It's become very clear of late, as discussed on today's BradCast, that, whether the corporate media or rightwingers like to admit it or not, it is now progressive political policies that are popular among Americans. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

With progressive policies in place from the Biden-Harris Administration, for example, the U.S. economy continues to be the envy of the industrialized world. New, falling unemployment numbers and growing retail sales announced on Thursday, combined with recent data finding the annualized inflation rate has now fallen below 3%, sent the stock market soaring again on Thursday. Well, except for Donald Trump's failing media company (DJT), which fell to its lowest price since going public in January. Since then, the loser stock has shed more than 50% of its market value and a full two-thirds since its high-water mark in March. (We tried to warn MAGA investors. Oh, well.)

Just one of the progressive economic policies of this Administration is the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, signed by President Biden in 2022 after being adopted by Democrats in Congress without a single Republican vote. Among many other things, the IRA allows Medicare, for the first time in history, to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. On Thursday, the Biden-Administration announced they have completed their first round of price negotiations on ten popular drugs which will save tax payers at least $6 billion a year and $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs to beneficiaries.

"Under the law I signed," Biden explained today in Maryland at a rally with Vice President Kamala Harris, "Medicare can negotiate lower prices for another 15 drugs next year, 15 the following, and 20 after that until every drug is covered. That's the law. Now!" As the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office determined before passage of the bill in 2022, the measure will save the federal government nearly $100 billion over a decade --- something that Republicans used to pretend to care about, at least until every single one of them voted against it.

That's just one example of popular progressive policies at work, of course. Harris' running-mate, Gov. Tim Walz, has signed a boatload of them into law in Minnesota, including the protecting abortion rights; legalizing recreational marijuana; implementing popular gun safety reforms; providing legal refuge for trans youths; enacting laws that expand paid family and medical leave; banning noncompete agreements; providing universal public school meals; free public college education for households with income less than $80,000/year; and capping the price of insulin in Minnesota (years before Biden was able to do so nationally.)

That alone is a virtual laundry list of both top progressive aims and popular policies that could be implemented at a national level. So, will a Harris-Walz administration be able to move such policies forward if elected in November? And what else do progressive activists hope to see from a new, Democratic administration?

We're joined today by ALAN MINSKY, Executive Director at Progressive Democrats of America, in advance of the group's 20th Anniversary Progressive Central gathering in Chicago this week ahead of the Democratic National Convention. Sen. Bernie Sanders will be keynoting the two-day gathering, co-hosted by a number of other progressive organizations and publications, with a speakers list featuring a huge list of progressive members of Congress, activists, and journalists.

So, how do progressives feel heading into next week's DNC after nearly four years of the most progressive Presidential administration in decades; an historic, month-long political whirlwind; and a brutal year of protests against Israel's horrific response in Gaza to last year's attack in Israel by Hamas? Minsky and I discuss the "turbulence" and "high stakes" of the moment, and the revelation, for much of the nation, that progressive policies are the popular ones.

"Progressive policies directly address the interests of the average household," Minksy explains, citing "four massive ticket items that just block people from achieving the American dream" so they "don't have to work three jobs to make ends meet."

Those four blocks, he explains, start with childcare. "It's almost prohibitively expensive to have a child in this society". And then the cost of higher education. "You get out with a degree, and you face housing costs, either rents or mortgages, both prohibitive for building anything like the kind of financial security that you want to have. And then, finally, of course, healthcare costs overwhelmingly shredding the finances of people and families late in life."

"Again, only progressives on all four fronts have clear policy solutions to each of those prohibitive costs that American families meet," he tells me, adding, "And these are practiced around the world in other countries, available for us to pursue. They're not radical ideas. They're commonsense ideas."

"The other thing progressive are willing to address that the other groups are not, because they just accept that it's there, part of the wallpaper of American society, and that's the clear spaces in our society where there is deep, endemic poverty. The urban core, small town and rural America, deep poverty in indigenous communities, and still in the Southeast --- the former Confederate states --- most of that region is still tremendously poor. Only progressives address this."

There is more, much more to chew on in our conversation, including the way disparate elements of the left can come together to achieve solutions to these issues, and how to "persuade a Harris-Walz Administration and their economic advisors that the way forward is to go further on those four big ticket items."

"Only the United States has a latent group of about 100 million people who can be lifted up, by very well understood mechanisms, into the middle class," observes Minsky. "When that happens, that is an economic boom."

