'BradCast' 3/3/2026 (Trump's Iran War Already an Expanding, Chaotic, Deadly Disaster)v

I want to say what is happening to the man that I supported, you supported, the man that denounced what happened in Iraq, the man that said no more foreign wars, no more regime change, promise it on the campaign. And we're a year in, a year in, and we're in another fucking war. Yeah. What happened to that man? Oh, that's right. He lied to you, Marge. He lied to you then. He's lying now. Trying to tell you that for a while. I've got the feeling of something right. Never listen. I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair. And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs. Clowns to let me joke. From Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, this is the broadcast. As heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in LA, and on dozens of other fine affiliate stations on both the public's airwaves and the internets around the country and the world, blanketing planet Earth. I'm Brad Friedman, your friendly investigative blogger, journalist, troublemaker, muckraker. And all around swell fellow says me from bradblog.com. Thank you very much for joining us today amid life during wartime. It's also election time as the first official statewide primaries of the critical 2026 midterm elections are now officially underway with folks having gone to the polls on Tuesday for important primary races in Arkansas, North Carolina, and likely receiving the most attention. in Desi Doyen's old home state of Texas, where there has been a, well, there have been very competitive primaries underway in both the Democratic and... Republican Party U.S. Senate race this year, as Democrats see themselves as having a real chance to flip a long-held red U.S. Senate seat this November, which is how they feel just about every November, it seems, for the past, oh, I don't know, 20 years or so. Yes, but they do, and they have in the past come very, very close, and I bet a lot of the reason why they haven't made the win was because of voter suppression. Well, I'm sure they'll come very, very close again this year. Anyway, we will have noteworthy results on all of that on our next broadcast. Some new gerrymandering wars news a little bit later on today's program as time allows. And without fail, I think we will have our latest green news report in which we are now officially celebrating our 17th anniversary of Desi Doyen's masterwork.

in connecting climate crisis dots over your public airwaves for the past 17 years as we enter our 18th year this month. All I will note, supported only by listeners like you who step up and stop by Bradblog.com slash donate to help us continue. What I think it's safe to say is the... longest running such regular broadcast focused on the issue of climate change in the U.S. and probably the world. Is that fair to say? Well, it sounds fair to me. I don't know if it's true, but I like it. So thank you to those who have helped us keep at it for this long. And thanks in advance to those who will now finally pretty pleased drop by brandblog.com slash donate. Today, to help us continue into our 18th year of the notorious Green News Report. With those celebrations out of the way for the moment, barely three days after the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran, the war had already begun to consume nearly the entire Middle East. It reached the Bill Gates of Europe and raised new fears of attacks on American soil as well, largely before the weekend was even out. As Axios observed on Monday, the sheer geographic scope of the war is now already staggering, directly involving at least 11 countries, disrupting the global flow of oil and gas and rattling markets worldwide. After initially saying the U.S. attack could continue for a week or maybe longer if needed, President Trump said on Monday that Operation Epstein Fury. I'm sorry I did it again. Operation Epic Fury was designed to last four to five weeks or longer if necessary. Well, that escalated quickly. And on Tuesday, he suggested that the U.S. was prepared to fight, quote, forever. If necessary, well, that escalated even quicker, didn't it? But as of Monday, the conflict had significant room to expand further still, noted Axios, after two years of horrific war across Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen, a U.S. brokered ceasefire had only brought relative quiet to the region last October. Now, just four months later, comes another earthquake. And by early measures, a far larger one. Now, of course, none of this should be a surprise, at least to broadcast listeners, as I've been warning since Israel launched its initial response to Hamas's horrific October 7.

