It's been a while, but they're back for today's BradCast to help send us off with a smile --- and just a little bit smarter --- for a brief, much-needed holiday break from the program next week. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

First up today, however, a few late news headlines...

• Don't be fooled by either bad corporate media headlines or Donald Trump's false claim of "TOTAL VICTORY". In fact, a New York appeals court on Thursday affirmed last year's civil fraud conviction against the nation's criminal-in-chief, but finds [PDF] the nearly half billion dollar fine charged against him for his years of cooking his company's books with faked, artificially inflated financial statements to be 'excessive'. So, the bank and tax fraud verdict holds, the amount of the fine is to be redetermined, and all other penalties against Trump, his company and his two eldest sons remain in place.

• Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the El Salvadoran Maryland man "mistakenly" sent to a gulag in El Salvador by the Trump Administration, will be released from a Tennessee prison on Friday. He has been held in the facility since returning to the U.S. to be be slapped with Trumped-up charges meant to save face for the Administration. The court has now issued several orders to prevent Abrego Garcia from being scooped up by ICE and deported again after he is freed...but we'll see if the Trump Administration has any respect left whatsoever for the courts and the Rule of Law.

• The Gerrymandering Wars continue. Shortly after airtime on Wednesday, the Texas state House --- delayed more than two weeks by state Democratic lawmakers leaving Texas to break quorum --- adopted a newly gerrymandered U.S. House Map to steal five seats from Democrats in next year's midterms. The Lone Star state Senate will soon pass same and the heist will be signed by the state's corrupt Governor. In the meantime, here in California, our state Legislature, by a 2/3rds vote, adopted Gov. Gavin Newsom's "Rigged Election Response Act" today. The measure, quickly signed by the Governor, will ask state voters in November for permission to temporarily waive the Congressional map created by the state's Citizen Redistricting Commission to replace it with a new one that is likely to flip five "red" U.S. House seats to "blue" next year, in response to Texas' obnoxious mid-decade redistricting at the command of Donald Trump.

We pick up on those stories and many more today with our old OG blogger pals, the great HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby's Hulaballoo and the notorious 'DRIFTGLASS' of the Professional Left Podcast. Both join us today for a wide ranging conversation that takes a few surprising (and amusing) twists and turns along the way.

On today's court ruling in NY on Trump's fraud fine, Digby finds it "unfortunate that the headlines that are coming out are backing Trump's contention that this is some kind of a vindication. It is not." She observes "there is probably going to be a fine, and it will be a painful fine, it's just not going to be half a billion dollars."

Driftglass has an additional idea. While Trump is "still guilty," he notes, "I will take a straight-up swap: zero fines in exchange for the Epstein Files. How's that? There's a deal!"

We spend quite a bit of time today on the next steps in the Gerrymandering War begun by TX. Both Digby and Driftglass support CA's response to it. Says Driftglass, an Illinois resident: "I think what California has done, and I hope Illinois does, is show them that nuclear deterrence is the only way we can keep these people in a box. We'd rather not. But if you're going to bring a knife, we are going to bring a gun." As to what his already Democratic-gerrymandered state plans to do? Well, tune in for Drifty's assessment.

Digby, a fellow L.A. resident, is "hopeful" that voters will approve the statewide ballot measure on November 4th, despite a big money campaign already underway to defeat it. "Trump has treated California like garbage," says Parton. "We've been through a lot of trauma in this state. The way that he talks about the Governor, the way he talks about all the politicians here, I think Californians are sick of it."

"Essentially," she rages, "we're here to provide federal money for Trump's red states, including Texas. I think there's this sense that alright, it's time to fight back," She and Driftglass are also both veryfond of Newsom's new, wildly popular Trump trolling routine on social media. We compare our favorite Newsom trolling meme's (one of them is pictured above) before today's show is over.

Other items covered with D&D today include Trump's pathetic, pretend show of force with the deployment of the National Guard in D.C. and elsewhere. ("He is performing acts of fascist theatre" for the benefit of his MAGA supporters, charges Driftglass.); whether any of the Trump/Republican wildly unpopular policies are working or liked by voters and, if not, why the hell do they continue to double down?; and much more.

Finally, we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, our last before the Labor Day holiday break, as climate change fueled catastrophes continue around the globe, and as Trump's acting NASA Administrator announces his intention to defy federal law by ending the Agency's statutory mission to "study Earth" and "address environmental issues".

NOTE: We are ducking out from both The BradCast and Green News Report next week for a respite until after the Labor Day holiday! Hope you all will have a good one!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Spain battles its worst wildfire season --- yes, intensified by climate change; The world is drying out, threatening humanity's supply of fresh water; PLUS: Acting NASA Administrator wants the agency to give up climate science --- despite NASA's statutory mandate... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Picking losers: Keeping obsolete coal plants open costs ratepayers millions; Kia is launching all the cool new EVs in Europe, while the US gets put on the back burner; A Toxic Landfill Was on the Brink of Expanding. Residents Fought Back and Won; Geothermal Network in Colorado Could Help Rural Town Diversify Its Economy; Court Puts The Brakes On Contested Land Transfer For Arizona Copper Mine; Another Gold Rush Could Bring Open Pit Mines To South Dakota’s Black Hills... PLUS: As Great Salt Lake Dries Up, Clouds Of Dangerous Dust Blow Into Boomtowns... and much, MUCH more! ...

