Follow @GreenNewsReport...

(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: DHS waives environmental laws, prepares to bulldoze wildlife refuge for Trump's border wall; Court of Appeals orders EPA to enforce methane regulations; Now Great Britain to phase out all diesel and gasoline cars; PLUS: Shell Oil CEO says his next car will be electric!... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): EPA Chief Backtracks On Delaying Rules Reducing Emissions; The Gulf Of Mexico's Dead Zone Is The Biggest Ever Seen; Dangerous Pollutants in Military’s Open Burns Greater Than Thought; Scott Pruitt's Crimes Against Nature; The long and winding road of electric car adoption; The Miami area endured an absurd flooding event Tuesday afternoon... PLUS: Al Gore says fight for Paris accord, climate will continue despite Trump's policies.... and much, MUCH more! ...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump suggests solar panels on his border wall with Mexico; Energy Secretary Rick Perry goes full science denial; Trump Administration seeks to reactivate Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository; Plastic pollution has reached Antarctica; Renewable energy actually helps electric grid stability; PLUS: British government to invest a billion dollars in shift to electric cars... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Tropical Storm Cindy drenches Gulf Coast; Worldwide coal bleaching event may finally be ending; Methane leaks spike in natural gas production in NM; Publishers defend Greenpeace in dispute with logging company; Zinke screws up 3 denier talking points in Senate hearing; Volcanoes 'triggered dawn of dinosaurs'; Miami-Dade signs on to Paris Agreement... PLUS: Solar paint makes hydrogen fuel from solar energy and water vapor... and much, MUCH more! ...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The March for Science was a global success on 7 continents; What's next? Recruiting scientists to run for elected office; Earth hits a milestone in rising CO2; PLUS: Britain hits its own milestone --- its first full day without coal since the 1880s... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): There Is No Conflict Between Creating Jobs and Protecting the Environment; Sea Level Rise Threat Estimate Doubled Due to Extreme Arctic Melt; An Old Rock Could Lead To 'Next Generation' Solar Cells; The nation is immersed in its warmest period in recorded history; The effects of climate change will force millions to migrate; The Fingerprints of Global Warming on Extreme Weather; EPA Budget Cuts Will Severely Affect Environmental Justice Communities; The Saga of North Carolina’s Contaminated Water; How a sewer will save St. Louis... PLUS: China, India Become Climate Leaders as West Falters.... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Climate change continues to ravage Americans and take lives in the east and west, surprisingly good news from the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.K. remains gripped with panic, confusion and uncertainty in the wake of last week's vote 'Brexit' vote to leave the European Union.

We start today with more on the historic deadly flooding and "mass destruction" in West Virginia 'coal country' and the out-of-control wildfires across bone-dry Southern California. Yes, it's everything we've been warning you about for so long on both The BRAD BLOG and The BradCast, even if just the latest example of the enormous (and growing) cost of climate change, as still both under-reported by the corporate media and over-shadowed by other new events across both the U.S. and world.

Then, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down several major decisions on its final day of the session. Surprisingly, a number of those decisions were very good news for progressives, even on an otherwise divided Court with its still-vacant 9th seat. The biggest decision concerned abortion rights in Texas, where the Court dealt a devastating blow to Republican laws meant to shut down women's health clinics under the guise of 'safety'. The Court saw through the Rightwing con, and the 5-3 decision could result in the overturning of similar "TRAP laws" enacted by Republicans in other states. In any event, the decision is a huge setback for rightwing anti-abortion activists and a big victory for those who believe in Constitutionally protected reproductive rights and freedoms. Can we take anything from this decision as to how SCOTUS might eventually rule in the Texas Photo ID voting restrictions case --- another GOP law meant to rob (certain) citizens of their rights for entirely specious reasons?

Also, the right of states to restrict the possession of guns by domestic abusers was upheld in a surprising bi-partisan 7 to 2 opinion, as was a new rule by the U.S. Dept. of Labor concerning overtime pay for home healthcare workers.

