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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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On today's BradCast: The Trump Administration may have chosen the wrong group of Americans to launch a "war" against, including taking jobs, benefits and health care from them. But that's just one of the reasons Republicans now seem to be running scared of their own voters in upcoming special elections. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

On Thursday, the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced plans to lay off 10,000 employees. Along with cuts at departments within HHS, such as the FDA, CDC, NIH and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, some 20,000 federal jobs are earmarked for slashing. The Dept. of Defense has already fired thousands of probationary workers (though a federal judge found the firings unlawful), and the IRS has been ordered to cut 6,700 workers. That alone will cost the U.S. hundreds of billions in lost revenue.

But, so far, no other federal agency has set their sites on firing as many workers as the Dept. of Veterans Affairs which, according to an internal memo at the beginning of the month, is planning to slash an astounding 80,000+ jobs, many of them held by veterans themselves. And they are pushing back.

We're joined today by former Congressman MAX ROSE (D-NY), a decorated former U.S. Army platoon leader and combat veteran who now serves as senior advisor to VoteVets.org, the nation's largest progressive nonprofit veterans organization. Last week, the group launched a six-figure, multimedia ad campaign in the districts of five different Republican veteran members of Congress, calling them out "for being complicit and dodging their constituents as Elon Musk's DOGE aimlessly fires Veterans across the country."

Given Rose's background, before discussing the VoteVets campaign, thousands of vets already fired from federal jobs, and GOP cuts to a series of hard-won services and benefits, I had to ask for his thoughts on the ongoing Signal scandal and what might have happened to him, as a platoon leader in Afghanistan (or to any other rank-and-file member of the military), had they used a commercially available texting app to discuss specific times, locations and methods of upcoming planned attacks as it was revealed this week the Administration's top NatSec and Defense cabinet officials did.

"Any level of the military would have been fired for that," Rose tells me. "But I think there's a deeper point here. Which is everyone likes the notion of disruption and innovation, and that is how this administration sold themselves. But the truth of the matter is that what we're seeing is recklessness, destruction, and a disregard for everything that was actually effective."

He offers thoughts on whether Trump's high level cabinet officials, such as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Sec. of Defense Pete Hegseth should be fired, and whether the specific details shared in the group text --- with a journalist present --- was classified or not. "They are just openly talking about extraordinary events that are set to occur later on that day, that have geopolitical, strategic national security ramifications," he says. "It is beyond stunning. And it's exactly the opposite of what they sold themselves as. It's amateur hour."

As to the benefit cuts and firings that many veterans are already facing, thanks to the "recklessness" of the Trump Administration --- some of which are discussed by veterans themselves in VoteVets' new video ad --- the Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient is even more disappointed.

"Let's talk about the great tragedy of firing these veterans, who have served in uniform. Many of them served in harm's way, and they made an extraordinarily heroic and consequential decision to continue their service --- not just to our great country, but in service to their fellow veterans --- by dedicating this next portion of their career to the VA. Donald Trump ran on how much he loved veterans, how much he was grateful for their service, and now he's turned around in the early days of his Presidency and has decided to fire tens of thousands of them."

"The truth of the matter," Rose continues, "is that what they want to do --- the VA being the second-largest federal government department --- is they want to destroy it. They want to privatize it. They claim it's because the VA is an underperformer. But the stats tell exactly the opposite story. The statistics say that the VA consistently records higher quality metrics compared to peer institutions and higher ratings of patient satisfaction. That's why the veteran community is almost universally aligned in support, in not just preserving the VA but building upon it."

"This Administration's war on veterans," doesn't end there, he argues. "They decided to cut the PACT Act in the last Continuing Resolution, the budget deal, which was a monumental bipartisan piece of legislation to make sure that services are provided to veterans suffering the consequences of manning burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. They decided to cut the Small Business Administration, negatively impacting veterans ability to access small business loans. They decided to cut HUD and grants related to services for homeless veterans. So the list goes on and on."

As to how all of this may affect the political and electoral landscape moving forward, including among veterans, 6 out of 10 of whom voted for Trump in 2024? Tune in for the former Congressman's thoughts on that. But, as Rose asserts: "People should be digging deep. They should know there is hope for Democrats to bounce back. They should know there are extraordinary candidates raising their hands across the country, reaffirming their commitment to service, many of them being veterans."

AND, SPEAKING OF UPCOMING ELECTIONS... Republicans seem to be getting really nervous about next week's Special Elections in Florida to fill the vacated seats of former Reps. Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz, even though both are in deep red districts where Trump and both former Congressmembers easily won their elections just five months ago. Latest evidence of their concern? Today, Trump withdrew his nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik for U.N. Ambassador, to make sure her seat in a Trump +15 district in upstate in New York doesn't get flipped in an upcoming Special Election, given the razor-thin majority Republicans currently hold in the U.S. House. She is really bummed. Sad!

AND, FINALLY... Record, unprecedented, climate change-fueled wildfires are raging in South Korea. The blazes have already killed 27 and destroyed more than 300 structures, some of them historic, including a 7th century temple complex. As if that's not bad enough, Desi Doyen is also here with our latest Green News Report, as the Trump Administration has simply omitted climate change from their newly released U.S. National Threat Assessment Report; the EPA's rollbacks to air and water pollution rules are set to cost hundreds of thousands of American lives; and as the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court gives yet another offering to the fossil fuel industry responsible for so much of this deadly mess...

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On today's BradCast: What's in it for Donald Trump? Seriously. Why does he want to break the government? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

I know why Elon Musk wants to dismantle and destroy the federal government piece-by-piece (so his government contracts can't be policed or businesses regulated, etc.) And I understand Trump's need for retribution against his perceived enemies. But why does Trump want to seemingly dismantle damn near every federal agency, from the U.S. Forest Service to USAID and beyond, no matter how ham-handedly? No matter how much it grows (not shrinks) the national debt, no matter how many Americans (including his own voters) it puts out of work, and no matter how much the chaos he is wreaking continues to sink his approval ratings? No matter how much none of his flailing lowers the price of eggs.

