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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Crews gain ground against L.A. Fires, as long road to recovery begins; Trump's Dept. of Energy nominee, a fossil fuel executive, calls for more domestic energy production; PLUS: President Biden urges Americans to hold the line on climate action in farewell address... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): FDA bans Red Dye No. 3 from food; For LA water issues, misinformation spreads nearly as fast as the wildfires; As climate risks mount, homeowners far beyond California face soaring insurance bills; Standoff in South Africa ends with 87 miners dead; Biden approved L.A. wildfire aid. But Trump will control spending; More Americans than ever are living in wildfire areas. L.A. is no exception; EPA warns of 'forever chemicals' in sludge fertilizer... PLUS: Biden administration withdraws proposal that aimed to save whales off East Coast by slowing ship speeds... and much, MUCH more! ...

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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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Los Angeles Fires intensify toxic air pollution and housing shortages in Southern California; Trump and Republicans spark a firestorm of disinformation about the L.A. Fires; PLUS: Congressional Republicans threaten to withhold disaster aid from California... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Lifeboat Capitalism: Some burn, some drown, and some make money either way; Global Warming Surges Well Past 1.5-Degree Mark in 2024; World’s Record Heat Is Worsening Air Pollution And Health In Global South; States Are Preparing To Help Or Thwart Trump’s Second-Term Plans; How Big Oil hindered the fight against L.A.'s wildfires... PLUS: What happens when a state insurer of last resort goes belly-up?
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Extreme wildfire crisis now the most destructive in Los Angeles history, as Green News Report is forced to evacuate; Climate change is intensifying extreme fire conditions; PLUS: President Biden designates two new national monuments, protecting sacred tribal lands... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Jimmy Carter raised climate change concerns 35 years before Paris Accords; Trump promises to end new wind farms; What are the factors the caused the unseasonal CA fires?; California wildfires threaten insurers already teetering from climate shocks; To save the Great Salt Lake, farmers will have to grow less alfalfa; Coal was on its way out. But surging electricity demand is keeping it alive... PLUS: Biden FWS declines to remove grizzly bears from endangered list... and much, MUCH more! ...

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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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New year, new punishing extreme weather; 2024 was the hottest year in human history; President Biden bans new offshore drilling across most U.S. coastal waters; PLUS: The legacy of Jimmy Carter, one of the greatest conservation presidents in U.S. history... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Russia's failed energy war has lessons for fossil fools everywhere; Climate change added 41 days of dangerous heat around world in 2024; Climate-driven sea level rise will overwhelm major oil ports, study shows; Restoration efforts continue following complete blackout of Puerto Rico's power grid; How Elon Musk's DOGE could end fossil fuel subsidies; Biden Admin adds exemptions into new climate rules for hydrogen energy; FWS deal to expand Okefenokee Refuge, enabling buyout of mining project... PLUS: Ex-Trump official: We need to take Greenland, because climate change... and much, MUCH more! ...

We're back on today's BradCast after our holiday break! And just in time for today's completely peaceful January 6th certification of the 2024 Electoral College results during a joint session of Congress. It sure is fun how peaceful things are when Republicans aren't pretending the election was stolen from them, eh? [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

But that doesn't mean 2025 hasn't started off with a bang, unfortunately, as discussed along with a whole bunch of stuff today as we begin to get caught up on some news we missed over our break and the news that continues to break now that we're back.

Before opening up the phones to listeners in the second half of today's show, here are links to just some of the stories cited in our coverage today...

• Blogger and activist Jeff Tiedrich offers perhaps the best ever journalistic description of the "cognitively-impaired rage-baby" who, over the weekend, "melt[ed] down into saddest sad ever" over flags to be flown at half-staff in memory of President Jimmy Carter during the rage-baby's second inauguration two weeks from today.

• Our factoids of the day on Jimmy Carter's environmental legacy, as the long goodbye to the 37th President of the United States continues before he is finally laid to rest in Plains, Georgia later this week at age 100.