In an unusual unanimous decision by the Supremes, Virginia's former Republican Governor Bob McDonnell saw his bribery conviction vacated, despite having accepted some $165,000 in personal gifts and cash loans from a wealthy businessman hoping the Governor would help promote his products. Will that decision have any effect on Alabama's former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman, who is now serving his 6th year in federal prison for having done far less than McDonnell was found guilty of? That, even as the Republican federal judge who sentenced Siegelman has resigned from the bench after having been arrested for beating his wife and the Republican heads of all three branches of government in Alabama face removal of office via impeachment (Governor), ethics charges (Chief Justice of the AL Supreme Court) and multiple felony conviction (AL Speaker of the House) for various crimes, alleged and proven, in their home state.

Finally today, last week's 'Brexit' vote continues to wreak havoc as world financial markets continue to plunge (though not nearly as low as I incorrectly reported it on today's show, as based on an inaccurate number reported by my iPhone's stock app!); the British government is in complete disarray about how (or, perhaps, even, if) they will officially begin the formal procedure required to leave the EU; voters express 'bregret' over having voted to exit; questions arise about overseas voters failing to correctly receive ballot papers at all; and some call for a second ("do-over") referendum.

All of that and much more on yet another insanely busy BradCast today!

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

On today's BradCast, the bombshell passage of Britain's EU 'Brexit' Referendum is shaking both world markets and politics. Is the rise of nationalism and anti-immigration sentiment in the UK a disturbing omen for the U.S. Presidential election this fall? [Audio link to complete show is below.]

Donald Trump certainly hopes so, as he's changed his position on European unity from just three years ago, when he was for it, to today, when he's apparently against it, now that he's running for President. On today's show we discuss a number of things that Americans can and should learn from both the dishonest politics of the Brexit vote and the way the election itself was carried out (on publicly hand-counted, hand-marked paper ballots.)

Meanwhile, back here across the pond, the fight to count votes from the June 7th primary in California continues, and the fight to keep (certain) voters from voting at all continues as well in a federal courtroom in North Carolina (No, Washington Post, Photo ID is not required to board an airplane and you should let your readers know as much), and in the great state of Texas, where so-called 'conservatives' have spent millions of taxpayer dollars attempting to defend their illegal, discriminatory and unconstitutional Photo ID voting restriction year after year in case after case. (Texit, anyone?)

Finally, we look at details from the unlawful purge of voters in Brooklyn, which came to light after the NY state primary in April. Were Sanders voters purged at a higher rate than Clinton voters, as Sanders supporters have been charging? We look at some of the actual evidence now in, which suggests otherwise (and as we've previously argued.) Plus: Death toll rising along with flood waters in West Virginia and in China; And Bluegrass fans lose a legend...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

We do our best on today's BradCast to keep up with an insane amount of breaking news that continues to pour in today, from the Democratic 'sit-in' protest in the U.S. House to two major rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court to the British vote to leave the European Union to extreme weather in China and back to the U.S. again for even more still-breaking news. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

The Dems' unprecedented 'occupation' of the U.S. House to force a vote on gun legislation came to an end --- without the vote Democrats sought --- earlier today after more than 25 hours, as Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan largely gave up by simply declaring the chaotic House in adjournment until after the July 4th holiday. But will it start all over again when Congress reconvenes? And will Democrats come to regret their popular upheaval the next time they are in the majority?

Meanwhile, constitutional law expert Ian Millhiser, author of Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted, joins us to explain the two major U.S. Supreme Court rulings handed down today, one is very bad news for the Obama Administration's immigration policy and, the other, a very surprising decision on affirmative action admissions policy at public university and colleges.

"The good news" on the immigration ruling, he says, "is that because this is an even split, it means that's there's no precedential value to this. It means that when a ninth justice is confirmed [to fill the vacancy left by the late Justice Scalia], it can be re-litigated all over again. But the bad news is that until there's that ninth justice, the program is at the mercy of some lower courts that are very hostile to immigration." As to today's other ruling, Millhiser explains: "People have thought that affirmative action was on its deathbed for a really long time. It had a series of near-death experiences. This case has been kicking around for something like eight years, and they finally get around to deciding it, and surprise, they don't strike down the program. There was a lot of language in the opinion that I think is going to give a lot of heartburn to people who support affirmative action, but the punchline is affirmative action lives to see another day."

