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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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It's one disaster after another on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Last night, 67 people were killed when an Army Helicopter crashed into an American Airlines jet from Wichita, Kansas as it was coming in for a routine landing at Reagan National Airport in D.C. Everyone in both aircrafts is presumed dead.

Today, even as dozens of bodies were still unrecovered from the icy Potomac River, and before virtually anything was known about the cause of last night's deadly disaster, the President of the United States presented a sick, disgraceful, lie-filled, misinformation-fest, disguised as a White House press briefing. He blamed "diversity" hiring by his two Democratic predecessors for the disaster, while admitting he had no evidence to support his claim, other than his "common sense" and "high level genius." I've got a thing or two to say about all of that on today's program.

While I wouldn't normally have drawn such an inference this soon after such a national tragedy or in just week two of any Presidency, given Donald Trump's appalling comments today, I felt it necessarily to detail that, in his very first week on the job, Trump fired the leadership of the FAA and TSA, as well as the entire membership of an air security and safety commission. He named no acting Director in the meantime at FAA, which had been in the middle of a hiring wave for air traffic controllers --- until Trump ordered a hiring freeze on his second day in office last week. Early reports from the FAA found that the air traffic control tower last night at Reagan National appeared to have been short staffed.

We'll wait for the NTSB's investigation (much less for the recovery of all the bodies) to be complete. But if there is any President to be blamed for what happened last night, the first major air crash in 16 years, it would seem be the "high level genius" currently in office, who thought it appropriate to use racist, sexist, ableist slurs to avoid accountability for his own pathetic, irresponsible actions in the first week of his second shamefully embarrassing Presidency.

THEN... We're joined by JACQUELINE SIMON, Policy Director of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the nation's largest federal workers union. She's here to discuss the Trump Administration's scammy email sent to some two million federal workers this week --- clearly written by co-President Elon Musk --- offering what many in the media incorrectly described as "buyout" offers this week.

In fact, it's a trap. The emails from the federal Office of Personnel Management --- portending to offer seven months of severance in exchange for workers at scores of federal agencies responding with "RESIGN" in the subject field of an email before February 6 --- were little more than "a barely veiled threat" to federal workers, charges Simon. Sign it now or be fired later. Moreover, she notes, "there's no guarantee whatsoever that anyone would ever see any of that money, because Congress would have to approve it. They don't have the money."

The scheme, Simon tells me, also ignores the legally required process for contract buyouts and severance pay for federal workers, as written into law. But, she observes, "they aren't really worrying the rules. They're not really worrying about the law. And if they are challenged, and if they do have to pay judgments, it's going to be the American people that pay. It's not coming out of Elon Musk's pocket. It's not coming out of Trump's pocket. It's coming out of your pocket and mine."

AFGE and several other public service unions also filed a legal complaint this week against a separate, if related scheme launched by Trump with an Executive Order signed last week. It would, if allowed by the courts, make it easier for him to fire career federal workers without cause which, Simon confirms, he has already begun doing unlawfully anyway.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report, with news on new data suggesting that a Southern California Edison high-voltage wire may have sparked the deadly Eaton Fire on January 7th in Altadena, California; the Senate confirmations of Trump's unqualified picks to head the EPA and Dept. of Transportation; Ireland is slammed by the strongest storm in its recorded history; and other troubling news for our climate changed world...

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On the day that vaccine science denier RFK, Jr. testified before Congress to become the nation's next Sec. of Health and Human Services, it seems only appropriate on today's BradCast to discuss the Trump Administration's War on Science. [Audio link to full shows follows this summary.]

But, before we get there, a few news items of note --- some of them, actually very good news, believe it or not!...

• If you're wondering how things are going for Republicans around the country amid Trump's second, absurdly chaotic week in office, a special election on Tuesday in a very "red" state Senate district in Iowa may offer a hint. The Democratic candidate defeated the Republican by 4 points, flipping a seat in a district that Trump won last November by about 21 points. But that is hardly the only good news today...

• Public (and media) pressure works! While Donald Trump may want to be the Fascist-in-Chief, he is not there yet. He is not invincible. In no small part because he still sucks at the job of Presidenting. On Monday night the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a stunning memo, virtually out of nowhere, declaring that, on Tuesday at 5pm, there would be a full shutdown of some $3 trillion in Congressionally-appropriated grants and loans. The order would seriously cripple Americans in all walks of life in all 50 states. The freeze, as made very clear over the ensuing 24 hours, would effect about half of the entire annual federal budget. It was also unlawful. It would have stopped payments for Medicaid, disaster relief, farm aid, student loan programs, Head Start’s day care centers for kids, Meals on Wheels for the elderly, highway funds, nutrition assistance, rent assistance, cancer treatment programs, medicine for millions with HIV around the world, veterans suicide hotlines and scores of other very popular programs. But public push-back on the scheme was so loud --- from the media and from Americans in "red" and "blue" states alike --- that by Wednesday morning, the White House was forced to fold. Their ill-considered memo was rescinded. What does this mean moving forward and what lessons should be learned? We discuss. (But don't tell Trump's failed, personal defense lawyer turned ridiculously uninformed White House counselor Alina Habba!)

• More good news: This week, a majority of workers at a Whole Foods Market voted to unionize in Philadelphia. It's the first store in the Amazon-owned chain to do so.

• But bad news on a related front: Trump unlawfully fired one of three National Labor Relations Board Members, its former Chair, on Monday. The removal of Gwynne Wilcox, the NLRB's first black female Member, whose term was not set to expire until mid-2028, means the Board does not currently have a quorum to make any decisions in its critical federal oversight role over labor disputes and union elections. Wilcox called the dismissal "unprecedented and illegal" and vows to challenge it. In the meantime, the NLRB's critical work, with unionization elections pending around the nation, grinds to a full stop.

