The second Donald Trump term began as the made-for-TV event you know the former reality TV star sought it out to be, and while "reality TV" is largely fictitious scripting, Trump's inauguration day was very real - with real-life consequences for justice, law & order and both undocumented and DACA status immigrants.

To help e understand how real (or not) a threat Trump's focused executive orders are for current and future immigrants, I spoke with immigration attorney/CEO Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch at Lincoln-Goldfinch Law in Austin, TX.

There's also the scepter of Trump's use of intimidation to usher in his second term - minus those pesky "guardrail" Republicans. Without those, how more dangerous an ideologue can he be? Eh, who needs them when you have all of the big tech/social media oligarchs kissing the ring, right?

For them it wreaks of "self-preservation; what about Trump's actual "cult members?" Dr. Steven Hassan spoke of it in the documentary "Untruth." Hear what he said on the psychology on Trumpism. Go on and know he's on my shortlist for an upcoming guest episode, too.

Oh and if you haven't already, come to appreciate the heavy lifting CNN's fact-checking guru Daniel Dale is and will be - for the next 1,459 days.

What a confluence of events to dwell on today, of all days.

Late last week, as Atlanta prepped for the influx of visitors for tonight's College Football Playoff Championship game, a ⁠homeless Atlanta man was crushed to death ⁠by a bulldozer clearing an encampment. I spoke with Sylvia Broome, a program lead/instructor with⁠ Remerge⁠, who knew Cornelius personally, to ⁠learn more about him⁠ and his plight, his future and how this could have gone so horribly wrong.

On this, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, it's inescapable to me that such a tragedy occurred blocks from where Dr. King gave dozens of sermons. King spoke often about poverty and inequality of wealth, as did the recently departed former Georgian, President Jimmy Carter.

So on the day the most unethical man to ever hold the office of President got sworn in again, just weeks after the most ethical President in modern history passed, a piece I'd had an open tab for finally came to use for me on the show.

In his New York Times piece, Ron Lieber deftly reviews Carters' "Crisis of Confidence" speech .... noting that Carter was right about growing materialism in our society, but over-estimated our ability to have the self-awareness - let alone the discipline - to act on it in a responsible way.

Lieber noted our inability to rise to the challenge during the COVID sheltering and mask era, and I point out how the past weekend's TikTok freakout exemplified what our scoiety's become, despite Jimmy's forewarnings.

All part of my discussion on the day a grifter returned to the Oval Office on the crest of empty promises and American exceptionalism.

It's easy to not notice the routine 'state of the state' address Georgia Governor Brian Kemp gave, and the response from state Democrats'- by Senate minority leader Harold Jones Jr., when a MAGA hissy goes down in the hallway just outside the House chamber before the joint session.

Naturally, that tantrum - and subsequent arrest - of state Senator Colton Moore got all the media oxygen and social media buzz. I mean, who doesn't love seeing a MAGA peacock get knocked down a peg or two, right?

There's a whole backstory as to why Moore was the one General Assembly member *not* allowed in for Kemp's speech, so and I dove into that murky swamp water to catch ya up if ya care. Essentially, after former House Speaker David Ralston passed away, there was a commemoration with Ralston's family in the gallery and Moore thought that an appropriate time to slam Ralston for being 'corrupt' (and there's a story to that, too).

Oh and there's the address and response from Democrats. For some reason, tort reform is the highest priority for Kemp this session, and I asked attorney and Georgia NAACP chapter president Gerald Griggs to explain why that's bad for Georgians.

President Joe Biden's final address from the Oval Office was - of coruse - bittersweet, but also came with warnings similar to Dwight D. Eisenhower's "industrial complex" foreshadowing, only for Biden, it was attached to oligarchs and "big tech."

Doing a little "open tab" cleanup, I realized I hadn't gotten around to sharing this (too late now) narrative buster: as is the case in Texas, in Georgia, migrants are committing fewer crimes than Americans. Even still, some Democrats are trying to find "common ground" with the incoming Trump aura by caving on legislation targeting the undocumented.

Oh, and proving it doesn't pay to even "go about it the right way," as Repubs insist immigrant laborers should, Georgia Attorney General (and gubernatorial candidate) Chris Carr would like to suppress federal minimums for agricultural immigrant labor. Because, of course.

With just five days before the inauguration of a second Donald Trump term, the trans community in Georgia (and throughout the U.S.) has had to weather a storm of antir-trans sentiment; some of it put to use by the Trump campaign.

We check in with Jeff Graham, executive director for Georgia Equality, to get a sense what their activism can accomplish with a decidely-conservative state legislature and GOP governor likely angling to solidify his conservative bonafides ahead of a potential Senate or Presidential run.

