'BradCast' 10/21/2025 (Law[lessness] and [Dis]Order: Trump's crime spree continues and expands)

Here's the difference between Trump 2 and Trump 1. This is no longer the Department of Justice is no longer the premier prosecuting office in America. What it is now is a capo regime who goes out and executes hits when directed by the Don to do so. That's what it is. And when Chris Christie is calling you corrupt, well, you know it's pretty bad. I'm so scared, and kids I fall off my chair. And I'm wondering how I'll get down with stairs. 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 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 everyone I know from bradblog.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Well, hey, Desi Doyen, that was a fun show yesterday, wasn't it? Yes, it was. It was fun and inspiring. Talking about the huge, joyous No Kings rallies around the country over the weekend. And you enjoyed one yourself, by the way, out in Sam Bernardino County. Yes, it was awesome. Which actually voted for Donald Trump last year, but still had a huge turnout. Very huge turnout. Redlands, California, where you were checking in? Super off. Awesome. Well, that's great. Nonetheless, the fun is over, so thank you for everything, Des. Fun is over, at least for the moment. Though your Green News report a little bit later this hour, if we can get to it, might cheer us up a little. Yes. But back to business, I guess. So let's begin here. Donald Trump, as you may have heard. is a 34-time convicted felon in the state of New York. Those convictions under state law, which were part of a scheme related to paying hush money to a porn star to help him cheat to win the 2016 election, those convictions have not gone away just because he became president. He is the first convicted felon to ever serve as president of the United States. He and his companies and their top executives, including his two eldest sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. were also found guilty of massive bank and insurance fraud, for which Trump at all was found liable for more than half a billion dollars. Though that penalty amount is being challenged, an appeals court has confirmed the civil fraud conviction against these folks, as led by New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who you may have heard was recently charged by Trump's now weaponized Justice Department, and what appears to be largely trumped up charges that a whole bunch of career prosecutors, including Trump appointees, refused to bring against...

Letitia James, even though Trump was eventually able to fire enough people to allow him to appoint another one of his personal attorneys, one who had never prosecuted a case, ever. It was able to find her to bring the indictment in the Eastern District of Virginia against James on charges that she submitted false information on one of her mortgage applications that may have netted her. $50 a month. Oh, my. Extra. The horror. In rent that she was not legally entitled to. Or so the indictment seems to claim. James has said she is innocent of all such charges and tends to challenge the indictment itself, which we will get to in a moment. Oh, yeah, Donald Trump also. was found liable in two separate related trials to the sexual abuse of writer E. Jean Carroll, who claims that Trump raped her and then lied about it and specifically lied about her while serving as president in his first term of office. Two different juries agreed, and Trump was found liable for about $90 million that he now owes to Ms. Carroll. And then there was the major federal indictments regarding Donald Trump stealing hundreds of thousands of pages of highly classified national security documents, storing them unsecured in bathrooms and ballrooms and basements at Mara Lago, and refusing multiple times to return them to the federal government. And the major federal indictments for attempting to steal the 2020 election via the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that he was found by a bipartisan majority of the Senate to have incited personally. And somewhat... Similar state felony conspiracy charges related to various attempts to steal the 2020 election in the Peach state. Now, the last two federal cases I mentioned, the stolen documents and the attempted stolen election case, those have now been dismissed since Trump became president again and the conspiracy charges against him and 18 co-conspirators in Georgia. That is now being challenged and faces potential dismissal. But the point here is. Donald Trump personally knows a whole lot about criming, about violating the rule of law on both the state and federal level, multiple states. over and over and over again, even as he also knows a thing or two about getting away with it, getting away with those crimes with no small amount of help in those federal cases now from the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court majority on which three of the six justices in the majority were appointed by Donald Trump himself and which declared in July of 2024 that presidents are immune.

