Okay. It's not called "Operation Epstein Fury". It's called "Operation Epic Fury". But who's kidding who here? Here we ago again. Today on The BradCast, another unlawful foreign regime change war by the U.S. is now underway in the Middle East. In this case, launched by a President who ran for office, lying over and over again that he was against such wars. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

As usual, tune in for much much more. But, among the many points made and news shared today before we get to callers ringing in on Donald Trump's new war on Iran in the second half the show...

• Yes, J.D. Vance really wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in 2023 headlined: "Trump's Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars" with the sub-hed: "He has my support in 2024 because I know he won't recklessly send Americans to fight overseas."

• Yes, Stephen Miller actually tweeted just 4 days before the November 2024 President election: "To anyone still gullible enough to fall for scummy media hoaxes: Trump said warmongering neocons love sending your kids to die for wars they would never fight themselves. Liz Cheney is Kamala’s top advisor. Liz wants to invade the whole Middle East. Kamala = WWIII. Trump = Peace."

• Yes, Donald Trump really did spend years decrying "stupid" U.S. Presidents who spent "$8 trillion" on wars in the Middle East instead of building roads and bridges and schools and hospitals in the U.S. He really did say, over and over, in 2011 that "in order to get elected @BarackObama will start a war with Iran". He really did say in 2012 that Obama would "attack Iran in order to get re-elected," and "Now that Obama's Poll numbers are in a tailspin, watch him start a war with Iran. He's desperate." That Obama would have to do so to "save face", and Trump really did declare in 2013: "Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly --- not skilled!" [Emphasis added.]

• For the record, Barack Obama never did attack Iran. But he did negotiate a deal with Iran and other major countries to successfully prevent Iran from being able to obtain a nuclear weapon, an agreement that Trump unlawfully violated and ripped up after taking office. He's been begging Iran to strike a new deal ever since. But now his polls are in a tailspin. He is trying to save face, and, because of his inability to negotiate properly, he is (unlawfully and without Constitutional or Congressional authorization) choosing to spend billions on another foreign interventionist war instead of fixing roads and bridges and hospitals and schools in the U.S.

• In fact, Trump is apparently now bombing schools and hospitals in Iran, killing nearly two hundred school girls on the first weekend of his latest misadventure, as six U.S. service members have so far been announced killed and three of our F-15s have been shot out of the sky over Kuwait, with the crews, thankfully, ejecting safely.

• So far, 555 Iranians have reportedly been killed, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. At least 11 people have been killed in Israel.

• The Supreme Leader of Iran, 86-year old Ayatollah Ali Khamanei has been killed. But the attack on Khamanei was "so successful," according to Trump, that, apparently, so were the preferred choices of the U.S. to replace him. So, now what?

• Why does Trump say he bombed Iran? Well, he seems to be making up new reasons every few hours since ordering the first bombs on Saturday morning along with Israel. To prevent an imminent attack on the U.S. by Iran? Well, that can't be. Nobody believes they have the intercontinental missiles to do that. So, he's already in violation of both U.S. and international law. To prevent them from restarting the nuclear program he claimed to have "completely obliterated" when he previously attacked Iran just eight months ago? To stop terror attacks by Iran-funded militias in the Middle East? We discuss all of the above. But he certainly didn't bomb Iran to distract media attention from his dreadful and getting-dreadful-er approval ratings as the midterm primaries are now under way, right? Certainly not as a distraction from the fact that his DOJ has been caught red-handed unlawfully covering up the release of very serious allegations by a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein that she was also raped by Trump when she was just 13-years old, right?

• As you can tell, we've got a lot to discuss today. And a lot of callers in the second half of the show who want to join in on the conversation. I hope you'll tune in...

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Today on The BradCast: The President of the United States likes to dismiss concerns about climate change by explaining that the real threat to humanity is actually nuclear weapons. And yet, as we were reminded again at midnight last night, he's not actually interested in doing anything about that threat to humanity either. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST... before we get to our excellent guest today on that, just a quick follow up to our recent coverage regarding last week's raid by the FBI at the Fulton County, Georgia elections warehouse, outside Atlanta, where federal officials absconded with ballots and other materials from the 2020 election that Donald Trump pretends was stolen from him, because he is unable to admit he lost it.

We've been trying to get to this story all week, but just a quick notice to mention that, following last week's raid --- and the Dept. of Justice's lawsuits against 23 states attempting to force them to turn over private voter data (suits that already being dismissed by federal courts) --- all three top Administration officials who had requested time to confront the bipartisan National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) annual conference last week, cancelled their appearances at the last minute.

NASS had rearranged the conference schedule to allow for remarks by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. By Friday afternoon, however, all but Gabbard had cancelled. And just before her remarks were to begin, she pulled out as well. Maine's Democratic SoS, Shenna Bellows called them "cowards," noting, along with others, that the Administration's threats to interfere with upcoming elections is unlawful and likely to end poorly for them.

THEN... It's on to other, ahem, explosive news of the day. As of midnight last night, Trump allowed the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the U.S. and Russia to expire. The New START agreement, struck with Russia by President Barack Obama in 2010, included strict caps on the numbers of ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads each country could deploy, and included an extensive verification regime. The 10-year pact was extended for another five years in 2021 by President Joe Biden, and Russia has said they were open to another extension. Trump simply let it expire.

We're joined today by long time nuclear weapons policy analyst STEPHEN SCHWARTZ, former Executive Director and Publisher of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, keepers of the notorious "Doomsday Clock". On his excellent social media feed at @AtomicAnalyst last night, Schwartz lamented that, while "Trump has boasted for decades that he knows everything there is to know about nuclear weapons and could easily negotiate a great deal with Russia," he allowed New START, "the last treaty constraining US and Russian nuclear weapons" to expire, and "hasn't lifted a tiny finger to replace it."

"He did absolutely nothing during his first term," Schwartz tells me today. "Now, here we are again. He did absolutely nothing during his first year in office, and now we have no treaty whatsoever. I think because, first of all, he doesn't care about it, and because he views the treaty as tainted because it was negotiated by his arch-enemy Barack Obama."

"It's a great loss for humanity. It's not a win for anybody," he opines. "Anybody who thinks that getting rid of the treaty will make the United States or the world safer hasn't been living in reality for quite some time."

Welp. That sounds like Trump.

