We're getting caught up on today's BradCast with a whole bunch of stuff, from the dark Trump secrets still buried in unreleased Epstein Files, to his lies, illegal actions and terrible advice about the economy, to another loss for Republicans in the Gerrymandering Wars and some actual election fraud finally discovered in Georgia! (And you'll never guess whodunnit!) [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Happily, the corporate mainstream media finally seems to be fully on board the disturbing, still-unexplained, and unlawful absence of critical documents from the Epstein Files released to date by the Dept. of Justice as per the Epstein Files Transparency Act. In addition to the absence of multiple 2019 FBI interviews with a woman who accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was just 13-years old, additional revelations are coming to light. CNN, for instance, confirmed those three missing interviews and contemporaneous FBI interview notes this week, and found that at least another 90 interviews with other survivors are also apparently missing, for unexplained reasons, from the DOJ's website.

But, with the major outlets seemingly digging in, we've got a bit more time today to get caught up on some other stuff, regarding some economic matters, some SCOTUS issues, and some election news. Among those stories...

• Fallout from last week's 6 to 3 U.S. Supreme Court ruling determining that Trump's chaotic, worldwide taxes on imports to the U.S., as issued under the supposed authority of the U.S. International Emergency Economic Powers Act (or, IEEPA), are both unlawful and unconstitutional. As it turns out, those illegal tariffs have also been very expensive for American consumers who paid for about 90% of them according to studies issued this month from both the Federal Reserve and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That, despite Trump's repeatedly lie (as echoed again during his State of the Union Address this week), that "the tariffs [are] paid for by foreign countries." Both the Fed and Congress disagree.

• But, don't be fooled by SCOTUS' ruling last Friday, even if it came in opposition to the President for a happy change. In fact, the challenge to Trump's tariffs was a case brought by the far-right architect of today's corrupted Supreme Court, and it took almost half a year longer to be handed down by the corrupted Court than necessary. No, SCOTUS has not "joined the No Kings Movement", as MS NOW's Stephanie Ruhle ridiculously declared after the ruling was handed down.

• For the record, the "economic emergency" that Trump disingenuously declared as his pretext to enact the levies was supposedly based on a global trade deficit that the U.S. has with many countries of the world. As it turns out, that deficit grew larger under Trump's tariffs last year, according to Trump's own Commerce Dept. data.

• Not to worry, however, everyone is going to be rich once the Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act kicks in for this year's tax season, right? Um, so far...based on IRS data to date, not so much, as average refunds in the first part of the filing season have been some 42% lower than the Administration has long been promising they would be.

• But, hey, there are a lot of MAGA suckers out there, I guess. And we should have expected no less from the guy whose failing media company, Trump Media & Technology Group (which trades as DJT on the stock exchange) has seen its value plummet faster than his approval ratings. This week, shares in his loser company, which once sold for $100 --- and cost a bunch of MAGA folks their life savings --- closed for the first time on Monday in the single digits! The company, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars every year since it went public in 2022, clawed its way back above $10/share in recent days. It seems unlikely to stay there.

• In election and voting news, Team Red continue to struggle in their Gerrymandering Wars in advance of the critical midterm elections, as both the Utah state Supreme Court (on Friday) and a three-judge federal panel (on Monday), rejected state Republicans' attempts to override a 2018 ballot initiative in which voters chose to require U.S. House district maps in the otherwise very Republican state to be drawn fairly, with neutral rules, by an independent redistricting commission. The GOP state Legislature has been trying to lock in their unlawful map, drawn to create four safe Republican Congressional Districts. But, after the recent rulings, we appear now to be at the end of their four-year battle to block a new map that will offer three Republican leaning Districts and one safely Democratic seat in Salt Lake County.

