On today's BradCast: Republican insistence on skyrocketing health care costs for tens of millions of Americans as of January 1 continues to keep much of the federal government closed for a second day. But it hasn't prevented Trump's ICE thugs from dragging American citizens, including women and children, out of their beds and into the streets naked in the middle of the night. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

It's Day 2 of the federal government shutdown, as Democrats vow to go the mat to prevent an explosion of health care costs for tens of millions of Americans beginning on the first day of the new year. The cost of monthly premiums for nearly 25 million Americans who purchase access to coverage via the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) exchanges is set to more than double, thanks to Donald Trump and Republicans cutting federal subsidies.

At the same time, Trump is vowing to exact maximum pain on his political foes by using cover of the shutdown for mass firings of federal workers and axing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of government services at what he describes as "Democrat agencies."

We're joined today by BOBBY KOGAN, formerly senior adviser in the Biden-Harris White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and, prior to that, chief analyst for the U.S. Senate Budget Committee under Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). He is now Senior Director of Federal Budget Policy at American Progress. Suffice to say, Kogan knows a lot about what happens during shutdowns, what goes on behind the scenes in these standoffs, how they (usually) work, and why they matter.

He's also very funny and good spirited, which is really appreciated on a day like today. So, mostly, I'm gonna recommend you tune in. You'll get a lot from our wide-ranging conversation on all of this, as I did.

But, there are two specific points that he made that I want to highlight here for the moment. In regard to Trump and his OMB Director, Russ Vought (architect of the hard-right Project 2025 manifesto that Trump pretended to know nothing about during the campaign), are promising "mass layoffs" of government workers during the shutdown. If they do so, Kogan tells me, it would be, "extremely illegal". As he details, a shutdown does not give the White House some sort of special shutdown powers to carry out mass Reductions in Force (RIFs) of federal workers.

"It's actually the opposite. You are allowed, within reason, to RIF people when the government is open. Doing it when the government is closed is actually extremely illegal. It's an Antideficiency Act violation," he explains. "They're doing it because they want to do it. There is no special power to do this. It's illegal to do it during a shutdown, because the work necessary to make it happen is not work that is allowed to happen under a shutdown. They're just doing it anyway."

"It's a criminal act that carries a jail term. But, of course, the Trump Administration won't prosecute itself, so it will be yet another lawless budget act that the White House does."

Kogan's other point that I want to underscore here is his response when I asked if this is the right fight --- to prevent health care costs from spiking for millions of Americans beginning on the first of the year, with $350 billion in Trump/Republican cuts next year alone, along with a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid and another half-trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare over the next ten years --- for Democrats to plant their flag on.

His response is passionate in explaining why he believes that, yes, this is exactly the right fight for them to stand on...

Tune in for much more.

THEN... Last month, in a decision on the Supreme Court's emergency docket allowing previously unconstitutional "roving" ICE raids to continue in Los Angeles, based on nothing more than criteria such as race, skin color, how one is dressed, where they work or hang out, Justice Brett Kavanaugh dismissed concerns about U.S. citizens and others with the legal right to be in the country who might get swept up in these raids.

"As for stops of those individuals who are legally in the country," Kavanaugh wrote in his much-derided concurrence, "the questioning in those circumstances is typically brief, and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States."

I wonder if Kavanaugh is standing by that what happened in Chicago this week, in an apartment building in the middle of the night, where federal agents busted down doors on every floor of a five-story building, dragged residents out of beds --- including men, women, children and U.S. Citizens --- without warrants, zip-tied them, brought them out into the streets, some of them naked, where they were left without explanation or attorneys until 3am, as part of Trump's "Operation Midway Blitz".

