The SOTU begins shortly (we'll be covering tomorrow with Digby and Driftglass) so please forgive if my summary of today's BradCast is a bit shorter than usual. (Or, you're welcome!) [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... We've been spending much of the last week or so (see here and here) reporting on documents found missing from those released by the Dept. of Justice under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Specifically, we've focused on a series of documents detailing allegations by a woman who says that she was raped, physically assaulted and threatened by Donald Trump at Jeffrey Epstein's home in New York City when she was just 13-years old.

Independent investigative journalist Robert Sollenberger was the first to report on the missing documents regarding the disturbing and salacious charges, and that other documents that were included in the DOJ's latest tranche revealed that the woman's allegations were credible enough that she was interviewed by the FBI four different times in 2019.

Today, NPR confirms and furthers Sollenberger's reporting to detail that at least 53 pages of those interviews and FBI notes created along with them, are indeed missing from the DOJ's Epstein Files database online.

In turn, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued a statement on the missing documents on Tuesday, noting that they have been "investigating the FBI's handling of allegations from 2019 of sexual assault on a minor made against President Donald Trump by a survivor."

Ranking Committee Member Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) notes in the statement that, after having "reviewed unredacted evidence logs" at DOJ, he is able to "confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes."

The Congressman vows that "Oversight Democrats will open a parallel investigation" into what he went on to describe during a presser on Tuesday as "the single largest cover-up in modern American history."

THEN... As we noted briefly on yesterday's program, late last week, Trump's FCC Chair Brendan Carr issued what some are describing as a new veiled threat to the nation's broadcasters. In a statement published on Friday, citing Trump's year-long plans to celebrate America's 250th birthday in July, Carr announced the FCC's "Pledge America Campaign," instructing broadcasters to air patriotic, pro-America programming, and suggesting that they "voluntarily choose to indicate their commitment to the Pledge America Campaign."

Some longtime media and communications experts have expressed concern about the announcement. One of them is HAROLD FELD, attorney and Senior Vice President at Public Knowledge, a non-profit good government group. He joins us on today's show to share concerns on not only that, but a number of Carr's other recent threats, including those that resulted in CBS attorneys instructing Stephen Colbert not to air a Late Show interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico. Colbert subsequently posted it only online instead.

"If somebody says, 'Nice business ya got here, be a shame if anything happens to it,' that lands differently if it's an insurance broker or a mobster," Feld tells me today, describing his reaction to Carr's "Pledge America Campaign" announcement. "Unfortunately, what we've been seeing is that this Administration falls into the mobster category, not the insurance broker category."

He suggests that Carr's request for "voluntary" pledges from broadcasters is "a potential trap". "If you don't sign, then it's 'Why do you hate America?' If you do sign [but] don't show the kind of 'celebration' that they are talking about, then it's going to be, 'Look at these guys, they said they were going to celebrate America but they hate America because they didn't show the right things, the things we want to see.'"

All of that comes, as Feld sees it, as a "real 'pay to play'" atmosphere from Trump's FCC, where they dangle approval or rejection of mergers and other things sought by broadcasters as bait or threats from what was statutorily designed decades ago to be an independent executive agency, separate from the White House itself and Presidential influence.

"Between these threats on the one hand, and these promises and gifts on the other hand to suspend federal law, to ignore anti-trust rules, this is a critically dangerous moment for our mass media and our First Amendment freedoms," Felt warns.

Tune in for much more insight on all of this from the very colorful Feld, who says he has known Carr --- and previously liked him --- for the past ten years or so. For an even deeper --- and really instructive --- dive, I would also recommend his latest piece at Public Knowledge headlined: "Equal Time, Unequal Enforcement: The Latest Move to Weaponize the FCC Against Trump Critics".