THEN... We are honored to be joined on the show again today, for a wide-ranging discussion, by one of the nation's most esteemed and indefatigable climate scientists and authors, DR. MICHAEL E. MANN, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science; Director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media; and Vice Provost of Climate Science, Action, and Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

In this month's issue of Skeptical Inquirer, Mann joins with renowned virologist Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College of Medicine, to break down what they describe as "A triple threat to humanity". Namely, climate change, newly emerging pandemics and "perhaps the most insidious component of all: a well-organized, financed, politically motivated, and steadily globalizing campaign of disinformation and attacks against mainstream science that makes it extremely difficult to mount an effective global response to the climate and pandemic threats." The pair have a forthcoming book on related issues, titled Science under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World.

We discuss that War on Science today, who's funding it and how it endangers life on Earth. There is "an agenda here to create doubt, to discredit experts," Mann tells me. "Because in a world of relativism, where anybody's facts are as good as anyone else's, it's very favorable for bad actors like fossil fuel interests, the Koch brothers, petrostates like Russia and Saudi Arabia, with whom we are now aligned when it comes to our own policies under the new Trump Administration.

"Calling science into doubt, discrediting scientists and experts, is part of their agenda," Mann explains. "Creating confusion, doubt, conflict, chaos favors their agenda. Rational decision-making doesn't."

We also discuss a whole bunch of climate-related politics of the day and even some climate science, including...

• The real concerns about Trump's withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement and who it will benefit in addition to the fossil fuel industry;
• Trump's ridiculous claims about California's water system and the real cause of the recent, horrific fires in Los Angeles;
• Whether Trump and and his climate science-denying cronies know they are lying about climate change ("I know some of these people. I know some of these think tanks and front groups because they've come after me for decades. So I know who they are. These are smart people. They are well-educated people. They know they're lying.");
• How China views the Trump Presidency as "an opportunity to be the adult in the room," "take the moral upper hand" and make billions of dollars "leading in development of clean energy technology" now that the U.S. is "ceding any leadership in this area";
• Why 2024 was the warmest year on record, even though 2023, which held the previous record, was particularly hot thanks to an El Nino that dissipated the following year. 2024 was supposed to be cooler. What happened? Have climate scientists been underestimating the speed in the rise of global temps?
• And much more...

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Today on The BradCast: Let the Constitutional Crises begin! As the Trump Administration attempts to Cancel Culture pretty much everything with a memo that orders nearly half of the total, already appropriated federal budget immediately (and unconstitutionally) put on ice! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We might have seen it coming, as several of our other stories today might have augured. Among them...

• Late last week, while touring fallout from last year's climate change-fueled Hurricane Helene disaster in a Republican-leaning area of North Carolina, and the then-ongoing climate change-fueled Los Angeles Fires, Trump suggested he might shut down (privatize) FEMA entirely and called for Photo ID voting restrictions in California in exchange for federal disaster aid to victims who had lost everything. When asked if NC would also see conditions placed on their federal disaster aid, Trump's meandering non-answer (full of one fantastical lie after another) made clear that, no, only Democratic-leaning states would have to agree to change policies in exchange for much-needed federal disaster aid.

• Amusingly, Trump pretended on social media last night that he'd ordered the U.S. military into California "under Emergency Powers" to turn on the magical, non-existent water "spigot" somewhere in Northern California, which the state chooses to keep turned off in order to somehow cause devastating fires in Southern California. Now that might sound like a ridiculous lie and a completely delusional fantasy that makes no sense at all, but at her first White House press briefing, Trump's Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed today that "the water has been turned back on in California." (That's great news, because I live in Los Angeles, had to evacuate briefly a week or so ago due to the fires, and had no idea the water had been turned off all this time! (OMG... this is only Week 2?!?)

• Last week, in Week 1, and receiving a bit less coverage than so many of the other nightmares Trump set off with his flurry of Executive Orders, is the fact that the Administration abruptly ordered the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to suspend all research grants, programs, travel and even ongoing cancer treatment trials. The result of putting tens of billions of dollars of research and grants on ice has sent confusion, anxiety and chaos throughout the American health community at what experts describe as one of the worst possible times, amid a slew of quickly spreading winter viruses and the increasing risks of avian flu in the U.S.

• On Monday this week, U.S. public health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were ordered to cease all work with the World Health Organization (WHO) just one week after Trump signed an order declaring the U.S. was ending its cooperation with the worldwide organization. (Unclear he can legally do so, by the way. But he doesn't care.) His Executive Orders also froze spending on a decades old global AIDS program that has saved 25 million lives, but now will block HIV the distribution of medication to more than 20 million people, including drugs already obtained with U.S. funds and sitting on shelves at local clinics around the world.

• All of that might have been a signal for where all of this was going. According to a two-page memo from the acting Director of Trump's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Monday, the White House has now ordered a "temporary pause" on "all federal financial assistance" with the exception of Medicare and Social Security payments. The memo directs federal agencies to pause "all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance," and any other programs that included "D.E.I., woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal" as of Tuesday (today!) at 5pm. That, even though there is no "Green New Deal." It never passed. (Shhh...don't tell them!)

  As the non-profit news site NOTUS explained, "the list of programs that could be touched by the order is vast: Medicaid, disaster relief, farm aid, student loan programs, Head Start, highway funds, nutrition assistance, rent assistance and dozens of other programs." Some 70 million low-income Americans alone, who are enrolled in Medicaid, could lose their access to health care. These are all funds already allocated by Congress and approved by previous Presidents including, in some cases, Trump himself.

  The impoundment of the funds --- said to amount to "more than $3 trillion," according to the memo, which is nearly half of the entire federal budget for fiscal year 2024 --- appears to be in strict violation of the federal Impoundment Control Act of 1974, enacted by Congress after Richard Nixon held back Congressionally-appropriated funding that he didn't like. According to the Constitution anyway (quaint!) Congress, not the President, controls the purse strings of the U.S. budget.

