IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.N. Secretary-General calls for fossil fuel industry to pay for climate damages; New initiative takes on plastics and the petrochemical industry; Most of Puerto Rico still as no power or clean water after Hurricane Fiona; PLUS: U.S. Senate approves the first climate treaty in decades... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Manchin's permitting reform is a decoy for ramping up gas; Manchin releases permitting reform package; Fracking won't work in U.K., says CEO of fracking company; Gas, a 'bridge fuel,' dominates U.S. power at any price... PLUS: Rescue efforts are beginning in Tasmania to save more than 200 beached whales.... and much, MUCH more! ...

Apologies in advance for all of the encouraging news on today's BradCast! I'm sure things will be terrible and outrageous tomorrow. [Audio link to full show is below this summary.]

Among the many stories covered today, however...

• Joe Biden's approval rating spikes nearly 10 points in new AP/NORC polling.
• Retail sales grew yet again in August as unemployment falls yet again, finds new federal data.
• Biden Administration hashes out last minute deal between rail workers and companies to avert crippling rail strike.
• New York A.G. Letitia James reportedly rejects Trump's attempt to settle a fraud lawsuit against him, his company and maybe one of his kids (that she has yet to file.)
• Pillow magnate and election denier Mike Lindell's phone is confiscated by FBI in federal grand jury probe of unlawful Colorado voting system breach.
• Special Prosecutor is named to investigate Republican state Attorney General nominee Matt DePerno (and several other top GOPers) involvement in unlawful Michigan voting system breach.
• Instead of committing election fraud crimes after the 2020 election, under the guise of looking for them, Republicans might have looked a bit closer to home. Rensselear County, New York's Republican Election Commissioner is the latest GOP official to be arrested and charged for absentee ballot voting fraud in a sweeping federal probe.
• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, including a new U.N. warning that we are entering "uncharged climate territory"; Summer 2022 clocks in as the hottest ever recorded; Transitioning quickly to clean energy could save the world $12 trillion; and President Biden touts his historic climate bill and our new national EV charging network...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New U.N. report warns the world is heading into 'uncharted climate territory'; Summer 2022 was the hottest ever recorded globally; Fast transition to clean energy will save the world $12 trillion, study projects; PLUS: President Biden touts historic climate bill and national EV charging network... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Judge tosses air permit for giant Formosa Plastics Complex; New documents from oil industry show internal deception; Potential rail worker strike caused by erratic scheduling; Where this ice sheets in Antarctica meet the ground, small changes could have big consequences; Global ‘Stilling’: Is climate change slowing down the wind?; Focusing on the climate actions that can make a real difference; Can solar panels be super-charged?; House Dem leadership scrambles permitting reform effort... PLUS: Billionaire No More: Patagonia founder gives away the company... and much, MUCH more! ...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Torrential rains break historic California heat wave, capping Summer of Extreme Heat in the Northern Hemisphere; All reactors shut down at besieged Ukrainian nuclear plant; Will climate champion Charles muzzle his advocacy as King?; PLUS: Looming showdown over energy permitting reform in Congress... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Four major climate tipping points close to triggering (study); Summer is ending, but climate disasters keep coming; New study more than triples estimated costs of climate change damages; Air conditioning has a climate problem. New technology could help; Video games get a new boss monster: Climate change; Energy crisis pushes Europe toward pricing experiments;
On Facebook, misleading coverage of California's energy woes overshadowed extreme climate-driven heat... PLUS: The biggest permitting reform would be more money.... and much, MUCH more! ...

While voters were at the polls for primary elections in six states (Arizona, Kansas, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri and Washington) on Tuesday, we take the moment to turn to foreign affairs for a hot minute on today's BradCast.