• Down in Georgia, where Trump has been falsely claiming massive voter fraud since he lost the 2020 election there, the MAGA majority on the State Election Board has, in fact, finally discovered some election fraud! And it was apparently committed by one of Elon Musk's super PACs in both 2020 and 2024.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report today, with a bunch of energy related lies from Trump's SOTU this week; Big Oil's appeal to SCOTUS to help them quash climate liability lawsuits; Trump's Interior Dept. quashing bedrock conservation rules for public lands; and a new suit filed by young Americans to challenge the Trump EPA's recent gutting of 20 years of climate change-related regulations...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Donald Trump lies his way through another State of the Union address; U.S. Supreme Court to hear Big Oil's bid to squash climate liability lawsuits; Young Americans sue over Trump EPA repeal of the Endangerment Finding; PLUS: Trump Interior Department guts bedrock conservation law, affecting public lands everywhere... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Data Center Developers Asked Trump For An Exemption From Pollution Rules; What's So Bad About Stevan Pearce, Trump's Pick to Run the BLM? For Starters, His Public-Land Track Record; A tough Supreme Court hearing brings little clarity on Line 5 pipeline's fate; Deadly Bird Flu Found In California Elephant Seals For The First Time; Feds Give $26.5 Billion Loan For Electric Expansion In Georgia And Alabama ... PLUS: Electric buses are passing a brutal cold-weather test in Wisconsin ... and much, MUCH more! ...

As insane as it was, as you may have guessed, we're talking about Tuesday's night State of the Union Address on today's BradCast. But I can say with confidence that today's show is nowhere near as long or insane or angry or boring as that crazy speech last night! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

As you also may have guessed, we are joined today by our go-to roundtable of progressive old-school bloggers, award-winning Salon columnist and Hullabaloo blogger HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, and co-host of The Professional Left Podcast, the one and only 'DRIFTGLASS'. They are with us for the full hour.

I'm not sure how much I need to tee things up for today's program, especially if you saw what happened last night. If you didn't, we'll give you a good summary at the top of the show, and you won't have to listen to more than a minute or two of Donald Trump's voice thereafter. (You're welcome).

It was, as explained, an angry, racist, ugly, hate-filled State of the Union Address that, at a record length, included astonishingly little of substance and even less that resembled truth or reality. By now, we've come to except no less from a 34-time convicted felon, adjudicate sex abuser and accused rapist of at least one 13-year old girl.

He called Somali Americans living in Minneapolis "pirates"; he called the Mayor of the nation's largest city a "Communist"; he repeatedly called Democrats "crazy" and "sick" and charged they, not he, were "destroying our country". But the most offensive point, at least to me, was likely when he described voting in America as a "privilege", as opposed to what it is: a right for every citizen and one that must be protected. From him.

As also noted, the most important news of Tuesday night may have been the fact that three more Democrats swept Special Elections for state Legislatures in Pennsylvania and Maine yesterday. In PA, in particularly, it was a route, with one candidate winning by 63 points, the other by 35 points. That amounted to two more huge over-performances by Dems, as compared to Kamala Harris' numbers in the same district in 2024. On Tuesday, the swing toward Democrats was by 34 and 17 points respectively, as this year's critical midterm elections are now just 250 days away, with primary voting already underway in several states.

So ddid Trump say anything of importance on Tuesday night? Does any of it really matter? Does the SOTU itself even matter at this point?

Digby doesn't seem to think so. It was "a reality show, a wrestling match, a game show," she argues. "Virtually everything he said was a lie. It was insane. The fact checkers looked like they'd been hit over the head by a 2-by-4."

"This was a spectacle," charges Driftglass. "But it was something out of Imperial Rome. Trump slowed down and reveled in all these gory images of blood and violence. This was ancient, ugly, awful, fascist stuff. This was blood and country and revenge."

Beyond that, we actually had quite a few laughs on today's program, even though we also had to wade through some pretty dark topics, including the news of Trump's DOJ attempting (though now failing?) to hide very serious allegations in the Epstein Files of Trump having raped and assaulted a 13-year old girl.

We also discuss the Democrats response to the speech in the chamber (which seemed to infuriate Trump as his marathon remarks went on...and on) and in Virginia, where, both Digby and Driftglass seem to agree, freshly minted Gov. Abigail Spanberger delivered a very well-considered response on behalf of the party.

"He's bad at fascism, bad at governing, but he's really good at chaos," quips Digby today, as we try to make sense of at least some of that chaos. Wish us luck, and tune in for much, much more...

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The SOTU begins shortly (we'll be covering tomorrow with Digby and Driftglass) so please forgive if my summary of today's BradCast is a bit shorter than usual. (Or, you're welcome!) [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... We've been spending much of the last week or so (see here and here) reporting on documents found missing from those released by the Dept. of Justice under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Specifically, we've focused on a series of documents detailing allegations by a woman who says that she was raped, physically assaulted and threatened by Donald Trump at Jeffrey Epstein's home in New York City when she was just 13-years old.