It was not the only such brutal, middle-of-the-night operation. Another was carried out in the Chicago suburbs this week, also ensnaring U.S. citizens. The masked, jack-booted thugs aren't "coming". They are here and coming to your town soon enough. Someone alert Justice Kavanaugh.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen helps us close things out this week with our latest Green News Report, in what, ironically, may include some of the brightest news we are able to offer you today...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: After Republicans shut down the federal government, Trump pulls funding for New York infrastructure projects; Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth denies 40 years of Defense Dept. climate threat assessments; Remembering renowned conservationist Jane Goodall; PLUS: Pope Leo XIV rebukes climate science deniers for contributing to the destruction of Creation... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Despite Trump efforts to suppress it, climate science is alive and well online; National parks open with limited staff, oil and gas permitting continues apace in government shutdown; Judge orders Trump administration to preserve $233M in FEMA grants it attempted to pull from blue states; An explosion left a black town contaminated. Politics are stunting the cleanup; Ford, GM will extend $7500 credit on EVs, hearing China's footsteps... PLUS: Wright Is Wrong: On key facts related to Texas, the Secretary of Energy is either purposefully misleading or misinformed... and much, MUCH more! ...

Elections, crime and voter suppression. Three of our favorite topics here on The BradCast, all of which we cover in several different ways and several different cases on today's show. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

As I described as a virtual certainty on yesterday's program, the federal government did indeed shutdown this morning as of 12:01am. Republicans, who control the White House and both chambers of Congress --- and who could keep the government open all by themselves --- have chosen to shut it down, rather than negotiate with Democrats. For their part, Democrats want to prevent Republicans from spiking health care costs for tens of millions of Americans as of January 1. Short of a deal to prevent that, Dems seem determined to avoid helping Republicans pass a new spending bill. (Which, did I already mention, Republicans could do all by themselves? Even in the U.S. Senate.)

This is likely to go on for a while. The Trump Administration is hoping to hurt as many Americans as possible in the bargain, and is violating federal law by posting notices on every single page of federal government websites (which are supposed to be strictly non-partisan), like the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), falsely claiming: "The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government." Completely unlawful. But, as we know by now, Donald Trump doesn't care about Law and Order or the Rule of Law.

In the meantime, voters may have something to say about all of this in several states next month and in all 50 states next year. So, rather than offer policies the American people might like, Republicans at Trump's corrupted, weaponized Dept. of Justice are hoping to help him rig next year's midterm elections instead.

In the battleground state of Nevada, Trump's U.S. Attorney, Sigal Chattah, according to an exclusive report last night from Reuters, is asking DOJ to help Republicans by investigating "voter fraud" claims made by the state Republican Party and to investigate organizations that help to elect Democrats. Chattah was formerly the state Republican Party Chair. She is also seeking to drop the cases against the GOP Fake Electors in Nevada, who tried to help Trump steal the 2020 election. Chattah was the personal attorney for one of those Fake Electors, even as she, as a federal prosecutor, is now trying to undermine the case against them rather than recusing, as required by DOJ ethics rules, from such cases.

Tune in for more of Chattah's corruption today. But amusingly, a George W. Bush-appointed federal Judge ruled just last night that she is unlawfully serving as the top federal prosecutor in the state as Acting U.S. Attorney beyond the 120 days allowed for someone to hold that position without Senate confirmation.

And, speaking of the failed GOP attempt to steal the 2020 Presidential election, a federal judge late last week found that MyPillow CEO and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell defamed the election technology company Smartmatic at least 51 different times while falsely asserting that the election vendor interfered with the 2020 election to steal votes from Trump and give them to Joe Biden. The only jurisdiction in the entire nation where Smartmatic's voting systems were used that year was in Los Angeles County, where Biden won 71% of the vote. Smartmatic and another company, Dominion, have either won or struck multi-million settlements in every defamation case that each has brought so far against three different rightwing media outlets (Fox, Newsmax and One American News) and several of Team Trump's 2020 MAGA election deniers, such as Lindell. (In a side note, the MyPillow dude says he is now preparing to run for Governor in Minnesota next year against Democratic Gov. Mike Walz! That should be fun!)

AND THEN... Earlier this year, Trump's DOJ ordered 27 mostly Democratic-controlled states to turn over their entire, unredacted statewide voter registration databases to the federal government for unspecified reasons. The Department's Civil Rights Division (which has been turned on its head under Trump) is demanding the entire files, including unredacted personal and sensitive information such as Social Security and Drivers License numbers, etc., for every registered voter. The reasons are unclear, and most states have refused to turn the files over. But now the Department is suing at least eight of those states, including California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania for those files.