Happily, few problems were reported for voters at the polls in those six states --- at least that we could find so far today --- beyond another predictable failure of electronic poll books, this time across Mohave County, AZ, for about six hours when polls opened. More issues may reveal themselves before tomorrow, or thereafter, of course. Meanwhile, there are a whole bunch of far-right, Trump-backed, 2020 election deniers on the ballot today, with several running for critical offices such as Governor, Sec. of State and the U.S. Senate. All of which, if those candidates win on Tuesday and again this November, could cause very serious problems for democracy itself in 2024. We'll pick all of that up on tomorrow's show, with whatever noteworthy reported results may be available by then.

But today, we had the opportunity circle back to Russia's ongoing war with it's sovereign neighbor Ukraine, now entering it's sixth horrific month following Russia's invasion on February 24. If you follow most Western media, Ukraine's military is making valiant if deadly headway in pushing back at over-extended and exhausted Russian troops in the South, while Russia presses its offensive in the East.

If you follow Kremlin-controlled media, this is a war special military operation that can never be won by Ukraine, and continues to threaten expansion into a global conflict, including the use of nuclear weapons, as Russia takes great pains to note --- on an alarmingly regular basis.

But, it's not only Russian-controlled media suggesting the war is ultimately unwinnable for Ukraine. A number of foreign policy-centered Western media outlets and think-tanks have long argued similarly in a push for peace talks and a ceasefire in the now war-torn nation of Ukraine.

There was some good news this week, in that an agreement brokered by Turkey and the U.N. between the two warring nations last month has resulted in ships carrying Ukrainian grain finally able to leave port to deliver food around the world. Russian ships will also be allowed to do so through safe corridors established amid mined waters in the Black Sea. If the agreement holds, millions of tons of grain and other agricultural products will finally be able to flow from "the breadbasket of Europe" to help ease rising global food prices and the threat of hunger and political instability in developing nations.

The first ship to leave port on Monday was "loaded with two commodities in short supply: corn and hope," as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described it. Beyond that, there is not much to be hopeful about in the protracted conflict.

Writing at The National Interest over the weekend, veteran foreign policy experts and former U.S. National Security officials Steven Simon and Jonathon Stevenson made the case for diplomacy. They called on the U.S. to help encourage a negotiated settlement by making clear to Ukraine that "Neither side can fulfill its maximal war aims" and they must find opportunities for peace talks and, if possible, a cessation of hostilities, despite Vladimir Putin's apparent disinclination to negotiate.

"It is well and good for the United States and its NATO allies to keep arming Ukraine. But it is also time to encourage both sides to start exploring possibilities for a political solution before escalation puts diplomacy even farther from reach," the pair conclude. "And unless the United States and NATO condition military assistance on Ukraine’s constructive political engagement, they will lack the leverage to work effectively towards a stable objective."

But is such a demand appropriate or even possible under the current conditions in the war torn nation? Isn't it up to Ukraine --- which has lost so much in blood, treasure and sovereign territory --- not the U.S. or NATO, to decide when and if Ukraine is ready to negotiate an end to the war?

Those are just some of the difficult and nuanced questions we discuss with our guest today, GEORGE BEEBE, Director of Grand Strategy (yes, I know, an ominous sounding title!) at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, one of our go-to think-tanks for smart, no-nonsense foreign policy solutions.

Beebe's is the author of 2019's The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe. He served over two decades in the U.S. government as an intelligence analyst, diplomat, and policy advisor, including as director of the CIA’s Russia analysis and as an advisor on Russia to Vice President Dick Cheney. (Yes, we discuss both of those ominous matters --- his work with the CIA and for Cheney --- as well!)

Among the questions and issues Beebe speaks to today: His concern that there is no real exit plan for our current strategy, not unlike the lack of a U.S. plan when we launched the Iraq War in 2003; Is it true that there is no way for Ukraine to "win" this war? That the only way is via diplomacy?; Should it be up to the U.S. and NATO, who are supplying much-needed armaments to help Ukraine defend itself, to decide when Ukraine should negotiate towards a settlement? Or should that remain Ukraine's sole decision?; Does Russia even have an interest in negotiations?; What should we learn from their repeated reminders that a continuation of the war could lead to a potentially nuclear expansion?; And, since it's actually a somewhat related matter, what does Beebe make of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit on Tuesday to Taiwan, and what effect is that likely to have on the Russia/Ukraine conflict?