As to the vibes on the ground in Chicago, where some progressive organizations are planning to protest the Biden-Harris position on Israel? "Free speech society, open society, that's where I want to live," says Minksy, before adding, in reference to the violence at protests at the DNC in the Windy City almost 60 years ago: "Chicago doesn't feel like it's 1968. It just doesn't. There will be notable actions. But, as much passion as there is out there, I don't think it's quite broadly at the level of what was going on in the country during the Vietnam War in 1968." We'll see if he turns out to be right about that.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as another storm, Hurricane Ernesto, spins up virtually overnight in record warm Atlantic waters and the U.S. Forest Service finally tells the freeloading Arrowhead Springs bottled water company to get lost and stop its near-century long theft of California's water for profit...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Ernesto knocks out power to Puerto Rico, again; Beach restoration projects protect wealthy homeowners at taxpayers' expense; PLUS: U.S. Forest Service blocks bottled water company from taking California's mountain spring water... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Climate change-worsened wildfires drastically increased odds, severity of 2023 wildfires; Parts of Canada's boreal forest are burning faster than they regrow; In major shift, US to back global target to reduce plastic production; Nearly $10B in Hurricane Debby damage was in areas without flood insurance; Texas oil regulator under scrutiny as zombie wells gush back to life; Texas likely undercounting heat-related deaths; UK firm violating toxic pollutant limits at Louisiana wood pellet facilities... PLUS: The climate law's $8.8 billion in home energy rebates are starting to roll out... and much, MUCH more! ...

Lots of good news and/or bad news on today's BradCast depending on how you may choose to see any of it. [Audio link to full program follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... The mid-level appeals court in New York (just below its highest court) rejected Donald Trump's attempt to lift whatever remains of the gag order against him in his hush-money case on Thursday. That's the case where he's been convicted of 34 felony counts for falsifying business records to hide a sexual tryst with a porn star in order to help him win the 2016 Presidential election. The gag order --- preventing him from attacking family members of the judge, etc. --- is likely to be lifted once Trump is sentenced on September 18, if in fact he sentenced at that time. The judge on the case, Justice Juan Merchan will decide on September 6th whether the case must be tossed entirely, given the corrupt U.S. Supreme Court's ridiculous, but still binding, recent ruling that Presidents are immune from prosecution for almost any and all crimes committed while serving in office.

THEN... Big news today from the White House as President Biden announced a multinational prisoner swap with Russia, that includes prisoners released from six different countries. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Marine vet Paul Whelan are among those Americans released by Russia today, along with a number of other journalists and political dissidents wrongly held by Russia, according to the U.S. Some of the prisoners, in fact, have been held for years, including Whelan who had been imprisoned since being arrested while attending a wedding in Russia in 2018.

Some critics, however, have charged that such deals --- often including the release of serious criminals --- merely incentive the taking of "hostages". The lead U.S. hostage negotiator, however, responds that, despite 70 Americans whose releases were won by the Biden Administration, the number of those taken captive has fallen. When asked by a reporter at the White House today about Trump's repeated comments that he could have brought these people whom without "paying" anything, Biden responded: "Why didn't he do it when he was President?"

NEXT... Earlier this week, President Biden detailed his three-part proposal for long-overdue reform of our corrupted, packed, stolen and activist U.S. Supreme Court. His proposed reforms include 18-year term limits for Justices, allowing every President to name a new Justice every two years; an enforceable, binding code of conduct, to prevent Justices from accepting undisclosed gifts and requiring them to recuse themselves from cases in which they have conflicts of interest; and a call for a Constitutional Amendment to roll back the Court's recent, absurd ruling that Presidents --- like kings --- enjoy near absolute immunity for all crimes committed while in office.

Biden has referred to his proposed Constitutional amendment as the "No One is Above the Law" Amendment. And on Thursday, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and 34 other Democratic Senators, released their own proposal for legislation they are calling the "No Kings Act". It is similar to the Constitutional Amendment sought by Biden, but, according to Schumer today, "would be the fastest and most efficient method to correcting the grave precedent the Trump [immunity] ruling presented." Schumer describes that ruling as a "dangerous and devastating" one, adopted by "the MAGA Supreme Court".

We're joined today by attorney JAY WILLIS, editor-in-chief of the Balls and Strikes website, which focuses on the Courts and court reform. Willis recently described Biden's proposal as "a nice first step", while explaining why doesn't go far enough. "The only way to solve the problem of a Court controlled by a conservative supermajority is to add justices to it," he wrote, charging that the benefits of Biden (and Schumer's) current proposals are swell, and broadly popular, but won't be truly felt for generations. "Backing term limits without also backing Court expansion is like explaining the concept of a life preserver to a person who is actively drowning," he quipped.

