Follow @GreenNewsReport...

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

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Obama suggests re-routing the controversial Dakota Access pipeline; Some major --- and some tricky --- environment-related ballot measures; China's top climate official warns Trump about climate science denial; PLUS: Corporate media covered Clinton emails 25 times more than climate change... 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): World On Track For 3C Of Warming Under Current Pledges, Warns UNEP; Oil prices slide 3 percent on record U.S. crude stock build; Global carbon intensity falls, on declining coal use; Oil patch states may have seen the last boom; Is Coal’s Political Heft Plunging? One State May Be Canary in Mine; Hurricane Matthew Took A Big Bite Out Of Southeastern States' Beaches... PLUS: Bad News for Honey as U.S. Seeks Handle on Glyphosate Residues in Food... and much, MUCH more! ...

Irrespective of whether a citizen favors or opposes adult recreational marijuana consumption, a "yes" vote on California's Proposition 64, the Marijuana Legalization Initiative, is a no-brainer.

The measure would legalize possession and use for adults 21 and older, create a new Bureau of Marijuana Control charged with the regulation and licensing of non-medical marijuana businesses, permit cities and counties to require licenses and restrict the locations of marijuana businesses, and provide for taxation on both cultivation and sales. As is the case with alcohol, there is nothing in the measure that would prevent criminal penalties for driving under the influence.

Setting aside the well-documented history of complicity in the global drug trade both by U.S. covert agencies and by the global banking industry, the plain and simple fact is that prohibition, whether applied to alcohol or to other "narcotics" has, at best, repeatedly proven to be an inordinately expensive abject failure that is destructive of the lives of those who partake of the forbidden fruit and, all too often, has a devastating impact upon their families and finances...

On today's BradCast, after a few words on some important California ballot propositions (on a statewide plastic bag ban, and a dangerous tax on safe e-cigarette and vaping devices) that we didn't get to discuss on yesterday's show, I make a startling admission! [Audio link to show is posted below.]

My admission: As much as I cover the elections, especially the Presidential election, while I know who I won't vote for, and who I probably would vote for if I lived in a swing-state, I have no clue who I should actually cast my vote for in the Presidential race this year here in California! I don't endorse candidates (and, both the FCC and Pacifica Radio wouldn't allow it anyway), but that doesn't mean listeners can't! So, today we open the phone lines for advice from callers, with the question: "Who should I vote for and why?"

You'll be shocked to learn that listeners have a few thoughts for me on that. Tons of callers ring in, with some good advice, some really bad advice, and a very lively and hopefully helpful hour of The BradCast ensues in the bargain. (You may --- or may not --- be amazed at some of the reasons a few listeners offer to convince me that I should vote for Trump.) Please feel free to ring in with your own answers to that question in comments below, if you're inclined.

Finally today: Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, and a sad follow-up to it with news of more tragic fossil fuel deaths in both the U.S. and China this week...

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, it looks like "Giant Meteor" could win after all! With one week to go, the race could be back up in the air, as polls tighten, Democrats sue Republicans in federal court, and we take a look at some key statewide ballot measures in California and elsewhere. [Audio link for show is posted below.]

The reverberations from FBI Director James Comey's unprecedented and (so far) evidence-free announcement last week concerning a potential new aspect of the agency's investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails continues to rock the 2016 Presidential Election, just one week before Election Day. Polling is moving back in Donald Trump's direction and we discuss other concerns that are not reflecting by polling numbers. Oh, and it turns out there is "voter fraud" at the polls, at least in Iowa, and you'll never guess who the alleged perp was caught voting twice for! (Sound familiar? Seems to happen a lot this time of year.)

Then, attorney and Vietnam veteran Ernest A. Canning, long time BRAD BLOG legal analyst now back from his Primary advisory role with Veterans for Bernie, joins us to discuss a number of California ballot initiatives he's been writing about here, as well as the several lawsuits filed by Democrats over the weekend charging "voter intimidation" by the Trump campaign and state GOP operations in Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, in violation of both the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.

All of that follows on a decades-long consent decree barring the Republican National Committee from certain racially targeted "poll watching" and "ballot security" activities. That is a restriction they agreed to after getting caught using race-based intimidation tactics at polling places in the early 1980s, when one of the named defendants, Roger Stone --- a long time advisor to Trump and GOP dirty trickster going back to the Nixon era --- actually worked on the "ballot security" operation that got the RNC in trouble in the first place back in NJ in 1981.

Then, Canning details a number of state initiatives on the California state ballot next week --- and some well-funded lies about them --- which could have a major effect on prescription drug prices, legalized marijuana (and ending the disastrous "War on Drugs"), the death penalty (two different, competing measures), Citizens United and much more...even porn is on the CA ballot this year!