It may not be the most pressing issue many are focusing on right now. But, as discussed on today's BradCast, the Administration's burgeoning attempts to officially whitewash American history is very much of a piece with all of the other authoritarian tactics and policies emanating from this White House. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Last week, a Florida insurance attorney turned White House Special Asst. to the President, Lindsey Halligan, penned a rather menacing and certainly unprecedented letter to the head of the Smithsonian Institution, the beloved, 179-year old historical organization established by Congress in 1846 (fifteen years prior to the Civil War), as an independent agency led by a Secretary and a bipartisan Board of Regents.

Halligan's letter, citing Donald Trump's March Executive Order titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History", serves to notify the Smithsonian's Secretary that the White House intends to carry out a "comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions...to ensure alignment with the President's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions."

Two days later, the 118-year old Organization of American Historians (OHA) penned their own scathing response, calling out what they describe as an "unacceptable instance of ongoing executive overreach, striking at the independence of one of our nation’s preeminent historical and cultural institutions." They characterize the White House's stated intentions as "the opposite of a fulsome presentation of the history of the United States" and "in service of authoritarian control over the national narrative, collective memory, and national collections."

Over the weekend, Willamette University historian, award-winning author SETH COTLAR, whose newsletter is called Rightlandia, drew attention in a Bluesky thread to a reference in Halligan's letter focused on what she describes as "Americanism --- the principles, and progress that define our nation".

But that phrase, "Americanism", as Cotlar, who joins us on today's program, explains, has its own troubling history.

"The beauty of it for those who are using it is that is so vague. How could an American be opposed to 'Americanism'?," he asks rhetorically. "What things that would be at the Smithsonian would be operating against 'Americanism'? It's a very undefined thing, which is typical of an authoritarian regime, where they get to decide what it is."

And that, of course, is only the beginning of Cotlar's concerns, given that the phrase "Americanism" has historically been "used by the far right in the U.S. in order to push illiberal, I would argue often fascistic, visions of the nation. Usually racist, often antisemitic."

"The term," Cotlar tells me, "has functioned very effectively as tool of radicalization" going back at least to WWI, throughout the national rise of the KKK in the 1920s, into the anti-Communist McCarthy era in the 50s and 60s, and beyond...right into Trump's White House.

It has "functioned very effectively as tool of radicalization. It would be a way to foster a sense of 'This is what it means to be an American'. It means to be white and Christian, and people who are not white and Christian are somehow not quite as truly American as anybody else."

The phrase "America First," which Trump has used throughout all of his Presidential campaigns, has a similarly troubling history that Trump may or may not know about himself. (He doesn't know much, after all, about history.) But "the people in Trump's movement who do know this history are very aware of what the term 'America First' means, and its genealogy," argues Cotlar.

He goes on to detail how the Administration's unprecedented attempt to push aside actual historians to take control of the Smithsonian is ultimately the "history piece" of Trump's broad and radical "nationalistic" agenda, meant to "restore some nostalgic vision of some idyllic past." He describes the effort as a "weirdly Stalinesque, Orwellian effort to just obliterate parts of the actual historical record."

Much more on all of this with Cotlar today in a fascinating conversation.

ALSO ON TODAY'S PROGRAM...

• The latest on the ongoing Gerrymandering Wars, with the opening salvo both fired and won by Texas Republicans, at Donald Trump's demand, now spreading into California, but perhaps not to Indiana where, despite a pressure campaign by the White House, a handful of Republicans have come out in opposition (for now) to the idea of rewriting their U.S. House map to steal seats from Democrats before next year's midterms.

• And, finally, as yet a third federal judge has now nixed Trump's attempt to distract from his refusal to release the Epstein Files (which he is in) by releasing grand jury transcripts, folk musicians Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer with a "Gathering of Old-Time Musicians" unleash their "Ode to the Epstein Files" which --- their very ear-wormy new tune insists --- "Ain't Gonna Go Away."

Enjoy!...

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Okay. So, now Republican elected officials who pretend to oppose "Big Government", are literally locking up their elected opponents in the state capital. (Insert eye-roll emoji here.) That's just one of the insane stories --- and disturbing signs of American democracy on the authoritarian precipice --- on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

• On Monday, Democratic state lawmakers returned to Texas after two weeks of out-of-state quorum breaking meant to prevent Texas Republicans from stealing five U.S. House seats with a new map drawn up at the insistence of Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott. But, before they were allowed to leave the capital building in Austin, the Republican House leader required Dems to sign a permission slip to be escorted 24/7 by Texas state troopers to ensure they return to vote on the new map on Wednesday. Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier refused to sign away her freedoms, and was disallowed from leaving the House chamber, where she has effectively been held prisoner on the floor of the House by Republicans. She was was forced Monday night to sleep under bright lights at her desk House floor desk. [See photo above.] As of today, Collier is still being held prisoner by fellow elected officials from the state's rightwing authoritarian majority party. Lots of details on this remarkable story today, and how it serves as more shameful evidence of what Republicans have allowed American "democracy" to become.

