{"id":15623,"date":"2026-01-29T19:00:59","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T03:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15623"},"modified":"2026-01-29T19:11:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T03:11:38","slug":"its-about-elections-and-the-windmills-of-his-mind-bradcast-1292026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15623","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s About Elections and the Windmills of His Mind: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 1\/29\/2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_Trump-BackOfHead_012926.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">It&#8217;s always about elections, as detailed yet again on today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>, with a boatload of breaking news, and a concurrent trip through the twisted windmills of the mind of the President of the United States. Or whatever&#8217;s left of it. [<i>Audio link to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>Among today&#8217;s many stories&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Best idea of the week, perhaps of the year, to date: The editors of <i>The Nation<\/i> magazine <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/activism\/the-nation-nominates-minneapolis-for-the-nobel-peace-prize\/\">nominate<\/a> the <b>City of Minneapolis<\/b> for the <b>Nobel Peace Prize<\/b>. (Seconded!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Don&#8217;t be fooled by <b>Donald Trump<\/b> swapping out Himmler-wannabe, Border Patrol commandant <b>Gregory Bovino<\/b> for $50,000 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/news\/tom-homan-cash-contracts-trump-doj-investigation-rcna232568\">bribe recipient<\/a> and architect of first term child separation policy <b>Tom Homan<\/b> as Chief Goon in charge of the federal government&#8217;s assault on Minneapolis. As many are confirming, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/homan-minneapolis-immigration-enforcement-0d559bf53b630d7cc525fd3219f430ba\">little has changed<\/a>, to date, on the ground, after the rotation of lead stooges, even as Trump has become desperate to prevent another embarrassing government shutdown this weekend.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Speaking of, we detailed the many moving parts of the threat of a new government shutdown on <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15621\">yesterday&#8217;s program<\/a>, as Democrats insist on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.govexec.com\/management\/2026\/01\/senate-dems-demand-immigration-agents-unmask-wear-body-cameras-and-carry-ids-shutdown-looms\/411050\/\">new guardrails<\/a> on <b>ICE<\/b> and <b>CBP<\/b> in exchange for fiscal 2026 <b>DHS<\/b> funding. While a brief shutdown is still likely to happen over the weekend, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jan\/29\/senate-democrats-deal-dhs-funding-bill\">deal brokered<\/a> between Dems and the White House just before airtime today would split off the bill that funds DHS from five other spending bills which would be adopted in full. A Continuing Resolution, to keep funding DHS at current levels, would then be approved to allow two more weeks to negotiate reforms, such as an end to unconstitutional door-to-door patrols, a no-masking policy, mandatory body cams, etc., following the ICE\/CBP murders of <b>Renee Good<\/b> and <b>Alex Pretti<\/b>, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>As just one sign of Trump&#8217;s desperation to prevent another government shutdown, with midterm elections looming &#8212; and likely to be very bad for his party &#8212; <b>ICE<\/b> has reportedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/01\/29\/ice-maine-surge-susan-collins-kristi-noem\">ended its surge<\/a> into the state of <b>Maine<\/b>, where hundreds of arrests over the past week, including of <i>legal<\/i> immigrants has infuriated residents. News of ICE leaving just one week after its new campaign comes via the otherwise &#8220;blue&#8221; state&#8217;s Republican Sen. <b>Susan Collins<\/b>, so take it for what it&#8217;s worth. Collins &#8212; Chair of Senate Appropriations &#8212; has a very difficult election this year as the only Republican Senator facing reelection in a state won in 2024 by the Democrats. There is a lot to unpack regarding all of that today. But, with Trump desperate to hang on to control of the <b>U.S. Senate<\/b> this November, its not surprising that he is hoping to make life easier for Collins, despite <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/01\/08\/us\/politics\/trump-senate-republicans-susan-collins.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IVA.xPa4.QLHkrSqKJ4GW&#038;smid=url-share\">previously calling<\/a> on his supporters to vote her out.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The guy hired to be the new chief artistic director of the <b>Kennedy Center<\/b> after its takeover by Trump thugs, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/01\/28\/us\/politics\/trump-kennedy-center-resignation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IVA.g44l.H-CAHTWJpqp7&#038;smid=url-share\">has quit<\/a> &#8212; just two weeks after his hiring was announced.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The <b>U.S. trade deficit<\/b> &#8212; the amount of goods and services we export versus what we import &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/01\/29\/business\/us-trade-deficit-tariffs.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IVA.9c9S.2ObYrtfzWiW1&#038;smid=url-share\">grew sharply<\/a> in November, with imports surging and exports plummeting, despite Trump&#8217;s tariff scheme which was supposed to accomplish the very opposite. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Picking up where we left off yesterday, as news was just breaking that Trump&#8217;s <b>FBI<\/b> had raided the <b>Fulton County<\/b> elections warehouse in Atlanta, reportedly grabbing secured ballots from the 2020 election &#8212; which Trump is still pretending to have won, more than five years later &#8212; we&#8217;ve got several <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2026\/01\/28\/us\/trump-news#section-549312686\">additional details<\/a> today on what was taken; what the FBI was looking for; the clown show that the execution of the search warrant became; the federal prosecutor from an entirely different state brought in to obtain the warrant; the long-known failures of the three post-election tallies by Fulton County as overseen by the state&#8217;s Republican Sec. of State; and how all of this has election experts very concerned about bad faith efforts by Trump and his supporters in advance of the 2026 midterms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In other bad faith news regarding Trump&#8217;s false claims to have won states that he didn&#8217;t, the ties between his reasons for surging immigration enforcers into Minneapolis and Trump&#8217;s years-long false claims to have won the state of <b>Minnesota<\/b> three times (he won it zero times), has now become <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/trump-minnesota-retribution_n_697a7a5ce4b00b1deb8f2aaa\">clearer than ever<\/a>. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15622\">our latest <i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a>, as humanity slips still closer to <b>&#8216;Doomsday&#8217;<\/b>; as the U.S. is formally withdrawn, for the second time, from the <b>Paris Climate Agreement<\/b>; as Trump is blocked by a fourth court in a fourth state on his effort to halt nearly completed <b>offshore wind<\/b> projects; and as sales of <b>EVs<\/b> now now outpace gasoline cars in Europe&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman-NobelMpls-HomanIn-ShutdownDHS-MaineICE-FultonCountyRaid-TrumpMN_012926.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pandora.com\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/PC:1000025838\">Pandora<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/podcast\/256-the-bradcast-w-brad-friedm-30973643\/\">iHeart<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-BradCast-w-Brad-Friedman\/dp\/B08JJRN86R\/ref=sr_1_1\">Amazon<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><strong>The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, <em>The BradCast<\/em> and <em>Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s always about elections, as detailed yet again on today&#8217;s BradCast, with a boatload of breaking news, and a concurrent trip through the twisted windmills of the mind of the President of the United States. Or whatever&#8217;s left of it. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.] Among today&#8217;s many stories&#8230; Best idea of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,89,675,1300,299,513,390,969,2053,753,227,72,1129,261,477,350,219,834,300,126,839,2038,233,541],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-cbp","category-democrats","category-dhs","category-economy","category-election-2020","category-election-2026","category-electric-vehicles","category-fbi","category-georgia","category-ice","category-immigration","category-kpfk","category-maine","category-minnesota","category-paris-agreement","category-republicans","category-rights-and-freedoms","category-susan-collins","category-tom-homan","category-us-senate","category-wind"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15623"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=15623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}