Okay. Lots of crime and corruption by the President of the United States and his criminal henchman and women on today's BradCast. The good news, however, is that most of it falling apart on him, because he's not even good at criming. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Most noteworthy among our coverage today...

• As Donald Trump threatens a distraction war of regime change against Venezuela, two human rights organizations released a damning report last week finding that more than 250 Venezuelan detainees that Trump shipped to the CECOT gulag in El Salvador earlier this year were subjected to "systematic and prolonged torture and abuse". That, despite the fact that just 3% of those disappeared to the known torture prison by the Administration had been convicted of any violent crime in the U.S.

• Trump's corrupt indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James are absolutely falling apart in court before several different judges and different pretrial motions. Attorney KEITH BARBER (who writes at Daily Kos as "Keith DB") is here to help us break down a remarkable 24-page ruling (PDF) issued today by a federal magistrate judge in the Comey case.

  After reviewing the grand jury transcript in chambers, Judge William Fitzpatrick determined that Lindsey Halligan, Trump's former insurance lawyer turned unlawfully-seated U.S. Attorney in Virginia, engaged in a "disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps" that appear to have violated Comey's rights in numerous ways.

  Among those rights violation, as Barber details, Halligan's apparent instructions to grand jurors that Comey's refusal to testify before them could be used to infer his guilt. That's a "clear violation of Comey's 5th Amendment rights," explained Barber in a posting at DailyKos today. Comey's rights were also violated, according to the judge, when the grand jury was instructed by Halligan that they didn't need to rely on the record presented to them. Rather, they could infer that the government had far better evidence to be presented later at trial.

  Not unlike the judge who wrote that those two instructions alone were "fundamental misstatements of law that could compromise the integrity of the grand jury process," Barber was flabbergasted.

  "It's unprecedented. That is one of those things that is like 'Prosecutor 101', which, of course, Halligan never took," he tells me. "I honestly can't believe she's that dumb, but she certainly acted that way. Normally the most faint whiff by a prosecutor before a jury --- including a grand jury --- that suggests that a defendant's unwillingness to testify imputes guilt is sufficient to result in a mistrial or dismissal of charges. That alone, by itself, should end the day for this."

  But there was much more from both the judge in this matter --- who has taken the extraordinary step of turning over the grand jury transcript to the defendants, as we discuss --- and from a separate federal judge who heard a separate pre-trial challenge last week, as combined from both Comey and James, regarding Halligan's apparently unlawful seating as U.S. Attorney.

  "This case will never get to trial," says Barber, regarding the Comey case. "If it doesn't get dismissed for this reason --- the misconduct before the grand jury --- then one of the others will kill it or the cumulative weight of all of these irregularities are going to cause the judge to toss it."

  "There's stupid, and there's corrupt," he quips. "And then there's stupidly corrupt. It's just ridiculous."

• Next... in a Sunday night social media posting, Trump appeared to flip-flop on his statement from just last week describing any Republican who would vote to release the Epstein Files as "stupid". In his Sunday post, however, Trump called on Congressional Republicans to vote in favor of pending legislation to release the Epstein Files. The legislation is likely to finally receive a vote in the House this week, that calls on the DOJ to release "all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in DOJ's possession that relate to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein."

  But, don't be fooled by Trump's seeming reversal, for at least two reasons. 1) Trump could order the release of those files today if he actually wanted them released. He doesn't need legislation to force him to do so. And 2) the legislation would allow the DOJ to withhold "materials that would jeopardize an active federal investigation." While corrupt Attorney General Pam Bondi announced several months ago that there were no more loose ends and nothing more to investigate in the Epstein matter following the jailhouse death of the child sex offender and longtime close friend of Trump, she announced last week that she was opening a new investigation last week into Democrats alleged to have been involved with Epstein. That announcement followed a public request from Trump for such a probe just one day earlier. So, yeah, vote to release the files if you like, but you can probably assume that anything that might incriminate Trump will be withheld so as not to "jeopardize an active federal investigation."

• Then, we open the phone lines to callers on what they think about the Trump/Epstein mess and whether they believe those files will ever see the light of day as long as Trump has the power to continue covering them up...

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We've got a lot of news from all over the world, and no small amount of explainers to go with it on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Deadly, record-shattering Hurricane Melissa finally makes landfall in Jamaica as a catastrophic, slow moving, 185 mph Category 5 storm. As discussed, this is likely to be very very bad. The island nation has set up a support and donations site here.

• So much for Donald Trump's recent declaration of "everlasting peace" in the Middle East, as Israel reignites its brutal attack on Gaza following its claim that Hamas has violated the recent peace agreement.

• "Peace President" Donald Trump continues his unlawful killing spree in international waters with the announcement that he ordered the U.S. military murder of another 14 alleged "narco-terrorists" on four small boats off of Mexico's Pacific coast. That, as the Administration redeploys its largest aircraft carrier to the Caribbean, not to help storm victims in Jamaica, but almost certainly to wage --- or, at least, threaten --- war on Venezuela (and, perhaps, Colombia).

• Weird and related?: U.S. Defense Dept. officials are being required to sign NDAs. WTF?

• Twenty-three Democratic state Attorneys General announced they are suing the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to continue food assistance to some 42 million low-income Americans via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP, previously known as food stamps). The suit follows the agency's flip-flop on using already-appropriated emergency contingency funds to feed hungry American families amid the ongoing federal government shutdown. If funding ends on November 1, as planned by the USDA, it would be the first time in the 60-year history of the program.

• Following Friday's announcement by Trump's corrupted Dept. of Justice that it plans to send federal monitors to polling places in five counties in California and one in New Jersey during next Tuesday's November 4th elections, for unexplained reasons, the Golden State has announced it plans to dispatch state monitors to oversee the federal ones.

• The Gerrymandering Wars continue and expand. Following Trump's arm-twisting of state GOP lawmakers in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina to rewrite U.S. House district maps to steal seats from Democrats next year --- and Democrats' attempted responses in California and Virginia --- Indiana's Republican Governor has called a special session of the legislature to try and steal another GOP House seat from Democratic voters. But Dems aren't done responding yet, as House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries is said to be in talks with Illinois lawmakers about redrawing that state's map to further favor Dems next year. We do all of the math for ya today, breaking down which party's voters would come out ahead if all of these plans are successful. The answer may surprise you. But the corrupted, rightwing, activist U.S. Supreme Court could still blow up everything (in favor of Republicans) before all is said and done in the critical 2026 midterms.

• Finally, Desi Doyen is back with our latest Green News Report with more on the monstrous Hurricane Melissa; the Trump Administration's withholding of disaster funding to states that didn't vote for him; and the deadly, expensive climate change threats that continue to worsen, whether the Administration removes climate science data from its websites or not...

