News is coming in from every direction on today's BradCast, though there does seem to be a recurring theme throughout: a wholly corrupt Presidency. [Audio link to today's show follows this summary.]

Among today's delights...

• In the wake of another mass shooting yesterday in New York City, a Reuters exclusive finds the Trump Administration's Dept. of Justice cancelled tens of millions of dollars in gun violence prevention grants last April, as established in 2022 under Joe Biden via the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The DOJ has also cancelled tens of billions of dollars in grants for mental health programs. Thoughts and prayers are largely all that remain.

• Remember that tricked-out, $400+ million flying palace jumbo jet bribe that Donald Trump accepted (in violation of the Constitution's foreign emoluments clause) from Qatar to use as a "free" Air Force One? Looks like that "free" plane --- which Trump plans to keep for himself after leaving office --- is costing U.S. tax-payers about a billion dollars to ready for His Majesty's use. And it looks like Trump is now stealing that money from funding previously appropriated for maintaining and updating America's dilapidated Cold War-era intercontinental nuclear ballistic missile stockpile.

• Senate Republicans this week are fast-tracking approval of a lifetime appointment for Donald Trump's personal criminal defense attorney turned senior DOJ official, Emil Bove, to become a federal appeals court judge. That, after a third whistleblower came forward this week with yet more evidence regarding Bove's corruption at DOJ, including dismissal of corruption charges against the NYC Mayor, and Bove's instruction to DOJ prosecutors to violate court orders if necessary to advance Trump's unlawful mass deportation agenda. [Update: After airtime, just as I was getting ready to hit publish here, despite whistleblowers and scores of former judges warning against his appointment, Senate Republicans confirmed Bove for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.]

• The great satirical song writer Tom Lehrer died this week at the age of 97. We take the opportunity to enjoy a momentary respite from the rest of the day's madness to enjoy a couple of his wildly clever --- and often still timely --- tunes today.

• Today, just as Project 2025 called for, Trump's EPA Chief Lee Zeldin officially submitted a corrupt proposal to the White House for overturning the EPA's landmark 2009 "endangerment finding". The 2009 scientific finding currently serves as the legal underpinning for virtually all federal regulations meant to curb the greenhouse gasses that are warming the atmosphere at an alarming pace and creating deadly climate chaos. This is a very big deal, as we discuss today. Though I'm hoping to get into more of the legal ramifications of this move on tomorrow's program.

• Finally, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report documenting just some of the latest deadly effects around the world hastened by the unfettered burning of fossil fuels and the endangerment it causes the public, thanks to emission of climate warming gasses such as CO2 and methane. Oh, and Donald Trump (because he believes they mess up the view from his golf courses) is killing both clean, renewable wind energy projects and the tens of thousands of jobs that go with them...

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 appear to be heading toward a Republican-generated health care crisis cliff in the U.S. that neither the media nor the Democrats are talking about, for some reason. So, we do on today's BradCast. [Audio link to today's show follows this summary.]

You may be familiar with the more than one trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid that Republicans have now enacted in Donald Trump's so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA). That provision will take health care away from at least 10 million people beginning at the end of next year, according to recent analyses, but will also gut health care services and shut down rural hospitals almost immediately. "We are already seeing them cut staff, cut services, and even shut down because of these Medicaid cuts, even though many of those Medicaid cuts aren't in place right now," my guest explains today.

But, it's not just Medicaid. It's also MediCARE. Due to the OBBBA increasing the national debt by almost $3.5 trillion dollars (in order to help fund $4 trillion in tax cuts mostly to the wealthy), a 2010 law called "Pay As You Go" will automatically kick in on October 1, the start of the 2026 fiscal year, that will cut $500 billion from Medicare over the next ten years, beginning with a $50 billion cut next year alone. Unless, that is, Congress passes a law to waive the PAYGO law and passes it quickly. Hold that thought.

It's not just Medicaid and Medicare. It's also the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare). Because Republicans have failed to extend federal tax credits adopted by Joe Biden and the Democrats, which help lower monthly premiums and other costs, ACA enrollees across the country are about to see their out-of-pocket costs go up as much as 75% at the end of this year. Again, unless Congress passes a law to extend those subsidies.

In all --- without quick action from Republicans in Congress when they return in September --- we are about to see what could be an unprecedented health care coverage crisis in this country.

We're joined today by DAVID DAYEN, longtime financial journalist, author, and Executive Editor at The American Prospect. He has been flagging these issues for some time --- (here he is on the impending Medicare crisis; here he is last week on ACA) --- but it seems few in the media, or even the Democratic Party, are listening yet. They better start doing so, and soon. If nothing else, because Republicans need to be held accountable for this coming crisis.

He, like me, says he has yet to hear a peep about all of this out of D.C., where Congress is currently on summer vacation and otherwise consumed with Trump's continue Jeffrey Epstein scandal. But everyone seems certain to notice shortly, especially when some 30 million Americans using the ACA exchanges begin getting notices about premium increases in a month or so.

On the coming half trillion dollars in Medicare cuts, they are going into effect beginning in October if Congress doesn't act. "The interesting thing here is what Democrats are going to do about that," observes Dayen. "Because if you're going to get those Medicare cuts averted, you're probably going to need the support of [Republicans] to do that. So the question then becomes: are Democrats going to let Republicans lie in the bed that they made? Or are they going to act to protect seniors and avert the consequences of what Republicans put forward in this 'Big Beautiful Bill'?"

"Democrats will hold the key --- you need 60 votes to do it [in the Senate] --- so Democrats will hold the key to being able to waive those cuts. So what are Democrats going to say? 'Ok, you want to waive those cuts? What are you going to give me for that? Are you going to repeal some of the Medicaid cuts? Some of the food stamp cuts? What are you going to do in order for me to agree to help you out, to get you out of the mess, Republicans, that you have created with this bill?'"

He argues Dems should "exact a price for that," noting, "there are very few moments where they have had leverage in this Congress, and this would be one of them."

Unless action is taken on all of these front, Dayen asserts, he believes it "is going to cause a catastrophic situation for the health care system in general."