Schwartz breaks down the specifics of New START, and the dangers now posed with its loss. We also discuss, among other things, the fact that Trump's so-called "Golden Dome" anti-missile system, if Congress ever called for it to be built, is likely to make the U.S. less safe, not more so.

"The Golden Dome is the latest iteration of decades of efforts to try to use technology to eliminate the political problem that gives us the ever-present threat of nuclear war," Schwartz, author of Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 explains. "But it only works --- if it works at all --- against weapons that are flying through the air. It does not work on anything that would be coming at you from under water [such as Russia's Poseidon drones, developed in response to the threat of a U.S. defensive missile shield], nor for that matter would it shoot down planes that would be carrying nuclear missiles or nuclear gravity bombs."

It does, however, result in adversaries building even more advanced and more numerous offensive weapons systems to ensure they can overcome such a defensive system.

There's a whole lot more with Schwartz today, including: his assessments of the various nuclear threats now posed by China, North Korea, Iran and others, and whether the U.S. under Trump remains the greatest nuclear threat to the planet; why it would be such a terrible idea for Trump to restart U.S. nuclear missile testing, as he vowed last year; and much more.

Tune in for our excellent, enlightening, educational and, at times, chilling conversation with Schwartz today.

FINALLY... We close with still more nuclear related news --- this time, nuclear energy --- and the Trump Dept. of Energy's secret change to nuclear power plant safety rules, in our latest Green News Report with Desi Doyen, on that and much more!...

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Today on The BradCast: Don't let our ridiculous, sociopathic President's absurd antics and unspeakable corruption prevent you from losing sight of the relentless, damaging effects of his simple, terrible, policy-making decisions, and the increasingly high costs Americans are paying for them. Even regarding policy-making decisions that Trump previously vowed he would not make. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

As you know, Donald Trump ran in 2024 on a promise to decrease costs for consumers on "day one", vowing to "make American affordable again." Now he claims the word "affordability" has been made up as part of another "Democrat hoax", and that his policies --- including massive tariffs which serve as a tax on every American --- are actually lowering prices. They aren't.

Similarly, he repeatedly vowed to never touch Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. He is now gutting all three of them in various ways, as even Fox "News" pointed out today, believe it or not, noting that "Trump broke his promise to protect a lifeline for 71 million Americans." Not to mention his massive cuts to the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare) that go into effect on January 1, increasing the cost of health care for everyone, even those with employee health care plans.

Back in October, after Trump's tariffs pushed away the world's largest soybean customer, China, Trump claimed to have made a "deal" with them their purchase of 12 million metric by the world's largest customer by year's end. Instead, China has purchased a quarter of the amount that the Administration claimed the Great Deal Maker had secured. American farmers are now facing bankruptcy while consumers are paying more everything, including for beef, the price of which has spiked thanks, in no small part, to climate change-fueled drought. (Climate change, as Trump will tell you, is just another "Democrat hoax," of course.)

In hopes of mitigating the damage his policies have caused for farmers, on Monday, Trump announced another new bailout for the ag industry. (The Administration is, euphemistically, calling it a "bridge payment".) The latest aid package is for some $12 billion to farmers as overseas customers, especially China, have fled, while prices for fertilizer and seed are up (also thanks to Trump's tariff tantrum) and the labor market is scarce, thanks to Trump's immigration policy thuggery. The new aid package follows on two similar farmer bailouts during Trump's first term --- when he originally began his trade war against China --- for $22 billion in 2019 and a whopping $46 billion in 2020.

As if all of that isn't bad enough, last week Trump announced a new rule to reverse money- and life-saving fuel efficiency standards enacted by Joe Biden for cars and trucks. He claimed that encouraging the manufacture of more polluting cars and cutting $7,500 incentives for clean electronic vehicles would somehow make the purchase of new cars $1,000 cheaper in the U.S. than they would have been under the Biden rules.

All of that is nonsense. It is as absurd as Trump's years-long bluster about ending a "Biden EV mandate" that never actually existed, as explained by our guest today, DAN BECKER, Director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Climate Law Institute of the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. Becker has worked for years at the Campaign, developing the strategy and fight for the biggest single step any nation has taken to fight global warming: The Barack Obama Administration’s ground-breaking program to cut deadly greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution in half from cars, SUVs and pickup trucks. Biden furthered that program with additional efficiency standards. And, last week, Trump announced he was doing away with them.

"In one stroke," Becker told AP, "Trump is worsening three of our nation’s most vexing problems: the thirst for oil, high gas pump costs and global warming." Today, Becker joins us to dive into the details.

The previous CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standard enacted by Obama and then Biden "saves gas. And by saving gas, you save money at the pump because you don't have to fill your tank with as much gas, or go as often. And when you burn less gas, you pollute less," Becker tells me today. "In fact, every gallon of gas burned pumps 25 pounds of carbon dioxide pollution into the atmosphere. And we burn a lot of gallons. So this is a major source of global warming pollution. And the US, because we drive a lot more than other folks, we drive more gas guzzlers than other folks, and we drive them further. We are the biggest auto polluter on the planet. And Trump is only going to make that much worse."

The Obama/Biden rules "represent the biggest single step that any nation has ever taken to cut use of oil --- saving you money at the pump --- cut pollution that is a result of burning that gas in your car," Becker explains. "And it's really unjustifiable to watch the President of the United States tear up this very valuable protection for consumers, for the environment, cutting our dependence on foreign oil, and at the same time lie, and say 'Oh, it's actually a good thing for you because you will save money.' Because, in fact, it will cost you much more at the gas pump than you would save upfront with a dirtier car."

All the while, China is expanding their sale of Electric Vehicles around the world at a massive pace --- even while they, essentially, aren't allowed to be sold in the U.S. (unless you are willing to pay a 100% tariff). "They're selling like hotcakes in Asia, Europe, South America, and Africa. But we don't buy them here," says Becker. In the bargain, however, U.S. automakers --- including those who joined Trump at the White House last week for his announcement --- are, shooting themselves in the foot. "The reality is that the auto companies are working with Trump to create their own grave," warns Becker.

Why are they doing this? Tune in today for an explanation of that and much more, as Trump's policies --- never mind his bluster and daily sociopathy --- are costing Americans a fortune...and even their lives...