• In her capacity as President of the U.S. Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost the 2024 Presidential election to Donald Trump, oversaw the certification of the Electoral College results today during a peaceful joint session of Congress. It was carried out without challenge, incident, death, insurrection or terror attack on the U.S. Capitol, as previously incited by the former President (now official President-elect) four years ago today.

• Criminal felon and rage-baby Donald Trump continues to rage this week following the ruling [PDF] last Friday by the judge in his New York hush money trial, where he was found guilty of 34 counts of felony fraud related to paying off a porn star to help him cheat to win the 2016 election. Justice Juan Merchan ordered that Trump would be sentenced this coming Friday, ten days before his second inauguration. But the judge also signaled Trump was unlikely to face any jail time and will instead receive an unusual, "unconditional discharge" for his many crimes. Nonetheless, Trump continues to rage and appeal and, so far, lose all of those appeals. Despite that likely lack of any actual punishment at all, the news now means Trump will almost certainly be sworn in to office as the first convicted felon to enjoy that great honor.

• Also today, a few words about the terror attacks by two U.S. citizens last week on New Year's Day, one in New Orleans on Bourbon Street, one in Las Vegas outside of a Trump hotel in a Tesla Cybertruck, The latter was carried out by a hardcore Donald Trump (and Elon Musk and Bobby Kennedy Jr.) supporter, even though that aspect of the attack has been virtually ignored by the corporate media.

Then we open the phones to listeners for the first time in the new year, To discuss the news of the day along with hopes and fears for what lies ahead this year. In addition to one of our favorite Trump trolls, we also hear from a caller who says that he went to school with Elon Musk in South Africa. What he tells us happened at that school, if true, may explain a whole lot about Elon Musk...

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Today, on our last new BradCast of 2024: It's beginning to look a lot like failure, everywhere you look in D.C. It's already getting pathetic before either the new majorities are sworn in to Congress or the new Administration officially takes over the White House. But we're all here for the GOP fiascos today! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... A state appeals court panel in Georgia ruled 2 to 1 on Thursday that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis must be disqualified from the racketeering indictment she filed against Donald Trump and 18-conspirators for their failed attempt to steal the state from Joe Biden in 2020. The case itself, however, may continue. The court cited an "appearance of impropriety" related to Willis' romantic relationship with a former Special Prosecutor assigned to the same case. She quickly filed an appeal to the ruling today, but it could be the end to this criminal case against the convicted felon who will be sworn in as President, even though today's ruling could still be overturned by the state Supreme Court or Georgia's Prosecuting Attorneys' Council could reassign the case to another prosecution team.

THEN... If you're looking for an idea of what next year may be like in Congress, when Republicans in the U.S. House will have an even slimmer majority than they do now, and when Donald Trump will be "running the ship" in the White House, look no farther than the clusterf__k that has unfolded over the past 24 hours in the House. A bipartisan, bicameral deal to avoid a Government shutdown on Friday, just before Christmas, was effectively nixed by... Elon Musk, the unelected South African who appears to have purchased not just the Presidency, but the entirety of the U.S. Government with his $277 million investment on Trump's behalf in the 2024 Presidential election.

After a few of Musk's tweets against it yesterday --- despite clearly never even having read a single page of the three-month Continuing Resolution meant largely to keep the government operating until a full budget deal could be reached in March --- the bill was pronounced dead. Then Trump jumped in, late in the game, to say that he too --- just like Elon! --- was against the bill! Even though he could have rung in to kill it or change it any time long before yesterday. Musk, the richest man in the world, and perhaps the most clueless (at least when it comes to how government and legislation works) now seems to be running the GOP ship in D.C., despite having no clue how to run a D.C. ship.

Trump then began demanding an end to the very idea of a Debt Ceiling despite the Debt Ceiling having nothing to do with this week's must-pass legislation. (His newfound objection to it is apparently because he doesn't want to have the raise the Debt Ceiling on his watch, so he'll be free when he does to blow up the national debt with new, enormous tax cuts for his wealthy pals...like Elon!) This afternoon a new bill was cobbled together that Trump claimed to support. But, minutes after we got off air, that measure failed, as Democrats were no longer interested in helping Speaker Mike Johnson --- or Trump or President Musk --- out of their own mess.