It's certainly not in the name of "efficiency" or cutting "waste, fraud and abuse", as the evidence makes plain, no matter how many lies and quickly disproven claims about "million and millions" of dead people receiving Social Security checks or Musk's DOGE Bros claiming to have "saved" at least $55 billion in Government contracts to date. (It's more like $2 billion.) All false claims that both Trump and Musk repeat, only to have to walk them back when proven wrong, time and again.

We discuss a lot of that at the top of the show, along with a bunch of related news headlines from over the weekend, before opening up the phones today to listeners for answers to that simple question: What's in it for Donald Trump? Why does he really want to dismantle the government?

We talk to a lot of callers with a lot of differing explanations (though being controlled by Vladimir Putin seems to be a listener fave...even if it doesn't fully answer all of my questions about Trump's behavior here.)

Perhaps Trump's recently-confirmed Sec. of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, gave away the truth on Fox "News" over the weekend, when he falsely claimed that Trump ran on "reprivatizing the economy". He didn't run on that. Though Project 2025 --- which he pretended to disavow during the campaign --- certainly called for it. Is that his game? Cripple federal government so private corporations can then fill the gap and offer the same services to the American people for a higher price that includes profit to those private corporations?

Please tune in for lots of interesting discussion today. And, if you have a better explanation for why Trump wants to kill the U.S. government by gutting hundreds of thousands of government jobs and services, seemingly at random, for no easily discernible reason, feel free to let me know in comments below...

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Incredibly, many Trump-supporting MAGA dupes still believe any of this is being done in the name cutting government "waste, fraud and abuse" --- much less "efficiency" in the federal government. As discussed on today's BradCast, I guess there are still millions who won't give a damn about any of it unless --- more likely, until --- it effects them directly. And it will. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

As David Dayen helpfully reported last month at The American Prospect, if you fired every single federal worker in existence --- all 2.3 million of them --- you'd save about $271 billion per year. While that may sound like a lot, it's just 4% of the annual budget. Of course, we'd lose much more in uncollected tax revenue, unprosecuted fraud in the private sector, lives lost, just to name a few big points. And, of course, Americans, such as Social Security recipients would lose a lot on a personal level when there was nobody left in government to send out their monthly checks.

But, as Republicans have been telling us (lying to us about) for decades now, the federal government has just become too bloated. It must be cut down to size, even if it's randomly done through mass firings at every federal agency, of anybody viewed as legally fireable (whether they are or aren't doesn't matter.) But here's another fun fact from Dayen: in 1960, amid the Golden Age of America's middle class, the federal government comprised 4.3% of all workers. Today, that number is just 1.4%.

Other than that, our government is huge, bloated and out of control! Who needs all that air traffic safety, security of nuclear weapons, food inspections, safe drinking water, disease tracking, cancer cures, law and order, disaster response, medical care, education, Social Security checks or life-saving weather reports and climate data? The federal government is just too "big". Let's gut it all! Legally or otherwise!

Much more on all of this --- and some of the heroes (even Trump-appointed ones!) trying to block and/or call attention to the worst of it --- on today's program, as culled from, among others, some of the following source material...

• AP: Delta jet flips upside down on a snowy Toronto runway and all 80 aboard survive
• Rolling Stone: FAA Employees Say Trump and Musk's Firings Are Dangerous
• AP: Trump fires FAA air traffic control staff, just weeks after DC crash
• NYT: Adams's Lead Prosecutor Quits Defiantly: 'It Was Never Going to Be Me'
• WaPo: Mass resignation marks a new kind of defiance in the second Trump era
• WaPo: High-ranking D.C. federal prosecutor resigns in protest
• WaPo: Musk's DOGE seeks access to personal taxpayer data, raising alarm at IRS
• WaPo: Top Social Security official exits after clash with Musk's DOGE over data
• NBC: Department of Homeland Security preparing to fire hundreds of senior leaders this week
• Bloomberg: US Health Department Layoffs Expand to Medicare, FDA
• NBC: CDC 'disease detectors' among hundreds fired as Trump administration ramps up agency cuts
• Politico: Mass firings continue across nation's health agencies
• Guardian: NOAA imposes limits on scientists, sparking concerns over global forecasts
• The Hill: EPA fires nearly 400 workers after OPM order
• The Hill: EPA puts employees who tackle pollution in overburdened communities on leave
• The Hill: National Science Foundation cuts 10 percent of staff
• Wired: National Science Foundation Fires 168 Workers as Federal Purge Continues
• AP: Trump's firing of 1,000 national park workers raises concerns about maintenance and operating hours
• SF Chronicle: Yosemite halts camping reservations, with no timetable for their return
• Fox 13 Utah: 'Crisis' at Zion as mandated job cuts hit popular national park
• Reuters: USDA probationary staff fired at three agencies, sources say
• NBC: USDA says it accidentally fired officials working on bird flu and is trying to rehire them
• The Oregonian: At least 600 workers to leave Bonneville Power Administration, spurring concerns about transmission grid
• CNN: Hundreds of FAA probationary workers fired by Trump administration, union says
• AP: Trump wants states to 'clean up forests' to stop wildfires but he cuts funds

Other than that, slow news day.

Also, on similar notes, we close today with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, as the costs of our climate crisis continue to mount in from coast to coast in recent days; Trump's FEMA is already denying critical disaster aid; and the Administration is desperately trying to find fired Dept. of Energy workers after figuring out that they were the ones who safeguarded the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile...

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Yikes. Busy day on The BradCast. Including some remarkable breaking news, both good and bad, throughout the hour. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among the many stories, breaking and otherwise, on today's program...