Speaking about one of the initiatives, Prop 61, which he wrote about over the weekend, and which the pharmaceutical industry is spending tens of millions to defeat by falsely claiming that it will harm veterans, Canning explains: "This proposition, more than any other, shows you the problem with money in our political system. They put these [false] ads on --- and naturally, the TV station should say, 'We should fact-check that. That's not true.' But they're not going to do that because that would be like biting the hand that feeds them. These ads have become a major source of revenue for our commercial media" which, he ads, are "the ultimate beneficiaries of Citizens United, which is perhaps one of the reasons why they don't ask questions in the debates about repealing Citizens United!"

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, guest hosted by Angie Coiro...

With long months of flying accusations about Hillary Clinton, something finally stuck! But not the way Republicans have long hoped: it's FBI Director James Comey bearing the brunt, along with Congressman Jason Chaffetz and his oddly prescient tweets about Comey's announcement. We talk to Nathan Lerner, founder of the Keep America Great PAC and Executive Director of the Democratic Coalition Against Trump. The Coalition has filed ethics complaints against Comey and Chaffetz, and paired up with Richard Painter of the George W. Bush administration to denounce Comey's announcement.

Also today: Angie deconstructs Peter Thiel's address to the National Press Club. And she rounds up a passel of other news, including coverage of Donna Brazile's stolen email, and the #grabyourwallet campaign.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

California's Proposition 61, "the Drug Price Standards Initiative", is simple and straightforward. It mandates that any California state agency that provides funding for prescription drugs may not pay more than the lowest price paid for the same drug by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

PhRMA, the powerful drug industry lobbying organization, opposes the measure, and is using blatantly dishonest television ads, such as this one featuring Marine Corps Veteran Lamont Duncan, to claim that the measure will increase the price the VA pays for prescription drugs, harming veterans in the bargain...

The ad leads viewers to the same erroneous assumption presented by the state's Legislative Analyst (emphasis added) --- that "drug manufacturers might choose to raise VA drug prices" in response to passage of Prop 61. Worse, the ad erroneously suggests that veterans themselves could be forced into higher co-pays.

As Senator Bernie Sanders, the former chairman of the U.S. Veterans Affairs Committee, noted in an LA Times op-ed in support of Prop 61, "pharmaceutical companies cannot unilaterally raise the price of drugs it sells to the VA." Those prices, he explains, are fixed by federal law.

Conservative economist Greg D'Angelo, from Heritage Foundation's Center for Health Policy Studies confirms Sanders point in this explanation published some years ago: "The VA's discounts are mandated by [federal] law." Drug manufacturers lack the power to so much as "negotiate" a higher VA price, according to D'Angelo, let alone unilaterally raise them. And, as Sanders adds, "veterans' drug co-payments are fixed and do not rise even if drug prices go up." In cases where their treatment is for a service-connected condition, veterans "pay no out of pocket costs whatsoever for prescription drugs," the Senator notes.

While Prop 61 is subject to valid concerns, as explained below, under existing federal law, a betrayal of the right for affordable pharmaceuticals to Veterans is not one of them...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

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

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Two new hurricanes breaking records in the Atlantic and Pacific; U.S. House Science Committee chair now investigating the SEC for investigating Exxon; India signs on to the Paris Agreement; PLUS: City of Angels gets on path to 100 per cent renewable electricity... 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): The Paris climate agreement is entering into force. Now comes the hard part; Trudeau Unveils Carbon Price as Canada Acts on Paris Pledge; Only 1 in 5 people hear people talk about climate change at least once a month; Exxon faces a first-of-its-kind lawsuit over climate deception; Peak salt: is the desalination dream over for the Gulf states?; The planet hasn't been this hot for thousands of years; A Curious Plan to Fight Climate Change: Buy Mines, Sell Coal; Timber Company Tells California Town, Go Find Your Own Water... PLUS: Yes - Donald Trump Is a Threat to the Planet... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast, Donald Trump might be having second thoughts about all of those calls for "law and order", even as he's clearly already having second thoughts about his years of on-the-record climate change denialism.

After a breaking news update on the deadly commuter trainwreck this morning in Hoboken, NJ, we move back to the ongoing Trumpwreck in these United States, including two brand new investigative reports on Trump's, um, extralegal activities regarding the New York Attorney General's probe into multiple apparent illegalities carried out by the GOP nominee's personal use of his "charitable" foundation and a blockbuster new Newsweek exposé concerning his company's unlawful business in Fidel Castro's Cuba at the height of the U.S. embargo against the island nation.

All of that, even as Trump continues to pretend to be the "law and order" candidate. Also, another new report today offers more evidence, despite both the candidate and his campaign's insistence to the contrary, that the GOP nominee treats female employees of his organization poorly.