2003 attack on Israel, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing corruption charges and unpopularity and now war crimes charges, potentially, after two years of brutal war in Gaza, well, he could not afford for war to end in the region lest he finally have to face those felony charges and potential removal from office. With a relative peace brokered in Gaza, really, it was only a matter of time before Benjamin Netanyahu found a new way to keep war going somehow. And by all accounts, the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran was largely begun at the urging of Benjamin Netanyahu, even as peace talks between the U.S. and Iran had been moving ahead with positive results. Happily, it seems, with Trump's approval ratings in the gutter and the media and public closing in on specific unlawfully unreleased documents in the Epstein files believed to detail allegations of rape by Donald Trump of a 13-year-old girl, well, all of that coupled with Benjamin Netanyahu's urging to not make peace with Iran, but instead to make war. And support for war against Iran by several Gulf Arab nations that have given billions of dollars to the Trump family, not to mention a luxury Boeing 747 aircraft that Qatar gave to Trump for use as Air Force One and for him to keep after his presidency for his personal use. Well, combine all of that and Benjamin Netanyahu is very happy because, yes, here we are again. Iran had warned prior to the war that any attack on its soil would trigger retaliation, not just against Israel, but against U.S. bases across the Gulf and in Iraq. And true to their word, in the opening hours of the war, Iran launched waves of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, the UAE, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar. Iran also struck the Kurdish region of Iraq, which it views as closely aligned with the U.S. and Israel. Pro-Iranian militias attacked U.S. bases in Iraq, and their supporters attempted to storm the U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad. Iran then expanded its strikes to Saudi Arabia and Oman, the country that had been instrumental in brokering nuclear negotiations in the first place between Tehran and the Trump administration. On Monday, debris from two Iranian drones struck an Aramco oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, the first such attack since 2019. Qatar, the Gulf Arab state that gifted Trump that 747, which was also another key mediator between Tehran and Washington, said it downed to Iranian fighter jets and condemned the, quote, reckless and irresponsible targeting of its territory.

Iranian drones and missiles have struck numerous civilian targets across the Gulf civilian targets, including tourist areas of Dubai in the UAE. Iran has also moved to strangle commercial shipping in the Gulf, attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz by vowing to set fire to any ship that passes through it. And on Tuesday, Donald Trump said the U.S. Navy would now escort any such ships. We'll see how many catch fire. The U.S. says that it has sunk several Iranian naval vessels, with Trump claiming the Iranian Navy has been entirely wiped out, though consider the source there. The U.S. also claims that oil supplies remain stable, though... Consider the source there, especially with about a fifth of the globe's shipments of crude and liquefied national gas, or LNG, passing through Hormuz. The attacks are said to have significantly curtailed exports, and Cutter's suspension of liquefied natural gas production sent energy markets sharply higher on Monday, and then once again on Tuesday, Brent crude oil. The global benchmark surged 6%. on Tuesday and topped $82 a barrel. That follows a 6% spike on Monday as well. All great news for the Gulf Arab states, the oil states in any event, and the U.S. fossil fuel industry, I suppose, if not so much for American consumers, who were told just last week by Donald Trump lied to, in fact. At the State of the Union address that gas was down to below $2 a gallon. In fact, the average is well over $3 a gallon across the U.S. and now spiking quickly since the weekend in most places, according to Gas Buddy. Motorists are warned to expect an average of 10 to 30 cent per gallon increase at the pump over the next week. Electric vehicle owners can go out and make themselves a sandwich during this part of today's news. In any event, that rise in gas prices, well, that should go over well with MAGA, but we will get to them in a little bit. Dow. Dow is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing. That's what we should be talking about. All right. Well, we can talk about that, Pam Bondi. U.S. equities fell. For a second day this week on Tuesday, though they trimmed the worst of the losses in a pretty dramatic fashion on both Monday and Tuesday prior to market close. For example, on Tuesday, the Dow Jay Jones Industrial Average opened 1,200 points or more. More than 2.5% down at the open on Tuesday. The S&P was down, 2.5% NASDAQ, open 2.7% down. As noted, some of those losses were tightened by market close with the Dow down just about 400-something points, though still.

Closing about 1,500 points lower than that 50,000 point record that Attorney General Pam Bondi was so delighted to screech about a week or two ago. Each of the S&P 500 sectors, except financials, closed in the red on Tuesday. Basically everything was down. Materials and industrials saw the biggest losses on fears that higher oil prices. and borrowing costs could weigh on an already unsteady U.S. economy. But back to the quickly spreading military action. Not long after the initial assault on Iran, Hezbollah entered the war, launching missiles and drones at Israel, opening a new front on the Lebanon border. Israel responded with massive airstrikes across Lebanon, including in Beirut, killing several Hezbollah commanders. Though badly degraded by years of Israeli strikes, Hezbollah remains Iran's most powerful proxy in the region. On Sunday and to Monday, drones struck the British Royal Air Force Base in Cyprus, dragging Europe into the conflict. Cyprus, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, postponed a planned ministerial summit in the wake of the attack. Greece announced that it's sending two frigates and two fighter jets to help defend the island. So this is all going very well. The three major European powers, the UK, France, and Germany, they signaled they could actively get involved themselves in the conflict. In a joint statement, their leaders said that they would, quote, take steps to defend our interests in those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran's capability to fire missiles and drones at their source, unquote. The first concrete step came from the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He announced he would allow the U.S. to use British air bases in the region to launch strikes against Iranian missiles and drone storage depots and launchers. This could include British bases in the UK, in Cyprus, or Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. You see what they mean by spreading quickly here? The Iran-backed Houthis as of Monday in Yemen had not yet entered the war, at least as of Axios' rundown yesterday, but they have signaled that they are preparing to do so, and... The war is already being felt back in the American homeland, as the FBI and DHS have placed counterterrorism teams on high alert, and a DHS bulletin warned of a, quote, heightened threat environment, flagging potential terror plots and cyber attacks by pro-Iranian hacktivists. That...