Much more on today's show. And, on the back half of today's program...

• Some good news from a U.S. District Court judge in Boston who has blocked the OBBBA's "unconstitutional" ban on Medicaid funding for patients who use Planned Parenthood health care facilities.
• Some surprisingly good news from SCOTUS (of all places!), which has, for now, blocked a lower court ruling that imagined up a reason for blocking private individuals and voting rights organizations from filing lawsuits under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
• And we open the phone to a few callers to round out the day...

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 got another mix of good, horrible and hilarious news for the world and the nation today. Ya know, just another day on The BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows summary.]

Tune in for the juiciest of details, as I'm short on time this evening, but among our stories today...

• The U.N.'s International Court of Justice (ICJ), sometimes known as the world court, issued a landmark climate change-related ruling on Wednesday. The unanimous decision --- finding, among other things, that a healthy environment is, indeed, a human right --- comes in response to a lawsuit brought by the island nation of Vanuatu. The tiny South Pacific state is already facing an existential threat from a convergence of brutal, climate-driven forces, including quickly rising seas, flooded coastal communities preparing to migrate inland, saltwater contaminated drinking water, a dying coral reef system and multiple Category 4+ cyclones in recent years. The ICJ determined that wealthy countries, and the private companies within them (which those nations are accountable for), must abide by international commitments to curb planet warming gasses or risk having to pay restitution and compensation to poorer nations that are not responsible for the consequences of decades of unfettered burning of fossil fuels. The surprisingly good unanimous ruling, confirming again the existential threat of climate change, is likely to be cited in thousands of climate-related lawsuits currently working their way through courts in some 60 nations around the world.

• Back here in the U.S. --- historically the world's largest emitter of climate warming gasses through the burning of fossil fuels --- the Trump Administration is currently in the process of undermining the Biden Administration's transition to cheaper, clean, renewable energy as called for by the IJC. Making matters even worse, this week, Trump's FEMA rejected Maryland's application for about $16 million in federal disaster aid following extraordinary flooding caused by climate-driven extreme rainfall in May. Trump's rejection of disaster assistance to a state which voted for his opponent in last year's Presidential election, came the day after the petty little tyrant approved FEMA aid to four other states that did vote him. For the record, the most affected counties in MD, are heavily Republican-leaning.

• Donald Trump's ham-fisted attempted cover-up of his longtime friendship with the late sex-trafficking pedophile Jeffrey Epstein continues to drive the news out of D.C. this week. We've got a lot to cover on this particular beat today, as we catch up with a deposition from 2010 in which Epstein was asked about whether he and Trump "socialized" with girls under the age of 18; as the Wall Street Journal reports that Trump was informed by his Attorney General in May that he was named "multiple times" in the "Epstein Files" (which he directly lied about to reporters just last week); as several MAGA Republicans in Congress vote to subpoena the DOJ for Epstein documents and convicted Epstein accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, for testimony; and as Trump sends his criminal defense attorney turned #2 at DOJ down to speak to Maxwell in Florida...for some reason. We've got a ton of stuff on all of that and related news today, as we try to explain what is and isn't going on, and set expectations for where things are likely headed in this matter.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with more on Wednesday's landmark world court ruling; new U.N. analyses finding that cheap, clean, renewable energy is booming and at a tipping point around the globe, if not yet here in the U.S. thanks to a Trump Administration working hard to Make America Polluted Again...

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!)

Given the amount of madness now under way, particularly regarding Trump's Epstein problems --- much of that, thankfully, hilarious --- it seemed another good moment on The BradCast to once again send up our Digby/Driftglass Signal! Happily, they answered the call. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

With an avalanche of incoming, we've got a lot of ground to cover on today's program. So, our OG blogger pals --- HEATHER DIGBY PARTON Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo, and the pseudonymous 'DRIFTGLASS' of the Professional Left Podcast --- generously join us for the full hour to try and make some sense of it all.

Among the many stories discussed today...

• Donald Trump's hilariously ham-fisted attempts at covering up his long-running role in the life of his former bestie and late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, are become more transparently ridiculous by the day. Driftglass describes it as "Stupid Watergate," where even the MAGA supporters are finally catching on. What took them so long? "This is a cult that we are dealing with" after all, Digby reminds.

  There is a lot of news wrapped into that one story alone to keep us busy today. But, no, neither Digby nor Driftglass believe Speaker Mike Johnson's gambit to recess the U.S. House early for the rest of Summer to avoid demands for votes to release the "Epstein Files" (which Johnson himself favored just last week) is going to make any of this go away or get better for Trump. Digby explains why. And it may, as the pair seem to concur, be the "load-bearing lie", finally knocked down, that does to the Trump Presidency what Hurricane Katrina did to George W. Bush's.

• One of Trump's latest attempts at distraction from his ever-growing Epstein woes was to declare this week that "Barack Hussein Obama" (and Hillary Clinton) have been caught dead to rights in a "coup" to steal the 2016 Presidential election! The one that Trump won. What is the "irrefutable proof" Trump claims has been newly uncovered by his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revealing that, as Trump charged yesterday, "Obama was sedatious"? (His actual word.) Well, it takes all of us on today's program to even muster a guess at what the hell any of them are talking about. (Even folks on the Right who previously decried "RussiaGate" aren't impressed.) But, sure. Here's the evidence. They finally caught Obama!

  Whatever the supposed crime is "doesn't matter because there's nothing there," explains Driftglass. "There is no conspiracy. It simply exists as a bright shiny object to distract from the fact that Donald Trump is covering up a pedophile business that his dead best friend ran, with Donald Trump's knowledge, consent, and approval. That's it. That's the only reason this is happening. It will be another distraction next week and another one after that if this one doesn't work."

• In somewhat darker news, we also try to make sense of the firing (next year, anyway) of Stephen Colbert by Paramount/CBS on the heels of a $16 million settlement paid by the company to Trump as an obvious attempt to win his FCC's approval for a merger with a company named Skydance.