• When the show began, the monster Hurricane Helene, barrelling toward a direct landfall near Tallahassee and the Big Bend region of Florida's panhandle, was already a dangerous Category 3. By show's end, it had become a terrifying Cat 4. As disturbingly, the storm began the day as a Cat 1! Thanks to record warm Gulf waters caused by man-made global warming, we have yet another case of deadly, rapid intensification for this storm. Experts also warn of an "unsurvivable" 20-foot storm surge on the Gulf Coast. The dangers beyond Florida, in already soaked southeastern states, are also quite serious and severe in the days ahead.

• After what Trump Republicans describe as Joe Biden's supposedly "weaponized" Department of Justice indicted and/or convicted Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (NJ), Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX), and the President's own son Hunter Biden (twice) over the past year, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment on Thursday against NYC's Democratic Mayor Eric Adams. The Mayor, who says he will not resign, was charged on five counts related to corruption on behalf of Turkey. If the Biden's federal government has been "weaponized" against Republicans, they sure have poor aim!

• But, you know who was actually very good at weaponizing the federal government against his political enemies? Yup, Donald Trump, as a deep dive from the NYTimes' Michael Schmidt (free link) detailed over the past weekend. Time and again, during his years in office, then President Trump demanded --- and often got --- criminal and civil investigations by DoJ and highly unusual and invasive audits by the IRS against his perceived political enemies, many of whom, if they worked in the government, were also improperly fired. Schmidt also summarizes (free link) how Trump unleashed his government against such perceived enemies as F.B.I Director James Comey and other senior FBI officials; Hilary Clinton and her 2016 campaign; Obama's Sec. of State John Kerry; his own attorney Michael Cohen; News organizations and reporters at CNN, WaPo and NYT; his own National Security Adviser John Bolton; and many others. And, as Schmidt reminds us, Trump has already stated this month that he plans to do it again if elected to another term.

• Looks like its a big day for corrupt NYC Mayors! Today the D.C. Court of Appeals permanently disbarred former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, after New York state also permanently revoked his license to practice law earlier this Summer. The disbarments are related to the disgraced former Mayor and federal proseuctor's false legal filings claiming election fraud, without actual evidence, following the 2020 election on behalf of the loser Donald Trump.

• In related news, even as jury selection was underway in a major defamation trial in Delaware pitting voting machine vendor Smartmatic against the rightwing propaganda outlet known as Newsmax, a last minute, still-confidential settlement was struck between the parties. As CNN reports today, "The settlement is the latest in a string of 2020 election defamation cases to reach an out-of-court agreement before trial. Fox News famously settled with Dominion Voting Systems last year for a record $787 million, and the far-right channel One America News settled with Smartmatic earlier this year." They also note that "Newsmax still faces a separate defamation lawsuit over similar claims that was filed by Dominion." As referenced during the show, here is one of BRAD BLOG's exclusive investigative reports from 2010 that disgraced former Trump attorney Sidney Powell cited (and bastardized) as part of her defamatory allegations against both Smartmatic and Dominion, as subsequently echoed by all the rightwing fake news outlets and discredited and now disbarred yutzes like Giuliani.

• Finally, as the deadly Hurricane Helene speeds toward Florida, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report, with news on both that storm and Hurricane John (which continues to pound Mexico); how global warming has made all of these storms much worse; and Joe Biden's promotion of climate action at both Climate Week in NYC and his final address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday...

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Marveling at the remarkably positive vibe emerging from the recent Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch observed:

That "new power dynamic" Bunch references is embodied in Vice President Kamala Harris' open alignment with the economic needs of the vast majority of Americans who make up the working and middle classes.

Whether or not the recommendation from Sen. Bernie Sanders, this nation's most progressive Senator, was a factor, it is clear that Harris' decision to pick one of the nation's most progressive Governors, Tim Walz of Minnesota --- a governor who gleefully signed a bill for free breakfast and lunch for all school children into law --- as her Vice-Presidential pick, reflects her commitment to progressive values.

As Georgia's Republican former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan made clear during his DNC speech, there's no need for Harris to move to the right to attract voters from outside of the progressive realm. The threat to democracy posed by Donald Trump, Project 2025 and the MAGA cult, along with the Democrats' commitment to "freedom", "patriotism" and respect for the rule of law, will be enough to attract honest conservative voters irrespective of whether they still call themselves Republicans or now describe themselves as either former Republicans or independents.

By adhering to her progressive economic values --- whether it comes to support for organized labor, an increase in the federal minimum wage, the expansion of social safety net programs, tax increases on the wealthy, the expansion of accessible health care and a crackdown on corporate price gouging --- Harris can not only maintain authenticity but also take advantage of the fact that an overwhelming majority of the American electorate both want and need such progressive economic policy initiatives...

We were able to open up the phones today to listeners regarding last week's State of the Union Address, the GOP's stunningly failed Rebuttal, and what has become a seemingly annual debate on The BradCast over Daylight Savings Time --- about which I am right and everyone else, of course, is wrong. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Before we get to those phones, we review and/or discuss...

• How I hacked Daylight Savings Time over this past weekend --- and how you can (and should!) next year too!
• Joe Biden's new budget proposal for fiscal year 2025 calls for the expansion of social programs and new taxes on corporations and the wealthy to pay for it and to shave $3 trillion off the national debt.
• Biden's new post-SOTU ad: "Look, I'm not a young guy. That's no secret! But, here's the deal..."
• How Donald Trump welcomed, and praised, Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend, celebrating the rightwing strongman's rule: "He said this is the way it's gonna be and that's the end of it, right? He's the boss."
• 1,000 protesters against Israel's attack on Gaza marched near the Sunday's Academy Awards at the Dolby Theater here in Hollywood --- whether you heard about them or not.
• A few key points from Biden's rousing, lively, feisty SOTU Address (video | transcript) that drove the GOP crazy, and...
• The outrageous lie, told amidst Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL)'s incredibly bizarre SOTU Rebuttal, regarding a 12-year old girl who was held captive and repeatedly raped by drug traffickers at the U.S. southern border during the Biden Administration which, as we have subsequently learned, didn't actually happen during the Biden Administration nor even in the U.S. at all. (Here's journalist Jonathan Katz' full, well-documented evisceration of Britt's incredible border lie.)

