We usually stay out of most of the "culture war" nonsense on The BradCast, because that's what most of it is: nonsense. Republicans love it, of course, because it keeps their voters "outraged" and prevents them from having to deal with real issues destroying our country and planet. But today, for various reason, we dive into a few of those issues and cover the breaking news on the unsealing of the affidavit used to obtain the FBI search warrant for the raid of Fulton County, Georgia's elections warehouse outside of Atlanta. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

You may wish to tune in to better learn how all of these stories go together. But, among the stories covered on today's program...

• The corporate Trumper billionaire takeover of CBS News is not going well, so far. At least if the plummeting ratings of CBS Evening News --- versus the growth of audience for both ABC and NBC's nightly news broadcasts over the same period --- is any indication.

• While Donald Trump instructed his MAGA minions to hate Puerto Rican born U.S. citizen Bad Bunny's spectacular Super Bowl Halftime show, some of them broke away from Dear Cult Leader to realize, "Hey, that was pretty awesome!"

• Despite --- or perhaps because --- of its recent takeover by corporate Trumpy billionaires --- CBS News obtained a document from the Dept. of Homeland Security revealing that no more than 14% of the immigrants rounded up by ICE over the past year had either charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses. Turns out it is the Trump Administration, not the migrants, who are "the worst of the worst".

• A number of faith groups, including Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus, have joined together to sue the Dept. of Justice charging religious discrimination after the DOJ's so-called Religious Liberty Commission includes several Christians, a Rabbi, a former Miss California and Dr. Phil. But, apparently, no Muslims, Sikhs or Hindus, which the group's complaint [PDF] describes as a violation of federal law.

• We recently learned that Trump was unlawfully attempting to block the nation's largest ongoing infrastructure project, the Hudson Gateway River Tunnels that will connect New York and New Jersey. He reportedly told Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer he would only release funds to complete the project --- and keep a thousand construction workers employed --- if Schumer agreed to name D.C's Dulles Airport and New York's Penn Station after Trump. In other corrupt river crossing news by Trump today, we learn that he is now threatening to block the nearly completed Gordie Howe International Bridge built and paid for by our neighbors to the north to connect Detroit to Windsor, Canada. He claims he "will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve.” As it turns out, Trump has an even more corrupt and even sleazier reason to block that project as well.

• On yesterday's BradCast, we talked in detail with longtime Georgia elections and voting system expert Marilyn Marks about the recent FBI raid of Fulton County, Georgia's elections warehouse, outside of Atlanta, wherein the federal government grabbed hundreds of boxes of ballots and other material from the 2020 election. We reviewed many of the long-known issues from that election in Fulton County, and the false claims by Trump that he actually defeated Joe Biden in the state that year. Today, a federal (Trump-appointed) judge has forced the DOJ to unseal the affidavit [PDF] used to obtain the FBI's search warrant from a federal magistrate. You'll (not) be shocked to learn that it was submitted by a longtime election denier now working in the White House and it contains little more than long-debunked allegations, most of which we have discussed multiple times on this program since 2020. We rounded up a whole bunch of them on yesterday's program with Marks, in case you missed it. She also offered a detail summary of the various Fulton County post-2020 counts here.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with more on Bad Bunny; more on our corrupt President; and still more on his terrible, deadly Administration...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

I wish we coulda talked about Bad Bunny for the entire BradCast. But, alas, fighting fascism calls. (Which actually brings us back to Bad Bunny! But I digress.) [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

After a few minutes on the rollicking, patriotic Super Bowl Halftime show heard round the world on Sunday, and the doddering old man in the White House that it helped drive crazy --- (Yes. It's a short drive.) --- it's back to the business of trying to help save a nation from itself. And, truthfully, as horrible as it is, it's going pretty well, in that regard.

On Saturday, another Democratic candidate won a special election for a state legislative seat in a landslide after Donald Trump won the same district by a landslide in 2024. This time, it was Democratic Louisiana state House candidate Chasity Verret Martinez who defeated her Republican opponent by 24 points on Saturday, in a district that Trump won by 13, for an overall 37-point swing for the Ds. That special election followed on one in Texas just a week earlier for the state Senate, where the Democrat won by 14 points in a district Trump won in 2024 by 17 points. That was a 31-point swing for the Ds...in deep "red" Texas!

So, yeah, there is a way out of this madness, and it runs through the ballot box. Which is obviously why Trump is hoping to game that ballot box, take control of it, "nationalize" elections, etc. All stuff that he has zero legal or Constitutional authority or lawful ability to do. But that doesn't mean he won't try.

Toward that end --- (maybe?) --- at the end of last month, Trump's FBI obtained a warrant from a federal magistrate to raid the Fulton County, Georgia elections warehouse just outside of Atlanta. They absconded with the 2020 ballots and other materials from the state's largest County. The warrant explained that the search was meant to protect against violations of a federal law related to voting fraud and another to the federal law requiring retention of ballots and other election-related material for 22 months after each federal election.

But the 2020 election was more than five years ago now, which is theoretically outside of the statute of limitations to bring criminal charges against some sort of fraud in that election. Also, what was the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard doing at the raid in Fulton County?

Some of these questions may be answered in the next 24 hours or so, as a Trump-appointed federal judge has ordered the Government to release the affidavit that was used to gain the magistrate's approval for the Search Warrant in the first place. Presumably, that affidavit would detail allegations of some sort of ongoing crime or crimes.

But there are also a host of other questions, unlikely to be answered by that affidavit, including what harm Trump may actually do with the materials, including hundreds of thousands of ballots and 2020 voter rolls, obtained by the FBI? How could any of that be used to undermine Georgia's elections this year, or those elsewhere across the country?

We're joined today by longtime friend of the show and election integrity and voting system transparency hero, MARILYN MARKS of the nonprofit Coalition for Good Governance.

Marilyn knows the GA election system as well or better than anyone else, including, arguably, its Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, the Republican who many have regarded as a hero for holding off Trump's attempt to steal the state in 2020 during his infamous phone call seeking to strong-arm Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to flip the state from Joe Biden to Trump. But, as we note again today, Raffensperger is no hero.

It was Marks' long-running lawsuit against the state that resulted in the court-ordered decertification of GA's old, insecure, unverifiable touchscreen voting systems, only to see them replaced by Raffensperger with new, insecure, unverifiable touchscreen voting systems made by a different company. That, despite expert advice to move to a transparent, overseeable, resilient, verifiable hand-marked paper ballot system.

So, what is Trump's game with the FBI raid in Fulton? And should we be worried about it? Should Raffenpserger, who is running for Governor this year, be worried about it? Well, given the disastrous way he ran the 2020 election in the Peach State, argues Marks, yes, he should be quite concerned.

While she breaks down just some of the ways that Raffensperger screwed up the tallies of the 2020 election in Georgia --- and the purported three different counts that "confirmed" the results there (despite each count coming out differently!) --- it wasn't only the Republican Sec. of State whose decisions were odd. For his part, for example, though Trump asked for a received a "recount" in the election he lost by about 12,000 votes, that recount was done on the same computer tabulators that tallied the race the first time, even though he should have had a hand-count, according to state law.

"The law requires a manual count, not a machine recount," Marks tells me. "Trump and Biden and [Libertarian Party candidate] Joe Jorgenson would have all had the opportunity to put a counter at every table. Imagine if a proper hand recount were done and Trump had had a counter at every table. He would have a had a hard time saying later, 'the count was wrong', because it would have been his people counting. Raffensperger knew that was the law. He did not give Trump the recount that he should have had. And, mysteriously, Trump did not ask for the recount he should have had."

We discuss that mystery and many others, even as Marks reiterates that she has seen no evidence to suggest that the election was stolen from Trump in 2020.

"We have no evidence that Trump won the state," she reiterates again today. "Was the election conducted in a reckless, sloppy, unverifiable way? It indeed was."

"There's a lesson to be learned there," she explains. "We've got an even more contentious year here in 2026. And we damned well better get our act together to have a resilient system. So it is important for us to go back and know what was really done wrong in Georgia."

What does a "resilient system" entail? And how can you help ensure one? Tune in and find out. Hint: it begins (though doesn't end) with hand-marked paper ballots at every polling place...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast: Some of us saw it coming and warned about it long ago. Now that it's here, many STIL don't seem to see it. We get some help today, toward that end, from our guest, who published a startling report on all of it this week. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP, however, a few headlines...