  As you may recall, attempting to withhold Congressionally-approved funding to Ukraine during his first term, unless they agreed to announce a fake investigation of the Biden Family, is what led to Trump's first impeachment. Ever since, Republicans have devised an argument that the Impoundment Control Act is actually unconstitutional. This is clearly their first volley in getting a ruling on that from their corrupted U.S. Supreme Court.

  Late on Tuesday, as Trump's deliberate chaos reigned shortly before the 5pm deadline to freeze the spending, a federal judge placed an administrative stay on the order, pending further arguments on Monday morning. She also made clear that the National Council of Nonprofits, the plaintiffs which sued earlier in the day, alleging the freeze would cause their members irreparable harm, must show evidence to support that argument on Monday or the judge would have no choice but to end her administrative stay and deny the requested temporary restraining order. And then... ???

• Finally, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report with more on Trump's attempt to weaponize FEMA, but also with some good news, for a change, for both Los Angeles and New York City!...

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

Among the many stories covered today...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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When we allow a felon to become President of the United States (thanks, in no small part, to extreme rightwing activists on the Supreme Court ignoring and rewriting the 14th Amendment), it's not surprising that he'd quickly begin violating laws and undermining the U.S. Constitution. When that felon also hopes to be a dictator, we certainly shouldn't be surprised that one of his first targets is the Constitution's landmark guarantees of a free press, as discussed on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

FIRST... Unfortunately, the First Amendment isn't the only one Donald Trump is hoping to dismantle. According to nonprofit news outlet CalMatters, ICE has already begun rounding up migrant workers in Central California, resulting in about 75% of farm-workers staying home this week during peak harvest season for oranges and other produce in America's "Salad Bowl". If that continues longer term, economists are predicting "absolute economic devastation" locally, skyrocketing food prices and shortages across the country nationally, along with a "recession-level event if this is the new long-term norm."

In related news, Trump's Executive Order signed on Monday, seeking to redefine, by fiat, the text and clear meaning of the 14th Amendment's very first sentence establishing birthright citizenship to anyone born here, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents, ran into its first legal roadblock in Court on Wednesday. A Reagan-appointed federal judge declared today that the Order "boggles the mind," calling it "blatantly unconstitutional". He temporarily paused the Order nationwide in the first of five different challenges brought by 22 state Attorneys General. If allowed to be enacted, as one of the challengers argued in court today, it would "impact hundreds of thousands of citizens nationwide who will lose their citizenship under this new rule."

THEN... Trump doesn't seem to much care for the First Amendment either. And, shamefully, a number of mainstream broadcast news outlets owned by major corporations have been all too eager to help him dismantle it. See Disney-owned ABC News' pathetic agreement in December to settle Trump's absurdly frivolous lawsuit with blatantly unconstitutional claims. Instead of fighting the defamation suit, they agreed to contribute $15 million to Trump's Presidential Library fund. See also the reports last week that Paramount-owned CBS News is in talks to do the same thing over another ridiculous complaint that 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris in a way that Trump didn't like.

While those outfits are settling private lawsuits, Trump's new Federal Communications Commission Chair, Brendan Carr is weaponizing the FCC to go after the same news outlets. Last week, President Biden's outgoing Chair dismissed several specious complaints against ABC, CBS and NBC that echoed Trump's private lawsuits, declaring "the FCC should not be the President's speech police" and that "the FCC should not be journalism's censor-in-chief." This week, however, the newly seated Carr un-dismissed those complaints (if not the ones against a Fox affiliate, for some reason).

We're joined today by JOHN BERGMAYER, the Legal Director at good government group Public Knowledge. He charges that "Chairman Carr has made it plain he intends to weaponize the FCC to threaten political speech and news coverage he disagrees with." You're not surprised right?

"We have things like defamation law against a public figure, but you can't just prove that they are wrong, or you disagree with them, or they're being unfair or 'mean to me'. You have to prove they are 'actively deciding to harm me' through conscious deception," Bergmayer explains today. "That's a very hard standard to meet. I don't think any of these cases meet the very tough requirements for the FCC to decide in the complainants favor."

He also adds: "It's really notable that Chairman Carr did not reinstate a complaint that was against a Fox affiliate in Philadelphia, that was based on the Fox affiliate airing information that it knew, that was judged to be, defamatory."

"It really is a troubling sign that the current Chairman views these regulatory tools as a means to advance his cultural and partisan agenda," Bergmayer tells me. "What's particularly disturbing is that the Chairman wants to pick fights with the First Amendment rights of broadcasters or use dubious theories of law to go after perceived slights by Big Tech."

We also discuss the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling earlier this month that appears to end the FCC's ability, as a federal agency, to ensure Net Neutrality and an Open Internet (not that Trump or his FCC would have any particular interest in doing so.)

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, following an unprecedented blizzard in the U.S. South; yet another new, climate-changed fueled fire amid record dry weather here in L.A. County; Trump's delusional claims about California's water supply; and more...

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We were promised there would be "shock and awe" and "rolling thunder" in the first few days of felon Donald Trump's second Presidency. Instead, as one of our guests on The BradCast quips today, what we've got, so far anyway, is more like "drooling thunder." [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Before we get to our guests today, some quick news...

• Just as firefighters have largely gained control of the two largest, still smouldering fires out here in Los Angeles, and residents who still have houses standing are finally returning from long evacuations, a new, very fast moving blaze, dubbed the Hughes Fire, erupted in northern L.A. County, near Castaic, on Wednesday afternoon amid continuing, exceedingly dry and windy conditions.