Less than one week after FBI director Kash Patel fired a whole bunch of top officials in the FBI's specialized counterintelligence hacking division assigned to defend against cyber attacks specifically from Iran. One of the world's most capable cyber terrorists, according to an exclusive report on Monday night from MS Now. Brilliant. The U.S. Capitol announced heightened security measures on Monday and down in Austin, Texas. So over the weekend, a mass shooting there is still being investigated as potential terrorism in response to or linked to the conflict in Iran. Maybe we should have just ignored those allegations made by that woman who said she was raped by Donald Trump when she was 13 years old. The death toll in Iran rose to more than 780 people as of Tuesday morning. According to the Iranian Red Crescent, the first six U.S. troop deaths were reportedly concentrated in a poorly fortified triple-wide trailer somewhere in Kuwait that was being used as a tactical operations center when it was hit by a kamikaze Iranian drone, officials told CBS news. In addition... Three people were killed in the United Arab Emirates and one each in Kuwait and Bahrain as of, again, Tuesday morning. The U.S. closed its embassies in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the latter of which, as noted, was struck in an Iranian counterattack, and the State Department recommended on Monday, Monday evening. Three days after Trump had started his new war, on Monday evening, they thought it might be a good idea to tell Americans, quote, depart now via commercial means due to serious safety risks, instructing them to evacuate from the following Middle Eastern countries. Bahrain? Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, Jim Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. They waited until Monday to tell them that and to tell them to use commercial means to do so. As AP notes, however, quote, with much of the airspace closed, many remained stranded. Several other countries, not apparently the U.S., arranged evacuation flights for their citizens. We just didn't do so for hours, apparently. Here's retired U.S. Major General Randy Manor, who now lives in Dubai.

with his family. One of the small things that does matter to tens of thousands of people here, as well as to their families, it's a little bit disheartening and a little bit envious to hear that the BBC has announced that the UK government is actually arranging transport for the British citizens to be able to extract them, whereas here for us as Americans, we feel abandoned. The state departments have talked to two embassy personnel, two different embassies. They are in survival mode, quite frankly, because as we know, the administration reduced their budgets by almost one half over the past year. So this is a difficult situation for people who are not used to being in a combat situation. And that, of course, is quite frankly probably 99% of the travelers that are here. Doing a hell of a job, Brownie. Democratic U.S. Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey. He's a former State Department diplomat himself. He was posted to Afghanistan. He posted to Blue Sky this morning, quote, my office is receiving panicked calls from Americans stuck in the Middle East. Outrage that our government has provided zero evacuation support. This administration, he said, must immediately develop a plan to get our citizens out of harm's way, including by working with our allies and partners to secure transportation options for all Americans who wish to depart. I guess it's not enough to tell them, hey, you guys should get out now. Now that all the airspace is shut down, good luck finding a commercial way out of town. Senator Kim highlighted three posts on social media, calling it, quote, the story of Trump's State Department in the Middle East in three social media posts. Number one, a post by Time magazine, saying, quote, State Department urges Americans to leave Middle East immediately. Post number two. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem posted, quote, The U.S. Embassy is not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel. And number three, a post by Wall Street Journal reporter Robbie Gramer, who said, quote, the U.S., by the way, has no confirmed ambassadors in Saudi Arabia, UAE. Qatar, Egypt, Kuwait, Algeria, Libya, or Iraq. So good job Trump administration, good job Republican-controlled Senate in making sure there were no confirmed ambassadors in any of those countries in this region who we are now once again at war with. Well, war is hell, I guess. What are you going to do? At least we killed that bad guy who was running Iran for so many decades, 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. So it can't be a total disaster, right?