Then, we open up the phones to callers on all of the above, including on the never-ending DST debate and the almost-as-important debate over the importance of re-electing Joe Biden to save democracy and, yes, Gaza...if either can be saved at this point...

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Legislation is hard. It involves compromise and stuff. But the bulk of Republican state Senators in Oregon won't have to worry about that anymore. At least for a few years. Also, stealing money from your duped political donors to cover your mountain of legal fees to defend your law breaking appears to be very easy if you are the disgraced former President. And, a whole bunch of landmark climate and energy successes under Joe Biden that you likely haven't about, but should have. Those are just some of the many news stories covered on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among them...

• As of airtime, we're still waiting for (sorta overdue) key rulings on Donald Trump's ridiculous "Presidential Immunity" claims at the DC Court of Appeals and on how much Trump and company (and sons) will have to pay up in New York's $370 million bank fraud suit against them. In the meantime, Trump has lost again today in court on an entirely different matter. This time in London, where his lawsuit against the Steele Dossier's author was summarily dismissed by a UK judge (just as the similarly absurd suit filed by Trump against Christopher Steele, Hillary Clinton and top FBI officials was rejected by a U.S. judge in 2022.)

• All of those failed lawsuits, and defending himself against civil cases and four criminal felony indictments is costing Trump's gullible dupes/supporters a lot of money. New FEC filings released today reveal that Trump spent/blew $27 million of his donors' money on personal legal bills in the second half of last year, bringing the total amount of campaign donor money used for legal fees in 2023 to about $50 million. That number is expected to be much higher in 2024, giving the phrase "chump change" a whole new meaning.

• The Oregon Supreme Court, on Thursday, determined that 10 Republican state Senators may not run for office in 2024, after violating a 2022 state Constitutional Amendment adopted by voters in a 36-point landslide that year. The measure bans state lawmakers from running in the next election after they've accrued more than 10 unexcused absences. The GOP state Senators in question walked out for a record 6-weeks in 2023 in hopes of blocking legislation on abortion rights, LGBTQ rights and gun safety, delaying or killing hundreds of other bills in the bargain. The state Senate currently has only 12 Republicans. Ten of them, including the chamber's minority leader, are now barred from running for reelection this year.

• The U.S. House passed a bipartisan bill! It is compromise tax legislation. Republicans agreed to offer modest tax relief to low income families with children, so long as Democrats agreed to extend huge tax breaks to wealthy corporations and small businesses. Nobody got everything they wanted, and the legislation, adopted on Wednesday by a lopsided 357-70 House vote, will almost certainly change or be killed altogether in the Senate. But that's how legislation works. Or is supposed to work. Or used to work. And, for one day this week, incredibly enough, it did again. We discuss why it did.

• "Government, in a large, wealthy, functional modern democracy, is pretty boring. Lots of bureaucracy, lots of agencies, lots of complexity, lots of rules, mostly incremental change. It's not particularly dramatic," noted our friend climate and energy journalist David Roberts on Twitter on the last day of the year. "That makes it a very poor fit for the dynamics & demands of modern media, especially social media. Drama, outrage, sweeping counterintuitive generalizations --- these are the coin of the realm. No one gets clicks by celebrating the workaday operation of the gov't machine," he continued. "Consequently, boring democratic governance --- perhaps the greatest advance in collective human welfare in history --- has no day-to-day defenders. Basically everyone is incentivized to take it for granted."

  Of course, we are defenders of that "boring democratic governance" and we don't take it for granted. Roberts was linking to a lengthy --- and wildly enlightening --- thread from former professor turned White House clean energy policy advisor Costa Samaras, who detailed a stunning year-end list of positive, landmark environmental actions and initiatives undertaken by the Biden-Harris Administration in the wake of passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act (adopted only by Democrats). If you think Biden has done little for climate and clean energy you may want to review Samaras' list.

  Just one of dozens of examples: "The Inflation Reduction Act & @POTUS' agenda have supercharged U.S. grid-scale energy storage. Before the Biden-Harris Administration, grid-connected energy storage was basically zero. This year there will be 9 Hoover Dams worth of batteries on the grid. Next year: 16 Hoover Dams."

• Finally, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report, as the Saudis nix expanded production (and lower gas prices) in time for this year's Presidential election in the U.S.; Millions of Americans are found at risk of toxic chemical freight train disasters; EU phases out dirty heavy-duty diesel trucks by 2040; and the Biden Dept. of Energy issues new rules to save gas stove users thousands of dollars in efficiency improvements (while taking no one's gas stove away from them, Fox "News"!)...

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I'm guessing my use of his name in the headline will get me even further downgraded on Twitter/X when posting today's BradCast there. So be it. It's just one more example of how bad it has become. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

That is not just hyperbole. Ask the guy in Berlin who is now suing Twitter to have his account reinstated on the social media site after data he compiled was used by the New York Times and CNN to detail how Twitter restored accounts of far-right extremists after Elon Musk purchased the company last year. More on Musk in a moment.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found [PDF] on Wednesday that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson's proposal to "pay for" $14.3 billion in emergency aid to Israel amid its war with Hamas by "offsetting" the cost with cuts to the IRS budget would cost the U.S. tens of billions in revenue and increase the federal deficit. The plan, according to the CBO, would prevent the IRS from enforcing tax laws against the wealthy and corporations to the tune of $26.8 billion in lost revenue and would add $12.5 billion to the deficit over the next ten years. The White House describes proposal as a "non-starter" and has vowed to veto it if it should ever show up on his desk. It won't. In the meantime, a bipartisan plan for emergency aid to Israel, Ukraine and for the U.S. southern border continues to move forward in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The U.S. House is hardly the only dysfunctional Republican-run legislative body these days. On Tuesday, Wisconsin's Democratic Governor Tony Evers filed suit at the state's Supreme Court against the gerrymandered GOP state House and Senate, accusing them of failing to carry out basic government functions, like signing off on previously-legislated pay raises for some 35,000 University of Wisconsin employees; blocking new state agency rules for updating commercial building codes and ethics standards for licensed social workers, therapists and other professional counselors.

