year, our corrupt President began ordering Republican-controlled states earlier this year to take the virtually unprecedented step of redistricting U.S. House maps mid-decade in order to try and gerrymander seats held by Democrats out of existence.

The multi-state effort had largely been a wash for the GOP to date, as "blue" states pushed back to try and balance the scales in response. It might have even resulted in a loss for Republicans next year, thanks to a ruling by a three-judge federal panel --- led by a Trump-appointed judge(!) --- after a 9-day hearing of evidence and witnesses, finding that Texas' attempt to gerrymander five Democratic seats in largely majority-minority districts amounted to an unlawful, unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

But, after the briefest of reviews over the Thanksgiving holiday, the corrupt Republican SCOTUS majority issued a terse, unsigned "shadow docket" ruling that allowed the unlawfully gerrymandered Texas map to be used in next year's critical midterms anyway. The 6 to 3 Republican majority said it was just too late and too confusing to use the House maps that used over the past two elections in the Lone Star state.

Citing the "Purcell Principle", another one of the Roberts Court's made-up use-if-and-when-necessary legal doctrines, the majority gave Texas the green light to use its new, unconstitutional, Republican-friendly map next year because the lower court "improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections."

Try not to laugh. That "active primary campaign" the lower court "improperly inserted itself into" would be the midterm primaries scheduled for next March in Texas, to determine candidates for the ballot in November of 2026. While few realized it was an "active" campaign at this point, it could have been, as our guest today notes, moved back by the court, if necessary. Though it is hardly necessary, being months away and, until the new ruling, run on a map that voters have been using without a problem since 2022.

All of that, is ridiculous enough. But, as Justice Elana Kagan noted in her dissent on behalf of the Court's three liberals, the majority ruling now offers a clear roadmap for how states may unlawfully gerrymander at will, in a way that will prevent any court from blocking them, as long as they time their legislation just right.

We're joined today by JAY WILLIS, former attorney, now editor-in-chief at the great legal website Balls and Strikes. He explains that the Court's "Purcell Principle", originally invented in 2006 to avoid chaos at the polling place by a court ruling just days before an election, is now being abused to prevent anything that Republican Justices simply don't like.

"The Purcell Principle has gotten stretched to the point of meaninglessness, where anytime the Justices decide that we are too close to an election in a way where changing the rules would hurt Republicans, they just say, 'No, no! Purcell Principle! Can't do that!,'" Willis tells me. "The Court described the Purcell Principle as forbidding changes on the 'eve' before an election. Now, that Principle is almost an entire calendar year in the hands of this court."

"What this rule amounts to," he argues, "is a free pass for Republican officials to conduct elections outside the scope of the law, as long as they basically get the timing right."

"As Kagan points out in her dissent, you don't have to have a law degree to understand that a racially gerrymandered map is illegal and unconstitutional unless the legislature that passes it waits until close to an election," he says, adding, "That can't be how the law works, a law that allows racial gerrymanders to remain in place in an election, as will be the case in Texas in 2026. That's just not a law that functions. That is not a tenable status quo."

Apparently, it is now. Much more on all of this, and how SCOTUS plans to make things even worse next year, on today's BradCast...

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Yikes. Quite a news day. We do our best to keep up on today's BradCast. But our conversation about the political fight to avoid falling over the GOP's massive health care funding cliff at year's end, may be the most immediately important news of all today for tens of millions of Americans. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Okay, we begin first with a few headlines. And there are a lot of them today, most still developing and several breaking just before and during the show. So, in short for the moment...

• The Dept. of Justice arrested and charged a long-sought suspect today in the case of the unexploded pipe bombs left near the Democratic and Republican Committee headquarter buildings on the eve of January 6, 2021. They gave no details yet on how the Virginia man identified today was caught, nor what his motive may have been.