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To be fair, we warned you on yesterday's show, when setting aside one blissful hour to celebrate the weekend's joyous and peaceful "No Kings" rallies across the nation, that there would be plenty of time to get back to less-than-joyful news on The BradCast from America's unprecedented criminal Trump Era. Well, as promised, we're back to it today! In spades! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Donald Trump doesn't know a whole lot. But, if there's one thing he knows well, it's how to break the law. Civil law. Criminal law. Foreign and domestic. You name it. As the first felon to ever become an American President, he knows how to commit crimes of all sorts and, unfortunately, how to get away with most of them. It's especially easy for him now, after taking office again following a ruling last year by his own corrupted, activist, rightwing U.S. Supreme Court majority which, similarly, has no interest in the rule of law, and is willing to make up a wholly nonexistent "Presidential Immunity" doctrine that has existed nowhere in our Constitution or rule of law in the 250 years of our nation's history.

We have a few too many examples of Trump's crime and pro-crime spree in today's news, highlighting the Golden Age of Trump and Republican Lawlessness and Disorder in America...

• In violation of U.S. and international law, Trump has now ordered at least seven explosive attacks by the U.S. Military on small boats off the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean, said (without evidence) to be ferrying drugs and "narco-terrorists" to the U.S. After one of those attacks last week, two people survived. They were pulled out of the water by a U.S. war ship and rendered aid. But, rather than trying them for whatever offense Trump is claiming they carried out, the Administration is sending them back to their home countries in Ecuador and Colombia. Now why would they do that? We discuss.

• Here at home, Trump's respect for the Rule of Law is no greater. A bunch of the more than 1,500 January 6th insurrectionists pardoned by Trump on the first day of his second term of office have since been found to have committed additional, separate crimes. Today, CBS News reports on a Trump-pardoned rioter who, according to New York state law enforcement officials, was planning to assassinate Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. The man, Christopher Moynihan, one of the first to break into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, allegedly said in text messages that he planned to "eliminate" Jeffries, who he described as a "terrorist" that he "cannot allow" to live. "He must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future," said the man, detailing a plan to do so during a NY speaking engagement this week by the Democratic leader. Remind me again how it is Democrats carrying out political violence?!

• In other wildly corrupt Trump pardon news, he granted clemency last Friday to disgraced former Rep. George Santos, the wildly corrupt Republican New York fabulist and expelled U.S. Congressman. Santos pleaded guilty earlier this year to fraud and identify theft, in which he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from supporters of his own campaign, including family members. He was sentenced to seven years in federal prison after pleading guilty just before trial. Santos served just two and a half months of that sentence in a "Club Fed" facility before he was sprung last week by the fraud and theft enthusiast currently residing in our White House.

• While Trump's favored Republican criminals run free, his weaponized Dept. of Justice is running down his list of political foes, finding something, anything to criminally charge them with. One of those indicted on particularly ridiculous charges is Trump's former FBI Director James Comey, who he fired for not blocking DOJ probes into Russian interference, on Trump's behalf, in the 2016 election. Describing the indictment as an "egregious abuse of power," Comey's attorneys on Monday filed motions for immediate dismissal of the case, which they characterize as an unlawful "vindictive" prosecution, and one that was brought by Trump's personal lawyer who, Comey alleges, is not legally serving as U.S. Attorney in VA.

• But, according to a Reuters exclusive today, it's not just the Dept. of Justice that has been weaponized against Trump's perceived enemies. Agencies across the entirety of the Executive Branch, including U.S. intelligence officers, have been meeting in what is being described as the "Interagency Weaponization Working Group". It reportedly includes officials from the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Justice and Defense Departments, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Communications Commission, among other agencies. All banding together in what Reuters describes as revealing "the administration’s push to deploy government power against Trump’s perceived foes is broader and more systematic than previously reported."

• All of that not horrific enough for ya? New York Times reports late today that Trump is demanding the DOJ pay him $230 million for investigating him for the many crimes he has committed over the year. Any such payment, according to DOJ guidelines, would have to be approved first by the Deputy A.G. in charge of the Department's Civil Division. That Deputy A.G. is currently Todd Blanche, Trump's lead criminal defense attorney. Think he'll agree to the payout? It's good to be king, right?

• In other news related to King Donald's abuse of power to try and stay in power, Republican state lawmakers in North Carolina have approved a new U.S. House map that will allow them to steal another Congressional seat from Democrats next year, in a state where gerrymandering has already allowed them to hold 10 out of 14 seats. Earlier corrupt legislation by Republican state lawmakers prevents the Democratic Governor, in the very closely divided state, from vetoing a newly redistricted map. This one is designed to unseat a Black Democratic Congressman in the eastern part of NC.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us with some of the only good news of the day in our latest Green News Report. (Though even that news is somewhat tempered by the rest of her six-minute report.)

Enjoy!

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Today on The BradCast (my last until next week, see "NOTE" below), a full week after the awful murder of Republican activist Charlie Kirk, the political ramifications --- and opportunism --- is becoming quite clear. And it all has a very familiar echo to those of us, including my guests today, who were around and paying close attention 24 years ago this month. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Back then, an unpopular President in the first eight months of his term saw his political fortunes reversed in the aftermath of the horrific terror attacks on September 11, 2001, as much of the nation "rallied around the flag" in support of that President, in response. His Administration, however, ran way too far with its presumed mandate in subsequent months and years. Innocent Americans themselves came under suspicion and paid a price (sometimes large, sometimes small) for their words and their political beliefs. The nation ended up committing itself to (at least) two, years-long, unwinnable foreign wars. And actions taken against Americans in the name, supposedly, of national security would bend norms, laws and Constitutional rights beyond recognition at times.

Charlie Kirk has yet to be buried. And yet, his most powerful ally, a very unpopular Donald Trump, his Administration and their supporters are already targeting their fellow Americans for retribution --- for a crime they had nothing to do with.

After years of describing Democrats as "fascists" and "the enemy within", Trump now claims that Kirk's death was the "tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree...in the most hateful and despicable way possible." In making his case, he cites "radical left" "scum" and unnamed "leftist organizations" as being responsible, vowing to target, prosecute and defund them for a crime that nobody other than the shooter seems to have carried out.

On Monday, Trump's Vice President, J.D. Vance, declared "left-wing extremism" was to blame and that "the data is clear" it is "not a both sides problem." It is "people on the Left" that are to blame for rising political violence. That, after the Trump Dept. of Justice removed a National Institute of Justice report from its website that finds white supremacist and far-right violence "continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism" in the United States. The study (now archived here) was there on the day that Kirk was killed. It was disappeared by the Trump Administration thereafter.

Speaking to Vance on the very same show on Monday, Trump's top White House political czar, Stephen Miller, furiously vowed "to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks" and to "use every resource we have at the DOJ, Homeland Security and throughout this government to dismantle and destroy these networks."

Of course, there are no known "networks", at this time, tied to Kirk's murder in any way. But that's okay. Trump's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, promised on Monday to "absolutely target" anyone who uses "hate speech" that she doesn't like in the wake of Kirk's death. When asked about Bondi's remarks by an ABC News reporter on the White House lawn, Trump accused him of having "a lot of hate in your heart" and threatened: "Maybe I'll come after ABC."