  "The big overview here is that all these institutions have been caving," laments Digby. "Whether it's Big Law, universities, these big media companies settling with Trump, basically paying bribes to get what they want. "The fact that [Colbert's firing] happened within days of the settlement --- if it wasn't part of the settlement, or if they just decided to throw it in as a little treat for Trump to make him happy --- either way, it's a horrible thing. And it's happening throughout our culture."

  "All we've got are the comedians," she argues, echoing her column today at Salon. "The only people who have what it takes to speak truth to power in our whole damn culture. And that is a pathetic realization."

• All of which brings us to our final topic of discussion today, based on an email I received earlier this week, calling me out for describing Trump as a "wannabe-dictator" instead of a flat-out dictator. His argument, which I share today, was sound, and my guests tended to agree with him. (Trump's "a fascist," asserts Driftglass. "Coming up with an accurate definition of what is happening right now is important, because it gives us a place to stand and start.") But I think I'm gonna be sticking with "wannabe" by and large right now. I explain why on today's lively, funny and sometimes appropriately grim 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!)

Democrats are hoping for a "Blue Wave" in next year's critical mid-term elections, as Trump's approval numbers continue to fall around the nation. But Republicans, at their corrupt President's direction, are working on a scheme to hold on to their slim House majority next year, come hell or high voter turnout. Our guest on today's BradCast explains why the GOP plot may work. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... Last week, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called for full transparency in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the late pedophile, sex-trafficker and years-long best friend of Donald Trump. "I'm for transparency. We're intellectually consistent on this," Johnson told a rightwing podcaster after being asked about releasing the Epstein Files, as Trump had long promised during last year's campaign. "We should put everything out there and let the people decide," the Speaker said.

That was before, apparently, he'd heard that Trump had reversed course, and was now blocking the release of those files, for some reason, despite considerable push-back from his own MAGA supporters.

Today, rather than allowing a vote on a non-binding resolution calling on the Dept. of Justice to release the files in question, Johnson ditched plans to hold votes on a number of issues and announced instead that the House would recess early for their planned August recess. They will finish business tomorrow and not return until September.

A number of MAGA Republicans in Congress, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) and Thomas Massie (KY), are none too happy about that. Suffice to say, Johnson's plan is unlikely to give Trump the "space" that he said the President deserves to figure out how to proceed on this "delicate" matter. So much for Johnson's continuing promises lies to provide "maximum transparency."

THEN... Texas' Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has convened a Special Session of the state's Legislature this week. Not in order to respond to the chain of failures in the state that resulted in the flash flooding deaths of at least 135 people on July 4th, including dozens of children camping on the banks of the Guadalupe River. Lawmakers may discuss that as well. But Abbott, at the command of Donald Trump, has called them back to Austin for the "emergency" of redrawing the state's already-gerrymandering U.S. House maps in order to elect more Republicans in advance of next year's mid-term elections.

The GOP state delegation already holds twice as many seats as Democrats in the U.S. House. But, with a razor-thin margin in the lower chamber in what could be a rough year for Republicans, Trump, Abbott and the GOP are hoping to flip as many as five more seats from "blue" to "red" in the Lone Star State next year. The plan is to further disenfranchise state voters by preventing even more of them from electing representatives of their choosing --- particularly minority voters.

Some Democrats are suggesting the TX scheme could backfire. They argue that the Republican plan to adjust Congressional district lines to move more GOP voters into Democratic districts may result in otherwise safe Republican seats flipping to Dems in a wave election, a concept recently referred to as "dummymandering".

Moreover, Dems are said to be considering answering the Republican effort by carrying out their own mid-decade gerrymandering in states they control state, such as New York, New Jersey, California, Minnesota, Washington state and/or Illinois.

We're joined today by longtime redistricting expert, historian and author, DAVID DALEY of the nonprofit FairVote. He details the GOP plan and why he believes that the Democratic Party's efforts to respond to it is likely too little and too late.

Daley, the author of three books on gerrymandering, including last year's best-seller, Antidemocratic: Inside the Right's 50 Year Plan to Control American Elections, throws cold water on the idea that GOP 'dummymandering' may ultimately benefit Democrats. He authored a detailed article explaining his position this week at Salon, where he formerly served as Editor-in-Chief.

"Democrats are talking about dummymanders, not because they think it is actually going to happen," he tells me today, "but because they have no other ability to stop this except to try to scare [Republicans]."

But, he continues, "this is not going to scare Republicans, because they've got the best map-makers on the planet. Not a single Republican map has backfired in a single election in any Republican gerrymandered state in the modern era of redistricting, ever since technology and voter data supercharged these lines. It hasn't happened once, anywhere. The lines are too strong, the mapmakers are too good, too smart, too specific, and too precise. If Democrats are counting on Republicans to enact a dummymander, the dummies are them."

Okay. Then how about the Dem plan to carry out mid-decade gerrymanders in states that they control in order to flip some seats from "red" to "blue"? Tune in for Daley's full thoughts on that, and why he believes that "it's the Democrats that would risk a dummymander" in the process.

We also discuss the legal underpinnings for all of this ("It's always a delight to me to see exactly when it is that Republicans and a Republican Dept. of Justice get upset about gerrymandering. It tends to be when they think that districts might actually be drawn that gives somebody other than a white dude a chance of winning."); how the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court has supercharged the ability for Republicans to undermine democracy itself; and what, if anything, can possibly be done in the future to end this apparent race to democracy's bottom.

FINALLY... As the nation sweats, and burns, and floods this Summer, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on all of the above, and the astounding cost to the nation, over the past year alone, of climate change-related damages...

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 is not some dystopian Orwellian future. It is now. Our wannabe-dictator President is --- successfully! --- assaulting and undermining free speech and press freedoms left and right, public and private. On today's BradCast we connect those dots and open the phone lines over your public airwaves (while we still have access to them!), to discuss all of that and what can be done about it. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Sure, discussing the fact that Donald Trump's name is likely all over the so-called "Epstein Files" is fun too. But, if all of the major news outlets which might report on that are systematically shut down or intimidated into pulling their punches, what then?