Our old friend ARI BERMAN, best-selling author and National Voting Rights Correspondent at Mother Jones, has been covering this story and joins us today to help us try to make sense of it.

The DoJ is claiming in their lawsuits that the states in question are somehow violating the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and the Civil Rights Act of 1960. We discuss all of this today with Berman, who describes the weaponization scheme as of a piece with the GOP's broader "voter-suppression agenda" (which he details in full in MoJo's cover story this month.) Among the questions I've got for him today...

• Why is the Trump Administration demanding access to these databases and the sensitive information within them in the first place?
• What are they accusing the states of having done, in their claims that they have somehow violated three of the nation's landmark voting rights related laws?
• If it's a fishing expedition regarding claims of voter fraud and non-citizens supposedly voting illegally, didn't the Trump Administration already try (and fail) to show the very same thing with their quickly disbanded "Election Integrity" Commission during Trump's first term, when our delusional President was falsely insisting he actually won the popular vote in 2016 but for some 3 million unlawful votes he pretended were unlawfully cast against him in the very blue state of California?

Lots to discuss with Ari today! Hope you'll tune in!...

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Trump lives and dies by ratings and reviews. Well, the reviews are in on today's BradCast for his sleepy, low-energy, hour-plus long campaign style remarks to the nation's top military brass at Tuesday's bizarre, in-person convocation of the nation's highest-ranking military generals. The unusual gathering was called at the U.S. Marine base at Quantico by his Defense Secretary. The reviews were not good. [Audio link to full story follows this summary.]

Before we get to today's weird military gathering, a few thoughts as the government is now all but certain to begin a partial shutdown as of midnight tonight. It is the first such federal shutdown since the last time Donald Trump was in the White House and Republicans held majority control of both chambers of Congress. He has been remarkably sanguine about it this time. He refused to even meet with Democratic leaders until yesterday, after which he went on to post an obnoxious, racist, AI-generated video mocking both House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Democrats refuse to sign on to a Republican bill that continues spending at current levels unless Republicans restore hundreds of billions of dollars that Trump and the GOP are cutting to American healthcare via the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid at year's end.

There may be several reasons why Trump is fine with the government shutting down. Beyond a delay in a mandatory House vote on releasing the Epstein Files, a government shutdown would also prevent the Bureau of Labor Statistics from releasing this Friday's much-anticipated jobs report for September, after previous monthly reports revealed grim numbers for Trump's second term. If the shutdown goes on long enough, BLS won't be able to gather its gold-standard data for future economic reports either, which are relied upon by the government, as well as businesses and investors worldwide.

For the record, the BLS didn't close during the last Trump shutdown. He could have mandated it stay open this time as well to continue its critical work. But, for some reason, he didn't.

Then it's on to the "urgent" in-person meeting of the nation's 800+ generals, admirals and other top military brass at Quantico today, as called at the last minute by Fox "News" weekend host turned Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth for unexplained reasons. It featured what amounted to little more than a live-for-the-cameras version of Hegseth's grievance-filled social media feed. The New York Times described his remarks to the generals as "a familiar litany of culture war talking points," including a lot of macho bullshit about the "warrior ethos", "wokeness" and "stupid rules of engagement" which Hegseth argues are somehow holding the U.S. military back.

For his part, Trump's partisan campaign-style rally that followed Hegseth seems to have fallen flat before the generals, who are not supposed to display approval or disapproval for political leaders. Media outlets described Trump's hour and ten-minutes of remarks as a "rambling and sometimes incoherent", "unusually meandering address" in which he attacked his perceived political enemies and called for the generals to use U.S. cities as "training grounds" for the military. Focusing on Democrats, who he described as the "radical left" and the "enemy from within", he suggested "the war from within" would be waged in cities like San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, presumably against Americans in cities that Trump doesn't like.

Experts and Defense officials are describing the comments as "embarrassing", with one telling The Intercept, "We are diminished as a nation by both Hegseth and Trump." Said another: "Listening to Donald Trump was deeply troubling and it is clear he is unfit for the role of commander in chief." Still another, citing the 25th Amendment, observed: "This is truly disturbing. He is clearly unwell even for Trump."