• Out here in California, meanwhile, state Democrats are moving ahead with their plan to counter Texas' attempted heist by redrawing the Golden State's U.S. House map to remove five Republican seats from the map next year, in what Gov. Gavin Newsom describes as "fighting fire with fire". In CA, however, it won't be up to partisan state officials. No imprisonment of the opposition should be necessary. Here, the voters of the state must decide in a special election on November 4th as to whether they wish to temporarily set aside the U.S. House map created by the state's independent redistricting commission. The effort is meant to counter Texas Republicans undermining democracy --- and the odds of Dems winning back the House to put the brakes on Trump's authoritarian agenda --- in the 2026 midterms. I have been supportive of the CA response, called the "Election Rigging Response Act", despite my years-long record in opposition to gerrymandering by either party. One longtime listener calls me out via email today for my new position on this matter, charging that "If you fight fire with fire the fire grows stronger and then spreads." I share his well-meaning thoughts and my response to them on today's program.

• Speaking of corrupting democracy, the Trump-supporting Republican propaganda outlet Newsmax has agreed to pay $67 million to settle the defamation lawsuit filed against it by Dominion Voting Systems. After Trump lost the 2020 election, Newsmax --- along with Fox "News" and other dishonest GOP propaganda outlets --- advanced evidence-free claims that the election was rigged by, among other things, voting machine companies like Dominion. Documents that would have been shown to jurors at trial --- had Newsmax not agreed to settle --- reveal that officials at the fake news outfit knew Trump's claims about a stolen election were BS, but ran the phony conspiracy theories anyway to win duped MAGA viewers. The Newsmax settlement follows a similar $787.5 million defamation settlement with Dominion by Fox "News", and a reported $40 million paid by Newsmax to Smartmatic, another voting equipment vendor falsely accused of fraud by Trump-supporting outlets after the 2020 election.

• On yesterday's show, we detailed how the Dept. of Homeland Security is now using literal Nazi and neo-Nazi text and references and imagery in their new recruitment campaign for ICE. Today, both NOTUS and The Independent detail pretty good evidence to suggest that the unnamed Nazi-loving social media creator at DHS may be a guy named Eric Lendrum, who has a long public history of both Nazi-like political statements and claims that "conservatives" are being ostracized like slaves, or as Jews were in Nazi Germany. Lendrum now works in the DHS Public Relations office, which does PR for the largest law enforcement agency in the world, and evidence suggests he may be responsible for the relentless recent flood of DHS social media posts using Nazi memes, slogans and images.

• We tried to warn you. Though, for some, it could be the last timely warning they receive. E&E News' is reporting that public radio and TV stations are now scrambling to keep their local disaster-warning systems alive after Trump and Republicans in Congress rescinded all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helped fund hundreds of local NPR and PBS stations. In many areas around the U.S., those stations are --- or, historically, were --- a literal lifeline for local residents, particularly in rural areas. Emergency alert warning systems now at risk include those for hurricanes and tropical storms on the Atlantic Coast; for winter storms across the Northern Plains; tsunamis in Alaska; earthquakes in rural Northern California; tornadoes in states across the Great Plains; and flash flooding just about everywhere these days. Yes, elections have consequences. And now, potentially very deadly ones, including for many rural Trump voters.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on Hurricane Erin smashing records off the Atlantic Coast; Climate change driving record humidity levels; Deadly rains in Pakistan and a heatwave in Scandinavia intensified by the burning of fossil fuels; and the collapse of a U.N. plastics pollution conference, thanks to nations like the U.S., Russia, and a bunch of Middle Eastern states who undermined a landmark agreement on behalf of the plastic-producing fossil fuel industry at the recent conference in Geneva...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Erin already setting records; Climate change drove record levels of global humidity in 2024, with 2025 breathing down its neck; Deadly rains in Pakistan, deadly Nordic heatwave, both supercharged by human-caused global warming; PLUS: U.N. talks to curb plastic production collapse, with oil-producing nations (like the U.S.) refusing to limit plastic production... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): It's official: NASA is giving up climate science; Trump Admin tightens rules for renewable energy tax credits; Japan's rice harvest suffers under summer's brutal heat; China develops lithium battery twice as powerful as Tesla’s advanced cell; Trump admin redacts entire Empire Wind study; Prominent Texas breeder charged as 'ghost deer' investigation grows... PLUS: The smoldering, noxious waste dump next door... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: I don't use the word easily. But, if they're gonna use actual Nazi book titles and Nazi fonts in their ICE recruitment ads, they can hardly be offended, much less surprised, if they are called Nazis, right? Also, if they're going to undermine democracy the way the Nazis did, yeah, they're gonna get called out as Nazis! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

On today's program...

• We kick off with a new tune at the top of the show called "Join ICE", by brilliant young folk singer Jesse Welles. You'll enjoy it. If I'm right, and you wanna hear it again, or see what Jesse looks like, the video of his new song is right here.