Of course, that's not all that's happening at years-end. And we've got two of our good friends and fan faves here to try and make sense (or not) of much of it. We're joined once again today by fellow old-school bloggers, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo blog, and DRIFTGLASS, author of his own eponymously-named blog and co-host of the weekly Professional Left Podcast, for an end-of-year roundtable, of sorts.

As usual, they've both got keen insight on the idiocy unfurling in D.C. today and much more, including such topics as...

• DRONES over New Jersey!!! (Also: Who cares?)
• Elon's buffoonery and Trump's diminishment.
• Mike Johnson's likely brief future as House Speaker.
• Consequences and dangers (for voters, for January 6th, for Inauguration Day) of a GOP holiday government shutdown and a GOP failure to elect a House Speaker.
• Corporate CEOs kissing Trump's ass, for some reason.
• Will we be targeted by the new Administration?
• Should Joe Biden offer preemptive pardons to people like Liz Cheney?
• Do Dems really need to reinvent themselves, as some claim, after narrowly losing the Presidency and picking up a seat in the House in November?
• Did the Dems blow an opportunity by not elevating superstar Rep. AOC to Ranking Member of the Oversight Committee?

...And what are Digby and Driftglass most worried about --- and most hopeful for --- in the new year, as a new Republican majority takes over Congress and either Trump or Musk take over the White House?

FINALLY... Desi Doyen is here for our last Green News Report of 2024, as the Biden EPA grants California's waiver to phase out sales of new, all-gasoline cars by 2035; A disturbing new study on microplastics and cancer; And Biden's Dept. of Energy finds that GOP plans to expand natural gas exports will hike up prices for Americans...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Biden E.P.A. grants California waiver to phase out sales of new gasoline cars by 2035; New study links microplastics to lung and colon cancers; PLUS: Energy Department finds Republicans' plan to expand natural gas exports will drive up prices for Americans... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Biden just unveiled America’s ambitious new climate goal. Trump will assuredly undo it; The war against murder hornets is over, officials say. The U.S. won; Global warming can’t be ignored, Montana’s top court says, upholding landmark climate case; 'Explosive' demand growth puts more than half of North America at risk of blackouts; Trump transition team plans sweeping rollback of Biden EV, emissions policies; Insurance cracking under climate stress... PLUS: Can we avoid the enshittification of clean-energy tech?... and much, MUCH more! ...

As usual, the incoming President has almost no clue what he's talking about. Not that he cares or that it matters. That's especially true, as discussed on today's BradCast, when it comes to elections and voting laws. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... It's another one of those fire-hose news days akin to what we experienced, day after day, during the first Trump term. We can only cover what we can cover. So, we start with the news, as reported by CNN today, that the House Ethics Committee voted in secret earlier this month to release the report from their years-long investigation of allegations against now-former Rep. and now-former Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz. The report, which Republicans on the bipartisan panel voted against releasing in November, is said to focus on allegations of Gaetz' salacious sexual misconduct with minors, illicit drug use, and other crimes, potentially included bribery and more. CNN says the Committee has decided to make the report public "after the House's final day of votes this year" unless they "change course now that it has voted."

NEXT... In an update to a story we've been following since last month's election, the North Carolina State Board of Elections has decided it will not order a full hand-recount in the election for State Supreme Court between the incumbent Democrat, Justice Allison Riggs, and her Republican opponent, Jefferson Griffin. The original computer-reported tally from the November 5 contest found Riggs defeated Griffin by 623 votes out of more than 5.5 million ballots cast. A Griffin-requested machine recount widened Riggs' lead to 724 votes over the Republican challenger, who then requested a hand-count. State law allows a small number of precincts in each county to be hand-counted before ordering a full hand-count in the event that the smaller audit is way out of line with the computer recount. In the hand-count samples in all 100 counties in NC, both candidates picked up votes (Riggs gained 70, Griffin picked up 56), but it was not enough to trigger a full, statewide hand-count. With Riggs declared the certified winner, Griffin is also seeking to toss some 60,000 ballots out entirely, claiming those voters, including military and overseas voters, were either not entitled to vote or to have their votes counted. The matter is expected to end up at the state Supreme Court. Presumably, Justice Riggs, one of just two remaining Democrats on the seven-person High Court, will recuse herself if that happens.