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The war began decades ago, back when even Republicans favored a clean environment. But we are still nowhere near the final battle between climate champions and the fossil fuel industry profiteers who have now fully captured the GOP and the Trump Administration. We are joined on today's BradCast by a longtime warrior in this fight, who is surprisingly optimistic today, despite what would seem to be very grim news this week from the fossil fools in the Trump Administration. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Before we get to the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad climate news, a few other quick items, including the worldwide tsunami fallout following last night's giant, 8.8 magnitude earthquake off Russia's east coast and Kamala Harris' announcement today that she does not intend to run for Governor in California next year.

Then, it's on to the huge announcement from the Trump Administration's corrupted, anti-environment Environmental Protection Agency this week that it is proposing to overturn the Obama EPA's 2009 "endangerment finding" which concluded that carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gasses are indeed planet warming pollutants that represent a danger to the health and welfare of the public. It is that finding --- essentially ordered by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling back in 2007 --- that provides authority to the EPA to use the Clean Air Act to regulate the production of climate warming gasses. The finding serves as the legal underpinning for most, if not all, of the climate change regulations that have been enacted ever since.

This week, however, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and former fracking CEO turned Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright, announced that a new report from five cherry-picked climate science deniers, has given them legal authority to begin the process of overturning the 2009 "endangerment finding" and with it, kill all of the climate regulations --- to power plants, the auto industry, etc. --- that followed it.

It's obviously big and alarming news, even if it was promised in the Project 2025 manifesto that Trump pretended to disown during the campaign. But, as our guest details today, the EPA proposal is also alarmingly flawed in many ways that he believes makes it unlikely to stand up to legal scrutiny, even if this matter reaches this particularly corrupted Supreme Court.

We're honored to be joined on today's program DAVID DONIGER, Senior Attorney and Strategist for Climate & Energy at the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council. Doniger first joined the NRDC in 1978; went on to have a hand in formulating the Montreal Protocol, which successfully stopped the depletion of the earth's ozone layer; served on President Clinton's White House Council on Environmental Quality; held key posts at the EPA, and is now back at the NRDC, still fighting the good and very long fight.

In AP's coverage of the EPA announcement this week, Doniger is cited as describing Zeldin's move as an attempted "kill shot" that, if successful, would then allow the Administration to invalidate all climate regulations. “They’re trying to completely defang the Clean Air Act by saying, ‘Well, this stuff [CO2, methane, etc.] is just not dangerous,'" Doniger told the Washington Post. "That claim is just mind-bogglingly contrary to the evidence."

Today, he explains the importance of the Obama endangerment finding to climate law and the Administration's legal justifications for UNfinding that finding. "Basically, they have thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall, and they want to see if any of it sticks," he tells me. "Much of the spaghetti is all tangled up around itself. So it's going to take some work to show all the different ways in which this is just plainly wrong and illegal. But we will do that in the coming months, and take them to court if they persist."

We discuss the "mountain" of well-documented scientific evidence that counters the EPA's cherry-picked report from "five known, fringe climate deniers" and how Doniger believes "the record is going to be set straight, and these fringe people --- and how fringe their views are --- will be clear" as they do battle "in an echo chamber with themselves and try to construct an alternative reality."

Their goal, he argues, is that "if they can somehow turn reality upside-down and conclude that it's not dangerous, then they think they will knock the legs out from all of these regulations."

Doniger, who also discusses who is behind all of this and how much the transportation and power sectors in the U.S. are polluting the globe with climate warming emissions, doesn't believe the effort to "permanently damage the Clean Air Act as a law to deal with climate change," is going to work, "even in this Supreme Court."

He tells me that there have been a series of additional SCOTUS rulings since the 2007 opinion that required the EPA to act on climate change via the Clean Air Act following an endangerment finding. Moreover, he notes, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act actually wrote into law that greenhouse gasses are pollutants that must be regulated. Doniger concedes that "you can never be sure with this Court", but cites those "four decisions that go right through 2022 where the present Court issued that last one."

"If they erase the endangerment finding, we will bring a lawsuit to challenge that. If they erase the vehicle standards, we will challenge that. Same thing with the power plant standards," he vows.

"There are four Supreme Court decisions, as recent as 2022, that follow the conclusion, the holding, of the [2007 Massachusetts v. EPA] case, that Congress gave EPA the authority and responsibility to address any form of dangerous air pollution including greenhouse gases."

"This administration is swinging for the fences," asserts Doniger, "but most of the time, when you swing for the fences, you strike out."

He's been in this fight far longer than I. Hopefully he's got this right and my worries are for naught. We will find out in the months and years ahead, as the long war for a livable planet continues...

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Given the amount of madness now under way, particularly regarding Trump's Epstein problems --- much of that, thankfully, hilarious --- it seemed another good moment on The BradCast to once again send up our Digby/Driftglass Signal! Happily, they answered the call. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

With an avalanche of incoming, we've got a lot of ground to cover on today's program. So, our OG blogger pals --- HEATHER DIGBY PARTON Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo, and the pseudonymous 'DRIFTGLASS' of the Professional Left Podcast --- generously join us for the full hour to try and make some sense of it all.

Among the many stories discussed today...

• Donald Trump's hilariously ham-fisted attempts at covering up his long-running role in the life of his former bestie and late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, are become more transparently ridiculous by the day. Driftglass describes it as "Stupid Watergate," where even the MAGA supporters are finally catching on. What took them so long? "This is a cult that we are dealing with" after all, Digby reminds.

  There is a lot of news wrapped into that one story alone to keep us busy today. But, no, neither Digby nor Driftglass believe Speaker Mike Johnson's gambit to recess the U.S. House early for the rest of Summer to avoid demands for votes to release the "Epstein Files" (which Johnson himself favored just last week) is going to make any of this go away or get better for Trump. Digby explains why. And it may, as the pair seem to concur, be the "load-bearing lie", finally knocked down, that does to the Trump Presidency what Hurricane Katrina did to George W. Bush's.

• One of Trump's latest attempts at distraction from his ever-growing Epstein woes was to declare this week that "Barack Hussein Obama" (and Hillary Clinton) have been caught dead to rights in a "coup" to steal the 2016 Presidential election! The one that Trump won. What is the "irrefutable proof" Trump claims has been newly uncovered by his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revealing that, as Trump charged yesterday, "Obama was sedatious"? (His actual word.) Well, it takes all of us on today's program to even muster a guess at what the hell any of them are talking about. (Even folks on the Right who previously decried "RussiaGate" aren't impressed.) But, sure. Here's the evidence. They finally caught Obama!