• A Dept. of Defense Inspector General's report [PDF] was released today on DefSec Pete Hegseth's "Signalgate" scandal. Despite claims yesterday by Team Hegseth that the IG report offered him "TOTAL exoneration", it offers quite the opposite. It finds, among other things, that Hegseth "created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed U.S. mission objectives and potential harm to U.S. pilots" by detailing an attack on Yemen on the unsecured Signal app on his personal phone with high-level Cabinet members and an accidentally invited national security reporter. He also appears to have destroyed evidence in the matter.

• Following a classified briefing at the Capitol today, several high-ranking Democratic members of the House and Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees said they were "deeply disturbed" after viewing "one of the most troubling things" they'd ever seen. They had just watched unreleased, still-classified, unedited footage from the September 2nd U.S. military rocket strike on two shipwrecked survivors of a previous strike on a supposed "drug boat" in the Caribbean. The unlawful order to carry out the second strike was previously reported to have been issued by Pete Hegseth. Such an attack is in strict violation of U.S. and International law, as well as the DoD's own Rules of War Manual. The Commander who reportedly carried out the double-tap strike, Admiral Mitch Bradley, is said to have claimed during today's briefing that the order to kill the survivors wasn't given by the SecDef. Still many unanswered questions here.

• BREAKING just before airtime: After a federal judge last week tossed out Donald Trump's revenge indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, finding Trump's personal insurance lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed as U.S. Attorney, a new prosecutor --- said to have actual prosecutorial experience --- was brought in from Missouri to file a new grand jury indictment today. The grand jury, however, rejected the new indictment!

• BREAKING late in the show today: The corrupted, activist Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, as somewhat expected, overruled a lower appeals court ruling (written by a Trump-appointed judge) that had blocked the state of Texas' mid-decade Congressional gerrymander. State Republican lawmakers drew the map over the summer, at Trump's urging, in hopes of flipping five U.S. House seats in the Lone Star State from "blue" to "red" next year. The lower court found the new map to be an unlawful racial gerrymander and blocked its use. The SCOTUS majority, however, while offering little to no reason for their 6 to 3 "shadow docket" ruling, suggested the new TX map was only a partisan gerrymander --- which is now allowable since their horrible 2019 ruling in Rucho --- as opposed to an unlawful (for now) racial gerrymander. They are now allowing the new gerrymander to be used in the 2026 midterms.

• Thanks in no small part to the Trump Administration's shuttering of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) earlier this year, the global child mortality is now on the rise for the first time in decades. Nearly a quarter of a million more kids under the age of 5 are expected to die in 2025 than in 2024, according to a new report.

NEXT... Speaking of health care and both children and adults unnecessarily dying...we're joined today by Politico's Senior Heath Care Reporter ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN as America heads toward a Republican-caused health care crisis cliff as of January 1.

Over the summer, Donald Trump and his Republicans in Congress passed their so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" to give a trillion dollars in tax cuts mostly to the wealthy and added $2.4 trillion to the national debt, resulting in about half a trillion dollars in automatic cuts to Medicare. In the bargain, they also slashed a trillion dollars from Medicaid and hundreds of billions from the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare), which will subsequently spike monthly health care premiums for some 24 million Americans as of January 1.

This is why Democrats refused to vote with Republicans to keep the government open for a record 43 days in October and November. At least until seven rogue Democrats and one independent who caucuses with them in the Senate, undermined their own party to vote with Republicans to reopen the Government. The only thing they received in exchange was the promise of a vote in the Senate this month on restoring the GOP cuts to the Affordable Care Act subsidies. That vote is scheduled to happen next week, but will require 60 votes for passage in the 100-seat Senate. No vote is currently scheduled for the U.S. House on this, as premium bills will otherwise be doubling and tripling for millions next year.

Ollstein, a longtime Capitol Hill reporter lays out the political and policy landscape and stakes as we barrel toward what is now quite likely to be a very serious health care crisis in the U.S., unless Republicans come to terms with the electoral tidal wave that otherwise awaits them next year. Her reporting this week suggests that the bulk of the GOP Congressional caucus either doesn't yet understand the concerns or doesn't care about what is about to happen.