THEN... Donald Trump has been vowing and/or threatening to end Joe Biden's "EV mandate" on "Day One" when he takes office, even though there is no Biden "EV mandate." A week or so ago on Meet the Press, Trump reiterated his plans to sign Executive Orders to "end the electric mandate immediately for the cars" and for "ending a lot of the environmental things that were ridiculous that hurt our country very badly and didn't do anything for the environment...ya know, standard things." This week, Reuters has an exclusive report on the specific plans from the Trump Transition team for those "standard things", including what the news outlet describes as "sweeping changes to cut off support for electric vehicles and charging stations" and to redirect that funding to "national-defense priorities." The plans also involve reversing California's (and twelve other states') emission standards that save lives and reduce energy prices for residents, and doing away with the Biden administration's $7,500 consumer tax credit for EV purchases, a policy expected to harm U.S. automakers like General Motors (if less so for Tesla, whose CEO spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to get Trump elected). But all of those things may be easier said than done, certainly on "Day One", as Desi Doyen explains.

FINALLY... Speaking of easier said than done, Donald Trump has also been demanding changes to voting and election laws, most prominently after he began falsely claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Earlier this month, he declared at a Fox "News" event, once again, that "we want to have paper ballots, one-day voting, voter ID, and proof of citizenship" among other changes to election law that he has repeatedly called for. He doesn't seem to understand most of the things he's demanding, nor care about the fact that some of the measures would disenfranchise millions of Americans.

We're joined today by JOSHUA A. DOUGLAS, election law professor at the Univ. of Kentucky College of Law; author of a number of recent books on American democracy, and now the host of the Democracy Optimist podcast and companion newsletter.

This week, at Washington Monthly, Douglas explained why Trump, in truth, will have "little official power to implement the new rules he supports," given that the U.S. Constitution gives most power regarding elections to the states. While Congress has certainly adopted a number of landmark federal voting laws over the years, Douglas tells me today, "it's really a process of local control. The President himself cannot issue an Executive Order or some sort of decree that elections should be changed one way or the other without states being the ones to pass those laws --- or Congress, but that's a difficult path, as well."

"The President doesn't have any power unilaterally to dictate election rules," says Douglas, while recognizing that Trump will have both the bully pulpit to muscle Congress and states into adopting new laws and rules, along with the power to appoint members of the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) and Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and, particularly in Trump's case, to direct his Dept. of Justice to enforce certain laws and ignore others. "But the President, under the Constitution, doesn't have any formal powers to regulate elections, beyond signing or vetoing a Congressional law."

We step through some of the specific measures Trump has been demanding, such as "paper ballots" (which the vast majority of voters already use), "one-day voting" (ending absentee and early voting), Voter ID (already mandated by most states and, under federal law, already required when registering voters in all 50 states), and the point that most concerns Douglas, "proof of citizenship" when registering to vote. If actually adopted at the federal level, he argues, it would likely disenfranchise tens of millions of voters and become "a real logistical nightmare for election officials."

The efforts by Republicans to change election laws on the state level, are a different matter, as Douglas explains as well. But, bottom line, there is no "magic wand" for Trump to use to undermine elections by himself, much less on "Day One". And there are quite a few things that YOU can do, to stop him and anyone else who would try to restrict our right to vote.

Given recent events, is Douglas still the "democracy optimist" he was when he originally named his podcast and newsletter earlier this year? Tune on in to find out...

