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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Internal FEMA report warns agency is not ready for hurricane season; Trump administration flip-flops, reverses shutdown of massive offshore wind project; PLUS: China's emissions are falling, thanks to massive deployment of clean energy... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): GOP budget plan contains a massive poison pill for clean energy; Toxic wildfire pollution infiltrates homes of 1 billion people a year, study finds; Electricity costs keep climbing, despite Trump's promises; 'Rogue' communication devices found on Chinese-made solar power inverters; Poll: majority want federal agencies to increase efforts to protect people from the health harms of global warming; DOGE cuts could wreck the cleanup of wartime nuclear waste at Hanford, WA... PLUS: 15 years after Deepwater spill, researchers reveal most-polluting rigs... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: The President of the Unites States' war on the U.S. Constitution and Rule of Law continues, even as he keeps losing battle after battle in courts of law, at ballot boxes and in the court of public opinion. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today....

• At the beginning of last week, we reported the news of the Canada's Liberal Party overcoming an enormous deficit against the Conservative Party last December to triumph in national elections on Monday, when the Conservative Party's Trumpy Leader even lost his own seat in Parliament. By week's end, we saw damned near the exact same story in Australia, where the Labor Party Prime Minister on Friday retained his post (the first time that a ruling PM was elected twice in a row over the past 20+ years) and the conservative opposition lost in a landslide that saw its Trumpy party leader also lose his seat in Parliament as well, for the first time in Australian history. If nothing else, Trump's obnoxious behavior toward our longtime allies seems to be working wonders for center-left political parties in those countries.

• Trump announced over the weekend that he will place a 100% tariff on movies "produced in foreign lands". Apparently, that would include American-made films shot in other countries, though he didn't explain --- and nobody in the Administration seems to yet know --- how such a "tariff" would actually be levied. Many fear it could also devastate the U.S. film industry. The new tariffs are necessary, Trump lied, because foreign film production is somehow a "National Security threat", according to his social media announcement. (It isn't a national security threat, of course. But I explain on today's show why Trump needs to pretend as much.)

• As Trump revealed on NBC's Meet the Press over the weekend, he's not entirely sure if Constitutional Due Process, as cited by the 5th and 14th Amendments, is actually mandatory. That despite the Supreme Court making clear that it very much is, and despite his sworn oath earlier this year upon taking office for a second time to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

• Clearly, the Rule of Law and Constitution don't mean all that much to Donald Trump, as again illustrated by his four Executive Orders, so far, targeting four different law firms that dare to represent people he regards as political enemies. His clearly unconstitutional orders bar attorneys at those firms from entering federal buildings, interacting with federal officials or taking federal jobs, etc. The largest and first of those targeted firms to challenge an Order is Perkins Coie. They won a resounding victory on Friday when a U.S. District Court Judge in D.C. found [PDF] the entire Order targeting them to be a clear cut case of "unconstitutional retaliation and viewpoint discrimination, plain and simple." She nullified the entire Order in the bargain.

Meanwhile, out here in Los Angeles, three prosecutors in the U.S. Attorneys office for the Central District of California tendered their resignations over the weekend, after Trump-appointed acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli appears to have struck a deal with former L.A. County sheriff's deputy Trevor Kirk, after his felony conviction by a jury in February.

Kirk was found by a jury to have injured a 58-year old black woman during what police body cam footage revealed as to be an "unjustifiably violent" arrest. The woman apparently had nothing to do with the robbery that the cops were called to respond to at a grocery store in Lancaster, an hour or so north of L.A., in 2023. But she claimed to be live-streaming the arrest of her male companion, who apparently wasn't involved in the reported robbery either. Kirk threw the woman to the ground, threatened to "punch" her "in the face", hand-cuffed and pepper-sprayed her twice.

The unusual deal between Essayli and Kirk was struck after the jury verdict, but prior to sentencing, which could have resulted in as many as nine years in prison for the now-former cop. The new agreement would change his felony conviction to a misdemeanor with prosecutors seeking probation for Kirk instead of jail time, and no bar on him serving as a cop in the future. None of the attorneys who obtained Kirk's conviction signed on to the new agreement struck on behalf of Trump's acting U.S. Attorney. It must still be approved by a judge.

We're joined today by independent L.A. based legal affairs reporter MEGHANN CUNIFF who was the first to break the story of the agreement before the ensuing resignations of the career prosecutors in the L.A. U.S. Attorney's office in what appears to be a response to the deal their new boss struck, undermining their case. Cuniff, who acknowledges how unusual it is for a deal to be struck after conviction and before sentencing, argues that it's possible the prosecutors might be resigning for other reasons in addition to the unusual post-verdict deal.

After making clear that she is not reporting a direct line between D.C. and the Trump-appointed loyalist Essayli and his deal to drastically reduce Kirk's sentencing, she concedes: "I've never seen it before. It's totally unheard of. You might see it if there's an issue of misconduct during the trial or somebody is cooperating afterward. But the prosecutors are definitely outraged after this."

Cuniff is also not at all certain that the U.S. District Court Judge who oversaw the case will agree to the terms of the deal struck by Trump's prosecutors. At the same time, L.A. County has struck a settlement in a $3 million civil lawsuit filed by the two victims in response to their wrongful arrests.