  Whatever the supposed crime is "doesn't matter because there's nothing there," explains Driftglass. "There is no conspiracy. It simply exists as a bright shiny object to distract from the fact that Donald Trump is covering up a pedophile business that his dead best friend ran, with Donald Trump's knowledge, consent, and approval. That's it. That's the only reason this is happening. It will be another distraction next week and another one after that if this one doesn't work."

• In somewhat darker news, we also try to make sense of the firing (next year, anyway) of Stephen Colbert by Paramount/CBS on the heels of a $16 million settlement paid by the company to Trump as an obvious attempt to win his FCC's approval for a merger with a company named Skydance.

  "The big overview here is that all these institutions have been caving," laments Digby. "Whether it's Big Law, universities, these big media companies settling with Trump, basically paying bribes to get what they want. "The fact that [Colbert's firing] happened within days of the settlement --- if it wasn't part of the settlement, or if they just decided to throw it in as a little treat for Trump to make him happy --- either way, it's a horrible thing. And it's happening throughout our culture."

  "All we've got are the comedians," she argues, echoing her column today at Salon. "The only people who have what it takes to speak truth to power in our whole damn culture. And that is a pathetic realization."

• All of which brings us to our final topic of discussion today, based on an email I received earlier this week, calling me out for describing Trump as a "wannabe-dictator" instead of a flat-out dictator. His argument, which I share today, was sound, and my guests tended to agree with him. (Trump's "a fascist," asserts Driftglass. "Coming up with an accurate definition of what is happening right now is important, because it gives us a place to stand and start.") But I think I'm gonna be sticking with "wannabe" by and large right now. I explain why on today's lively, funny and sometimes appropriately grim program...

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"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command," wrote George Orwell in his classic dystopian novel, 1984. It was a lesson that the Republican Party has learned well.

A recent poll pertaining to whose economic approach is preferred by American voters --- Donald Trump's or Kamala Harris's --- suggests that we remain in the midst of an Orwellian moment driven by GOP disinformation and the mainstream media's inability --- or disinterest --- in countering it. But, really, it's not particularly difficult if one tries.

As the business magazine Fortune described in early 2021, Donald Trump left office with "the worst jobs records since Herbert Hoover". Before that, in late 2020, a U.S. House Budget Committee report noted that Trump's mishandling of COVID had been an "epic failure" that "resulted in thousands of avoidable deaths and the most severe economic crisis in a generation...[S]mall businesses across the country [were] closing their doors for good, families [were] facing hunger and eviction, and millions of Americans [were] still having to make the impossible choice between their health and a paycheck."

The Biden administration, largely as the result of legislation passed before the MAGA Cult barely gerrymandered its way to a do-nothing House majority during the 2022 midterm, produced the fastest economic recovery and lowest inflation rate on the globe, as compared to all other advanced nations. Biden's economic record includes the "two strongest years of job growth in history", the creation of nearly 11 million new jobs, including "750,000 new manufacturing jobs", and, at 3.5%, "the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years." Where Trump never fulfilled his oft-repeated promise to create infrastructure projects, the Biden administration finally delivered, by making "infrastructure investments in all 50 States, D.C., territories and throughout Tribal Nations."

As we recently reported, during her swift-moving, upbeat campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has advanced immensely popular economic policies. Yet, according to a report on a head-scratching 3-day Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted between Aug. 23 and Aug. 25, 2024, "former President Trump's approach to the economy and employment was preferred by 43% of registered voters, as compared to only 40%, who preferred Harris's approach."

The Orwellian misinformation leading to such a polling result can be attributed, in no small part, to an epic mainstream media failure to adequately cover the Biden administration's stellar economic accomplishments. More directly the answer can be found in a recent book authored by Steve Benen, longtime blogger and producer of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, entitled Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past. In it, Benen notes that, for a significant percentage of the electorate, Trump's fictions have simply displaced reality. Many Americans have been duped by a brazen collective and organized effort by Trump, Congressional Republicans and the right-wing media echo chamber to rewrite recent history...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate change and climate action woven into the Democratic National Convention; 99% of Americans have been affected by extreme weather just since May; PLUS: Buckle up --- 2024 is second only to 2023 for billion dollar weather disasters so far this year... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Microplastics are infiltrating brain tissue, human organs, studies show; Oil companies and Leonard Leo's dark money are funding push by GOP states to block climate laws; Fracking wells forced on many US landowners, study finds; Trump vows to ax clean power plant rule; In Wisconsin senate race, voters wil pick between two candidates with widely differing climate rules; Focus on heat illness intensifies after death of Baltimore sanitation worker; Ford delays new EV plant, cancels electric three-row SUV as it shifts strategy; Multi-day energy storage from Minnesota to Maine... PLUS: Multi-day energy storage from Minnesota to Maine... and much, MUCH more! ...

I do realize The BradCast has been in occasional danger of late of becoming just giddy enough to, perhaps, become all but unrecognizable to some. Oh, well. Too bad. Those may be folks who are failing to realize they may be living through one of the most extraordinary moments in American political history. Lighten up. There's nothing wrong with appreciating the moment after so many years of darkness. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

But to achieve the promise of this moment, there are still a bunch of very difficult weeks and months (not to mention years) ahead. A little-noticed reminder came from the state of Florida last night --- which voted in Congressional primaries on Tuesday along with Alaska and Wyoming --- when a number of county election result websites were failing to work as expected after the close of polls. They were websites run by a contractor named VR Systems, a little-known Tallahassee firm which also runs voter registration systems in several Florida counties and other states. If the name of the company is familiar, it is likely because we would eventually come to learn in 2017, thanks to whistleblower Reality Winner, that the firm was the victim of Russian-based spearphishing attacks in advance of the 2016 election. We still don't know the extent of those 2016 attacks, nor much about what happened to cause problems on Tuesday night with their websites in Florida. But, since nobody else seems to have connected those dots in the media, it seems worth sticking a pin in here for now.

After a few quick thoughts on that today, it's back to the political history underway in Chicago this week...

"Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn't it?," former First Lady Michelle Obama rhetorically asked the packed, roaring crowd at the United Center on Day 2 of this year's Democratic National Convention. "We're feeling it here in this arena, but its spreading all across this country we love. A familiar feeling that's been buried too deep for far too long. You know what I'm talking about. It's the contagious power of hope," she explained to a packed, raucous arena of Dems, who had just gone through what was absolutely the most electrifying roll-call --- to nominate Kamala Harris and Tim Walz --- in American political convention history.

"The anticipation, the energy, the exhilaration of once again being on the cusp of a brighter day," Michelle continued. "The chance to vanquish the demons of fear, division and hate that have consumed us, and continue pursuing the unfinished promise of this great nation, the dream that our parents and grandparents fought and died and sacrificed for."

"America, hope is making a comeback!," she declared. And the crowd of Democrats reached new heights of ecstasy. And all of that before her husband, former President of the United States, Barack Obama, tried to match her with his own unparalleled oratorical skills.

We've got much, much more for you today on all of the above, as we're joined again by old friends and fellow old school bloggers HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of his eponymous blog and his weekly Pro Left Podcast.

I'm not sure I can even try to summarize our conversation today. There is Parton describing how the DNC --- just half-way over this week as of airtime, mind you --- has "far surpassed my expectations ... And having it be this unusually, upbeat, joyful, happy, enthusiastic experience. I didn't expect it. And I have to say I am truly enjoying it, which I don't normally say about political conventions."

Says Driftglass: "The media has a story they want to tell, and that story is Dems In Disarray and protesters and cops in the street. And we are denying them that story. And that's what is freaking them out. Because that is not the fairy-tale they've been telling the public for forty years, which is that both sides are bad, there's no difference between the two parties. Only when there's a breach, a radical opening in that box, can people peek through that media filter and see the actual Democratic Party. ... The base of the party is finally getting heard. And the base of the party is pretty progressive. This weird filter that everything democratic had to flow through, the people who spoke for us in the media, were Maureen Dowd proclaiming, 'What the Democrats need is an open convention.' And the base said, 'Hell no. That is not what we need. Shut up.' It seems like the progressive base, almost as one, has reached out and told them to shut the hell up, the party is actually us!"

And then there is also Desi today: "I think part of what is going on is that hope is a moving thing for the human heart. It's moving to see Democrats articulate these common values that we all hold, no matter what your political party is --- of family, of patriotism, of opportunity, of equality for all. We've all been through a collective trauma over the last nine years. Seeing this kind of hope is like therapy."

Like I said, I can't even begin to summarize it. Perhaps this is why we don't necessarily realize we are going through historic moments until long after. But, tune in to today's show to hear a bunch of battle-hardened political muckrakers watching so much of what we've been advocating for, for so long, unfolding before our very eyes.

Maybe.

But, as Michelle said, there is a contagious power of hope...

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We are still hanging on for dear life here at The BradCast amid the past four weeks of non-stop political upheavals. But, at least this week, we've got some much more encouraging stuff to hang on to. For now. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

It remains to be seen how fleeing it all is, but over the past several days, I must say, I have never seen Democrats more united and elated as they have been since Kamala Harris ascended to become their presumptive 2024 Presidential nominee. One has to go back to the nomination of Barack Obama in 2008 for anything even close to the kind of giddy excitement and optimism we've seen since Joe Biden decided to drop out and pass the torch to Harris on Sunday. But, even back in 2008, the party was still smarting and somewhat riven over the outcome of a long and bruising primary cycle between Obama and Hilary Clinton (who wrote a very good op-ed about all of this in the Times yesterday, btw.)

The first polls taken solely after Biden's announcement and endorsement on Sunday are now beginning to trickle out, with a new Reuters/Ipsos survey taken on Monday and Tuesday this week finding Harris now up over Donald Trump nationally by 2 points. That may be a small lead, but it's a 4-point swing as compared to Trump's 2-point lead over Biden last week. Moreover, when RFK, Jr. was included in the question to respondents, Harris' lead grew to 4 points over Trump in the first polling from this outfit that has seen the former President actually losing to a Democrat since May of this year.

Furthermore, as one of our guests notes today, in the week following a party's national convention, we traditionally see a bounce for that party of anywhere from 2 to 4 points. In this one poll, at least, there is not only no bounce, but a loss of support for the GOP candidate following last week's Republican National Convention.

Of course, be sure to mind all of the usual caveats about such polls --- only one poll, margin of error, snapshot in time, national versus state numbers, etc. Nonetheless, the numbers would seem to be encouraging news for Dems after many weeks of the opposite.

To that end, we've got a lot to make sense of from the past several remarkable days, and we're joined by two old friends to help us do so. Our steadfast HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo is here once again, along with JOHN AMATO, creator of the notorious Crooks & Liars blog, for the first time in a while.

Among our many topics of discussion, debate and tomfoolery today...

• Thoughts on the extraordinary decision by and presidency of Joe Biden, including whether his decision to get out came too late or just at the right time.
• Republicans, Fox "News" and even a number of theoretically legitimate news outlets have been telling us that there is something undemocratic about what has just happened in the Democratic Party. Are they right?
• Thoughts on Harris and her rise to meet this historic moment.
• Thoughts on the ugly, racist, barely concealed dog-whistle attacks against her already emerging from the right.
• The hilarious "fraud" argument now coming from Trump and his campaign on Harris' ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket, and their astonishingly flat-footed response, so far.
• Thoughts on whether we should expect the same protests from the left that had dogged President Biden regarding his position on Israel to similarly affect the Harris Campaign.
• Some advice for those who may be experiencing a bit of PTSD following the last time Democrats nominated a woman to run for President against Trump.
• Veep Stakes on the Right!: Is Trump regretting his selection of J.D. Vance as his Vice-Presidential running mate this week? Is Vance regretting accepting the job? Is it possible he'll soon be tossed from the GOP ticket?
• Veep Stakes on the Left!: Who would our guests like to see Harris select as her own running mate? And who do they expect she will choose?

All of that and much, much more on today's lively round-table BradCast!...