(Shortly after we wrapped today's program, news broke that ABC was "indefinitely" pulling its popular late-night show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The announcement came after Trump's FCC chair threatened to "take action" against ABC and its owner Disney, and suggesting he might pull broadcast licenses from affiliate stations. The threats were apparently in response to Kimmel's charge on Monday that MAGA was "doing everything they can to score political points from" Kirk's death. Today, it seems, they scored another point. Though, to be fair, Trump said back in July, after taking credit for the recent cancellation of Stephen Colbert's top-rated late night show on CBS, "I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next." So, obviously all of this is just opportunism.)

Oh, and Rep. Clay Higgins, Chair of the Federal Law Enforcement subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter this week to the CEOs of six social media companies, (falsely) instructing them that they are required, by law, to remove comments regarding Kirk's assassination that Higgins and his compatriots might find offensive. He claimed the "restriction of public statements...is not an oppression of free speech [but] the protection of free speech." [Emphasis added for Orwell's sake.]

All of this sounds both familiar and chilling to those of us who lived through the aftermath of 9/11, including my guests today, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo and the notorious 'DRIFTGLASS' of the Professional Left Podcast.

"This isn't surprising," says Digby. "They've been telegraphing this since Donald Trump started running back in 2022, that they were going to go after 'the Left' and his enemies, 'the enemies of the state.' After the Kirk shooting there were MAGA people who were saying out loud, 'This is our Reichstag Fire,' looking for that moment they could use as an excuse to do what they were always going to do anyway."

"They have to start targeting people online who they said were insufficiently reverent toward Charlie Kirk, and getting them fired. So much more free speech. But that's the first step you take in this," she adds, citing similar threats from Republicans in the George W. Bush Administration back in 2001.

"I would like to thank the Reichstag Fire comparators for acknowledging they are Nazis," quips Driftglass, "because that's what the Reichstag Fire was. Way to go, guys!"

Citing similar blowback against those who disagreed with Bush and his wars after 9/11, Driftglass adds: "This didn't start with Donald Trump. They have been demonizing the Left as responsible for everything wrong with this country for at least the last 35 years. And the rhetoric has finally caught up with actual action being taken at the highest level of the White House."

"In Neuromancer by William Gibson," Driftglass observes, "he coined a phrase called the 'consensual hallucination.' That's what they [MAGA] are all engaged in. They have hallucinated into existence a vast leftwing conspiracy, sneaky liberal media, lots of awfulness that justifies everything they do. This has been set up for 40 years now, that the Left is always worse, always a threat, and always a justification for escalation against the 'enemy within.'"

There is, of course, much more on all of this on today's show, as both Digby and Driftglass join us for the full hour, including their insights on Trump's apparent attempt to start a war with Venezuela; his apparent attempt to start a war with Chicago; his laughable $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times and much more...

[NOTE: 'The BradCast' is off tomorrow due to an unavoidable medical appointment, though we hope to get a Green News Report out beforehand! Otherwise, see ya on Monday!]

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I can't believe we're covering any of this. But, on today's BradCast, we're sounding twin alarms about the President of the United State's explicit threats of wars against both Venezuela and...yes...Chicago. There must really be some bad shit on him in those Epstein Files! [Audio link to full shows follows this summary.]

You would think that when Donald Trump posts on social media on Saturday morning that "Chicago [is] about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR" with a photo of him in battle fatigues in front of attack helicopters, a burning Chicago skyline and the phrase "Chipocalypse Now" in the style of 1979's Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now, that the nation's major newspapers might report on it in their print editions on Sunday. But, nope. Apparently a threat by the U.S. President to invade another major U.S. city no longer even merits a notice in either the New York Times or Washington Post the next day.

Moreover, you'd think ten U.S. warships ordered down to Central America within missile range of Venezuela --- just days after Trump violated all international (and U.S.) law by bombing a speed boat he claims to have been filled with "narco-terrorists" carrying "massive amounts of drugs" (there is no public evidence of either) that we'd see screaming ALL CAPS front page headlines about a pending U.S. war in Central America across all of the nation's papers. I guess blatant war crimes admitted to by a President of the United States and the threat of an impending U.S. attack on yet another sovereign nation just doesn't spark the outrage from the "liberal media" that it used.

So, here we are. The guy who those same papers described as an "anti-war" Presidential candidate is still playing them all like chumps as he threatens to unleash new wars both foreign and domestic.

Whatever is actually in those Epstein Files that he is refusing to release --- after promising to do so while running for President --- must be really really bad for him. And while everyone is looking for just two more Republicans with the courage to sign on to a Discharge Petition to force a vote in the U.S. House on the release of the criminal files on sex traffickers and Trump pedophile pals Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, perhaps they should look at the Democrats who are likely to win two upcoming Special Elections this month instead. Signatures from those two Democrats, once seated in the House (unless somehow blocked by Republicans from doing so), would be enough to trigger that vote. Could be a very interesting month.

We cover all of that and more on today's show, and open the phones to a bunch of listeners with their own thoughts on all of this madness.

Please tune in and let me know if you can make any more sense of this moment than I can. I welcome all the help and good sense you can offer. God knows ain't any Trump supporters calling in to defend him anymore. So make of that what you will...

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Today on The BradCast: Donald Trump's latest attempt to make himself feel powerful by deploying U.S. military troops on American streets --- against Americans --- has nothing to do with Law and Order. It has everything to do with a need for authoritarian control by a very small wannabe tyrant. It also has to do with distracting from the fact that he's in the Epstein Files and won't release them, as previously promised. [Audio link to full story follows below this summary.]

Among our stories today that help make that case and a few others...

• The 30-year old (white) Georgia man who attempted a mass shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on Friday fired some 200 shots at its glass windows, smashing bullet holes into about 150 of them. He was also misinformed by the nation's health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and others who spread the same nonsense, that his depression was due to a COVID vaccine shot. Kennedy took 18 hours before issuing a tepid statement in response to the shooting that killed a responding (black) police officer. Donald Trump has yet to say anything about it...much less deploy the U.S. National Guard to Georgia.

• At the top of Rachel Maddow's program Monday night, she told a harrowing story about a convicted triple ax-murderer. Turns out he is a (white) American citizen who is now roaming the streets of the nation after Donald Trump just sprung him from prison. The National Guard will not be deployed to Florida to hunt him down, because Trump wants him to be free.

• Meanwhile, in D.C., Donald Trump, a 34-time convicted felon and adjudicated sexual abuser, announced on Monday that the U.S. National Guard would be deployed to the nation's capital, where violent crime is at a 30-year low, according to the U.S. Attorney's office there. The announcement follows a recently attempted 3am carjacking of a (white) guy who used to work on Trump's so-called DOGE project. Like Los Angeles, where Trump previously deployed National Guard and U.S. Marines for no legitimate reason, and in likely violation of the law, D.C. has a black female Mayor. More easy pickins as tough-guy Trump sees it, I suspect. But none of this has anything to do with the Rule of Law or being Tough on Crime. At his Monday presser, Trump also suggested he would soon be deploying both National Guard and even active duty military troops to a number of other Democratically-run American cities, if not to GOP-controlled states like Georgia or Texas, despite a number of recent mass shootings in both. But, again, none of this is about Law and Order. It's about authoritarian control by a tiny, petty tyrant.