Independent investigative journalist Robert Sollenberger was the first to report on the missing documents regarding the disturbing and salacious charges, and that other documents that were included in the DOJ's latest tranche revealed that the woman's allegations were credible enough that she was interviewed by the FBI four different times in 2019.

Today, NPR confirms and furthers Sollenberger's reporting to detail that at least 53 pages of those interviews and FBI notes created along with them, are indeed missing from the DOJ's Epstein Files database online.

In turn, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued a statement on the missing documents on Tuesday, noting that they have been "investigating the FBI's handling of allegations from 2019 of sexual assault on a minor made against President Donald Trump by a survivor."

Ranking Committee Member Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) notes in the statement that, after having "reviewed unredacted evidence logs" at DOJ, he is able to "confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes."

The Congressman vows that "Oversight Democrats will open a parallel investigation" into what he went on to describe during a presser on Tuesday as "the single largest cover-up in modern American history."

THEN... As we noted briefly on yesterday's program, late last week, Trump's FCC Chair Brendan Carr issued what some are describing as a new veiled threat to the nation's broadcasters. In a statement published on Friday, citing Trump's year-long plans to celebrate America's 250th birthday in July, Carr announced the FCC's "Pledge America Campaign," instructing broadcasters to air patriotic, pro-America programming, and suggesting that they "voluntarily choose to indicate their commitment to the Pledge America Campaign."

Some longtime media and communications experts have expressed concern about the announcement. One of them is HAROLD FELD, attorney and Senior Vice President at Public Knowledge, a non-profit good government group. He joins us on today's show to share concerns on not only that, but a number of Carr's other recent threats, including those that resulted in CBS attorneys instructing Stephen Colbert not to air a Late Show interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico. Colbert subsequently posted it only online instead.

"If somebody says, 'Nice business ya got here, be a shame if anything happens to it,' that lands differently if it's an insurance broker or a mobster," Feld tells me today, describing his reaction to Carr's "Pledge America Campaign" announcement. "Unfortunately, what we've been seeing is that this Administration falls into the mobster category, not the insurance broker category."

He suggests that Carr's request for "voluntary" pledges from broadcasters is "a potential trap". "If you don't sign, then it's 'Why do you hate America?' If you do sign [but] don't show the kind of 'celebration' that they are talking about, then it's going to be, 'Look at these guys, they said they were going to celebrate America but they hate America because they didn't show the right things, the things we want to see.'"

All of that comes, as Feld sees it, as a "real 'pay to play'" atmosphere from Trump's FCC, where they dangle approval or rejection of mergers and other things sought by broadcasters as bait or threats from what was statutorily designed decades ago to be an independent executive agency, separate from the White House itself and Presidential influence.

"Between these threats on the one hand, and these promises and gifts on the other hand to suspend federal law, to ignore anti-trust rules, this is a critically dangerous moment for our mass media and our First Amendment freedoms," Felt warns.

Tune in for much more insight on all of this from the very colorful Feld, who says he has known Carr --- and previously liked him --- for the past ten years or so. For an even deeper --- and really instructive --- dive, I would also recommend his latest piece at Public Knowledge headlined: "Equal Time, Unequal Enforcement: The Latest Move to Weaponize the FCC Against Trump Critics".

FINALLY... We're joined by Desi Doyen for our latest Green News Report, as an extreme climate-fueled winter storm batters the East Coast; extreme, climate-fueled dry weather threatens winter wildfires in Oklahoma; and as the Winter Olympics wrap up with athletes worried about the worsening effects of global warming on their sports...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Extreme winter storm batters the U.S. Northeast; Extreme dryness fuels winter fire weather in Oklahoma; PLUS: Winter Olympic athletes call for climate action to save winter sports... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): America is becoming a petrostate; Supreme Court agrees to hear from oil and gas companies trying to block climate change lawsuits; Winter is Not What it Used to Be in the Upper Midwest; Environmental Protest Group Extinction Rebellion Says FBI Is Investigating It For Terrorism... PLUS: Climate Coalition Sue to Stop Trump EPA 'From Torching Our Kids' Future... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: The cover-ups (plural) continue! It's good to be king. Amirite, Donald? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our lively coverage today...

• After a week of climate change-fueled downpours in Southern California, it looks like it's the East Coast's turn, as a record climate-fueled blizzard all but shuts down the Northeast with as much as three feet of snow in some places. All of that, just over a week after Donald Trump gutted some 20 years of EPA rules meant to slow or mitigate our worsening climate crisis by regulating the release of man-made greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. But Trump says, "don't worry about it!", the public will now have more money to spend on health care in the bargain!