In addition to the Kirk case, the same U.S. Attorney's office is now reviewing the conviction of Alexander Smirnov, who pleaded guilty to lying to federal officials in 2020 about Hunter Biden having corrupt business dealings with a Ukrainian oil company, "in what prosecutors described as a Russian-influenced operation," says Cuniff.

"As soon as Trump took over, all of a sudden, they are trying to get this guy --- who took a plea deal and was sentenced in January --- out of prison, pending appeal, saying they are going to support his appeal," she explains. "The trial judge wouldn't do it, but they're going to the 9th Circuit [Court of Appeals]. The assistant U.S. Attorney who argued for this is the same one who went to court to argue for Trevor Kirk for a sentencing delay" to allow Trump's attorneys to strike a deal with the dirty cop...

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On today's BradCast: If the 101st Day is any indication, it doesn't look like the second hundred are gonna go any better for him than the first. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• On our roundtable program yesterday with Digby and Driftglass, we discussed who was likely the first top Trump Administration official to be tossed under the bus in the wake of Donald Trump's dismal and worsening approval ratings. Today we know: Trump National Security Adviser and Signal group chat enthusiast, Mike Waltz. At least he outlasted Trump's first (of four) NSAs in the first term. The disgraced and loony Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn survived just 24 days before being tossed and eventually pleading guilty to criminal charges of lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians. At least Waltz gets a consolation prize. Trump tapped him to be U.N. Ambassador.

• Last week, Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth --- a Reagan-appointee --- ordered the rehiring of staffers and contractors at the Congressionally-mandated and funded Voice of America and its similarly critical global sister networks Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting after the Trump-order shutdown in March of its parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media. This week, Judge Lamberth ordered the Administration to restore $12 million in funding to another VOA sister network, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty --- broadcasting to dozens of countries in dozens of languages since the Cold War --- while issuing both a history lesson and an important Constitutional lesson for the Trump Administration (and, arguably, for Congress) about the important roles of the three co-equal branches of Government in his order [PDF].

• In still more Trump-is-a-Loser news today, a Trump-appointed federal judge in South Texas, issued a first-of-its-kind permanent injunction on Trump's "unlawful" use of the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 --- in peacetime --- to deport alleged gang members from Venezuela to a gulag in El Salvador. "The President's invocation of the AEA...exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute's terms," U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. wrote in the order [PDF], concluding that Trump's attempt to falsely proclaim the U.S. was being "invaded" by Tren de Aragua gang members at the direction of the Venezuelan government was patently false, "exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful."

• Also of note today, the Board and shareholders of one of the companies most closely associated with America, Coca-Cola, flatly rejected two proposals to abolish the company's anti-discrimination programs, often smeared by Trump and fellow wingnuts as "DEI". Shareholders and the Board of Directors at yet another iconic American company, Levi Strauss, reportedly did the same last week.

• It's not just courts and a few iconic U.S. companies that are pushing back at Trump's nonsense of late. Even Democrats, if you can believe it --- at least a couple who are clearly eye-balling Presidential runs in 2028 --- are now more aggressively doing the same, especially now that the public has turned so clearly against out tinpot dictator-wannabe. Last night, at an event in San Francisco, former Vice President and Presidential nominee Kamala Harris offered her first substantive public remarks since losing to Trump last year, deriding his "wholesale abandonment" of American values. That came on the heels of a stem-winder by Illinois' Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker, taking on Trumpers and go-along, get-along, "do nothing" Dems alike, at a fundraiser on Sunday in New Hampshire. We share extended excerpts from both speeches today.

• And finally, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report to help us close things out near the end of a week that began with a huge loss for our failing President, as his attempts at hectoring our neighbor to the north and meddling in Canada's elections completely backfired, producing not just another Liberal Party Prime Minister, whose election might have been unthinkable last December, but a climate and energy action champion at that...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Liberal Party Prime Minister Mark Carney, climate action expert, wins critical election in Canada; Trump White House announces deal to access Ukraine's rare earth minerals and vast natural resources; PLUS: Half of Americans are breathing dangerous levels of air pollution... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): In first 100 days, Trump launched an 'all-out assault' on the environment; Study: Cuts to science funding will yield Great Recession-level economic hit; Citing N.I.H. cuts, a top science journal stops accepting submissions; GOP House strikes a blow against California in a fight over EVs; Spain's grid denies dependence on solar power to blame for blackout; China adds 60 GW of new solar capacity in 1Q of 2025... PLUS: Ice all but disappeared from this Alaskan island. It changed everything... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: We're barely 100 days into Trump's second term as President and the odds seem to be improving quickly, believe it or not, for an historic third Impeachment for the worst, most failed, most unpopular (at this point in his term) President in U.S. history. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... Before we get to news on the possibility of yet another impeachment for Donald J. Trump, some wildly amusing election news out of Canada, where Trump's idiotic hectoring of our long-time friends to the North succeeded in improbably reversing the fortunes of the Liberal Party in Monday's election. Prime Minister Mark Carney was victorious yesterday, as the Liberals soundly defeated Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre in a simply remarkable turn of events. The Liberals were all but doomed as of last December, when then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was facing a 25% deficit against the Conservative's Trumpy-wannabe Poilievre. Then Trudeau resigned and Carney took his place as PM, as Trump began threatening Canada with an offensive campaign to make it our 51st state. He then further won the hearts and minds of our largest trading partner and longtime ally by slapping huge trade tariffs on them and placing himself at the center of their Prime Minister's election. Long story short, Trump's idiocy translated into a once seemingly impossible victory for Carney and the Libs --- and Poilievre even lost his own seat that he's held in Parliament for 20 years to a Liberal opponent. Congrats, Mr. President! Please keep up the bad work!