FINALLY... We're joined by Desi Doyen for our latest Green News Report, as an extreme climate-fueled winter storm batters the East Coast; extreme, climate-fueled dry weather threatens winter wildfires in Oklahoma; and as the Winter Olympics wrap up with athletes worried about the worsening effects of global warming on their sports...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Extreme winter storm batters the U.S. Northeast; Extreme dryness fuels winter fire weather in Oklahoma; PLUS: Winter Olympic athletes call for climate action to save winter sports... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): America is becoming a petrostate; Supreme Court agrees to hear from oil and gas companies trying to block climate change lawsuits; Winter is Not What it Used to Be in the Upper Midwest; Environmental Protest Group Extinction Rebellion Says FBI Is Investigating It For Terrorism... PLUS: Climate Coalition Sue to Stop Trump EPA 'From Torching Our Kids' Future... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: The cover-ups (plural) continue! It's good to be king. Amirite, Donald? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our lively coverage today...

• After a week of climate change-fueled downpours in Southern California, it looks like it's the East Coast's turn, as a record climate-fueled blizzard all but shuts down the Northeast with as much as three feet of snow in some places. All of that, just over a week after Donald Trump gutted some 20 years of EPA rules meant to slow or mitigate our worsening climate crisis by regulating the release of man-made greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. But Trump says, "don't worry about it!", the public will now have more money to spend on health care in the bargain!

• Trump's FCC Chair Brendan Carr offers some tips on how broadcasters may avoid scrutiny by issuing a "pledge" to support this Administration's celebration of the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this Summer. We take his suggestion to play more Schoolhouse Rock! In today's case, the classic 1973 episode about the nation's founding, called "No More Kings!"

• In the federal courts, corrupt Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled on Monday in Florida that the tax-payer funded report by Special Counsel Jack Smith --- detailing the tax-payer funded probe of Donald Trump's theft of thousands of national security documents upon leaving office after his first term, resulting in his federal criminal indictment on the matter --- is barred from ever being released to the public. Not even by future Administrations, if her absurd, ahistorical ruling were to be upheld. Smith himself remains barred from ever discussing it in the bargain. Stick a pin in all of that for a moment, because...

• Across the pond, just days after the arrest of the former Prince Andrew, related to revelations about his relationship with pedophile and Trump's longtime best friend Jeffrey Epstein, yet another high-ranking official was arrested on Monday. Former UK Ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson is facing potential indictment on similar charges to the former Prince. All of it revealed by emails and other documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice under the mandates of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

• Meanwhile, back here, as we discussed on last Thursday's BradCast in somewhat salacious detail, investigative journalist Roger Sollenberger has uncovered evidence revealing that the DOJ has unlawfully failed to release records regarding as many as four FBI interviews with a woman who alleges that she was raped, physically abused, and threatened by Donald Trump when she was just 13-years old. Sollenberger has also noticed some curious oddities regarding the timing of the discovery of certain Epstein-related documents by the DOJ and the return to Trump of the documents he stole at the end of his first term. (Yes, after Jack Smith was forced to drop his indictments against Trump when he was elected again, the DOJ returned those stolen documents to him shortly after he was sworn in a second time!)

  Is it possible that documents related to these allegations of Trump having raped and assaulted a minor were among those stolen by Trump? Might that explain why Trump was seemingly willing to face jail time to protect those documents, rather than simply return them to the Government after being politely asked repeatedly and warned many times of the consequences of not doing so? And if, in fact, he was hoarding some Epstein-related documents in his Mar-a-Lago mansion to keep them from seeing the light of day, is it possible that Jack Smith, after obtaining those documents via search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, knows all about it, but is now permanently barred by the Trump-appointed lackey Judge Cannon from ever talking about it? And is all of that revealed in the final report of his investigation that Cannon has absurdly blocked from ever being released to the public?