Today, Willis tells me: "My attitude towards Court reform is basically that it's difficult to go far enough to repair an institution this broken." He cites the broad bipartisan support for both term-limits and a binding ethics code, calling them "not particularly controversial policy ideas." But without expansion of the Court, he argues --- which is also popular, if not quite as much so for the time being --- the Constitutional damage that these current rightwing activist Justices will be able sow is virtually limitless.

We also discuss the difference between Biden's call for a Constitutional Amendment to overturn SCOTUS' immunity ruling and Schumer's push for legislation instead, and why some believe that any attempt by Congress to impose term-limits on Justices would be found to be unconstitutional. Ironically, it would be the Justices themselves, in theory, who would be the ones to make that ultimate finding. (Though shouldn't they all recuse themselves from such a case? If so, then what?)

"As long as John Roberts is in charge of this Court," Willis says that he expects any ruling on these matters would contain "a lot of, 'Thanks for playing Congress. Thanks for your opinion on what the Constitution means. But this is really our job, not yours.'"

In a follow-up piece, Willis detailed where Vice President --- and the Democrats' presumptive 2024 Presidential nominee --- Kamala Harris stands on the various elements of Court reform as sought by Biden, as well as for expansion of the Court to help UNpack it after the damage done during the Trump years.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for today's particular grim Green News Report today, though one that ends on a high note, at least!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Vermont slammed by second catastrophic flood in three weeks; As wildfires rage in the West, new study finds wildfire smoke is more dangerous than we knew; PLUS: Wind and solar energy overtake fossil fuels for electricity generation in Europe... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): One in 11 people went hungry last year. Climate change is a big reason why; Global methane emissions rising at fastest rate in decades, scientists warn; Texas utility would raise rates to pay for Beryl 'restoration'; Harris grabs Green New Deal network endorsement that eluded Biden; Manchin-Barrasso energy permitting bill advances to full Senate; Central US is paying higher cost of burning coal, report says; Last 25 years in US West were driest in 1,200 years... PLUS: The very hungry urchins gobbling up the algae smothering coral reefs... and much, MUCH more! ...

If you haven't begun already, as detailed on today's BradCast (along with much else), now is a good time to start keeping your eyes on the many ways that Republicans are planning to "legally" steal the November election in the event that, once again, they can't win it the old fashioned way by receiving more votes and an electoral Electoral College victory with them. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Recently, Kevin Roberts (pictured above), the President of the far-right Heritage Foundation, creators of "Project 2025" --- an extremist 900-page manifesto designed to repeal the 20th century the next time a Republican wins the White House --- told supporters: "We are winning. There are a lot of victories that have been secured. Some of them are partial. Some of them in ways that the other side doesn't yet know, are foundations for what's coming. And that's just the beginning. And we're not gonna tell ya everything that's coming."

Today, after weeks of focus on that Project 2025 by Democrats and media, it's nominal operational director, Paul Dans, stepped down to assuage Donald Trump, who both doesn't like the fact that Project 2025 makes him look like the puppet of more than a hundred far-right organizations and his own former Administration officials (which he is), and because the document is so extremist that he'd prefer to keep all of its atrocities under wraps until he's safely back in office. But those plans to gut the government as we know it and place a Republican President in direct autocratic control of every government agency, aren't going away, even if Heritage and friends have now been ordered to tone it down for a while until Trump can be installed back into the Oval Office.

As corporate media outlets are finally reporting on Project 2025, Roberts' plans for "victories...that the other side doesn't yet know...and [he's] not gonna tell" us about for now, are becoming clearer by the day, nonetheless. Largely, they are about stealing the election in advance by voter suppression assisted by corrupt friends now seated on the courts; stealing it during the tabulation by the many Trump-supporting election denialist who now serve as county election officials in battleground states, where they plan to prevent certification of a Trump loss; and, in doing so, create enough havoc after the election to toss the Electoral College certification on January 6 to the U.S. House, where Republicans hope to control a majority of state delegations in order to name Trump the "winner", even if he loses again, as he did in 2020.

We detail just some of those plots and plans, along with much more, on today's program. Among our many stories today...

• After hundreds were killed amid downpour-triggered landslides last week in Ethiopia, at least 70 93 were killed by mudslides under similarly climate change-fueled conditions in southwestern India today.

• More than 1 million union workers have now had their pensions saved by the Biden-Harris Administration and Congressional Democrats, thanks to their American Rescue Plan, which not one single Republican voted for in the House or Senate. That now includes some 600,000 Teamsters, many of them in the rust belt, the midwest and New England, as celebrated on Monday in Manchester, New Hampshire.