The Trump Administration claimed today to be drawing down their deployment of under-trained, over-paid ICE and CBP goons from Minnesota. They say they are immediately withdrawing 700 of them. Donald Trump says a "softer touch" is needed. But that "softer touch" will still leave at least 2,000 thugs on the streets of Minneapolis --- the same number that had already been terrorizing residents in the Twin Cities region before they murdered Renee Good last month.

But staffing issues for the federal government is clearly a problem for them. More than a dozen of the top prosecutors have now resigned from the U.S. Attorney's office in Minnesota in recent weeks, since the start of Operation Metro Surge. And with hundreds of habeas petitions filed in court by detainees since then, federal judges are accusing ICE and government attorneys of ignoring scores of court orders to release them.

On Tuesday, one of those attorneys hit a breaking point. Julie Le, an ICE immigration court judge who volunteered at the beginning of January to help out the short-staffed U.S. Attorney's office, had been assigned more than 85 cases in that time. During a hearing yesterday, she made an emotional and dramatic plea to the judge. "I wish you would just hold me in contempt of court so I can get 24 hours of sleep,” she said, adding “The system sucks, this job sucks, I am trying with every breath I have to get you what you need."

Today, it appears Le was pushed out of her job by DOJ, along with her supervisor.

THEN... We're joined today by Talking Points Memo's investigative reporter JOSH KOVENSKY, to discuss two different disturbing stories he's published in recent days. Both of them insane. One of them wacky. The other exceedingly troubling.

Following the FBI's raid of the Fulton County, Georgia elections warehouse last week outside of Atlanta --- part of Trump's latest scheme to obfuscate his humiliating election loss in 2020 --- the President of the United States took to social media to double down. He advanced a number of posts that revived the old "ItalyGate" conspiracy that posits (and forgive me if I get a detail wrong), that Barack Obama and China, with the help of money from Iran --- funneled somehow through Switzerland and/or Dubai --- took control of Italy's military spy satellites to hack computerized voting machines and/or ballot tabulators to steal the election for Joe Biden in 2020.

Sure, it may sound crazy, but that's only because it is. And while there may be no actual evidence to support any of it, that didn't prevent Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, from being on the ground to oversee last week's FBI raid of 2020 ballots in Fulton County. Why would the nation's top spy chief, whose job has nothing to do with domestic law enforcement, be there? We discuss that and other related idiocy today with Kovensky.

In far more troubling news, in a deep dive at TPM this week, Kovensky details how a series of White House memos issued after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, direct the Dept. of Justice to reinterpret a post 9/11 federal terrorism statute known as 2339A. The statute, as originally intended, allows prosecutors to hold associates of terrorists and terror groups to account for "material support to terrorists".

The Trump Administration's reinterpretation of the statute, however, demands, as Kovensky reports, that prosecutors use the provision to "target those who espouse 'anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,' [and] direct federal law enforcement to use speech --- including “extremism on migration, race, and gender” --- as key criteria for who to investigate and against whom to bring the most aggressive charges possible."

Once again --- (as longtime BRAD BLOG readers may recall when they were turned against me and my family in 2013 in a different way) --- the federal government's post 9/11 tools for fighting terror, are being turned against non-terrorist Americans.

In this case, the government is now employing these measures to prosecute, as terror organizations, people and left-leaning advocacy groups regarded as political opponents of Donald Trump, including Black Lives Matter and "Antifa" --- along with anybody else the government wants to associate with them.

"These are 'material support for terrorism' statutes. It sounds dry, but it's important," argues Kovensky today, explaining how the provision has already been used to go after people at protests where someone else may have committed a crime, "if the protest was associated with a leftwing cause or something opposed to the administration. Then we are now starting to see the DOJ go after it as 'terrorism'."

"With 'material support for terrorism', if you're convicted on that," he adds, "prosecutors can then apply for a 'terrorism enhancement.' Even if you have no prior criminal history, and regardless of whether or not the underlying charge was non-violent --- it could be something as simple as spray-painting a government building --- you're now looking at a recommended minimum for the judge of 17.5 years behind bars. So it dramatically increases the severity of the possible sentence."

This is why you may have heard people like A.G. Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and others in the Administration in recent months, refer to protesters --- even those like Renee Good and Alex Pretti who were murdered by immigration officials --- as "domestic terrorists", along with vows to hunt down and break up their "networks".

"It gives the government greater powers to investigate," Kovensky tells me, "but it also raises unbelievably grave concerns about freedom of speech and freedom of association."

And, yes, this is what many civil libertarians argued more than two decades ago. "If you look at the commentary in the early 2000s after 9/11 and what a slippery slope this was with the PATRIOT Act, it's all very eerie," he says.

Told you this was a troubling one. Tune in for much more...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

It's always about elections, as detailed yet again on today's BradCast, with a boatload of breaking news, and a concurrent trip through the twisted windmills of the mind of the President of the United States. Or whatever's left of it. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among today's many stories...

• Best idea of the week, perhaps of the year, to date: The editors of The Nation magazine nominate the City of Minneapolis for the Nobel Peace Prize. (Seconded!)

• Don't be fooled by Donald Trump swapping out Himmler-wannabe, Border Patrol commandant Gregory Bovino for $50,000 bribe recipient and architect of first term child separation policy Tom Homan as Chief Goon in charge of the federal government's assault on Minneapolis. As many are confirming, little has changed, to date, on the ground, after the rotation of lead stooges, even as Trump has become desperate to prevent another embarrassing government shutdown this weekend.

• Speaking of, we detailed the many moving parts of the threat of a new government shutdown on yesterday's program, as Democrats insist on new guardrails on ICE and CBP in exchange for fiscal 2026 DHS funding. While a brief shutdown is still likely to happen over the weekend, a deal brokered between Dems and the White House just before airtime today would split off the bill that funds DHS from five other spending bills which would be adopted in full. A Continuing Resolution, to keep funding DHS at current levels, would then be approved to allow two more weeks to negotiate reforms, such as an end to unconstitutional door-to-door patrols, a no-masking policy, mandatory body cams, etc., following the ICE/CBP murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, etc.

• As just one sign of Trump's desperation to prevent another government shutdown, with midterm elections looming --- and likely to be very bad for his party --- ICE has reportedly ended its surge into the state of Maine, where hundreds of arrests over the past week, including of legal immigrants has infuriated residents. News of ICE leaving just one week after its new campaign comes via the otherwise "blue" state's Republican Sen. Susan Collins, so take it for what it's worth. Collins --- Chair of Senate Appropriations --- has a very difficult election this year as the only Republican Senator facing reelection in a state won in 2024 by the Democrats. There is a lot to unpack regarding all of that today. But, with Trump desperate to hang on to control of the U.S. Senate this November, its not surprising that he is hoping to make life easier for Collins, despite previously calling on his supporters to vote her out.

• The guy hired to be the new chief artistic director of the Kennedy Center after its takeover by Trump thugs, has quit --- just two weeks after his hiring was announced.

• The U.S. trade deficit --- the amount of goods and services we export versus what we import --- grew sharply in November, with imports surging and exports plummeting, despite Trump's tariff scheme which was supposed to accomplish the very opposite.

• Picking up where we left off yesterday, as news was just breaking that Trump's FBI had raided the Fulton County elections warehouse in Atlanta, reportedly grabbing secured ballots from the 2020 election --- which Trump is still pretending to have won, more than five years later --- we've got several additional details today on what was taken; what the FBI was looking for; the clown show that the execution of the search warrant became; the federal prosecutor from an entirely different state brought in to obtain the warrant; the long-known failures of the three post-election tallies by Fulton County as overseen by the state's Republican Sec. of State; and how all of this has election experts very concerned about bad faith efforts by Trump and his supporters in advance of the 2026 midterms.

• In other bad faith news regarding Trump's false claims to have won states that he didn't, the ties between his reasons for surging immigration enforcers into Minneapolis and Trump's years-long false claims to have won the state of Minnesota three times (he won it zero times), has now become clearer than ever.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as humanity slips still closer to 'Doomsday'; as the U.S. is formally withdrawn, for the second time, from the Paris Climate Agreement; as Trump is blocked by a fourth court in a fourth state on his effort to halt nearly completed offshore wind projects; and as sales of EVs now now outpace gasoline cars in Europe...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

We've been warning about it on The BradCast ever since the government re-opened after the last shutdown, its longest ever, in October and November. There now seems to be no way to avoid another shutdown as of midnight Friday, a former White House and Senate budget expert explains on today's 'BradCast'. But, he also notes, "this is the right thing to shut down the government for." [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... A couple of other news items of note today...