"This is a very complex issue," Beebe tells me on the matter of the United States' own culpability in the matter. "Most foreign policy issues don't have single factor origins. They're usually the result of a confluence of different forces. What's happened in Russia's invasion of Ukraine is that it is the culmination of a series of developments, missteps on the part of a lot of different players over time, that all contributed to the situation that we're facing today."

"That doesn't excuse the Russians and it doesn't excuse Putin from making the choice to invade Ukraine. I think he is fully responsible for that choice, regardless of what preceded it. It didn't have to happen," he argues. But "Russia certainly has what I regard as understandable security concerns...That doesn't mean that the invasion was justified [or] that the manner in which this operation was carried out was at all justifiable."

"But I also would not say that Putin simply woke up in February and said, 'Hey, I would like to invade Ukraine.' There was a lot that went into shaping that decision, and I think a lot of blame on both the Russian and the Western sides."

As you can tell, there is much to discuss and try to make sense of with the Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute today. I hope you'll tune in for it!

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us today for our latest Green News Report, with more on the potentially "game changing" compromise bill hashed out by Senator Joe Manchin with Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer last week, to invest an historic $370 billion in incentives to help us move from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy in hopes of mitigating our worsening climate emergency; And, on the latest deadly costs of that ongoing emergency across the U.S., as Big Oil --- whose product, and decades of lies about it, are at the heart of the crisis --- declare their most profitable quarter in history...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Simultaneous record deadly heat waves strike across the globe; Last month tied for the hottest June ever recorded globally; PLUS: Senator Joe Manchin again tanks Biden and the Democrats' climate and clean energy agenda... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): What Joe Manchin cost us; Humanity faces 'collective suicide' over climate crisis, warns UN chief; The cold crunch: How to cool people without overheating the planet; German solar sets new record, while France's nuclear gasps in the heat; Texas power plants running nonstop risk breakdown; Dems cite 'disturbing' data on crypto, demand new rules; Scientists rush to save 1,000-year-old Bristlecone Pine trees on the brink of death; Some EVs now pay for themselves within a year... PLUS: Shocking report shows how Australian land and wildlife are being destroyed at rapid pace... and much, MUCH more! ...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Biden calls on Congress to suspend federal gas tax to lower prices at the pump; Parts of the Arctic warming five times faster than the rest of the planet; Native American tribes to co-manage Bears Ears National Monument; Offshore wind project pipeline doubles in one year; PLUS: IEA warns Europe Russia could shut down gas exports this winter... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): America's incoherent approach to fighting high gas prices; Climate change, extreme weather disasters damage victims' long term finances; Germany pushes back against EU 2035 fossil fuel car ban; Hot today? This interactive map can tell you how much the climate crisis is to blame; Innovative companies working on cleaning up solar industry's supply chain; Solar bees: solar panel fields help increase honey production in beehives; Costly Vogtle Nuclear Plant forcing investors to hard choices; How fast fashion became faster , and worse for the Earth... PLUS: Why Spain's renewable energy boom is so controversial... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Special coverage of Day 3 of the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee hearings investigating the Trump-incited Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the disgraced former President's multiple attempts to steal the 2020 election from the American people. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Before diving into details with our two guests today, I want to cite the must-read written statement [PDF] submitted by one of today's live witnesses, the very conservative, oft-cited and well-respected (if extremely slow-talking) former Judge J. Michael Luttig. Appointed by George H.W. Bush to the appellate court in 1991, Luttig was considered several times during his decades on the federal bench for the Supreme Court. He is often compared to Justice Antonin Scalia and virtually all of his law clerks eventually went on to clerk for Scalia or Clarence Thomas. He was one of several advisors who then Vice President Mike Pence turned to as he was being pressured hard by both Donald Trump and his corrupt attorney John Eastman to toss out legitimate electoral votes on January 6 in an effort to steal the election for Trump.