• Kamala-mentum continues, as new polling shows her favorability rate skyrocketing and her unfavorability rate plummeting, following President Biden's decision to drop out of the 2024 race and endorse his Vice President instead. Favorable/unfavorable numbers for Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance have done the exact opposite according to polling numbers from the week after the assassination attempt on the former President and the Republican National Convention as compared to the week after, following Biden's endorsement of Harris for the top of the ticket.

• Rolling Stone detailed on Monday how at least 70 pro-Trump conspiracists who now hold positions as election officials in a number of counties in six battleground state "are poised to make a giant mess" by refusing to certify election results in hopes of preventing state results from being certified if Trump doesn't win them. The magazine's Justine Glawe's deep-dive report warns that "Republicans have refused to certify election results at least 25 times since Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden"...because practice makes perfect. You have been warned. You may want to keep your Jan. 6 open next year. There may be something dramatic on television, depending on how things go.

• Early legal efforts by Republicans to bollox things up for the Kamala Harris Campaign do not appear to be going well. An FEC complaint filed last week in hopes of preventing Harris from being able to use the money from the former Biden-Harris Campaign account isn't likely to get very far, UC Irvine Election Law professor Rick Hasen notes. Though he does recognize that the complaint will at least give Trump the opportunity to falsely claim on the stump that what Dems are doing is a muchworse campaign finance violation than his own in 2016 which resulted in his 34 felony convictions in New York. Good luck with that.

• Also, recent claims by Republican House Speaker and Trump tool Mike Johnson (who is, theoretically, an actual attorney) that there are legal "impediments" preventing Democrats from putting Harris on state ballots instead of Biden, turn out to be 100% wrong. At least according to CNN, which surveyed all 50 states to find that there will be legal impediments for Harris in (...checks notes...) ZERO states!

• In the meantime, expect a mountain of frivolous legal complaints by Republicans about election laws in hopes of suppressing the vote with favorable rulings from corrupt, Trump appointed federal judges. One such effort in Mississippi, filed earlier this year, seeking to block the counting of mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day but received up to five days afterward, as per state law, failed on summary judgement on Sunday. But you should expect both appeals and more such voter suppression cases to flood the courts between now and Election Day (and beyond).

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report as the climate change-fueled Park Fire in Northern California explodes to become the fifth largest in state history; the death toll from heat exhaustion amid power outages following Hurricane Beryl in Texas continues to climb; Extreme heat and water pollution complicate the Paris Olympics; and the U.N. warns that the nations of the world are not moving fast enough to avoid the far worse effects of climate change that are coming...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Huge Northern California wildfire explodes in size; Paris Summer Olympics complicated by heat and water pollution; PLUS: After new global heat records, the U.N. calls on governments to move faster to cut climate-warming emissions... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Carbon Capture Bamboozle: Oil companies sold the public on a fake climate solution — and swindled taxpayers out of billions; Extreme ocean temperatures threaten to wipe out Caribbean coral; An inmate’s body temp was 107.5 when he died. The state of Texas says heat did not kill him; Companies are getting paid 'damages' when governments phase out fossil fuels; Hotter temperatures are causing trees to have heat strokes... PLUS: World's forests failed to curb 2023 climate emissions, study finds... and much, MUCH more! ...

The fight for election integrity and for democracy over autocracy continues on today's BradCast, from Venezuela to the United States. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Among today's topics...

• The quickly exploding Park Fire in Northern California continues to spread, as firefighters battle against time and exceedingly warm, dry and windy weather. The enormous fire, ignited by an arsonist but fueled by climate changed-conditions, has now chewed through more than 550 square miles and threatens the Lassen Volcanic National Park as it has become the 6th largest fire in state history. Desi Doyen has details today.

• The government of Venezuela's autocratic ruler, President Nicolas Maduro, declared he had defeated opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez by some 7 points in Sunday's election. But Gonzalez supporters, election observers and a bunch of foreign nations are questioning the officially reported results, citing irregularities at polling places, contrary polling numbers, and a lack of transparency among other irregularities, as tabulation records from tens of thousands of touchscreen voting systems around the country have yet to be made public. Election Integrity advocates, including the Carter Center in Atlanta, are demanding Venezuelan authorities immediately publish tallies from some 30,000 individual voting machines which have been withheld from public oversight to date.