• Trump's FCC Chair Brendan Carr offers some tips on how broadcasters may avoid scrutiny by issuing a "pledge" to support this Administration's celebration of the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this Summer. We take his suggestion to play more Schoolhouse Rock! In today's case, the classic 1973 episode about the nation's founding, called "No More Kings!"

• In the federal courts, corrupt Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled on Monday in Florida that the tax-payer funded report by Special Counsel Jack Smith --- detailing the tax-payer funded probe of Donald Trump's theft of thousands of national security documents upon leaving office after his first term, resulting in his federal criminal indictment on the matter --- is barred from ever being released to the public. Not even by future Administrations, if her absurd, ahistorical ruling were to be upheld. Smith himself remains barred from ever discussing it in the bargain. Stick a pin in all of that for a moment, because...

• Across the pond, just days after the arrest of the former Prince Andrew, related to revelations about his relationship with pedophile and Trump's longtime best friend Jeffrey Epstein, yet another high-ranking official was arrested on Monday. Former UK Ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson is facing potential indictment on similar charges to the former Prince. All of it revealed by emails and other documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice under the mandates of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

• Meanwhile, back here, as we discussed on last Thursday's BradCast in somewhat salacious detail, investigative journalist Roger Sollenberger has uncovered evidence revealing that the DOJ has unlawfully failed to release records regarding as many as four FBI interviews with a woman who alleges that she was raped, physically abused, and threatened by Donald Trump when she was just 13-years old. Sollenberger has also noticed some curious oddities regarding the timing of the discovery of certain Epstein-related documents by the DOJ and the return to Trump of the documents he stole at the end of his first term. (Yes, after Jack Smith was forced to drop his indictments against Trump when he was elected again, the DOJ returned those stolen documents to him shortly after he was sworn in a second time!)

  Is it possible that documents related to these allegations of Trump having raped and assaulted a minor were among those stolen by Trump? Might that explain why Trump was seemingly willing to face jail time to protect those documents, rather than simply return them to the Government after being politely asked repeatedly and warned many times of the consequences of not doing so? And if, in fact, he was hoarding some Epstein-related documents in his Mar-a-Lago mansion to keep them from seeing the light of day, is it possible that Jack Smith, after obtaining those documents via search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, knows all about it, but is now permanently barred by the Trump-appointed lackey Judge Cannon from ever talking about it? And is all of that revealed in the final report of his investigation that Cannon has absurdly blocked from ever being released to the public?

• Tune in for much more, plus callers ringing in today on all of the above!...

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Today on The BradCast: If only we were a real country. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

On Thursday, South Korea's former President, Yoon Suk Yeol, was found guilty of an attempted coup in December of 2024, when he declared martial law and directed troops to shut down the National Assembly in hopes of preventing it from being able to meet and vote to block the President's edict. The Judge ruled that the country's now former conservative leader (he was quickly impeached and removed from office) had, among other things, unlawfully sent militiamen to surround and "block the Assembly building and arrest key figures...in order to prevent lawmakers from gathering to deliberate or vote...to obstruct or paralyze the Assembly's activities so that it would be unable to properly perform its functions." Sound familiar?

After today's verdict, Yoon was quickly sentenced to life in prison, with labor. The Democratic opposition charged the sentenced "lacked a sense of justice" because the judge didn't choose the other possible sentence for this crime: the death penalty.

It took just 14 months for accountability in South Korea, the second democratic nation in the past six months to sentence a former leader for an attempted coup. Brazil's former President and Donald Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro enjoyed 33 months of freedom before he was handed a 27-year sentence for directing his supporters to attack the nation's parliament building in January of 2023 after Bolsonaro had lost his reelection bid. Sound familiar?

Meanwhile, across the pond today, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of King Charles III, was arrested by British police after a probe related to allegations that he had shared sensitive trade information with the late pedophile and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein while serving as the UK's special envoy for international trade. The former Prince was previously stripped of his title and more following allegations of sex with minors trafficked to him by Epstein.

Today was the first time in nearly 400 years that a British royal had been arrested. The last time, during King Charles I's reign, it was amid a power struggle between the King and Parliament in 1642, after which Charles was eventually beheaded.