• Meanwhile, back in D.C., the Trump Administration is continuing to pretend there is a "national emergency" at the southern border (there isn't) --- despite Donald Trump's false declaration on Monday --- by sending thousands of more U.S. military troops there. They will join others who are doing largely logistical work, such as data entry and vehicle maintenance. But the new deployments may free up ICE agents for promised raids in U.S. cities in coming days.

• Moreover, after Trump spent the last four years falsely claiming the Dept. of Justice was "weaponized" by the Biden Administration, the new Trump Administration is weaponizing the DoJ to investigate and prosecute local and state officials who are not sufficiently cooperative with upcoming federal round-ups of undocumented migrants.

• Finally, Trump is rolling back Lyndon B. Johnson's landmark 1965 post-Civil Rights Act Executive Order barring discrimination in federal contracting and other federal programs. In Orwellian language, Trump's new Executive Order claims that programs meant to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion by barring discrimination amount to "discrimination". He has ordered federal anti-discrimination staffers put on immediate leave and all anti-discrimination programs immediately shut down.

Those moves were all largely expected, even if variously obnoxious, offensive and performative. In fact, while we had been told for months that Trump, having learned from experience and having shed all of those loser non-MAGA appointees from his first term, was ready to unleash holy MAGA hell on Day 1. So far, however, most of his poorly-written Executive Orders have either failed to include much "shock" or "awe", much less actionable items. The only real surprise is that he decided to issue pardons and/or clemency to more than 1,500 of his fellow January 6 felons and insurrectionists, including hundreds who violently assaulted law enforcement officials that day.

My guests today, two longtime progressive bloggers, are decidedly unimpressed with what they've seen so far. We're joined today for the first time in the new year by our old friends HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo blog, and DRIFTGLASS, author of his eponymously-named blog and co-host of the weekly Professional Left Podcast.

The Inauguration was "ridiculous," Digby tells me. "The fact that they had these oligarchs sitting behind him --- it's a joke. It's going to be remembered forever. It was the Oligarch Inauguration. That was a stupid mistake." She sees Trump's Executive Orders as "full of holes" and "absolutely unprofessional. All these months that they were supposedly putting this stuff together, it turns out that it's the same old sloppy garbage that they had done in the first term."

Driftglass argues that "nothing that happened during the entire Inauguration was anything but performing for his base," while cautioning: "When things actually hit the ground and hurt people, we should take it seriously. But this was all chaff, smoke and mirrors to make his base happy."

He warns, however, that "the amount of corruption" in this Administration "is going to be epic. The amount of looting, straight up looting, is going to be epic." So epic, in fact, he predicts "that it's going to affect the rest of the world. They're going to be taking everything but the kitchen sink, and it's going to have a direct effect on the economy."

As usual, both have got much more to say and make sense of in this historic moment. They concur that Trump has really stepped in it with his pardons of violent insurrectionists and attempted January 6 cop-killers. Do they feel the same about Joe Biden's last minute pardons for U.S. House January 6 Committee members and preemptive pardons for members of his family? Tune in to find out about that and much more, including our conversation about Episcopal Bishop, Mariann Edgar Budde, who, during this week's Inaugural Prayer Service attended by both Trump and J.D. Vance, dared to quote both Trump's own words and Christian scripture to plea with the new President to show mercy to marginalized people like migrants and those in the LGBTQ community.

"That was an act of pure Christian action and bravery in the face of tyranny," Driftglass says. "She really is a resistance hero," asserts Parton. "And I hate to say it, but the minute I heard that speech, the first thought that came to my head, as horrible as it it was: 'I hope they have security for her.' Because I am very worried for the safety of this woman. That is the country we are living in."...

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On Day 2 of the second corrupt Trump Presidency, we catch up on today's BradCast with the destruction he wrought (or attempted to) on Day 1, just hours after he became the first convicted felon, adjudicated rapist and adjudicated insurrectionist to be sworn in as President of the United States. And it all just happens to come, coincidentally, on the 15th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's horrific 2010 Citizens United decision, which helped make so much of this day possible. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Given Donald Trump's "flood the zone" strategy, including scores of Executive Orders, Actions, Directives and Memoranda signed on Monday (much of it for show, some of it dangerously real) we try to cover a lot in a very short time on today's program. I'll do my best to quickly summarize at least some of it here...

• Since MLK Day was largely preempted by yesterday's Inauguration (and our 2025 Inauguration Counter-Programming Special --- thanks to many for the kind words about it!), we begin today with a piece of Martin Luther King's 1967 "Blue Print" speech to a group of students in Philadelphia that, surprisingly, served as inspiration for us today!

• Please note: It has now been more than "24 hours" since Trump was sworn in (and since he was elected in November, since that was the original, oft-repeated promise) and Russia's horrific war on Ukraine is still raging anyway.

• Trump signed scores of orders on Monday night, though the most immediately substantive was his "full, complete and unconditional" blanket pardons for about 1,500 January 6, 2021 insurrectionists and seditionist --- including the leaders of the far-right paramilitary groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were found guilty and sentenced to more than a decade in prison for Seditious Conspiracy, in their treasonous (if failed) attempt to help Trump steal the 2020 election. Many of the violent domestic extremists who were released from prison today attacked law enforcement officers on that awful day at the U.S. Capitol, "armed with firearms, stun guns, flagpoles, fire extinguishers, bike racks, batons, a metal whip, office furniture, pepper spray, bear spray, a tomahawk ax, a hatchet, a hockey stick, knuckle gloves, a baseball bat, a massive 'Trump' billboard, 'Trump' flags, a pitchfork, pieces of lumber, crutches and even an explosive device." But all is now, apparently, forgiven with Trump's pardons, despite the assertion on Fox "News" just one week ago by then Vice President-elect J.D. Vance that "Obviously, if you committed violence on that day, you shouldn't be pardoned." But that was a week ago, and this is now, when, with today's release of the January 6 terrorists, Trump now has his own domestic paramilitary if and when needed. And those who testified against them originally, including law enforcement officers, are now, understandably, very concerned for their own personal safety.