Then, as yet another massive rain and flooding event plays out today, this time in North Carolina, Desi Doyen joins us for some fact-checking in response to Trump's denial of his own global warming denialism from the first Presidential Debate, as well as a response to charges that Hillary Clinton herself has not done nearly enough on climate and environment issues.

Finally, don't worry! Just in case we've brought you all down today, we finish with a song almost certain to cheer you up! You're welcome! Please enjoy lawfully...

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, fresh accountability is sought as a criminal bribery complaint is filed with the U.S. Dept. of Justice against GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump and Florida's top law enforcement official, Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

New polls out today from Ohio and Florida find the Republican Party nominee now leading Hillary Clinton by several points in both swing-states. That, after several recent unforced errors by the Democratic nominee and months of misleading and often inaccurate mainstream media reporting on Hillary Clinton's email server and charitable foundation. All the while, Trump has largely received a pass from that same corporate media on his multiple cases of apparent outright fraud and even admitted illegalities.

On that score, I'm joined by Noah Bookbinder, Executive Director of the non-partisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), to discuss the new criminal complaint his organization filed yesterday with the U.S. Department of Justice, calling for a bribery probe of both Trump and Bondi (pictured above). The complaint centers on the illegal $25,000 donation solicited by Bondi in 2013 and illegally delivered by Trump's charitable foundation to her political committee just days after the Florida AG's office announced they were considering joining a New York state fraud probe of "Trump University" and the "Trump Institute".

The Trump Foundation donation, as Bookbinder explains, was unlawful. And, following CREW's civil complaint to the IRS about it in March of this year, Trump admitted the violation by paying a fine and reimbursing his own charitable foundation for the illegal payment to Bondi's political action committee.

On today's show, Bookbinder explains how CREW's new criminal complaint goes even farther in calling for accountability via a new federal probe of Trump's apparent payoff to Bondi, whose office decided not to join the NY civil suit shortly after she received the Trump donation (and then what appears to be a hugely reduced rate for a fundraiser held for her at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.)

"There's a lot of evidence here that looks a whole lot like classic corruption," Bookbinder, who formerly worked on the United States Sentencing Commission, tells me. "The evidence that we do have of this timeline looks really bad, especially when you combine it with the kinds of statements that Donald Trump has regularly made about how he operates --- that he gives public officials money and then they do what he wants them to do. If he did that here, it starts to look like a crime."

Then, a number of Trump supporters are arrested on assault charges for attacking protesters at a Trump rally in Asheville, NC earlier this week, and another from his ever growing "basket of deplorables" is sought by police after punching out a 69-year old lady outside of the rally. Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for some good news (believe it or not) in our latest Green News Report, on fracking in CA and on ND's Dakota Access Pipeline, and some otherwise disturbing news following the hottest month ever recorded on Planet Earth...

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!)

Today on The BradCast, hate crimes are on the rise as Trump, Republicans and their supporters pretend to be outraged by "basket of deplorables", and the corporate media is all too happy to help them out. [Audio link posted below]

Amongst the stories covered today's program:

• NYC Trump supporter attacks two Muslim women pushing strollers.
• Muslim woman set on fire in NYC.
• Mosque torched in Fort Pierce, FL.
• Oregon supporter hangs effigy of Clinton on the interstate.
• Trump supporter punches protesters at Asheville, NC rally where Trump accuses Clinton of running a 'hate-filled campaign'.
• Despite her mischaracterized remarks and misreported statement of "regret", Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comments was on the mark.
• AP finally deletes two-week old inaccurate tweet about their misleading report on the Clintons' charitable foundation.
• KY's Republican Governor suggests bloodshed will be needed if Clinton wins.
• Super Typhoon Meranti is strongest of the year, heads toward Taiwan.
• August 2016 is warmest month ever recorded on Planet Earth.

Oh, and some good news for both the economy and the climate. But you'll have to tune in for those!

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: Obama Administration steps in to support Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and temporarily halt Dakota Access pipeline; Why the oil industry is pushing for more pipelines; Judge rules against plan to open a million acres of public lands to fracking in California; Alabama's unfinished nuclear plant for sale, cheap; PLUS: Here we go again --- August 2016 breaks record, ties for hottest month ever recorded in human 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): Super Typhoon Meranti is about to hit Taiwan; One Year of Coal CEO Pay Could Retrain Every US Miner to Work in the Solar Industry; Wilderness lost: Earth's wild lands in catastrophic decline; With U.S. Election in Sight, Ban Seeks Quick Action on Climate Accord; Constitutional Scholars Object to Lamar Smith's Exxon Subpoenas; ittsburgh Water: Expensive, Rust-Colored, Corrosive... PLUS: This one quote shows what angry white guys mean when they talk about government overreach... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, guest hosted by Angie Coiro of In Deep Radio, a surprising crush of news headlines post-holiday weekend.