• Next, they're not even trying to hide it anymore. As the nonprofit news site Religious Dispatches points out, it's "less of a dog whistle than a bullhorn" at this point. The outlet cites two recent cases of the Dept. of Homeland Security tweeting out ICE recruitment propaganda with both purposeful Nazi references --- that might only be fully appreciated by actual Neo-Nazis --- and a "Join ICE" recruitment video that uses "the very same gothic lettering, or Frakturschrift, used by Nazis in their publications --- including on the cover of Mein Kampf"!

• Speaking of police states now in America, Democratic state lawmakers returned to Texas on Monday after breaking quorum in the state Legislature for the past two weeks. Their goad had been to block the adoption of a newly gerrymandered U.S. House map for Texas in advance of next year's midterm elections. We discuss why the Dems say they have returned and what that means for the fight against the new map in Texas and for democracy across the U.S. But the Republican's state House caucus leader has now ordered the Democrats who returned from out of state to be escorted "around-the-clock" by Texas state troopers to prevent them from fleeing again, until the new Special Session called by Gov. Greg Abbott (at Donald Trump's order) is over. Or, at least until they've used their rightwing legislative muscle --- and state troopers --- to deprive voters in five blue-leaning U.S. House districts of their right to be represented by a candidate of their choosing.

• Then, Donald Trump is really hoping you'll forget about his failure to strike a ceasefire "deal" with Vladimir Putin in Alaska last Friday (any his failure to apply "severe" consequences, as promised, against Russia if he didn't). Of course, Trump continues to hope that you'll be too outraged about everything else, to remember that he is still refusing to release the Epstein Files that he is featured in. Today's latest attempted distraction was a long post Monday morning on his failing social media site, vowing to end the use of "MAIL-IN BALLOTS" and get rid of "VOTING MACHINES", by Executive Order, before the 2026 midterm elections. Of course, he has no Constitutional authority as President to do any of that and, naturally, his rambling, at-times ALL CAPS screed announcing his plans was filled with one false claim after another, which we break down on today's show. The biggest takeaway, however, is not only that Trump is hoping to undermine democracy, but that he is now putting in place excuses to blame for his party's trouncing in next year's midterms. Presuming, of course, that they are trounced. If so, he'll be able to claim it was the "MAIL-IN BALLOTS" and "VOTING MACHINES" that dunnit, without any actual evidence to support his claims --- other than his previous tweets "warning" about same. It's his 2020 sore loser act redux. Much more on all of this on today's show.

• Finally, we close with a few callers today, on all of the above...

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Coming on the heels of the presently enjoined, 4th Amendment violating, racial profiling mass roundups of Latinos in California, the Trump regime's effort to not only federalize law enforcement in the District of Columbia but also to target the homeless for removal resurrects the ghost of the late Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller.

An acknowledged anti-semite, Niemöller initially supported Hitler's rise to power. But he drew the ire of Der Führer's totalitarian regime after he openly opposed the Nazification of Protestant Churches.

Narrowly escaping death after he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1937, Niemöller spent the years 1938 to 1945 in infamous Nazi concentration camps.

Following his release from Dachau in 1945, Niemöller penned the poem, First They Came...

It's your democracy at work, for better or worse, on today's BradCast! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... At a lively rally at the Democracy Center here in Los Angeles on Thursday, California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled the "Election Rigging Response Act", legislation meant to push back against Donald Trump and the state of Texas' attempted mid-decade gerrymander of its already-gerrymandered U.S. House map. The new TX map, if enacted, would steal five Democratic House seats from largely minority voters in the Lone Star State in next year's midterms.

"We can't stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district all across the country," Newsom declared at the boisterous rally, announcing his plan to ask the Golden State legislature to quickly approve a ballot measure for November 4th that would allow CA to temporarily override the state's U.S. House map. Unlike in Texas, our maps are drawn by an independent redistricting commission. If Newsom's scheme overcomes several hurdles, a new map would be drawn by the Legislature to flip five currently Republican seats in CA. The Act must first be approved by two-thirds of the CA state Legislature. It would then have to pass muster with voters on November 4, and wold only take effect if Texas successfully rigs their map.

The attempted heist in Texas is currently on hold, with state Democratic lawmakers breaking quorum by leaving the state. But Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has insisted that he will call Special Session after Special Session until he is able to rig the map for Trump and Republicans who fear they will otherwise lose their slim U.S. House majority next year.

"We are not bystanders in this world. We can shape the future," Newsom told the crowd on Thursday, adding: "Donald Trump, you have poked the bear and we will punch back."

"We're giving the people of this state the power to save democracy, not just in California, but all across the United States of America. I hope we are waking up to this reality. Wake up, America. Wake up to what Donald Trump is doing," the Governor concluded. We share his remarks in full on today's show.

THEN... We're joined by veteran, award-winning journalist turned media reform champion SUE WILSON of the Media Action Center, for an update on a remarkable story she has been covering at The BRAD BLOG for at least five years.

Wilson initially reported in 2020 on a citizen Petition filed at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking to deny renewal of Sinclair Broadcasting's TV stion license in Baltimore. The complaint alleged that Sinclair, one of the nation's largest (and most right-leaning) station owners, was violating FCC rules that limit the number of stations that can be owned in a single market by secretly controlling two other television stations in Baltimore. Those two stations are run, according to the well-documented Petition, by sock-puppet companies actually controlled by Sinclair.

