Day: January 8, 2025

The Ghost of Roy Cohn Will Rule Over the Next 4 Years of MAGA Jurisprudence

We begin with Trump’s appeal to the Supreme Court to prevent his sentencing on Friday in New York on his hush money conviction on 34 counts as well as the move by Trump’s wholly-owned judge Aileen Cannon who tried to block the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s reports and appears to have succeeded on blocking the documents report although AG Garland is poised to release the January 6 report. We discuss the Orwellian nature of how Trump has turned his serial guilt into a clean slate with the lawfare tactics of his mentor Roy Cohn who is now the model for MAGA jurisprudence and speak with Harry Litman, a former United States attorney and deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department. A professor of constitutional law and national security law at the University of California San Diego and University of California Los Angeles, he is a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Center at the University of Southern California, the host of the Talking San Diego speaker series, and the Executive Producer & host of the Talking Feds podcast as well as author of the Talking Feds Substack where his latest article we discuss is “Securing History’s Verdict The urgency of defeating Trump’s efforts to cancel his sentencing.”

Environmental and Ecological Factors Behind the Wildfires Raging in LA

Then we look into the environmental factors behind the devastating wildfires in and around Los Angeles that are incinerating urban areas as wind-whipped fires fueled by dry conditions caused by climate change continue to rage. Joining us is Dr. Jon Keeley, a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, stationed at Sequoia National Park. Previously, he served in Washington, D.C. as director of the ecology program for the National Science Foundation and was a professor of biology at Occidental College for 20 years and is now a professor at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA. His research has focused on ecological impacts of wildfires as well as other aspects of plant ecology, and he has served on the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning Environmental Review Board, and the State of California Natural Communities Conservation Program Board of Scientific Advisors.

Will Homeowners Get Their Insurance Payouts and Will Insurance Still Be Available in Fire-Prone Areas?

Then finally we investigate whether insurers in California will pay out the home-owner’s policies of the thousands who lost their homes and whether insurance will be available in the future in fire-prone areas. Joining us is Jamie Court, the president of Consumer Watchdog, a consumer group that has been fighting corrupt corporations and crooked politicians since 1985. Court is co-author of Making A Killing: HMOs and the Threat To Your Health, and his latest book, The Progressive’s Guide To Raising Hell: How To Win Grassroots Campaigns, Pass Ballot Box Laws And Get The Change You Voted For—A Direct Democracy Toolkit. He had an article at The Los Angeles Times back in June of 2024, “With fires burning again, is California becoming uninsurable?: Newsom needs to look out for homeowners, not insurance companies.”