"There's nothing like a looming deadline to juice Congress into action," she quips. "Although that action may not lead anywhere --- especially this time."

"There are a bunch of Republicans who do want to cut a deal," she stresses. "They are very anxious, about both the concrete ramifications of letting the subsidies expire --- that millions of their constituents will have higher bills, become uninsured, etc. --- and they are worried about the political consequences, that this will backfire in the 2026 midterms." But, Ollstein also notes, for many in the party, the otherwise now very popular "Obamacare" is still a dirty word after years of the GOP trying and failing to kill it "root and branch" or even offer any alternative to it.

We've got lots to sift through here today, in trying to make sense of the current political lay of the land, with many Republicans "afraid of a primary challenge from the right attacking them for 'supporting Obamacare,'" even if millions of their own Republican constituents now rely on it for their health care.

Tune in for all the details on this one. Too many to cover in a quick summary here. But the fight in the weeks ahead is going to affect all of us, including your health care prices, even if you are not an ACA customer, as Ollstein also explains.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the Trump Administration rolls back fuel economy standards, which will increase the cost of everyone's gas; as the Administration's threats against Venezuela become more obviously about oil by the day; as youth climate activists sue to block new fossil fuel development in Utah; and as one boy from fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades here in Southern California rolls out a quickly blossoming idea to seed the area with wildflowers...and love...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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If it weren't for a handful of Democrats caving Sunday night in the U.S. Senate, we'd have spent the full hour on today's BradCast discussing last week's remarkable election victories for both the party and, more importantly, for democracy, voting rights and elections themselves. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Such as it is, however, today show is a bit bifurcated.

FIRST UP... We're joined by journalist ALEX BURNESS of Bolts Magazine. The outlet did their usual yeoman's job of covering not just the topline election contests you may have heard about, but hundreds of other smaller or more under-the-radar elections in more than 30 states last week that you likely haven't heard as much or even anything about.

Today we focus with Burness on his article last week covering five different ways that last week's off-year elections will reverberate moving forward on issues like mail voting, felony disenfranchisement, mid-decade gerrymandering and related election matters in at least five states. In almost every case --- from redistricting in California and Virginia, to restoring felony voting rights in Virginia, to a Photo ID initiative in Maine, to election scheduling in New York, to "the backstop of democracy" in Pennsylvania --- the news for voters and voting rights advocates was very good indeed. (Texas was, as usual, like a whole 'nother country. Tune in for those details.)

THEN... We turn back to the federal government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history, following last week's enormous wins for Democrats at the polls in state after state; Donald Trump's approval rating at all-time, historic lows; and clear pluralities of Americans blaming Republicans for the shutdown, as Democrats were seen as united in their fight to restore trillions of dollars in health care cuts for millions of Americans (to the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and even Medicare) made by Trump and the GOP.

With that backdrop and the wind very much at the backs of the Dems in this fight on Sunday night, seven Democratic Senators --- Tim Kaine (VA), Dick Durbin (IL), John Fetterman (PA), Maggie Hassan (NH), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), and Jacky Rosen (NV) --- and one independent who caucuses with them (ME's Angus King), decided this would be the perfect time to undercut their own caucus by jumping ship to vote with Senate Republicans to allow them to reopen the government. None of the eight turncoats are facing reelection next year.

What did they get for Dems in return? The promise of a vote in the Senate, perhaps in December, on restoring Affordable Care Act subsidies. That's it. No promise of a similar vote in the U.S. House (where Republicans control the majority anyway), and no promise that Trump would even sign such a bill if the GOP allowed passage in both chambers.

In other words, at least as I see it, those 7+1 Dems got nothing in exchange for their votes, and the rest of the caucus, in both the Senate and House, is reportedly furious about it. On the other hand, thousands of federal workers will be paid again and the critical Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will now eventually be restarted...albeit at lower levels following Trump and the GOP slashing some $180 billion from the program in their so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" over the Summer.