Filed in late 2020, the Petition wasn't heard by the FCC during the remaining months of Donald Trump's first term. Over the ensuing four years, for reasons we discuss today, Joe Biden's FCC failed to review the matter as well. In the meantime, in 2023, the Petitioner passed away. Another Baltimore resident was quickly substituted on the paperwork.

Fast-forward to 2025 and the FCC in Trump's second term, now led by his hand-picked Chair Brendan Carr, dismissed the original complaint on the basis that the substitute Petitioner missed the chance to file a petition on her own back in 2020. Her substitution for the man who waited five years for a hearing --- and died waiting --- was not allowed, Carr ruled, even though the well-documented facts of the matter hadn't changed. The Sinclair stations in question have since been re-licensed, despite the companies apparent violations of both FCC rules and federal law.

The lawyer for both the late Petitioner and his substitute, has filed an Application for Review, hoping to appeal the Commission's absurd ruling. Wilson detailed the latest remarkable chapter in this long-running story at The BRAD BLOG this week, and joins us to both break it down, and light up a warning about the next scheme that the FCC's Carr now has in place to undermine federal ownership rules of local television stations nationwide.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with the usual litany of disturbing climate and energy news, as well as perhaps the dumbest, most disinformative comment ever uttered on Fox "News" regarding renewable energy --- and that's saying quite a bit!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Tennessee is the latest state slammed by this Summer of Floods; New barriers protect much of Juneau, Alaska from glacial outburst flood; Glaciers in North America and Europe lost 'unprecedented' amount of ice over last four years; PLUS: Home-based batteries helping to keep the lights on in Puerto Rico... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Normalizing climate disaster in the Age of Trump; 'No country is safe': deadly Nordic heatwave supercharged by climate crisis, scientists say; How a retreat by the EPA would endanger the U.S. economy; California activates $2 billion solar and energy storage facility; Wildfires fanned by heatwave and strong winds rage across Europe... PLUS: Homeless and Burning in America’s Hottest City... and much, MUCH more! ...

Sadly (or happily, as you may see it), we don't have many Republicans as guests on The BradCast these days. That's largely because so many are now crazy, brainwashed and/or liars, as I see it, and we don't like platforming crazy, brainwashed lies on this program. But today, I'm delighted to be joined by someone from the Right who appears neither crazy, brainwashed nor a liar, as we try to find common ground to end the worsening Gerrymander War touched off by Trump and Republicans in Texas of late. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

First up, a few more thoughts today on the Big Government Tyranny that Republicans used to claim to oppose...until they found a Big Government Tyrant that they are happy to get behind, I guess. The U.S. National Guard was deployed to the streets of the nation's capitol yesterday, at the order of Donald Trump, to supposedly help fight crime in a city where violent crime is at a 30-year low, and has dropped by 26% since this time last year.

Those troops in D.C. may wish to look to those deployed out here in L.A. in early June, where they apparently did virtually nothing over their 60-day deployment away from their families, jobs and homes. The show of federal force was merely meant as a performative tough guy move by our pretend tough guy President. The same is true, no doubt, in D.C. today.

Trump's federalization of the California National Guard against the wishes of the state's Governor and L.A.'s Mayor, may also have been unlawful. A three-day bench trial is wrapping up today in L.A. on that very matter, but Liberal Redneck Trae Crowder already has his verdict on much of this today, some of which we share.

THEN... it's back to the ongoing gerrymandering war, as Democratic Texas state lawmakers are still breaking quorum by fleeing the state in hopes of blocking Republican Gov. Greg Abbott from stealing at least five "blue" U.S. House Seats from majority minority districts before next year's midterm elections. At the orders of Donald Trump, Abbott has convened a special session of the state Legislature to carry out a rare, mid-decade redistricting of the already gerrymandered state. A proposed new map would include, for example, a current House District in the state's liberal capital of Austin being broken up and added to a rural District that expands more than 300 miles from Austin.

Democratic state Governors, like California's Gavin Newsom, have vowed to respond in kind if Texas is successful. Other GOP-controlled states are now considering new gerrymanders in turn, as still more Dem states prepare to do the same if needed and if possible.

Where does it all end? We're joined today by writer FRED BAUER who has an idea or two on how it all could end, optimistically, in a way that "both sides" might support.

In his op-ed at Washington Post this week, headlined "There’s a way to end Texas’s redistricting war where everyone wins", Bauer, a Republican, makes the case for expanding the U.S. House by about 140 seats in almost every state before next year's midterms, in a way that, he argues, might be seen as benefiting both parties.

I've got lots of questions, as you may imagine. While I appreciate the idea of better representation of voters (one Member currently represents nearly 800,000 voters in each Congressional District of the "People's House"), I'm not sure that expansion alone will result in much more than still more gerrymandering, but in all 50 states with more Members.

Bauer has a few additions to his proposal, such as banning mid-decade redistricting and perhaps even mandating "continuous and compact" districts once again, as had been required by a Congressional apportionment law during the early part of the 20th Century.