Shortly after taking office, Trump unlawfully shut down Voice of America and its sister networks. They are funded and mandated by Congress --- by law --- to broadcast "accurate, objective, and comprehensive" news and information around the globe in dozens of languages to hundreds of millions of listeners, often in authoritarian nations without any other access to a free press. The truth about what is happening to our government must not get out to the rest of the world, apparently.

Last week, his Trump's cowardly Congressional Republicans took the rare step of rescinding $1.1 billion --- two years of previously appropriated, bipartisan funding --- from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund NPR radio and PBS television stations across the country. That loss of funding will be particularly painful to small stations in rural areas that perform critical, often life-saving functions for their communities. That, after Trump sought the Congressional rescission by lying about the CPB, describing the private entity as a left-wing "monstrosity". (Even if they were, which they are not, it would still be an outrageous violation of the Constitution's First Amendment freedom of the press mandates.)

That move came the week after CBS, currently owned by Paramount, agreed to a ridiculous $16 million settlement with Trump in a lawsuit he filed over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris last year. The suit would have been laughed out of court had it ever got there. But Paramount needs Trump's FCC to approve a buyout by a rightwing company named Skydance. And so, in Stephen Colbert's words early last week on CBS's The Late Show, Paramount agreed to give Trump a "big fat bribe" to make the absurd lawsuit go away.

Two days later, CBS announced The Late Show would be shutting down entirely after next season for "financial reasons". On Friday morning, Trump celebrated the "firing" of Colbert --- the nation's top-rated late night host and long-time Trump critic --- by crowing, "I absolutely love that Colbert got fired," before adding: "I hear [ABC's] Jimmy Kimmel is next." (ABC and its owner Disney previously settled a similarly ridiculous defamation suit with Trump for similarly cowardly and corrupt reasons.)

Skydance's purchase of Paramount should now go very smoothly with Trump's corrupt federal government. The company's CEO, a Trump supporter, met with Trump's FCC Chair last week and noted, according to documents filed by the company in support of the merger, that they "discussed Skydance’s commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS’s editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers." That, just days after Skydance held early acquisition talks to buy a far-right media outlet.

While Trump is killing public media, in the form of the 80+ year old Voice of America and its Congressionally-mandated sister networks, as well as clawing back previously approved bipartisan federal funding for NPR and PBS (the tiniest drop in the bucket in a federal budget that, as of July 4, guts health care and food assistance to millions, while giving $4 trillion in tax cuts, largely to the wealthy, while exploding the national debt by $3.4 trillion), he is also taking down major commercial broadcast outlets, their newsrooms, and even their entertainment divisions that dare to tell the truth about Donald Trump.

Moreover, it's no longer only outlets perceived as "liberal" that Trump is abusing his power to target. On Friday, Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against Wall Street Journal, its parent company News Corp. (which also owns Fox "News"), its owner Rupert Murdoch, and two WSJ journalist who reported last week on a birthday card that Trump allegedly penned to his former longtime friend, sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday. The card is said to include a hand-drawn sketch of a woman, signed by Trump, along with comments about the “wonderful secrets” the two men purportedly shared. That, as Trump is taking fire --- even from MAGA --- for blocking the Dept. of Justice from releasing hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence and video recordings said to document the 2019 criminal indictment of Epstein, and an unknown number of references that may implicate his longtime bestie, Donald Trump.

This is not a warning about a potential attack and an attempted undermining of the American free press. It is a loud, blaring alarm that it is ALREADY underway, and is likely to go much further still , unless we all stand up against it. All of us.

In the second part of today's show we open up the phone lines --- and our public airwaves --- to callers on all of the above...

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!)

We don't do a lot of "culture war" stuff on The BradCast. But today we just can't help ourselves when it comes to the hilarious --- literally Nazi-like --- MAGA and Fox "News" attack on what they were describing last week in advance of its release, as a new "woke" Superman movie. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST UP... Some quick news on the reported results from yesterday's Special Primary Elections in Arizona's 7th U.S. House district, in the contest to fill the seat vacated by Raul Grijalva who died in March after serving more than 20 years in Congress. On the Democratic side, his 54-year old progressive daughter, longtime Tuscon official, Adelita Grijalva appears to have easily won a 5-way race. On the GOP side, a private painting contractor, Daniel Butierez, easily won a three-way contest, though he is a long-shot to win the September Special General Election in the deep "blue" 7th CD that runs across the southern border of the state.

ALSO... While everyone (justifiably?) has their eyes on Donald Trump's hilariously bizarre falling out this week with his own MAGA supporters over his Administration's refusal to release the "Epstein Files", tens of thousands of federal workers are being systematically laid off from American institutions such as the Departments of State, Education, and Health and Human Services following several corrupt, opinion-free, pro-Trump, emergency docket rulings from the Supreme Court's corrupted rightwing activist majority.

THEN... In the hours prior to the "Epstein Files" explosion of recent days, MAGA and their representatives on Fox "News" had found their newest all-American institution to turn against. From the NFL to Barbie to Budweiser in years past, last week's turn was against another one of the most American of American institutions: Superman.

Apparently MAGA and Fox "News" wrath against a supposedly "woke" Man of Steel was touched off by comments from James Gunn, the director of the new Superman film, in advance of its weekend release

"'Superman' is the story of America," explained Gunn quite reasonably. "An immigrant that came from other places and populated the country. But for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost."

And, with that rather anodyne remark, a thousand MAGA Fox "News" heads exploded, leading to show after show, panel after panel, whining about a "Superwoke" movie that they had yet to see. Former Senior Trump White House Advisor Kellyanne Conway was bereft, because "we don't go to the movie theater to be lectured to and to have somebody throw their ideology on to us." Others on Fox complained: "We're being told not to love our country"; "This is a pro-immigration movie!"; "They are blowing the Superman franchise!" Really? With a kind and pro-immigrant Superman? The kind that has always existed since his creation in the 1930s?