Compared to the ongoing disaster in the Middle East, however, perhaps those issues are small potatoes. The death toll in Gaza continues to quickly escalate in the wake of Israel's unrelenting response to Hamas' barbaric attack on October 7. But, as bad as it all is, it has been made unnecessarily worse thanks to a flood of disinformation on social media, most notably, on Elon Musk's rebranded Twitter/X.

We're joined today by longtime investigative journalist RUSS BAKER, now Editor-in-Chief of Who, What Why and publisher of the "Going Deep" newsletter where he recently described Elon Musk as "Chaos Agent #1". (Don't tell Trump. He might sue for the title!)

"Let's be realistic about what X, formerly known as Twitter, is," Baker argues today. "It is the world's largest public address system ... Essentially, what has happened here is that the P.A. system has been taken over by the school bully. Normally, the school would never allow such a thing. But that's all gone out the window" now that the bully --- one of the richest men in the world --- actually owns the whole school!

We've discussed just some of the disinformation that has been flooding out from Twitter of late, and the increasing danger of disinformation via social media with expert Lee McIntyre in recent weeks. But what, if anything, can --- or even should --- be done about it? There are a lot of tricky Constitutional issues here, at least in the U.S. The EU, on the other hand, has recently begun to crack down on Musk for failing to moderate the increasing tidal wave of disinformation since he purchased Twitter, and the tsunami which has followed in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

Aren't our hands largely tied here because of the First Amendment? Says Baker: "I am a person who doesn't just automatically accept any such claims, including those who say we can't fix the Electoral College, we can't do anything about the Constitution. I think all of those things are up for discussion. I am not an expert, but I believe there are ways, if there is a will, that there are forms of regulatory relief, issues about monopoly practices, there are many, many things that could possibly be applied to him. I would like to see a discussion happening now about this."

And so we have such a discussion today. Or begin one. On the possibility of an outside council of news organizations and social media organizers, to develop best practices for social media and content moderation. On the necessity of independent media to counter disinformation both on social media and from governments. And what FDR and JFK had to say when it became clear that the "concentration of wealth and unbridled power, and our society's failure to address the threat that represents to the public interest" needed to be addressed in their times as well...

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On today's BradCast, we cover, once again, the thoroughly corrupted "conservative" cabals in both the U.S. House and U.S. Supreme Court as they flex their ill-gotten powers.

But FIRST...on our Green News Report yesterday, we briefly referenced a storm named Otis in the Pacific as a "tropical storm" heading toward Mexico. It was set to be the fourth major storm in a month to slam its Pacific coast. We also happened to discuss a new study of recent hurricanes in the Atlantic, finding that warming waters due to climate change have increased the speed and strength, along with the rapid intensification, of such storms. That behavior, as it turns out, was on full display last night with Otis, which stunned meteorologists and public officials by spinning up from a tropical storm during yesterday's show to become a major Category 5 hurricane in less than 12 hours, before slamming into Acapulco.

With some one million residents and tourists in the resort city caught largely by surprise, we await news and hope for the best, as power and cell phone coverage has been down most of the day, and major roads are said to be unpassable in the region following the catastrophic storm. In addition to being the fourth major storm to slam the coast, it was also the most powerful ever. Acapulco has never seen higher than a Cat 1 hurricane --- until now.

NEXT...The dysfunctional U.S. House Republican majority was finally able to re-open Congress on Wednesday, after selecting a new House Speaker. It was their fourth try after moving to remove Kevin McCarthy more than three weeks ago. Last night the party nominated --- and crucially, today, actually elected on the House floor --- hard-right Louisiana Congressman Mike Johnson as their new leader.

Johnson is being described today as the "architect" of the GOP's attempt to block the certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory in 2020. He is a close all of Donald Trump; an ardent religious opponent of abortion rights, supporting jail time and "hard labor" for those who carry them out; he supports government restrictions on medical care for trans people; and opposes further aid to Ukraine to help defend democracy against imperialistic fascism.

In other words, he shares the same positions as Ohio's Jim Jordan --- whose Speakership was blocked by so-called Republican "moderates" last week --- only more so. Apparently, despite their claims, it wasn't Jordan's positions that those "moderates" objected to. It was the fact that Americans knew about them. The little-known Johnson shares no such baggage. So they're fine with him.

FINALLY...The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear another case in December ginned up by the billionaire-funded, rightwing legal mill that looks for --- or creates out of whole cloth --- aggrieved victims of tyrannical government laws and regulations. From fake website designers worried they may someday have to create a site for a same-sex couple, to red state attorneys general falsely claiming that loan agencies are suffering from President Biden's attempted student loan debt relief program, there seems to be an endless supply of "victims" that the industry is able to come up with to parade before the far-right SCOTUS supermajority that the same rightwing billionaires continue to lavish with luxury gifts, travel, and even just cash money.

But Moore v. United States goes even farther. Its proponents hope for a ruling from their friends on the High Court majority which might knee-cap a future progressive wealth tax, akin to the ones long-proposed by Senators like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Warren's proposal, for example, would add a 2% tax --- two cents of every dollar --- to those with an accrued wealth of more than $50 million. Currently, unrealized gains in the value of real estate portfolios, stocks and bonds, fine art, etc., are not taxed, even at death, allowing for heirs of the richest 0.1% to inherit and continue generational, dynastic fortunes of billions of dollars.