• Trump signed an Executive Order declaring a "national emergency" and "invasion" at the southern border, where there is no such emergency or invasion. But now he has a pretext to invoke the military wherever it may be needed to round up, arrest, detain, imprison and deport undocumented migrants and asylum seekers, among other things.

• Trump signed an Executive Order claiming to end the 14th Amendment's Constitutional right to birthright citizenship, even as historian and tyranny expert Timothy Snyder helpfully reminds us: "A president’s executive order cannot undo a law or a Supreme Court decision, let alone a provision of the Constitution. Forget that and you do have a dictatorship on day one." That EO is already being challenged in court by 24 states.

• Trump, who miserably failed to handle the COVID pandemic, which killed more than a million Americans, signed a declaration withdrawing> from the World Health Organization.

• Trump signed an Executive Order revoking Joe Biden's landmark 2023 Executive Order on AI safety.

• Trump signed Executive Orders "protecting women from radical gender ideology" and declaring there are only two immutable sexes: male and female, as determined by whether they are born with eggs or sperm.

• Trump revoked a 2021 Biden Executive Order calling on federal agencies to promote voting access and expand voter registration. Trump and Republicans will have none of that! What do you think this is, a representative Constitutional democracy or something?!

• Trump also rescinded a Biden era Executive Order that had repealed an Executive Order from Trump's first term that attempted to game the U.S. Census for partisan gain by, among other things, attempting to exclude non-citizen residents of the U.S. from the count of the "whole number of persons in each state", as per the 14th Amendment, for the first time since the very first Census was carried out in 1790.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our first Green News Report of the second Trump era, with more on his Day 1 efforts to use Executive Orders to undermine the climate, the health of Americans, the livability of the planet, and the U.S. economy along with it. Trump signed Executive Orders declaring a "national energy emergency" (which is not a thing that actually exists); to stop all off-shore wind projects (what happened to that "national energy emergency"?!); and to join with Iran, Libya and Yemen by withdrawing (yet again) from the landmark, voluntary Paris Climate Agreement, a move that could end up costing the U.S. hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars via lost leadership, technology and manufacturing of clean, renewable energy...

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On today's BradCast, a dark echo of eight years ago. Unfortunately, the update for 2025 was easier than one might have hoped. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it --- that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" --- Mario Savio, 1964.

"Lesson 1: Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do." --- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, 2017.

"No. No one tells the guy who cleans the bathroom, 'Wow, you must love it when someone has explosive diarrhea, there's so much material for you to work with!'" --- Stephen Colbert, 2024

Please "enjoy" our 2025 Inauguration Counter-Programming Special...

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This is our final BradCast of the Biden Era. We've got a lot of mixed emotions on today's program, as you'll discover when you tune in. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage...

• Vile Congressional Republicans, such as Alabama's Sen. Tommy Tuberville, Kansas' Roger Marshall and many of their far-right media pals are targeting the victims of the Los Angeles Fires as part of their latest reprehensible political strategy. They're calling for "conditions" and "strings attached" before agreeing to aid Americans who have lost everything out here in these horrific, ongoing fires. They are whipping up disinformation echo chambers to convince themselves that it was something other than climate change-fueled dry weather and hurricane force winds to blame for the past week's unspeakable disaster and death. I've got a word or two in response on today's program, including some thoughts about the fact that California gives five times more to the federal government in tax dollars than we receive back in return. You're welcome, Senators --- and all of your loser MAGA buddies banging that same pathetic, loathsome drum.

• Speaking of fossil fueled climate change deniers, Donald Trump's nominee to head up the Dept. of Energy, fracking company CEO Chris Wright, doesn't believe wildfires have anything to do with climate change. And Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, former Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, used to call for reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Now tapped for Trump's EPA, he's singing a different tune, as Desi Doyen reports today in her coverage of Zeldin's U.S. Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.

• In what suffices for good news today, you may recall that, just before Christmas, President Biden, who vowed during his 2020 campaign to end the federal death penalty (he didn't), mercifully and morally commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal Death Row to life in prison without the possibility of parole. (He should have done the same for the other three, as reprehensible as they may be. The Government shouldn't be in the business of killing its own citizens.) But on Wednesday, according to a scoop from LAW DORK's Chris Geidner, Attorney General Merrick Garland officially withdrew federal approval for the use of single-drug lethal injections of pentobarbital in federal executions. That may slow down, at least, another killing spree by Donald Trump, who ordered the executions of 13 federal Death Row inmates during the final six months of his first term in office. That, after a total of just three people had been executed under all previous Presidents from the years 1975 through 2020.

• And, speaking of warnings of what is coming --- or already here --- in a 17-minute prepared speech (transcript) from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, President Joe Biden issued his Farewell Address to the American people on Wednesday night. He briefly touted his Administration's substantive (and, so far, wildly under-appreciated) record, noting that "It’ll take time to feel the full impact of what we’ve done together, but the seeds are planted and they’ll grow and they’ll bloom for decades to come." He then went on to issue a series of dire warnings that echoed President Eisenhower's 1961 Farewell Address, in which he famously warned of the menace of the then-burgeoning Cold War Military-Industrial Complex. In this case, Biden warned of the dangers of a Tech-Industrial Complex and explained that "an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead." He hearkened back to the push-back against the Gilded Age of the robber barons over a century ago, while charging that Americans are now "being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power." We share an extended excerpt of those warnings and others --- "the existential threat of climate change", unchecked A.I. development, our corrupted U.S. Supreme Court, a "crumbling" free press --- from Biden's final Oval Office address before Monday's Inauguration of the first convicted felon, adjudicated rapist and adjudicated insurrectionist to ever be sworn in as President of the United States.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with more on the L.A. Fires and the long recovery ahead; more on Trump's Energy Secretary nominee; more on Joe Biden's encouragement to Americans in his Farewell Address to hold the line on climate action in the years ahead...