Of course, all of that is absurd, as our guest today, NICHOLAS GROSSMAN, National Security and Political Science Professor at the University of Illinois explained in an article last week headlined, "Why MAGA Hates Superman". It's sub-title offers a hint as to why: "He stands for truth, justice, and an American way that Trump is tearing down".

In fact, as we discuss with Grossman today, Superman has always been both pro-immigrant and pro-diversity, as the WWII-era creation of Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, two Jewish kids from Ohio, one an immigrant himself, the other the son of immigrants. They invented the character of a literal "alien" who came to America with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, but who attempted to blend in. He used his powers for good, in a never-ending battle for truth, justice and, according to the 1950's Adventures of Superman TV show, the American Way.

Superman battled Nazis during the war and the KKK in the years that followed. A 1949 poster for schools instructed kids that "like our country", their schools are "made up of Americans of many different races, religions and national origins." He goes on to tell the group of multiracial children: "If YOU hear anybody talk against a schoolmate or anyone else because of his religion, race or national origin—don't wait: tell him THAT KIND OF TALK IS UN-AMERICAN."

No wonder MAGA and Fox "News" have decided to hate this guy. He stands for American values that literal Nazis --- in a 1940 newspaper for Hitler's elite SS troops during World War II --- tried to disparage with comments very similar to those heard last week on Fox!

None of this is new or suggests some sort of a newly "woke" Supes. This is what he has been all along. So why did the MAGA Right react this way last week, before the movie opened nonetheless to boffo box office numbers?

"The core feature of fascism is to misremember, to have this nostalgic, not accurate version of the past and to say that we have lost that and we need to get back to it," Grossman tells me. "But that thing that they are trying to get back to was never real, never really happened. You can see this in many different variations on different fascist systems."

"They're misremembering Superman. He has always been pro-diversity, pro-immigrant. He's always been someone who fights for and cares about and protects the weak against the powerful." And, perhaps worst of all, Grossman observes, "the main villain, Lex Luthor, is a billionaire."

"The reason why Superman was so iconic and why it fits so well into that old slogan of 'Truth, Justice and the American Way,' is because things like immigration and diversity were the American way. So, Superman was representing the American way. It's only this MAGA fictional past that they are trying to get back to that is saying otherwise."

"Superman is a nice guy," argues Grossman. "It's only this made-up version that they somehow have in their head that Superman in the past was, I don't know, like a white supremacist nationalist, somehow?"

Much more on all of this in a fun conversation with Grossman today, on how this idiocy highlights how the Christian Rights is opposed to empathy; on how that allows them to support deportations and violations of due process rights; on how their own cult leader, Donald Trump, is the very "opposite of Superman" as MAGA is attempts "to rewrite the American story."

It's a fascinating conversation! And I promise, if you haven't yet seen the new Superman movie (it's fun!), we will give away NO SPOILERS!

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: Like everywhere else in the federal government, the Trump Administration's IRS seems determined to undermine decades of the rule of law. Specifically, 75-years of tax law as it regards elections and the separation between church and state. But why would he stop there? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

A few headlines before we get to today's main story...

• A lively Democratic primary election was underway on Tuesday in Arizona's 7th Congressional District for a Special Election to fill the vacant seat of Democratic Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who passed away in March. Among the five candidates running are Grijalva's 54-year old daughter and a 25-year old political influencer. Both are progressives, as the race appears more about generational change than ideology. Republicans are holding a three-way primary as well today, in the geographically large and otherwise very "blue" district stretching into Tucson and across the southern border of the state.

• New figures from the Dept. of Labor out today find consumer prices rising again, as Donald Trump's inflationary tariffs begin to take hold, just as pretty much all legit economists had long warned. The overall rate ticked up to 2.7% in June after clocking in at 2.4% the month prior. Trump has promised still larger tariffs in the weeks ahead, even as he pressures the Fed to lower interest rates --- which could further spike inflation.

• Both the New York Times and Washington Post recently filed stories focused on implementation of new tax policy by the Administration following the Trump/GOP budget law that is now set to slash more than $4 trillion in taxes, mostly for the wealthy. The Times highlights Ken Kies, the longtime corporate lobbyist who Trump has tapped to head-up tax policy at the Treasury Department. After decades helping the ultra-rich and major corporations dodge taxes, Kies --- who was approved last month on a party-line vote in the Senate --- will now be able to adapt those tax-cheating skills to writing policy for the federal government itself.

• THEN... Speaking of both taxes and election, we're joined by Professor ELLEN APRILL, longtime, recently retired tax law expert at Loyola Law School, now Senior Scholar in Residence for Philanthropy and Nonprofits at the UCLA School of Law.

  Last week, lawyers for Trump's Internal Revenue Service filed a stunning settlement agreement [PDF] in court, in a case filed against the government by several Texas churches and a group of religious broadcasters. The agreement, if accepted by the court, would allow houses of worship to endorse political candidates, despite their tax-exempt nonprofit status.

  The settlement would, at least for the specific challengers in this case, block the 75-year old Johnson Amendment which mandates that churches and other nonprofits may not participate in "any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."

  That news was reported last week with much fanfare, suggesting the Trump Administration's IRS had declared it lawful for churches to endorse political candidates from the pulpit. The truth is not quite as awful...thought it's close. And it could quickly get worse if this agreement is approved by the judge in this case.

  "Technically, it is not a new statement of general application from the IRS," Aprill tells me today. "It is simply a settlement of a particular case involving two plaintiffs --- two churches and the National Religious Broadcasters --- and if the judge were to rule the way that the government and the plaintiffs have asked, it would enjoin enforcement of the Johnson Amendment for statements during worship [but] only for these two churches."

  But, as Aprill told the New York Times last week, "Even Las Vegas doesn’t stay in Las Vegas these days." The agreement on its own, if finalized, does not set legal precedent, she explains. But it may help to clear that path moving forward. And, in the meantime, she notes, it wouldn't just apply to places of worship communicating with their members --- like “a family discussion concerning candidates --- as the IRS motion characterized it. It could be used to endorse candidates on web sites run by churches with tens of thousands of members and, of course, millions of viewers across the country.