• In that same vein, Washington Post reports today on a Pentagon plan to create a permanent military "reaction force" that would allow Trump to deploy U.S. military troops to U.S. cities within an hour on either side of the Mississippi, for whatever bullshit authoritarian reasons he wanted to dream up. Bullets would already be flying in the streets of the U.S. against the U.S. Government had any recent Democratic President carried out anything like all of this. Apparently, Republican "opponents" of Big Government Tyranny only oppose Big Government Tyrants they didn't vote for.

• One of Trump's other recent attempts to distract from the fact that he's in the Jeffrey Epstein files --- and is therefore, refusing to release them --- is also failing miserably. A U.S. District Court judge in New York on Monday, denied the Trump Dept. of Justice's motion to release Grand Jury transcripts from the 2020 indictment on sex trafficking and abuse of minors by Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. The judge excoriated DOJ for its attempt at misleading the public about what is (or, in this case, isn't) in those transcripts, writing in his scathing ruling that "the Government’s motion for their unsealing was aimed not at 'transparency' but at diversion --- aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such."

• Down in Texas, meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott is still trying to have his GOP-controlled state legislature steal five U.S. House seats from Democrats in next year's midterm elections by redistricting the state's map again, in the middle of the decade, at the order of Donald Trump. State House Dems are still not letting them. They continue to break quorum in the state House by remaining in other states. On Monday, TX' corrupt Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton asked the state Supremes to expel 13 of the absent Democratic members. On Monday night, Abbott took to Fox "News" to threaten to rewrite the maps to steal not five but 10 seats if California's Governor dares to respond to the TX heist by rewriting maps to flip five Republican seats in the Golden State in turn. And on Tuesday, Abbott announced that the 30-day Special Legislative Session would be concluded this week, with a new one started immediately thereafter. There is still no indication that Dems plan to show up for it, as state Repubs continue to hold disaster relief hostage following the deadly July 4th flash floods if Dems refusing to allow them to steal next year's U.S. House elections.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as flash flooding and record heat continues across the Midwest and around the world; and as the Trump Administration continues to raise energy prices for Americans by gutting renewable energy production in the U.S., even while announcing plans to build a nuclear reactor...on the Moon!...

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Today on The BradCast: While Trump's mass deportation boondoggle gets worse, more cruel, more corrupt, more unlawful and more unconstitutional by the day, the increasing threat to U.S. national security, thanks to his Administration's unprecedented censorship of climate science, may soon collide with a "physical reality" that may make ALL of our problems far worse --- including immigration. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... The Administration continues to characterize those being deported as criminal felons and sexual assaulters who entered the U.S. unlawfully, even if available evidence often suggests otherwise. Moreover, the convicted criminal felon and adjudicated sexual assaulter in the White House continues violate the law and Constitution himself with each passing day. He should be deported --- though allowed the due process of law he has always received, even as he denies it for everyone else.

Unlike the Administration, we offer evidence in support of our serious allegations: As the New York Times reported last night, emails from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's Chief of Staff reveal that her office attempted to manipulate a national intelligence analysis they didn't like --- which revealed Trump to be a liar --- regarding migrants from Venezuela and Trump's unlawful invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove them without due process.

That news comes on the heels of a stunning new analysis from the right-leaning Cato Institute finding that at least 50 of the Venezuelans Trump deported to a maximum-security torture prison in El Salvador were in the U.S. lawfully. They included construction workers, cooks, delivery drivers, a soccer coach, a veterinarian and a makeup artist, most of whom used the U.S. Customs and Border Protection app, called CBP One, to schedule an asylum appointment from outside of the country to seek lawful entrance into the U.S. That's 50 out of just 85 migrants whose entrance circumstances Cato was able to figure out. More than 200 migrants have been sent to El Salvador without Constitutional due process and in violation of court orders.

And all of that preceded still-breaking news over the past 24 hours or so that the Administration has violated yet another judge's orders by sending migrants from Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba and Mexico to South Sudan, a nation in the middle of a bloody civil war, where the U.S. State Department warns Americans "Do Not Travel", and where those migrants are not from. They were reportedly given less than 24 before being sent to a third country in violation of orders from the U.S. District judge overseeing their cases.

THEN... While the Administration is pretending to combat national security issues by deporting make-up artists and soccer coaches, actual national security issues are being exacerbated by their censorship and attempts at unpublishing climate science that you and I have paid for.

As my guest today recently explained, writing on the "silencing and censoring of environmental threats to U.S. national security" for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (the keepers of the infamous Doomsday Clock), for well over half a century, U.S. intelligence and military agencies, under Presidencies of all political stripes, have been documenting and warning about changes to the climate that threaten national security. Now, Donald Trump is attempting to "cancel" climate science --- actually censoring the words "climate change" from all government documents --- and ignoring and/or shutting down internal warning mechanisms regarding increased environmental threats to national security.

Our guest today is renowned climate scientist DR. PETER GLEICK, who is attempting to sound the alarm about the Administration's "silencing and censoring of environmental threats to US national security." He is an author and co-founder of the non-profit Pacific Institute research center, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a McArthur Fellow, and much more that I don't have space to list. (But see his website!) He has written dozens of scientific articles over the decades and has testified about the related matters before Congress.

"From a political point of view, between Democrats and Republicans, there's a very strong difference and emphasis on energy policy, on environmental policy," Gleick tells me when I ask about the timeline of the rise of climate denialism. But, he adds, it was "nothing like we're seeing today. What we're seeing today is fundamentally different than anything we've seen before."

"Even throughout both Democratic and Republican administrations in the past, the military and intelligence community have been very good about this. They see their job fundamentally as understanding and preparing for threats to the United States. All of those defense and intelligence assessments, throughout those administrations (since President Johnson), have repeatedly highlighted a clear understanding of two factors: One is how environmental issues may cause U.S. forces to get involved in conflict --- with failed states, with population displacements and migration, with impacts that lead to threats to our own security."

"The other category is how environmental threats may affect US military forces and bases and operations. Sea level rise we know is already flooding the naval bases in Norfolk. They are raising docks because they know sea level rise is a reality. They've seen extreme events damaging air force bases and destroying airplanes. They are aware of those threats, and they have been very good, throughout almost all administrations, about highlighting those threats in the national security assessments to the public," says Gleick.

But now, under Trump, things have very much gone sideways. We've got a Sec. of Defense who doesn't seem to understand that national defense is about more than simply cultivating manly warriors to fight on battlefields. And, for the first time, climate threats are no longer even being mentioned in National Security Strategy reports. The Congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment may not even been published by the Administration at all when it is legally next due, in 2027. Gleick has worked on previous Assessments and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences which advises on the project. But says, this time, the scientists who volunteer to work on the report are being dismissed and that there may or may not even be a new report. "The Trump Administration doesn't seem to pay much attention to the law at the moment."

"If there isn't one, we know what the science of climate change says. What we'll be missing are just the latest updates, the most recent climate science that tells us even more about what the consequences of climate change will be," he explains.