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Buckle up for yet another busy day on The BradCast. It's gonna be this way for a long while, I suspect. At least we've got some apparently good news today in the bargain. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

FIRST UP: An apparent breakthrough in the months-long negotiations for a six-week, and perhaps longer, ceasefire and return of hostages to begin ending the horrific, long war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza was announced today. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has yet to confirm the deal, said to begin Sunday, Israel's President Isaac Herzog called on them to do so, and President Joe Biden touted the deal on Wednesday. The months-long negotiations were also said to have been joined by the incoming President's team in recent weeks, who had (much to my surprise) lauded the Biden negotiators in recent days. The White House today said both Administration teams had been "speaking as one" in the latest talks.

THEN: Thanks to the (hopefully) good breaking news mentioned above, we've got a truncated version of coverage of today's six different U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for key posts in the new Trump Administration, with our focus today on Trump loyalist, apologist, Impeachment defense attorney and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, his pick for U.S. Attorney General, dodging largely all advice and consent questions she faced from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Even the easy ones. (Video here.) She repeatedly refused to say, for example, whether Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 election; whether she was aware of any evidence of "massive fraud" during that election; whether she'd advise the incoming President against pardoning violent January 6th insurrectionists who attacked police at the Capitol; whether she would target Trump's perceived enemies for prosecution; or whether she would even insist that he obey the law and Constitution. We share excerpts today from Bondi's questioning from Senators Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI).

FINALLY: Just before Thanksgiving --- just over a week after Donald Trump was announced the winner of he 2024 election --- we were joined on this program by RANDALL D. ELIASON, longtime D.C. federal prosecutor, now law professor at George Washington University, author of the SidebarsBlog newsletter and contributor to a number of media outlets.

Back then, he was calling for the sentencing of Trump in New York --- for his 34 felony convictions related to hush-money payment to a porn star to help him cheat to win the 2016 --- to happen before this month's inauguration, even as the three other criminal felony indictments (two at the federal level and one in Georgia) Trump faced would most likely be abandoned due to the outcome of the election.

On Friday, after several desperate and failed emergency appeals to the high court in New York and to his pals on the U.S. Supreme Court, Trump was, indeed sentenced for those felonies by NY's Justice Juan Merchan. The sentence, unfortunately, was for an "unconditional discharge", with the judge explaining that he felt it was his only option given the results of the election. That means Trump will face no jail time or even financial penalty for his 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide the 2016 payout. He will, however, take the oath of office next week as the first felon to become President of the United States.

Eliason returns to the program today, to explain if that's what he had been hoping for, or, at least, if that satisfies his pre-Thanksgiving advocacy. Over the weekend, in an article at Sidebars on the sentencing, he lauded Merchan and described the sentencing as "a small victory (yes, really) for the rule of law."

But is it? Apparently Trump thinks it is, Eliason argues. We drill down on that question (he calls Merchan's sentence "the least-bad option" even if it "feels like another example of [Trump] being above the law."); what Merchan might have done differently while attempting "to avoid even the perception" that the court was trying to influence the 2024 election; what the terse 5 to 4 SCOTUS rejection [PDF] of Trump's emergency appeal to block his NY sentencing augers for a second Trump Presidency ("not a good sign"); whether the case could still be tossed on appeal; and much more, including both Eliason's insight on whether the full Jack Smith Special Counsel report on Trump's now-abandoned federal indictments will ever be released, and his concerns about the DoJ under Trump during the next Administration.

On that last point, Eliason warns today, in the wake of Trump's A.G. pick Bondi appearing ready to roll over for whatever Trump wants: "The bigger picture concern is the threats that Trump has made to use the Justice Department to go after political opponents and those who criticize him. Like the people who ran the House January 6th investigation. That is obviously wrong --- a violation of everything the Justice Department stands for. And if those kinds of things do start to happen, that's going to be a major, major deal."

"That's one of my biggest concerns," he explains. "Trump says a lot of stuff that he never follows through on. But if his Justice Department --- which is going to have some of his personal trial attorneys, apparently, in top positions --- if they do start using the justice system to go after his political opponents and those who criticize him, then that's going to be a huge, huge problem."

Stand by for huge, huge problems...

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Today on The BradCast: The first of what will likely be a series of contentious U.S. Senate advice and consent hearings for key cabinet nominees tapped for the second Trump Administration. Tomorrow seven such hearings are scheduled, most of them overlapping with each other, purposely making public oversight even more difficult. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Fox "News" weekend host, National Guardsman, accused sexual assaulter, womanizer and public drunkard Pete Hegseth faced a grilling from U.S. Senate Democrats on the Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, even as they were constrained by Republicans who agreed to just one single round of questioning, with just seven minutes for each member. They also refused to share an FBI background report on Hegseth with rank-and-file Committee members.

That, after Hegseth similarly refused to meet directly with any Democratic Senators on the panel in advance of today's hearing, which is usually the custom for such high-profile nominations. Moreover, late on Monday night, the New York Times reported that --- similar to the 2018 report compiled on sexual assault allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Senate nomination hearings --- the FBI failed to conduct in-depth interviews with critical witnesses, such as Hegseth's second of three wives, who have made disturbing allegations against him.

The Times observes that Trump's transition team "commissioned the F.B.I. background check on Mr. Hegseth last month after initially floating the idea of hiring private contractors to look into the president-elect's cabinet picks. As the client, presidential transition teams are traditionally able to set the parameters for background checks into cabinet picks, and potentially dictate which witnesses are interviewed and what questions are asked."