And he was a bad guy, by the way, incredibly evil, incredibly deadly. So it's not all bad, right? Well, you might think. But on Sunday, as we noted yesterday, Trump told ABC that while the U.S. had identified possible candidates to take over Iran. after the Ayatollah was killed, the replacements apparently were also killed in the initial attack by the U.S. with Trump telling ABC's Jonathan Carl on Sunday, quote, the attack was so successful. It knocked out most of the candidates. It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of to lead the country because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead, he said. So successful or so indiscriminate. Well done, sir. Very successful. Today, according to the New York Times, Trump said that strikes killed many of Iran's potential new leaders, noting that the next top leader could be, quote, as bad as the last. So what are we even doing here? With more bad news along those lines, here's Connecticut's Democratic Senator Chris Murphy on social media today. I want to give you a little detail on why it's almost certain that Trump's war against Iran is going to turn into a disaster. It really comes down to an essential question. Is this only an air campaign or is Trump planning on a ground invasion? Now, originally, he and his allies said this was only going to be an air campaign, planes essentially dropping bombs on Iran, missiles being launched at Iran. Here's the problem with that. There is absolutely no evidence that an air campaign alone... ever leads to a despotic regime falling being replaced with a democracy. There's actually no history of that happening, and we've launched plenty of air campaigns against countries all over the world, including in the Middle East. What happens is it just hardens the resolve of the existing government to continue its domestic repressive policies and its provocations overseas. and no democracy emerges. Trump has killed the Supreme Leader and a handful of the people that surround him, but already what we're hearing is that hardliners are taking control of the government. Okay, but what if he actually does launch a ground invasion? And Trump said today that he's still leaving that option on the table. Well, that's another Iraq war, right? That's an epic disaster.

dozens of U.S. troops dying. That's thousands of U.S. troops dying. We didn't win the war in Iraq by any stretch of the imagination. We created an insurgency that we're still dealing with in the region. We didn't win the war in Afghanistan, 20 years of fighting, and we had to withdraw the very people that we dislodged were back in charge. So if it's an air campaign, no evidence that that will work. The bad people will still be in charge. If it's a ground invasion, well, maybe you can get rid of the bad people, but that's probably thousands, if not tens of... of thousands of American deaths and nobody in this country wants that. That's the choice here. That's the reason why many of us right from the jump have been fairly certain that this is going to result in a disaster. Right. So again, I ask, what are we even doing here? By the way, Chris Murphy for a Democratic Senate leader. Yesterday we shared new polling from Reuters Ipsos finding that just 27% of respondents in their new polling over the weekend said that they approved of the U.S. strikes against Iran 27%. Trump's general approval ratings are generally higher than that. So there's a whole lot of Trump supporters who oppose what he is doing in the Middle East in Operation Epstein Fury. Operation Epic Fury. Again, my apologies. The war is certain to widen a growing rift in Trump's own base over his military adventurism abroad reported Vanity Affairs Aed McLaughlin over the weekend. Tucker Carlson, one of Trump's most prominent supporters, argued for his election in 2024 on the basis that his opponents would drag the U.S. into unnecessary awards, his opponents. In comments to ABC News, Tucker Carlson called the attack on Iran, quote, absolutely disgusting and evil, unquote, and said they would deal a blow to his movement. Quote, this is going to shuffle the deck in a profound way, said Tucker Carlson, who has never been right about anything, so we'll see. Kurt Mills, the executive director of the American Conservative magazine. has described Trump's rule as, quote, an imperial presidency. In an interview with Vanity Fair, he said Trump's core appeal to the 2024 campaign was, quote, an anti-globalist anti-imperial message. Now, he said, it just seems overt. The administration serves rich people and does wars for foreign countries. It plays so ruthlessly into the Democrats' oligarchy messaging. It seems served up on an effing Graham Platner, he said. It's a two-to-one unpopular war, and it's weirdly associated with the administration's potential corruption. Potential?