from the rule of law in most everything that they do while serving as president, even if they order, for example, as Trump's own attorneys, who now run the Justice Department, argued at the time, even if they order a president orders SEAL Team 6 to assassinate domestic political foes. Presumably, like Letitia James, if Trump felt compelled to order it, apparently that, even that, is no longer illegal. It's a pretty good racket for a lifelong criminal, if you can get it, but yes, he has gotten it. So it's been somewhat both amusing and maddening, all at the same time, to watch him pretend to give a damn about the rule of law and law and order, at least for everybody else in a whole bunch of different ways, at least for everybody else who isn't his personal chum or even just merely in his own political party. We may not have kings in this country, but a lawless Donald Trump is certainly acting like one and getting away with it. And he's certainly the closest that we have ever had to one in this nation's nearly 250-year history. That lawlessness is not just reserved for use against his domestic enemies or to help his personal friends, which we'll get to in a moment. He's also now wielding it violently abroad. Late last week, it was reported that two people survived a sixth U.S. military attack on an alleged drug smuggling vessel in the Caribbean, raising legal and logistical dilemmas for what to do with those survivors, survivors of the lawless high seas attacks ordered by President Trump. Rather than deal with those consequences, however, Trump announced on Saturday that the two survivors. who had been given medical treatment aboard the USS Iwo Jima an amphibious assault ship, that they were repatriated back to their respective home countries of Colombia and Ecuador. Of course, you would think that the administration originally thought that if they originally thought those two survivors repeatedly characterized as narco-terrorists by the administration, if they were really worth killing by a drone attack, Well, you would think rather than be intercepted by the Coast Guard, as usual, because they were just bombed, they were not intercepted by the Coast Guard, where the Guard could have boarded and inspected the ship, could have retrieved any illicit narcotics as evidence and arrested the alleged foreign drug runners who the administration claims would have otherwise killed thousands of Americans had they not been stopped by Trump's shoot-to-kill orders. Well, you would think... that those two survivors, if they were worth killing, they would also be worth holding for trial for their supposed narco-terrorist drug running in order to prove the administration's case for what otherwise appears very much to be completely unlawful, extrajudicial killing by the American government in international waters.

But for some reason, the Trump administration didn't want to give them their day in court, so they just sent them back home to their home countries, apparently. Weird, huh? I wonder what the reason could be. I mean, if they went to trial, then they'd have to, like, show evidence and stuff, then that could get messy real quick. So maybe that's why. Even Kentucky's Republican U.S. Senator, Rand Paul, interviewed over the weekend by NBC's Kristen Welker on Meet the Press, thinks all of this U.S. military targeting of supposed drug runners from countries with whom we are not officially at war. Thousands of miles away from American shores was, in fact, a clear violation of international law. President Trump has authorized military strikes against suspected drugboats in the Caribbean. As you know, so far more than 20 people, Senator, have been killed in six different strikes. Do you believe that these strikes against these suspected drug boats are legal? No, they go against all of our tradition. You know, when you kill someone, you should know if you're not at war, not in a declared war, you really need to know someone's name, at least. You have to accuse them of something. You have to present evidence. So all of these people have been blown up without us knowing their name, without any evidence of a crime. And for decades, if not centuries, when you stop people at sea in international waters or in your own waters, you announce that you're going to board the ship and you're looking. for contraband, smuggling, or drugs. This happens every day off of Miami, but we know from Coast Guard statistics that about 25% of the time the Coast Guard boards a ship, there are no drugs. So if our policy now is to blow up every ship we suspect or accuse of drug running, that would be a bizarre world in which 25% of the people might be innocent. The other thing about these speedboats is they're 2,000 miles away from us. If they have drugs, they're probably peddling drugs to one of the islands of Trinidad or Tobago off of Venezuela. The idea that they're coming here is like it's a huge assumption and really shouldn't you have to present some proof. It is the difference between war and peace. In war though, you don't ask people's name. But if they won all out war where we kill anybody and everybody that is in the country of Venezuela are coming out, that has to have a declaration of war. It's something that is not pretty, very expensive. I'm not in favor of declaring war on Venezuela, but the Congress should vote. The president shouldn't do this by himself. Well, the president is doing this by himself. And who's going to stop him? The corrupted Supreme Court has already said that he can break any law that he likes in the course of actions taken as president. By the way, Senator Paul, this doesn't just go against tradition. It also goes against law. Although Rand Paul once called for using drones against Americans coming out of liquor stores after they have robbed them. So, you know, take what he has to say with a grain of salt. Democratic senators, Adam Schiff and Tim Kaine introduced a war powers resolution in the Senate earlier this month aimed at stopping Trump's strikes on boats in the Caribbean. The measure would have required congressional authorization for such military actions, but that was voted down almost in time.