• The first special elections since the murder of Veterans Affairs Intensive Care Unit nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis were held on Tuesday, to determine partisan control of the Minnesota state House of Representatives. Two vacant seats in very Democratic-leaning parts of the Twin Cities region were up for grabs. One featured a Democrat who ran unopposed. (Spoiler: she won.) The other featured a Democratic candidate running against a Republican who had run for the same seat, and lost, in both 2022 and 2024. It's a district where Kamala Harris won by 71 points. On Tuesday, the Democratic candidate, Meg Luger-Nikolai, won the election by more than 91 points! That's a 20-point swing for the Ds, as Luger-Nikolai garnered more than 95% of the vote. Her Republican challenger won just over 4%. If Republicans weren't worried about this year's midterms before, Tuesday night's results oughta put the fear of God into 'em.

• Speaking of elections, Donald Trump is still pretending he won the one that he lost in 2020 to Joe Biden. To that end, Trump has weaponized his FBI and today, they were ordered to raid the Fulton County (Atlanta) elections warehouse. Reportedly, the federal agents were there to collect ballots and other materials from the 2020 election, which have been retained by court order since then. Supposedly, this will finally provide Trump the evidence of massive "voter fraud" that he has alleged for so many years. If the Georgia Republican Sec. of State was unwilling back in January of 2021 to "find 11,780 votes" to help Trump steal the state's election that year, by golly, Trump is gonna "find" them himself now, five years later.

THEN... U.S. border patrol agents have fired shots 16 times over the course of the past year. In every instance, as WaPo reported yesterday, the Trump Administration declared the shootings to have been justified before any probe had been completed. Four U.S. citizens have been shot in those incidents. Two of them were killed over the past three weeks in Minneapolis.

While Trump is putting up a show of "softening" his stance on the federal government's invasion of the Twin Cities region by ICE and CBP, Greg Sargent argues that it's little more than posturing because Trump is now "frightened" that Democrats in Congress will shut the government down again unless serious restrictions are placed on funding for the Dept. of Homeland Security's immigration goon squads.

Senate Democrats, for their part, seem quite serious about doing just that, as the deadline for a new, 2026 government spending bill is midnight on Friday. With the House in recess, any changes made to the six funding bills they adopted before leaving, couldn't be voted on back in the House until they reconvene next week. That virtually guarantees at least a brief shutdown. To make things worse, Senate Republicans have been unwilling to decouple the DHS/ICE funding from the other funding bills, to keep the rest of the government open, until they can come to an agreement over new guardrails that Democrats are insisting on for ICE and CPB's clownish but deadly operations across the country.

"This is the right thing to shut down the government for," argues our guest, BOBBY KOGAN, today. He served as an advisor to the White House Office of Management and Budget under President Biden and, before that, as Senior Advisor on the Senate Budget Committee. He is now Senior Director of Federal Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress.

Kogan argues that "there is nothing more more quintessential than fighting government oppression." He tells me that he has long argued that nothing is more important to society than "shelter, food and healthcare. I'm the person who says that's the quintessential thing. But, actually, not being executed by the government is the most quintessential thing --- not being executed by the government for existing, and just filming them --- this is a thing you have to shut down the government for."

But at what cost? How many other unrelated agencies will also have to be closed for a time in the bargain? How many Americans will be harmed by those closures? And what exactly are Democrats insisting on in exchange for approving another $10 billion for ICE, after the Republicans' "Big Beautiful Bill" already established a $75 billion slush fund for the out-of-control agency just last Summer?

In addition to guarantees that they will follow the law and the Fourth Amendment's right to privacy with judicial warrants during raids of private homes, Kogan says that Democrats are coalescing on a number of demands, including mandated body cams during enforcement actions and DOJ civil rights reviews of federal government shootings. He also believes that someone, such as DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, will need to be fired, and that clawing back some of that $75 billion granted to ICE last year would also be "a good idea."

"We gave money to the IRS [during the Biden Administration], and as soon as they came to power," he explains, Republicans rescinded much of that money. He suggests Dems should do the same thing as well with the $75 billion that ICE received last year with no-strings-attached.

"There's not much leverage that the Democratic Party has because it is in the minority," Kogan concedes. "But you have to try. Because what else can you possibly do? This is one of the few must-pass bills that still exist. Government shutdowns cannot go on forever because eventually everything starts to break. So it's only a little bit of leverage, but you've got to use it."

Based on his conversations with Democrats in Congress, he tells me, they are not in the mood for "pinky promises from the administration that is busy executing U.S. citizens" when it comes to vows of course corrections. So, he assesses, "the most likely outcome is a six bill shutdown."

"Will it work? I don't know," Kogan asserts. "But Democrats owe it to the American people to do the best they can. Because it is not just political whims or whatever that matters. It matters to real people. And it matters to history. How we respond to this is going to shape what we are as a nation. So Democrats owe it to the American people to give it their all."

FINALLY... The legendary Bruce Springsteen released a new song today via social media called The Streets of Minneapolis. In his announcement, he explained that he "wrote this song on Saturday [the day Alex Pretti was killed], recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good." He added: "Stay free."

We share his moving --- and inspiring --- tune, in full, to close out today's program...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

His pathetic lies about the 2020 election will apparently never end. He's a loser and can't get over it. Even now. But, as a longtime expert in election transparency, security and integrity --- and, specifically, Georgia's unverifiable touchscreen voting system --- explains on today's BradCast, there is still much to be worried about in the Peach State's 2026 midterm elections. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP TODAY... a few words on how Donald Trump, following his unlawful attack and invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of its President and his wife --- appears to be barrelling the world toward a full collapse of the post-WW2 order, with his recent threats against Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and even NATO-ally Greenland.

Also, you have by now likely heard Trump's Tuesday "victory" boast, as posted on his failing social media site, that Venezuela would be "turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America." A bit of perspective on that claim today. There is, of course, never any reason to believe anything he says about anything. But, even if one assumes it's true, that amount of oil, at the high end, is about what we produce in the U.S. all by ourselves in about 3.5 days. We currently consume (burn) that much in about 2.5 days.

So, yay! Totally worth spending billions of dollars to kill 80 people in Venezuela, capture its President, and set the world on a path toward toppling the post-WW2 order of decades of (relative) peace and prosperity.

On the other hand, none of this madness seems to be escaping notice of the American voters. That was demonstrated yet again in the final Special Election of 2025, in Iowa on December 30th, where the Democratic candidate for a state Senate seat outperformed Kamala Harris one year earlier in the same district by nearly 30 points! That, and pretty much every other Special and Off-Year contest last year suggests it is likely to be a very bad year in 2026 for Trump and his Republican Party. And, as revealed by some comments he made on Tuesday, he knows it.

TO THAT END... Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of Trump's failed attempt to topple the U.S. government with his January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in hopes of stealing the 2020 election.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the notorious, unlawful Coffee County, Georgia statewide voting system software breach by Team Trump. The long-under-the-radar criminal scheme, initially hatched during a late-night Oval Office meeting in December of 2020, was purportedly meant to discover evidence of election fraud in the battleground state that Trump lost that year by 12,000 votes to Joe Biden. We helped break the story on this program, and five of the participants in the plot to steal, copy and distribute the software used across the entire state of Georgia (and in parts of about a dozen other states) were charged as co-conspirators along with Trump in the RICO indictment initially filed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Several of the conspirators pleaded guilty to their part in the Coffee County scheme before the charges were eventually dismissed last month by a different prosecutor who took over the case.

In the meantime, the MAGA right is still pretending that the election was stolen from Trump in Fulton County (Atlanta). The latest ridiculous allegation to come to light in rightwing media, just before the holidays last month, is that 315,000 early votes cast in Atlanta were somehow fraudulent because poll tapes printed out by the ballot scanners were not signed by local officials. After Fulton officials confirmed last month that signatures were missing from those tapes, due to one of many administrative failures in Fulton County that year, rightwingers took to social media to pretend that meant that Trump actually won the election in Georgia.

