After a glitchy start with a skeleton crew at KFPK in Los Angeles, today's BradCast was a reminder, for me at least, of why radio over our public airwaves is so essential, especially now. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

After a few news headlines on the latest from our horrifying global pandemic --- more state Governors, thankfully, issuing "stay-at-home" orders; more coronavirus cases and deaths in the U.S. and around the world; more screwups from our imbecilic President regarding his "great friends" in Congress who have now contracted COVID-19; more fights in Congress about a $1.8 trillion relief package meant to save the economy and the American people (or, if left to the Republicans, to save Donald Trump and their favored companies, unless Dems continue to hold strong and not fall for another bailout con); and my own suggested Bipartisan Stimulus Relief Plan (the one that should be adopted immediately) --- we open the phones to callers who have been enduring "stay-at-home" orders now for days in California, as well as elsewhere around the country.

I thought today would be a good moment to touch base with folks to see how everyone is doing, how they are holding up in these circumstances. Right now, radio and radio stations are considered an essential service as part of our federal Critical Communications Infrastructure (a designation we take seriously.) So we hope to stay on the air as long as possible, with as much live radio as we can.

Today's callers help underscore why I believe that's so important. Among the many great calls today:

• The 80-year old from L.A. who lives alone with his dogs and is having trouble getting food for them;
• The blind caller from Lake Elsinore who is "terrified";
• The caller from Minneapolis who felt he has never had to lock his doors at night, until now;
• The millennial (and former associate producer of our show!) who reports that few in Atlanta outside her window seem to be following the Democratic Mayor's "stay-at-home" order, as the state's wingnut Republican Governor refuses to issue one;
• The woman who believes we should call it the "Stable Genius Virus";
• And many others, including the last caller of the day who....well, we'll let you listen, but it's a bit heartbreaking, and I wish I could have said more, though the show was ending and I had few words to help, I fear...

Hopefully, we can all come together with love at this difficult and extraordinary moment of necessary physical distancing, as opposed to social distancing... And thank you for taking the time to join us for The BradCast during this unprecedented time in history...

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To be frank, after getting off air from today's BradCast, I'm still almost too furious and/or exhausted to write about it. Tune in to find out why. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

But, in short, among the stories we covered...

• Tulsi Gabbard ends her Presidential run, endorses Joe Biden;

• Two members of Congress (one D, one R) test positive for coronavirus as leadership defies calls to allow for remote voting for members;

• Despite weeks of repeated BS claims to the contrary by Trump and his White House, coronavirus testing (or lack thereof) is causing chaos across the U.S., with those who need tests still, obscenely, unable to get one;

• Secretly recorded audio reveals that GOP Senator Richard Burr, speaking to wealthy political funders, knew well about the likely catastrophic dangers of the coming pandemic long before he (or Trump or anyone in the Administration) was willing to warn as much to the public, much less take what would have been live-saving action weeks ago. (But, as Trump said during a WH presser yesterday in response to why celebrities, and apparently members of Congress, seem to have no trouble getting tested quickly: "Perhaps that's the story of life. I've heard that happens on occasion.");

• There is a ray of hope from China, where the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first identified, reported zero new homegrown infections on Wednesday and only eight additional deaths there. Those are remarkably encouraging numbers, but come at a very steep price of mandatory isolation and a central government able to act quickly to shore up its medical system to rise appropriately to meet the moment;

• The good news from China is offset by the bad news from Italy, where 475 people died in a single day on Wednesday. The death toll there has now officially surpassed China's, even though the Asian nation has 1.4 billion citizens compared to Italy's 60 million. The numbers in the U.S. look more and more like Italy's every day, with the response from our own federal government being far worse;

• The pandemic has, virtually overnight, begun to show up in the U.S. economy with an enormous spike in unemployment claims in states across the nation and a federal government so gutted through huge, reckless, unending tax cuts for the wealthy and interest rate cuts during boom times that there are very few economic tools left in the federal arsenal to mitigate the cataclysmic shock to the economy that is almost certainly now in place;

• So, of course, yet again, every Republican in government who pretends to not be a socialist --- who couldn't wait for Sanders to win the Democratic nomination so they could pretend as much even louder --- is now, once again, relying on the federal government for enormous bailouts. (Funny how this happens every time Republicans are allowed to take control of the federal government, no?) Socialist GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is now leading his party in calling for teeny-tiny checks to be sent to individual Americans and for more huge tax cuts --- as if there is anything left to cut --- for giant corporations. Yes, those would be same huge corporations which already received a trillion dollar tax cut from Trump and the same GOP just about a year ago, and the same ones who give huge money to Republicans year after year to call those seeking to end these economic nightmares "socialists" for wanting to do so. Nice work if you can get it. But "perhaps that's the story of life. I've heard that happens on occasion.";

• And with all of that cheery news --- and a few choice Brad Rants to go with it all --- we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, as she finds amidst more disasters than we have the heart to describe here, at least one or two silver linings inside of it all...