True. While few in this country support a war against Iran, a bunch of Gulf states, as I mentioned, do like Qatar, who gave Trump the free luxury jet plane to use his Air Force One and the United Arab Emirates who purchased billions of dollars of cyber coins from Trump's family business and Saudi Arabia who hates Iran and happened to have given Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. $2 billion after he left office the first time. Jared Kushner, of course, now the top negotiator for the U.S. in the Middle East. But now, prominent voices who supported Trump in the 2024 campaign are, once again, condemning his administration publicly. Dave Smith, a comedian and political commentator who endorsed Trump in 2024 after accusing the Democratic Party of becoming, quote, Warhawks. You nailed it, Dave. He said, quote, by launching this illegal war of aggression against Iran, Donald Trump has betrayed the American people and his own base, none of whom wanted this. Rich Barris, a pro-Trump pollster, wrote on X, quote, no, sorry, I don't think regime change suddenly became good policy or politics just because Donald Trump did it. And the abhorrent Andrew Tate, who has received support from the Trump administration, reacted in all caps. Quote, nobody wants this war. Blake Neff, a producer for the late far-right Trump supporter Charlie Kirk, said his, quote, right-leaning friends were expressing outrage at the attacks. He posted a few times, quote, F this, quote, this is extremely depressing, quote, never voting in a national election again. Cool. Quote, this is highly demotivating, said Mills of the American Conservative magazine. Look at the poll numbers since the 12-day war, he said, referencing Israel's last attack on Iran that was joined at the time by the U.S. last June. He said that's when the vibe shifted, the media narrative on 2024, is that this was the podcast bro election. If you accept that it was a podcast bro election, it's relevant that the podcast bros hate this. And if you say that Trump built this enormous new coalition that's going to govern for a thousand years and then you look at political independence and they hate it more than Democrats and the way it's going to matter is that no one's going to show up at the polls in 2026. Republicans can legitimately lose the Senate, which is political malpractice. Mills said he could be impeached for any of these things.

The villainous tyrant from the movie Shrek, who told his subjects, quote, Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. And on Monday, I believe it was, Marjorie Taylor Greene joined opportunistic Trump supporter and podcaster Megyn Kelly to share a few additional thoughts. And then we have the president who, by the way, Megan, this really needs to be said. Donald Trump has said repeatedly on camera and in interviews, he doesn't think he's going to heaven. Well, I want to ask a question, a serious question. What is in his mind? What is his mental state? If he doesn't think he's going to heaven and he is a man towards the end, he's in the fourth quarter, he's towards the end of his life, how does that pan out for the rest of us when we have a president of the United States who doesn't think and is convinced he's not going to heaven? What does that mean his decision making is? He already said to the New York Post today that he doesn't care about the polling. He doesn't care about what the American people think, and he may put troops on the ground. He took a, oh, this is going to be a few-day war, to now it's going to be maybe four weeks or more. I want to say, what is happening to the man that I supported, you supported, the man that denounced what happened in Iraq, the man that said no more foreign wars. No more regime change. Promise it on the campaign. JD Vance promised it. Tulsi Gabbard promised it. All of them promised it. And we're a year in, a year in, and we're in another fucking war. And we've got American troops being killed. I think it's time for America to rip the Band-Aid off. And we need to have a serious conversation about what the... is happening to this country and who in the hell is are these decisions being made for and who is making these decisions yes it's time for that conversation five years ago 10 years ago at least a year and a half ago when he was running again Marjorie Taylor Greene some of us were having that conversation while you were out busy supporting this clown dangerous clown Anyway, unless we get too excited about MAGA finally falling apart here, don't count your MAGA chickens just yet. CNN came out with a poll on Monday, largely echoing Reuters Ipsos, finding that the nearly 6 and 10 Americans disapprove of the U.S. decision to attack Iran. But the partisan cross tabs, particularly among Republicans, may be telling at this early stage. Republicans are far more likely than independents or Democrats to approve of the weekend's military action, not a surprise. 77% of Republicans approve compared with only 32% of independents, 18% of Democrats. But within the Republican Party, there is a sharp divide between those who say they consider themselves part of the Make America Great Again or MAGA movement and those who do not.

And the division does not actually go the way you might think it does, the way that I thought it would, as CNN posits that it's a division that appears largely linked to trust in the president. Maga Republicans are 30 points. More likely than non-Maga Republicans to say they strongly approve of the decision to take military action in Iran. 34 points, likelier to say it will reduce the threat Iran poses to the U.S. and nearly 50 points more likely 50 points more likely than non-Maga Republicans. to say that they have a great deal of trust in Trump to make the right decisions about the US use of force in Iran. So if the MAGA leaders are opposed to this action, it does not yet seem, at least just a few days in, to have trickled down on top of the MAGA base just yet. But we will see if that changes as all of this moves forward. In the meantime... Never mind the media polls. Frankly, the only place that any of this matters as I see it is at the polling booth this November and in the primaries already underway. To that end, some election-related news straight ahead on today's broadcast. I'm Brad Friedman.