"Massive voting fraud uncovered," declared Trump's buffoonish pal, Elon Musk, absurdly, as other rightwingers played along with claim that made its way just before the holidays into the supposedly non-wingnut media.

"This is the biggest bunch of nonsense," explains our guest today, MARILYN MARKS of the Coalition for Good Governance. She is a longtime voting system and Georgia election expert. "There is not one thing to suggest that they were fraudulent or there was a lack of certification for the election." She details why the claim is both "foolish" and "absurd".

She ought to know. Marks is the one who has legally challenged the state's 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems in federal court for years now, successfully resulting in the state's older Diebold systems being decertified by a federal judge, only to see them replaced by Republican Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger with equally insecure, unverifiable touchscreens made by Dominion. Marks is no fan of Raffensperger or the way Fulton ran its election in 2020. But she knows "crazy claims" when she sees them from MAGA rightwingers.

We discuss all of that, and what really happened with those poll tapes, along with her continuing concerns about the potential 2026 fallout from the Coffee County scheme's stolen software --- a matter which has been left hanging since Georgia abandoned the criminal indictments against Trump and 18 co-conspirators for his criminal attempt to steal the state's 2020 election.

As usual, there is much more today on all of this, as we barrel toward the critical 2026 midterms, with Georgia's U.S. Senate race potentially determining the partisan balance in the upper chamber of Congress next year. The race will be decided on 100% unverifiable voting systems run by Raffensperger across the entire state --- even as he will be overseeing his own attempt to become the state's next Governor.

"What makes Georgia so different [from every other state] is that the Secretary of State programs every single ballot, in every single machine, in every single county. So you have a central point of failure," Marks tells me. "He is not only programming the elections for his own ballots, he is counting his own votes, he is certifying his own election, and he is auditing his own election. What could go wrong?"

What could go wrong? Tune in to find out!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Today on The BradCast: If Democrats don't put up a candidate for every goddamn contest on the ballot next year --- in every state, county, city, town, village and hamlet in the nation --- they are out of their flippin' minds. If things continue as are seeing week after week at year's end in 2025, they could well be in a position to win any race, almost anywhere in the country in 2026. (Though they may need to demand a few ballot hand-counts to ensure the correct winner, if a disturbing new report out today is any indication.) [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Following up on huge shifts toward Democrats by the electorate in Special Elections across the country all year; an outright Blue Wave in state after state during the November 4th off-year elections last month; and another Special Election in a deep-red GOP-gerrymandered U.S. House district last week; Democrats racked up more stunning victories on Tuesday night in several Presidential battleground states, as the American electorate continues a remarkable shift toward the Left, even in races that Dems don't win outright.

Among the unofficial election results from last night, what they all mean moving forward into the critical 2026 mid-terms, and one great big red flag that voters from all parties need to watch out for next year...

• A Democrat won the Miami, Florida Mayoral runoff for the first time in nearly 30 years, defeating a Republican candidate endorsed by both Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis. She won by nearly 20 points in a city that narrowly went to Trump in the Presidential contest just last year. Eileen Higgins will also make history by becoming the city's first-ever female Mayor in a city not much more than an hour's drive from Mar-a-Lago. She ran on affordability agenda, vowed to protect the immigrant community threatened by Trump, and to take on many of the city's worsening climate change-related challenges ignored by both Trump and DeSantis in South Florida. She also promised, to roars from supporters during her Tuesday night victory speech, to build a city where "immigrants feel welcome and respected".

• There were also two Special Elections to fill vacancies in the Florida state House on Tuesday. One seat was previously held by a Democrat and the other by a Republican. While neither seat was flipped, the Democratic candidate improved on last year's results by about 11 percentage points in one case, and 15 points in the other. It was an incredibly good night for Dems in the Sunshine State, which had been moving farther and farther to the right over the past decade or more.

• In Georgia, Democrat Eric Gisler flipped a GOP state House seat on Tuesday, in a Special Election in a district that went for Trump by more than 12 points last year. He defeated his Republican opponent by just under 2 points, according to the latest unofficial tally, notching a 14 or 15 point swing for Democrats in the previously "red" state House District. The victory comes after what the state's Democratic Party described as "22 years of failed Republican leadership."

• In Albuquerque, New Mexico, two-term Democratic incumbent Mayor Tim Keller became the first Mayor in city history to win a third consecutive term. As he vowed during his victory speech on Election Night: "We are not going to allow ICE in. We are not going to let Trump come into Albuquerque." Democratic wins also appear to have flipped the City Council.

• Even in Iowa, where a Democratic candidate lost her race last night in a landslide Special Election for a vacant state House seat by nearly 40 points, the electorate shifted about 11 points toward the Democrat in the otherwise extremely "red" state House District. It was the fifth Special Election for a state legislative seat in the Hawkeye State this year. In each of them, the electorate shifted to Dems by anywhere from 9 to 15 points.

• In all, as a Bolts Magazine analysis of all 2025 state legislative elections finds today, "Democrats gained 25 state Senate and House seats that were held by the GOP, out of the 118 that were resolved this year in regular or special elections." That number outpaces the party's wins in 2017, before 2018's mid-term Blue Wave during Trump's first Presidency. Republicans flipped exactly ZERO such races over the past year. Moreover, the outlet notes, "the GOP may have gotten lucky this year: Most of the legislative elections that occurred in 2025 were for seats that Democrats already held, which limited their opportunity for gains."

• With all of that in mind, Republicans should be terrified ahead of next year's mid-terms. Even --- and, perhaps, especially --- in GOP-controlled states that have recently gerrymandered their U.S. House map (at Trump's orders) in hopes of flipping "blue" seats to "red" ones. To do that, they must make safe "red" seats a bit less safe. In Missouri, where Republicans recently adopted a new map designed to remove one of two remaining Democratic U.S. House seats, opponents are trying to block the new map by putting it on next year's ballot as a citizen's veto referendum. Yesterday, organizers of the effort let me know that they have "delivered over 300,000 signatures --- three times what was required" to MO's Sec. of State in order to force a referendum on the gerrymandering measure next November. "Under the Missouri Constitution," they said, "once those signatures are submitted, the map cannot take effect unless voters approve it." But, they are also warning that Republican state officials are "signaling they may ignore that constitutional requirement and attempt to implement the map anyway." The group, People Not Politicians, tells me they are ready to go to court immediately, if necessary, to file a challenge if, in fact, the state is "considering the nullification of its own constitutional check on legislative power."

• But here's something that Democrats and Republicans alike need to be aware of next year. The computer-tallied results from several ballot propositions in upstate New York's Rensselaer County appear to have gone sideways during last month's November 4th elections. Thanks to the tenacity of supporters of the Stephentown Memorial Library in tiny, rural Stephentown, just three miles from the state's border with Massachusetts, a hand recount of the county's hand-marked paper ballots was carried out. After a hand-recount, it was discovered that a measure to fund the town's library, initially reported as having lost 528 to 60, was actually found to have been adopted by voters 540 to 279! Several countywide measures were also mistallied as well by the County's optical scanners made by Clear Ballot. One of them, a measure that would have ended funding for a local volunteer rescue squad, was not adopted as originally reported by results of 517 to 505. In fact, the local measure was found to have been defeated --- 2,381 to 2,250 --- following the hand count! So, how could the original results have been so wildly wrong? We explain today, based on the few details we've been able to gather from local media reporting and some input from several longtime voting system and election integrity experts we reached out to.

• Finally, at the end of another very busy show, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as climate impacts accelerate in the Middle East; Repubs give another big gift to Big Oil; a MAGA v. MAHA feud breaks out over Trump's EPA rollback of toxic chemical rules; and as deployment of utility-scale solar operations sets a new record in the U.S., despite Trump's efforts to kill development of cheap, clean, reliable, renewable energy...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Not that I hope to tip off our degenerate authoritarian oligarchy on today's BradCast. But if the Republican Party still believes in math (and it's unclear if they do), there was more very bad news for them in Tuesday's elections this week. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Unapologetically progressive Democratic candidate Aftyn Behn appears to have lost the Special Election race for the U.S. House in Tennessee's very "red", GOP-gerrymandered 7th Congressional District to stalwart Trump Republican Matt Van Epps on Tuesday. Unofficial numbers suggest she lost by about 9 points.