In short, Luttig is no lefty. He advised the Vice President that he had no legal or Constitutional authority to do anything but essentially read the Electoral College votes aloud during the joint session of Congressional to certify the final results of the 2020 election. Despite extraordinary pressure not to, Pence did the right thing and followed Luttig's advice.

But in Luttig's written statement to the Committee, as I note at the top of today's show, he describes the Republican Party's "war on democracy" and correctly characterizes what so many Democrats and most in the corporate media seem to have a problem saying outloud: "The former president's accountability under the law for the riot on the United States Capitol on January 6 is incidental to his responsibility and accountability for his attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election from the American People and thereby steal America's democracy from America herself."

Was that so hard? Go read his statement in full.

Among the many new items revealed during Thursday's hearing, at which Pence's top attorney Greg Jacob was also a live witness, along with a boatload of videotaped testimony and more disturbing, previously unseen footage from the day of the Insurrection...

• All of Trump's top White House and Campaign attorneys knew the scheme to have Pence invalidate the election was unlawful and/or unconstitutional, describing it as "nuts", "crazy" and worse.
• Trump knew as well, because they told him as much. Repeatedly.
• Even John Eastman, credited with devising the scheme, is known to have conceded its illegality on several different occasions.
• Eastman said he would have seen Al Gore or Kamala Harris using the same scheme to nullify an election as unlawful, but wanted Pence to do it anyway.
• Eastman invoked the Fifth Amendment 100 times during his video-taped, subpoenaed testimony with the Committee.
• After his scheme failed miserably, Eastman sought a pardon from Trump. (He didn't get one.)
• Jan. 6 insurrectionists came within 40 feet of Pence after he had been removed from the House chamber.
• One of the Proud Boys cooperating with the Feds has testified that the white nationalist extremist group would have killed Mike Pence or anyone they got their hands on, including Nancy Pelosi, if given a chance.

We've got a lot to cover once again today and are joined by George Washington University law professor, WaPo contributor and blogger RANDALL D. ELIASON, a former Asst. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, where he served as Chief of the Public Corruption/Government Fraud section. And, as always during our J6 coverage, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo. Both offer important insight on today's hearing and the ones that preceded it, as the damning case against Donald Trump continues to come smartly together.

Among the issues discussed, the "outlandishly blatant partisan hackery" of Eastman, as Parton correctly characterizes it and the criminal liability Trump (and Eastman) now face, as Eliason details. In particular, given his background in criminal fraud as a federal prosecutor, Eliason notes that the scheme detailed in Monday's hearing regarding a fake "Official Election Defense Fund" that Trump used to raise $250 million from his duped supporters is classic criminal wire fraud that should spawn an entirely separate criminal investigation from the one now underway at DoJ. He also speaks to the bogus notion that Trump can't be charged because he truly believed that the election was fraudulent and that the Vice President had the authority to overthrow the election. Both of those points have been decimated by the Committee over the past two hearings.

We also hash out the "controversy" over whether the Committee should issue a formal criminal referral to the DoJ at the end of their proceedings; the absurd, and rather pathetic, whining defenses offered by both Trump and Fox "News" in response to the gripping revelations emerging from these hearings; and much more.