  Moreover, non-religious 501(c)(3) nonprofits are likely to soon say, "I don't know why you can do it for them, and not for me," warns Aprill. "They are really arguing for expanding the rule, not taking it away from houses of worship."

  It could also lead, she worries, to "faux churches, faux houses of worship, being formed just to get the tax deductible contributions" since "unlike other 501(c)(3)s, houses of worship do not have to file to become tax exempt, they do not have to file the annual information return that other 501(c)(3)s do."

  As if we don't have enough Dark Money in our electoral system already, this Administration --- led by a President who, in 2017, vowed to "get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment" --- seems hell bent (pun intended) on corrupting what's left of our democracy even further.

• FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as deadly flash flooding spreads throughout the U.S.; as Kristi Noem and FEMA faces questions about their failures during horrific July 4th flooding in Texas; and as a National Park treasure is lost in a wildfire over the weekend that park officials allowed to burn on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon...

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: As it turns out, Americans who voted for Trump because they supported his promise of mass deportation and detention of "the worst of the worst", don't like what that actually looks like now that it is happening --- especially now that they see that those being rounded up are usually anything but the "worst of the worst". They are often people they live and work with. And, in more and more cases, actually U.S. citizens. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among today's coverage...

• New polling from Gallup finds support for immigration skyrocketing to a near 25-year high, with almost 80% of Americans now seeing it as a "good thing" for the country. That's a 15-point increase in support from from just one year ago, when anti-immigrant sentiment helped put Donald Trump back in office with a vote by a minority of Americans. Just 2 in 10 Americans now see immigration as a bad thing, down 32% since last year. The changes in outlook are almost entirely due to shifting support from Republicans and independent voters whose views have changed along with the violent, indiscriminate ICE round-up tactics by the Administration.

• Tossing U.S. citizen children into detention lock-up for weeks at a time --- in violation of federal policy --- probably doesn't help either. That includes, California to Florida are now condemning the Trump Administration tactics and standing with their terrified immigrant communities. Ya know, like Jesus would.

• All of that comes on the heels of a U.S. District Court in Southern California on Friday issuing a ruling meant to block the "roving patrols" being carried out by ICE, with arrests often based on little more than physical appearance, the language that targets speak, or the jobs they hold (at car-washes, farms and day laborers in Home Depot parking lots). Targeting suspected unlawful migrants without "reasonable suspicion" must temporarily stop in seven counties in and around Los Angeles, the judge ruled. The White House, of course, condemned the ruling and, naturally, has vowed to to appeal.

Then, we open up the phones to callers with some good thoughts and excellent questions about all of that; about the Trump Administration's about-face on releasing "The Epstein Files"; and 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!)

Yes, we are under a fascistic, authoritarian takeover of the United States. Yes, it can be frightening. But our wannabe authoritarians also happen to be clowns and fools and incompetent buffoons, and should be called out at such. And so we do on today's BradCast, even while our best chance to kick these degenerates to history's curb remains at the ballot box. Which is why they are fighting so hard to game it. Again. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Trump's EPA reverses its position to do the right thing after all regarding the Biden Administration's ban of cancer-causing asbestos? Can it really be true?

• Donald Trump meets with African leaders at the White House, admires the Liberian President's excellent English and wonders how he learned to speak it so "beautifully". (Spoiler: English is the official language of Liberia.)

• As recovery efforts continue following deadly flash flooding last Friday in Texas (and on Sunday in North Carolina, and on Tuesday in New Mexico), dullard DHS Sec. Kristi Noem convenes a meeting to discuss the Admin's stated plans for dismantling FEMA entirely. Her argument for doing so this week? A report that she claims reveals that FEMA's response to the 2023 wildfires in Maui, Hawaii was so bad that "one in six survivors were forced to trade sexual favors...for just basic supplies." But that's not what the report claims at all, and one of its authors calls Noem's interpretation a "gross manipulation" of their work.

• Native American voters won a 2023 trial challenging North Dakota's racially gerrymandered legislative maps. But then the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out their 2023 victory, claiming the challengers lacked standing to sue because Article 2 of the Voting Rights Act doesn't explicitly allow individual groups or voters to challenge violations of the Act. Only the Dept. of Justice may do so, according to the 8th Circuit, despite decades of rulings to the contrary in the 60 years since passage of the VRA. The court's ruling last year now prevents private suits against discriminatory election laws in the seven states (Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota) comprising the 8th Circuit. On Wednesday, the tribes announced they were filing for a stay at the Appeals Court, as they intend to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

• Speaking of racial gerrymandering, on Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott --- even as recovery efforts continue on the Guadalupe River where more than 100 are now dead and 160 still missing following Friday's flash-flooding --- wants the state legislature to convene a special session to...redistrict U.S. House seats in the state. TX Republicans already hold twice as many Congressional seats as Dems in the already-gerrymandered state. But the Trump White House and its corrupted DOJ have been pressuring TX to carry out a rare, mid-decade redrawing of its Congressional map in order to make four Democratic, minority-held seats around Houston and Dallas less...um...colorful. Abbott appears happy to oblige...

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with more on flash flooding in four U.S. states, in the North, South, East and West over the past week alone; thousands now dead from an extreme heat wave in Europe; and new warnings from experts that no country is currently prepared for the climate impacts to come...

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!)

The Madness of King Donald's massive, recently signed tax cut and spending law continues to be a focus on today's BradCast. As does his madness and non-stop lying, in general, and the deadly climate disasters that continue to worsen by the day, coincidentally, following adoption of the Republican anything-but-beautiful bill that guts U.S. investment in cheap, clean, climate saving, renewable energy. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Before we get to our guest today, some quick news items, including...

• A few independently verifiable fact-checks on the mountain of a lies told by Donald Trump during Tuesday's ridiculous, televised "Cabinet Meeting" at the White House, including several of his falsehoods regarding inflation, his tariff policy, his massive spending bill, China's use of wind energy, California's clean and reliable power grid, and more.

