Follow @GreenNewsReport...

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

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: In latest Democratic presidential debate, the moderators didn't want to talk about climate change, but the candidates sure did; Climate protest group Extinction Rebellion shuts down parts of London; California moves to block Trump's efforts to expand fossil fuel extraction; PLUS: Another fossil fuel explosion and fire, this time near earthquake-prone San Francisco... 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 goes on trial in NY climate fraud case; Despite their promises, giant energy companies burn away vast amounts of natural gas; How to power your house, with xkcd's Randall Munroe; Trump Admin proposes expanding logging in Tongass National Forest; Billionaire GOP governor received maximum farm aid from Trump's trade war; California’s deliberate blackouts were outrageous and harmful and will happen again; Owl vs. owl: should humans intervene to save a species?... PLUS: Despairing about the climate crisis? Read this... and much, MUCH more! ...

The top TWELVE 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates --- yes, TWELVE --- gathered for 3 hours --- yes THREE --- on Tuesday night at Otterbein University, in Westerville, Ohio for their 4th primary debate of the 2020 nomination cycle. We devote the hour on today's BradCast, to post-debate coverage, analysis and, of course, occasional snark. [Audio link to program is posted below.]

The candidates at the CNN and NYTimes co-sponsored forum were: MA Sen. Elizabeth Warren; VT Sen. Bernie Sanders; former Vice President Joe Biden; CA Sen. Kamala Harris; NJ Sen. Corey Booker; MN Sen. Amy Klobuchar; Former HUD Sec. Julian Castro; South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg; HI Rep. Tulsi Gabbard; CA entrepreneur and activist Tom Steyer (making his first debate appearance); Silicon Valley entrepreneur Andrew Yang; and former El Paso, TX Rep. Beto O'Rourke.

Among the many issues and questions covered and discussed on today's program, following last night's forum...

• Do we really need three hour debates?;
• Do we really need 12 candidates?;
• Do we really need Steyer to be one of them?;
• Did the moderators do any better than they have in previous debates this cycle?;
• Was there really not a single question on either our climate or voting rights crises worth asking the candidates?;
• Did Elizabeth Warren perform well in the face of direct attacks from her opponents now that she is being perceived as the front-runner?;
• Could she stand up to similar or almost certainly far worse attacks from Trump (presuming he is the GOP nominee)?;
• Is Booker right to worry about sniping and some of the direct attacks between his fellow Democratic candidates?;
• What's the reason he is not performing better in the polls?;
• Why is Harris still slipping in the polls?;
• Will Sanders' recent heart attack be a deal breaker for some voters (despite his energetic performance at Tuesday's debate)?;
• As Biden slips in the polls, is he also showing signs of cognitive decline that may concern voters?;
• What's the difference between "Medicare for All", as proposed by Sanders and Warren, and "Medicare for All Who Want It" and a "Public Option" as proposed by Biden, Buttigieg and Warren?;
• Why won't Warren admit out loud, as Sanders has, that her Medicare for All plan will raise taxes on the middle class, even as she correctly points out that overall costs for such families would go down?;
• And why do people who like their private insurance have to give it up under a "Medicare for All" plan?;
• Were attacks by Klobuchar and Buttigieg and Biden against so-called progressive "pipe dreams" effective for their candidacies or just damaging to the party?;
• Is "Accountable Capitalism" actually a thing?

All of those questions and many more are tackled with Eskow, Jacobson and even Desi Doyen and myself on today's very lively, insightful and intermittently humorous post-debate special coverage!...

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!)

Our long road toward catching up with a month's worth of news continues on today's BradCast, with voting news out of Battleground Ohio, the latest on Trump's impeachment and chaos in Syria (and the thing that ties them together), as well as the latest environmental and climate news after a month away. [Audio link to show posted at end of summary.]

First up today: Some surprisingly good news for voters out of Ohio! The biggest surprise, perhaps, is that it comes, at least in part, thanks to the state's new Republican Sec. of State Frank LaRose, who had the good sense to check with voting rights groups beforewrongly purging some 40,000 perfectly active and eligible voters from the rolls who should never have been flagged for removal in the first place! Most of his fellow Republicans are likely not happy about that.