• Tune in for much more, plus callers ringing in today on all of the above!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump EPA repeals landmark Endangerment Finding, the foundation for all U.S. climate regulations; Trump orders Defense Department to use more dirty, deadly, expensive coal, subsidized by taxpayers; PLUS: Trump threatens to block new bridge between Michigan and Canada... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Yes, Climate Still Matters. Here's How It Connects to Every Other Crisis in the World Today; Trump kills EV charging programs in blue states;Solar Powered Super Bowl a First; "Devastating": Trump EPA to Scrap Landmark Climate Finding in Pro-Fossil Fuel Deregulatory Push; Trump Wants 100% American-Made EV Chargers. Some See Sabotage; The US Is Exporting Huge Amounts Of Natural Gas. Will It Cost Americans? [yes] ... PLUS: What Are The Biggest Climate Polluters Near You? ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Bad Bunny's Super Bowl power play; Court rules Trump Energy Department's secretive climate science denier panel violated federal law; PLUS: Judge blocks Trump's blockade of funding for the Hudson River Gateway tunnel project in New York... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): National Lab of the Rockies, formerly NREL, lays off more than 130 employees; A Trump 'blockade' is stalling hundreds of wind and solar projects nationwide; Trump's EPA issues record low legal actions against polluters; Study ties pollution from wildfire smoke to 24,100 US deaths per year; Why China is building so many coal pants despite its solar and wind boom ... PLUS: US-driven gas turbine crunch may speed up global clean power uptake... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: The President of the United States likes to dismiss concerns about climate change by explaining that the real threat to humanity is actually nuclear weapons. And yet, as we were reminded again at midnight last night, he's not actually interested in doing anything about that threat to humanity either. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST... before we get to our excellent guest today on that, just a quick follow up to our recent coverage regarding last week's raid by the FBI at the Fulton County, Georgia elections warehouse, outside Atlanta, where federal officials absconded with ballots and other materials from the 2020 election that Donald Trump pretends was stolen from him, because he is unable to admit he lost it.

We've been trying to get to this story all week, but just a quick notice to mention that, following last week's raid --- and the Dept. of Justice's lawsuits against 23 states attempting to force them to turn over private voter data (suits that already being dismissed by federal courts) --- all three top Administration officials who had requested time to confront the bipartisan National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) annual conference last week, cancelled their appearances at the last minute.

NASS had rearranged the conference schedule to allow for remarks by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. By Friday afternoon, however, all but Gabbard had cancelled. And just before her remarks were to begin, she pulled out as well. Maine's Democratic SoS, Shenna Bellows called them "cowards," noting, along with others, that the Administration's threats to interfere with upcoming elections is unlawful and likely to end poorly for them.

THEN... It's on to other, ahem, explosive news of the day. As of midnight last night, Trump allowed the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the U.S. and Russia to expire. The New START agreement, struck with Russia by President Barack Obama in 2010, included strict caps on the numbers of ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads each country could deploy, and included an extensive verification regime. The 10-year pact was extended for another five years in 2021 by President Joe Biden, and Russia has said they were open to another extension. Trump simply let it expire.

We're joined today by long time nuclear weapons policy analyst STEPHEN SCHWARTZ, former Executive Director and Publisher of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, keepers of the notorious "Doomsday Clock". On his excellent social media feed at @AtomicAnalyst last night, Schwartz lamented that, while "Trump has boasted for decades that he knows everything there is to know about nuclear weapons and could easily negotiate a great deal with Russia," he allowed New START, "the last treaty constraining US and Russian nuclear weapons" to expire, and "hasn't lifted a tiny finger to replace it."

"He did absolutely nothing during his first term," Schwartz tells me today. "Now, here we are again. He did absolutely nothing during his first year in office, and now we have no treaty whatsoever. I think because, first of all, he doesn't care about it, and because he views the treaty as tainted because it was negotiated by his arch-enemy Barack Obama."

"It's a great loss for humanity. It's not a win for anybody," he opines. "Anybody who thinks that getting rid of the treaty will make the United States or the world safer hasn't been living in reality for quite some time."

Welp. That sounds like Trump.

Schwartz breaks down the specifics of New START, and the dangers now posed with its loss. We also discuss, among other things, the fact that Trump's so-called "Golden Dome" anti-missile system, if Congress ever called for it to be built, is likely to make the U.S. less safe, not more so.

