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

Among our coverage today...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today on The BradCast: Apparently, the Trump Administration's murder of U.S. citizens will continue until morale improves. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Once again, we must devote another show to another brutal, virtually execution-style killing of another American citizen on the streets of a great American city by our own federal government.

On Saturday, Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents murdered beloved 37-year old Veterans Affairs hospital Intensive Care Unit nurse, Alex Pretti. His shooting, while bearing peaceful witness to federal government atrocities, comes about two weeks after --- and a mile or so away --- from where 37-year old mother Renee Good was similarly killed in her car at point blank range by one of thousands of heavily militarized federal law enforcement agents deployed by Donald Trump to Minneapolis, Minnesota to supposedly enforce civil (not criminal) immigration law.

While we spend a short amount of time on the blatant, quickly-disproven lies told by the Trump Administration about the incident --- from the chief of the CBP to the Secretary of DHS to the President of the United States himself --- about Pretti, most of our time today is devoted to his heroic acts and those of thousands of others in the Twin City area in recent weeks. They are leading the way toward minimizing and hopefully ending ICE atrocities, and helping to inspire elected officials as well as the rest of the formerly "free" nation.

To be clear --- as the video tapes of the killing from about four different angles reveal --- Pretti was not attacking federal officials, or attempting to "assassinate" them. He was neither "acting violently" nor "brandishing" a deadly weapon, as Administration officials lied to the public in the wake of the killing. Pretti was simply documenting the atrocities. He was lawfully videotaping with his phone, even as he tried to render aid to a woman thrown to the pavement by one of Trump's federal goons. He was trying to comfort the woman, even while being pepper sprayed, until he was eventually dragged away, subdued by a pack of agents, and then shot at least ten times at close range. The gun he was licensed to carry was never "brandished" or even removed from his belt, until a federal agent did so just before Pretti was subsequently executed.

This latest horrific killing comes just days before Congress was set to pass new spending bills before the government must otherwise shut down again at week's end. Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who had previously planned to vote yes on the package already passed narrowly in the House, now suggest they will vote no on including more funding for DHS and ICE without serious restraints enacted by law on their unlawful behavior. But there are also, arguably, reasons why Democrats might still want to vote for the bill, including the fact that a government shutdown of agencies included in the part of the budget that funds DHS, would also shutdown and furlough employees again at agencies like FEMA, in the middle of a deadly winter storm, just months after the longest federal shutdown in U.S. history last October and November.

There is much more, including a tepid response, following the killing of Pretti, from the CEOs of giant, Minnesota-based corporations --- such as Target, Best Buy, 3M, Delta Airlines and UnitedHealth Group --- who have otherwise remained silent over the past year of Trump's violent reign. But we would rather hear from listeners today, as we carve out time to take a bunch of calls, including from longtime listener Roger up in Minneapolis. He is one of the heroes in the Twin City who are, right now, heroically leading the way for the nation towards the light and the rule of law, against Trump's lawless thugs, even amid frigid temps that fell as low as negative 40 degrees wind chill over the past several days...

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We're not in much of a celebratory mood around here right now, given all that's going on. But still, The BRAD BLOG was formed in a post-911, "Global War on Terror", Bush Era crucible of rightwing bad faith and fire. It's worse now than ever. But our institutional memory is both pretty keen and pretty useful. We saw these nightmares coming years ago, did our duty to warn. And yet, here we are.

So, it seems, the fire is still burning, as The BRAD BLOG "celebrates" our 22nd anniversary this week of reader/listner-supported investigative blogging, journalism, broadcasting, muck-racking and trouble-making...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was another one of those everything, everywhere, all at once days, where figuring out how best and where to focus our coverage --- with news breaking and changing by the hour --- is always a Trump Era challenge (nightmare). We're happy to have you along for the ride on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full story follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... There were some state legislative Special Elections in Virginia and Georgia on Tuesday. Dems appear to be continuing last year's trend of radically outperforming their own results from 2024.

Also, Republicans are hilariously and hypocritically furious at Gov. Gavin Newsom selecting the latest possible date, August 4th, to hold a U.S. House Special Election in California to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa earlier this month. We'll keep their crocodile anger in mind on January 31, when Texas holds its own U.S. House Special in Houston, to fill the seat left vacant following the death of Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner, who will have died 11 months prior to this month's election, scheduled by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, to fill his seat.