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On Friday of the Thanksgiving weekend, in hopes that nobody would notice, the Trump Administration quietly released the latest National Climate Assessment, a 1,700-page report compiled by 13 federal agencies with more than 300 scientists, including data from over 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies. On today's BradCast, we notice. [Audio link to show follows below.]

The report is mandated by Congress every few years, so the Administration had little choice but to release it, though doing so a month earlier than expected over a holiday weekend --- without even notifying the scientists who worked on it --- was as noteworthy as the report's stark contradictions with Donald Trump's own climate change denialism.

Global warming, the report warns, may warm the U.S. by as much as 12 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. It has already cost Americans $150 billion in various forms of damage since 2015 and, by the end of the century, unless severe steps are taken to curb emissions, climate change will result in a cost of some 10% to the nation's Gross Domestic Product. That hit to the economy will be more than twice that of the Great Recession a decade ago, the report finds, unless a very serious effort is undertaken immediately to curb man-made greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. Such action on a federal level, of course, seems very unlikely given that Donald Trump, when asked about the devastating economic effects detailed by his own administration's report, told reporters on Monday: "I don't believe it."

We're joined today by DR. MICHAEL E. MANN, Distinguished Professor and Director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, to discuss the troubling scientific findings and the entirely predictable reaction by denialist Republicans and corporate media over the weekend since its release.

Mann's climate science work, as author of nearly 200 peer-reviewed and edited publications, as well as several landmark climate change books, has warned for years of the breathtaking scope of our current climate crisis, illustrated again by recent record hurricanes, wildfires, droughts and floods and outlined by the report. The new study was compiled prior to the recent fires in CA which have, so far, killed nearly 90 people, as well as before this year's Hurricanes Michael and Florence which devastated parts of Florida and the southeast coast of the U.S.

"Simply stating what the science has to say is alarming," Mann tells me. "We are seeing the impacts now play out in real time. That means we are much farther down this road than we ever should have allowed ourselves to get. And time is running out. There is a level of urgency unlike we've seen before. We have to bring our carbon emissions down dramatically now, to avoid ever more catastrophic warming of the planet. And this is what you see in the form of scientists, who are usually quite conservative, coming out and saying, 'Look, we have, in essence, an emergency now.'"

At the same time, Mann notes, "The emergency is heightened by the fact that, at a time when we need to see even more action if we're going to stabilize warming below catastrophic levels, we have a president who is trying to take us in exactly the opposite direction."

Last week, in response to a cold spell just days before his own Administration released its report, Trump tweeted: "Whatever happened to global warming?" When asked about that today, Mann responds today by saying: "I'm looking out the window now and it's dark outside. Whatever happened to the sun? His comments about climate change are about as sensible and intelligent as that. Even a 5-year-old understands the absurdity of the claims that he makes."

As usual, Mann has a lot of important thoughts and science to share on all of this, on whether action at this late date can even make a difference, on the media's coverage of the issue, and even on his "disagreement" with a recent comment made by newly elected Democratic progressive Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Please tune in.

Also today: Speaking of the costs of Trump's reckless deregulation and science denial, last week's E. coli outbreak in Romaine lettuce (and the similar nationwide taint that sickened hundreds and killed five earlier this year), was also entirely predictable. It followed the Trump Administration's rollback of Obama Administration testing requirements for water used by producer growers, which would have kicked in this year. Trump's deregulation was supposed to save growers $12 million a year, while the costs of tainted fruits and vegetables costs consumers about $180 million in healthcare costs annually.

We've also got some more midterm election news as well (no, it's still not over!), including Republican Rep. Mia Love finally conceding her U.S. House reelection bid to Democrat Ben McAdams in otherwise ruby red Utah --- and slamming both Trump and her own party in the bargain. That brings the total to 38 House seats picked up by Democrats, so far, with two more still-undecided races in New York.

It's not just midterm counting that continues, but voting as well, as super-genius GOP U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith faces a tougher-than-expected runoff on Tuesday in Mississippi against Democrat Mike Espy, after a string of disturbing remarks about "public hangings" and voter suppression during her campaign.

And, finally today, listeners ring in with calls on the new climate change report and more...

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