"The Golden Dome is the latest iteration of decades of efforts to try to use technology to eliminate the political problem that gives us the ever-present threat of nuclear war," Schwartz, author of Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 explains. "But it only works --- if it works at all --- against weapons that are flying through the air. It does not work on anything that would be coming at you from under water [such as Russia's Poseidon drones, developed in response to the threat of a U.S. defensive missile shield], nor for that matter would it shoot down planes that would be carrying nuclear missiles or nuclear gravity bombs."

It does, however, result in adversaries building even more advanced and more numerous offensive weapons systems to ensure they can overcome such a defensive system.

There's a whole lot more with Schwartz today, including: his assessments of the various nuclear threats now posed by China, North Korea, Iran and others, and whether the U.S. under Trump remains the greatest nuclear threat to the planet; why it would be such a terrible idea for Trump to restart U.S. nuclear missile testing, as he vowed last year; and much more.

Tune in for our excellent, enlightening, educational and, at times, chilling conversation with Schwartz today.

FINALLY... We close with still more nuclear related news --- this time, nuclear energy --- and the Trump Dept. of Energy's secret change to nuclear power plant safety rules, in our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen, on that and much more!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Future Winter Olympic Games may start earlier due to warming winters; Low-income Heating Assistance Program (LIHEAP) survives the Congressional budget process and Trump's attempt to kill it; PLUS: Trump Energy Department secretly gutted nuclear plant safety rules... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The toxic legacy of Georgia's carpet empire: PFAS contamination; A Trump 'blockade' is stalling hundreds of wind and solar projects nationwide; Trump's EPA issues record low legal actions against polluters; Study ties pollution from wildfire smoke to 24,100 US deaths per year; Why China is building so many coal pants despite its solar and wind boom ... PLUS: US-driven gas turbine crunch may speed up global clean power uptake... and much, MUCH more! ...

You're going to get the most, by far, from today's BradCast, by listening to it. This briefest of summaries will not do it justice. Hopefully it suffices if only for a few links to a few of the stories and rulings cited throughout today's program. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

In short (very short), the Trump Administration is losing and losing and losing in court, in case after case after case. And they are not only losing, but being upbraided by judge after judge --- those appointed by both Democrats and Republicans alike --- in one ruling after another now. At least at the lower federal court level. It's just one reason why the Administration is so desperate to get up to the final appeal phase at Donald Trump's corrupted, hand-picked Supreme Court.

The rulings from many of the U.S. District Court judges have been brutal for the Administration, as now coming in day after day. Just one example from yesterday is U.S. District Court Judge Ana C. Reyes' blistering ruling [PDF] in which she took DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to the metaphorical gravel pit over Noem's barely disguised racist rhetoric as part of the Administration's attempt to order the end of legal protected status for more than 350,000 Haitian refugees in this country. (Ya know, like the ones in Springfield, OH who don't eat dogs or cats.)

The good guys aren't winning every motion in every case. And, as noted, the corrupted SCOTUS may have the last word in some of them. But the increasingly dreadful record for the Government in these cases, for the moment, has essentially become the equivalent of legal trench warfare, forcing the Administration to step back or stand down, with the people largely holding off the attempted fascist federal takeover of the United States of America. Or, at least, preventing it from getting appreciably worse.

Russia was supposed to have taken over Ukraine in a week's time after they initially invaded their smaller, weaker sovereign neighbor four years ago this month. Similarly, Trump was supposed to have brought the U.S. to fascist MAGA heel by now. He decidedly has not.

With each loss, of course, in both courts of law and public opinion, he and his Administration grow angrier, more out of control and more dangerous --- but easier still to defeat in the bargain.

As his and his party's approval ratings --- and ability to win elections in even some of the "reddest" parts of the country --- continue to erode, he is now desperately turning to an attempted takeover of American elections themselves.

"The Republicans should say, 'We want to take over,'" Trump blathered to Dan Bongino, former conspiracy podcaster turned Deputy FBI Director turned conspiracy podcaster again, on Monday. "We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many --- 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting."