During his long remarks to a nearly quiet room, Trump described Illinois' Governor J.B. Pritzker as "incompetent" and "stupid", vowing that he was "going in very soon" to Chicago. Trump's invasion of the Windy City with U.S. military troops has been promised for several months now. But, over the weekend and into Monday, it looks like it began in earnest, even with just baby steps, including deployment of ICE thugs and other federal law enforcement and a mobilization of 100 U.S. National Guard troops to eventually join them. Pritzker pushed back hard against Trump and ICE as Trump's "jack-booted thugs" at a presser on Monday, charging them with showing up in the city on Sunday endangering citizens and "harassing people for not being white." We share some of his warning comments to the public.

Also over the weekend, Trump federalized 200 U.S. National Guard troops in Oregon to invade Portland "authorizing Full Force", even though there is no local insurrection, no assaults on federal buildings by "antifa", and the city is not burning down, as Trump seems to believe. The state's Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek tried to explain that over the weekend during a phone call with a confused Trump, who reportedly said, "Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what's happening? My people tell me different." He is said to have claimed, "They are literally attacking and there are fires all over the place"¦it looks like terrible."

As I suggested yesterday, what Trump is describing appears to be what happened five years ago in Portland, during protests following the murder of George Floyd. Today, Philip Bump details how b-roll footage of those protests has been playing in a loop on Fox "News" ever since, any time they mention Portland, as they did on several different shows on Friday night, just before Trump's Saturday morning announcement about deploying troops there. Like Pritzker, Kotek is also taking to the airwaves to push back on Trump's unwelcome, completely unnecessary military thuggery.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as Hurricane Season kicks into high gear with a Trump-gutted National Weather Service trying desperately to keep up. And as the Dept. of Energy's fracking CEO turned Secretary, Chris Wright, cancels billions in subsidies for clean renewable energy in hopes of propping up the dying U.S. coal industry with millions of acres of new federal land access and new subsidies of the kind that he cited as evidence that the wind and solar industry are "maybe not a business that's going places." The DoE also expanded their list of banned words to include "climate change", "emissions", "green" and "decarbonization" among things that Department officials may not utter or use anymore in official documents...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane season wakes up, as National Weather Service struggles with staffing amid Trump layoffs; Trump Administration unveils plans for taxpayers to bail out Big Coal; PLUS: Energy Department orders staffers: 'Don't say climate change'... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump is doing everything he can to raise your energy bills; Hurricanes swerve: Disaster response might avoid a stress test; 'Ludicrous': Bureau of Land Management to sell off federal coal reserve leases in Wyoming; UNESCO designates 26 new biosphere reserves amid biodiversity challenges and climate change; Indigenous land defender killed as Ecuador cracks down on activists... PLUS: World ocean acidity crosses critical threshold for marine life: study... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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September 30th: A date that will live...next week. Apparently, it all comes down to next Tuesday. On today's BradCast, among other things, we detail why September 30th is so important to not one, not two, but three major stories in the news today. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among those stories...

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to an exclusive report today from WaPo and later confirmed by others, has ordered hundreds of the U.S. Military's top generals and admirals --- and their top enlisted advisors --- stationed in the U.S. and at commands across the globe, to convene for an "urgent" in-person meeting at the U.S. Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, next Tuesday, September 30th. None of the military personnel have been told why the meeting has been called or why those leading important posts around the world couldn't simply attend via the Pentagon's secure teleconferencing system. Some officials are concerned about national security issues in the event that something breaks out next week, while the top leaders posted to Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific regions are back in Virginia, meeting with Pete for some unknown reason. Hegseth has been firing scores of top military brass in recent weeks, and has pledged to cleanse at least 20% of the top officers corps, particularly those he believes may not share the same political beliefs as the Administration, at what is supposed to be a non-political institution. One source quipped that next Tuesday's mysterious meeting is "being referred to as the general squid games."