There has been much more fallout for top government officials in Great Britain, Norway, France and elsewhere in recent days, related to information revealed by the release of the Epstein Files. Basically, everywhere but in the U.S.

The new allegations against the Prince formerly known as Andrew were revealed in documents published last month by the U.S. Dept. of Justice under the Epstein Transparency Act, a law fought for and won last year mainly by Congressional Democrats. That law, begrudgingly signed by Trump, Epstein's years-long best bud, mandates the release of all DOJ and FBI documents related to the multi-year criminal probes of Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. No documents may be withheld, and only the names and identifying information of victims may be redacted.

Trump's Dept. of Justice, however, is blatantly in violation of that law, continuing their long cover-up for him.

On Sunday, investigative journalist Roger Sollenberger discovered evidence in DOJ's publicly searchable Epstein database that the FBI interviewed "a victim of Jeffrey Epstein who also accused Donald Trump of sexually and violently assaulting her" when she was 13 years old, back in the mid-80s. The documents suggest the government found her to be a credible accuser in 2019 and, in 2021, a victim matching her biological details won a settlement from the late pedophile's estate.

On Wednesday, Sollenberger discovered even more details on the matter, including that the FBI found the woman to be credible enough that she was subsequently interviewed three more times thereafter by the FBI. But the records referencing those interviews, compiled by the DOJ for use in Maxwell's trial have since been removed from the Internet. Fortunately, that record was copied by the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine before it was removed by DOJ. As Sollenberger discovered, the records of the actual interviews, and the FBI's interview notes from three of four of those meetings, do not appear to have been published yet at all, in apparent defiance of the Epstein Transparency Act, an in contradiction to claims by Trump's U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that all such documents have now been released.

So...there is a whole lot to dig into on today's program, as you might imagine, including some very strange questions about timing of the victim's FBI interviews and Epstein's 2019 death in prison while awaiting trial. Also, Sollenberger raises even more curious points about the interview documents in question and how they may relate to the thousands of supposed "national security" documents stolen by Trump from the White House when he left office after his first term, before repeatedly refusing, despite threat of criminal indictment, to return them to the Government.

Cherry on top today? Desi Doyen joins us to close out the show with our latest Green News Report...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Environmental and public health groups sue Trump EPA over repeal of the EPA's Endangerment Finding; New data suggest the rate of man-made global warming may be accelerating; Trump EPA to loosen mercury pollution rules for coal plants; PLUS: The Trump Administration has effectively canceled enforcement of environmental laws... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump already decimated the EPA. It wasn't enough for Big Business; Trump Taps Ex-RFK Jr. Aide To Lead National Science Foundation; Environmental Protest Group Extinction Rebellion Says FBI Is Investigating It For Terrorism; How The NRC Lost Its Independence; Climate Change Threatens Winter Olympics' Future "“ And Snowmaking Has Limits; The Quest To Warn Everyone On Earth About Deadly Weather ... PLUS: >What's Behind Your Eye-Popping Power Bill? We Broke It Down By Region... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: When fascism takes root, there's a whole lot more that comes with it. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP TODAY... Based on little more than a threat from Donald Trump's FCC Chair Brendan Carr to rewrite Equal Time rules for late-night talk show interviews on broadcast television, CBS, newly owned by Paramount/Skydance, is rolling over in advance. Stephen Colbert, whose top-rated Late Show with Stephen Colbert will be ending in May on the heels of the merger, says that CBS attorneys barred him from interviewing Texas' Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico on Monday, amid his primary election against Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

But all of that seems to have blown up in CBS' face, as nearly three-times the number of viewers, so far, have watched Colbert's streaming-only interview, posted to Youtube after network suits nixed the broadcast version, and some $2.5 million came rolling in for Talarico's campaign in the bargain.

Colbert himself told the story on Monday and then followed up on Tuesday. We share both segments today.

THEN... Trump and his party stormed to power in 2024 based in no small part on opportunistic, weaponized charges of antisemitism on the Left, amid campus protests against Israel's war on Gaza. After taking office again last year, that political campaign turned into a government extortion campaign against universities, colleges, law firms and other organizations who, the Trump Administration claimed, were exercising antisemitism.

But, when rightwing podcaster Ben Shapiro attempted to call out antisemites in the Republican Party and MAGA movement late last year, he was met with little more than a shrug by the 30,000 young Christian followers of the late Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk at the group's America Fest gathering in Phoenix. Shapiro was, among other things, calling out former Fox 'News' host turned podcaster Tucker Carlson for a softball interview with avowed neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, and Shapiro's former employee, turned hugely popular podcaster, Candace Owens. She has, among other things in recent months, advanced a conspiracy theory that Israel was somehow behind last year's murder of Kirk.