Trump then went on to completely mischaracterize why former MAGA Mesa County, Colorado Clerk Tina Peters is currently serving nine years in state prison for her criminal efforts related to attempting to defraud the 2020 election while illicitly conspiring to make unlawful copies of sensitive, proprietary voting system software. Despite having issued a pointless pardon for Peters (federal crimes have no effect on convictions under state laws), it's clear Trump knows absolutely nothing about her actual crimes.

But, as to the "nationalize the voting" thing, please know (as I explain in more detail on the show): Presidents have absolutely ZERO power to do any such thing. Elections are run by states and, to some extent, Congress may make laws that states must follow. He has no Constitutional or legislative or super-secret power to nationalize them, much less ordering "Republicans" to do so. It is, at best, a very empty threat. Whether he knows that or not is unclear. And, yes, as discussed, there are things that he can try to do, with the unlawful deployment of ICE forces, for example, to make things more difficult for voters to vote this year. But I suspect any such efforts will end up hurting his party's chances more than they will help.

Tune in for the full argument, of course.

At the same time --- as Saturday Night Live hilariously satirized over the weekend --- more and more Trump supporters are (slowly, but surely!) finding their way back toward sanity, or at least away from Trump. I suggest we find ways to help them safely get there.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with, yes, still more humiliating legal losses for Trump and more deadly climate change-fueled weather across the nation....

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Brutal Arctic cold likely to persist through February, and yes, it is linked to climate change, not groundhogs; Western states facing a record-setting snow drought; PLUS: Courts have now restarted 5 out of 5 offshore wind farms that Trump tried to block... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump's EPA rollbacks could harm air and water, and worsen global heating; Trump's biggest climate rollback stalls over fears it will lose in court; Drastic water shortages and air pollution are fueling Iran's protests; The UK government didn't want you to see this report on ecosystem collapse; Russia delivers worst attack this year to Ukraine's power sector ... PLUS: EIA: 99 percent of new US capacity in 2026 will be solar, wind + storage ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The 'Doomsday Clock' ticks ever closer to midnight; Trump formally takes U.S. out of Paris Climate Agreement for a second time; Yet another court blocks Trump's cancellation of offshore wind projects; EVs really do make the air cleaner; PLUS: Electric vehicles outsell conventional gasoline cars in Europe for the first time ever... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The Trump administration has secretly rewritten nuclear safety rules; Through the heatwave haze, the hypocrisy of Australia's fossil-fuel policy shines bright; Court orders the Netherlands to protect a Caribbean island from climate change; Legal setbacks against a dam in the Amazon raise questions about Brazil's reliance on hydropower; Carbon trade measure slipped into spending package... PLUS: EPA to roll back 'Good Neighbor' Rule on downwind smokestack pollution... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've got a lot to get to on today's BradCast. While much of our coverage may seem like a grab bag from the headlines above, you'll find there is a central theme at its heart. I think. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• We begin with the darkest news, so things can only get brighter from there, right? The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, keepers of the notorious "Doomsday Clock" reveal their latest adjustment, ticking the metaphorical timepiece from last year's 89 seconds to midnight, to just 85 seconds to humanity's end this year. The group of science advocates cited increasing risk of nuclear warfare, worsening human-caused climate change (Donald Trump was singled out there) and other threats to civilization itself, such as the misuse of biotechnology and artificial intelligence.

• Buffoonish, Nazi-ish U.S. Customs and Border Patrol chief enforcement clown, Gregory Bovino, is pushed out following the latest killing of another U.S. citizen over the weekend in his violent, chaotic Minneapolis operation. New villains are rotated in by the White House, even as Trump appears to try and play nice with his mortal enemies, Minnesota's Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

• But there are even more signs that the courageous people of Minneapolis are winning this one, even if the battle is far from over. The chief federal judge in Minnesota (a George W. Bush appointee) has ordered in-person testimony from the Acting Director of ICE, after the Administration has repeatedly failed to comply with court orders regarding immigrant rights. The judge has ordered him to explain why he should not be held in contempt by the court.