Taken together --- as we do on today's show with extended excerpts from today's hearing --- the allegations against the wildly unqualified and ill-considered Hegseth are simply mind-blowing, particularly for such a key role as leader of the Pentagon's three million employees and oversight of its annual $850 billion budget. The Trump nominee has no experience at the Pentagon, much less leading an organization with more than 40 or so employees. And, he's faced allegations of financial mismanagement at both of the veterans non-profits he has overseen, along with a long list of other charges, including rape, that he defiantly (and inaccurately) described at today's hearing as coming from "anonymous sources."

Still, it became clear throughout the hearing that Hegseth would face no resistance whatsoever from any Republican on the panel, including military vet and sexual assault survivor Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa. Shortly after the hearing, she declared her intention to vote to confirm the 44-year old Trump nominee who has repeatedly asserted that women have no place in military combat roles.

Finally, we've got late updates in the still-raging Los Angeles Fires out here, where officials gained a measure of additional containment of the two major blazes --- in Pacific Palisades near the coast and of the Eaton fire, inland in Altadena and Pasadena --- in recent days. However, the National Weather Service issued yet another "Particularly Dangerous Situation" warning overnight for parts of L.A. as strong Santa Ana winds are expected to kick up again tonight and throughout early Wednesday. As we saw last week, that could result in explosive new fires or the quick expansion of those that are now entering a second week of disaster, destruction and death.

Desi Doyen joins us or our latest Green News Report with additional concerns about the fallout from those toxic, climate change-fueled conflagrations, even as Donald Trump and Republicans spread massive disinformation about them and threaten to withhold federal disaster aid from California...

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It's been a rough 24 hours or so. But we are among the lucky ones, as detailed at the top of today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The photo of a massive fire nearby first came in via cell phone from a neighbor before we had even been able to publish yesterday's show to the blog. The show was, of course, about the ongoing wind and firestorms here in Los Angeles., including an interview with a longtime colleague whose house burned down on Tuesday night in Pacific Palisades.

Now it seemed to be happening to us. The City began sending alerts to all of our phones, telling us to get ready for an evacuation. From my back patio, I could see the huge flames and orange plumes rising out of Runyon Canyon, a park just a few blocks from where we live. It would come to be known as the "Sunset Fire" for some reason, as reported by the national media. Which meant that most of you probably learned more about the fire and what was going on than we did being in the middle of it.

The photo used above for our graphic today was taken by another neighbor at the end of our block about 30 minutes before the "GET OUT NOW!" order came from the City. As you can tell, it was unsettling to say the least.

Long story short (we share the longer version on today's show, with a bunch of interesting Lessons Learned along the way), after the mandatory evacuation order came, we, and a whole bunch of others folks in the area, grabbed up whatever belongings we felt we needed and high-tailed it out of here. Or, at least tried to. The narrow streets here in the lower Hollywood Hills were packed, in what national media correctly described as a sudden, chaotic evacuation.

Anyway, with the winds having died down from hurricane force levels 24 hours earlier, firefighters were able to get airborne again and knock down "our" particular raging inferno in fairly short order. "Only" 60 acres said to have burned. The mandatory evacuation order was lifted by morning and all was well upon our return. Safe and sound. But, as noted, tune in for more of the harrowing details.

It was inconvenient, and not a lot of fun. But we were among the lucky ones. More than 2,000 10,000(!) structures have now reportedly been destroyed or damaged in at least 4 different raging fires around Los Angeles, in what is being described as the most costly fire disaster in U.S. history, if not the most deadly. Six people are now reported killed, though authorities say that number is expected to climb when, and if, they are finally able to get the largest fires under control. Winds are predicted to pick up again tonight and through next week, though not as high as they had been over the past 48 hours or so. Stay safe out there. But do tune in for a few tips we learned over the past 24 hours about sudden, unexpected evacuations.

Also today, President Jimmy Carter --- who, speaking of harrowing experiences, was once lowered into a melted down nuclear reactor core! --- was finally laid to rest today. We share details and a few audio excerpts from today's memorial service at the National Cathedral in D.C.

Finally, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report, with more details on the L.A. fires and their connection to climate change, as we miraculously were able to produce both that and a 'BradCast' today...which I didn't see as remotely possible at about 7 or 8pm last night. But we made it. We are among the lucky ones...

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: We will be off from Monday's BradCast due to a previously scheduled, unchangeable appointment. We'll be back Tuesday, as normal, but I didn't want you to worry, given everything otherwise underway in L.A. over this past week!

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From the heart of climate-changed wind and inferno country, apparently, it's today's special edition of The BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

As you might suspect, as we broadcast most days from Hollywood, pretty much in the center of Los Angeles, the bulk of today's show is dedicated to fire coverage. Yesterday we reported on the high winds, gusting at times to hurricane levels, nearly 100mph, and the National Weather Service Red Flag warnings of potentially out of control fires they were likely to bring. They did. The blaze in Pacific Palisades, on the coast, actually sparked up just as we began yesterday's program and had grown to about 300 acres by the time we signed off.

This morning, as we awoke to eerily blackened skies, which eventually gave way to a sickly orange pall by late afternoon, that fire had grown to several thousand acres. By showtime, once the winds had died down a bit and firefighters were actually able to take to the air to battle the blaze, it had grown to more than 24 square miles. More than 1,000 structures have now reportedly burned, and tens of thousands are under evacuation orders in that fire and three other major ones that have broken out across L.A. County --- near Pasadena to the east of us and Sylmar to the North --- in the bargain. The fire in Palisades, is now, officially, the most destructive fire in L.A. history.

We do our best to cover the latest on all of that today, as fire fighters are said to be overwhelmed and resources, such as water to battle the out-of-control infernos, has been in short supply, particularly while airborne units had been grounded.