You'll note that Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is not among those who voted on Sunday night in favor of reopening the government. He voted against it. But, of course, those seven Dems would not have moved forward without his approval. Or, if they did, it's just more evidence of what an awful Leader he is for the Party right now, and how much he needs to be both replaced as Leader in the Senate immediately and primaried out of the Senate entirely next year.

That's my take anyway. At the end of today's show we have time for just a few callers. At least one of them sees things somewhat differently --- at least, sees a brighter side to all of this --- and, for the record, notes that the Government reopening also means that there will (or should) soon be a bipartisan vote on releasing the full Epstein Files in the U.S. House. We'll see if that comes about as the week proceeds. I'm not yet holding my breath...

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As the Federal Government shutdown enters its second month --- now almost certain to become the longest in U.S. history --- it's Election Day tomorrow in the first major elections since our ridiculous and criminal President's disastrous second term began ten hellishly long months ago. It is the first chance for a whole lotta folks to ring in on what theythink of this President and his corrupted Party. So, this week on The BradCast, we continue to keep our eyes on both tomorrow's major off-year elections in several states and next year's critical midterms in all 50, as that election is also already underway in more ways than one. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Tuesday is the last day to vote in statewide elections for Governor and the state House of Delegates/Representatives in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively; Mayor in New York City; and for (or against) Prop 50 in California, among other contests of note that we've been discussing and/or previewing in recent days on the program.

After a few news headlines today, we zero in on the Prop 50 statewide ballot referendum in CA, asking voters if they would like to temporarily allow the state to set aside the U.S. House map drawn by CA's Independent Redistricting Commission in order to allow the Democratic state legislature to create a new one meant to flip five Republican seats to Democratic next year. That effort is in direct response to the Republican state Legislature in Texas, earlier this year, gerrymandering their already-gerrymandered Congressional map to steal five Democratic U.S. House seats for Republicans next year at the orders of Donald Trump who, justifiably, believes his Party will otherwise lose their slim House majority next year due to their terrible, unpopular policies.

(I also share today my amusing, bemusing and confusing experience in the parking lot of an L.A. County Voting Center on Sunday, where I went to vote and was troubled to notice a County voting system IT support truck with TEXAS license plates on it?! WTF?!)

Following TX's gross mid-decade gerrymander over the summer and CA's response to it, Republicans in Missouri and North Carolina have also drawn new Congressional maps to steal two more seats from Democrats next year. So, Virginia Democrats --- in the midst of their statewide election for the entire House of Delegates --- announced a complicated, surprise plan just over a week ago that, if successful, could flip as many as three U.S. House seats in the Old Dominion from "red" to "blue" next year. It's a complicated scheme in VA, requiring two affirmative votes by two consecutive sessions of the State Legislature and then approval from voters on a statewide ballot referendum next year. All in time to redraw VA's Congressional map before primaries begin next year.

Last week, Virginia Dems in the Legislature successfully completed Phase One of the plan, as the measure was adopted by the Senate on Friday, following approval by the House two days earlier. To proceed to Phase Two, Dems must retain their majority in the 100 seat state House on Tuesday, which they currently control with just 51 votes.

Also last week, Ohio's bipartisan redistricting commission redrew the Buckeye State's U.S. House map to make it harder --- but not impossible --- for two Democratic Congressmembers to hold on to their seats in the 2026 midterms.

We break down all the new details on all of those latest battles in the Gerrymandering Wars today (and some of the battles still to come), before opening the phones to listeners here in our live Southern California listening area for their last chance before Election Day to make the case for or against Prop 50 and more...