The wealthy can then borrow against those accumulated assets without ever having to cash them in, which would otherwise trigger a capital gains tax (at an already very low rate.) "That is a scam and a scandal," my guest tells me today. Taxing just a portion of that wealth would result in "trillions of dollars of revenue for the U.S. Treasury that could be captured just by instituting a small percentage wealth tax on the richest families [with] more than $50 million in assets." That revenue could then be used for universal childcare, healthcare, education, and pretty much everything else that Republicans like to claim that America is just too broke to be able to afford.

So how will the Supreme Court be able to kill a still non-existent "wealth tax", when the Constitution and long-standing precedent prevents it from issuing advisory rulings on issues that aren't currently resulting in actual harm to any victims?

We're joined today by the L.A. Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist, investigative journalist and author MICHAEL HILTZIK to explain. He argues the case "stinks to high heaven," citing opponents of this case who charge that the GOP billionaire patrons of Justices Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas "have their fingerprints all over this case."

"The miasma of corruption really is laid all over this case," asserts Hiltzik. "I think it's one of the reasons that legal scholars who are watching this are very concerned that, once again, the Supreme Court's conservative majority is going to step out of its proper limited role, and essentially legislate" from the bench. "When the Supreme Court, or any federal court, actually rules on something that is not a real case or controversy, then almost by definition they are making new law, they are legislating. That is something under the Constitution that they are not supposed to do."

As Hiltzik notes, we are now seeing more and more of that from this corrupted Court. So, how can it possibly be stopped at this point? Hiltzik, who has written best-selling books about FDR's New Deal and the robber barons who originally corrupted the entire system, has some ideas on that today that as well...

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Woah, Nelly! Today's BradCast may arguably be both the dumbest and most fun ever! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The subject material --- Wednesday night's ridiculous GOP 2024 "Presidential Primary Debate" (if it's even worth calling it that) at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library out here in Simi Valley, California --- is what makes it dumb.

It featured seven "candidates" --- former Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, supposed businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum --- but not the much-indicted guy who Republicans apparently intend, for now, to actually nominate for the job next year.

Our excellent special coverage panelists --- award-winning blogger and columnist HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and "DRIFTGLASS" of the Professional Left Podcast from "Flyover Country, Illinois" --- are what make it fun.

Hear Digby discuss the GOP's "Bizarro World alternet universe" and the "big orange elephant in the room"! Hear Driftglass explain the "Doomsday machine with no off switch" and "the smelly wet sock of the mainstream media"! Also, Doug Burgum!

To paraphrase Haley last night, hearing us today may help you "feel a little bit dumber." I'd tell you more, but that would ruin all the fun...and most of the dumbness! Enjoy!...

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Some breaking news just before airtime helped, once again, threw off our best laid plans for today's BradCast. But, given this particularly huge breaking news, we're just fine with that. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

The New York Judge in state Attorney General Letitia James' $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, his eldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric, and two top company executives, ruled [PDF] that they all committed years of "persistent and repeated fraud" to the tune of billions of dollars by inflating the value of company assets when applying for bank loans. They also decreased the value of the same properties to receive favorable terms on both insurance and taxes, according to the ruling.

Judge Arthur Engoron found in favor of the state's key contention during the summary judgment phase of the landmark case on Tuesday, before the non-jury trial is slated to begin next Monday. Trump's attorneys had also sought summary judgement, hoping to see the case thrown out entirely. Instead, the key issue has already been decided against them and Engoron, in a brutal ruling, has stripped the former President, his company, his sons and execs, of control over several of his main New York properties. The Trump Organization and its various LLCs were placed into receivership to be controlled by court-appointed officers!

In the massive fraud suit, James seeks to permanently revoke the Trump family's license to do business at all in New York state. The trial, set to begin next week, will now determine the other issues at stake and the full breadth of penalties. Of course, Trump will appeal everything. But, make no mistake, this is a huge verdict against the failed former President and current 2024 GOP frontrunner who, as validated by Judge Engoron today, has built his business empire on decades of fraud and lies.

Among the many other important stories also covered on today's program...

• Cassidy Hutchinson, star witness at last year's House January 6 Committee hearings and the former top aide to Trump's final Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, warns that Trump "almost destroyed democracy in one day and he wants to run for President do it again."

• This week's second GOP Presidential Primary debate, at the Reagan Library here in Southern California, will feature the same candidates as last month's debate in Milwaukee, other than former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who apparently did not meet the RNC's criteria. Trump was also not invited for refusing to sign the party's loyalty pledge, but he had already announced he wouldn't participate in any of their debates.

• Labor economist Kathryn Anne Edwards offered a must-listen response to Louisiana's loopy U.S. Senator John Kennedy during a Senate subcommittee hearing last week on post-pandemic child care concerns. While Kennedy suggested he really really wanted to help, he had no idea where, oh, where the federal government could possibly find the money to do so. Edwards' straightforward, well-supported answer: Raise taxes on the wealthy that you've been lowering for the past two decades if you really care about children in need.

• In a related matter on Tuesday, Joe Biden became the first sitting U.S. President, incredibly enough, to join a picket line with striking workers. In this case, he called on striking United Auto Workers members in Detroit to "stick with it," as he rallied workers with UAW President Shawn Fain. On Wednesday, the former President is set to speak at a non-union facility in a "red" county outside of Detroit.

• California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law today that doubles the tax on sales of guns and ammunition in the state to help pay for increased school safety measures. While the federal government already charges a 10% tax on guns and ammo, California doubled it with one of their own, becoming the first in the nation to do so.