Sounds like a rout. But, in fact, it really wasn't. Trump won the district last year by 22 points, meaning there was a 13 point shift toward Democrats on Tuesday, precisely the average shift that we have seen toward Dems in all of the Special Elections for U.S. House this year. There are 14 counties in TN's 7th CD. Everyone of them shifted towards the left on Tuesday. That, after Republicans were forced to dump a lot of money into what should have been an easy contest on Tuesday.

While House Speaker Mike Johnson pretended not to be concerned about any of this --- "They were really trying to set the scenario that there's some sort of wave going on. There's not. We just proved that there's not." --- actual math really does suggest trouble ahead for the GOP in next year's critical 2026 midterm cycle.

With that average 13 point shift toward Democrats in special elections this year, we do a little bit of mathing on today's show. For example, last year, in the 2024 U.S. House general elections...

• 28 Republicans won their races by 10 percent or less.
• 64 of them won by 12 points or less.
• And a whopping 92 Republicans won by just 15 percent or less last year.

With a razor-thin 3 vote advantage heading into the new year, no wonder several GOP-controlled states are attempting panicked mid-decade gerrymanders, and that the corrupt Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court are likely to help them. But new maps may ultimately make their problems worse, not better, if this year's elections are any indication. Safe Republican districts made less safe with new gerrymanders to steal districts from Democratic voters may end up backfiring. Of course, I won't dismiss Democrats' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory between now and next year. But when Johnson says, "This doesn't concern me at all," he is either lying, in denial or incredibly stupid. And he's not all that stupid.

"This is one of the biggest flashing red light warning signs we've seen yet for Republicans," a far more realistic GOP strategist observed last night. Much more on today's show.

As if that's not enough, in a stunning runoff election on Tuesday in Georgia, the Democratic candidate easily unseated the incumbent Republican Mayor in the suburban city of Roswell, outside of Atlanta. She will be the previously deep "red" city's first Democratic Mayor in nearly 30 years. But don't worry, Mike. All's well!

Also today, our disgusting racist President said a whole bunch of disgusting racist things at the White House on Tuesday about Somalia and the American Somali population in Minnesota and elsewhere, repeatedly describing them as "garbage", "people who don't work," and people who should "go back to where they came from." Where many of them came from is a war-torn nation in Africa, with thousands seeking refuge here in the 90s. Most of them are now American citizens, with many living in Minnesota, where Trump's degenerate federal jack-booted immigration thugs will reportedly be targeting them, specifically in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, with upcoming raids.

State Governor Tim Walz --- who Trump last week described as "retarded" --- as well as the Minneapolis Mayor, its Chief of Police and many other officials and immigration advocates are vowing not to roll over to Trump's racist immigration hooliganism. Similar raids are reportedly being launched this week in New Orleans, where residents are also hoping to push back against Trump's increasingly unpopular thuggery however they can.

Finally today, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report (after we had to preempt yesterday), with news on the end of disappointing U.N. climate talks in Brazil; the rising death toll following two simultaneous climate change-fueled typhoons in Southeast Asia; and the Trump Administration's latest plans to pollute your air and poison your drinking water...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Follow @GreenNewsReport...




(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Democrats win in key climate races in the 2025 Elections; Climate change raised in Supreme Court oral arguments over Trump's 'emergency' tariffs; PLUS: Brazil's fight against deforestation is paying climate dividends... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): India’s Ganga River drying at unprecedented levels; What the last gas boom (and bust) says about today’s rush to build; Trailer: The White House Effect; Fishermen missing in Vietnam as Philippines mourns dead from Typhoon Kalmaegi; FAA reducing air traffic by 10% across 40 ‘high-volume’ markets during government shutdown; Brazil launches plan to scale climate finance to $1.3 trillion a year... PLUS: Australia has so much solar that it’s offering everyone free electricity... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've covered a lot of Election Nights on The BradCast over the years. But it's difficult, if not impossible, to remember one where Democrats (and anti-GOP, anti-Trump voters) won pretty much everything in every corner of the country. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

True, it was an off-year election. Only about eight states even had statewide contests. But there were also local races in about 30 states. And, wherever voters voted, Team Trump lost on Tuesday. Badly. From "blue" California, to "purple" Virginia, to rural Maine, to battleground Pennsylvania, to deep "red" Mississippi and everywhere in between. And they lost by a lot in almost every case, whether it was for a candidate or an initiative on the ballot.

We run through as many reported results as we can fit in today --- both high profile contests and some that were deep under the radar --- before sharing an excerpt of the electrifying victory speech from Democratic New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who just blew the roof off the Brooklyn Paramount Theater with one of the best victory speeches I have ever seen. Actually, one of the best political speeches, of any kind, I have ever seen.

Then we're joined by longtime progressive journalist and author JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation magazine, where has been covering Mamdani, and many other progressives up and down the ballot --- along with the more centrist candidates in between --- for many months now, during the run-up to Tuesday's elections: the first time since Donald Trump took office for his failing second term that voters have been able to register their opinions about him at the ballot box in a whole bunch of states at once.

"We have had so many conversations where we are trying to find the straw" of good news following an election, Nichols observes, referencing our many post-election conversations. "But now we are in the bizarre, reverse position where, when you look across the entire United States, you are very hard pressed to find any disappointing results. And the reason for that is pretty simple. Donald Trump, a year after his election, nine months into his second presidency, it has been an unmitigated disaster."

"Last night, you got the confirmation that across this country, from New York to Virginia, to New Jersey to California --- but also to Mississippi, where they took away the Republican supermajority in the state Senate; to Georgia, where they were winning Public Service Commissions that they never win; to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Mayoral races in Iowa --- it was just across the board that Democrats won and won and won."

Beyond that, however, there are a lot of details to discuss, regarding why it happened and what message both Republicans and Dems need to take from what happened on Tuesday and, in particular, from the landslide election of the charismatic, 34-year old, Ugandan-born, Muslim, Democratic socialist immigrant whose charm offensive, good humor and promises of a tangible Affordability Agenda for NYC have now made him its next Mayor. And how, incredibly, it is even possible that many establishment Democratic Party leaders --- including U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York --- couldn't bring themselves to endorse the Democratic nominee for Mayor of NYC.

Are they most fearful that Mamdani will be a failure? Or that he will be a success?

We discuss all of that and much more on today's BradCast...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

I couldn't even come close to getting us all caught up on today's BradCast to all that has happened since our last show late last week. The madness of the Trump Era --- in fact, the madness of Trump --- continues to quicken in pace and grow more intense each day as our sick and twisted President grows more sick and twisted, literally, with each passing hour. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Still, we covered quite a lot of ground, with stories you may have heard about, such as the weekend shooting and firebombing at a Mormon church in Michigan, but with background and context you may or may not have heard. For example, the fact that it was the 5th mass shooting of the weekend in the U.S. and the 324th of the year so far --- in a year that was just 272 days old as of Sunday. Oh, and also that the alleged assailant, a 40-year old former U.S. Marine and Iraq War veteran is being described as a "MAGA MANIAC" today by the rightwing Drudge Report, citing guy's apparent support of Trump in 2020, with Trump-Pence signs on his house and a photo of him proudly wearing a camouflaged Donald Trump campaign shirt with the slogan: "Make Liberals Cry Again".

For some reason, the Trump Administration and Republicans --- hell bent in recent weeks on pretending Democrats are responsible for political violence in the U.S. --- would rather you don't notice those details, or the fact that violent domestic extremism from the Right, has, for decades, far out-paced violent extremism from the Left. And the fact that Republicans haven't done a damn thing about gun violence, no matter where it comes from. And, oh yeah, the fact that they, with a lot of help from Fox "News" at the time, forced the Obama Administration's DHS to retract a draft report on domestic rightwing extremism, warning about veterans like the shooter in Michigan this weekend, and another U.S. Marine and Iraq war vet who carried out one of two mass shootings in North Carolina over the same past weekend. Like the shooter in MI, he also used an easily-purchasable assault rifle for his massacre.

But we covered much --- much --- more on today's show than I can possibly hope to share with you here, along with callers ringing in. So I'll post some links to some of the stuff we covered, and let you tune in for the full stories and critical context in a nation only now beginning to figure out that pushing back against bullies like Trump seems to work. Cowering in fear does not.

As former FBI Director James Comey said in his remarks after being maliciously indicted at Donald Trump's orders last week, in a ridiculous case virtually guaranteed to be laughed out of court by either a judge and/or jury: "Fear is the tool of a tyrant. ... But I'm not afraid and I hope you're not either. I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends on it --- which it does."