NEXT... Back here in the U.S., Trump appears to be no more popular than he is in Canada. In fact, as pretty much every recent poll has shown, his approval ratings are in the toilet both overall and for almost every single issue pollsters are asking about.

That now includes Impeachment, where a poll released late last week found that a majority of American voters (52%), now "strongly support" or "somewhat support" the idea, including a 55% majority of voters who identify as independent and even 20% of self-identified Republicans!

That polling coincides with the introduction of seven articles of Impeachment on Monday in the U.S. House by Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar of Detroit, who argues that Trump has "repeatedly demonstrated that he is unfit to serve" and "represents a clear and present danger to our nation's Constitution and our democracy."

All of that comes on top of the ImpeachTrumpAgain.org campaign, launched on Inauguration Day earlier this year by the nonpartisan nonprofit, Free Speech for People (FSFP). While their campaign initially called for Trump's Impeachment on Day 1 for violations of the Constitution's Emoluments Clauses and Trump's "unlawful, corrupt campaign practices," it has since expanded to include some 17 High Crimes and Misdemeanors that, "since taking office, Trump has committed."

According to my guest today, FSFP's co-founder and President, JOHN BONIFAZ, the campaign's petition in support of Impeachment has now garnered more than 400,000 signatures from the public. Bonifaz is a Constitutional Law expert and author of several books on Impeachment, including 2018's The Constitution Demands It: The Case for the Impeachment of Donald Trump. He has also given testimony in Congress in years past for U.S. House Impeachment inquiries.

Among my questions for Bonifaz today...

• Why was Trump Constitutionally eligible as of Day 1 in his second term for Impeachment, as argued by FSFP's campaign?
• If Trump's historic TWO impeachments during his first term failed to remove him from office, is it really worth doing yet again, especially with Republican majorities currently in both the House and Senate?
• Impeachment or not, can Trump still be held accountable via the legal system for violations of the Constitution, including the Emoluments Clauses (as per a case found Moot by SCOTUS after Trump left office the first time) and for his withholding of nearly half a trillion dollars in spending approved by Congress?
• Of the ImpeachTrumpAgain.org's current seventeen suggested Articles of Impeachment detailed on their website, what are the top three or four most critical, as he sees it?
• How does the U.S. Supreme Court's absurd finding last year of so-called "Presidential Immunity" for "Official Acts" affect any hope of a U.S. Senate finding a President guilty of High Crimes and Misdemeanors under the Constitution's Impeachment Clause?
• What is his response to Democrats --- for example, Rep. Dan Goldman of NY, who worked on one of Trump's previous Impeachments during his first term --- arguing, as the Congressman did in mid-February, that "regardless of whether or not there are impeachment offenses, it's not happening and we need to focus on other ways of providing accountability on Donald Trump"?

As usual, Bonifaz' responses are clear, insightful, and very educational, as he argues that "we are dealing here with somebody who is lawless in the Oval Office. He is a reckless, lawless person who claims to be President of the United States when really he's trying to act like a monarch and a tyrant."

"The Framers [of the Constitution] were very clear," he tells me. "We were not to be a nation governed by a monarch or a tyrant. This was going to be a different nation, governed by a President checked by a Congress and by a Judiciary. But importantly, they put an extra guardrail into the Constitution, in addition to those co-equal branches of government, and that was the Impeachment Clause. They were also aware that there might come a day when a President would so engage in trampling on the Constitution, would so engage in violating the rule of law, that there would need to be a measure to allow for the Impeachment and removal of that President. And that is the place that we are now in. This is the very remedy the framers put in the Constitution to deal with this lawlessness coming from the Oval Office."

"We either have a Constitution or we don't," Bonifaz asserts, when I ask about why any of this is worth trying, given previous failures to use Impeachment to remove Trump from office during his first term. "We either have an Impeachment Clause or we don't. If we do not invoke it at this very moment in the face of this lawlessness coming from this President, then what's the point of having the Constitution at all? And what's the point of having the Impeachment Clause? We are not going to give up on this idea of a Constitution in which a President must be accountable to the people and to the other branches of government."

"Second, we normalize these High Crimes when we don't name them for what they are. These are not policy disputes. These are abuses of power. And this President must be held accountable under the Impeachment Clause for these High Crimes."

"And third," he continues, "members of Congress take the same oath that Donald Trump took to protect and defend the Constitution. They have a duty to stand up at this critical moment in our history and defend the Constitution in the face of this attack by this President on the rule of law and on our democracy."

There is much more in our conversation on all of the above that I suspect you'll find very very interesting and even encouraging.