• That mysterious military meeting, on September 30th, happens to come on the final day of the federal government's 2025 Fiscal Year, when, if Republicans don't agree to a spending deal with Democrats, the government will shut down and begin furloughing federal workers as of midnight. Democratic leaders are insisting that any spending deal include the extension of enhanced premium support for some 25 million Americans who enjoy access to healthcare via the Affordable Care Act; the restoration of draconian Medicaid cuts enacted in the Republicans' "Big Beautiful Bill"; and a mechanism to ensure Donald Trump and/or Congressional Republicans don't simply rescind any spending agreed to by Democrats after they help Republicans reach the 60 votes needed for passage in the Senate. For their part, Republicans aren't even trying to negotiate with Democrats. Earlier this week, Trump used an insane, horseshit-fill social media post to call off the White House meeting previously scheduled with Democratic leaders today. And now the Administration has issued a memo to federal agencies suggesting they plan "mass layoffs" if the government shuts down next week, as seems almost certain at this point. Democratic Leaders Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Hakeem Jeffries in the House, however, say they aren't falling for the Administration's "lawless" threats. They have good reason for that argument.

• This morning, CNN published a report (apparently based on a single, Administration-friendly source), claiming that Attorney General Pam Bondi had "reservations" about indicting Trump's political foe, former FBI Director James Comey, as Trump has publicly insisted she do. I was busy explaining why you should be skeptical of the reporting on Bondi's supposed "concerns", and why any such indictment of Comey would be wildly corrupt (no matter the charges), when news broke mid-show that, yup, Comey has now been indicted. Why is September 30th important to this story? Well, it was on September 30th, 2020, that the Administration is claiming Comey lied to Congress regarding the DOJ's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. The five-year statute of limitations to bring Trump's revenge charges (as weak as they clearly are) against Comey, runs out as of next Tuesday, September 30th, 2025, five years after his contested remarks to Congress. Thus, Trump's corrupt remarks to Bondi over the weekend: "We can't delay any longer "¦ JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!"

• In non-September 30th related news, a federal judge this week ordered the Trump Administration restore more than half a billion dollars worth of federal research grant funding to UCLA. The funding, appropriated by Congress but unlawful blocked by the Administration, is earmarked for medical research grants on Parkinson's disease, cancer, cell regeneration in nerves and other areas meant to improve the health of Americans. Trump had previously offered to settle his ridiculous claims of discrimination and antisemitism against UCLA, if the University of California system coughed up $1 billion dollars and instituted favored Administration social policies. Gov. Gavin Newsom described the attempted shakedown as extortion. This week, a federal judge declared it almost certainly in violation of the federal Administrative Procedure Act.

• And finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, on the heels of Trump's insane anti-renewable energy, pro-fossil fuel rant at the United Nations this week; and much more...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump spews blizzard of misinformation on climate and renewable energy at the United Nations; Federal electric vehicle tax credits expire October 1st; Federal judge lifts Trump's halt of nearly-complete offshore wind farm; PLUS: China announces its first-ever emissions reduction target... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): How to track the super polluters next door; DOE to pull back $13 billion from clean energy projects; Trump's UN speech makes it clear: the world can no longer look to the US for strong leadership; White House to agencies: Prepare mass firing plans for a potential shutdown; As Texas flooded, key staff say FEMA's leader could not be reached; Researchers make concerning discovery about factor linked to Alzheimer's disease: 'I'm still really surprised by it'... PLUS: Solar tax credits are ending (Dec. 31). Here's why that could be good for solar... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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We pick up on today's BradCast with several new developments in stories we covered on yesterday's show plus much more, thanks to another insane day in Trump World. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• On yesterday's show, we spoke with former DOJ Public Corruption chief Randall Eliason about reporting over the weekend, confirmed by multiple outlets, that Donald Trump's so-called "Border Czar", Tom Homan, accepted $50,000 in cash inside of a takeout food bag last year in exchange for a promise to "facilitate" future contracts if Trump won the election. According to internal DOJ documents and multiple sources at each outlet, Homan was caught on tape receiving the money from undercover law enforcement agents posing as businessmen. But after Trump took office, the bribery probe into Homan was summarily dropped by Trump associates leading the FBI and DOJ, on the supposed basis that no crimes were committed by Homan in the payoffs during the investigation begun during the Biden Administration.