• Meanwhile, when it comes to democracy and elections back home, we've got a few problems of our own. On Monday, President Biden introduced his proposal for reforming our corrupted U.S. Supreme Court. He is calling for 18-year term limits that would allow a sitting President to appoint a new Justice every two years. He is calling on Congress to create an enforceable code of ethics for Justices following years of revelations of millions of dollars in undisclosed luxury gifts, travel and cash accepted by Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and others; and for a "No One Is Above the Law Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution to overturn the Court's recent ridiculous discovery of a heretofore unnoticed Presidential Immunity Clause in our founding document, giving immunity from prosecution to former Presidents for virtually any crime they carry out while in office.

• At the same time, democracy advocates continue to be elated following the President's decision to pass the 2024 torch to his Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee against Donald Trump just over one week ago. The choice being presented to American voters this November could not be more stark between a young, freedom-loving progressive and an old, criminally-convicted, autocracy-embracing former President. We discuss.

• Finally, we open up the phones to all of the above and much more with listeners --- both wise and not-so-much --- on the top issues of the day...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Toronto crippled by extreme storms and floods; Economic losses from extreme heat escalate in U.S.; More frequent severe floods raise concerns over 4,000 aging dams across the country; PLUS: Marathon Oil to pay record fine for oil and pollution in violation of the Clean Air Act... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 'We built our world for a climate that no longer exists'; With sewage gushing into sea, US and Mexican border towns plead for help; Prisoners are uniquely vulnerable to extreme heat and flooding; Biden BLM to add protections against drilling in Alaska Petroleum Reserve; Record salmon migration runs into hot water --- literally; Deadly floods engulf parts of South Asia... PLUS: Britain faces 'age of trade-offs', warned new climate adviser... and much, MUCH more! ...

We went to air on today's BradCast prior to Joe Biden's several-hours-delayed post-NATO Summit press conference, allowing us to catch up on an item or two that we've otherwise been trying to get to all week. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Yet another poll is out today, in this case from WaPo/ABC, finding President Biden and Donald Trump tied nationally. (It also shows Vice President Kamala Harris actually leading Trump by 2 points.) That said, the survey also finds some 67% of Americans, including more than half of Democrats, currently believe Biden should end his re-election bid. What should we take from that? And is there reason to believe that Biden can outlast the seemingly never-ending drip-drip-drip of former supporters calling for him to step aside? We discuss.

• While Biden was busy completing the NATO Summit he has been hosting this week in D.C., Donald Trump was planning a previously unannounced meeting with Hungarian strongman and Christian Nationalist Victor Orban down at his Florida resort. The meeting between the autocrats comes just days after Orban's surprise meeting with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Chinese strongman Xi Jingping in Beijing.

• New Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers released on Thursday once again beat expectations and offer still more good news for the American economy and, specifically, inflation in the U.S. Among that good news, the annual inflation rate fell to just 3% as of June with consumer prices actually falling overall from May to June for the first time since May of 2020. The Biden Administration touted its anti-inflationary policies for the good news, including the easing of gas prices and items such as cars, appliances, airfare and groceries.

• On Tuesday, Oklahoma's long-serving U.S. Senator James Mountain Inhofe died at the age of 89 following a stroke he reportedly suffered on July 4th. The five-term Senator --- who notoriously described global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels as "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" --- was instrumental in blocking critical climate reforms in Congress over decades, helping to lead the nation and world into the deadly climate crisis we are now facing. He abused his position of power to spread lies and misinformation about climate science for which our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren (including his own) will now pay the price for decades to come.

• After Inhofe repeatedly and falsely warned that America could not survive without fossil fuels, California has been steadily proving otherwise. The most populous state in the union has already had nearly 100 days this year when renewable energy, largely from solar and wind, has exceeded 100% of the state's entire electricity demand for at least some part of the day. In fact, CA is now producing more solar energy than it is able to use on many days, thanks largely to rooftop solar and a lack of transmission lines and battery storage. It is now producing so much clean renewable energy, in fact, that, so far this year, the state has had to waste more than enough renewable energy to power every home in San Francisco for a year. Transmission capacity and battery storage is now being furiously added. But, at the same time, the state's Public Utilities Commission has enacted wildly controversial new rules for selling back solar energy to the grid from rooftop solar installations via net-metering. We discuss.