FINALLY... we are joined by Desi Doyen with our latest Green News Report on Trump's denial of disaster relief funds for Arkansas, Kentucky and other states; his EPA's firing of ALL of the (volunteer!) scientists working on the Congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment; and a new study finding that the world's biggest oil companies have caused some $28 TRILLION in climate damages to the world...

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On today's BradCast: "Irrational exuberance" reigned on Wall Street as of 1:18pm Eastern Time. Though, after the past week of our moronic President's idiotic "economic policy" crashing the markets day after day after day, it's hard to blame investors for over-celebrating even the smallest hint of a respite from his imbecility. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... Before we get to Trump (sort of) backing down from his worldwide (except for Russia) trade war, a bit of an addendum today to my disturbing conversation on yesterday's program with Slate's legal ace Mark Joseph Stern. He and I were both in general agreement on Tuesday that the Supreme Court's horrible 5 to 4 ruling on Monday night --- in a case challenging the deportation and foreign imprisonment of Venezuelan migrants without due process under Trump's peacetime use of the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 --- allowed for the detention and foreign imprisonment of not just migrants but of U.S. citizens without due process as well.

Today, preeminent Constitutional law scholars Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of UC-Berkley's Law School, and Laurence Tribe, Emeritus Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard, argued an almost identical case in a New York Times op-ed headlined "We Should All Be Very, Very Afraid".

So it's not just some progressive radio dude and a legal reporter at a lefty-ish Internet publication issuing such a warning this week. Thus, I felt a need today to underscore that important point once again before it too gets lost in Donald Trump's ongoing authoritarian chaos.

For what it's worth, even a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas on Wednesday has now temporarily blocked the deportation of Venezuelan migrants under Trump's Stalin-like implementation of the Alien Enemies Act. Details on today's program.

THEN... The roller coaster on Wall Street continued on Wednesday, though at least much of today's ride was an upswing for a happy change. After four and a half days of market blood-letting following Trump's ridiculous "Liberation Day" pronouncement of major sanctions against virtually every nation on Earth (except for Russia) last week --- and with the bond market tanking as well and economists warning about a likely recession --- President Super Genius finally backed down, at least partially, as he always does.

Despite a remarkable, immediate spike in the major market indexes in response, within minutes after Trump's lie-filled social media post about his "90 day PAUSE", investors may soon begin to realize that the news isn't quite as good as they might have hoped. Trump (for today anyway), is leaving in place 10% tariffs against pretty much everybody (except Russia) and now claims to be raising tariffs against China to 125%, because they dared match the previous sanctions he'd declared against them.

In all, though it was unclear as of this afternoon whether Trump was dropping his 25% or 35% or 10% tariffs against our largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, if Trump keeps in place the current 10% tariffs against most of the world, and his 125% tax on goods imported from China, it seems that the inflationary cost to American consumers will be just about what it was before Trump choked this afternoon. Even after today's spike, the Dow remained about 10% lower than its all-time record set during the Biden Administration.

How that --- or any new brain farts from President Stable Genius --- affects the market in coming days remains to be seen.

In addition to the financial cost of Trump crashing the economy, there has seemingly been a political cost as well to President Make-It-Up-As-You-Go-Along as well, resulting in what Politico last night characterized as a "House Republican mutiny" that threatens to hold up (post air: sure enough!) or even block all together, his massive, deficit-exploding tax cuts for his wealthy friends and their corporations.

How will Trump's partial flip-flop on tariffs affect his political fortunes on the massive GOP budget plan? Stay tuned. Though keep your hands and arms inside the roller coaster at all times until this madness comes to a complete stop...whenever that may be...

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Who coulda foreseen it? Oh, yeah. Everybody in the world other than the idiot who did it and his weird cult followers working desperately to justify it today. As you might expect, we've got a lot to try and make sense of on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this very brief summary.]

So, Donald Trump pulled the trigger during his rambling "Liberation Day" remarks in the White House Rose Garden, just after the close of markets on Wednesday. The trade tariffs would be slapped on virtually every country in the world and would be, as one tech investment manager described it just after the announcement, "worse than the worst case scenario."

Today, Wall Street reacted. Poorly. The Dow fell over a cliff by more than 1,600 points. The S&P 500 plunged nearly five percent. The tech-heavy NASDAQ plummeted almost six percent. That's what happens when 54% tariff on China suggest that your next iPhone may soon cost $2,300. (The price of Apple stock crashed by nearly ten percent). In all, today amounted to the biggest nosedive for the markets since the mishandling of the COVID pandemic in 2020...the last time this idiot was in the White House.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman asserted that Trump's numbers announced on Wednesday included "false claims about our trading partners" and simply make no sense, suggesting he's "gone full-on crazy." Though, no matter how many times reality and facts are likely to be pointed out to him --- that we are not, for example, "subsidizing Canada by $200 billion a year" --- he "will never drop that claim."

Trump's made-man and Senior Trade Advisor Pete Navarro, fresh out of prison, defended the tariffs, claiming they will raise $6 trillion in revenue for the U.S. over the next ten years. They won't. But if they did, that would amount to a new 25% tax on American consumers, the largest tax hike in U.S. history, since U.S. consumers, not foreign governments, will be paying higher prices to cover the huge new import taxes on just about everything.