The reverberations from Donald Trump's vow to takeover Greenland (which he repeatedly referred to as Iceland during his remarks today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland) continue to rattle Europe, world markets, and the NATO alliance.

On Tuesday, in Davos, Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney laid out plans to forge new alliances without the United States, given Trump's turn against our closest neighbor and largest trading partner. We share some of Carney's landmark remarks.

THEN... Our longtime European allies called an emergency meeting at the start of the WEF this week in response to Trump's declaration of punitive new trade tariffs imposed on the imports from those nations opposed to his promised takeover of Greenland, the semi-autonomous territory of Denmark.

The Europeans seem prepared to end their go-along-to-get-along footing of the second Trump term, now that the U.S. President seems hellbent on action against Greenland that would upend the longstanding NATO and the post-WWII rules-based order along with it. Even far-right populist parties who have benefited from Trump's support, seem to be distancing themselves from his latest behavior.

Today, during rambling remarks at Davos, Trump said, for the first time, that he would not use military force to takeover Greenland. "I don't have to use force. I don't want to use force. I won't use force," he claimed.

He then went on to falsely assert that NATO has never done anything for the United States, despite the fact that they came to our aid following 9/11. It was the first and only time in the 80-year history of the world's most successful military pact that the treaty's Article 5, mandating that an attack against one NATO member nation requires a response from all, had been invoked.

Several hours later and just before airtime today, as world markets continued to be rattled by all of the upheaval, Trump announced on his failing social media site, that he had struck what he described as "the framework of a future deal" with NATO's Secretary General, regarding Greenland. What that "future deal" looks like remains to be seen.

We're joined today for analysis of all of this madness by RYAN COOPER, Managing Editor of The American Prospect, on the heels of his story this morning on "How the Free World Can Fight Mad King Trump". In it, he details a number of ways that European nations can, and should, "stand up" to Trump, given Cooper's argument that "appeasement will only lead to him coming back for a second helping."

We discuss all of that and more today with Cooper, who notes, regarding whether anyone should believe Trump's vow to not use force against Greenland (or even Iceland): "You basically can't trust any word that comes out of Donald Trump's big, flapping, potty-mouth." Though he concedes that "it's notable that he said he wouldn't do it, because he usually doesn't do that," suggesting he has either been "talked into" or "convinced himself that it would be unwise to actually do a military operation."

Why is Trump so interested in Greenland in the first place? Tune in for Cooper's best guess, before we then dive into several actions that European nations could take to push back against Trump's bullying, including painful sanctions against him and his billionaire friends, akin to those that have been implemented against other militaristic tyrants, such as Vladimir Putin. And, there is also the "James Bond" option. Tune in for details. But all of these, as I note to Cooper, would come with considerable danger of U.S. blowback to the EU nations.

"The thing about that," he tells me, "is that you signal to the other party that you are willing to endure pain in order to stand up for yourself. At a certain point, if you're in something that is looking like a conflict, If you say, 'Well, I will not endure any pain myself,' you're just giving up. Europe should be ready."

"It would hurt to pull that lever," Cooper agrees. "But it is something you have to be ready to do to protect freedom and democracy around the world. Including in the United States."

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

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

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

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

Among today's coverage...

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

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

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

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

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

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Insured losses from wildfires, storms and floods hit new record high in 2025; National disaster declared as wildfires ravage southern Chile; Torrential rains and deadly floods inundate parts of South Africa; PLUS: Federal courts continue to reject Trump's irrational attack on American offshore wind energy... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Why your power bill is spiking faster than a nearby data center's; Trump Is Winning the Fight Against Offshore Wind Despite Court Losses; Clean Energy Advocates Criticize 'Glaring' Omission in White House Plan to Fuel Data Centers in PJM Region; After Helene, rural North Carolina turns to solar and battery hubs... PLUS: The past is an underused tool': An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've been arguing in various ways on The BradCast in recent months that our ignorant, thin-skinned, cruelly incompetent, man-baby clown, pedophile protecting President is growing weaker by the day. That, of course, doesn't make him any less dangerous. In fact, it makes him more so by the day --- or even hour, at this point. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We're joined today for our first horrifying and occasionally hilarious visit of the year with two of our favorite roundtablers and very smart fellow old-school bloggers HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of The Professional Left Podcast.