• Finally, as the nation is suffering from the deadly fallout of the record Hurricane Beryl, including massive power outages, flooding and record tornadoes from Texas to Michigan, and suffocates under stifling heat and humidity from the West Coast to the East, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on all of that and much more, including Republicans in the U.S. House spending their time fighting to ensure that appliances like refrigerators and dishwashers cost Americans much more than they need to...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Beryl barrels into Texas as 146 million Americans suffer amid extended, record-shattering heat wave; US Supreme Court's rightwing supermajority delivers big for polluters; PLUS: Biden unveils first-ever standards to protect workers from extreme heat... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Heat and a hurricane descend on the U.S., other wild weather around the world; As Beryl surged toward Texas, scientists found global warming intensified it; A guide to Project 2025, the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration; Can the UK regain its green mojo?; Midwest floods, widespread heat waves are undermining US transportation systems; Trump's environmental agenda: Embrace Big Oil, ignore the climate crisis; Aggressive tick species spreads across US thanks to global warming; How to create a 'world without waste?' Here are the plastic industry's ideas... PLUS: The Supreme Incompetents: The justices are awful at their jobs, and they don’t know that they are awful at their jobs... and much, MUCH more! ...

So, did anything of note happen over the past week or so while we were taking a holiday break from The BradCast? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

As I've come to learn, a few things of note did happen. In fact, it was almost like coming back to a different nation today, largely thanks to the corrupt, radical, extremist, not-conservative-in-the-least U.S. Supreme Court's rightwing majority which invented new clauses in the Constitution out of whole cloth to appall the Founders by declaring Presidents to be Kings. I have a feeling we'll be catching up with the remarkable past 10 days or so for quite a while around here.

Today, however, at the top of the show, we first touch on a few of those news items of note from the past week, including, perhaps most notably for the immediate moment in history, remarkable pushback at the polls from the left in France, UK and even Iran against rising Rightwing fascism. Stunning democratic victories in all three nations serve as a valuable lesson in this country, at this time, particularly from France, where a broad coalition on the left came together to issue a surprise, blistering electoral upset to Marine LePen's far-right nationalist party which had been expected to win on Sunday.

That, it turns out, is helpful --- and hopeful --- context as we turn our focus today to the most immediate concern here: legitimate questions about the reelection candidacy of President Biden, one of the most effective (and, yes, progressive) Presidents in U.S. history, following his disastrous debate performance just after we signed off air before our holiday break about ten days ago.

With much of his party seemingly rallying behind him in Congress a week later, even as a number of noteworthy elected Democrats are calling for him to drop out --- and polling that is offering mixed messages --- we open the phones to our listeners today to learn where they are on this matter.

Should Biden stay in or drop out? And, if he drops out, who should replace him and how? All questions of great import given that, no matter who runs against Donald Trump this year, it is far more than a battle between Republicans and Democrats. It is now very clearly a battle between Fascism and Democracy, particularly after the corrupted Court has now horrified the Founders to decree that Presidents are above the law in virtually any action they choose to take while in office.

The Democratic National Convention begins in just over a month. Early voting begins for the November 5 election in about 90 days.

Needless to say, our phone lines lit up. To my surprise --- especially among our mostly progressive, live Southern California listeners --- they were almost all of a very similar mind. Truly. I would not have predicted the response.

You can listen to it in today's very lively BradCast linked below...

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It is well above my paygrade or knowledge base to determine if Joe Biden is fully unfit to run for a second term, whether his debate night performance was an unfortunate one-off bad night or, if as seems more likely, his age is outrunning him.

But if those who know him best and work most closely with him (Congressional leaders, family members) believe it is time for him to step aside for the good of the nation, in service of ensuring the threat that Donald Trump represents and promises does not come to pass --- and, crucially, if Joe Biden himself agrees --- there is a reasonably simple, orderly, largely drama-free path for him to do so in the short time now left before both the Democratic Convention and general election...

Today on The BradCast: Either Trump wins or the nation gets it, apparently. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

For months now, the Republican propaganda outlet known as Fox "News" has been leading the rest of the rightwing echosphere in misleading the public about this year's election. To listen to their 24/7 lockstep message, it is a metaphysical impossibility that Donald Trump could lose this November. If he does, it can only be because Democrats have stolen the election "again", as "they did in 2020."

While its hosts almost certainly know better, they have been characterizing Joe Biden as so old and feeble --- and Trump so wildly popular --- that there can only be one legitimate outcome this year: a Trump victory. A Trump landslide, in fact. Anything short of that is, as Fox is dangerously grooming its brain-poisoned viewers to believe, due to massive fraud carried out by Democrats.

We're joined today by MATT GERTZ, longtime Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, to discuss his research --- detailed in an op-ed last week --- on how "Fox News is helping Trump plan another Jan. 6-style assault on democracy."