Trump's new taxes are likely to result, as well, in reciprocal tariffs from virtually every nation in the world against the U.S. Every nation in the world, that is, except Russia, which was curiously left off the list of newly sanctioned nations for some odd reason.

But, as our friend David Dayen, investigative financial journalist, author and Executive Editor of The American Prospect explained on this program last year, these tariffs are better seen as a means by which Trump hopes to bend companies, industries and, yes, entire foreign governments, to his will. "Look at these tariff threats more as like sanctions," Dayen told us in early December. "'If you do things we don't like, you're going to get higher tariffs.' That's not really about trade policy. That's really about doing what the United States says. It's really about policing the world through economic terms."

"Businesses are going to come to this President and say, 'Give me a waiver from your tariff.' The mind boggles at the potential for corruption here," Dayen said at the time. "This is what oligarchies look like. This is what Russia looks like. If you're closer to the king, you're going to do better."

"He wants to use tariffs and, more generally, the role of the United States as an economic hegemony, to bully other countries to do our bidding," Dayen foretold, in what now appears to be exactly what Trump is doing. He reiterated and added to some of those thoughts at TAP today. "Stop trying to place coherence on a policy that’s really just a mob boss breaking legs and asking for protection money."

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) smartly explained it in very similar terms last night in a social media thread. "Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive," Murphy argued, citing how "British kings used taxation to reward loyalty and punish dissent. ... The tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief."

But there is a way out. There is a way to end this madness. Trump only enjoys the unilateral power to issue economy-killing, job-crushing, 401k-flattening sanctions because Congress gave him that power. They can also take it away. There was an attempt by every Democrat and a handful of Republicans in the U.S. Senate yesterday to do exactly that, when it came to sanctions against Canada. The measure was successfully adopted by the Senate, but is unlikely to receive a vote in the U.S. House, where it would likely also be adopted if members were allowed to vote on it. So, Speaker Mike Johnson will make sure they can't.

With all of that in mind, "these tariffs won't stand," writes Josh Marshall at TPM today. Anyone running for Congress or thinking of doing so has all they now need to take down any Republican who would support this insanity --- and the harm it is now causing to their own constituents. "It’s malpractice for anyone challenging a Republican member of Congress not to be on this today," he detailed this morning.

So, yeah. Once again, it all comes down to democracy and elections. To that end, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Pennsylvania this week ruled in favor of voters, believe it or not. And a George W. Bush-appointed federal judge in Texas did the same thing late last month. We break down both rulings today before Desi Doyen joins us to close with our latest Green News Report, including a bit of bad news for the coal industry, thanks to good news from voters in Illinois this week as, once again, still more evidence that, yes, elections matter!...

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Earlier this month, Donald Trump issued an Executive Order calling for the "Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production". As discussed with our guest on today's BradCast, it's difficult to see that separately from his buddy Elon Musk's recent declaration that "logically we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized." [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... A few items of note...

• It was amusing watching corporate media outlets tip-toe in their reporting around the facts of Tuesday's successful return to Earth by astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore after being stranded on the International Space Station for 9 months following what was supposed to have been an 8 day mission. The pair were safely brought home in a SpaceX capsule that splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. Can you see the dilemma for the nation's major news outlets yet? We discuss. And laugh. (And also point out that the mission was tasked to Elon Musk's SpaceX by NASA last August, under President Joe Biden. No, Donald Trump did not "rescue the astronauts", as his Administration seems to want you to believe.)

• In more important news, after covering a string of losses in federal court for Trump on yesterday's program, a few more came in after we got off air. One was a major ruling that blocked his Order banning transgender people from serving in our nation's military. (Try not to laugh at Trump's straight-faced assertion in his EO that service by transgender people, many of whom have received top military honors, "conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life." Cuz if anyone knows about living an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life, it would be the Commander-in-Chief who was found liable for nearly $100 million for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Caroll and found guilty of 34 criminal felony counts related to hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to help him cheat to win an election and other honorable, truthful and disciplined living by Corporal Bonespurs.)

• In response to yesterday's program focused, in part, on the lower courts holding firm, for now, against Trump and Musk's rampant lawlessness, we received some interesting feedback from a number of listeners who seemed to view those victories for the Constitution and Rule of Law --- short-term or otherwise --- as hardly worth celebrating, given that all hope is now lost and, in short, America is all but over. While understanding the sentiment, I disagree with that thinking for several reasons, a number of which we discuss today.

THEN... Following news of yet another court loss for Trump late on Tuesday, in which a D.C. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan blocked the Administration's attempt to claw back some $20 billion authorized by Congress and allocated by President Biden as part of his landmark climate initiatives before leaving office, we discuss a recent Executive Order signed by Trump that would massively expand logging and clear-cutting of our national forests and other public lands.

MATT SEDLAR, climate analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, is here to discuss what this scheme is really about; how it relates to Trump's trade war with Canada; the various dangers it poses to both the economy and climate; and how it has little to do with improving forest management or wildfire protection, as Trump's EO falsely claims.

Sedlar explains how the Order appears to directly contradict pretty much everything else that Trump has been doing at the very same time.