It gets even more twisted, as new polling and focus groups find that young Republicans and evangelicals don't seem to have much of a problem with Hitler, and even long-established GOP institutions like the Heritage Foundation, have apparently decided to stand with Carlson and Nazis. Surprised? Don't be. They also got behind Trump even after he enjoyed a Thanksgiving week dinner with Kanye and Fuentes a few years earlier.

The notion that Evangelical Republicans claim to be supporters of Israel because they support the Jewish people has always been absurd to those of us paying actual attention for the past whole bunch of decades. The fact that the lie is only now beginning to come to the attention of some in the public and media is somewhat mind-blowing.

But the slow-motion implosion among MAGA Republicans is really something to watch, and far more widespread and insane than I can adequately detail here in a short summary post.

Longtime investigative journalist ART LEVINE, on the other hand, who joins us for a very lively conversation on today's program, has published an exhaustive expose on all of this at The Washington Spectator this month, headlined "Inside the MAGA Meltdown Over Antisemitism". The piece's similarly exhaustive (if very accurate) sub-hed: "A Parade of Charlie Kirk Wannabes, Nazi Sympathizers, End Times Prognosticators, Media Grifters and Nostalgic Evangelicals Scramble for Control of Their Imploding Coalition".

Levine tells me today that it is all "insanely hypocritical," arguing that "essentially, Donald Trump might be considered the Anti-Semite in Chief, because of his own overt symbolism. If you're inviting, over to your home, Kanye West, who recently had a 'Heil Hitler' video on Twitter, and Nick Fuentes, he is an open Holocaust denier, it's just nuts!"

"There's no more fig leaves," Levine charges, based on his months of painstakingly documented and linked research. "All of the standard distancing modes between Republicans and antisemitism has dropped away."

Tune in for much much more. And bring a big bucket of popcorn with ya...

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Today on The BradCast: The critical 2026 midterm elections are now officially underway, with early voting having begun in Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas for their March 3rd midterm primaries. But Republicans are not done trying to undermine those elections with legislation meant to undercut democracy itself. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... A few words on the passing, at the age of 84, of Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights icon, voting rights advocate, and two-time Democratic Presidential candidate.

Also, a few words on what appears to be the further collapsing of support for Donald Trump, as detailed in several new polls released in advance of the Washington's Birthday holiday yesterday, and as analyzed by CNN's Harry Enten. Bottom line for the moment, Trump's approval is nearing all-time lows among the public. It is lower than Joe Biden at the same point of his first term as President and even lower than Trump's own numbers at this point during his own failed first term in office. As Enten highlights, Trump is now 27 points underwater among independent voters.

"I don't understand how this works out well for the President of the United States. When you are 27 points below water, under water, with the center of the electorate, with independents, you lose, your party loses," explained the colorful Enten on Monday. With that in mind...

NEXT... If you're losing among the electorate, the Republican Party appears to now believe, don't adjust your policies to popular ones. Just change the electorate!

After seemingly failed mid-decade gerrymandering bids last year (quickly answered by Democratic states); after recent hollow threats by Trump to "nationalize" elections (he has no such legal or Constitutional authority); after ordering the FBI to raid the election warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia in an effort to continue the charade that the 2020 election was stolen from him (they still have shown no such evidence); the GOP seems to believe they can legislate their way to a more favorable electorate this year.

Last week, the Republican-controlled House narrowly passed the so-called "SAVE America Act" [PDF], formerly known as the SAVE Act, with every Republican member voting in favor. The measure would, among other things, if also passed in the U.S. Senate, force those newly registering to vote to somehow show proof of citizenship, in person, during the registration process.

The effort is part of Trump's long-running, evidence-free assertion that millions of noncitizens are unlawfully on the voting rolls and voting against him and, I guess, other Republican candidates.

The measure would also force states to run their voting rolls through a notoriously inaccurate federal Dept. of Homeland Security tool --- originally designed for something else entirely --- known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (or SAVE) database.