We discuss a number of concrete ways in which the climate crisis is already a threat to national security, from conflicts over water and water systems; the disappearance of Artic ice leading to expanded military basis by Russia; decreased agriculture productivity resulting in famine and, yes, mass migration that the U.S. has already begun to deal with.

"Climate is no longer a hypothetical threat to the world, national security, and international security," he argues. "It's increasingly an important component of that threat, whether you believe in it or not."

But, Gleick offers some hope. Scientists, including himself, have been diligently working to prevent the "wholesale deletion" of government climate data; he believes that "the remarkable revolution we are seeing in the renewable energy industry is unstoppable" and while Trump may want to "revive the coal industry, that's just not going to happen"; and whether Trump hopes to "cancel" climate science or not on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, he will be unable prevent the world from seeing the unavoidable physical reality of what lies ahead.

"Physical reality will happen," he laments. "Bad things that otherwise would not have happened are going to happen. People are going to get sick and die. There will be conflicts we are not prepared for that we could have been prepared for. Whether those realities swing the pendulum far enough back so that some sort of rationality can be re-established --- I hope that's the case. But I think it's dangerous times."

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Constitutional Due Process plays a starring role in today's BradCast --- as it damned well should --- in several different stories of note. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

• Today, we revisit the ridiculous story about the one election from 2024 that is still unsettled. At least it was before Monday, when a federal district judge may have finally put an end to it. We'll see. This is the contest for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat, where incumbent Democratic Justice Allison Riggs' re-election was challenged by her opponent, Republican Judge Jefferson Griffin. At least two recounts found that he lost by 734 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast. Nonetheless, Griffin has been deploying a playbook clearly created for Donald Trump prior to last year's election, in demanding some 65,000 lawfully cast ballots be tossed out entirely --- though only in a few Dem-leaning counties, and only for his race. We unpack all the details again on today's show. But, long story short: The state Supreme Court (dominated 6 to 2 by Republicans, or 6 to 1 in this case, since Riggs recused herself) recently okayed the potentially disenfranchisement of thousands of NC voters to help out Griffin. But Riggs then took the matter to federal court, where U.S. District Court Judge Richard Myers --- a Trump-appointee --- on Monday said absolutely not. You may not change the rules of an election after an election and violate the Constitutional Due Process of voters in the bargain, according to his order [PDF]. This is, of course, very good news for Riggs, but also for democracy itself. Hopefully, it's finally over. We'll see if Griffin chooses to keep his six-months of idiocy and attempted vote suppression going on appeal. Myers has given him one week to decide.

• Trump said over the weekend that he just doesn't really know if the Due Process mandates of the Constitution are actually, ya know, mandatory. He was answering questions about his use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to detain and deport alleged gang members from Venezuela to a gulag in El Salvador for a life sentence, without ever allowing them a day in court to make their case, or even contact with lawyers or family. But the AEA law may only be invoked in the first place against migrants from nations that have declared war on the U.S., or in the event of "invasion" or "incursion" directed by a foreign government. That is certainly not the case with Venezuela, though Trump argued otherwise in his invocation of the wartime law. Earlier this year, reporting from the New York Times and Washington Post revealed that the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) found back in February that there was no evidence of Venezuela's President directing an invasion of the U.S. Trump made his proclamation to begin deportations in March anyway. At the time, the Admin claimed the reporting was wrong and the DoJ vowed extraordinary measures to track down the leakers. But, according to a redacted memo released on Monday under the Freedom of Information Act by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, summarizing the IC's findings, the newspapers had it right and --- I hope you're sitting down --- it appears the Trump Administration was lying about all of this from the jump.

• In related news, yet another federal judge --- this time in the Southern District of New York --- has enjoined the Trump Administration from moving migrants detained under the Alien Enemies Act until they are given full Due Process. The ruling was not unlike one from a Trump-appointed federal judge in South Texas last week. In this case, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a Clinton appointee, found [PDF] that since the Administration has "not demonstrated the existence of a ‘war,’ ‘invasion’ or ‘predatory incursion,’ the AEA was not validly invoked by the Presidential Proclamation."

• Meanwhile, the fortunes of Trump buddy and richest man on earth, Elon Musk --- also, potentially, the world's most hated --- are really beginning to nose dive. Aside from users fleeing Twitter/X in droves this year in the wake of both his partnering with Trump and the Nazification of the social media site, the future of his Electric Vehicle company appears even bleaker. The stock price of Tesla is down some 40% since he DOGEd himself to Trump last December and subsequently outed himself as a far-right extremist. But sales of the company's cars in Europe have fallen even farther. According to new numbers out this week from both Germany and the UK, where, even as overall sales of cars is dropping, EV sales are booming --- at least for companies not owned by Musk --- Tesla sales continue to drive over a cliff. They are down 46% in Germany compared to last April, and a whopping 62% in Britain. Sad!

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as drastic cuts to the National Weather Service are now beginning to endanger public safety, according to its former leaders; Trump's DoJ is suing states to block climate laws and lawsuits; and the Administration plans to shrink National Parks in the U.S. to make room for more mining and drilling, and violate international law by mining the sea floor...

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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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We've got a flood of news on today's BradCast. Unfortunately, some of that reference is also literal. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our many stories today...

• Last week's primary elections in Tennessee (which they hold on Thursdays in the state, because they hope voters don't turn out for them!) saw state Rep. Gloria Johnson win the Democratic nomination for U.S Senate to run against the far-right Sen. Marsha Blackburn. Johnson was one of the "Tennessee Three" who state GOP lawmakers tried to expel after Johnson and two others state Reps participated in a gun safety protest on the House floor following a deadly mass shooting at an elementary school shooting in Nashville. Johnson, who is white, was spared expulsion by one vote. Her two colleagues, Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, both black, were expelled (though were subsequently returned to the House by their local constituents).

• Hurricane Debby made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida Monday morning, just 20 miles or so from where Hurricane Idalia came ashore less than a year ago. Desi Doyen joins us with details on the storm surge and catastrophic flooding that is expected in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina as the storm moves to the north painfully slowly. She also explains why these disasters are made worse and more frequent thanks to man-made climate change.

• Also today, Wall Street weathered its own storm, as investors have begun to panic that the U.S. could be headed into a recession and/or that the Federal Reserve waited too long to lower interest rates. In Japan on Monday, investors really panicked, as the Nikkei 225 plunged more than 12%. The major U.S. indexes, however, "only" fell by about 2 or 3% today. Still, it was a bloodbath. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

• After a months-long pause, Donald Trump's federal indictment for his several failed attempts to steal the 2020 election returned to the D.C. court of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. The pause was thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's absurd ruling that Presidents enjoy immunity from most crimes they carry out while in office. That ruling, of course, though contrary to any non-corrupt reading of the Constitution, could still further derail the case. For now at least, after receiving the case back on Friday, Chutkan issued several rulings almost immediately over the weekend, finding mostly against the Defense in several outstanding motions. The case is, nonetheless, not expected to come to trial before this November's Presidential election, since her eventual rulings in regard to "presidential immunity" will almost certainly need to make their way back up to the corrupted SCOTUS.