• Bona fide good news today from our corrupted, packed and stolen U.S. Supreme Court. They rejected Alabama's attempt --- once again --- to violate the Voting Rights Act with a racially gerrymandered U.S. House map. Last June, in a surprising 5 to 4 ruling, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joining the Court's three liberals, SCOTUS ordered the state to create a second majority black U.S. House District. Just 1 of 7 districts is currently a majority minority district despite African Americans comprising more than a quarter of the state's population. But Alabama Republicans, blatantly defying the U.S. Supreme Court, redrew their districts without including a second black majority district as mandated. A federal court panel then ordered a Special Master to draw up a new map instead. Alabama tried to stay that decision at SCOTUS, which unanimously rejected the state today in a one sentence ruling. That is good news for voters and bad news for several other GOP-controlled states trying the same gambit to cheat their way to a Republican majority in the House again next year.

• Speaking of the Republicans' narrow majority in the U.S. House, it appears next to impossible at this hour to believe they will be able to agree amongst themselves on a spending bill to keep the federal government open as of Saturday. At least not without either Democrats saving them and/or House Speaker Kevin McCarthy losing his job as Speaker.

• New Jersey's Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, federally indicted for a second time late last week on charges of bribery and corruption, maintains his innocence. But the flood of fellow Democratic U.S. Senators calling for his resignation seems all but unstoppable now, with at least six of them --- including fellow NJ Senator Corey Booker --- calling for Menendez to step down. The charges, by the way, would seem to dramatically undercut Trump/GOP claims that the DoJ has been "weaponized" by Democrats against them.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as New Orleans declares a drinking water emergency; Fracking is "devouring American's groundwater" amid persistent drought in a number of states; and FEMA girds to suspend critical recovery operations in several states if Republicans shut down the federal government as of this Saturday...

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Whenever we're able to open up the phones to callers on The BradCast, I invite listeners to ring in and disrupt all of my plans for the day. Happily, they took me up on the offer today! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Thus, my plan for the second half of today's show --- to focus on Trump's latest criminal charges (Which ones? Take your pick!) --- was largely waylaid by folks who wanted to discuss both him and the topic of my monologue in the first part of today's show regarding the wildly corrupt U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Samuel Alito.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page ran parts of fawning 4-hour interview with Alito, in which he falsely claimed: "No provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court-period."

Perhaps Alito has never read the U.S. Constitution? For example, he must have missed the part (Article III, Section 2) which reads: "[T]he supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact...and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." [Emphasis mine.]

As Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) pointed out on CNN over the weekend in response to Alito's B.S., Alito arguably owes his seat to the fact that Congress has regulated the number of seats that are on the Court (and have changed that number many times over the years) since the Constitution was founded! Of course, Alito likely also hates the fact that Congress, after Watergate, as per the Constitution, created legislation (regulations!) requiring annual financial disclosures by SCOTUS Justices. As ProPublica recently detailed, Alito has flouted that legislation by failing to disclose his luxury travel funded by GOP megadonors and other Republican ideologues.

Arguably worse, however, is the fact that one of the authors of the WSJ piece is attorney David Rivkin. He is currently representing the far-right Leonard Leo before the U.S. Senate, which is seeking Leo's testimony as part of their consideration of reforming the corrupted Court. Leo is the longtime head of the Federalist Society, which has spent decades shaping the federal judiciary --- including SCOTUS --- to the liking of billionaire rightwing ideologues.

Even more shameful than that, Rivkin currently has a case pending before the High Court next term! Moore v. U.S. is likely to result in a landmark ruling that could establish whether or not a wealth tax --- long sought by progressive Dems and opposed by rightwing ideologues --- is Constitutional or not.

And yet, Rivkin arguably gave Alito something of value --- presumably for free --- in his four-hour softball interview with the Justice, headlined "Samuel Alito, The Supreme Court's Plain Spoken Defender," in which Rivkin and his co-writer (WSJ Editorial Page Editor James Taranto) fluffed him up with a 2,400-word puff piece including remarks praising Alito, for instance, for his "candor that is refreshing and can be startling."

I'm sure Sammy appreciates it and will remember the favor when it's time to decide Moore v. U.S next year. That's because Alito is damned near as corrupt as Clarence Thomas and don't even get me started here on him today. (I had a few words for the corrupted Clarence on today's show, however.)

After that, my plans to cover Donald Trump's latest criminal problems and two recent Court losses (one today, one last Friday) in the second part of the show, as mentioned, were largely waylaid by callers. And happily so! We had some very good ones! Enjoy!...

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On today's BradCast: The whole scam seems to be collapsing in on them. Sad! [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

• Jack Smith exists!: Seriously! Here's video proof!

• Trump troubles: Last week, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer was sentenced to three years in federal prison for unlawfully keeping classified documents related to national defense in his home. If he got three years for what he reportedly did, life should be getting very very difficult for what Donald Trump did when he stole thousands of pages of documents, many of them highly classified, upon leaving office, stored them at his home, and obstructed attempts by the federal government to retrieve them. A former federal prosecutor believes an indictment in Special Counsel Jack Smith's stolen document case against the former President could come as early as "this week". Given the Trump attorneys meeting at DoJ on Monday, and the apparent panic exhibited by Trump at his dumb social media site thereafter, that prosecutor could be correct.

• More trouble for more GOP "voter fraud" fraudsters: Last week, longtime GOP fraudster and fake journalist James O'Keefe was sued by his own fake news organization for abusive behavior and allegedly ripping off the company, including, for example, for $150,000 in luxury car services. This week, Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, the "voter fraud" fraudsters behind the discredited 2,000 Mules film and who run the phony, rightwing True the Vote nonprofit, were called out in a complaint to the IRS for allegedly violating state and federal laws in using the nonprofit to enrich themselves with unlawful loans, unreported lucrative contracts and other apparent self-dealing.