What the public hears on the public airwaves matters. At the broadcast, we do our best to bring you accurate news and analysis on the issues that actually matter, and we do it all independently without corporate or political influence. But we can't do it without you, now more than ever. Please help us stay on your public airwaves by going to bradblog.com slash donate to help keep us going. That's bradblog.com slash donate. And thanks. Nothing, absolutely nothing. Well, maybe not nothing. Maybe it'll be good for Democrats and, I don't know, democracy this fall. All right, once again, noteworthy results and or problems at the polls from Tuesday's statewide midterm election, primary elections, the very first of the season in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas on our next broadcast. But... Speaking of elections, yes, even though they are underway, the gerrymandering wars for these elections continue today. And to that end, some goodish and much less goodish news, arguably disturbing and perhaps even foreboding news today. First, there is this. Now, in response to the unprecedented mid-decade redistricting by desperate Republicans who would rather gerrymander their U.S. House seats than change their policies to popular ones that Americans might like voting for, you'll recall that Donald Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered Texas's state legislature to gerrymander their already gerrymandered U.S. House maps in order to steal five. reliably Democratic, largely minority districts from Democrats and rewrite them in a way that they are almost certain to flip those five seats from blue to red this November. In response, the California state legislature put the matter before the people here to decide in a special election last year. Since the state had previously written an independent redistricting commission into the state constitution just a few years earlier, last year, California voters voted in huge numbers to temporarily sideline that commission in order to allow the state legislature to rewrite the U.S. House maps in California to respond to what Texas did to flip five red seats to blue. Shortly thereafter, Democrats in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Did something similar where the legislature there must vote for two sessions in a row in order to put a constitutional matter on the ballot. Just days before last November's off-year elections in Virginia when the entire House of Delegates... Then narrowly controlled by Democrats were all on the ballot. Well, Democrats in the state legislature voted for the first time to put the constitutional measure on the ballot to sideline Virginia's independent redistricting commission. And then Dems were rewarded for that just days later.

By flipping voters flipped a whole bunch of seats in the state legislature and the governor's mansion from red to blue before the legislature then quickly voted a second time to place the redistricting maps on a special election ballot on April 21 next month. Now, of course, in California, there was a lot of challenges by Republicans to all of this who are outraged by such plan to allow voters to decide whether to rewrite U.S. House maps before the midterm elections. No such outrage, by the way, by Republicans in Texas or Missouri or Ohio or North Carolina, where they just simply had their state legislature rewrite the maps without bothering to get a vote by the people. But in any event, with early voting set to begin this Friday in Virginia for that special election, the last of the legal hurdles, at least for now, has apparently been cleared to start voting. Virginia voters will head to the polls starting Friday. to weigh in on the plan to redraw the state's congressional map after a court ruled that election preparations can indeed now move forward. The decision on Monday represents another victory for state Democratic leaders and their effort to push against what democracy docket describes as Donald Trump's attempts to rig the 26 midterm elections. On February 25 last month, the city of Lynchburg, Virginia filed a lawsuit in state court to clarify on whether to prepare for the election after a February 19 temporary restraining order issued by another court had blocked the election from proceeding. However, a judge dismissed that complaint for a lack of jurisdiction. And although Monday's ruling now means that the redistricting vote will, in fact, take place, it is not apparently the end of the legal saga, notes Democracy Docket. Tim Anderson, an attorney representing Lynchburg, said Monday that the constitutional questions in the case will continue to be litigated. He said, but for now, the election proceeds. The Republican National Lawyers Association, perhaps one of the sleesiest democracy undermining GOP groups in the nation, though there's a lot of competition there. True. They also commented on the ruling saying it was now, quote, up to the voters of Virginia to defeat the redistricting and urging them to participate in the election.