  But, by last night, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took the DOJ denials a step further, claiming that Homan "never took the $50,000." That denial was not made by the DOJ when the story was first reported over the weekend. And even Homan himself, when asked about all of this on Fox "News" last night, didn't make that claim. Here merely said "I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal." Tune in for the full update on that wild story, before it disappears into the Trump news cycle ether. (Though Congressional Dems, to their credit, are trying to prevent that from happening.)

• In another follow-up to another story we covered, if only briefly, yesterday... The news broke just before airtime that Disney/ABC announced Jimmy Kimmel's late night show would be returning to air on Tuesday, after it had been "indefinitely" sidelined last week following threats by Trump's sleazy FCC Chair Brendan Carr to rescind broadcast licenses from local affiliates who carried the show. The wildly inappropriate, unprecedented (and perhaps unlawful?) threats from Carr (and Trump) came after they decided they didn't like a fairly benign (and accurate) remark that Kimmel made on his show last week regarding the assassination of far-right Republican activist Charlie Kirk. The decision by Disney to bring Kimmel back was clearly based on massive public opprobrium, including massive cancellations of Disney's streaming services, etc.

  That good news, however, was tempered last night by an announcement from local station conglomerate Sinclair, declaring they would be pre-empting Kimmel's how with news programming. Broadcast behemoth Nexstar joined Sinclair on Tuesday, meaning that tens of millions of Americans in dozens of major markets will still be unable to watch Jimmy Kimmel Live! Both of those corporate conglomerates --- which own dozens of local stations all over the country (even if most Americans don't even realize it) have major mergers pending before Trump's corrupted FCC. So this very public fight, with serious First Amendment implications, will apparently continue. That, explains Josh Marshall today, is not necessarily a bad thing.

• Our twisted President rambled for nearly an hour today to the U.N. General Assembly in New York. It was as insane as you might have imagined, only more so. From lies about his domestic accomplishments during his second term, to lies about his having "ended seven wars", to threats to the world's nations regarding migration, energy and climate change, about which he took particularly hilarious zeal in lying about in virtually every aspect, describing it as a "con", a "scam" and a "hoax". Desi Doyen helps us debunk just some of the most obnoxious lies from Trump at the U.N. on Tuesday. And, as also discussed: Please wary of the claims reported late today that Trump has somehow flipped his position on Russia's war on Ukraine.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with both good and bad news for the world's oceans; and a report on the disbanding of a climate change denier group recently convened by Trump's Dept. of Energy to help lie about climate science...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Historic U.N. treaty protecting the High Seas comes into force; Coral reefs won't survive a warming planet, study warns; PLUS: The Trump Energy Department's climate science deniers group has been disbanded... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): UN chief warns 1.5C warming goal at risk of 'collapsing'; Judge says work on wind farm off Rhode Island can proceed, for now; Defense Department delays cleanup of 'forever chemicals' nationwide; PA governor threatens to pull the state out of the region's power grid; National parks remove signs about climate, slavery and Japanese detention; FOIA records reveal EPA leaders' frequent meetings with industry lobbyists; Communities around the world find plastic pellets in their local waterways... PLUS: The people behind America's disaster recovery... and much, MUCH more! ...

So much Team Trump criming, so little time to cover it all on today's BradCast. But we try. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Over the weekend, MSNBC broke the news, followed by confirmation from New York Times, that Donald Trump's so-called 'Border Czar', Tom Homan, was caught on tape last September accepting $50,000 in cash --- in a takeout food bag --- from undercover law enforcement officials posing as businessmen. The sting came about after the target of a separate corruption probe tipped off officials that Homan was accepting bribes in exchange for lucrative border security contracts in a new Trump administration, presuming he won last year's election.

After Trump took office, he tapped Homan to oversee his mass deportation of migrants, a scheme that, they had promised, would focus on removing "the worst of the worst" criminals. Instead, the majority of deportees have no criminal record, but the guy running the program has apparently been caught on tape accepting a cash payoff before returning to office.

The investigation into Homan, which reportedly began in the summer of 2024 under the Biden Administration's DOJ, was summarily closed after Trump returned to power by Trump's former criminal defense attorney turned Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, and his FBI Director, Kash Patel. One of Trump's other personal attorneys, Emil Bove, who served as a top DOJ official until recently being confirmed by Republicans in the U.S. Senate as a federal judge, also reportedly had a hand in shutting down the probe of Homan.