entirely by Republicans who support lawlessness and oppose constitutional separations of power. It was voted down 51 to 48. Now, Republican senators ran Paul. And Lisa Murkowski, to their credit, voted with Democrats to require congressional authorization for such acts of war. And Pennsylvania Democrat, John Fetterman, for some reason, he voted with Republicans against requiring the president to follow the constitutional mandate that only Congress can declare war against foreign nations. In fact, while Welker said the total number of those killed by the U.S. off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia was 20, apparently the total announced death toll from the Caribbean strikes is actually now at 32, with at least seven boats now said to have been attacked by the U.S. military. Colombian president Gustavo Petro has now accused the U.S. of murdering a fisherman. In a mid-September attack on a boat in the Caribbean, claiming that the man's damaged boat was adrift when he was attacked and killed by yes us. Rather than apologize for that mix-up or some such thing after killing a foreign national and international waters, Donald Trump, who believes no law, either our own or international laws, apply to him while he responded to Colombia's president by saying that he would cut USA to Colombia and impose new tariffs on it. That'll teach him for standing up for his own citizens. silly Colombia president. All of this, by the way, because I believe Trump wants to start enough of a war against Venezuela that he can justify using the Alien Enemies Act to deport every Venezuelan and potentially Colombian from the U.S., especially since the courts here have so far pretty much out and out rejected his use of the Alien Enemies Act to do that. Since we are not, as the act requires, at least currently at war with Venezuela, but stay tuned. The U.S. has been amassing warships near Venezuela, and Trump has recently admitted for some reason that he has ordered covert operations to take place down in Venezuela to try to take out President Nicholas Maduro down there. Aren't CIA operations supposed to be secret? Yes, but remember, the president doesn't have to follow the laws. He's special. And he apparently is unclear on the concept of what covert operations actually mean.

Anyway, court documents obtained by CBS said Christopher Moynihan was arrested on Sunday after saying in text messages that he planned to, quote, eliminate Hakeem Jeffries. When the top House Democrat was set to speak at an event in New York City on Monday. Hakeem Jeffries, in fact, spoke at the Economic Club of New York on Monday. Moynihan was arraigned on Tuesday. He entered a plea of not guilty, according to a court filing by prosecutors in New York State Criminal Court. Yes, this is being charged by a New York state officials, not federal officials for some reason. Moynihan had written in these texts, quote, Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in New York City. I cannot allow this terrorist to live, he said. Terrorist? Now, where would he get the idea that Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was a terrorist? Oh, I don't know. Maybe from comments like those from the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. just last week. The Democrat Party's main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals. That is who the Democrat Party is catering to, not the Trump administration and not the White House and not the Republican Party, who is standing up for law-abiding Americans, not just across the country, but around the world. Sure they are. Yeah, so, you know, Democrat, their main constituents, they're all terrorists and... Anyway, yeah, that's where maybe some of, and then she's, of course, not the only Republican to use that language in describing Democrats. So no wonder, one of Donald Trump supporters wanted to kill them, thinking they're terrorists. In his recent texted threat, To kill Hakeem Jeffries, he also, Moynihan also alleged, allegedly stated, quote, even if I am hated, he must be eliminated. I will kill him for the future, according to the state legal filing here in this case. So, yeah, can you be surprised when you've got Republicans feeling this way, when you've got Republicans out there saying that no King's rallies will be filled with, you know, radical extremist terrorists? Antifa? In fact, the weekends No King's rallies in more than 2,700 cities in towns, which saw more than 7 million Americans opposing Donald Trump, turning out to protest, there were zero, zero arrests of protesters during these enormous peaceful rallies from coast to coast. Anyway, in a statement on Tuesday, Hakeem Jeffries noted that Moynihan, who will face felony charges of making a terroristic threat, Hakeem Jeffries noted that Moynihan had been pardoned by Donald Trump on his very first day in office, and that, quote, many of the criminals released have committed additional crimes throughout the country. But Hakeem Jeffries added the, quote, threats of violence will not stop us from showing up, standing up, and speaking up for the American people.