And, as if all of that is not enough, we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report as the nation (and globe) swelters; Texas thanking its lucky stars right now for renewable energy; the U.N. begging the world to knock it off already with fossil fuels; and a potentially game-changing way to produce emissions-free concrete comes to light...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The rush for new fossil fuel supplies 'delusional,' says U.N. chief; New study finds car tires a surprising source of pollution; New breakthrough promises 'world's first-ever zero emissions cement'; PLUS: Texas' rickety electric grid bailed out by wind and solar energy... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The 1977 White House climate memo that should have changed the world; Is new EV battery breakthrough too good to be true?; Office building to be covered in 'solar skin' of more than 1,000 panels; Pacific Coast crabs are suffocating; FAA unveils climate rules for commercial planes; Climate groups use Endangered Species Act in suit to stop drilling; Biden tells oil refiners: Produce more gas, fewer profits; U.S. government research project to create tiny nuclear reactors like batteries... PLUS: A Hotter, poorer, and less free America... and much, MUCH more! ...

What's the difference between a white supremacist mass murderer in Buffalo, NY and a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate? Well, in terms of their racist rhetoric not a heck of a lot, it seems. That and many more reasons to both pay close attention and be skeptical of "conventional wisdom" regarding this November's critical midterm elections on today's BradCast, as American Democracy v. Violent Strongman Authoritarianism is most definitely on the ballot in every state this year. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the stories underscoring all of that on today's program...

• A number of the attorneys who helped Donald Trump try to steal the 2020 election have had their law licenses suspended or are facing permanent disbarment. One attorney who has yet to be held accountable in any way, however, is Sen. Ted Cruz, who volunteered to represent Trump in two different bogus election challenges before the U.S. Supreme Court; knowingly spread false claims of fraud; and then voted against certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory even after Trump's deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. A bipartisan group is now hoping to change that. This week, they filed a complaint with the State Bar of Texas, seeking an investigation into possible disbarment for the sleazy Texas Senator/still-licensed attorney.

• Speaking of sleazy still-licensed Texas attorneys, the state's chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Ken Paxton now says he has been sued by the Texas State Bar for misconduct. Paxton has already been charged with several securities fraud felonies; is being investigated by the FBI for abuse of power and bribery after a federal criminal complaint by eight of his top former deputies; and brought a laughable case to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to toss the 2020 election results in four states that were not Texas. It is for his help in trying to steal the election for Trump at SCOTUS that has resulted in the state Bar's lawsuit against him. Paxton is running for re-election anyway. On Tuesday he's in a runoff election with the state's Land Commissioner George P. Bush (the very Trumpy son of Jeb and nephew of the guy who made "one of the biggest Freudian slips of all time" at Southern Methodist University yesterday.) No sooner did Paxton get sued by the state bar then he turned around and opened an investigation into the Texas Bar Foundation for "facilitating mass influx of illegal aliens" --- ya know, the stuff that racist "great replacement" conspiracy theories are made of.

• And speaking of the racist "great replacement" conspiracy theory, as repeatedly cited by the white supremacist domestic terrorist who murdered 10 and wounded 3 others in a Buffalo supermarket in a predominantly black neighborhood last weekend, a whole bunch of Republicans running for the U.S. Senate this year have been using nearly identical rhetoric to that racist murderer for a very long time. The once-fringe, now mainstream rightwing theory claims that Democrats are hoping to replace white American voters with immigrants, Jews and people of color to control the electorate with one-party rule. Or something. And, in the wake of Trump's embrace of white nationalism as President, AP highlighted a bevvy of mainstream GOP Senate candidates this year --- either running for reelection or for the party's nomination --- whose rhetoric on immigration directly echoes the same baseless, racist fear-mongering. Their list includes Blake Masters in Arizona; A.G. Eric Schmitt and disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens in Missouri; GOP Senate nominee J.D. Vance in Ohio; and two-term U.S. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. The full list of elected and hopeful GOP officials who also espouse rhetoric shared by rightwing domestic terrorists is obviously much, much longer.

• And speaking of domestic terrorists, the U.S. House passed the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act (again) on Wednesday. All Democrats voted for it. Every Republican, except for retiring Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, voted against it. Democrats vow to bring it up in the Senate next week. It may be a heavy lift over the undemocratic 60-vote filibuster threshold in the upper chamber. Too bad it wasn't called the Domestic Terrorism by Non-White People Prevention Act. It might have easily passed in both chambers, as most legislation related to terrorism that doesn't target white supremacists tends to.