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I've got to post today's BradCast quickly a) before convicted felon Donald Trump speaks at tonight's RNC and b) before more political shoes (and/or earthquakes) drop. So, here's the quick skinny. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Donald Trump critic-turned-toady J.D. Vance of Ohio, officially accepted the GOP's nomination for Vice President during his remarks at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night. His speech was long on hillbilly biography but very short (virtually bereft) of the horrifying policies that Vance actually supports. Helpfully today, we correct his oversight with actual facts and policy proposals from the ambitious Yale-educated Senator, including his push for a nationwide abortion ban with no exceptions; ending no-fault divorce; slashing Social Security and Medicare; embracing Project 2025, turning over Ukraine to Russia and much more!

• While leaving out his radical policy positions, Vance also dropped a few big lies about a number of things during Wednesday speech. When it comes to his lies about all-time record, world-leading energy production under Joe Biden, our own Desi Doyen has a few thoughts and a corrective that J.D. and his convicted conman running mate would prefer you didn't listen to.

• Self-proclaimed "Liberal Redneck" comedian Trae Crowder, who hung out with the GOP's new Veep nominee back in the days when Vance regarded Trump as "America's Hitler", also has a few insights on him today.

• What explains the complete lack of pressing by corporate media for any kind of official medical statement on the injury suffered by Donald Trump during last Saturday's assassination attempt?

• The Chief U.S. District Court Judge in Nevada tossed out a suit on Wednesday brought by the Trump Campaign, the RNC and the Nevada GOP seeking to block the counting of potentially tens of thousands of perfectly legal mail ballots in the battleground state, cast and timely post-marked by Election Day, but arriving up to four days after, as allowed by NV state law.

• With President Biden now battling COVID again, top Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have all reportedly been pressing the President, in various ways, to reconsider his insistence on staying in the race for reelection. If there is to be a change at the top of the ticket, it is believed likely to come (and would need to come) within days. Perhaps as soon as this weekend.

• In the meantime, President Biden has been continuing to present new, popular policies --- as all Democrats should be joining him in doing at this point. This week, for example, Biden is reportedly planning to issue a long-overdue proposal for SCOTUS reform to include term limits and an enforceable code of ethics for Supreme Court Justices. He will also be proposing a Constitutional amendment to counter the Court's recent corrupt ruling granting criminal immunity to Presidents. Also this week, Biden has called for a national rent control statute that would cap rent increases at 5% annually unless landlords choose to forego federal tax write-offs. These are the sort of things that Dems should be doing right now, rather than squabbling amongst themselves. (Not that anyone asked me.)

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as Toronto is crippled by extreme storms and flooding; the cost of extreme heat is quickly escalating in the U.S.; and as Marathon Oil agrees to pay a record fine for pollution under the Clean Air Act...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Flooding, power outages, sweltering heat --- fallout from Hurricane Beryl wreaking havoc across U.S.; New federal flood risk standards will finally incorporate future climate impacts; PLUS: House Republicans tackle the real enemy: energy saving appliances!... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): A guide to Project 2025, the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration; Shuttered auto plants will become EV factories thanks to $1.7 billion Biden program; The Pacific Northwest is littered with ‘deadbeat dams’; Wildfire ‘burn scars’ bring repeated flash floods to Ruidoso, New Mexico; Canada’s 2023 wildfires burned nearly 30,000 square miles of forest, spewed heat-trapping gas into the air... PLUS: CA v. FL: Two governors confronting extreme heat take opposite approaches to worker safety rules... and much, MUCH more! ...

With Democrats still wetting themselves over last week's NYT/Siena polling showing Donald Trump beating President Biden a year from now in five of six swing-states, we finally carved out some time on today's BradCast to dig into the matter.

After a few news headlines, it's on to "that polling" that has freaked out so many regarding Biden's odds next year. It has spawned a thousand explanations. But mine, in short, is not unlike Margaret Sullivan's at The Guardian, where she argues that the bottom line is --- whether the polling is accurate or not --- the media are failing to accurately inform the American people. Not about the "horse race", but about Biden's accomplishments in office and the unprecedented dangers of Trump's vow to move the U.S. to become an authoritarian regime if he is allowed back in office.

President Obama's 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina argues today in Politico there is "no need to panic" over the polling numbers, based on his experience presiding over similarly grim numbers for the incumbent Prez back in 2011, when data guru Nate Silver suggested Obama was "toast" a year out from the election (which he ended up winning); New York Times Magazine gave him just a 17% chance of prevailing (apparently he beat those odds); polling by Politico showed Obama tied with Mitt Romney in 10 battleground states (Obama would go on to win 9 of them); and a December 2011 Gallup poll showed Obama losing to Romney across 12 battlegrounds states (he ended up winning 11 of them.)

In short, polling this far out doesn't mean much. But there are still plenty of reasons to be concerned. And plenty of reasons to spend time not on the horse race, but on the FACTS that Americans apparently aren't receiving from their mainstream media outlets. The FACTS of Joe Biden's extraordinary accomplishments in his first term, rivaling LBJ or FDR, and the chilling FACTS of what Donald Trump himself has vowed to do if he is re-elected, rivaling Hitler and Mussolini. (And, no, that is not hyperbole.)

As we discuss today, here is a new poll from Navigator Research revealing how wildly popular Biden's accomplishments are, whether the American people realize he has implemented them or not. And here is a list of 27 "insane things" Trump has promised, in his own words, to do if he wins a second term. And that list was created in September. He has doubled and tripled down on many of them since then.

After discussing much of the above, we open up our phone lines to listeners today, to get their explanations for all of this. Many of whom seem to get it, but a few, sadly, clearly do not. They are still buying the lies being spun by Trump, Republicans and Fox "News", because real news outlets are doing such a lousy job of telling the real story. The actual FACTS.

Reminder to our friends in the corporate mainstream media: Reporting independently verifiable FACTS, no matter how good or bad they may make any particular candidate look, is not a partisan act. It's your Constitutionally mandated and protected job.

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Nope. We're still not done with the 2022 Elections on The BradCast. And that's without even including next Tuesday's U.S. Senate runoff election in Georgia! [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Before we get to a number of election-related items today...

• Some thoughts on the bill signed on Friday by President Biden to help avert a national rail strike and economic catastrophe along with it. I've seen a lot of misinformation out there from progressives over the past 24 hours or so about the political strategy employed by the White House and Congressional Dems. So I try to clear up a few points today, explain why what happened happened, and how the focus must now turn toward ensuring that Biden includes paid sick days for federally contracted rail workers in an Executive Order.