• Trump's corrupt U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's thuggish letter to Minnesota's Gov. Walz --- sent to the state just after the border patrol agent execution of 37-year old VA ICU nurse and U.S. citizen Alex Pretti over the weekend --- landed with a thud, after she essentially suggested the federal immigration crackdown would end only if the state turned over its voter roll data to the federal government. Voting rights and election law experts described the move as "reprehensible". Bondi has sued some 23 states who refused to comply with the demand. Two weeks ago, a federal judge in California dismissed the DOJ's lawsuit against the state, finding it "unprecedented and illegal". Last week, a judge in Georgia dismissed the lawsuit in the Peach State. And yesterday, a federal judge in Oregon dismissed the DOJ's suit there. In the meantime, MN Sec. of State Steve Simon has explained that he has no intention of violating state or federal law to answer Bondi's "ransom note".

• As we covered last week, a recent federal review of nearly 50 million voter registrations found zero evidence of widespread fraud by noncitizens on the voter rolls in state after state, county after county. In a new report late last week, out of more than two million active voter registrations in Utah, the state was able to find just one single noncitizen on its rolls. The state found that the person never voted and has since been removed from the rolls. Utah is another state that has correctly refused to turn over its unredacted voter data to Bondi and the DOJ.

• In news from the front lines of the Trump/GOP Gerrymandering Wars, Democrats in Maryland are now moving ahead with a plan to draw a new map designed to flip the state's last remaining Republican U.S. House district from "red" to "blue". And a state judge in Virginia, just before airtime today, declared the effort by state Democrats to adopt a constitutional amendment to redraw its U.S. House map to flip as many as 4 or 5 seats from "red" to "blue" this year to be unlawful. Proponents of the measure accuse Republican opponents as forum shopping for a friendly judge and vow to appeal his ruling.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report following the weekend's deadly winter storm across much of the U.S.; as House Republicans vote to overturn a decades-long ban on toxic mining in MN; as Michigan's Attorney General sues the Big Oil "cartel"; and as a judge blocks Trump's attempt to withhold funding for a national EV charging network adopted by Democrats under President Biden...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Danger is not over yet after deadly, extreme winter storm pummels U.S.; House Republicans overturn ban on mining near Minnesota's pristine Boundary Waters; Judge blocks Trump administration from halting EV charging funds appropriated by Biden; PLUS: Michigan Attorney General's lawsuit accuses Big Oil of operating a 'fossil fuel cartel'... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump's Grant Terminations Upheld by Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals; Natural Gas Price Surges Almost 30% as Arctic Blast Grips Much of US; Enviros Charge Administration Violated Laws In Approving Alaska Road; Oregon Court Tosses Old Rule that Allowed Logging on Vast Swaths of US Land; New ExxonMobil Climate Accounting Again Blames Consumers, Not Corporation... PLUS: How Cuts To Federal Climate Funds Could Threaten Polar Vortex Research... and much, MUCH more! ...

Hey! Another busy day on The BradCast! What are the odds? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

No, you're not hallucinating. Former Special Counsel Jack Smith did testify previously before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. It was back in December last year. But it was a closed-door hearing with mostly Committee attorneys on the Republican side doing the questioning on behalf of the Committee's Republican members. Smith had wanted to testify publicly last year, as all previous Special Counsels have done following Presidential probes. Republicans were so proud of that hearing that they waited until New Years Eve to release its transcript and audio, so as few Americans as possible would see it.

Today in D.C., in the same Committee, Smith was finally allowed to testify publicly. The man who secured two different federal, criminal indictments of Donald Trump --- one for his alleged crimes related to trying to steal the 2020 election, the other for stealing thousands of pages of classified national security documents upon leaving office the first time --- has nothing to hide. [Full video now here.]

As Smith told the Committee today during his opening remarks: "If asked whether to prosecute a former President based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat. No one --- no one --- should be above the law in this country. And the law required that he be held to account, so that is what I did. To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and as a public servant, of which I had no intention of doing."