• And, speaking of extremism, on Thursday, the Oklahoma legislature passed a new law that, if signed by the Governor, would ban nearly all abortions starting at fertilization, which would make it the nation's strictest abortion law. It would also, in turn, make certain forms of birth control --- like IUDs, The Bill, Plan B, which don't necessarily prevent fertilization, but prevent implantation of a fertilized egg --- a form of "abortion" or, in Oklahoma, a homicide. More Republican-controlled states are likely to follow suit, despite the vast majority of Americans who support abortion rights. Please keep all of this in mind in November.

• And, speaking of this November, polling last month from the Harvard Youth Poll suggests --- contrary to "conventional wisdom" --- that young voters are very eager to vote this year. The number who say they are "definitely" voting in the 2022 election is almost identical to the number who said same before the 2018 "blue wave" election. That could be good news for Democrats. Again, please ignore "conventional wisdom" in these decidedly unconventional times.

• And, speaking of young people, even in deep "red" Wyoming, they don't dig attacks on LGBTQ+ people --- yes, even trans people --- as the state's U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis found out the embarrassing way during a commencement address she gave over the weekend at the University of Wyoming. It took a while, but now she "apologizes" if she offended anyone with her remarks that were broadly booed during the speech at the school once attended by Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was brutally beaten and left to die on a fence nearly 25 years ago. He became one of the namesakes of the landmark Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

• And, speaking of civil rights for all --- and of keeping Big Government and the GOP's stolen and packed Supreme Court out of our bedrooms and doctor's offices --- support for abortion rights has reached a record high in a new NBC News poll following the leak of SCOTUS' draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade and its 50 years of protection for reproductive rights. The poll also finds support for same-sex marriage (perhaps next on the chopping block after Roe's Constitutionally established right to privacy is killed) at an all time high, while approval for the High Court is at an all time, 30-year low in this particular poll.

• Finally, speaking of nothing but disturbing news....Desi Doyen joins us for too much of it in our latest Green News Report...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.N. warns four key climate change indicators broke new records in 2021; Cutting air pollution from fossil fuels would save 50,000 lives a year in the U.S.; New initiative invests $242 million for clean energy in ten developing countries; PLUS: National forests forced to close as wildfires rage... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): US traffic deaths soar to highest total in 16 years; Australian Greens hope election focus on climate will bring their biggest ever representation; The small, local GA election with major climate significance; Air Pollution Can Mean More, or Fewer, Hurricanes; EV sales see exponential growth curves; Environmental groups oppose extending life of CA nuke plant; Carbon Dioxide pipelines are going dangerously unregulated... PLUS: Vast swath of US at risk of summer blackouts, regulators warn... and much, MUCH more! ...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Australia's Great Barrier Reef hit with another mass coral bleaching event; Global warming a key factor in the emergence of new diseases, study confirms; Interior Dept. cancels offshore oil and gas lease sales; PLUS: Arizona and California move to enact more severe drought restrictions... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The Southwest's fires and droughts are a window into our climate change future; Salt Scourge: the dual threat of warming and rising salinity; Trump asked aides about China's "Hurricane Weapon"; California lays out plan to drastically cut fossil fuel use; North Carolina offshore wind energy lease winners announced; Climate change activist's self-immolation raises questions of faith and protest; U.S. gasoline prices hit a new high, but the oil market may signal relief; Exxon doubles down on 'advanced recycling' claims that yield few results... PLUS: Coming this summer: spiking electricity bills plus blackouts... and much, MUCH more! ...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Raging wildfires force new evacuations in New Mexico; Fires in Siberia spreading out of control because the Russian military is otherwise busy; California approves plan to cut cow burps; PLUS: Arctic wildfire soot is causing Arctic ice to melt even faster... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Earth given 50-50 chance of hitting key warming mark by 2026; More human remains found in Lake Mead amid historic low water levels; Heat pumps do work in the cold - Americans just don't know it yet; Coal generating unit catches fire, spews more air pollution in Texas; Analysis shows climate computer models were spot on; The US only recycled about 5 percent of plastic waste last year; Brazil's Amazon deforestation hits record for month of April; 'Hard decisions will have to be made' as Arizona's water crisis deepens; How Alito tipped his climate hand in anti-abortion draft... PLUS: Extinction obituary: why experts weep for the quiet and beautiful Hawaiian po'ouli... and much, MUCH more! ...