Then, we're joined by the great HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo to discuss the latest impeachment news and Trump's deadly withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syrian.

The impeachment inquiry over Trump's attempt to withhold nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in exchange for its President's trumped-up state investigation of Joe Biden and the 2016 election continues to gain steam, with half a dozen or more current and former Executive Branch officials now lining up to testify --- and not in favor of Trump or his lackey lawyer Rudy Giuliani --- to Congressional investigators. Trump's former Russia and Europe expert, Fiona Hill, testified for some ten hours on Monday, reportedly citing Giuliani's shadow foreign policy schemes meant to undermine U.S. foreign policy and personally enrich the President in some way.

According to reports of her deposition, her superior on the National Security Counsel, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, was so alarmed by Giuliani's efforts he described the former NYC Mayor turned Fox 'News' conspiracist as a "hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up". Bolton reportedly tried to warn White House attorneys about Giuliani's many attempts to undermine U.S. Ukraine policy. Bolton himself, the unlikeliest of heroes in this shameful saga, may soon be called to testify to Congress in coming days, along with a long list of other State, Defense and National Security officials who now seem eager to defy the White House's strategy of denying both documents and testimony in the House Democrats' impeachment inquiry. "They're defying the White House telling them not to go testify," Parton observes, "That is a change. That is different than what we've seen. Suddenly that stonewall is crumbling."

We also discuss Parton's reasonable theory as to why this matter has finally resulted in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi giving full permission to her caucus to proceed with impeachment, where clear evidence of felony obstruction of justice from Robert Mueller's report and Trump's hush-money payoffs to porn stars to help win the 2016 Presidential election did not. "This is the same kind of stuff that Trump was accused of [in 2016], that we all suspected him of doing, colluding with a foreign government to sabotage his rival's campaign. Here he is [with Ukraine] doing it in real time. I think that's really what has made the difference."

In not-at-all-unrelated news, Parton goes on to discuss her latest Salon column in which she details how Trump's Syria pullout appears to be anything but an impulsive decision after a recent phone call with Turkish President Erdogan, as many in the media are still describing the disastrous move. She explains how the U.S. abandonment of our Kurdish allies with the U.S. withdrawal of troops from Northern Syria is of a piece with Trump's feckless Ukraine policy. In both cases, she explains, there is one unavoidable fact in common --- even for those of us who may not be Russia hawks: both actions, like so many other controversial policies of the Trump Administration, are in the clear and direct interest of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Finally, we close today with the long-awaited return of the Green News Report, which we had been forced to suspend over the past month due to my family emergency. Somehow or another, Desi Doyen manages to fit in a month's worth of green news into the latest GNR in just six minutes. Buckle up --- and stay that way!...

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: We're back! But, while we were out --- some big developments in climate science, climate strikes, extreme weather impacts, public lands policy, pollution, and pesticides. A month's worth of green news, jammed into six minutes, 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): Making a killing: As indigenous climate protectors die, businesses profit; How Trump's USDA is failing farmers on climate change; New Chevron oil spill emerges in Kern Co., CA; Louisiana kills net metering. Will other states roll back solar?; Why we need to treat wildfire as a public health issue in California; Trump administration calls wild horses biggest threat to public lands; Microgrids emerge as potential solution to blackouts... PLUS: 5 'radical' climate policies that most Americans actually like... and much, MUCH more! ...

Desi and I are back on today's BradCast, after an unscheduled month-long hiatus as my otherwise very healthy 80-year old dad suffered a sudden and major stroke in mid-September before ultimately passing away a few weeks later. [That's him on the left with me in the photo. Audio for today's program is posted below.]

We share a few memories of Harvey Friedman at the top of today's show (there are many more here) and a couple of very important lessons learned both before and after his death that will almost certainly be of use to you and your family! The two booklets I mentioned on air today are Five Wishes (available via AgingWithDignity.org) and the Advance Health Care Directive (available via PrepareForYourCare.org). Both are likely to be wildly helpul to your family, should you or they find themselves in a similar situation. Please consider clicking on those links when you find some time.