A DOJ spokesperson described the investigation as "blatantly political" and an effort to target "President Trump's allies rather than investigate real criminals and the millions of illegal aliens who flooded our country," claiming the investigation "found no evidence of illegal activity."

Over the same weekend that story broke, Trump sent what appears to have been meant as a private message to his Attorney General Pam Bondi, effectively ordering her to bring criminal charges against three of his top political foes, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey, and California U.S. Senator Adam Schiff. The message addressed to "Pam", seemingly meant to be private, was instead posted publicly by Trump on his own failing social media website.

We're joined today for insight on all of this by RANDALL D. ELIASON, former chief of the DOJ's Fraud and Public Corruption Section at the U.S. Attorney Office in the District of Columbia. He now teaches white collar crime at George Washington University Law School and pens the Sidebars Blog newsletter.

Is there any reason to believe the DOJ and FBI were right to drop the bribery probe against Homan, in which it seems he was caught dead to rights taking a cash bribe according to multiple reports?

"It's really impossible to know without knowing exactly what's on the tape. It would all come down to what he said and what he agreed to do in exchange for the cash," Eliason tells me today. "But I will say that accepting $50,000 in cash in a fast-food bag is kind of an indication of corrupt intent, that the recipient knows something shady is going on. So you've got to say at a bare minimum, there's a substantial basis to conduct additional investigation." Reportedly, that's exactly what DOJ was doing until Team Trump shut it all down.

"This line coming out from the White House and the DOJ that there was no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing, that doesn't hold water," he argues. "There's clearly something fishy going on here when you're taking fifty grand in cash in a Cava food bag. So there's certainly some smoke there." But, he further explains, "the Supreme Court has made the federal bribery statute so narrow" there are a number of ways Homan could get off the hook. Of course, the fastest way is to have friends at the DOJ willing to corruptly dismiss the entire matter.

We discuss that in detail, along with what Eliason describes as an extraordinary break from decades of norms and tradition with Trump's "private" message to his A.G. regarding bringing charges against his perceived political foes.

"Trump sees the Justice Department as a tool that he can use to punish his enemies and reward his friends," charges Eliason. "And this historical, very important norm that politics is kept separated, that the Justice Department is kept independent from the White House because we don't want politics to influence criminal investigations and criminal prosecutions, has just been flipped completely on its head and thrown out the window. It doesn't exist anymore under this administration."

"He is trying to use the Justice Department to go after his political opponents. And he also uses it to reward his friends. Whether it's Homan, or [Mayor] Eric Adams in New York City, or all the January 6 rioters, pardoning all of them. It's one of the most discouraging things that is happening in this administration --- the complete gutting of the law."

"This is really scary stuff," adds Eliason. "This idea that the President can order a prosecutor to bring criminal charges, and if he doesn't, he'll fire you and put someone in place who will. It's unthinkable to anyone who has worked as a federal prosecutor. It's directly contradictory to the mission and ethical obligations of a federal prosecutor. It would have been completely unheard of before now."

It is all of a piece, he explains, with "many things that are going on at the Justice Department that just breaks the hearts of those of us who worked there and love it."

Finally, breaking news just before airtime today on Trump's FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's outrageous threat last week against Disney/ABC and their affiliate stations to take away their broadcast licenses unless they cancel Jimmy Kimmel's late night show after comments Kimmel made that they didn't care for regarding the recent murder of Republican activist Charlie Kirk. After enormous public blowback against Disney following last week's "indefinite suspension" of Jimmy Kimmel LIve, news broke late today that Kimmel will now be returning to air as of Tuesday night. Looks like public pressure, a torrent of cancelled Disney+ subscriptions and the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment may have won this round, at least partly...at least for now. Since getting off air, Sinclair Broadcasting, a rightwing outlet that owns more than 35 ABC affiliate stations and is seeking favors from the FCC, has announced they plan to air news programming instead of Kimmel's show beginning on Tuesday night...

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