"Laying off Forest Service workers, National Park Service workers, and putting out this Executive Order expanding logging, canceling leases for various offices and visitor centers for national parks across the United States," Sedlar tells me, "all point to the privatization of the public lands. Eliminating what we know of as national forests and national parks, and opening it up to making it into a revenue stream."

"It leans more towards that and less towards what he is saying, that this is forest management. Because the science simply does not support what he's saying. It didn't support it in the '80s when you had researchers and scientists warning against it, and it's definitely not going to support it now."

"These are all moves to generate revenue without a look at how this affecting long-term sustainable development. It's all short-term gain for long-term losses," he argues, citing both the costs to the fight against climate change and the bipartisan popularity of our National Parks and Forests.

Tune in, of course, for much more!...

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Today's BradCast is, necessarily, a bit dark. There are, however, a few bright spots here and there if you listen closely enough. [Audio link to show follows this summary.]

Very briefly, these are some of the stories covered today...

• The Philippines former strongman President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by Philippine law enforcement officials on Tuesday, on an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of Crimes Against Humanity. Interpol reportedly participated in his detention, after which he was flown to The Hague in The Netherlands to face the charges. Duterte is known for his extra-judicial, often point-blank, shot-to-the-head killing spree of supposed "drug suspects" during his six years as President and two decades as Mayor of one of the nation's largest cities. The government acknowledges some 6,200 killings during Duterte's reign in office. International human rights groups, however, put the bloody total closer to 30,000. Elected to the Presidency in 2016, the same year as Donald Trump, our President had congratulated Duterte (pictured together above) in 2017 for his "unbelievable job on the drug problem," congratulating him for "what a great job you are doing." In addition to victims' families finally seeing some justice, there are a few other perhaps dark, but perhaps hopeful lessons we may learn from this incident regarding our own President.

• Tune in, at least for this part, because I can't even begin to adequately summarize the roller coaster ride today on Wall Street touched off by Trump's threat to double-down on 25% tariffs --- to 50% tariffs --- against our ally Canada last night in retaliation for a threat by Ontario's conservative Premier Doug Ford to cut off electricity to several U.S. states. As the day progressed, both Ford and Trump appeared to back down from the worst of it. For now. But the disaster Trump's tariffs (and threatened tariffs) has made of the markets --- along with increasing inflation and his mass firing of federal workers --- has economist worried about a coming "Trumpcession". If things continue to tank, it could leave a very serious mark --- perhaps even one that MAGA will notice --- given that Trump's "superpower" was supposedly his brilliant business acumen and genius ability to strengthen the U.S. economy. Oops.

• Elliot Higgins, journalist, founder and creative director of Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group, founded in 2014, specializing in fact-checking and open-source intelligence investigations by both professional and citizen journalists, has a few thoughts on what happens when "disordered discourse" captures a political party (like the Republicans) and "then the state itself" (like the U.S.) and the destabilizing, and perhaps deadly effect it has on democracy itself. His first thread on that is here. His follow-up, on potential solutions, is here.

• And with that in mind, a few thoughts about a friend, mentor and occasional on-air guest over the years, Kevin Drum, who, we learned on Monday night, lost a long battle with cancer. He was a pioneering OG blogger, originally of Calpundit (2002-2004), then Washington Monthly's Political Animal (2004-2008), then Mother Jones (2008 through 2020) and, finally, beginning in 2021, his last blog, the independent Jabberwocking. His last appearance on The BradCast was in early 2023, on how to face down Republicans' threat at the time to not raise the dumb debt without sending the U.S. into default on its debt. Today, a brief tribute, including a few personal remembrances of Kevin, one of them an hours long discussion on election integrity in the cold on my back porch. Washington Monthly's remembrance is here. Clare Jeffrey's of Mother Jones is here. Josh Marshall's is here. Ezra Klein's is here. Heather Digby Parton's is here. A tribute page set up by his wife Marian on Facebook is here.

• Finally, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report, including a burning oil tanker's worth of environmental news, both dark and otherwise, from here in the U.S. and around the world from over just the past few days...

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

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

It seems like we've been covering Wisconsin's ferociously-contested, closely-watched, expensively-waged --- and sometimes questionably-tallied --- Supreme Court elections for decades now on The BradCast. Because we have. And now, another one just weeks from today could once again flip the partisan balance of the high court in the Badger State. As discussed with our guest today, the results are important to the entire nation. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP, a bit of quick election news from even farther north, as the Liberal Party's Mark Carney wins a landslide election on Sunday to become Canada's next Prime Minister on a wave of anti-Trump nationalism. Whether he gets to keep the job remains to be seen, with parliamentary elections coming very soon, even as the nation's Conservative Party has lost much of its steam as Canadians unite to take on Trump's threat of trade war and annexation.

Canada is hardly the only ally Trump is pissing off. In Ukraine, however, his idiocy is reportedly coming at the cost of actual lives after he has blocked arms, intelligence and now even crucial, commercial satellite imagery from reaching Ukrainian troops on the battlefield as they struggle to hold off Russia's invasion. Over the weekend, in advance of peace talks this week, Trump has claimed that he may impose new sanctions on Russia and unfreeze his block on weapons and intelligence to Ukraine. Don't believe him.