The Virginia Supreme Court decided back on February 13 that the state could hold the special election. Days after that decision, however, the GOP filed two different lawsuits. One targeted the same issues that were already discussed in the Supreme Court ruling and the other challenging, allegedly misleading proposed ballot language for the election. If enacted, if it moves forward the election and if the Democrats win, then their proposed 10-to-one map could end up delivering four more. Democratic seats in Congress that would help counter Trump's unprecedented mid-decade gerrymanders in GOP-controlled states like Texas, North Carolina, Missouri, etc., though. Heads up, Florida Republicans are also set to begin their own redistricting special legislative session in April. They've got a lot of seats to work with. though they are already pretty gerrymandered in the Sunshine State. So some of these new districts, if they try to draw them down there, could come back to smack Republicans in the face if there is a wave election as many Democrats expect or at least hope for this November. In far less encouraging news for Democrats and for democracy itself, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sided with Republicans. in ruling that the boundaries of the only GOP held congressional district in New York City, those boundaries do not need to be redrawn before the 26 elections, despite a state court ruling that the district is unfair to black and Hispanic residents. Yes, the corrupted SCOTUS majority is apparently just fine with the district that is unfair to black and Hispanic residents as determined by a state court. They don't care. Over the dissent of the court's three liberal justices, the Republican majority halted that state court ruling that had ordered New York's redistricting commission to redraw the district. That covers Staten Island and a small piece of Brooklyn. New York Republicans and the Trump administration had sought the high court's intervention, even though the Republican Supreme Court majority had previously suggested that they would be staying out of state court decisions regarding redistricting. The state judge had ruled that the district was drawn in a way that dilutes the power of its black and Hispanic voters and had ordered that the state's independent redistricting commission complete a new map in time for this year's elections. But the Republican Supremes did not bother to even explain their rationale in putting a block on this.

for their ruling on the so-called shadow docket for emergency appeals. However, Samuel Alito Samuel Alito, he wrote that the judge is ruling under New York's Constitution amounted to, quote, unadorned racial, racial discrimination. What? Unquote. In violation of the U.S. Constitution. So you see what he did there? What he's doing is he's now using the 14th and 15th amendments and their prohibition against discrimination against minority voters to suggest that anything done to level the playing field for them is actually racial discrimination against white people. Seriously, that's the argument he's making here. Justice Sonia Sotomayor objected on behalf of the court's other two liberals arguing against the court's decision to even step into the case right now as the matter is still working its way through state court. She wrote, quote, time and again, this court has said that federal court should not meddle with state election laws ahead of an election. Ignoring every limit on federal court's authority, the court takes the unprecedented step of staying a state trial court's decision in a redistricting dispute on matters of state law without giving the state's highest court a chance to even act. That's right. This has not yet even gone. to the New York State Supreme Court before the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court jumped in. If we had more time, but for the war, I guess, I would dig into some of the details, maybe I will in the future. But beyond the one seat in question in New York, with the Supreme Court likely to cut the legs out from under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which allows maps to be barred if they are racial gerrymandered. Well, many states, largely democratically controlled states, are adopting their own Voting Rights Act to replace the federal one, which the Supremes are likely to kill. The Supreme's had suggested that redistricting matters would then be left to the states, and the federal courts would largely stay out of it. But Monday's decision by SCOTUS suggests that Republicans on the high court are more than ready to reach down into the states as well. At least to block House maps that might intolerably help Democrats or something. Just incredible. More on all of that, I suspect, in the days and weeks ahead. But we need to take a quick break here. And we are back with our latest 17th anniversary Green News Report. That's straight ahead. I'm Brad Friedman. Don't touch that dial.

Hey, this is Brad. Please consider supporting whichever progressive media outlet is serving you. Most, just like us, do not receive corporate or political support. We all need your support to counter the powerful corporate media echo chamber. From Desi Doyen and myself, thank you. 17 straight years of the Green News Report, Desi Doyen. Yes. And how's that climate crisis going? It's still going. It's still going? Getting any better? Getting any worse? And there are solutions that are coming through. So we should never discount that. You're right. There have been a lot of solutions that have come through. We have come a long way in these years, even as the crisis continues to grow worse. Exactly. As discussed in our latest Green News Report. So oil is basically not moving out of the strait of Hormuz. Oil and natural gas prices surge after Donald Trump launches new war in the Middle East. War may boost renewables as an energy security solution. Plus, the U.S. generated a record amount of renewable electricity last year. Oh, don't tell Trump. All of those stories and more straight ahead from brandblog.com. I'm Brad Friedman. And I'm Desi Doyen. Stand by for six minutes of independent green news, politics, analysis, and snarky comment. Trump is a coal poser. He only loves beautiful, clean coal. I love... All coal, dirty coal, ugly coal, black coal, gay coal. Cole can be gay. When you're down in these minds long enough, it can. This is your Green News Report.