But wait! There's much more breaking news on today's program: Yet another oil pipeline ruptures in Southern California; 'Oil Bomb' trains set to begin running again in Oregon just three weeks after fiery derailment; 'Brexit' voting in Great Britain ends amidst flash flooding that could effect turnout, as the 'LEAVE' coalition predicts defeat; Extreme weather, including a rare tornado, kills 78 in China; Volkswagen agrees to pay more than $10 billion to customers amidst emissions cheating scandal; and Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with still more bad court news for the Obama Administration, this time on fracking rules, but some good news (at least for some of us) about the last remaining nuclear power plant in California.

Buckle up...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: San Francisco adopts a climate change adaptation tax; Alberta, Canada, home of tar sands oil, adopts a carbon tax; U.S. Congress updates toxic chemical regulations for first time in 40 years; Britain's solar crushes coal; PLUS: A breakthrough in the quest to create an artificial leaf...All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): How the Great Barrier Reef got polluted – from farms and fossil fuels to filthy propaganda; Drought Sparks Larger Wildfires Throughout California; Another Oil Company Ends Arctic Drilling Hopes; U.S. solar market to nearly double in 2016, led by utilities; Britain's Royal Navy warships are breaking down because sea is too hot; What if climate change emptied India?; Scientists Seek a New Measure for Methane...PLUS: US and India just made progress on a little-known (but potent) climate problem... and much, MUCH more! ...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: State Attorneys General unite to investigate ExxonMobil for climate change fraud; Debunking another Republican EPA lie that won't die; 7 million Americans at risk of fracking earthquakes; Sea levels could rise six feet by 2100 because...Antarctica; PLUS: Scotland closes its last coal plant... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Choking to Death in Detroit: Flint Isn't Michigan's Only Disaster; Flint Official: State Overruled Plan For Corrosion Control; Exxon Must Hold Shareholder Vote on Climate Change Resolutions, SEC Says; Program Will Make Cutting Carbon Emissions Lucrative For Farmers; Climate Policy’s Advocates Take Page From Same-Sex Marriage Playbook; Toxic Chemical Still in Can Linings of Popular Foods; Trump Finds Common Ground With Cruz in Opposition to Carbon Tax... PLUS: “Epidemic” of Premature Births is Increasingly Linked to Air Pollution... and much, MUCH more! ...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 


(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: While we were out: Record settlement in BP's oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico; Former Senator Jim Webb (D?!) enters the 2016 race --- we'll tell you his (terrible!) position on climate change; Extreme heat waves shatter temperature records on four continents; PLUS: Solar-powered plane flies into aviation history... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, funded deniers for 27 years; Episcopal church votes to divest from fossil fuels; Bernie Sanders’ Plan To Make Solar Power More Accessible; Farmers vs. Fish: Water War Heats Up With Probe Into Who Got Millions; 'Sustainable' Fishery Is Harming Native Alaskans; Mining Heads Into The Deep Sea; Methane Emissions in Texas Fracking Region 50% Above EPA Estimates... PLUS: The Global Coal Renaissance Is the Most Important Climate Story Today... and much, MUCH more! ...

This guy, Tom Scott of Computerphile, is right on the money in every respect, when it comes to electronic voting --- be it via touch-screen computers, paper ballot optical-scan systems or, God forbid, Internet Voting. If I was British, and younger, and better looking, and smarter, this would be me...

After almost 11 years at this, it's great to see that at least a few folks are finally getting it. While many understand some of the problems of e-voting, too many still think those probs can be solved with "paper trails" or "open source systems" or Vote-by-Mail or, somehow, even Internet Voting (via phone, tablet or elsewhere). Scott clearly understands, and smartly explains in the short video above, why the problems of electronic voting and tabulating cannot be solved by any of those methods, no matter how much many otherwise well-intentioned folks may wish they could be.