Santa, according to my guest today on The BradCast, is a "democratic socialist". Sarah Palin, on the other hand is...well...Sarah Palin, and she has decided to "un-quit politics." [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Before we get there today, however, a bit more on the grim news coming out of Ukraine this week, as independently documented evidence of horrific war crimes by Russia continues to mount. On Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the U.N. Security Council from Ukraine and charged that if the U.N. is unable to remove Russia's veto, as a permanent member of the Council, then they might as well dissolve it entirely. He has a point.

Then, before we get to Sarah and Santa...The news that shouldn't be news at all. Three Republican Senators have now announced they intend to vote in favor of Joe Biden's nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, perhaps the most qualified jurist every nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday night, Utah's Mitt Romney and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski declared they will support Brown's confirmation, joining Maine's Susan Collins who did so last week. None of that should be news at all, but in the Republicans' twisted, hyper-partisanized world, voting for a SCOTUS nominee tapped by a Democratic President apparently it is. During Monday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, South Carolina's Lindsey Graham (who voted for Jackson's appointment to a federal Appeals Court seat just last year, but refuses to vote for her this year) said the quiet part out loud when he declared that if Republicans win back the Senate in November, none of Biden's nominees are likely to be seated to the federal bench.

In other insane GOP Congressional news, Michigan Rep. Fred Upton announced today that he will not seek re-election. He is the fourth of 10 Republican House members who voted in favor of Donald Trump's second impeachment (for inciting the January 6th insurrection) to retire instead of run for re-election.

Meanwhile, way up north in Alaska, more than 40 candidates are now running in the upcoming June Special Election to fill the state's one U.S. House seat, which had been held for 49(!) years by Don Young, the 88-year old Republican Congressman who died suddenly last month.

Donald Trump has chosen his favorite candidate in the race, the one my guest today describes alternately as "The Quitter" and the "former half-term Governor", Sarah Palin. The failed 2008 Vice Presidential candidate is emerging from Alaskan and rightwing media obscurity in hopes of finding relevance again in the far-right wingnut world she helped create during her 2008 run, just before quitting politics halfway through her first term as Alaska's Governor. Palin signed up to run for the Special Election and regular general election primaries --- both to be held on June 11th --- on the final day to qualify, last Friday on April Fools Day. (Seriously.)

We're joined today by one of the nation's foremost Palinologists, JEANNE DEVON, who made a name for herself as "AK Muckraker", helping to introduce Palin to the world in 2008 at her award-winning The Mudflats blog. She has since gone on to co-write a NYTimes best seller, Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin - A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years, and served as Press Secretary for Alaska's state Senate Democrats and as Communications Director for the state's Democratic Party. (She is currently working with FX to develop a television series based on her book, The Blood of Patriots, which she co-wrote will Bill Fulton about the Alaska militia movement.)

Before we get to Palin and the potentially insane way that Alaska is about to run its Special Election, Devon offers some thoughts on the decades long legacy of the late Don Young who, though "he didn't have that much power anymore" after being stripped of Congressional committee assignments due to "blatant corruption," was still "an institution, and Alaskans like their institutions."