"If you look at the last two presidential elections --- in 2016 Donald Trump won, in 2020 Donald Trump lost --- the one thing that they have in common is that in both cases, Donald Trump claimed to have been the victim of massive election fraud," Gertz tells me today. "He always does this. It is the most predictable thing in politics, that Donald Trump will claim he is the victim of election fraud with no evidence to that effect." But now, of course, Fox "News" is joining in on the scam and the "guard rails" that were in place in 2020 in the Republican Party are all now all but gone, warns Gertz.

"What Fox News, and the rightwing media more broadly, has been doing over the past several years, is prime their audiences to assume that any election that doesn't end with a massive Trump victory is the result of illegitimate votes being cast, that it is a rigged election against Donald Trump and they should respond with all possible action to prevent Joe Biden from being allowed to remain in office if he wins."

"What's different now is that they know what the result can be," charges Gertz. "They know that all of these claims about election fraud incite their viewers, that it leads them to even march upon the Capitol to try to prevent the peaceful transition of power. And they're doing it anyway."

I have been wondering aloud of late which outcome concerns me the most, a Trump victory or a Trump loss. It might be a toss-up right about now...

THEN... We've been covering the oppressive heat dome across much of the nation --- and elsewhere in the world --- for some time now. Last week, we added wildfires in several states to the mix, along with the first named storm of hurricane season spinning quickly up before slamming Mexico and the southern coast of Texas. Now we can add massive flooding to the mix, as several states in the Upper Midwest --- where South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota meet --- inundated over the weekend with as much as eight times their typical rain fall for this part of the year. In one town, the flood gauge was submerged!

Many of those states are run by Republican Governors who are also climate change denialists, reminding us, yet again, that the stakes this November could not be higher, as Trump has vowed to rollback all of the landmark climate achievements of the current President.

In related news, as temperature records are being shattered around the globe, at least 1,300 pilgrims at the annual Hajj in the Saudi Arabia's city of Mecca died from heat stroke as temperatures climbed above 124 degrees Fahrenheit. And, oddly enough, back here in California, on the central and northern coast, unseasonably cold ocean temps --- due to a bizarre weather pattern from Oregon --- have led officials to issue warnings to beach goers to stay out of the water for any length of time to avoid hypothermia, even as temperatures inland climbed over 100 degrees this weekend. More madness and chaos in our climate changed world...

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Today on The BradCast we try and nip another completely false, outrageous rightwing Zombie Lie in the bud before it eats too many brains and becomes canon in the Wingnut Multiverse. Wish us luck. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

But first, a few news items today...

• Extreme, climate change-fueled weather is now pretty much just exploding everywhere. Today, the two latest chapters: a pair of deadly wildfires in New Mexico and "A" is for "Alberto", the first named storm of what is expected to be an exceptionally busy and intense hurricane season given the unprecedented record warmth of ocean waters. This particular storm, in the Gulf, appears to be heading toward Mexico, though its already grazing parts of Texas with a ton of water.

• Tuesday's Congressional Primary elections in Virginia, Oklahoma and Georgia appear to have gone off smoothly enough for now, with the biggest story coming out of Virginia in the Republican primary for the 5th U.S. House District. Far-right Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Bob Good was thought to be all but done for, as he was targeted by both Donald Trump (because Good dared to support DeSantis in the Presidential Primary) and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (because Good was one of eight Republicans who voted him out of the job earlier this year.) An even farther Right, well-funded state Senator by the name of John McGuire was set to easily unseat Good, and still might. But, as of airtime, there are just 321 votes between them out of more than 62,000 tallied to date. Counting of late mail-in will resume tomorrow between the two election deniers following a break for today's Juneteenth federal holiday.

• And, down in Louisiana today, far-right lawmakers and the state's new far-right Governor Jeff Landry have decided they don't care much for the U.S. Constitution's establishment clause, and have decided to mandate that the Ten Commandments must be posted in every public elementary, middle school, high school and college classroom in the state. That'll show those U.S. Constitution loving heathens! The effort is obviously an attempt to bring the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes that its corrupted rightwing majority will overturn decades of precedent respecting the separation of church and state. And I bet they will.

THEN... Last September, California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new state law to increase the minimum wage for fast food workers at national companies with more than 60 stores from $16/hour to $20/hour. Before it even took effect on April 1 this year, Rupert Murdoch's rightwing media outlets (Wall Street Journal, NY Post, Fox "News") were working overtime in cahoots with an outfit calling itself the California Business and Industrial Alliance (CABIA) to claim that thousands of fast food jobs had already been cut after Newsom signed the bill into law.