• In breaking news shortly before airtime today, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced that she was dropping charges against Jenna Ellis after the former Donald Trump attorney agreed to cooperate with prosecutors against her 18 co-defendants. They were all charged earlier this year with fraud, forgery and conspiracy related to the Republicans 2020 fake electors plot in the state. Among those charged along with Ellis and still facing indictments are former Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, as well as his former Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows. This could be very bad news for all of them.

• Also today, the corrupted SCOTUS did the right thing for a rare change in declining to halt Donald Trump's sentencing on 34 felony crimes in New York related to his successful scheme to cheat in the 2016 election by paying hush-money to a porn star with whom he was said to have had a sexual tryst. Trump's criminal sentencing will now move forward --- unless something else derails it again (which is always a good possibility) --- next month on September 18th.

• Over the weekend, Donald Trump backed out of the Presidential debate he previously agreed to participate in next month, as moderated by ABC News. He is proposing that he and all-but-certain Democratic nominee Kamala Harris debate before a live crowd on Fox "News" instead. The New York Times' coverage of that news over the weekend was wildly misleading and subsequently changed to eventually become accurate.

• In Virginia last week, a machine recount determined that far-right Republican state Sen. John McGuire did indeed defeat the far-right Republican Chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Bob Good, by just over 300 votes out of some 63,000 cast during the GOP's June state primary. Good, a 2020 election denier, ultimately abandoned his evidence-free claims of massive fraud via drop-box and conceded the race to McGuire.

• Down in Venezuela, Socialist Party strongman Nicolas Maduro still refuses to release election results from tens of thousands of polling places after the nation's Presidential election just over a week ago. The National Electoral Council --- heavily stacked with Maduro loyalists --- announced on Election Night that Maduro defeated opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez by about 7 percentage points. Both the U.S. (a longtime Maduro adversary) and Maduro allies such as the leaders of Brazil and Columbia, have called for Maduro to release all precinct-based results from the election. Without the ability for the public to oversee the full results, however, analysts are citing the limited number of Election Night precinct results tapes obtained by opposition-aligned groups from about 1,000 polling sites. Separate analyses of those poll tapes --- by New York Times, Associated Press and Washington Post --- suggest that Maduro not only didn't win by 7 points, he appears to have lost to Gonzalez in a 20-point landslide. We specifically detail the convincing NYTimes analysis and explain how Maduro could refute their findings by simply releasing the data that the voting public deserves to see. Democracy relies on the ability of the public to oversee its own elections. A fact that is equally true here in the U.S.

• While we ran long with all of today's breaking news, we still had time for a caller or two, one of whom who clearly hates democracy --- and is, apparently, no fan of me either!

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The fight for election integrity and for democracy over autocracy continues on today's BradCast, from Venezuela to the United States. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Among today's topics...

• The quickly exploding Park Fire in Northern California continues to spread, as firefighters battle against time and exceedingly warm, dry and windy weather. The enormous fire, ignited by an arsonist but fueled by climate changed-conditions, has now chewed through more than 550 square miles and threatens the Lassen Volcanic National Park as it has become the 6th largest fire in state history. Desi Doyen has details today.

• The government of Venezuela's autocratic ruler, President Nicolas Maduro, declared he had defeated opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez by some 7 points in Sunday's election. But Gonzalez supporters, election observers and a bunch of foreign nations are questioning the officially reported results, citing irregularities at polling places, contrary polling numbers, and a lack of transparency among other irregularities, as tabulation records from tens of thousands of touchscreen voting systems around the country have yet to be made public. Election Integrity advocates, including the Carter Center in Atlanta, are demanding Venezuelan authorities immediately publish tallies from some 30,000 individual voting machines which have been withheld from public oversight to date.

• Meanwhile, when it comes to democracy and elections back home, we've got a few problems of our own. On Monday, President Biden introduced his proposal for reforming our corrupted U.S. Supreme Court. He is calling for 18-year term limits that would allow a sitting President to appoint a new Justice every two years. He is calling on Congress to create an enforceable code of ethics for Justices following years of revelations of millions of dollars in undisclosed luxury gifts, travel and cash accepted by Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and others; and for a "No One Is Above the Law Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution to overturn the Court's recent ridiculous discovery of a heretofore unnoticed Presidential Immunity Clause in our founding document, giving immunity from prosecution to former Presidents for virtually any crime they carry out while in office.

• At the same time, democracy advocates continue to be elated following the President's decision to pass the 2024 torch to his Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee against Donald Trump just over one week ago. The choice being presented to American voters this November could not be more stark between a young, freedom-loving progressive and an old, criminally-convicted, autocracy-embracing former President. We discuss.

• Finally, we open up the phones to all of the above and much more with listeners --- both wise and not-so-much --- on the top issues of the day...

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I've got to post today's BradCast quickly a) before convicted felon Donald Trump speaks at tonight's RNC and b) before more political shoes (and/or earthquakes) drop. So, here's the quick skinny. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Donald Trump critic-turned-toady J.D. Vance of Ohio, officially accepted the GOP's nomination for Vice President during his remarks at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night. His speech was long on hillbilly biography but very short (virtually bereft) of the horrifying policies that Vance actually supports. Helpfully today, we correct his oversight with actual facts and policy proposals from the ambitious Yale-educated Senator, including his push for a nationwide abortion ban with no exceptions; ending no-fault divorce; slashing Social Security and Medicare; embracing Project 2025, turning over Ukraine to Russia and much more!

• While leaving out his radical policy positions, Vance also dropped a few big lies about a number of things during Wednesday speech. When it comes to his lies about all-time record, world-leading energy production under Joe Biden, our own Desi Doyen has a few thoughts and a corrective that J.D. and his convicted conman running mate would prefer you didn't listen to.

• Self-proclaimed "Liberal Redneck" comedian Trae Crowder, who hung out with the GOP's new Veep nominee back in the days when Vance regarded Trump as "America's Hitler", also has a few insights on him today.

• What explains the complete lack of pressing by corporate media for any kind of official medical statement on the injury suffered by Donald Trump during last Saturday's assassination attempt?

• The Chief U.S. District Court Judge in Nevada tossed out a suit on Wednesday brought by the Trump Campaign, the RNC and the Nevada GOP seeking to block the counting of potentially tens of thousands of perfectly legal mail ballots in the battleground state, cast and timely post-marked by Election Day, but arriving up to four days after, as allowed by NV state law.

• With President Biden now battling COVID again, top Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have all reportedly been pressing the President, in various ways, to reconsider his insistence on staying in the race for reelection. If there is to be a change at the top of the ticket, it is believed likely to come (and would need to come) within days. Perhaps as soon as this weekend.

• In the meantime, President Biden has been continuing to present new, popular policies --- as all Democrats should be joining him in doing at this point. This week, for example, Biden is reportedly planning to issue a long-overdue proposal for SCOTUS reform to include term limits and an enforceable code of ethics for Supreme Court Justices. He will also be proposing a Constitutional amendment to counter the Court's recent corrupt ruling granting criminal immunity to Presidents. Also this week, Biden has called for a national rent control statute that would cap rent increases at 5% annually unless landlords choose to forego federal tax write-offs. These are the sort of things that Dems should be doing right now, rather than squabbling amongst themselves. (Not that anyone asked me.)