• Kurt Cut the Wires: Since 2020, we've been reporting on Republican election officials unlawfully breaching, copying, and distributing computerized voting system software in states such as Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania and, in most detail (where there is more coming soon, methinks), Coffee County, Georgia. Those incidents appear to have been part of a multi-state conspiracy overseen by disgraced Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and hatched in the Oval Office with Donald Trump and others on December 18, 2020, according to testimony given to the House January 6 Committee. But, in what appears to be a separate (if somewhat related) incident this week, a nonprofit group in Missouri is calling out the Director and Deputy Director of Elections in the very right-leaning town of St. Charles for breaking the seals on voting machines and cutting wires inside them to prevent what they believe is the ability for the systems to connect to the Internet. Tampering with voting systems is a violation of several state laws. And these yutzes, Director Kurt Bahr and Deputy Director Mark Parkinson, appear to admit to the whole thing. On video tape. Viewable at KurtCutTheWires.com.

• Unequal justice: Last year, just before the primary elections in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis called a televised press conference in the Democratic stronghold of Broward County to announce the arrests of 20 former felons for voter fraud just days before the state's 2022 primary elections. The stunned and mostly people of color --- who were allowed to register and vote by the state --- were rounded up on video tape for what DeSantis declared to be unlawful voting as former felons convicted on charges related to murder or sex crimes. But, as the Orlando Sentinel reports this week, a State Attorney in a Republican stronghold, just months earlier, "declined to prosecute six voter fraud cases that involved circumstances strikingly similar to the cases later brought against 20 ex-felons by Gov. Ron DeSantis' election police unit and statewide prosecutors." Those cases were dismissed because, as the prosecutor determined, their fraud was "not willful"...just like the 20 who DeSantis had rounded up and arrested in Broward just days before last year's elections. Despite DeSantis' promise at his presser last year that there would be more arrests, there have only been four. The six from Republican Lake County are not among them.

• GNR returns!: Desi Doyen is back with our first Green News Report since returning from a much-needed break last week. Somehow, she manages to get us all caught up with everything we missed and in just 6 minutes!...

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With their policy positions wildly unpopular among Americans, is it any wonder that Republicans are now doing little more than lying about their beliefs, crashing the economy, using the government to funnel money to wealthy campaign donors, and otherwise adopting laws, where ever they still can, to prevent non-Republicans from winning elections? And those are their non-violent strategies, as detailed on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Among our many stories today...

• A 19-year old from Missouri, apparently with a Nazi flag in his rented truck, is charged with "threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict harm on a president, vice president or member of their family; assault with a dangerous weapon; reckless driving; destruction of federal property; and trespassing," after attempting to ram the truck into Lafayette Square across the street from the White House on Monday night. MAGA Republicans online seem to think the Nazi flag was an FBI setup to make them look bad. They may not have thought through that argument very well.

• TAP's Ryan Cooper details the evidence that makes it plain as day that Congressional Republicans couldn't care less about the national debt or budget deficits in their pretend case against raising the statutory (and, almost certainly unconstitutional) Debt Ceiling law. If they actually cared about the debt or deficits, they wouldn't oppose raising revenue, among other things. But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's fight, on behalf of his party, is not about debt. It is about using terrorism to crash the economy in hopes of hurting Democrats before the next election. They've been pulling this trick for years now. Perhaps Democrats should stop falling for it?

• According to separate reports from WaPo and NYT last night, Special Counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed information from the Trump Organization on its business dealings with China, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman since 2017, as part of his probe of the documents, many of them highly classified, that Donald Trump stole from the White House upon leaving office. Now why would Smith want to do that?

• Trump appeared remotely in New York court today to be instructed by the judge overseeing his 34 felony count indictment in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case, that he may not share certain evidence from prosecutors over social media. He may not even view some of it without his lawyers present. A date was also set for the beginning of his trial, on March 25, 2024, smack-dab in the middle of next year's Presidential primary season. Should be fun.

• In a somewhat more immediate Trump Criminal Accountability Calendar Item, Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis has now informed Fulton's Chief Judge that, other than leadership and "armed investigators", the bulk of her staff will be working remotely from July 31 though August 18. That syncs up with dates that Willis previously suggested indictments were likely to be brought in her office's investigation "into possible criminal interference in the administration of Georgia’s 2020 general election". She requested that "judges not schedule trials and in person hearings during the weeks beginning Monday, August 7 and Monday, August 14." So, yeah...mark your calendars. It may get hotter than usual in Atlanta this summer.

• We would have covered the above story sooner, but it came out as I was being deposed last week in a lawsuit [PDF] filed by the Coalition for Good Governance against Georgia's SB202 voter suppression law. I am a named plaintiff in the case, representing media, regarding provisions of this terrible bill that unconstitutionally chill and/or otherwise dangerously prevent press freedoms and public oversight of elections in the Peach State. While my three-hour depo last week went very well, I believe, I'll hold more specific thoughts for later, as other plaintiffs in the case are still going through their own depositions. But, another provision being challenged by CGG in this terrible bill --- best known for blocking the distribution of food or water to voters waiting in line to vote --- is a scheme that allows the State to replace entire, elected, local Boards of Elections with a single appointee of the Secretary of State's choosing. That wildly undemocratic provision, supported by GA's Republican Sec. of State, Brad Raffensperger, is now being echoed in...

• ...Texas! Lawmakers in the Lone Star State on Tuesday were voting on two bills that will allow local election officials to be replaced by someone chosen by the Republican Governor's hand-picked Secretary of State, and otherwise make it easier to interfere with local elections. However, these provisions only apply to Counties in Texas with more than 3.5 million voters. As it turns out, the only such county in the state that meets that requirement is Houston's Harris County, a now reliably "blue" part of a "red" state turning more "purple" by the year. If ya can't beat 'em...commandeer their elections and right to vote.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for news on a massive cyclone now aiming directly for the U.S. territory of Guam after spinning up from almost nothing overnight to a catastrophic category 4 Super Typhoon today. That, followed by our latest Green News Report, with important news in the war over water in the drought-stricken U.S. west, and some great news about sweeping, landmark environmental and climate legislation being adopted by Minnesota, now that Dems have taken control of both chambers of the state legislature and its governor's mansion...

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