A UCLA Economics Professor by the name of Lee Ohanian either went along with it or fell for it, detailing the supposed massive job loss in an article at the right-leaning policy think-tank called the Hoover Institution, part of Stanford University, citing WSJ's misleading employment statistics. It all offered a nice academic patina to the (false) claim that nearly 10,000 fast food workers had been laid off between last September and January, thanks to Newsom and California's Marxist policies.

CABIA then happily cited the "Hoover Institution" in a full-page advertisement in USA Today earlier this month, a mock obituary declaring "In Memoriam: Victims of Newsom's Minimum Wage". The ad cites Hoover for its claim that "nearly 10,000 fast-food jobs" were lost "after $20 minimum wage signed last fall." The ad details all the hard times for poor McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway, Rubio's California Grill, and about half a dozen others. All victims of California's impossible idea that people who work should receive a living wage in exchange.

Turns out, as our guest today, Pulitzer Prize-winning business journalist and author MICHAEL HILTZIK reports at the L.A. Times, the claim, the statistics used and the entire argument put forth by WSJ, NY Post, Fox "News", CABIA and Hoover is all "baloney, sliced thick." And Hiltzik has the receipts from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Federal Reserve to prove it.

In fact, Hiltzik details, as it turns out, fast food employment actually went up from last September to this past January --- when using seasonally adjusted figures --- and even continued to go up after the law took effect on April 1, with employment in the sector outpacing April of 2023 (apples to apples!) by nearly 7,000 jobs.

"What we're dealing with here is the misuse of employment figures by essentially using non-seasonally adjusted figures, rather than what CABIA and the Wall Street Journal should be using, which is seasonally-adjusted," Hiltzik tells me, describing the scam. "When you have an industry in which employment fluctuates during the year for seasonal reasons, you have to use seasonally-adjusted figures. That's the case with fast food restaurants. Everyone in the restaurant industry knows this. Employment in restaurants peaks in September, year after year after year. You have to compare each month to the same month in other years, and that's why the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that, in fact, employment in the sector in California went up compared to the same earlier period."

"Any economist knows that you absolutely must use seasonally-adjusted figures. The Wall Street Journal didn't seem to know this, even though they're supposed to be experts in finance and the economy," he scoffs.

Hiltzik describes the Murdoch/CABIA/Hoover sleight-of-hand as "fabricated" and "false", and we discuss why it's happening --- an has been nationalized --- in the first place. He also debunks the lie that Rubio's Grill has had to close 48 stores across the state thanks to CA's new leftist law. (Spoiler: It was private equity, not the $20 min. wage, that dunnit.)

For the record, though Ohanian, the UCLA professor who laundered the Journal's purposely misleading numbers at the Hoover Institution, admitted to Hiltzik that he got it wrong, his April 24, 2024 article is still posted there without correction or retraction...

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California may be a progressive state. But when it comes to election recount laws, we remain in democracy's dark ages.

In 2012, I requested the first ever recount for a statewide ballot measure (Proposition 29) in California state history. I later advised statewide recounts for Proposition 37 in 2012 and the Controller's race in 2014. I helped Assemblyman Kevin Mullin craft 2014 legislation allowing a taxpayer-funded recount for any statewide contest with a margin "less than or equal to the lesser of 1,000 votes or 0.00015 percent."

That legislation was very narrow and did not mandate automatic recounts for Congressional races. This past May, the Santa Clara and San Mateo County Registrars certified March 5th's U.S. House primary race as a tie for second place between Evan Low and Joe Simitian which, in some states, triggers an automatic recount. In California, however, current law indicated that both Low and Simitian would advance, with first-place finisher, Sam Liccardo to the first Top-THREE general election in California's history. (Since 2010, the state has held Top-Two primaries, where candidates from all parties run against each other in the primary and the two top vote-getters advance to the general, regardless of party. In this case, all three candidates are Democrats running in a very liberal leaning part of the state.)

Instead of all three men advancing, however, a voter named Jonathan Padilla stepped forward to request a hand recount --- as any voter is allowed to under state law, assuming they are willing to pay for it. The law also requires that requestors name the candidate on whose behalf they are seeking the recount. Though neither Low nor his campaign was involved in the request, Padilla cited him as the candidate on whose behalf he was seeking the new count. He did so with the expectation, per California law, that the money would be refunded if the final outcome of the election changed to benefit Low.

After being presented with an initial estimate that a hand recount could cost as much as $500,000, Padilla sought a less-expensive machine count, which, in the past, have been proven to be less accurate...