Speaking of weathering and storms, the founding director of End Climate Silence,  Dr. Genevieve Guenther (author of "The Language of Climate Politics") joined me to add her immense credibility to correct a wave of disinformation as the Eaton/Palisades wildfires ravage southern California.

Oh, and reviewing Jon Stewart's blistering of hypocritical Republicans in DC seeking to add conditions to aid was worth a review, too.

Jay Bookman wrote a blistering-yet-sobering piece last week for the Georgia Recorder where he spells it out plainly: Republicans pick on the trans community because 'it works," writing "Because transgender Americans are an unpopular, powerless and almost friendless subgroup, which makes them the perfect target for politicians willing to leverage that unpopularity into votes."

See, legislating for all Americans to ensure diversity & inclusion is really hard, whereas throughout American history, political leaders have consistently chosen the path of least resistance: selective bigotry. Marginalizing subsets is as American as apple pie, much like school bullies pick on the "unpopular, powerless and almost friendless" kid(s). Kinda pathetic, isn't it?

On the topic of trans people and schools, it took mere minutes for Georgia Republican Senator Greg Dolazal to lob some anti-trans "red meat" - again, because equality and inclusion are too hard for him - on the first day of the 2025 General Assembly session. Surely this means it's the most important item on the Georgai GOP agenda.

Meanwhile the recently exited special counselor, Jack Smith, finally had one of his two volumes of final reports on cases involving Donald Trump released. Were we in normal times or in a nation that truly believed in a blind justice or justice at all, the findings would be damning. Instead, the convicted felon at the heart of that and the still-held-tightly classified documents case will be sworn in as President in six days.

He, the leader of the party of "the rule of law."

Clearly, the blame for California's current, deadly (perhaps worst-ever) wildfire lies at the feet of (checks notes) Governor Gavin Newsom, L.A. mayor Karen Bass and D.E.I. and not wild climate shifts, (aka 'hydroclimate whiplash') parched dry vegetation and hurricane-force winds fomenting a wildfire out of New Year's Eve fireworks. Oh, or 20th century sprawl and a water system not designed to fight wildfires (but whose is?)

It's not as if we've been warned about the sort of dystopian scene many years before, like, say in 1958 or when Exxon executives knew in the 1970s climate change was a near-future reality and buried it.

No, clearly the Los Angeles Fire Department hiring so many "diversity" applicants and ignoring the inane ramblings of Donald Trump is what wrought all this havoc and destruction.

A mid-December article in the New York Times focused on a Rome, Georgia family soon to be ripped apart by a looming second Trump presidency and the promies of mass deportations. Jaime Cachua has lived in the U.S. all but the first ten months of his life, and yet because he wasn't born here and because three-plus decades of politicial futility in Washington has led to no permanent solution for DACA recipients, he's all but certain to be returning to a Mexico he has very little awaiting him.

His wife, Jennifer, joined me to share his and their story, including the evolution of her own views on immigration and the struggle of her father being a two-time Trump voter, the community they live in overwhelmingly supporting all things "MAGA," and what she and Jaime and their four kids will likely experience in 2025 and beyond.

You can help their legal defense and familial needs through a GoFundMe campaign here.

Mark Zuckerberg announced earlier this week that Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) is getting out of the "fact-checking" business - just eight years after allowing itself to be a useful tool for Russian and pro-Trump disinformation left unchecked. Noteworthy that they're rolling this out "only" in the United States (to start with, anyway, he says ...) and on the heels of Donald Trump's t̶h̶r̶e̶a̶t̶e̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ t̶o̶ i̶m̶p̶r̶i̶s̶o̶n̶ h̶i̶m̶ f̶o̶r̶ l̶i̶f̶e̶ re-election.

Speaking of disinformation, Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lgo news conference was a doozie. Since everyone BUT Daniel Dale at CNN is getting out of the fact-checking game (it would seem), he's one of the few left to correct Trump, as he did.

Friend of the show, Marilyn Marks - executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance - joined me for a wall-to-wall conversation on election integrity in the state of Georgia.

First, on the day President Carter left Georgia to be eulogized in the nation's capitol, Marilyn shared a story from Carter's political launch when he overcame a party "boss" ballot-stuffing on behalf of Carter's state senate opponent. Pretty funny (now) story, actually. She also deftly pointed out Carter's pro-consumer (and business!) deregulation of the freight and airline industries.

As Republicans start rubbing hands together to ⁠plot more changes to our system⁠, the meat & potatoes of our discussion, however, centered on the state of the state of Georgia's election system.

Marks believes Georgia is the worst of all states when it comes to election integrity and even argues we, the voter, lack the privacy when we vote that the US Constitution guarantees us. That's not a new complaint, either, as evidenced by this story from WXIA-TV (11 Alive) in 2020.

She believes Republicans have some things right on their pecking order and that Democrats would be wrong to oppose some action items.