Among the stories covered and/or touched upon on today's show, before opening up the phones to listeners...

• Gavin Newsom Trolls Donald Trump Over Bonkers AI Video That Shows He's 'LOST IT'
• Trump questioned perception of Portland before approving military plan: 'Am I watching things on television that are different from what's happening?'
• Trump’s Bizarre Claim That 274 FBI Agents Were Planted ‘Prior to’ Jan. 6 Riot Gets Torpedoed By His Own FBI Director Kash Patel
• At least four dead and eight injured after shooting at Mormon church in Michigan
• Mormon church gunman was marine 'who supported Trump'
• Tracking the five mass shootings that occurred in the U.S. over this past week
• Hegseth's mystery meeting in Quantico could cost millions, require unprecedented security
• Trump cancels White House meeting with Schumer and Jeffries despite risk of a government shutdown
• As the shutdown deadline nears, Trump reverses his reversal on Democratic meeting
• Last Wednesday's BradCast with healthcare analyst Charles Gaba, discussing the trillions of dollars of healthcare funding that Trump and Republicans have gutted (leading to tomorrow night's likely federal Government shutdown.)
• Why the case against James Comey may end in humiliation for Trump's DOJ
• Trump says he "would think" the DOJ is investigating ex-FBI chief Wray
• Justice Department issues subpoena for Fani Willis travel records
• Eric Adams drops out of New York City mayoral race
• The Jimmy Kimmel blackout is completely over: Nexstar and Sinclair back down
• Democrats Accuse Mike Johnson Of Stalling New Member Swearing-In Over Epstein Files

I'm sure I missed a few in that list, but you get the idea. Please tune in to "enjoy" all of the above in amusing and informative BradCast format, along with a few thoughts on what we all can, should and will do about it...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

As detailed on today's BradCast, the cost of healthcare for tens of millions of Americans is likely to skyrocket as of January 1. It is likely to be far worse than you've heard. Congressional Dems are fighting to prevent it. Republicans, including the President, seem to be just fine with it. Those are basically the terms as we barrel toward a likely federal government shutdown next week. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We dig into the details, stakes, and positions of the two sides on that shutdown deadline (October 1) and the new costs for health care set to explode after December 31 with our guest today who knows a whole lot about all of the above. But first, a bit of news...

• Jimmy Kimmel returned to our public airwaves on Tuesday night, after a week-long suspension following threats by Donald Trump and his FCC Chairman, Brendan Carr, to revoke broadcast licenses from ABC affiliate stations if they didn't nix Kimmel. In the wake of public outrage (and cancelled streaming service subscriptions), Disney, which owns ABC, buckled and invited Kimmel back on air. To the hilarious despair of Trump, Kimmel received enormous ratings last night, and delivered a heartfelt, emotional, blistering, funny, courageous and important monologue. We play an extended portion of it today, given that tens of millions of Americans in dozens of major markets were not allowed to see it thanks to the Sinclair and Nexstar corporations, the nation's two largest local TV station conglomerates, which are refusing to reinstate the program.

• Democrats continued their winning streak in Special Elections on Tuesday by, once again, outperforming themselves by enormous margins as compared to last November. In Georgia, for example, in a special election for the State Senate in a very Republican district, while the Democratic candidate lost, she picked up about 18 points for Dems in that district as compared to last November. In Arizona, Adelita Grijalva easily defeated her Republican opponent in a special election to fill the U.S. House seat left vacant by the death of her 12-term progressive Democratic father, Rep. Raul Grijalva. But where Raul won reelection by 26 points last November, his daughter, on Tuesday, won by nearly 39 points. That's a 13-point swing for Dems. If you compare her Tuesday victory to the Presidential results in that same District last year, Dems improved by 16 points. Adelita has also vowed to sign the Congressional discharge petition to force a vote in the U.S. House on releasing the Epstein Files. Her signature is the last one needed to achieve a majority of House members signing on. That should allow the vote to finally proceed.

Little wonder then that House Speaker Mike Johnson has instructed Republicans to stay home next week, even though without a deal with Democrats to keep the Government open, it will shut down on Wednesday, the first day of the new federal fiscal year.

To that end, Democrats are desperately working to strike a deal with Republicans. But they are standing firm (so far) in demanding a permanent expansion of the enhanced premium subsidies for more than 25 million Americans who receive access to health care via the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) exchanges. Monthly premiums --- and health care in general for everyone, thanks to Trump's tariffs --- are set to go through the roof at the end of the year, without an extension. This will adversely affect millions of Republican constituents across the country, as well as Democrats and independents.

But where Democrats are trying to strike a deal, Donald Trump, who had agreed to meet with Democratic leaders to negotiate this week, abruptly cancelled the meeting on Tuesday night, citing all kind of false and, frankly, batshit insane phony reasons for chickening out of his first face-to-face meeting with Democratic Leaders since retaking office this year.

There is a lot on the line in the days (and weeks ahead), which could, in addition to scrambling politics in D.C. and putting government employees out of work, result in millions of Americans losing their access to health care.

We're joined today to break all of this down by CHARLES GABA, a longtime independent healthcare data analyst, who first began his work on this as a hobby in the early years of Obamacare. He is now regularly cited as a source by mainstream media. Most recently, Gaba has been publishing state-by-state breakdowns of how much ACA customers can expect to see their monthly premiums rise next year, if Republicans refuse to extend the enhanced premiums temporarily enacted by Democrats after Joe Biden took office in 2021.

"Basically," he tells me, some 25 million Americans are "kind of screwed" beginning next year, unless Republicans come around to extending the subsidies. "I am one of those," explains Gaba, whose family --- including himself, his wife and his child --- enjoy access to healthcare thanks to the ACA. "If they are not extended, then starting January 1st, if we are in the same policy that we are today, we'd be looking at around an $11,000 increase in our premiums next year. That's on top of what we're already paying."

Gaba's state-by-state analyses leads him to expect "90-95% increases on average" for monthly premiums next year without a renewal of federal subsidies. He underscores that that is an "average", and that while some might see less, "there are also going to be other households that are going to see their net premiums increase 200%, 300%. In theory they could be looking at going five or six times what they are paying now, which of course, nobody could possibly afford. A lot of people at the more extreme ends are going to have to drop their coverage entirely."

While Republicans have teased the idea of extending subsidies temporarily, for another year, Gaba, one of the first to warn about this potential healthcare-pocalypse, tells me today why he is rallying Democrats to allow the Government to shut down, if necessary, unless Republicans agree to expand the ACA subsidies permanently, roll back their recent massive cuts to Medicaid and include provisions in any budget agreement that would prevent Trump from simply rescinding any of the spending agreed to by Congress.

And, oh yes, all of this is likely causing huge problems health care company actuaries trying to set pricing for the Open Enrollment period beginning November 1. "I'm sure they are going through Pepto-Bismol and Tums by the bottle-full right now. The insurance companies, they actually started crunching their numbers back in March. This is a multi-month process. The final contracts [with state regulators] are supposed to be signed usually sometime in mid-September." And yet, on CNN today, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune called for a seven-week Continuing Resolution to keep the government open at current spending levels, kicking the can down the road to figure out whether ACA subsidies will be extended beyond the end of the year.

Tune in for insight on the very high stakes, potential horrors, and almost certain chaos that awaits over the next few days and weeks, even while few Americans have even noticed any of this just yet...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

We're lucky to have a guest on today's BradCast who is able to offer a smart perspective on a whole bunch of legal stories breaking over the past 24 to 72 hours, because there has been a whole bunch of those stories tumbling in, regarding our crumbling court system and the Trump Administration's unrelenting assault on the Constitution and rule of law. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We're joined today to discuss all of them by KEITH BARBER, former lifelong Republican and attorney who now writes on legal matters at the progressive Daily Kos. I had initially asked him to join us to discuss his latest coverage of on an adverse ruling for the Trump Administration late last week in U.S. District Court.

In that case, the lower courts had previously put a hold on the Administration's attempted firing of thousands of government workers across dozens of federal agencies. The temporary injunction on the layoffs issued by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was meant to allow time for the lower courts to fully hear and try the challenge to the firings, as filed by several employees and their unions. But the injunction was overturned earlier this year by the Supreme Court, without explanation, on their "Emergency Docket", known by critics as the "Shadow Docket".