THEN, with another election just weeks away that will, once again, determine the partisan balance of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, we are joined by Wisconsin's native son, JOHN NICHOLS, progressive author and National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation. The April 1 election comes just two years after liberals finally won back 4 to 3 control of the state's high court for the first time in 15 years.

What is at stake if the majority flips back to control by the state's hard right Republican Party? "Pretty much everything," explains Nichols, "from abortion rights, to voting rights, to labor rights" and, "this may seem a bit of stretch to folks who haven't been following Wisconsin politics, but I tell you this is the case: whether Wisconsin respects the results of presidential elections." That, he says, is among the points that should raise interest in this contest for everyone in America.

The theoretically "non-partisan" contest to fill the seat being vacated by liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, the Court's most senior jurist, is being waged between liberal Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford and the state's radical, Republican former Attorney General Brad Schimel. He is being backed by lots of billionaire money, including from one of Elon Musk's political affairs committee, which has begun to blanket the airwaves in favor of Schimel.

But Nichols reports that the unpopular Musk's entry in the race --- which he clearly knows nothing about --- is as likely to propel support for Crawford to the polls in what could become a very big turnout and a bellwether for elections during the Trump Era over the coming months and years.

"I don't think [Musk] knows anything about Wisconsin. I don't think he even cares about Wisconsin," argues Nichols. "Someone told him that this Wisconsin Supreme Court race is a critical juncture in our politics, and he should come in on the Republican/Trump side. They were right --- it IS a critical juncture. If this race is decided for Susan Crawford, it will be the first major push-back against not just Trumpism, but also against Musk's entry into politics. So, yeah, it is a critical juncture."

"The billionaire class is all in for Schimel," he adds, "because of the simple reality that these Wisconsin Supreme Court races are pivotal contests. Not just for the state, but really in defining a lot of the direction of American jurisprudence."

Much more, of course, from Nichols --- who knows Wisconsin (and U.S.) politics as well as anyone --- on today's BradCast...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Fact-checking Donald Trump's litany of lies in his address to a joint session of Congress; Premier of Ontario, Canada threatens to cut electricity to US over Trump tariffs; PLUS: U.S. Supreme Court further weakens Clean Water Act standards governing raw sewage discharge... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 'Structural change' identified in Antarctica's sea ice system; L.A. County sues SoCal Edison, alleging equipment sparked wildfire; Americans are increasingly aware that climate change is harming their health; China laughing as US charger network dismantled, burned; A 'Trojan Horse' for toxic chemicals; Women in wildland firefighting bootcamps canceled after DEI cuts... PLUS: NOAA firings hit the birthplace of weather and climate forecasting... and much, MUCH more! ...

As discussed with our two guests on today's BradCast, Trump's speech to Congress on Tuesday night was so long and boring it could still be going on today, for all I know. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP today, however, a few important news headlines...

• After enacting 25% trade tariffs against our two largest trading partners and allies, Canada and Mexico, on Tuesday --- and seeing the stock-market plummet in response --- Trump agreed on Wednesday to delay implementation of tariffs on automobile imports, which would have sent car prices skyrocketing in the U.S., for one month.

• The U.S. Supreme Court ruled narrowly against the Trump Administration in one of its first rulings regarding whether or not they will require the Administration to follow the rule of law or not. In a 5 to 4 emergency ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the Court's three Democratic appointees to uphold lower court rulings that order the Administration to unfreeze as much as $2 billion in payments to thousands of contractors for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in order to pay for work that has already been completed. Trump's January 20th Executive Order freezing both contracts and payments, signed on his first day in office, has already resulted in hundreds of layoffs by contractors, food for starving children left rotting in warehouses, and life-saving medicine going undelivered around the world.

• Newly-elected, 70-year old Democratic U.S. Rep. and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner of Texas died on Tuesday night following an unspecified medical emergency after attending Trump's address to Congress, where he used his platform to rally against planned Republican cuts to Medicaid. Turner's death, and the months it will take to hold a special election to fill his seat, will give House Republicans a bit more breathing room in what is still one of the slimmest House majorities in U.S. history.

THEN, it's on to the longest --- and arguably dullest and most falsehood-filled --- addresses to Congress ever delivered by a U.S. President. It wasn't officially a State of the Union Address, for reasons that aren't worth boring you with (if you watched the speech, you've been through enough already), but it had all the same trappings.

It was also the most vengeful and obnoxiously partisan address ever delivered to Congress by a U.S. President, as Trump repeatedly attacked his predecessor throughout, blaming him for things like the newly-rising cost of eggs, describing Joe Biden as "the worst President in American history" and Democrats as "radical left lunatics".

The evening also featured some Democrats trying whatever they could think of to push back against Trump's lawless wrecking ball of an Administration to date. Those efforts resulted in one member, Rep. Al Green of Texas, being removed by the House Sergeant-at-Arms at Speaker Mike Johnson's direction, and others walking out at various points throughout the seemingly endless remarks.

We're joined for insight on all of this today, as ever, by our very smart, old school blogger friends HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, the award-winning columnist at Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo blog, and the notorious 'DRIFTGLASS', longtime fellow blogger and broadcaster, as co-host of the weekly Professional Left Podcast.