Moynihan, who was pardoned by Trump just nine months ago, was found guilty in August of 22 of obstructing an official proceeding and pleading guilty to five misdemeanor charges related to the January 6 attack. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison. At the time, prosecutors described Moynihan as being among the first rioters to breach police barricades and enter the Capitol grounds on January 6th. He was also among a smaller group of insurrectionists who were on the Senate floor. During the siege, you might even remember this guy. Prosecutors argued in his Moynihan's original sentencing memorandum that, quote, while inside Moynihan rifled through a notebook on top of a senator's desk, saying there's got to be something in here that we can effing use against these scumbags. Ah, that guy. That guy. Go figure. He's still a criminal. Prosecutors said that he, quote, occupied the dais at the Senate, joining other rioters and shouts and chanting and did not leave until police made them do so. Well, who could have guessed that guy might be a threat to public officials that he didn't like? But for those like Trump who couldn't give a damn about the rule of law, I guess it all makes perfect sense. His arrest for allegedly threatening Hakeem Jeffries was made by New York State Police. But the investigation was initiated by the FBI, according to state police. It remains unclear to me, at least, why state, not federal officials, arrested and charged him. Does Trump's FBI and Justice Department now give full passes, even for new crimes? Even for threatening to assassinate elected officials so long as those officials are Democratic? Do they now give full passes to Trump insurrectionists for any future crimes as well? As noted, Moynihan is not the first pardoned Capitol rioter to be arrested on new separate charges, but he is the first to be charged with making a violent threat against a member of Congress. And if you haven't heard this story already, I promise you, you would have heard this story had the man's alleged target been, I don't know, a Republican member of Congress. The riot on January 6th critically injured more than 140 police officers. It led to the deaths of at least four of them. It caused millions of dollars of damage to the Capitol complex. It interrupted the certification of the electoral vote from the 2020 election. It triggered the evacuation of Congress with leaders sent to a secure secret location. As Trump supporters chanted to hang, then Vice President Mike Pence, threatened to kill then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and beat police officers with dozens of makeshift weapons, including bats and sticks and poles and bearsprays and beams. Some were accused of carrying guns.

knives, handmade weapons, and they were all pardoned en masse the day that Trump returned to office. So pardon me if I'm not impressed by the claims of Trump and his supporters like Attorney General Pam Bondi or White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, that they give a single damn about the rule of law in any way, shape, or form. But if you're still dumb enough to believe that Trump cares about the rule of law, that his administration is concerned, that, well, Letitia James might have received an extra $50 per month from a rental property or whatever the hell the administration has dreamt up. Or if you are disinformed enough to believe. that he doesn't actually literally hate the rule of law. Well, on Friday the day before, no King's Day, Trump officially made it clear that no. The rule of law means nothing to him. He officially commuted the sentence of renowned grifter, conman, and former Republican U.S. rep George Santos, who had been slated to serve more than seven years in federal prison after pleading guilty to fraud and identity theft charges. He admits he did the crime, but now apparently he will not have to do the time. Nice, huh? The disgraced former lawmaker and serial Fabulous was released from the Federal Correction Institution in Ferton, New Jersey, around 11 p.m. on Friday shortly after Trump tweeted out the news of the commutation. The New York Republican was sentenced this past April after admitting last year to deceiving donors and stealing the identities and credit cards of at least 11 people, including his own supporters and his own family members in order to make donations to his campaign and then use some of that money for his personal use to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. He had reported to the federal facility on July 25 for his seven-year sentence. He was housed in a minimum security prison camp with fewer than 50 other inmates. Quote, good luck, George. Have a great life. Donald Trump said in his social media announcement on Friday after Santos had served just 84 days, about two and a half months of that seven-year sentence for years of grifting and stealing and fraud. Three of Trump's favorite crimes, by the way, I'm thinking. During his time in bars, Santos had been writing regular dispatches in a local newspaper on Long Island in which he mainly complained about the prison conditions at this club-fed facility. In his latest letter, though, he pleaded directly to Trump, citing his fealty to the president's agenda and to the Republican Party, and that was enough to get him sprung from jail.

His commutation is Trump's latest high-profile act of clemency for former Republican politicians since retaking the White House in January. He's pardoned a lot of them in both this term and in his first term. If you're a Republican politician, this is the golden age of committing crimes and getting away with it, at least until Trump is out of office. So get busy. You are almost guaranteed to get out of jail free card if you're caught. But in granting clemency to Santos, Trump was not only rewarding a figure who has drawn scorn even from his own party. This guy was elected to Congress in 2022. He served less than a year after it was revealed that he had fabricated pretty much his entire life story, claiming he was a volleyball star at a college he never went to, that he had worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs where he never worked, claiming that he was Jewish when he was never Jewish, that his mom was killed on 9-11 when she wasn't anywhere near the World Trade Center that day, just to name a few of his lies, which I'm sure endeared him to King Donald, a fellow fabricator. In truth, the 34-year-old was struggling financially. He faced eviction. He was charged in 2023 with stealing from donors and his campaign, fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits, lying to Congress about his wealth. Within months, he was expelled from the U.S. House with 105 Republicans joining with Democrats to make Santos just the sixth member in the chamber's history to be ousted by colleagues. Santos pleaded guilty. He pleaded guilty to the charges as he was about to stand trial, and now apparently all is forgiven. Crime under Donald Trump does in fact pay, it seems. If you are a Republican. Because in this case, the clemency does not just clear him from his prison term. But also, quote, any further fines, restitutions, probation, supervised release, or other conditions? That according to a copy of Trump's order posted on X by Ed Martin, the Trump sycophant, now serving as Justice Department pardon attorney, among other roles where Trump needs henchmen. I'll get to... One of them shortly. As part of Santos's guilty plea, he agreed to pay restitution of about $375,000 to his victims to forfeit more than $200,000. But now poof, all of that is gone as well with a wave of Trump's corrupt scepter, his pardon pen. I know that some have said we shouldn't worry about the presidential immunity outrage. that the U.S. Supreme Court gave him ridiculously by the corrupted activist court because those around him do not enjoy that same immunity that he does, but of course they do. As long as Trump's president, he can simply pardon anyone and everyone that he wishes when they carry out anything and every illegal order that he gives them. It is good to be king.