Before the injunction was blocked by the corrupted Supreme Court majority, it was meant to avoid irreparable harm to the workers by maintaining the status quo until a full trial on the merits could determine whether the firings were lawful in the first place. Late last week, as Barber reports, the court ruled [PDF] against the Administration, describing the government's case as a "sham" based on "fabricated" arguments and "chicanery". That said, thanks to the High Court's earlier ruling, lifting the lower court's injunction, last week's ruling comes largely too late to restore workers who lost their job. Many of the agencies in question have either removed those jobs since then or have been shut down entirely while the case made its way up and back down the judicial system.

The OPM case is just one of dozens like it, where lower court rulings --- meant to temporarily pause the Administration's unprecedented and seemingly unlawful actions until the merits of challenges could be heard --- were "temporarily" overturned by the High Court without explanation on the Shadow Docket as the cases proceeded below.

This same scheme has played out dozens of times in the eight months since Trump returned to office. Over mass firings of government employees, to very specific firings of decades-long experienced agency personnel for obviously (and unlawful) political reasons; to the complete or near-complete shutdowns of entire federal agencies and departments; to attempted Administration takeovers of supposedly independent federal Commissions; to attempted rescission of billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars in already appropriated spending by Congress; to mass roundups and deportations of migrants by federal agents; to the deployment of U.S. military into American cities against the wishes of state and local authorities. That's just to name a few of the major, unprecedented upheavals and attempted upheavals allowed to "temporarily" proceed by the corrupted Supreme Court majority, almost always in contradiction to lower U.S. District and Appeals Court rulings.

Many of those cases are now completing their full trials on the merits and/or being heard by appellate courts, with inevitable trips ahead back up to the Supreme Court for final rulings. As Barber details today, however, we can be almost certain that if the Supremes choose to take up those cases, they will most likely do so in order to overturn a lower court ruling on the merits against Trump. Otherwise, given the number of cases they must choose between hearing each year, they are likely to simply allow favorable rulings for Trump in the lower courts to simply stand as is. We' find out in the coming months.

Either way, Barber explains all of this by concurring with the argument I have been offering for quite some time. "We have a corrupt Supreme Court," he asserts. "Donald Trump corrupts everything he touches, to include the United States Supreme Court."

I had hoped to dig into related aspects of the OPM mass firing case (in which the Administration falsely claimed that the thousands of fired workers were laid off due to "poor performance") and what it portends in the months ahead. But a whole bunch of other legally related issues came tumbling in today and in recent days, which I was also able to discuss with Barber on today's program.

Among our additional topics for discussion today...

• Longtime federal prosecutor Maurene Comey filed suit against the administration on Monday for her recent firing. She argues it was solely (and unlawfully) due to a political vendetta by Trump. Comey is the daughter of James Comey, the former FBI Director famously fired by Trump during his first term in office.

• Attorney General Pam Bondi's recent vow to "absolutely target" anyone who dares use "hate speech" she doesn't like in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder. For the record, Kirk would have disagreed. "Hate speech does not exist legally in America," he posted on social media last year, adding "ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment." Bondi also recently vowed to prosecute businesses who choose not to print posters of Kirk, despite the 2018 SCOTUS ruling that a religious baker in Colorado could not be forced to bake a cake for a gay wedding.

• Terrorism charges were dropped today by a judge in New York court against the 27-year old man accused of murdering the CEO of UnitedHealthcare last December.

• In a 4 to 3 split ruling, the Georgia Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to hear Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' appeal to a lower court ruling removing her and her office from prosecuting the sprawling racketeering indictment against Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants for their alleged efforts to steal the 2020 Presidential election in the state. While a state commission may now assign the case to a different prosecutor, they may choose not to do so or the chosen prosecutor may choose to drop the election interference case entirely. Willis' removal stems from a lower court ruling which determined she had had an inappropriate romantic relationship with a fellow prosecutor on the case.

• On Monday, Donald Trump announced his latest laughable defamation lawsuit against a major media outlet. This time, it's a $15 billion case against the New York Times for reporting which Trump, apparently, doesn't like. Barber describes the 85-page suit [PDF] as absurd. "I honestly think that Saturday Night Live or somebody should do a comedy sketch where the whole thing should be read out loud," he tells me. "It's nuts." That said, so were the ridiculous defamation suits against ABC News and CBS News, both of which chose to settle with Trump at the insistence of their corporate parents. The Times, however, has no such corporate parent. "I hope they don't settle this," says Barber. "I would expect that not only would they prevail, but they'd also get back all of their legal expenses."

And finally today, we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report on our newly endless summers (no, it's not just your imagination); billions of taxpayer dollars being spent on new subsidies set for the fossil fuel industry, thanks to Trump and the Republicans' newly passed budget bill; and the surging success of renewable energy, lead by China, pretty much everywhere across the globe...except in the U.S...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Yikes. On today's BradCast, Trump's fascistic lawlessness is really taking hold this week in several areas...with a lot of help from his fellow corrupt Republicans. A few GOPers, however, who serve as election officials in Colorado, aren't having it. And we are grateful to them. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Lots of news today, and not much of it encouraging amid America's existential fight against Donald Trump's rising tyranny...

• Late last night, for the first time since 1999, in a simple majority vote that avoids the filibuster, Senate Republicans approved a Trump-requested package to rescind some $9 billion dollars in federal spending that had been previously approved through the bipartisan appropriations process. About $8 billion was to have been for foreign aid, and more than $1 billion was slashed from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting which helps fund NPR and PBS stations around the country. That is likely to kill a number of public radio and TV stations around the country entirely, particularly in rural areas which heavily rely on CPB support to continuing broadcasting over our public airwaves. After one more vote in the GOP House tonight or tomorrow, the bill heads to the President for his signature.

• Perhaps in hopes that it will somehow make up for Trump's refusal to release the "Epstein Files" (that he is almost certainly named in, many times), the Dept. of Justice in DC on Wednesday night ordered the firing of a top career federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York (SDNY). The longtime, very well respected prosecutor is Maurene Comey, prosecutor of the late Jeffrey Epstein's case, as well as his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell (who is currently serving 20 years for her part in Epstein's child sex trafficking scheme.) Comey --- whose "fear is the tool of the tyrant" statement to colleagues upon leaving is here --- also happens to be the daughter of Trump's imagined enemy, James Comey, the Republican FBI Director fired by Trump during his first term for his refusal to violate the law on Trump's behalf.

• In the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Democrats walked out after Republicans prematurely ended debate on the Appeals Court nomination of Emil Bove, one of Trump's criminal defense attorneys who is currently serving as a top DOJ official. Trump has nominated him for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. Since being tapped for a top job at DOJ, Bove has played a key role in the Department's dismissal of corruption charges against NYC's mayor; headed up weaponized mass revenge firings at the Department; threatened officials who resisted Trump's agenda; and, according to a mountain of on-the-record evidence from a DoJ whistleblower, instructed prosecutors to defy court orders in immigration cases. His nomination is opposed by hundreds of bipartisan prosecutors and judges. So, naturally, Trump wants him to have a lifetime appointment as a federal appeals court judge and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee were happy to approve his nomination today in a 12 to 0 vote after Dems walked out in protest.

• With unpopular Republicans desperate to hold on to their very narrow majority rule in Congress, so they can continue to abuse it, some are now turning to voter suppression schemes in advance of next year's critical mid-term elections. In Wyoming, where it is already unlawful for non-citizens to vote, its MAGA Sec. of State Chuck Gray is implementing a new requirement for physical proof of citizenship for voting. Voting rights advocates --- some of whom are suing --- argue that the new law is certain to disenfranchise thousands of otherwise eligible voters (particularly women, whose married names may not be reflected on papers such as passports, REAL IDs, birth certifications) in a state which, with the recent help of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, has been able to uncover exactly ZERO cases of noncitizen voting in the state's most populous county.