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

Among our coverage today...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Still trying to make sense of it all on today's BradCast. But at least we've got confirmation today on a few different stories that we've been yelling and screaming about for years now. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among our stories today...

• A hand-count of ballots in Ashtabula County, Ohio last week found that two contests on the ballot --- one, a tax levy to fund city schools, the other, to fund a cemetery district --- were actually adopted by voters on November 5th, after previously being reported, inaccurately, as having failed. The hand-count in the contests took place after errors were discovered in the tabulation for all County Issues on the ballot during a hand-count of a fire district levy, which also flipped from NO to YES, thanks to the hand-count.

  Tomorrow, the 2024 Presidential Electors, chosen by the popular vote in each state, will meet in each state capital to cast their vote in the Electoral College. A majority of those votes will be cast for Donald Trump, based on the computer-tallied results in each state. Those results either accurately reflect the intent of the majority of the electorate --- or they do not. Without the publicly-overseen hand-counts that cybersecurity and voting system experts were strongly recommending this year in particular (we think it's a good idea for every election), Americans are unlikely to ever know one way or the other if Trump actually defeated Kamala Harris. At least in Ashtabula they now know that their levy issues were tallied as per voter intent, and the local high school which saw its roof collapse in early December under five and a half feet of snow, will now be able to afford to fix the damage.

• Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty on Monday to lying to federal agents about a supposed $10 million in bribes he falsely claimed were paid by Burisma, an energy company in Ukraine, to Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Those lies, which Smirnov said were peddled to him by members of Russian intelligence, were at the center of House Republicans' failed attempt to impeach President Biden, after they and Trump and his other supporters laundered that disinformation from Russian intelligence operatives into the American media and chambers of the U.S. Congress.

• Over the weekend, CNN reported that nearly three dozen of Donald Trump's nominees for his incoming Administration were donors to his campaign or to "outside" groups supporting him. Eight of Trump's nominees to Cabinet positions, so far, donated more than $37 million dollars. That doesn't even include the $277 million dollars spent by Elon Musk to help buy Trump's Presidency and his position of power within it. Musk has been named to head up Trump's so-called "Department of Government Efficiency." Compare that to the seemingly paltry $100,000 in donations to the 2020 Biden Campaign or super PACs supporting him, from a dozen members of Biden's Cabinet. As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) noted this weekend on Meet the Press, "Never before in American history have so few billionaires, so few people, had so much wealth and so much power. And never before, in American history, have the people on top had so much political power. We can't go around the world saying, 'Oh, well, in Russia, Putin has an oligarchy.' Well, we've got an oligarchy here too!"

• Of course, it's not just those hoping to abuse positions of power in Trump's next Administration. Over the past week, Amazon founder (and Washington Post owner) Jeff Bezos and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg each announced their companies were giving $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund. And over the weekend, ABC News --- owned by the Goliath, $200 billion Disney corporation --- announced they were settling a defamation case filed against them and George Stephanopoulos after the ABC anchors' on-air assertion that Donald Trump "had been found liable for rape" in the lawsuits filed against him by writer E. Jean Carroll, in which juries found Trump liable for some $88 million dollars after guilty verdicts for sexual abuse and defamation. The case they chose to settle would likely easily have been won by ABC for a number of reasons, including the fact that the Judge in Carroll's defamation case against Trump told the jury that the jury in the sexual assault case found Trump was indeed found guilty of what "many people commonly understand the word 'rape'" to mean. Instead of fighting, however, the Disney-owned company bent the knee, agreed to issue an apology, give $15 million to Trump's future Presidential Library fund as a "charitable contribution", and $1 million to his law firm. Why would they do that? Josh Marshall offers an excellent explanation, citing how legacy media outlets like ABC News and Washington Post (along with CNN, NBC, MSNBC and others) amount to a drop in the bucket to the major corporations which own them. While those corporations are willing to sacrifice their money-losing news outfits, they are willing to pay tribute to the "King" to help dissuade him from abusing his power to go after the rest of their multi-billion dollar corporations that are far more vulnerable to abuses of power by a corrupt President.