But a quick update on at least one of those fighting back against Trump's corrupt DOJ, which he has weaponized to use against his political enemies in ways never before dreamt of by any former president. Even Richard Nixon, I suspect, who would have been shocked if delighted to learn that presidents have immunity from crimes committed while in office. On Monday, former FBI director James Comey said Trump's years-long vendetta against him and the president's direct public instructions to Justice Department prosecutors to charge him should result in the immediate dismissal of the new criminal case recently brought by the Trump administration against him on particularly ridiculous charges. James Comey's attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, called the case, quote, an egregious abuse of power. that can be traced directly to a September 20 social media post by Trump demanding the immediate prosecution of his political enemies, including James Comey. Quote, President Trump posted a statement on social media that provides smoking gun evidence that this prosecution would not have occurred but for the president's animus toward Mr. James Comey. That's from one of the filings by Pat Fitzgerald in court this week. The argument was part of a double-barreled response by James Comey unleashed on Monday urging a judge to shut down the hastily brought criminal case. The case was brought just days before the statute of limitations would have run out. for the DOJ's claim or Trump's claim that James Comey lied to Congress in a 2020 Senate hearing, focused on the FBI's investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign's contacts with Russia. In addition to one motion seeking dismissal of the bogus case, describing it as unlawful, as a vindictive prosecution. James Comey also brought a second motion on Monday contending that the prosecution was brought by a prosecutor, former personal lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, who has no authority to bring the charges as she had not and still has not been lawfully seated in the role of U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Courts have ruled in other states in both New Jersey and Nevada recently that two other Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys were unlawfully carried out, jeopardizing the cases that were brought under them. We'll see if that's what happens here. Fitzgerald also pointed to four former Trump cabinet officials who were spared prosecution despite similar allegations that they had lied to Congress. So we'll see. James Comey is urging the judge a Biden appointee to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning the Trump administration would not be able to go back and find new charges, make a second effort to prosecute James Comey on at least similar charges. Quote, that is the only way to cure the government's flagrant misconduct and to deter

Similar future prosecutions of perceived political enemies, James Comey's lawyers wrote. Whether successful in one or both of those motions, I suspect none of them will in fact prevent future prosecutions of Trump's perceived political enemies. And Reuters has an exclusive today that suggests Trump's retribution presidency. may become much farther reaching than many realize right now. It is not just the Department of Justice that is being weaponized against Trump's enemies, but the entirety of the executive branch. According to Reuters, a group of dozens of officials from across the federal government, including U.S. intelligence officers, has been helping to steer Donald Trump's drive for retribution against his perceived enemies, that according to government records and a source familiar with the effort, according to Reuters. The Interagency Interagency Weaponization Working Group which has been meeting since at least May has drawn officials from the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Justice and Defense Departments, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Federal Communications Commission, among other agencies, according to two of the documents. According to the report, the existence of the interagency group indicates the administration's push to deploy government power against Trump's perceived foes is broader and more systematic than previously reported. Interagency working groups in government typically forge administration policies, share information, and agree on joint actions. Here, apparently, they are agreeing to go after Donald Trump's enemies. Trump's DOJ official Ed Martin, there he is again. He's the U.S. pardon attorney, and he leads the Justice Department's own weaponization working group. He had to leave his nomination to become a U.S. attorney when he couldn't even get passed by this Republican U.S. Senate. He apparently is, quote, an important player in the interagency group, a source told Reuters. I'll also note that Martin is a hard right partisan. He's close buddies with creeps like Roger Stone and Mike Flynn, both pardoned by Trump, by the way, for crimes that they were convicted of and or pleaded guilty to. And he is the one who put together the charges against New York State Attorney General Letitia James for Donald Trump. And he served as the chair. of the St. Louis Missouri Election Commission several years ago when the Republican election director there was a guy by the name of Scott Liondecker who went on to create a company called No Ink, which creates electronic poll books for use at voting precincts in more than a dozen states. And that guy, Lyondekker, Ed Martin's good buddy.