The hour and 39-minute speech "was absolutely interminable," agrees Parton today, arguing that the "litany of atrocities" outlined by Trump as unparalleled achievements in his first six weeks in office, suggests he believes "he is no longer encumbered by the law, by the Constitution, by anything."

"Who is there left to be persuaded, cajoled, shocked, outraged?," Driftglass asks rhetorically. "The only thing that is going to shock the people in the middle is economic hardship. The recession that Trump is bringing down on their heads. Cutting off their services. Invading their Social Security. That might actually light a fire under them and get them moving."

But we will see. We discuss, among many other things...

• the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of attempts by elected Dems to push back against Trump, and the forced removal of spirited protester, Rep. Green, from the proceedings;
• Trump's vow to "get" Greenland from Denmark "one way or the other" and the beginning of the GOP's renewed, if ever-present, love for American imperialism;
• the hypocritical reaction to the speech by Congressional Republicans who, just one year ago, were clutching their pearls after what they described as "the most political, partisan speech ever delivered by a President in the hallowed House chamber" following President Biden's final SOTU.
• how Medicaid and even Social Security are now both "on the chopping block" for Trump and Congressional Republicans;
• and explanations from both Digby and Driftglass as to why Trump is violently dismantling the federal government with Elon Musk and his DOGE Bros, despite the unpopularity of those actions among the public.

That's just a taste. As ever, tune in for much more...

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I've gotta be quick with today's BradCast summary, as Trump's first address during his second term to a joint session of Congress is coming up shortly. And I don't want to miss a single lie! (Full coverage tomorrow, natch). [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

But the central theme of today's show: Donald Trump is bad for business. He has no clue how to run a business, much less a country, which should decidedly not be run as a business. They are two very different things. But even on his own terms, Trump is lousy at running the country as a business.

Among our many stories today underscoring those points in various ways....

• Today, Trump's 25% tariffs against our two largest trading partners and friends, Canada and Mexico, kicked in, earning blowback from the otherwise even-tempered and very polite Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And, again, the U.S. stock market took another dive in response to Trump's "dumb" trade war, wiping out all gains since the election on the major indexes, thanks to Trump being lousy at his job.

• Among Trump's biggest supporters last November were farmers. Now, they too, are beginning to notice what a clown he is, after the Trump Administration began wiping all climate related data from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture website (cuz climate change doesn't exist if you delete website references to it), along with information on programs regarding grants and subsidies for farmers. All of which they rely on, especially as the Summer growing season is set to begin. A group of farmer's and environmental groups have now filed suit against Trump's USDA, demanding the returns of the databases and tools (that we paid for, before Trump thought it made good "business sense" to waste all of those tax-payer dollars.)

• Cuts and mass layoffs at our beloved National Parks, in advance of the busy Summer tourist season, aren't going over much better with the public --- or the crucial staffers who keep the parks open and clean and some 375 million visitors a year safe. About 4,000 workers at both National Parks and U.S. Forests have now been laid off for specious, and potentially unlawful, reason. People will die because of these pointless cuts. Park experts believe it may take centuries to rebound from the damage to the parks these cuts will cost.

• But what about all of that "waste, fraud and abuse" that Elon Musk and his DOGE Bros are telling us they are axing within federal government agencies? More than$100 billion, Musk is now claiming! Last week, we detailed how the DOGErs quietly deleted billions of dollars in claimed "savings" from their so-called "Wall of Receipts" website, documenting government contracts they'd cancelled at agency after agency. It turned out their "receipts", numbers and claims to go with them were riddled with errors. Last week, they had claimed to have "saved" American tax-payers some $65 billion. But thanks to excellent reporting by a number of outlets, it appeared the number was closer to just over $2 billion at best. The buffoonery continued over the weekend, however, as the Bros once again quietly removed still more false items --- about 1,000 of them! --- and replaced them with others again. You'll be stunned to learn the largest of those new "receipts", as well, are also riddled with errors and false claims.

• This week we are "celebrating" --- if that's the right word for it --- our 16th Anniversary of connecting the climate change dots over your public airwaves in our world famous Green News Report. We have been producing it, week in and week out, over all these years, of course, thanks only to support from readers and listeners like you! Today, in our latest GNR, Desi Doyen has news on Trump's funding freezes crippling the nation's farmers; climate-fueled wildfires exploding in the Carolinas; and mass layoffs now underway at NOAA and the National Weather Service...

• Finally, since Trump is so bad at both business and diplomacy, even a major oil company, Norway's Haltbakk Bunkers, is now refusing to fuel up U.S. Naval vessels in protest of Trump's disgraceful treatment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House last Friday. "We have today been witnesses to the biggest shitshow ever presented 'live on tv' by the current American president and his vice president," the company posted to social media shortly after. "Huge credit to the president of Ukraine restraining himself and for keeping calm even though USA put on a backstabbing tv show. It made us sick. Short and sweet. As a result, we have decided to immediate STOP as fuel provider to American forces in Norway and their ships calling Norwegian ports. ... 'No Fuel to Americans!' ... We encourage all Norwegians and Europeans to follow our example. SLAVA UKRAINA".

Running the government "like a business" is working out great! Welcome to "America's Golden Age"!...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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