We try --- wish us luck --- to make sense, any sense, of the past 24 to 72 hours or more, as brutal violence by Donald Trump's dangerously inept ICE thugs in Minneapolis intensifies and he threatens to misuse the Insurrection Act against peaceful, "Minnesota nice" protesters, even as the state's wartime Governor stands in the breach; as the President of the United State's tyrannical menacing of our NATO ally of Greenland (and NATO itself) grows darker by the day; as he outrages his far-right base by appearing to all but abandon protesters in the streets of Iran that on Tuesday he instructed to "KEEP PROTESTING "“ TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!", vowing "HELP IS ON ITS WAY", only to toss them all under the regime's knife by Wednesday, while either hundreds or tens of thousands are reportedly being slaughtered; and, as his corrupt, show-of-power invasion, takeover and/or theft of Venezuela and its dirty oil, less than two weeks ago, already begins to (at least temporarily) fade into the blurry, bloodstained rearview mirror.

That's not all. But even that much is a lot of ground for one short hour. But these are no times for the faint of heart.

Among a whole bunch of well-informed and sagacious commentary, today's program also includes a few bloodcurdling turns of phrase such as "this is Stephen Miller's baby", "Donald Trump is the vessel", "the bitter harvest of that lie", "a dumb place to start their revolution" and, yes, "a cornered rat is a dangerous rat".

Tune in to hear who said them, in what context, and if any of us is able to make any sense of any of this madness right now.

If nothing else, Desi Doyen joins us at show's end for our latest Green News Report...which always makes perfect sense...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 2025 was the second (or third) hottest year on record, as new climate reports show 'unprecedented run of global heat'; The oceans are getting hotter, too; California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years; PLUS: Court rules Trump Administration illegally blocked clean energy grants to 'blue' states... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Venezuela suffers from a century-long curse --- will the U.S. inherit it?; New EPA proposal would strip states and tribes of authority to block oil and gas pipelines; Trump administration moves to reverse mining ban near Boundary Waters; RFK Jr. and flouridated water 'skeptics' turn to obstructing access to other sources; Maine adopts tougher limits on PFAS in drinking water; Why Greenland matters in a warming world... PLUS: This battery is about to change the world in 3 months, or make this guy a fool... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: It's been less than two weeks since he ordered the U.S. military invasion of a sovereign nation, killed about 80 people, kidnapped their leader and his wife to put them on trial for something or other here in the U.S., claimed he now "runs" their country and controls their natural resources, to exploit and sell as he pleases, the money from which will be held in offshore bank accounts controlled by him. Oh, and he's now declared himself "Acting President" there. And we almost don't discuss any of it anymore, because he's moved on to his next several imperial conquests, not to mention his deadly militarized assaults of thousands of people who live in U.S. cities, including American citizens. As Jon Stewart recently asked in exasperation, "What are we even doing here?!" Good question, Jon. [Audio link to full program follows this summary.]

Before we try to make some kind of sense --- any kind of sense --- of all of that, a few other news items of note today...

• And then they came for the journalists... Donald Trump's FBI raided the home of a Washington Post reporter on Wednesday, seizing her laptops, her phone and her smartwatch, as part of a supposed classified documents leak investigation requested by the Pentagon. The Post's Executive Editor described it as an "extraordinary, aggressive action [that] is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work." The New York Times characterized the raid on a journalist's home as "a significant escalation in the Trump administration's tactics in seeking information from the news media." The journalist, Hannah Natanson, as AP explained, "has reported extensively on the federal workforce and recently published a piece describing how she gained hundreds of new sources --- leading one colleague to call her 'the federal government whisperer.'"

• Here we go again?... In Qatar today, some personnel at a major U.S. air base that houses thousands of troops are reportedly being advised to evacuate immediately, amid growing unrest in Iran, the killing of hundreds of anti-government protesters by the ruling regime in Tehran, and Trump's vows to those protesters that "help is on the way." The base, Al Udeid Air Base outside of Doha, was targeted in Iran's response to the U.S. attack on nuclear facilities last July.