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On today's BradCast: For a guy who believes he's a strongman, or wants to be one --- in a nation where too many have fallen for that idea as well --- the President, with each passing day, is revealing himself to be incredibly weak. Even his own supporters have noticed, and are finally beginning to turn away from him in all of the swing states and even in some of the so-called "reddest" states! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Yes, he's still causing a lot of pain for a lot of people. He'll continue to cruelly do so as long as he can. But don't fall for his tough guy act. He continues to be a wannabe strongman, even while he's failing on virtually every front. We make the case on today's program, along with the latest news and coverage of several under-the-radar issues and contests on next Tuesday's off-year election ballot.

Among the evidence from which we draw today...

• Tough guy Donald Trump calls for the U.S. "Department of War" to resume testing nuclear weapons just minutes before meeting with China's actual strongman President Xi Jinping last night. Just about every point Trump made in his social media announcement on nuclear weapons was false, leaving actual expert in this field completely confused. (And then Xi, like so many other world leaders who have figured out how easy it is to play Trump, went on to eat his lunch. Trump didn't even notice.)

• "What If Trump Is Weaker Than We Think"”and America's Finally Figuring It Out?", muses our friend Thom Hartmann, as Trump's previously ironclad grip on Republicans in Congress begins to reveal numerous cracks in both chambers. "It's just a matter of time," Thom correctly concludes.

• Michigan's Democratic state Senate Majority Whip and 2026 U.S. Senate Candidate, Mallory McMorrow, calls out the Administration for choosing to violate the law by "using food as a political weapon" in cutting off money allocated by Congress to fund payments to some 42 million Americans on SNAP. The threat to starve Americans, beginning on November 1, is supposedly due to the federal government shutdown that our very weak President appears both uninterested and unable to do anything about. Late today, a federal judge suggested she was likely to order the Administration to follow the law by using emergency contingency funds to keep SNAP going as November begins.

• Trump's national approval numbers are beginning to fall again, to all time lows, following a brief and tiny uptick on the heels of the faltering Israel/Hamas agreement. He continues to have the lowest approval numbers for any President in modern history at this point in his term. So, naturally, he is lying about that to media in hopes they will dutifully report his fake news. For example, on Air Force One this week, he lied to the press gaggle: "I have the best numbers for any President in many years, any President!" Nice try, weakman.

• But where his plunging approval ratings are really beginning to leave a mark are in 12 states that voted in his favor last year, where new polling now shows him underwater in all of them! The states where he enjoys negative ratings after winning them last year include every single battleground state (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) as well as five states where he easily won less than one year ago. His approval ratings are now underwater in Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Texas! In all of those states he's plunged in approval by an average of about 15 percentage points since last November. Does that sound like a strongman to you?

• We'll see if voters agree with the argument in next week's off-year elections, as important contests and ballot issues loom in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California. But there are also some under-the-radar races elsewhere, several of which we detail today in advance of Tuesday's Election Day, including Republican efforts to make voting more difficult (for certain people) in both Texas and Maine, and a Hail Mary effort by Republicans to try and somehow win a majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in time for the 2028 Presidential election.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the deadly, record-breaking, climate change-fueled Hurricane Melissa continues to wreak havoc in the Caribbean as it begins to peter out in strength during its move into the colder North Atlantic. Oh, and bad news for Iceland, just to add a bite to the end of today's program...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: CO2 levels in the atmosphere hit highest ever recorded, U.N. says, warning of more extreme weather to come; Victims of July 4 Texas Floods still struggling to get financial aid from Trump's FEMA; Sea levels are rising faster than ever due to man-made global warming; PLUS: Salmon reach Klamath River headwaters for the first time in more than a century... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The government is shut down, but not for fossil fuels; 'Leaving the world's poorest behind': Nearly 900 million poor people face climate shocks, says UN; Mystery heatwave warms Pacific Ocean to new record; New Florida law blocks communities' efforts to be more sustainable and resilient; California has a new law to prevent big grid battery fires... PLUS: Brazil OKs oil drilling near mouth of Amazon River ahead of UN Climate Summit... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy!