While some in the media have been regarding Palin as the front-runner to fill Young's seat, Devon seems less convinced. "Palin's approval rating and likeability has been underwater since she quit [in 2009.] She is not a popular figure in the state anymore." Devon cites a comment she saw at today one of the "hardcore fringey rightwing" Facebook groups she sometimes drops in on, suggesting those folks do not appear to be fans. "Very hard pass," she reports one commenter as writing, adding "she quit once when the going got tough. And in my mind that defines her entire political career."

A lack of popularity is not all Palin will have to contend with. There are more than 40 candidates running in both the Special and regular primaries, which will be held on the same day. Palin has signed up for both. But in addition to several progressive candidates Devon cites, with impressive resumes and following, she seems most excited about one candidate on the ballot with at least as much "name recognition" as Palin: Santa Claus!

Yes, Claus is "actually a member of the North Pole City Council" and "literally on the ballot". He represents what Devon describes as "one of the most conservative towns in Alaska" and "he is a democratic socialist --- of course --- because he's Santa!"

Devon notes, however, that "Santa Claus has also said he will not run for the next full term. He will just run to finish the end of Don Young's term. Because we are now faced with two elections."

As to those two elections, they will be run under a new scheme in the state. For the first time, anybody who wants to run for office can simply sign up to run, no petition gathering necessary. (Thus, the 40+ candidates!) The top four vote-getters in the primary will then go on to the general election, which will use Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) --- a confusing and difficult to both count and oversee method of voting, allowing voters to rank their choices for the office. (As I explain to Devon, when and if Alaska tires of RCV, as many jurisdictions do after using it, when they discover that neither voters nor candidates understand it, they may wish to look into the simpler Approval Voting method, allowing voters to choose Yes or No for all candidates on the ballot. Easier to understand, to count and to oversee, since computers and centralized counting aren't needed for the complicated math and many rounds of tallying necessary under RCV.)

Of course, Devon has much more insight on what is likely to be a fascinating and/or hilarious race, with both Palin and Clause on the ballot. Additionally, there are six Democrats on the Special Election ballot. Among them, she cites "Christopher Constant, who was the first openly gay person to be elected to the Anchorage Assembly --- and remember, Anchorage is half the population of the state. Then there is Mary Peltola, who long ago served 12 years in the legislature. She's an amazing Native leader who is also an expert in fisheries, which is important up here. And there's a sitting legislator from Fairbanks named Adam Wool. So all of these are Democrats who could certainly fill that slot."

She also has some thoughts to share on Sen. Murkowski, who is up for re-election this year as a Republican --- after voting to remove Trump from office in his second impeachment and declaring her support for Ketanji Brown Jackson this week. Will that doom her chances of re-election? Tune in to find out what Devon has to say about that race --- which will also be run as a top-four primary contest with an RCV general, in a state which has a history of plenty of election and tabulation controversy in recent years.

Finally, after that amusing segment, Desi Doyen joins us to ruin all the fun, as usual, with our latest Green News Report, including special coverage of the U.N. IPCC's latest report warning that Planet Earth is likely to blow past the climate targets set by the Paris Climate Accord, even though, as the scientists note in their report, it is still not too late for the nations of the world to institute mitigation efforts to avoid catastrophic global warming in our all-too-near future...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New U.N. IPCC report warns stopping climate change is possible, we have all the tools we need, but time is running out; PLUS: U.S. West careens between intense fires and floods, and it's going to get worse... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Amid backsliding on climate, the renewables effort now must be tripled; Iowans for stronger restrictions on eminent domain for carbon capture pipelines; Portugal brings forward 80% clean energy target to 2026; Charging stations a bottleneck for EV adoption; Toxic development sold as a 'dream home' for Black home buyers; WHO says 99 percent of world's population breathes poor-quality air; Vital lake in Oregon could run dry within a generation; Chile set to adopt 'ecological constitution'; In the ocean, it's snowing microplastics; WA State creates first sea grass and kelp sanctuary... PLUS: It's time for journalists to talk about climate change solutions... and much, MUCH more! ...