Among them: Bulldozers tore up North Dakota sacred lands of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe amidst protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, even as all parties await a court judgment to block construction. Bill Cosby's lawyers claim that attorney Gloria Allred just wants the spotlight and is making racist attacks. And a CNN presidential election poll appears to have completely excluded millennials!

Meanwhile, one of my guests, Robert J. Elisberg of Huffington Post, wants to know if Trump's letter-writing doctor violated HIPAA by discussing his "knowledge" of Hillary Clinton's alleged health problems. So Flash Gordon, MD joins us to clarify.

Jessica Luther looks at the Brock Turner case in California, the Lizzy Seeberg suicide in a Notre Dame sexual assault case, and her new book Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape.

Then it's back to Elisberg, this time for a tale of Berlin, L.A., and a handful of "Hillary Clinton for President" buttons. Finally, a review of a few important medical stories, including a ban on "antibacterial" soaps.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

On November 8, every Californian who steps into a voting booth will face a momentous decision --- life or death?

It is an awesome responsibility that cannot be avoided. To fail to cast a vote on one of the two competing death penalty ballot measures is to passively accept a California death penalty system that U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney aptly described as so "dysfunctional" and "irrational" in its application that it "serves no penological purpose" whatsoever.

Of the more than 900 human beings who have received death sentences in the Golden State since 1978, only thirteen (13) have been executed. During that time, California's death penalty system has operated at a cost of $5 billion or $384 million per execution. At present 748 men and women remain on death row, waiting to die.

The first of the two ballot measures, Prop 62, is backed by a wide array of political, educational, religious and civil liberties organizations. It is also supported by well-known politicians like California's Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newson and former President Jimmy Carter. The measure is simple, direct and straightforward. A "yes" vote "repeals the death penalty and replaces it with life imprisonment without possibility of parole." Prop 62 would apply "retroactively to existing death sentences," and it would increase "the portion of a life inmate's wages that may be applied to victim restitution."

The second competing measure, Prop 66, the "Death Penalty Procedure Regulation" initiative, has been offered primarily by the same District Attorneys and law enforcement personnel who are currently responsible for the enforcement of the existing dysfunctional death penalty system. The object of Prop 66, they tell us, is to "mend not end" the death penalty system by severely curtailing the rights of the condemned both with respect the timing of direct appeals and subsequent collateral challenges by way of what are known as petitions for habeas corpus.

Where the death penalty repeal measure (Prop 62) can be readily understood by the average voter, the procedural changes reflected by Prop 66's wonky text are such that only those attorneys and judges who are actively engaged in death penalty appellate litigation can be expected to fully comprehend their true significance.

Prosecutors glibly assure voters that Prop 66 is a safe means to speed up the appeal process. Former DC public defender Stephen Cooper, on the other hand, describes Prop 66 as a "dubious," "arbitrary" and "macabre" proposal to turbo-charge "California's 'machinery of death'" --- a measure whose "cataclysmically-bad provisions" increase the ability of overzealous prosecutors to literally bury their mistakes...

On today's BradCast, guest hosted by Angie Coiro, we consider whether --- all protests to the contrary --- Brock Turner's sentence for sexual assault was in fact fair and just. Then we'll take a look at the bizarre language of Election 2016.

With Brock Turner's release from jail after just three months, Angie revisits his trial and sentencing with Imani Gandy of Rewire, and Sajid Khan of the Santa Clara County, CA Public Defender's Office. Imani brings her signature wit to piercing points about not just the Turner sentence, but elements of rape culture and privilege behind it. Sajid Khan says what few have: that more jail time --- or even prison --- wouldn't necessarily be the answer in cases involving young offenders.

Then, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg tackles how Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are using language on the campaign trail to entice voters. His take: Trump never grew up, and Clinton can barely get a word in with the cor;oprate media.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

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

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Obama urges climate action from Tahoe to Hawaii to Midway to his final presidential visit to Asia; Not one but two rare hurricanes threaten Hawaii as Obama visits; PLUS: Global insurance industry tells G20 to 'kick away the carbon crutches'... 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): Colombia: Three Environmental Activists Assassinated; Corps Approved Dakota Pipeline Over Objections of 3 Federal Agencies; Al Gore: The Clean Energy Revolution Is ‘A Dramatic New Reality’; Africa's elephants rapidly declining; Thousands of Homes Keep Flooding, Yet They Keep Being Rebuilt Again; Floridians Overwhelmingly Support Solar In Tuesday Vote; Colorado voters won't get to decide on new fracking rules... PLUS: Fuel economy: Want to know your car's true mileage? It's complicated... and much, MUCH more! ...