Okay, Jesse Doyen, Donald Trump was so proud of bringing down the price of oil that I guess he had to shoot it up through the roof with another war in the Middle East. Yes, apparently so. Yeah. After a brief pause, the United States is back at war again in the Middle East. Over the weekend, Donald Trump launched preemptive military strikes on Iran, a major oil producer. Predictably, Iran has retaliated with counter strikes across the region. The conflict is rapidly escalating to encompass new targets with an attack on a major oil refinery in Saudi Arabia and other infrastructure. World markets are rattled by the prospect of an expanding war. across the already volatile Middle East. Global crude oil prices soared after the Iranians said they had closed the Strait of Hormuz through which 20% of the world's oil and natural gas is transported. Natural gas prices are also spiking on fears of supply constraints, particularly in the European Union, where member states are running low on natural gas reserves after winter. How high oil and gas prices rise depends on how... long Trump's war lasts and on how far it spreads. In the U.S., energy analysts expect the widening conflict to drive up gasoline prices, that and shipping disruptions are likely to have a global ripple effect, making goods more expensive, further spiking inflation in the U.S. Some forgotten history here. The U.S. conflict with Iran goes back to 1953 when the U.S. and the U.K. launched a coup against... against Iran, deposing its first democratically elected leader in significant part because he intended to nationalize Iran's oil industry. So this marks the second time the U.S. has forced regime change on Iran. Well, I'm sure this will be the last time. Some experts think that Trump's war on Iran may help accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources. The EU imports nearly all of its fossil fuels, leaving it. deeply vulnerable to geopolitical conflict. That is why countries around the world are prioritizing renewables because wind and solar energy, battery storage, electric vehicles, all are less vulnerable to oil and gas price shocks, making renewables an energy security solution. Here's UC Santa Barbara's Pasha Madavin in an interview with NPR. This is a reminder that a better and safer world. is possible, one in which we do rely on renewable resources that no one country can threaten or stop. Yeah, I mean, if we see another spike in gas prices, there's going to be a whole lot of folks out there with electric cars who are going to be really happy they bought those electric cars. Yep. In other news, a North Dakota judge has ordered Greenpeace to pay an estimated $345 million in damages to Tarsan's giant energy transfer, the corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. Energy Transfer had accused Greenpeace of orchestrating criminal behavior during indigenous-led protests at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation 10 years ago. Greenpeace will appeal and has filed a countersuit in Europe against...

energy transfer. $345 million to Greenpeace. Okay. Finally, a sliver of good news, even as the Trump administration has implemented a range of policies to strangle the U.S. clean energy industry, U.S. utilities generated a record amount of electricity from renewable sources last year. Bloomberg News reports that while several large natural gas plants also opened in the U.S. last year, that capacity was eclipsed by a wave of cheaper, smaller renewable energy facilities that came online. now make up more than a quarter of all U.S. electricity generated and growing. Even with Donald Trump in office. Yep. Go figure. For much more on all of these stories and the ones we couldn't get to today, check out our website at greennews.bradblog.com. This week, we are now celebrating our 17th year of connecting the climate change dots on the Green News Report. Congratulations, Desi Doyen. Thank you. You too. Hope you'll continue to... support our work by stopping by bradblog.com slash donate to help us celebrate. We couldn't do it without you. I'm Brad Friedman. And I'm Desi Doyen. And this has been your Green News Report. Don't you know, I'm still standing better than I ever did? Looking like a true survivor. Feeling like a little kid. So both renewable energy. And the Green News Report still standing after all this time. Yes, I'm especially psyched about the renewable energy still standing. Yes, me too. All right, thanks, everyone. Thanks to our producer, Desi Doin. Thanks to all of you for spending a portion of your day or night with us. If you missed any portion of today's program, you can, as ever, download them all for free at brandblog.com where you can share them with your friends, neighbors, enemies, anyone you like. That is also made possible. by those of you who hit a donate button or go straight to bradblog.com slash donate. You can drop me email. I am brandcast at bradblog.com. You will find me on the social medias at the Bradblog. And yes, tomorrow on the broadcast, the first primary election results of the midterm year. And more, I suspect. All right, we'll see you there. We'll see you then at all of the above. Until we see you here next time, I'm Brad Friedman. Good luck, world.