"The key question I'm trying to think about here is how can we shift our Congressional districts from being engines of polarization to better be engines of representation," Bauer asserts. I share his hope.

And then there's the idea that Bauer seems open to of proportional representation. What does that mean? Well, tune in if you're unfamiliar. Or even you're not. But the point here is that I'm very happy to have a serious conversation with someone from the Right about how to find common ground to eventually end this mad race to the partisan bottom.

Can it happen in some sort of bipartisan way? Or will one party or the other eventually have to simply establish new rules for all? As usual, there is a lot to discuss on today's show. But we gotta start the Second Reconstruction somewhere...

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Dead man tell no tales. But the evidence submitted to the FCC before he passed away, challenging dodgy, unlawful television station ownership by a major national broadcasting conglomerate, is still alive and well. Or, at least, it should be.

As covered at The BRAD BLOG in September of 2020, Baltimore resident Ihor Gawdiak and his attorney Arthur Belendiuk filed a Petition to Deny (PtD) the FCC license renewals of three TV stations controlled in Baltimore by Sinclair Broadcasting in apparent violation of both FCC ownership rules and federal law.

In brief, Gawdiak's petition detailed a complicated shell game carried out by Sinclair, one of the nation's largest owners of local television stations, to carry out the plot while staying beneath the FCC radar.

Sinclair claims ownership of Baltimore's WBFF-TV Channel 45, (which shares news reports from the Baltimore Sun newspaper, owned by Sinclair's Executive Chairman, David Smith, son of Sinclair's founder, Julian Sinclair Smith.) The David Smith family also controls both Cunningham Broadcasting and Deerfield Media which operate Baltimore's WNUV-TV and WUTB-TV, respectively. Both companies have very deep and direct ties to Sinclair. (Belendiuk found the "official" owner of Deerfield was Smith's personal banker, Stephen Mumblow, and the "official" owner of Cunningham is the company's former banker, Michael Anderson, who has no broadcast experience and actually served as a paid employee of Sinclair.)

The elaborate shell game, Gawkiak's complaint argued, is an effort to monopolize the information U.S. television viewers can access in their own local towns, by skirting FCC ownership limits in a single market. Petitioner Gawdiak's license challenge first went to Trump's Republican-controlled FCC during his first term, then was taken over by Biden's FCC. Now it is back in the hands of Trump's heavily-controlled Commission once again.

The FCC likely breathed a sigh of relief when Gawdiak passed away in 2023 before the matter was ultimately adjudicated. But then another petitioner, Baltimore resident Eleanor Goldfield, signed on to take his place. Finally, it would seem, someone at the FCC would have to take a formal look at the complex Sinclair scheme of forming sidecar companies under their complete control, designed to flaunt FCC rules with tacit approval of federal regulator.

After five years, Trump's Sinclair-friendly FCC finally responded formally to attorney Art Belendiuk on June 27, 2025, informing him that one FCC petitioner may not be substituted for another and, therefore, the Commission would not be taking up this longstanding case.

This is despite the FCC's own administrative law judge, in a related proceeding, demanding such an inquiry take place.

In 2018, Ajit Pai, Trump's Republican FCC Chair at the time, called an unprecedented public Hearing about deliberate untruths Sinclair made to the FCC in its effort to acquire Tribune Broadcasting. The hearing was scuttled after Sinclair went behind closed doors with the Commission. But it resulted in a stunning $48 million dollar fine. Still, the judge in that hearing, Jane Halprin, demanded these conflicts be thoroughly examined in a future hearing at the Commission, stating: "This alleged deception was ostensibly aimed at allowing Sinclair to bypass the Commission's multiple ownership limitations. ... the behavior of a multiple station owner before the Commission may be so fundamental to a licensee's operation that it is relevant to its qualifications to hold any station license."

The 2020 Petition from Gawdiak could have provided for the scrutiny Halprin called for in the earlier matter.

In 2021, Belendiuk filed a Freedom of Information Act request on my behalf to discover just what was said in those closed door meetings between the FCC Media Bureau and the FCC. It took two years, but following an appeal to the Federal District Court in Washington DC, the FCC finally caved and released those files, a treasure trove of an extremely complicated shell game. (I detailed the full story for Project Censored here.)

Later in 2023, Gawdiak passed away. In early 2024, Goldfield signed on to take his place in the case.

Lo and behold, on June 27, 2025, the FCC finally responded [PDF] by agreeing with the arguments from Sinclair's attorneys that "Goldfield missed her opportunity to participate in the proceeding when she failed to file by the September 1, 2020, deadline and that permitting the substitution here would 'make a mockery of the Commission's deadlines and processes.'"

(As if the FCC waiting four years 10 months and 27 days to respond to a legal petition doesn't alone make a mockery of Commission deadlines and processes.)

In the bargain, the FCC subsquently allowed Sinclair to renew its Baltimore licenses.

But it ain't over until it's over. July 28, 2025, Belendiuk, the original attorney on the case, filed an Application for Review of the FCC's "decision." He raises the following three questions:

1. Did the FCC Media Bureau err in denying the Motion, given Gawdiak's inability to survive the almost five years the Commission waited to act on the Petition?
2. Did the Media Bureau err in failing to address the Petition as an informal objection to the Applications?
3. Did the Media Bureau err in granting the Applications without addressing the substance of the Petition?