One of those who lost their home last night in Palisades, tragically, was our friend JOHN AMATO, the longtime blogger and creator of the notorious Crooks and Liars blog. [See his last photos from his house here.] He is kind enough to join us on the show today from Santa Monica to detail his harrowing evacuation last night, along with details of all that he has lost today.

"It's just total destruction," says Amato. And though he hasn't yet been able to get back to his community, a neighbor who was among the last to leave told him that "everything is just melted to the ground."

"We've never seen the speed of this fire. It just spread so fast," he tells me. "The devastation is just incredible. The wind was blowing these flaming embers everywhere. It's like a tidal wave of fire."

Also today, the latest on Donald Trump's pathetic attempt at SCOTUS to avoid even a shred of accountability for his 34 felony fraud convictions in New York, and, by way of stark contrast, a reminder of a few more of the extraordinary accomplishments of President Jimmy Carter before he is finally laid to rest on Thursday. (Did you know that, in addition to creating the Dept. of Energy, he also created the Education Dept., which Trump vows to shut down, and FEMA, which is very very important out here in Los Angeles today, including to our guest who just lost his home?)

Thanks to all those who have touched based to see how Desi and I are. We're fine. For now. Please tune in for our special coverage. And please stay safe out there...

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I suspect it's gonna get much uglier before it's all said and done. And we're here for it! A "MAGA Civil War"? Count us in on The BradCast! [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

But, first up, some other news today...

• Repeated "wildfire weather" warnings from the National Weather Service for Los Angeles, predicting "a life-threatening, destructive windstorm," with wind gusts as high as 100mph(!) from Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday morning, after months of dry weather appear to have been prescient. The day started here with a neighbors huge tree limb blowing over to crush our backyard canopy amid the gusty winds. By shows end today, tens of thousands being evacuated from a quickly growing wildfire in Pacifica Palisades, on the coast. It has gotten much worse since we got off air today, with hundreds reportedly abandoning their cars on the Pacific Coast highway to flee encroaching flames.

• In what counts for Trump criminal accountability court news these days, his favorite federal Judge/tool, Aileen Cannon in Florida, who was seated at the very end of his first term after he lost the 2020 election, , is working hard for her promotion to SCOTUS. On Tuesday, she exercised dubious authority to block the release, at least for now, of Special Counsel Jack Smith's report on Donald Trump's two different, now-abandoned federal felony indictments for stealing thousands of pages of highly classified national security documents upon leaving office, and for his failed attempts to steal the 2020 election. We'll see how long her ruling stands.

• Meanwhile, in New York, an appeals court on Tuesday rejected Donald Trump's attempt to stay his criminal sentencing, still scheduled for Friday, in the case in which he was found guilty of 34 felony fraud counts related to his hush money payments to a porn star to help him cheat to win the 2016 election. Barring any surprises, the sentencing is still on for this week, though the judge in the case has indicated he is unlikely to issue any jail time, given Trump's re-election. But, even with an "unconditional discharge", he will still become the nation's first convicted felon to be sworn in as President.

• On Monday in New York, in federal court, former NYC Mayor turned disgraced Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was found in contempt of court for failing to lawfully respond to the $148 million defamation judgement against him won by Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who Rudy and Trump both falsely claimed had committed fraud during the 2020 election. If only Rudy could have figured out how to become President and make all of his crimes go away like Donny did.

• Then, we're joined by RYAN COOPER, Managing Editor of The American Prospect, on the emerging (and hilarious) dust-up between the broligarchs who control Trump, like richest-man-in-the-world Elon Musk (and his sidekick Vivek Ramaswamy), and his hardcore MAGA cultists like Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon. Cooper's article on the matter is headlined "President Musk Declares War on American Workers".

  Just before the turn of the new year, sparks started flying when the duped MAGA cultists learned that Trump was going to continue the H-1B visa program that allows skilled tech workers to come to the U.S. and take less money to work longer hours than American citizens. After facing criticism for the Silicon Valley billionaires' favorite work visa scheme (the South African-born Musk came here himself on an H-1B), Musk took to the social media site he purchased and declared war on Loomer and any other MAGAs who dared oppose him, declaring: "The reason I'm in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B," before he added, "Take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend."

  The self-proclaimed "free-speech absolutist" then proceeded to downgrade and demonetize Loomer's account on Twitter/X, along with dozens of other MAGAs who dared call out Musk and the H-1B program.

  Today, Cooper explains tells me why the Silicon Valley broligarchs are so fond of the H-1B program, which, he says, they wield as a "weapon of class warfare" that "provides a pool of exploitable labor" that must do as you say or get sent back to their country. We also discuss Musk and the Right's actual position on "free speech" ("Tthey get to say whatever they want, and you get to shut up."); who appears to really be calling the shots now in Trumpland (Hint: its the guy who controls the "still depressingly influential social media platform that all the Republicans are on"); and how this nascent war between the two major factions of Trump's MAGA cult/coalition is likely to shake out in the days ahead.

  "We are in the realm of syphilitic emperor history books," Cooper tells me. "You've got Trump, who is 78 and clearly has lost MANY steps from when he was a young man. But Elon Musk is also incredibly erratic and impulsive. With these two megalomaniac narcissists with giant fevered egos, typically you'd see a massive falling out over something." And yet, so far, Trump is standing with the richest man on Earth and pretending he even knows what the H-1B program is. Meanwhile, says Cooper, about "Trump and his toadies, the minute they become inconvenient for him, he just throws them over the side. Which, for some reason, doesn't seem to affect the supply of people lining up to get thrown over the side the next day."

• Finally, Desi Doyen has our first Green News Report of the new year, with much to catch up on after our long holiday break, including the brutal, climate change-fueled weather across much of the country this week; President Joe Biden's last-minute ban on new offshore drilling across most U.S. coastal waters; the environmental legacy of the late President Jimmy Carter; and much more...

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