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as Toronto is crippled by extreme storms and flooding; the cost of extreme heat is quickly escalating in the U.S.; and as Marathon Oil agrees to pay a record fine for pollution under the Clean Air Act...

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We're still fighting for accountability after all these years on The BradCast. So why should today be any different? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We kick off today's program with a word or two on our 19th Anniversary of independent investigative journalism, blogging, broadcast, muckraking and trouble-making as we now officially enter our 20th(!) year of doing so at The BRAD BLOG! While I had some thoughts on all of that this morning at the blog, one point of particular pride remains the ongoing billion-dollar lawsuits by voting machine companies against Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell (as well as Fox "News" and a bunch of their on-air hosts.) The reason for the pride is that no small part of the false claims made against Dominion and Smartmatic after the 2020 election by Trump's huckster attorneys spring directly from inaccurate interpretations of accurately reported exclusives at The BRAD BLOG many years ago, particularly in regard to American voting systems and Hugo Chavez.

By the time those defamation suits come to an expensive end, however, it's likely that both Powell and Giuliani will have been disbarred wherever they are currently still licensed to practice law. Just last month, for example, Rudy faced a hearing before the D.C. Bar Association where he is likely to be disbarred for the phony lawsuits he (and Powell) filed on Trump's behalf, falsely claiming fraud following the 2020 election.

Donald Trump's lawyers --- there are lots of them --- have been getting sanctioned in state and federal courts left and right over the past couple of years. But none, to my knowledge, have yet to be disbarred. That could be changing soon for both Giuliani and Powell. And, finally, as of last week, for John Eastman. He's the main attorney behind Trump's failed effort to have Vice President Mike Pence steal the election for him during the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021, when Joe Biden's Electoral College victory was finally certified after the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Late last week, the State Bar of California announced that Eastman is being charged with "multiple disciplinary counts." He faces 11 charges arising from allegations that he "engaged in a course of conduct to plan, promote, and assist then-President Trump in executing a strategy, unsupported by facts or law, to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by obstructing the count of electoral votes of certain states." The Office of the State Bar's Chief Trial Counsel says he will seek disbarment of Eastman before the State Bar Court. This is serious stuff for an attorney.

We're joined today by former Utah Asst. Attorney General and former University of Utah associate law professor, MICHAEL TETER, who now serves as Managing Director for The 65 Project. The group, named for the approximately 65 failed lawsuits Team Trump filed after the 2020 election, describes its work as "a bipartisan effort to protect democracy...by holding accountable Big Lie Lawyers who bring fraudulent and malicious lawsuits to overturn legitimate election results, and by working with bar associations to deter future abuses by establishing clear standards for conduct that punish lies about the conduct or results of elections."

The group has filed ethics complaints against loads of scammy Trump attorneys across the country and, as Teter explains today, against elected officials who are also licensed attorneys, like Sen. Ted Cruz and Attorney General Ken Paxton, both of Texas, for their fraudulent legal efforts to steal the 2020 election for Trump and rob millions of Americans of their perfectly legal votes.

"It's a solid case," Teter tells me today, regarding the CA State Bar's case against Eastman. "There are no disputes about the facts, quite frankly. Everything that John Eastman was doing and engaging in in 2020 and early 2021 has been well-documented. Those efforts clearly violate the rules of professional conduct that every lawyer swears to abide by. There are no 'slam dunks' in this world, but I think this is a very strong case and the bar wouldn't have brought it forward if it didn't think so, as well."

We discuss how rare cases like these are --- or used to be --- and how much State Bars really aren't prepared for cases like these. It's one of the reasons, Teter explains, that it has taken so long to bring many of these Trump attorneys before the Bar.

"The disciplinary processes set up in the states are not set up in a way to protect democracy or protect the abuse of the legal system" the way Team Trump has abused it. Usually, he says, they examine one page complaints, where an attorney has overcharged a client or something. "The bars need to adjust their thinking and their approaches to make sure they are protecting democracy."

Teter argues that most of the cases brought by Trump and his attorneys after the 2020 election were never meant to win. They were simply meant to allow members of Congress and others to argue that the 2020 results were in dispute. "They knew they didn't have the law or the facts. They were using the court system as a political tool, as part of their propaganda."

"So when they lost these lawsuits it didn't create any disincentive to continue. They got out of them what they wanted," Teter explains. "These bar associations are not used to lawyers using the legal system in this way and they need to get caught up. They need to start thinking about the abuse of the legal system, the abuse of law licenses in this way."

We've got a lot to discuss today with Teter, including the remarkable number of Trump attorneys now facing court sanctions, disciplinary charges and potential disbarment. That, he says, has at least made it more and more difficult for Trump --- and his acolytes like failed 2022 Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in Arizona --- to find lawyers willing to represent them.

"MAGA has a new meaning now," Teter quips, "which is Making Attorneys Get Attorneys."

And finally today, as we're on the Trump Accountability beat again (was there ever a time when we weren't?), potentially good news out of New York today, where the Times reports that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has begun presenting evidence to a grand jury seeking criminal charges against Trump himself, related to his hush money payoffs to porn star Stormy Daniels in the run up to the 2016 Presidential election...

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We've got a lot to catch up with on today's BradCast, after a weekend lost to recovery from our Moderna booster shots. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

First up, we discuss how things went following Friday boosters for both Desi and myself. For me, as after the second shot, not so good (though much better than actual COVID!) For Desi...it was pretty much business as usual beyond a bit of fatigue. Either way: Go get your shots! Also, just before air, California announced they are re-instituting a statewide mask mandate for indoor, public spaces amid another surge in COVID cases.

Next, 74 people are now confirmed dead in Kentucky alone, and more than a dozen were killed in four other Midwestern states on Friday night after a swarm of very late season tornadoes devastated an eight-state area, as unusually warm December air met with a cold front. Predictably, a climate change-fueled disaster ensued as the states, particularly Kentucky, now wrestle with mass power and water outages amid freezing temperatures for tens of thousands of residents while trying to sift through rubble and continue recovery efforts. Desi details the extreme weather's known connections to climate change and how (and if) corporate media are bothering to cite the causes for yet another deadly, intense, out-of-season extreme weather event.

Then, also breaking over the weekend, the release of a PowerPoint document called "Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for JAN 6". It was obtained by the U.S. House Select Committee investigating January 6, from Donald Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. The document was turned over to the Committee as part of a tranche of email and text message documents from Meadows before he decided he would stop cooperating with them. He will now almost certainly face federal criminal contempt charges, just as Trump's former aide Steve Bannon is now facing for also failing to answer lawful subpoenas from Congress.

This latest "smoking gun" document --- a 38-page version of which was circulated after the election last year, and a very similar 36-page version dated on Jan. 5 --- further cements the details behind the broad criminal conspiracy to steal the 2020 election from Joe Biden and the American people by Donald Trump and his minions. In this case, those cronies include the bulk of his Campaign staff and attorneys, much of his White House staff, members of the Dept. of Justice and a whole bunch of elected officials both in Congress and in the states.