It is entirely possible the FCC will not be the ultimate arbiter of this case. It could go to the U.S. Court of Appeals. (If we live that long.)

Aside: In April 2025, public interest watchdog and advocacy group Frequency Forward and Wisconsin member Randy Bryce put still more pressure on Sinclair when they filed their own Petition to Deny the license transfer applications of Wisconsin and other TV station licenses held by Sinclair Broadcasting, using much of the information gleaned from my FOIA.

The FCC swiftly denied that challenge on July 1, 2025. Says petitioner Bryce, who ran for Congress in the Badger State in 2018 and is running again next year: "It's outrageous that the FCC has been changed from a nonpartisan entity to a political arm of the extreme right. Their purpose should be to protect free speech, not stifle it."

APTRA, RTNDA, PRNDI and Emmy-winning Sue Wilson worked at CBS, PBS, NPR and Fox before directing the documentary Broadcast Blues, writing the blog Sue Wilson Reports and founding the Media Action Center. Reach her at SueWilsonReports@gmail, or via Bluesky or Twitter.

Today on The BradCast: Donald Trump's latest attempt to make himself feel powerful by deploying U.S. military troops on American streets --- against Americans --- has nothing to do with Law and Order. It has everything to do with a need for authoritarian control by a very small wannabe tyrant. It also has to do with distracting from the fact that he's in the Epstein Files and won't release them, as previously promised. [Audio link to full story follows below this summary.]

Among our stories today that help make that case and a few others...

• The 30-year old (white) Georgia man who attempted a mass shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on Friday fired some 200 shots at its glass windows, smashing bullet holes into about 150 of them. He was also misinformed by the nation's health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and others who spread the same nonsense, that his depression was due to a COVID vaccine shot. Kennedy took 18 hours before issuing a tepid statement in response to the shooting that killed a responding (black) police officer. Donald Trump has yet to say anything about it...much less deploy the U.S. National Guard to Georgia.

• At the top of Rachel Maddow's program Monday night, she told a harrowing story about a convicted triple ax-murderer. Turns out he is a (white) American citizen who is now roaming the streets of the nation after Donald Trump just sprung him from prison. The National Guard will not be deployed to Florida to hunt him down, because Trump wants him to be free.

• Meanwhile, in D.C., Donald Trump, a 34-time convicted felon and adjudicated sexual abuser, announced on Monday that the U.S. National Guard would be deployed to the nation's capital, where violent crime is at a 30-year low, according to the U.S. Attorney's office there. The announcement follows a recently attempted 3am carjacking of a (white) guy who used to work on Trump's so-called DOGE project. Like Los Angeles, where Trump previously deployed National Guard and U.S. Marines for no legitimate reason, and in likely violation of the law, D.C. has a black female Mayor. More easy pickins as tough-guy Trump sees it, I suspect. But none of this has anything to do with the Rule of Law or being Tough on Crime. At his Monday presser, Trump also suggested he would soon be deploying both National Guard and even active duty military troops to a number of other Democratically-run American cities, if not to GOP-controlled states like Georgia or Texas, despite a number of recent mass shootings in both. But, again, none of this is about Law and Order. It's about authoritarian control by a tiny, petty tyrant.

• In that same vein, Washington Post reports today on a Pentagon plan to create a permanent military "reaction force" that would allow Trump to deploy U.S. military troops to U.S. cities within an hour on either side of the Mississippi, for whatever bullshit authoritarian reasons he wanted to dream up. Bullets would already be flying in the streets of the U.S. against the U.S. Government had any recent Democratic President carried out anything like all of this. Apparently, Republican "opponents" of Big Government Tyranny only oppose Big Government Tyrants they didn't vote for.

• One of Trump's other recent attempts to distract from the fact that he's in the Jeffrey Epstein files --- and is therefore, refusing to release them --- is also failing miserably. A U.S. District Court judge in New York on Monday, denied the Trump Dept. of Justice's motion to release Grand Jury transcripts from the 2020 indictment on sex trafficking and abuse of minors by Epstein's accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. The judge excoriated DOJ for its attempt at misleading the public about what is (or, in this case, isn't) in those transcripts, writing in his scathing ruling that "the Government’s motion for their unsealing was aimed not at 'transparency' but at diversion --- aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such."