Then, we're joined by the great NICOLE SANDLER of The Nicole Sandler Show who filled in for us, with absolutely no notice, over the past month (with some occasional help from Angie Coiro along the way) even as she did her own show as well nearly every damned day! Desi and I cannot thank her enough. Though we try to today.

Since Nicole filled in for us during what was clearly a very very slow news month, she gets us caught up on what we missed while we were "gone", from the Impeachment process now under way in the House in response to Trump's strong-arming of the Ukrainian President for (apparently false) dirt on Joe Biden and the 2016 election; to Trump's disturbing sudden withdraw of U.S. troops in the Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria (and the death and chaos and escaped ISIS detainees and new deal cut between our previously-allied and now-abandoned Kurds and the Russian-supported Syrians in its wake); to the corporate media still falling for Trump's B.S. on everything from his "new impeachment attorney", former Rep. Trey Gowdy (who doesn't appear to have been hired after all) to his new trade deal with China (which may not be a deal after all); to the latest in the 2020 race for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

After a month off the grid, we're wading gently back in today and this week with a little help from our friends. My thanks to so many of you for your kind words while we were gone, and our thanks to all of our listeners and affiliate stations for tolerating our unexpected and unprecedented absence! Hope you'll enjoy today's program as we gently get back into the swing of things...

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!)

It's been a long month here at the BradCast, but the end is near. Brad Friedman and Desi Doyen return to their rightful places here on Monday. I'm NICOLE SANDLER, holding down the fort for one final show until they return.

When Brad called to tell me that his father had suffered a stroke, and that he and Desi were heading out to Arizona to be with him, I told him I'd be here for whatever he needs. That's what friends do. And I consider Brad and Desi not only friends, but family. I'm glad I could help them out so they didn't have to worry about anything here, but be fully with his parents, taking care of what's really important in life. But I, like you, am looking forward to the return of the Brad Friedman-hosted 'BradCast' and Desi's much-missed Green News Report!

On this final show of the week, I spent the first two segments, once again, recapping the latest news. Harvey Friedman sure picked the craziest time in this generation to make his exit, as the already frenetic pace of breaking news accelerated exponentially in the past month.

Today was insane, with news on the Giuliani front (he's the subject of a criminal investigation now too, after his associates were arrested Wednesday attempting to flee the country!). The Pentagon is now telling Turkey to stop doing what Donald Trump gave them his blessing to do less than a week ago. And, oh, what he authorized was genocide of our only real allies in the region. But the dominoes are about ready to fall, as even his staunchest defenders in Congress - Lindsey Graham, we're looking at you - are appalled by his actions and are calling him out publicly about it. And a courageous former Ambassador to Ukraine defied the White House's warning that no one would be testifying or cooperating with the impeachment inquiry, showing up today and apparently blowing the roof off the sucker. At press time, we'd only gotten reports about her explosive opening statement. I'm guessing more details will emerge in the coming hours and days.

Our guest today is an old friend and Air America Radio colleague, JACK RICE. In addition to being a broadcaster and journalist, he's also a trial lawyer. And he was a CIA case officer under the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations. I call on Jack regularly for his expertise, which he kindly provided in reference to the plethora of news we're living through.

Thanks for bearing with me this past month... Welcome home Brad and Desi. We've missed you!

Download MP3 or listen online below...

It's NICOLE SANDLER back with you again today, guest hosting the BradCast. The good news is that Brad and Desi will return on Monday, so you'll just have to deal with me for one more day.

As has been the case the entire time Brad's been gone, the news is non-stop. We begin the show, as usual, with the latest. Then I check in to commiserate with our UK Correspondent- journalist, author and broadcaster DENIS CAMPBELL.

The new term of the Supreme Court convened on Monday, coinciding with the release of a new book, The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America, from our guest THOM HARTMANN.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

It's NICOLE SANDLER, still guest hosting the BradCast for a few more days. Brad and Desi will be back soon, I promise.