Scott starts off by citing the extraordinary failure of Gov. Chris Christie's emergency Internet Voting scheme, hurriedly (and disastrously) implemented in 2012 in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

Beyond that, he goes on to make a number of spot-on points, though all of them are predicated on one key notion that, while it may still be true in Great Britain, is becoming more and more of a distant memory in the U.S. every day: An election where everyone in the public is allowed to observe the removal of hand-marked paper ballots from the ballot box, and watch them being counted right then and there, is the most secure and "trustworthy" election possible --- at least based on hundreds of years of vote counting in democracies...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 


(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Way too much water now falling on the Arizona desert; Another day, another toxic spill, this time in the Ohio River; New breakthrough recycles old car batteries into solar panels; Wind energy prices hit an all-time low in U.S.; PLUS: An innovative water wheel auto-magically cleaning up Baltimore Harbor ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Pregnant women should avoid tuna entirely; Transparent solar turns your windows into mini-solar cells; Solar boom causing global solar panel shortage; Solar thermal plant torches birds in mid-air; World's ice sheets melting at fastest rate ever recorded; Leonardo DiCaprio voices climate change film; Homeowners associations blocking residential solar installations; California has allocated 5x more water than it actually has ... PLUS: Why our brains are wired to ignore climate change ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 


(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Obama's plan to keep on truckin'...with much less oil; Secretary of State John Kerry goes 'weapons grade' on climate change; PLUS: It's GNR's 5th anniversary! So to celebrate, the Sunday network news shows all finally covered climate change --- really badly... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Fracking boom spews toxic air emissions on Texas residents; CA city fights 'environmental racism'; NC coal ash spill found 70 mi. downstream; Gov. McCrory denies involvement in Duke Energy sweetheart deal; Brazil: land disputes escalate over illegal mining; BP Oil Spill giving tuna heart disease; Arctic on track to warm 23 degrees F ... PLUS: Michigan: Vast Spill Of Liquid Manure Hidden Under Snow ... and much, MUCH more! ...

[This article now cross-published by Salon...]

Now that the East Coast and parts of the southern U.S. have been battered over and again with extreme weather this winter, and while California is in the midst of its worst and longest drought on historical record, the Sunday "news" shows, all at once, decided to cover what they describe as "climate change" --- or, in the words of NBC's Meet the Press host, David Gregory, "The Politics of Weather".

All four of the major Sunday "news" shows --- NBC's Meet the Press, ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation and Fox's Fox "News" Sunday --- covered the matter in various (lousy) ways.

Out of all four of them, just This Week and Face the Nation, bothered to book an actual climate scientist to take part in the conversation with their various bevies of political and journalistic deniers and non-scientists. Only Face the Nation offered a one-on-one with a climate scientist before then bringing on the denier.

Gregory, who Esquire's Charlie Pierce aptly described today as a "noodlebrained bag of useless flesh", tipped his hand last Friday by announcing excitedly via Twitter that MTP would be "Debating Climate change" on this week's show with Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), one of Congress' top carbon industry proponents and global warming deniers and Bill Nye "The Science Guy", a mechanical engineer turned TV science personality. No actual climate scientists necessary, apparently, to "debate" climate change in Meet the Press World.

Pierce called the embarrassing exchange "every bit as grim as you can imagine", and it certainly was. Here's just part of his scathing, dead-on-the-money response to it...

I've been on Abby Martin's Breaking the Set on RT America a number of times (see here and here), but on Wednesday it was my first time being on the show along with the delightful Desi Doyen, my co-host on the Green News Report.

In a 10-minute or so segment, we covered everything from California's current drought (its worst on record) to the madness of fracking during it, to the two recent toxic coal-related spills in WV, to the recent massive coal ash spill in NC, to the record storms and floods now devastating Great Britain, to the mainstream corporate media's shameful failures to connect the climate change dots on all of the above, and what the hell we ought to be doing about it all.

Here's the full show. Desi and I start just after the 17:15 minute mark...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

 


(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Keystone XL pipeline moves one step closer to approval; Britain pummeled by record rain and floods; Another coal-related spill contaminates drinking water, this time in North Carolina; PLUS: The Arctic wins again --- for now --- as Shell Oil drops plans to drill this summer ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Great Barrier Reef to become sludge repository for Big Coal port; World's largest solar thermal plant opens in CA; Iceland taps magma for energy; Senate passes Farm Bill; Safe, Schmafe: Pesticides ok for kids?; Environment loses in Russia's race to Sochi; US food companies go GMO-free in EU; Chemical Safety Board underfunded, understaffed at critical time ... PLUS: Video: Wingnuts think Southern snow was faked by the government ... and much, MUCH more! ...