• Down in Texas, meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott is still trying to have his GOP-controlled state legislature steal five U.S. House seats from Democrats in next year's midterm elections by redistricting the state's map again, in the middle of the decade, at the order of Donald Trump. State House Dems are still not letting them. They continue to break quorum in the state House by remaining in other states. On Monday, TX' corrupt Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton asked the state Supremes to expel 13 of the absent Democratic members. On Monday night, Abbott took to Fox "News" to threaten to rewrite the maps to steal not five but 10 seats if California's Governor dares to respond to the TX heist by rewriting maps to flip five Republican seats in the Golden State in turn. And on Tuesday, Abbott announced that the 30-day Special Legislative Session would be concluded this week, with a new one started immediately thereafter. There is still no indication that Dems plan to show up for it, as state Repubs continue to hold disaster relief hostage following the deadly July 4th flash floods if Dems refusing to allow them to steal next year's U.S. House elections.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as flash flooding and record heat continues across the Midwest and around the world; and as the Trump Administration continues to raise energy prices for Americans by gutting renewable energy production in the U.S., even while announcing plans to build a nuclear reactor...on the Moon!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Extreme flash flooding forces early cancellation of Wisconsin State Fair; July 2025 was the third hottest July ever recorded; PLUS: Trump Administration slashes U.S. renewable energy at home but plans to put a nuclear reactor on the Moon... 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): Tropical Storm Erin tracker: Forecast to strengthen into 1st Atlantic hurricane of 2025 by this weekend; Trump administration yanks loan from transmission line project meant to carry Kansas wind energy; Finland charges captain of tanker, tied to Russia, in undersea cable damage; Neo-Nazi gets maximum sentence in terror plot to destroy Maryland's power grid; Far more environmental data is being deleted in Trump's second term than before... PLUS: Chemours must immediately stop unlawfully polluting Ohio River, federal judge orders; ... and much, MUCH more! ...

So much for the campaign to "Make America Healthy Again". Today on The BradCast, former public health officials are calling for the head of Donald Trump's chief health Secretary, a guy who has no scientific or medical expertise whatsoever. But he does have a famous name. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Last Wednesday, Trump's Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., announced he was cancelling some $500 million for research of the miracle mRNA vaccines that finally brought the world out of years of the COVID pandemic. Scientists at the National Institute of Health (NIH) were working on new versions that could also be used to protect against influenza and other diseases. The cuts came after Kennedy falsely claimed that the vaccine, which saved millions of lives, was not effective against respiratory diseases.

Two days later, on Friday last week, a man who blamed the COVID vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal, attempted a mass shooting at the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. He was blocked from entering the CDC, but opened fire at a pharmacy across the street, killing a police officer before, apparently, taking his own life.

RFK Jr., who was gone fishin' in Montana at the time, didn't bother to issue a public response to the incident for 18 hours. The CDC employees union has since called for a "clear and unequivocal stance in condemning vaccine disinformation" from the longtime vaccine denier. And a group of fired former federal health workers, Fired but Fighting, has called for the HHS Secretary to step down, along with White House Office of Budget and Management (OMB) Director Russ Vought, who previously declared: "When [federal workers] wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. ... We want to put them in trauma."

Mission accomplished, Russ.

We're joined today by ARYN MELTON BACKUS, a now former health communications specialist at the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, and a founding member of Fired But Fighting. Though she won the legal challenge to her Valentine's Day firing in U.S. District Court, the matter remains on appeal and, as she explained today, she is not encouraged by what she has seen from our wildly corrupted U.S. Supreme Court. "We are also fighting for the future of public health," she tells me today. "So even if I am officially terminated, we will stay here and we will fight for the public health of our nation."

We discuss her firing and Kennedy's subsequent complete shutdown of her former office at CDC, and how (and if) the critical (and wildly successful) work of that office will be picked up anywhere else. The private sector, she laments, is simply not suited for such work. "Part of the problem with public health is that it is not profitable. If you can prevent people from getting sick or very sick to begin with, it doesn't make money for a lot of these private companies." She offers the example of a large, private pharmaceutical company who might make drugs to treat cancer, so may not be all that eager to prevent smoking, for some reason.

The closure of her office "was really surprising to a lot of people," given that smoking prevention isn't a particularly partisan issue. The campaign led by her office, Backus says, has "led to over a million people quitting smoking and saved the U.S. millions of dollars in healthcare costs. Smoking rates are the lowest they've ever been. But there's still a lot of work to be done." So, she explains, it came as a "a shock that Sec. Kennedy decided that we were no longer necessary, especially as he's declared a war on chronic disease, and smoking is one of the biggest contributors to chronic disease that there is."

As to his anti-vax advocacy, Backus charges: "Bobby Kennedy has been a major spreader of vaccine mis- and disinformation for decades. But going back to 2020 and the pandemic, he repeatedly spread lies about the COVID-19 vaccine. He called CDC a 'cesspool of corruption.' That has made a lot of people at CDC villainized." And that has got a lot of Backus' former colleagues very concerned at this time about their personal safety. Even more so after the shooting at the CDC on Friday.

Tune in for much more. Also today...

• The horrific situation in Gaza got even more horrific over the weekend, with Israel's admittedly targeted killing of Al Jazeera journalists near a hospital in Gaza City.
• Back here at home, on Monday, Donald Trump announced his federalization of the Washington D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department, including the deployment of the National Guard to D.C., despite crime being at a 30-year low in the nation's Capitol upon his taking office for a second term, and falling 26% as compared to this same time last year. (And despite his claims on January 6, 2021, that he didn't have the authority to deploy the national guard to protect the U.S. Capitol after inciting his supporters to attack it.

Finally, callers ring in on all of the above, in the few minutes we have left. Now, I need to go back and give the show a listen myself to discover where I announced that I wanted "the streets to be less safe", as one of our wingnut callers claimed that I said today, hilariously, before hanging up on himself...

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