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On today's BradCast: The partial federal government shutdown is soon heading into its second week. So far, Americans are blaming Trump and the Republicans for it. But that hasn't prevented our brain-addled President from deploying U.S. troops against U.S. citizens in U.S. cities that had the temerity to vote against him last year. Only the courts, so far, have been able to slow that down. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Before we get to our main topics today --- Trump's military invasion of the U.S. and the Democrats fight for affordable health care for tens of millions of Americans --- and listener calls to go with them, a public service announcement for listeners here in Southern California!

Vote-by-Mail ballots are now going out to all registered voters in the state for the November 4 Special Election for Prop 50. The ballot measure, if adopted, would allow the state to temporarily set aside the U.S. House Map for California created by the state's independent redistricting commission to allow new maps that could flip as many as five seats from "red" to "blue" in next year's midterms. That effort is in direct response to Texas redrawing its U.S. House Maps --- at the direction of Donald Trump --- to flip five mostly minority Democratic districts from "blue" to "red" next year.

But thousands of SoCal voters in temporary housing after their homes burned down during wildfires earlier this year are not getting their ballots automatically forwarded to them in the mail. Ballots aren't allowed to be forwarded. Those voters have to contact the Registrar's office to notify them of their temporary address in order to receive their ballot by mail. More details on that very important matter are currently right here. If you know anyone who has been dislocated by those fires, please refer them to that page, or let them know they must go to LAVote.gov (or call 800-815-2666) to add a temporary mailing address to their voter registration record to receive a VBM ballot in Los Angeles County.

Beyond that, we focus today in on the weekend's wild court actions up in Oregon, where a federal judge appointed by Trump during his first term has blocked his attempt to federalize the state's National Guard troops to invade Portland. Trump, consistently watching Fox "News" re-run five-year old footage from George Floyd protests in Portland, seems to believe the city is "war-ravaged" and "burning down". It is neither of those things, and U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut made that clear in her order [PDF] temporarily blocking Trump from federalizing the Oregon Guard and deploying them to Portland. In her ruling, she found the federal government argument was "untethered to facts" and that Portland was not "war-torn" or "under siege" by "Antifa, and other domestic terrorists." In fact, she warned, "This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law" and said that "Whether we choose to follow what the Constitution mandates "¦goes to the heart of what it means to live under the rule of law in the US." That all happened Saturday.

But then, in response on Sunday, Trump attempted to work around the judge's order by sending federalizes National Guard troops from California and Texas to Portland, forcing plaintiffs to go back to court in a late-night emergency hearing with Judge Immergut, who was forced to make clear, in a second ruling, that no troops from any state, were allowed for now to deploy to Portland.

In turn --- and even though he appointed her himself --- Trump is now attacking the judge, misgendering her by charging she "should be ashamed of himself." The attack comes as judges across the nation are facing hundreds of death threats --- particularly after blocking something Trump wants, even temporarily. Over the weekend, a judge's house in South Carolina was apparently blown up, with her husband and son hospitalized with serious injuries after the house was burned to the ground. She had reportedly been facing death threats for weeks after blocking the state from turning over its voter registration database to the Trump Administration.

By Monday, Trump was deploying hundreds of National Guard troops from Texas into Chicago, where both the state of Illinois and the city have now filed a similar suit to the one in Oregon. But, just an hour or so before airtime, the judge in that case declined, for now, to block the deployment. These stories, I'm sorry to say, are likely to continue, as Trump has threatened similar military attacks against "the enemy within" in states and cities that voted against him last year.

Moreover, the federal government shutdown continues today, as Democrats fight to prevent some 25 million Americans from seeing the costs of their health care more than doubled as of January 1. Despite what some have referred to as "conventional wisdom" that Dems would be blamed for the shutdown, so far early polling shows that Trump and Republicans are taking most of the blame and that, by huge majorities, Americans support the extension of Obamacare subsidies that will otherwise run out at the end of the year unless Republicans reverse their plan to defund the popular health care exchanges.

In the second half of today's show, we open the phones to a bunch of lively calls on all of the above!...

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