The veteran, three-decade long Dept. of Justice prosecutor testified for about five hours today, and Republicans weren't able to lay much of a glove on any aspect of his election probe. Not that they didn't try, of course. (Smith was unable to speak about the stolen documents case beyond what has already been made public about it, as sycophantic Trump-appointed federal Judge Aileen Cannon still has his report on that matter under seal.) For his part, Trump was so bothered by it that he took to his failing social media cite to again call Smith "deranged", while instructing his Attorney General to bring charges against Smith.

Republicans focused many of their attempted attacks against Smith on false claims that he "spied" on the phone calls of GOP members of Congress in the days before and after Trump's January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Neither Smith nor his team "spied" on anyone. They did, however, receive judicial warrants to obtain toll records for the phones of several members who Trump contacted while the Capitol was under violent siege, when the sore loser President hoped to delay Congressional confirmation of Joe Biden's 2020 victory, as he falsely claimed the election had been stolen from him. The toll records do not include information on the content of phone calls. They only detail numbers dialed or received, the date and time, how long they talked.

Several Republicans also took the old First Amendment "free speech" defense out for a spin today. It didn't work much better at denting the case against Trump. As Smith explained once again, Trump is welcome to lie about a stolen election all he likes. But when those lies are used in furtherance of a crime, it's a different matter.

You can lie to your friends that you are worth $10 million dollars, if you want, explains our guest today, former lifelong Republican and attorney KEITH BARBER. But you can't offer that same lie on your mortgage application. That becomes criminal fraud, not free speech.

Barber, who now contributes to the progressive Daily Kos website, joins us for analysis, with both legal and political insight on Smith's testimony, and how --- or if --- today's public hearing might move the political needle one way or another for those in his former party.

After observing that there was next to no coverage of today's historic hearing on the front page of the Fox "News" website this afternoon, Barber argues: "The opinions of MAGAs on this are intractable. It's a cult. There's nothing you can do about it. Everybody else is more open-minded and I think has already decided Trump is out to lunch on this. I don't think that these hearings are going to move the needle all that much."

Barber is with us for much of the hour today for both analysis of the Smith hearing and for legal insight on an extraordinarily disturbing story broken late last night by the Associate Press. The outlet reported on a secret memo instructing federal ICE agents --- in contradiction of the Constitution, decades of Supreme Court precedent and written training materials for new officers --- that they may enter a private home without a judicial warrant signed by a judge. Only an administrative warrant, issued by ICE itself, is needed, according to the memo revealed by two agency whistleblowers.

Similarly disturbing: though the memo, signed last May be the acting Director of ICE, is addressed to "all ICE personnel", it has only been distributed to "select DHS officials" who have then shared it with some employees "who were told to read it and return it," according to AP. The memo offers no detail on how this new legal determination was made nor any explanation for basis of reversing decades of longstanding guidance.

Barber published his own report on the troubling news earlier today at Daily Kos, in a piece headlined "Secret ICE Memo Trains Agents To Conduct Unconstitutional Home Invasions". He tells me that the secret change in guidance has resulted in more violence, as people are dragged out of their homes, believing the old rules, that a warrant signed by a judge is needed to enter a home. Then, their doors are smashed in and they are dragged out.

"It's really concerning because it is increasing the level of violence associated with these things, and because of the secrecy involved in it. And it's also just wrong under the law," says Barber. "That is not what the Supreme Court in multiple cases and certainly a host of lower courts have ruled the Fourth Amendment allows."

Finally, we close out another absurdly busy day with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, as the Arctic's climate change-disrupted polar vortex returns to freeze much of the U.S. this week, and as our dumb President offers astoundingly stupid new lies about wind energy...

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

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

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

Today on BradCast: I don't care what he says, no President has the power to cancel American elections. Period. Even if that definitive statement of fact is unlikely to be the end of that story. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Now, officially, one year into his final term as President, Donald Trump's "Golden Age for America" is a complete --- if wholly predictable --- failure. His approval ratings have tanked; he has terrorized a great American city by placing it under siege by his hapless, if deadly, militarized immigration goons from ICE and CBP (with some 1,500 U.S. military troops said to be standing by, should he decide to fraudulently invoke the Insurrection Act); NATO, the largest and most successful alliance in world history is now on the brink of collapse, thanks to his threats to steal the peaceful, semi-autonomous nation of Greenland from our ally Denmark; and, oh yeah, the stock market tanked today amid Trump's new tariff trade war threats against our friendly European allies who disagree with him regarding Greenland.