That tool has, in recent months, been used by GOP-controlled states to check their rolls for evidence of noncitizen voters. In state after state, it has found almost none. Among the few that it has flagged as potential noncitizen voters, many of them turn out to be false positives, citizens who are inaccurately identified as noncitizens in the database, or noncitizens on the rolls who never voted, but were registered due to clerical error after making clear to DMV workers that they were not American citizens.

Nonetheless, the SAVE America Act, would both force use of that failed tool in all 50 states --- potentially resulting in lawful voters being removed from the rolls --- and mandate proof of citizenship when registering, despite tens of millions of Americans who have no easy, or free, access to such documents.

We're joined today by lawyer turned election integrity social media advocate JENNIFER COHN --- who has been reading through the various iterations of the newly renamed SAVE Act --- to discuss both the barriers it includes for new voters (or those who have recently moved and must re-register), the obstacles that stand in the way of Republican passage of the Act in the U.S. Senate, and what the real purpose of this insidious legislation actually is.

"Up to 69 million women could be disenfranchised by this bill because their last names no longer match their birth certificates because they've taken their husband's name," explains Cohn. She says that while the legislation mentions documents that might help women overcome that barrier, "They're tricky about it. They say, for example, that you could use a 'Real ID' if it indicates your citizenship. What they don't say is that only five states issue Real IDs that indicate your citizenship. So that won't work for the vast majority of Americans."

Passports will work, but they now cost $165 for new applicants or $130 for renewals. They also take time to obtain and require, in most cases, a birth certificate, which many do not have access to. Those may also cost time and money to obtain. But a birth certificate alone won't work either if your name has changed through marriage, or other reasons. And if you have a passport, but your name has changed since you obtained it, that will be a problem as well. Cohn notes that the Republican authors of the bill did something else that is "sneaky in the latest version of the bill. It still omits marriage certificates from the list of approved documents." So even those might not adequately offer proof of citizenship when coupled with a birth certificate during registration under SAVE.

There is much more to be concerned about, Cohn tells me, arguing that "the media really has not caught up" with what Republicans are trying to do with the SAVE Act and just how bad the SAVE database actually is.

While I explain that I think much of this is meant simply to frighten voters into not participating in elections, to scare them, to cause chaos --- especially as I see no path toward passage of the SAVE Act in the Senate --- Cohn thinks I may be wrong, that insidious plans may be in the works to force passage against the wishes of Democrats in the upper chamber, where 60 votes would normally be needed for passage in the 100-seat Senate. (Tune in for details on those insidious plans.)

She believes that people should be freaked out by all of this. If nothing else, she argues, so that they take action to call their Senators (202-224-3121) to demand they vote against SAVE, and to help people understand that this is much much more than a simple "Voter ID bill" as Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and other wildly dishonest Republicans are disingenuously attempting to portray it to the public.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on the heels of last week's landmark rollback of the EPA's critical Endangerment Finding, which had allowed regulation of fossil fuel pollution under the Clean Air Act; and following a massive raw sewage spill at a federal facility near D.C., which Trump is attempting to blame on Maryland's Democratic Governor...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Fallout grows after Trump EPA revokes the Endangerment Finding, a key goal of Project 2025; Trump's dismantling of America's climate supercomputer threatens U.S. insurance markets; China's emissions have been flat or falling for nearly 2 years; PLUS: Massive sewage spill in nation's capital is likely the largest in U.S. history... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Some like it hothouse: Unleashing subsurface strategic energy assets to achieve unmanageable climate outcomes; Dem Senators Launch Inquiry Into EPA's Repeal Of Endangerment Finding; A new Ohio bill could be a de facto statewide ban on solar and wind; The voracious vine that 'ate the South' can also fuel wildfires; Hazardous South L.A. oil wells plugged after decades of community pressure... PLUS: Trash piles up in Havana as US oil chokehold halts garbage trucks ... and much, MUCH more! ...

On Thursday, Senior US District Court Judge Richard J. Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a Preliminary Injunction preventing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth from implementing the letter of censure he directed at Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, a former (retired) U.S. Navy Captain and former astronaut.

The preliminary injunction prevents the Navy from conducting a hearing to re-determine Kelly's retirement grade. It also prevents reliance on Hegseth's censure letter in order to carry out "threats of additional criminal or administrative action."

In his Memorandum Opinion Judge Leon expressly found that Hegseth "trampled on Senator Kelly's First Amendment freedoms and the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees," when he issued a letter that censured Kelly for his participation in the duty to disobey illegal orders video, created with five other Congressional lawmakers, all military or intelligence veterans...