• But the most alarming news this week regarding the Trump White House's assault on voting rights and voters and elections and democracy itself this week, comes out of Colorado. On Thursday the Washington Post reported on what appears to have been a --- so far --- failed scheme to breach sensitive voting systems in 10 counties across the state. The Denver Post subsequently confirmed and added to the report. The clumsy plot appears remarkably similar to the one that resulted in the unlawful copying and theft of proprietary statewide voting and tabulation software by Trump allies in Coffee County, Georgia in early 2021. (We covered that story closely, and helped break some of it, on this show.) In Colorado, however, where Republican County election Clerks say they were contacted last week by someone said to be working for the White House, seeking access to the voting systems by DHS, all of them say they rejected the attempt. No doubt, memories are fresh in the state of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who is currently serving 9 years in prison related to having breached her own County's voting system hardware and software following the 2020 election. Much more on all of this on today's program.

• And, finally, as the "Summer of Floods" continues, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on that; a new NASA analysis on the dramatic, climate-fueled increase in extreme weather events; and on the Trump Dept. of Defense decision to cut off access to key satellites used in the forecasting of hurricanes...

Told ya today's news wasn't great. So..."enjoy" today's BradCast!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

A legal fight for the integrity and public oversight of elections in the Peach State has been running in federal court for nearly eight years now. As we've reported over those years here on The BradCast, it began long before Trump and his Republican MAGA stooges dreamt up their imaginary 'Stop the Steal' scheme to pretend the 2020 election was stolen from them. The long-running suit has highlighted vulnerabilities and revealed criminal actions along the way. But, as of last night, the case may have come to an end. Our guest today, however, a lead Plaintiff in the case, vows: "This fight is far from over." [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... The madness wrought by our last election continues today, however, as layoffs begin for thousands of workers in agencies overseen by the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS), now directed by vaccine conspiracist Bobby Kennedy, Jr. "The cuts include researchers, scientists, doctors, support staff and senior leaders, leaving the federal government without many of the key experts who have long guided U.S. decisions on medical research, drug approvals and other issues" at the CDC, NIH, FDA and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, among others, AP reports today. A coalition of Democratic state Attorneys General are now suing to block the scheme, which they describe as unlawful, charging it will result in "serious harm to public health" and put states "at greater risk for future pandemics and the spread of otherwise preventable disease, while cutting off vital public health services."

Raising attention to madness like that was just one of the reasons that New Jersey's Democratic U.S. Senator Corey Booker determined he needed to take and hold the floor of the U.S. Senate "as long as I am physically able." As of airtime, he was on the brink of breaking the all-time, 24-hour and 18-minute record for holding the Senate floor. Shortly after airtime today, he did so, before standing down after just over 25 hours. We share some of his remarks.

THEN... We've been waiting for this federal court ruling for more than a year since its 17-day trial in January of 2024. In fact, we've been waiting for it for almost eight years, since it was first filed in 2017, challenging Georgia's use of 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems. The state was the first, along with Maryland, to do so statewide back in 2002.

In 2019, the judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg, determined the state's Diebold touchscreen voting systems were so error-prone, unverifiable and vulnerable to manipulation, that she ordered they may no longer be used. In 2020, Georgia's current Sec. of State, Brad Raffensperger, defied voting system and cybersecurity experts who advised him to move the state to a hand-marked paper ballot system. Instead, with the blessing of former SoS, now Governor Brian Kemp, he moved to a new, unverifiable touchscreen voting system made by Dominion, at a price tag of more than $100 million to taxpayers. It has since proven to have many of the same vulnerabilities as the old Diebold systems. Last year's trial revealed many of those flaws.

But last night, well over a year since the trial in an Atlanta federal courtroom concluded, Judge Totenberg finally issued her 33-page ruling [PDF], lauding the plaintiffs for their "dedication to ensuring that Georgia's elections are conducted in a transparent, safe, and reliable manner," before dismissing the case entirely due to what she described as a lack of standing by the Plaintiffs to bring the suit in the first place. "Ultimately, Plaintiffs failed to establish at trial that Georgia's continued use of the [touchscreen Ballot Marking Device] will likely cause them to suffer a legally cognizable injury," she wrote in her order's Conclusion. "The Court therefore lacks jurisdiction to consider the merits of Plaintiffs' claims."

"Although Plaintiffs have not ultimately prevailed on their legal claims, their work has identified substantial concerns about the administration, maintenance, and security of Georgia's electronic in-person voting system," Totenberg ruled. "These investigative and educational efforts have prompted meaningful legislative action to bolster the transparency and accountability of Georgia's voting systems."

We're joined today --- as we have been many times over the years to discuss this case, and its many startling revelations and news-breaking findings --- by longtime election security and transparency champion, MARILYN MARKS, Founder and Executive Director of the non-profit good government group, Coalition for Good Governance, one of the case's lead Plaintiffs. Marks seemed as gobsmacked, confused and disappointed by all of this today as we were in the hours since last night's release of the judge's order.

"We haven't really absorbed this blow yet," she tells me. "After eight years to find out, 'Oh, you had no business to be here to begin with, here in court.'" Marks did her best, nonetheless, to explain the court's ruling. "She's basically said, 'You've got the right to vote. You've got the right to cast a ballot. But you don't have the right to know who you're voting for.'" That, a reference to the unreadable QR codes printed out on each ballot by Dominion's touchscreens, supposedly containing the voter's ballot selections. That QR code cannot be read or approved for accuracy by voters, however. Instead, they are asked to verify their selections on the human-readable portion of the computer-marked paper. But those selections are not used to tabulate election results.

Marks cites a 2022 race in which voters for Michelle Long-Spears, a candidate for Georgia's DeKalb County Commission, selected the candidate's name on the touchscreen, saw it on the computer-printed ballot as their selection, but could not tell that the QR Code actually registered a vote for her opponent.

Throughout the years-long course of this case, Marks, in her role as Plaintiff, helped reveal a number of troubling matters, from the fact (as demonstrated in court) that voters at the polling place are able to hack GA's Dominion touchscreens with no more than a ballpoint pen; to expert findings that resulted in a warning about these systems issued by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; to the tape-recorded confession she obtained from an Atlanta businessman who detailed his role in a scheme to unlawfully access and copy the code for the proprietary statewide voting system in Coffee County, GA, and share it over the Internet with fellow MAGAs after the 2020 election. That man, Scott Hall, was one of several criminal co-conspirators charged along with Donald Trump in Fani Willis' RICO case against him and 18 others. Hall, Sidney Powell and other Trumpers pleaded guilty. Marks was the one who first revealed the now notorious Coffee County breach during the course of the case that was dismissed last night.

"Back in her decision in the Fall of 2020," as part of this case, Marks explains today, "right before the 2020 election, [Judge Totenberg] was saying that with these [new Dominion] systems, it is a matter of when, not if, this system is going to be hacked. She talked about how it cannot be audited. She went through many, many warnings for the state, that essentially this was not a good system. She seemed to agree with us on the merits for the last eight years, but now says, 'You shouldn't have been here anyway.'"

Marks asserts that Totenberg appeared to agree with Plaintiffs on the merits throughout the case and its eventual trial, as attorneys for the State, representing Raffensperger, failed to rebut Plaintiff's many world-class voting system experts and their testimony. "I don't think I read anything where she felt that [Raffensperger] presented compelling facts. Our experts presented unrebutted facts. [The state's attorneys] really had nothing other than, 'You guys are election deniers. You don't have standing. Y'all haven't really been hurt.' There was really no rebuttal on the experts' findings."

In fact, despite claims by the State, the Plaintiffs in this case never challenged the results of any election. Rather, they presented an airtight case that the systems used in Georgia can be manipulated, violate voter secrecy rights, and can't be known to reflect the intent of any voter after an election. Those unrebutted facts, which Totenberg appears to have agreed with, were not enough to overcome her final ruling --- after nearly eight years and countless findings in favor of the Plaintiffs --- that they can't show they suffer any harm with the use of these systems.

Marks says she is still discussing the matter with attorneys, but suggested she may appeal the case to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals which has already, in a previous ruling in this case, agreed that Plaintiffs did, in fact, have standing.

For the record, Republican state lawmakers enacted a law last year that bars the use of QR Codes on ballots by 2026. Marks, however, explains why that provision is likely to put upcoming elections at legal risk and is unlikely be effectuated, as the state Legislature has, to date, failed to appropriate the nearly $70 million the law calls for to only somewhat correct Raffensperger's Touchscreen Follies.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the Trump Administration declares they will be shutting down FEMA (in this middle of this year's hurricane season!); is closing coal mine safety offices around the county; and overturning landmark fees on oil and gas drillers' climate-warming methane pollution...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)