• Finally, we open the phone lines to listeners on all of the above --- or whatever else is on their minds today --- in what is likely to be our last call-in show of the year. And, for reasons I cannot explain, they were all suspiciously kind today. Hmmm....

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Lots of news today on BradCast, though not all of it terrible. It also features not one, but two song and dance men, though only one of them is not a horrible person. Either way, we promise to leave you singing on your way out of the theater. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among today's stories of note...

• In the largest single-day act of clemency in modern U.S. history, President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of some 1,500 people today who were released from prison to home confinement during the COVID pandemic. As discussed, he also promised "more steps in the weeks ahead."

• The Dept. of Justice's Inspector General released a long-awaited report [PDF] today on the FBI's preparation for what became Donald Trump's January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Despite years of false claims by MAGA Republicans, including members of Congress, that undercover FBI employees somehow instigated the attack, the I.G. report finds, among other things, that none were present at the Capitol that day.

• Inflation and, specifically, high prices at the grocery store have been cited by many as the reason for Donald Trump's apparent election victory last month. In fact, he ran on promises of lowering prices at the grocery store "very quickly" throughout the campaign. In September, for example, he declared: "Vote Trump and grocery prices will come tumbling down". In October, he promised to "bring your grocery bill way down." And, in an interview that aired on NBC this past Sunday, he attributed his victory, in part, "on groceries" and said again that "we're going to bring those prices way down." Rarely did anyone in the media throughout the campaign press him on how he would lower the cost of groceries. So it seems voters were misinformed enough to believe him and vote for him. And yet, in an interview with Time before Thanksgiving just published today, Trump admits he has no actual plan to lower prices at the grocery store. "It's hard to bring things down once they're up," he told the magazine. "You know, it's very hard." We'll see how long it takes, if it ever does, for MAGA buyers remorse to set in.

• But you know who did help keep your grocery prices low? The Biden Administration's Federal Trade Commission. Biden's progressive Chair of the FTC, Lina Kahn, led a lawsuit against the proposed 2022 merger of grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons, arguing the $20 billion deal would raise prices for consumers and lower pay for the company's 700,000 union workers. This week, a federal judge agreed with the FTC and blocked the merger, at least for now. In the meantime, Trump's nominee to Chair the FTC, Andrew Ferguson (a former clerk for corrupt Justice Clarence Thomas), vows to abandon Khan's tough standards for mergers between powerful American companies.

• North Carolina Republicans took a beating in statewide races in November, losing the contests for Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Sec. of State and Superintendent of Public Instruction. They also lost their gerrymandered supermajority in the state legislature. So, while they still have the power to do so in their lame-duck session, Republican lawmakers, passed a massive bill under the guise of disaster relief for Hurricane Helene (which simply shifted already existing funding from one account to another) and used the next several hundred pages of the bill to strip many of the key powers from all of the incoming Democratic statewide officials. The outgoing Democratic Governor vetoed the obvious power grab. But, last week, the GOP-controlled Senate used their supermajority to override the veto and, despite an outpouring of protest from voters at the state capital, the GOP-controlled House did the same last night. Nonetheless, I suspect this fight ain't over.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on, among other things, the wildfire in Malibu, California that led to the emergency evacuation of thousands of residents, including film and TV legend Dick Van Dyke, who turns 99 on Friday. Also, on the effort by environmentalists to add Endangered Species Act protections to the quickly disappearing Monarch Butterfly. As Des mentions at the end of today's show, you can leave a public comment here in favor of the Fish and Wildlife Department's effort to protect the butterflies.

  And, as she also discussed, that fantastic and charming and so, so sweet music video and interview with Van Dyke by Coldplay's Chris Martin, released just last week before the fire --- filmed at Van Dyke's Malibu home which, thankfully (as you'll be especially happy to hear after watching the video!), didn't burn down this week, can be seen right here. Never mind today's BradCast for the moment. Go watch that video. We'll be here when you get back. You'll thank us!

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