He's a Republican partisan, just like Eagle Ed Martin, as he calls himself. Leindecker announced last week that he has purchased the nation's second largest election system vendor, Dominion voting systems, the one that Trump and his supporters have falsely blamed for stealing the 2020 election from him. So that's fun. We'll talk about that situation, I believe, on our next broadcast in some more detail. But yes, we are in the middle of a legalized crime spree by a president who is pretending to give a damn about the rule of law and law and order when he doesn't care about any of those things in any way, shape, or form. In fact, he hates them. He is a crime boss. who now controls the virtual entirety of the U.S. government with a Congress that has largely rolled over for him and a Supreme Court, which has definitely done the same. And by the way, this just in late today from the New York Times in case you didn't yet appreciate how unprecedented and outrageous all of this is. From the Times, President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him. About $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that any settlement might ultimately have to be approved by senior department officials who previously personally defended Trump in those criminal cases. According to the Justice Department Manual, settlements of claims against the department for more than $4 million, quote, must be approved by the Deputy Attorney General or Associate Attorney General, meaning the person who oversees the agency's civil division. Well, guess who that is? The current Deputy Attorney General is Todd Blanche, Trump's lead criminal defense lawyer. I wonder if he'll approve any of this compensation to his own client, Donald Trump. As the time notes, the situation has no parallel in American history. It's also the starkest example yet of potential ethical conflicts created by installing the president's former lawyers atop the Justice Department. It's good to be king. More ahead, plus Desi Doyen and our latest Green News report, ending today's show on as much of a high note as we can muster. We try. I'm Brad Friedman, and this is the Bradcast.

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. Must be nice, huh? It's good to be king and use the power of your office to ensure that your lackeys help you remain king for as long as possible, if possible. I promised you yesterday when we took the hour to celebrate the joyous weekend of millions of Americans standing up at no king's rallies that we would have plenty of days ahead to get back to covering the darker news again. Well, apparently... We're back. Yes, we are. It's one of those days. So this started a few months back, you recall, and Trump pressured his corrupt buddy Governor Greg Abbott of Texas to call a special session of the state legislature to redraw the state's already gerrymandered U.S. House maps to gerrymander them still further to almost certainly give Republicans five more seats in the U.S. House next year. In a year when they are otherwise likely to lose their current three vote majority because Trump and his policies and his party are so disliked right now by a majority of Americans. Of course, if you can change the maps so that your party wins almost no matter how voters vote, well, you can, I suppose, continue with your terrible policies rather than offer voters something that they actually want to vote for. You can remain in power forever. And that's what they hope. After Texas, despite valiant efforts by state Democrats to stop it, after Texas got away with this scheme of essentially flipping stealing five Democratic seats and turning them into Republican seats next year, after that it was Missouri, where that state's Republican-led legislature also voted to redistrict to steal one of the two remaining Democratic-leaning U.S. House districts before next year's election. And this week, apparently, it's now the closely divided state of North Carolina, where it is so closely divided, the Democrats have won the governor's mansion over the last three statewide elections, even while Donald Trump has won the same state in the same elections over those three different years. And yet... Thanks to Republican gerrymandering, Republicans hold supermajorities in the state legislature and in North Carolina's congressional delegation. On Tuesday, state GOP lawmakers made it even worse, or I guess better. if you're a Republican. As AP is reporting this afternoon, North Carolina's legislature formally began redrawing the state's congressional districts on Monday, plainly stating their intent to help Republicans gain another U.S. House seat under Donald Trump and his push to retain his party's grip on Congress next year. And on Tuesday, the state Senate approved the map along party lines that creates new boundaries for two eastern North Carolina districts.