• The climate chaos continues seemingly unabated this week. First it was record deadly flash-flooding in Texas on Friday. Then record deadly flash-flooding on Sunday in North Carolina. And, on Tuesday, deadly flash-flooding in Ruidoso, New Mexico, in an area scarred by wildfires and flooding just last year. (Also, Chicago saw a months worth of rain in about 90 minutes on Tuesday, stranding vehicles, triggering rescues, etc.) The Fox "News" Weather website had fairly good coverage in their story headlined: "Deadly walls of water pummel communities across three states in just one week, spawn unprecedented devastation". But, can you guess what they forgot to even mention in their coverage of all of that deadly climate-fueled chaos in less than one week? Right. Not a single mention of the manmade global warming and climate change which exacerbated the chaos, made it more likely, more intense and, sadly, more and more deadly.

THEN... We are joined by RYAN COOPER, Managing Editor at The American Prospect, who (presciently?) filed a story late last month about how climate-fueled disasters cost the U.S. almost a trillion dollars over the past year, far outpacing estimates even by Nobel Prize winning economists. And that was before the seemingly non-stop disasters of the past week.

It was also before Donald Trump gutted much of Joe Biden and the Democrats' landmark Inflation Reduction Act investments in clean, renewable energy, as Trump did when he signed the GOP budget monstrosity last Friday. Imagine how much farther the trillion dollars of damage from last year alone could have gone if it had been used to combat climate change instead.

"This is the real irony of what is happening here," Cooper explains today. "President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act was expected to cost about a trillion dollars in spending over ten years...a really big policy. But economic analysis now indicates that repealing that and replacing it with coal subsidies and whatnot [as the Trump/GOP law does] isn't going to boost GDP, it's going to reduce it. It's going to hurt economic growth." And, of course, the climate.

"Now that solar panels and batteries have gotten so cheap, this is the best way to drive economic growth. So we're cutting off our nose to spite our face. We're allowing China to monopolize the industries of the 21st century, while the American auto industry is going to be stranded, using obsolete technology, while China takes over the rest of the world with dirt cheap electric vehicles. So much for America First."

Cooper argues: "It's just completely senseless in way that's almost impossible to describe what Republicans have done to America and to the American economy. And the world, too."

But the gutting of clean energy investment is hardly the only under-reported absurdity in Trump's big bill. While there has been much coverage of its trillion dollars worth of cuts to health care via Medicaid, much less reportage has been given to the fact that --- unless Congress adopts a fix, and quickly --- as much as $500 billion will be cut from MediCARE as well over the next ten years, including $50 billion over the next year alone.

All of that to help pay for $4 trillion in tax cuts to mostly wealthy people, at the additional cost of $3 trillion added to the national debt.

Cooper and TAP's David Dayen this week rounded up even more under-reported idiocy from the Trump/GOP megabill, that we finally find time to cover today, including ten bizarre items hidden in the bill, such as its perverse incentives for states to defraud the SNAP food stamp program; a provision that exempts oil and gas drilling companies from paying taxes at all; and something that Cooper and Dayen refer to as "The Mass Shooter Subsidy". (Yes, it's as outrageously stupid as it sounds...)

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: Trump's authoritarianism receives yet another greenlight from his corrupted SCOTUS just days after he signed a budget bill that makes ICE larger than the entire militaries of many countries. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Sorry in advance for the less than cheery news on much of today's program. We don't invent it. We just report it...

• Last week, the Trump Administration's Environmental Protection Agency took a huge swing at the First Amendment's Constitutional free speech "guarantees" when it placed about 140 staffers on leave. Their crime? Signing their names on a letter to EPA chief Lee Zeldin, detailing concerns about the current direction of the agency, including its use of misinformation and implementation of a dangerous partisan agenda that contradicts science and "undermines the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment". A Trump EPA spokesperson described the dissenters, now facing investigations, as "unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration’s agenda."

• Today, just before air, in an unsigned opinion [PDF] issued on the so-called "shadow docket", Donald Trump's corrupted SCOTUS overturned lower district and appeals court rulings that had previously blocked the Administration's mass layoffs of hundreds of thousands of government workers across dozens of agencies. The ruling came as part of a lawsuit filed by dozens of unions, non-profits and local governments which argue that only Congress, not the President, can order agency-crippling layoffs. The challengers had won injunctions in the lower courts to prevent the layoffs until after the suit had been fully heard. Today, SCOTUS said there is no need to wait because, contrary to the lower court rulings, the Justices believe the Government "is likely to succeed on its argument." Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of workers at the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Labor, Treasury, State, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, the EPA and elsewhere are now expected to be permanently laid off, even as the trial continues to play out in the lower courts.

• On Monday, scores of fully-armed and camouflaged federal immigration agents --- apparently led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CPB) --- along with members of the U.S. military, descended upon MacArthur Park here in Los Angeles in armored vehicles and on horseback to take over the nearly empty park. It's unclear if any migrants were actually detained at all. But the ridiculous display was code-named "Operational Excalibur" and meant as a conspicuous "show of presence", according to internal Army documents obtained by national security journalist Ken Klippenstein.

  The ostentatious show of force comes just days after Donald Trump signed a massive spending and tax cut bill that will gut health care and food assistance to millions of Americans; slash renewable energy initiatives meant to combat climate change; give huge tax cuts mostly to wealthy people; while increasing the national debt by about $3 trillion.

  But the new law will also, as JOSH KOVENSKY, investigative journalist at Talking Points Memo joins us to explain today, massively expand the nation's immigration enforcement infrastructure by, among other things, supersizing ICE. The agency currently operates on an annual budget of around $9 billion. That will now tripled to about $27 billion annually, as the Trump/Republican bill pumps around $170 billion in new spending into detention and deportation efforts through 2029.

  As Kovensky reported on July 4th, when Trump signed the bill into law, the ICE budget will now be larger than the U.S. Bureau of Prison, the FBI, and even the U.S. Marine Corps. This new, virtual military branch, will unleash its newly gained power not in foreign lands, but right here in the good ole' U.S.A.

  Much of the funding will go towards a "drastic expansion" of detention, Kovensky reports, as the Trump Administration continues to "push people to voluntarily leave the country."