We walk through a number of the evidence-free assertions made in the PowerPoint presentation which, according to Meadows, was to be shared with people "on the Hill" on January 5. Among those assertions, that China and Venezuela had "systematically gained control over our election system constituting a national security emergency," after "electronic voting machines were compromised."

Of course, there is zero evidence included in the document for those extraordinary claims. And those referencing Venezuela are known to be nonsense, since they are directly based on my own exclusive reporting at The BRAD BLOG from 2008 to 2010, which Team Trump subsequently lifted, twisted, mangled and bastardized to somehow support their false, easily-disproven and evidence-free narrative.

As to the "national security emergency" cited by the document, Trump was encouraged to declare one in order to then order ballots collected by the National Guard and U.S. Marshalls in all 50 states, to be counted by them once "invalid" and "fraudulent" ballots were somehow removed. Those same National Guard members, Meadows' documents also assert, according to the House Committee, were also to be tasked to "protect pro Trump people" on January 6 during the attack on the U.S. Capitol after Pence refused to go along with the plan to declare the Electoral College votes invalid. The last effort by Team Trump to steal the election was, as we all know, to hurl thousands of his gullible supporters at the Capitol itself in hopes of preventing the Constitutional certification of Joe Biden's legitimate election victory. The subsequent deadly attack was exactly what Bannon blatantly teased on his "War Room" podcast on January 5th. They were all in on it, including a bunch of members of Congress, as the Jan 6 Committee has recently been suggesting.

We explain much more detail on what is revealed by the ridiculous claims in the PowerPoint presentation on today's program, and how the guy --- retired U.S. Army Colonel Philip Waldron --- who reportedly circulated it among the dupes on the Right, actually met with Meadows at the White House as many as 10 times in the run-up to January 6th.

But the main point is this: Donald Trump and his minions employed a coordinated attempt to steal the 2020 Presidential election. It was not haphazard and it was not just low level operatives. And it was not, as media and many Dems still mis-describe it, an attempt to overturn or reverse or question or subvert the results. It was not an attempt to ferret out "voter fraud" or "election fraud". Donald Trump tried to STEAL the 2020 election and this was the "Rosetta Stone" road map for it. It would help the nation understand how close we came to losing what is left of our democracy entirely if it was described in those simple, basic and absolutely accurate terms.

What do about it? That will, no doubt, be the subject of future programs. But, at least today, hopefully, you will understand what happened and what didn't --- along with what they tried to do, and what they failed to do --- so we can all take action to make sure, somehow, something like this can never happen again...

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If you thought the news might slow down a bit with Donald Trump finally out of office, you may still have to wait a while.  On today's BradCast, we pick up where Friday's left. Moments after we got off air a ton of astonishing news broke, and it has continued right up through airtime today.  Most notably, the stunning story of just how close the nation's mercifully former President actually came to stealing the election from Joe Biden and the American people is only just now beginning to come together. [Audio link to full show follows below summary.]

We start today --- (which, by the way, marks our 17th Anniversary of muck-raking and trouble-making via The BRAD BLOG! Please feel free to help us continue our reader/listener supported work into our 18th year with a much-needed donation!) --- with another $1.3 billion defamation suit filed against yet another Team Trump legal liar and defamer.  Following a similar suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Trump's attorney Sidney Powell just weeks ago, his lead election-theft attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has now also been slapped with a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit by the Canadian-owned firm.

The 107-page complaint [PDF] filed on Monday, as we detail at some length today, charges that Giuliani repeatedly fueled Trump's "Big Lie" about the election and the repeatedly evidence-free claims that Dominion's systems were somehow used to steal it from Trump for Biden. These are the false claims that Giuliani made over and over again in public, on rightwing media and on his snake-oil peddling YouTube show, ironically named "Common Sense". They are also, as Dominion points out in the complaint, the same claims that Giuliani failed to make in a court of law, where he could actually be punished for his egregious and repeated "voter fraud" lies.

The company charges that the false information from Trump's attorney was also retweeted and shared millions of times on social media, leading to broad distrust and millions in potentially lost business by the private voting systems vendor. Giuliani's months long assault also resulted in a number of vile and violent death threats to company employees and contractors alike.

The central false claim by Giuliani --- which we have detailed on previous programs --- is based on a wildly bastardized and re-imagined version of a deep-dive investigative exclusive from The BRAD BLOG that I published more than 10 years ago. It relates to Dominion's 2010 purchase of another voting machine company that had once been owned by still another voting machine company that was once tied to Venezuela and its now deceased President, Hugo Chavez. My decade-old, completely accurate story was so bastardized by Rudy and Team Trump that, at one point, while he was giving false testimony about Dominion "fraud" to the GOP-majority Michigan state legislature in early December, Rudy claimed that Dominion's owners were brought "down to meet Chavez just two years ago."  (Chavez has been dead for seven years.)

As also explained today, we are no fans here of private voting companies having any place in our public elections. Nonetheless, Dominion is right to sue for the libelous and dangerous falsehoods repeatedly told by Team Trump, which also fueled the violent, attempted insurrection by the enraged and disinformed MAGA Mob at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Moreover, there may well be more such suits coming in the days ahead. The firm has indicated they may even file suit against Trump himself.

All of that served as the basis --- at least in Donald Trump's addled-brain, as we learned over the weekend --- for a gob-smacking, last minute attempt by the then President of the United States earlier this month to also stage a coup at the U.S. Justice Department! He reportedly attempted to replace his Acting Attorney General with yet another lackey who was willing to use the Dept. of Justice to file suit at Trump's stolen and packed U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the 2020 Presidential election results in one or more states, and to lie to Georgia's elected officials that the DoJ was investigating major voter fraud in the state. That, the hare-brained but wildly dangerous scheme argued, should have then led Georgia state legislators to void the results and award the state's electors to Trump. In reality, Biden won the Peach State narrowly last November. There has been no credible evidence to suggest otherwise and, in fact, there has been quite a bit of evidence to suggest the results in Georgia were accurately tabulated by the Dominion systems.

On Friday, the New York Times' Katie Benner published the shocking scoop on that attempted DoJ coup, that --- along with several other pieces of reporting in recent days and weeks --- gets us a bit closer to understanding just how close Trump was to pulling a trigger that might have resulted in the complete undermining of American democracy and the stolen election he was after. We detail the plot to remove Trump's Acting Attorney General (the one he installed when even Bill Barr was unwilling to go along with Trump's phony election fraud scheme), prevented only by a vow of top officials at DoJ to resign en masse if Trump went through with it. The details, however, are as stunning as the story itself, and help to spell out exactly what Trump was hoping for with the insurrection he (and Giuliani!) incited at the Capitol on January 6th and how close he came to actually pulling it all off!

All of which underscores how the two week delay now scheduled in the U.S. Senate before Trump's second impeachment trial begins is likely to make things far worse, rather than better, for the disgraced, now former President.

Buckle up for today's latest edition of The BradCast!...

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