aimed at thwarting the re-election of Democratic Congressman Don Davis, one of the state's three black members of Congress. That followed a committee meeting on Monday in which dozens of speakers from the public sharply accused Republican lawmakers in the ninth largest state of bowing to Trump. But thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, deciding that federal courts must stay out of partisan gerrymandering matters that is just fine by the U.S. Constitution, well, the plan's chief author in North Carolina was direct about the intent of GOP lawmakers to help their party in the 2026 midterm elections by largely making one huge majority black districts simply disappear. into neighboring districts. Quote, the motivation behind this redraw is simple and singular. Draw a new map that will bring an additional Republican seat to the North Carolina congressional delegation. That according to GOP Senator Ralph Heise. He's leading the effort because if Democrats otherwise take back the U.S. House, he noted, they will quote, torpedo President Trump's agenda. Yeah, that's how democracy is supposed to work, Mr. Heiss. So they don't even lie about it anymore. Thanks, U.S. Supreme Court. Under the 2024 election map, Republicans won 10 of North Carolina's 14 U.S. House seats in a state where statewide races are often incredibly close. That compared to a seven to seven seat split between Democrats and the GOP under a court-ordered map that was used back in 2022. It was ordered by the state Supreme Court. back then, but that has since been flipped to Republicans. And once a Republican majority came into the state Supreme Court, they immediately nullified the previous court, which had found a map like the one that was used last year in North Carolina to be an unlawful gerrymander. But now apparently all bets are off. And even a 10 to 4 Republican majority for North Carolina's U.S. House delegation is not enough. They need another seat and they're willing to steal it from their own voters. And that's what they're doing. The proposal now heads to the House, the State House, for expected final approval by the General Assembly later this week. And state law, again, thanks to Republican State lawmakers there, prevents the governor, the Democratic Governor Josh Stein.

from using his veto pen on redistricting actions. Litigation, however, challenging the map over allegations that it dilutes black voting power. Those lawsuits are likely, even after, as we discussed last week, the U.S. Supreme Court is now considering killing the section of the Voting Rights Act. Yeah, they should try anyway. That would make that unlawful under federal law. Yeah, of course they should try. We'll see. You know, this pending case doesn't look good in the U.S. Supreme Court for cases like this, but we will see. Democratic State Senator Candy Smith, an African-American legislature representing a county in Congressman Davis's current district said during Senate floor debate, this is an attack on black voters. It's about stealing elections by design so that the outcomes are predetermined and accountability becomes optional. Which, yeah. Republicans seem to be just admitting that outright now. They just know that there's nobody who will stop them unless voters suddenly somehow wise up and start voting otherwise. Voters within versions of the first district, the one being flipped from blue to red here, have elected African Americans to the seat continuously since 1992. Some counties in the current version have black majority populations. But we'll see if that carries on after this. The proposed map is, quote, not merely a political act. It is a moral regression. said two different former First District reps, both of them black Democrats in a news release, adding quote, it weakens the representation of black North Carolinians and undermines the promise of equal voice and fair elections that so many have fought to secure. Yep. And again, that's the point. And Republicans are no longer apologizing for it or even trying to hide it. On a related note, as you hopefully know, the California State Legislature, which is majority Democratic, voted in response to Texas's stealing five seats to let the electorate here in California. The voters decide whether or not to temporarily redraw state maps to flip five seats from... Republican to Democratic here in the Golden State in response to what Texas is doing. Well, on November 4, that is now just about two weeks away, voters will vote to temporarily sideline the state's bipartisan independent redistricting committee maps next year via statewide vote for or against Prop 50. A yes vote redraws the state's U.S. House map to respond to Texas's theft. A no vote keeps the current maps in place. If you're a registered voter in California, you should have received your ballot in the mail by now.

If you have not or if you are not registered, you still have time to register and or have a ballot sent to you. Contact your local registrar's office in L.A. You can go to laVote.gov or you can go anywhere in California. You can go to register to vote.ca.gov. Register to vote.ca.gov anywhere in the state. Or you can just show up to a local voting center, register and vote in person. right now, or at least by November 4th. All right, let's get to it. Our latest green news report. Every single molecule which is emitted in the atmosphere will have a global impact. CO2 levels hit highest ever recorded, UN says, warning of more extreme weather to come. Victims of Texas floods still struggling to get aid from FEMA. Plus, there's just fish jumping all over the place, bald eagles. other wildlife all throughout what was a reservoir and is now a river. Salmon reached the Klamath River headwaters for the first time in a century. Well, there's some good news. All of those stories and more straight ahead from bradblog.com. I'm Bradfordman. And I'm Desi Doyen. Stand by for six minutes of independent green news, politics, analysis, and snarky comment. This is clearly an abuse of power to punish the city. New York City infrastructure projects are not supposed to be delayed. because Trump wants to strong-armed Democrats into cutting healthcare. They're supposed to be delayed because they're New York City Infrastructure Project. Correct. This is your Green News Report. There is a theory that says they want to stop construction on the tunnels so they can bury the Epstein files in them. I'm gonna soak up.