  "If you think about MacArthur Park, it was one park," he tells me, citing the obnoxious Monday incident in L.A. "But now, with all this money, they can try to replicate this across the country. With all of these new officers they're hiring to detain people, all these camps they are going to be building to hold them, you're going to be seeing scenes like this play out nationally. I think that's the real risk, and something people should be expecting."

  With the massive budget increase, Kovensky warns of the ongoing threat of increased militarization, not just against migrants (much less the few that can be found with criminal records), but political opponents of the Administration in the wake of recent questionable arrests against Democratic judges, mayors, and other elected officials.

  "More than half the people who are currently in immigration detention awaiting removal have no criminal record," Kovensky observes. "I think that's a tell. The resources they're putting into this dramatically exceed what would be needed to focus only on criminal aliens."

  Tune in for much more.

• Finally, as if things aren't dark enough today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with coverage of the ongoing, heartbreaking --- and avoidable --- tragedy from Friday's flash flooding in Texas Hill Country, as the confirmed death toll reaches 111, including dozens of children, and more than 160 people still said to be missing; Record flooding in North Carolina from Tropical Storm Chantal; and details on the massive (and effective) climate and clean energy investments just gutted by Trump and the Republicans in their new spending bill...

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 back live for today's BradCast after our 4th of July break last week. I wish we were back with better news. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

It was bad enough when we presumed we'd be covering last week's final passage and signing of the Trump/GOP Big Budget Boondoggle bill today. The law that will now strip health care and food assistance from tens of millions (including from the Obamacare exchange here in California; from rural hospitals already shutting down in Nebraska; and to MediCARE recipients across the country); super-size ICE into Trump's virtual private army; and gut landmark climate change initiatives and clean energy tax credits for consumers and businesses that had previously resulted in a U.S. manufacturing boom. All in order to help pay fore more than $4 trillion dollars in tax cuts mostly to the wealthiest Americans, at a cost of spiking the national debt by $3 trillion.

All of that would have been bad enough today. But the heartbreaking and completely predictable tragedy still unfolding in Texas is simply soul crushing. We know it was predictable, because, despite lies from officials to the contrary, it was predicted. Making it all the more horrific, the deadly flash flooding took place on the very same day that Trump and Republicans were high-fiving each other at the White House for their tax cuts to rich people and the gutting of landmark climate initiatives to help keep us safe by moving away from the burning of fossil fuels that has intensified and increased weather disasters like the one we are watching unfold in Texas Hill country today.

With more than 100 now confirmed dead as of airtime --- including dozens of little girls at a Christian summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River, where water rose 25 feet in less than an hour --- the blame game is already underway with Texas officials (and the chief of Trump's U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security), charging that the National Weather Service somehow failed to issue proper forecasts and warnings.

In fact, as we discuss in detail today, though the NWS is now dangerously under-staffed thanks to Trump's layoffs, early retirement buyouts and hiring freezes, agency meteorologists did, in fact, predict and warn about the flash flooding emergency. Multiple times. But many of the NWS positions which, prior to the second Trump Administration, would have prepped with and communicated warnings to local officials are now vacant.

Of course, all of that can be added to the years of warnings from climate science experts about exactly the type of disaster that unfolded on Friday night in Texas, where Republican officials --- like Trump in D.C. --- continue to ignore the lessons of our climate crisis and refuse to take action in response. In fact, they are actively working to make it worse.

Our own Desi Doyen spent much of the holiday weekend digging into all of this with academics and meteorological experts. She joins us today to clarify what we knew, what we didn't, and who is now lying about what in her old home state of Texas and beyond...

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 our last BradCast before we head off for a 4th of July respite next week. Which means we're trying to fit in a whole bunch of stuff into one single show today before we go. Which means we call in two of our (and your) fave guests to help us out before hitting the road. [Audio link to full story follows this summary.]

Longtime OG blogger friends --- HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo and 'DRIFTGLASS' of his eponymous blog and the Professional Left Podcast --- are back with us today as we wrap up another absurdly overstuffed news week, on another absurdly busy news day.

The top story we tackle with Digby and Driftglass today is the remarkable news and various fallout following 33-year old Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's upset defeat of New York's disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo to win this week's Democratic Mayoral election in NYC.

Digby describes Mamdani, who ran a relentless campaign focused on affordability issues for New Yorkers, as "a real generational talent". Driftglass agrees, saying he represents "a generational change" for the party, even as older establishment Dems have issued bizarre broadsides since the Tuesday election, while Republicans have turned to outright ugly attacks, including on his Muslim background and a call from a member of Congress for the 33-year old Ugandan-born, naturalized citizen and likely next mayor of NYC to be stripped of his citizenship and deported!

But, it's the calls coming from inside the house that may be the most peculiar. "Dudes, he did what you're telling everyone to do. 'It's the economy, stupid,'" Parton pushes back at the establishment types now wringing hands and clutching pearls since Mamdani's victory. "He talked about that incessantly. And now you're saying that was the wrong message for America? Give me a break. Make up your mind."

Driftglass concurs. "He ran an exemplary campaign. He checks every box that all of these worrywart centrists say you have to check. He did exactly what people asked and they are terrified of him," he explains today. "He won by coalition-building. By being smart, articulate and naming his enemies. The next hurdle is going to to be your own party."

That's just a taste. We've got much more today on that and what Mamdani's Primary win means for the party going forward into next year and beyond. But, we've also got more today with Digby and Driftglass on Donald Trump's weekend bombing of Iran and his twisted behavior since; his terrorizing the U.S. with ICE assaults on migrants across the country; and whether Republicans will actually be able to pass their "One Big Beautiful Bill" --- which steals trillions from the poor to give tax cuts to the rich --- before (or even after!) July 4, as Trump has demanded.

Also, Desi Doyen closes with our latest Green News Report with both good and bad news for forests and other public lands amid a record sweltering week for the much of the nation, as we considering skipping the fireworks this year, given how many we have to deal with every day just to produce The BradCast during the ongoing, nightmarish, seemingly unending Trump Era...

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!)