As to the continuing 2022 midterm elections...

• A teenage election worker, campaigning for Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) in Savannah, Georgia ahead of Tuesday's runoff against Herschel Walker (R), was shot while knocking on doors on Thursday. He was shot through a closed door and is being treated for what is described as "non-life threatening injuries". The Savannah Police Dept. has arrested the alleged shooter and claims that "At this point, there is no indication the shooting was politically motivated." Okay. Just shooting people randomly through front doors then?

• Colorado Sec. of State Jena Griswold has officially ordered a mandatory recount in the 3rd U.S. House District race between incumbent far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert (R) and challenger Adam Frisch (D) because the final margin was smaller than 0.5%. Boebert was certified to have won the race by just 550 votes out of more than 327,000 cast across the 27 counties that comprise the 3rd District which blankets almost all of western CO. This race, according to the nation's election forecasters, wasn't even supposed to have been close. Obviously, it was. Sadly, according to state law, all counties must now re-tally ballots in the recount by the same method used to count them originally. That means that all but one county in the state will tally their hand-marked paper ballots on the same optical-scan computers that tallied them the first time, either correctly or incorrectly. The only way to know for sure, of course, is to hand-count them. San Juan County will be the only one to do so, since that's how they originally tallied their voters' ballots.

• An even closer race will soon be recounted statewide in Arizona, where Democrat Kris Mayes will be certified on Monday by the state as having defeated Trump-backed MAGA Republican Abe Hamadeh in the Attorney General's race by just 510 votes out of more than 2.5 million cast. That's a margin of just two one-hundredths of a percentage point! As in Colorado, Arizona, shamefully, recounts by computer as well.

• A recount is only allowed in Arizona when the margin is less than 0.5%. But if the Republicans on the Cochise County Board of Supervisors had their way, there probably wouldn't be a recount at all in the razor-close AG's race, because Hamadeh would have lost by much more. Also, one U.S. House race would have flipped from a Republican victory to a Democratic victory, and the Dem, not the Republican would have been the winner in the state's school superintendent race. That's because the MAGA Republican dupes on the Cochise Board tried to avoid certifying their county's election results entirely, despite any evidence of fraud or miscount or anything else. Luckily for the County's 46,000 mostly-Republican voters, Democratic Sec. of State and soon-to-be Governor Katie Hobbs sued the county to force them to certify. On Thursday, a state judge ordered them to certify results immediately, preventing the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of voters (from all parties).

• Cochise had a difficult time finding an attorney willing to represent them in the above-mentioned matter, after the County attorney refused, citing his original advise to the Board that refusing to certify was unlawful. Even the attorney for the buffoonish Cyber Ninjas turned them down! But attorneys thinking twice about taking lousy election cases is probably a good idea. At least a federal judge in Arizona thinks so, and is trying to make that point loud and clear. On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge John Tuchi sanctioned the attorneys representing failed Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and failed Sec. of State candidate Mark Finchem --- Trump-backed MAGA Republicans and election liars both --- for frivolous their frivolous complaints challenging the election systems in Maricopa (Phoenix) and Pima (Tucson) Counties. As Judge Tuchi made clear in his order for sanctions [PDF], it was meant to "penalize specific attorney conduct with the broader goal of deterring similarly baseless filings initiated by anyone, whether an attorney or not" and to "make clear that the Court will not condone litigants ... furthering false narratives that baselessly undermine public trust at a time of increasing disinformation about, and distrust in, the democratic process."

And finally, today...

• Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with good news for water drinkers in Mississippi; bad news for polluting oil and gas drillers in the U.S.; and disturbing news for everyone who lives near the rising seas on our coastlines...

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We're just over one week from the most critical midterm elections in these United States since the Civil War. So, we've got a lot to discuss on today's BradCast. And the phones are finally fixed at KPFK, so we were actually able to hear from callers today as well! [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Among the stories covered on today's program before listeners ring...

• Why it really matters: A few thoughts on why, exactly, these elections are so critical, in all 50 states, for the future of American democracy itself; why you need to vote in whatever state you live in by Tuesday; and why, depending on how it all goes, this could be the last democratic election in this country. An overstatement? I don't think so in the least. But tune in for much more on all of that and for listner calls from folks who may or may not agree with me.

• If they can do it in Brazil: Great news! The far-right, Donald Trump-supported autocrat Jair Bolsonaro was deposed in a runoff election on Sunday to Brazil's former leftist President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, popularly known as "Lula". The race was closer than polls had predicted, but it was the first time since the nation became democratized in the 1980s that an incumbent President went down to defeat. That is good for workers, that is good for the planet (given Bolsonaro's destruction of the Amazon rainforest), and, as Lula said up winning, good for democracy itself. "This isn’t a victory of mine or the Workers’ Party, nor the parties that supported me in the campaign," said the once and future President. "It's the victory of a democratic movement that formed above political parties, personal interests and ideologies so that democracy came out victorious."

• After all that: New polling out today from New York Times and Siena College finds four key U.S. Senate races are still polling pretty much where they were several weeks ago, despite recent breathless corporate media reports that Dem support was tanking and a "red" wave was forming. Perhaps it is, but that's not what today's new polling suggests. The Democratic Senate candidates in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia all still lead their Republican opponents, if by slim margins, and the race in Nevada is said to be a dead heat. At least, if you believe pre-election polling. (And I wouldn't, if I were you.) It's all likely to be very close. All of it. Everywhere. Please get out and vote, as they did in Brazil...for democracy.

• Another assassination attempt on the Speaker of the House: We were off on Friday, so didn't get to ring in on it, but we've learned more over the weekend about the attacker who, echoing January 6, 2021 insurrectionists, was hunting for Nancy Pelosi as he hoped to use zip ties to restrain her 82-year old husband Paul last Friday morning at their house in San Francisco. The attacker ended up cracking Paul Pelosi's skull with a hammer before he was tackled by police. By way of contrast with the "outrage" expressed for weeks by Republicans at peaceful protests outside the homes of corrupt Supreme Court Justices several months ago, many of those same GOPers made jokes over the weekend about the attack on the Pelosis by a man who appears to have been a supporter of QAnon conspiracies and far-right commentators and who believed Trump's lie that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen from him. The 42-year old assailant has now been charged with both state and federal felonies, including attempted murder; assault with a deadly weapon; assault on the immediate family member of a federal official; and attempted kidnapping of a federal official. Paul Pelosi is said to be recovering after emergency surgery for a fractured skull.