Okay, Dessie Doyen, I know we've got some good news coming in this report, but I guess we've got to start with the less than good news, eh? Yes, less than good news to start. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere soared by an unprecedented amount in 2024 to hit a new record high of 423 parts per million, further warming the planet and leading to more extreme climate events. Other important greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide also rose to record. levels. That's according to a new report by the World Meteorological Organization. Why? Why is all of this rising now? Well, the scientists say last year's surge was primarily driven by humanity's burning of fossil fuels and an increase in wildfires. The WMO found the rate of CO2 growth has tripled since the 1960s. The scientists said about half of global carbon emissions are absorbed by forests, land, and oceans, but they said that natural land and ocean storage appears to be weakening as a result of global heating. Here's WMO Senior Scientific Officer Oksana Tarasova at a briefing in Geneva. We rely on natural systems to help us offset our impacts, and those systems are so stressed that they start producing their help. So our actions should be... towards the side of a machine reduction as fast as possible if we don't want to see the domino effect of the tipping points. So even though we are creating more renewable energy than ever before, we're still falling behind because in the meantime, the forests are burning up. Right. Great. Also not great news. Sea levels are rising faster now than at any point in at least the last 4,000 years due to man-made global warming, increasing the risk of flooding to major coastal cities around the world. The new Rutgers University analysis shows that since 1900, the pace of global sea level rise is now faster than in any previous century, driven by glaciers in polar regions that are melting at unprecedented rates. And as climate change increases the temperature of the planet, the oceans are expanding as they absorb more heat. The researchers warn the acceleration highlights the urgent need for, quote, global and local action. I'm sure we'll get right on that. Over the weekend, the Trump administration succeeded in pressuring the UN's International Maritime Organization to halt for at least a year a vote to adopt a global carbon price for shipping to reduce carbon emissions that caused dangerous man-made climate change. The United States had threatened countries backing the measure that their vessels could be blocked, visas revoked, and other penalties. Here in the U.S., the Trump Federal Emergency Management Agency has denied or delayed applications after the deadly devastating central Texas floods on July 4th. The Texas Tribune reports that only about 20% of applicants for federal disaster assistance have been granted financial help so far, leaving more than 1,000 without federal aid more than three months after the deadly floods. How do you like Donald Trump now, Texas? The New York Times reports that Donald Trump's FEMA is forcing disaster-struck communities to fend for themselves.

The Right Wing Manifesto Project 2025 mandates dismantling federal disaster agencies and forcing states to bear the costs and burden of disaster relief and recovery while in the middle of dealing with a disaster. Finally, near the California, Oregon border, some very good news. Salmon have reached the headwaters at the Klamath River for the first time in more than a century. Scientists say it is a major threshold after the completion of the largest dam removal project in U.S. history last year that restored hundreds of miles of habitat and spawning grounds for migrating salmon. The restoration is a major victory for Native American tribes that fought for decades to remove the dams that had decimated salmon. and populations. It's a victory for all of us. It took six minutes to get there, but I'll take it. 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. I'm Brad Friedman. And I'm Desi Doyen. And this has been your Green News Report. Let the river run. Let all the dreamers wake. Actually, in the case of broadcast listeners, it took about 58 minutes. Before we could get to a single joyful story. Yes, exactly. Anyway, thank you very much, Desi Doyen. We'll take what we can get when we can get it. Yes, we will. Thanks to all of you for spending a portion of your day or night with us. If you missed any portion of today's show, want to hear it again, share it with someone you know, love, or hate, or just want to put yourself through the hell. You can hear it again over at bradblog.com. It is always free. No paywall there. Thanks to listeners like you who are kind enough to hit a donate button or go straight to Bradblog.com slash donate to help us stay on your public airwaves as long as we can. As long as we can get away with it, as long as they will let us. As long as you will let us. Drop me email. I am Bradcast at bradblog.com and on the social medias. You will find me at the Brad blog. You will find Desi Doyen. At Green News Report. Until we see you here next time. Hopefully tomorrow. I'm Brad Friedman. Good luck, world. We're coming to the edge run.

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