The November midterm elections can't come soon enough. But they will come, despite Trump's various impotent threats or suggestions to the contrary. A President has no power --- none, zero --- to cancel elections in the approximately 10,000 jurisdictions around the country which run them independently of the federal government.

Nonetheless, his Administration's fraudulent abuse of the legal system to try and make it more difficult for legal voters to vote continues. As does his Administration's failures in court, where their attempted legal fraud is not going well --- even in cases overseen by Trump-appointed judges.

Among today's coverage...

• A federal Judge late last week dismissed the Dept. of Justice's pathetic lawsuit against California, seeking to force it to turn over state voter roll data. The Democratically-controlled Golden State is just one of 23 states and the District of Columbia being sued by the DOJ for refusal to turn over private voter information --- including Social Security numbers, birth dates and Drivers License details --- as part of the performative Trump campaign to ferret out supposed fraudulent voter registrations by millions of non-citizens. In tossing the case, the judge found DOJ has no basis, nor legal authority, to demand CA turn over its voter file. Similar DOJ suits against the other states who refused to violate their own voters privacy rights are likely to be similarly unsuccessful.

• At the same time, the New York Times reports that federal officials have been unable to find any evidence of widespread fraud or mass non-citizen registrations among nearly 50 million state records examined so far. The records, from mostly Republican jurisdictions, have been run though a Dept. of Homeland Security database which was not designed for this purpose, under the DOJ ruse of assuring that voter registration databases are "clean". To date, just 0.02% of records checked have revealed even potential evidence of registration by non-citizens. That tiny number includes registrants who never voted or even knew they were registered, and/or naturalized citizens that triggered false positives in the DHS database.

• Of course, one of the reasons that 23 states are refusing to turn over state voter data to Trump's federal government, is for fear that sensitive information (Social Security numbers, etc.) will be misused. As we've learned today, those states were right to be concerned. The DOJ admitted in a "Corrections" court filing last Friday, that members of Elon Musk's failed DOGE team stole and misused sensitive, personal data from the Social Security Administration. At least one of the DOGE Bros apparently discussed an agreement with a Republican voter fraud group to share personal SSA data with the aim of somehow overturning election results.

• But the Trump Administration fraud doesn't stop there, of course, as even a Trump-appointed federal judge ruled today. In the Eastern District of Virginia, Judge David Novak ruled that Lindsey Halligan --- Trump's former tax lawyer --- and the DOJ, were unlawfully identifying Halligan in court documents and elsewhere as the District's U.S. Attorney. Back in November, a different judge in the District ruled that Halligan had been unlawfully appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi. As such, the indictments Halligan secured against former FBI Director James Comey and NY A.G. Letitia James were dismissed. Judge Novak recently gave Halligan seven days to explain why she was still representing herself as USA after the court, last November, found her unlawfully appointed. He demanded to know why that didn't represent a sanctionable fraud against the court. Last week, Halligan responded with an obnoxious, over-the-top, Fox "News"-like explanation (most likely written by Trump's former defense attorney turned Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, who signed the document along with Bondi and Halligan). Today, Novak called them all out in a blistering 18-page order [PDF], forcing them to strike Halligan's use of USA in legal filings and elsewhere, while giving Halligan and the others fair warning that further ignoring orders from District judges may result in sanctions, including referral to the Bar Association.

• But wait, there is still more waste, fraud, abuse and court losses for the Trump Administration today, as we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, detailing yet another court ruling that has blocked Trump's attempt at shutting down construction of new off-shore wind farms --- many of them nearly completed --- set to offer clean, cheap, renewable energy for millions of Americans. Trump tried to shut down five such projects. Judges have, so far, restarted three of them. The other two are still being adjudicated...

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