• Calls forward: Finally, we open up the phone lines --- for the first time in a month, now that they're fixed here at the station! --- on all of the above and more with some very lively callers (several of whom, as usual, don't agree with me on every li'l thang...)

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On today's BradCast: It was the grand finale at the end of a U.S. Supreme Court term like no other. Now that its packed with rightwing extremists, the unleashed activists on the GOP's illegitimate 6 to 3 U.S. Supreme Court pretended on Thursday that the text of the written law doesn't say what it actually says, in order to offer a parting gift for the year to the fossil fuel industry --- as the nation and globe burn.

The Clean Air Act, as Justice Elena Kagan wrote [PDF] on behalf of the three dissenters, "directs the EPA to regulate stationary sources of any substance that 'causes, or contributes significantly to, air pollution' and that 'may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.'" She made clear that, as the Court has determined on multiple occasions, the Environmental Protection Agency "serves as the Nation's 'primary regulator of greenhouse gas emissions.'"

But, never mind all of that. On Thursday, writing for the Court's far-right majority in West Virginia v. EPA --- and ignoring its own precedents --- Chief Justice John Roberts pretended none of those mandates existed in the law adopted by Congress in 1963 and amended a number of times over the years. Despite any actual existing Administrative rule to regulate carbon emissions by coal and gas-fired power plants --- Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan was put on hold by the Court years ago, and Donald Trump's scheme to restrict the EPA's power to do so was rejected by lower courts --- SCOTUS took up this coal-industry sponsored law suit and gave them pretty much everything they sought, text of the written law be damned.

As they did when striking down the Administration's vaccine-or-test mandate, the Court once again invoked their newly invented "Major Questions" doctrine in order to declare that any issue that may be controversial in any way may not be decided by the scientists and experts at the federal agencies created to handle such things. Instead, they must be specifically directed, by Congress, to do so. Because the Clean Air Act, which tasks the EPA with regulating dangerous pollutants --- such as carbon released by coal-fired power plants, currently exacerbating our deadly climate crisis --- doesn't actually cite "carbon" specifically, the Trump/McConnell/Roberts Court has now declared the federal agency may take no action to help reduce it. Never mind their own previous findings and, of course, the number of Americans who will die because of this ruling.

The opinion was as predictable as it is corrupt. We're joined today by the great MARK JOSEPH STERN, legal journalist and Constitutional law expert at Slate, to discuss the opinion that will not only limit the EPA from doing the job it has already been tasked with by Congress, but prevent many other federal agencies from carrying out their mandates as well. It's all part of the corporate rightwing's long "war on the Administrative State". And it's a war they are now winning --- and we are all losing.

"Massachusetts v. EPA held that the federal government must --- not can, but must --- regulate and limit carbon emissions in the United States because carbon is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, and thus the EPA has a legal obligation to institute guidelines that reduce the level of greenhouse gases the US is emitting," Stern emphasizes, noting that today's opinion in West Virginia v. EPA "involves a regulation that does not exist."

Nonetheless, "the Supreme Court decided to take it up just to stop Joe Biden from trying" to regulate the greenhouse emissions now warming our planet at an alarming rate. "The Supreme Court," Stern adds, "decided to simply slap limitations on [the Clean Air Act] that do not exist in the text because they do not like it as a matter of policy."

As to the so-called "Major Questions" doctrine, argues Stern, "It's hard to define, because it is made up." It's not in the Constitution and, as far as he can tell, "it comes from Brett Kavanaugh's brain. This was his idea when he was on the lower court, to try to smuggle in a kind of anti-regulatory agenda into what looks like statutory interpretation."

"The basic idea is that if an agency tries to take some kind of very consequential action, that has a serious and vast impact on the people, or the economy, or private industry, then that is a 'major question', and the Congress has to give the Agency an extremely granular and explicit permission slip to do what it wants to do, otherwise the courts will block it. The problem with this test that should be clear, is that it is totally subjective. What looks like a major question to you may look like a frivolous question to me, and it really shifts policy-making over to unelected judges from experts in federal agencies."

Of course, this is just one of the many reasons I don't refer to these people as "conservatives". They don't merely interpret the law and the Constitution, as they claim. They make shit up to justify their politics. They are the "activists legislating from the bench" that Republicans pretend to oppose --- when they are trying to block Democratic appointees from positions on the bench.

There is much more today from the wise and colorful Mr. Stern, on this matter; on a separate (largely good news) ruling from the Court today on immigration policy; on the Court's opinion last week that begins to gut the famous Miranda Rights (the right to remain silent, to an attorney, etc.) for people who are detained by law enforcement (a "sleeper case" overlooked because it came on the same day that the Court overturned Roe v. Wade); on what will or can happen once the illegitimacy of this Court becomes clear to all; and on Justice Stephen Breyer's last day on the Court today before Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in as its first-ever black female jurist.

As if that's not enough, a ruling this week by SCOTUS overturned a lower federal court that found Louisiana's newly gerrymandered Congressional District map to be an unconstitutional violation of the Voting Rights Act. The lower court ordered another black majority District to be created, as state Republicans had only one among six, in a state where one-third of population is black. The ruling was similar to another in Alabama, which SCOTUS also struck down recently, ordering both states to use the gerrymandered and unconstitutional House maps drawn by Republicans for this year's critical 2022 midterm elections.

Does this signal the Court intends to overturn the entirety of the landmark Voting Rights Act, as they did with Roe? "Yes," Stern answers, before explaining how "really, they've already done it."

And then there's the new case that SCOTUS announced today they will take up in their next term, as their destruction continues. It's an election case out of North Carolina to allow the Court to create another pretend legal notion that the Right calls the "Independent State Legislature" Doctrine.

"I am terrified about this case," Stern says, as it will almost certainly be decided to allow "state legislatures to appoint electors in the Electoral College to the losing candidate in a Presidential race. Which is exactly what Donald Trump wanted them to do in 2020, and what Ginni Thomas was urging legislators to do while her husband was trying to institute this theory."

"The American people are in deep, deep, DEEP trouble," he warns.

Please "enjoy" today's program!...

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