There's so much news breaking that today, I try to catch up on the big stories: Turkey's invasion of Syria where they'll wipe out our allies, the Kurds, and are doing it with Donald Trump's blessing. And the Republicans blockade of Democrats working on the impeachment inquiry.

My guest today is DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER, co-author of an article titled The 'Public Option' on Health Care Is a Poison Pill, who explains that not all of the Democratic presidential candidates Medicare for All plans are actually Medicare for All!...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

It's your friendly Guest Host NICOLE SANDLER, again filling in for Brad and Desi on the BradCast, for a show that deals with Donald Trump and the administration, Congress and its role in trying to perform oversight, and the Supreme Court, now back in session. We begin the show with the latest news from Trumpworld on the impeachment inquiry and his self-inflicted crisis with Syria, Turkey and the Kurds.

My first guest is DAVID L. PHILLIPS, author, educator and veteran of the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations about the situation in Syria with the Kurds and Turkey. He wrote 'Shock and Disgust' about Trump’s idiotic announcement that he was turning Syria over to Turkey, damn the Kurds.

And, the Supreme Court began its new term yesterday. Today, they heard what will likely be one of the biggest cases of the year – the question of whether LGBTQ people have employment protection under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. We discuss it with JASMINE BEACH-FERRARA, Executive Director of the Campaign for Southern Equality.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

It's NICOLE SANDLER, back to guest-host another episode of the BradCast..

As Donald Trump today unilaterally decided to pull all military support from the Kurds in Syria and give Turkey free rein to do as they please, I thought today would be a good time to replay my 2015 interview with BAYAN RAHMAN, the Kurdistan Regional Government Representative to the USA, to learn about the Kurds and our relationship with them.

Also, MIKE ELK of Payday Report checks in with an update on the GM strike, now in its third week.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

It's NICOLE SANDLER, back again to guest host the BradCast. We start the show as usual, by bringing everyone up to speed on the latest news concerning the impeachment inquiry into the president.

I promised I'd provide links to the pages of text messages turned over to Congress by Kurt Volker, and to Volker's opening statement as delivered yesterday. So, just click!

I have two fascinating guests today. First up, JENNY BROWN, author of Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now, on the day the Supreme Court announced that they'll hear an abortion rights case this term.

Then, I speak with author and non-profit advisor DOUG WHITE about his new book, Wounded Charity: Lessons Learned from the Wounded Warriors Project Crisis.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

It's NICOLE SANDLER, still manning the guest host desk for Brad and Desi at the BradCast.

The news is breaking at warp speed. I open the show with a recap of what's happened since the last BradCast, and there's a lot!

My guest today is MARCY WHEELER from Emptywheel.net who explained how Attorney General Bill Barr is implicated in Trump's efforts to solicit help from foreign leaders to damage his political opponents. And it's not only Barr, but Pompeo, Pence, Giuliani and even Lindsey Graham!

Plus, I'll share an amazing essay from John Pavlovitz titled, "I’m Not The Radical Left, I’m The Humane Middle."

And because we need it and deserve it, we end the show with some levity, courtesy of the always brilliant Randy Rainbow.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

It's NICOLE SANDLER, still holding down the fort at the BradCast for Brad and Desi.

As you know, it's been an insane few weeks in the news. I begin each show with an update on the latest from Trumpland and Impeachment World. Today, we witnessed a Trump meltdown that started with presidential profanity on Twitter in the wee hours of the morning, and continued through two media moments with the president of Finland looking on, horrified!

We had two great guests today. I wanted to get a whistleblower's take on what's happening, so I reached out to JOHN KIRIAKOU, who served 23 months in prison for blowing the whistle on the US torture program during the Bush years, who brings a unique perspective to the story. He's written three great books on his experience.

Then, I went the academic route, and called on HARVEY J. KAYE, author and professor of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, to get his thoughts on this moment in history.

Download MP3 or listen online below...