Then, as Mad King Trump saber rattles with both Iran and, perhaps even more incredibly, our NATO ally of Greenland, there is still the matter of his recent invasion of Venezuela less than two short weeks ago, and the power vacuum left in its wake as he tries to convince reticent American oil companies to go plunder the nation's vast oil reserves.

None of it is lawful. And, of course, none of it makes any sense. But, also, none of it is over, even if he, we, the media have, for the moment, moved momentarily on to other Trump-induced nightmares.

"This isn't close to over," argues my guest today, NICHOLAS GROSSMAN, International Relations professor and political scientist at the University of Illinois. He is quick to compare Trump's rush to praise himself for the attack and abduction of Venezuela's President, Nicolas Maduro, to George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech in 2003, just after the initial assault on Iraq, before the nation would quickly devolve into years-long, deadly chaos and violence.

"Tactically," Grossman concedes, the operation in Venezuela "was very impressive. But not strategically so." He describes reports in recent days of runs on banks, stores, and paramilitaries in the streets, arguing that the "competitions for power" are just beginning. "The situation is likely to devolve rather than stabilize. Or just have a spate of violence, and then at which point the regime re-stabilizes. It's unclear why that would be better than where it was with Maduro in charge."

Grossman, who teaches classes on terrorism insurgency, national security policy and 21st century technology and warfare, wrote about Trump's unlawful assault last week, detailing how it is likely to make things worse, not better, in Venezuela, the United States, and elsewhere in the region.

Moreover, he tells me today, despite Trump's rhetoric, all of this is unlikely to result in a rush of American oil companies to exploit the nation's resources. "This is where the lack of any sort of follow-on plan creates such a problem," says Grossman. "There is not a reliable security situation there, especially long term. There's not reliable rule of law." Add that to a glut of oil already on the market keeping prices (and profits) low; a particularly dirty and difficult-to-refine crude available there; and it seems unlikely that any of this will actually pay off for anybody.

So, why, in fact, was it done in the first place? On that, argues Grossman: "It doesn't really need to be only one reason. It's many things possibly at once. A lot of it, I do think, is demonstration of power. Because they can."

"Nothing Trump and his administration have done have seemed to conceive of national interest in the same standard way that Presidents, various leaders, voters of both parties, had in the United States for many years. There's 'because I can, because then people will be more afraid of me, because people will be more likely to pay me off.'"

He speculates on other explanations as well, and rings in on where Trump's militaristic tirade is likely to bring the U.S. next, even if things begin to further devolve in Venezuela at the same time.

"The biggest effect seems to be that it has emboldened him. And emboldened actors such as Pete Hegseth, where they don't think anybody can stop them. And they certainly don't care about violating norms, or the long term risks of upsetting the international order."

There is much more troubling stuff to chew over in my broad conversation with Grossman today. I hope you'll tune in...

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Some of the weirdness has been completely predictable, if not to many of his duped supporters. Some of it is a surprise. All of it underscores, yet again on today's BradCast, that we have a full-blown loser serving as President of the United States. [Audio link to the full show follows this summary.]

Among the many many stories supporting those points, as covered on today's program...

• Grocery prices see biggest spike in three years (Axios)
• Court finds Trump illegally blocked renewable energy grants to 16 "blue" states (AP)
• Bipartisan Senate Budget Committee restores almost all science funding cut by Trump (NYT)
• 5 Repubs join all Senate Dems in vote to block more military action in Venezuela (WaPo)
• 17 Repubs join all House Dems to pass bill restoring ACA health care subsidies (AP)
• Boebert slams Trump for veto of unanimously-approved CO drinking water project (DKos)
• 35 Repubs join all House Dems in failed effort to override Trump's CO water project veto (CO Politics)
• Treasury Sec. Bessent told Trump he's furious about DOJ's criminal probe of Fed Chair Powell (Axios)
• Six top Civil Rights Division criminal prosecutors resign over DOJ refusal to investigate ICE killing of Renee Good in MN (MS NOW)
• Six top DOJ prosecutors in MN resign over attempt to investigate Good's wife (NYT)
• Unhinged Trump warns: "DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING" in MN (Politico)

And, if all of that isn't enough for ya, we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, with Trump losing his weird fight against wind power yet again in another federal court, among many other items of note...

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!)