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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: After another climate disaster, climate change was finally front and center at the Vice Presidential Debate; PLUS: Ongoing climate disaster Hurricane Helene, now the second deadliest hurricane in modern U.S. history... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Two separate climate studies find that fossil fuel pollution intensified Hurricane Helene rainfall; Helene isn’t the first time Trump inserted politics into a natural disaster; At what price will oil shale drillers stop drilling?; Hurricane gives Democrats a climate opening in Florida; 'Everything is dead': Ukraine rushes to stem ecocide after Russia poisons river; American dams weren't built for today's climate-charged rains and floods... PLUS: Who will care for Americans left behind by climate migration?... and much, MUCH more! ...

As discussed on today's BradCast along with some breaking news today, there is much more than simply voting and hoping for the best for your favorite candidates that you can do --- that we need you to do --- to help protect democracy this year. [Audio link to full program follows below this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Iran launched nearly 200 missiles into Israel on Tuesday in response to Israel's recent attacks on the leadership of the Iran-sponsored Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. Those attacks were in response to a year of Hezbollah rocket attacks over the border into northern Israel beginning the day after Hamas' deadly raid in southern Israel one year ago next week. Israel has now vowed retaliation for Iran's attack today, and Hezbollah vows to continue their own attacks until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, in what U.S. officials and others see as a potential escalation into full-scale regional war, or at least a rekindling of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.

• After midnight last night, some 45,000 dockworkers from walked off the job, shutting down ports on the East and Gulf Coasts in the first strike by the International Longshoreman's Association (ILA) in nearly 50 years. The workers are demanding what they describe as long-overdue wage increases and contract guarantees against job-killing automation at the nation's ports. The White House is said to be encouraging a quick resolution between the ILA and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, which represents port and shipping companies who've seen record profits in recent years. If the stoppage continues for several weeks, it is likely to result in higher retail prices and supply chain shortages again, just weeks before the Presidential election.

• Amid ongoing devastation in six southeastern U.S. States following the monstrous Hurricane Helene --- now the second deadliest U.S. storm in the past 50 years --- officials at the North Carolina State Board of Elections have begun issuing guidance to voters and local election officials in the most devastated counties in the western part of the state. That support now includes emergency kits described as "election offices in a box" to help local officials register voters and process absentee ballots until Internet and cell service is restored in those communities. More details, for NC voters and election officials alike, is now available via ncsbe.org.

• But it's not only in storm damaged communities where the public is going to have step up this year help carry off successful elections. In fact, public oversight of our elections is the best and only way to ensure they are free, fair and accurately tabulated in a way that Americans can have confidence in the reported results.

  Republicans appear to have finally figured that out this year, as the RNC claims to be recruiting and training tens of thousands of poll workers and watchers. I explain, on today's program, why I think that's actually a good thing...presuming they don't intimidate voters or election officials...and presuming that Democrats, independents and third-party supporters all do the same thing.

  We're joined today by longtime election integrity and protection expert EMILY LEVY, founder and director of Scrutineers.org, to explain how her non-partisan, non-profit organization is helping to train folks like you to be both poll watchers and poll observers, particularly after the close of polls, when tabulation at precincts is formalized and when members of the public can play a key role to help ensure tallies are accurate. These efforts can also prove helpful in disproving false claims of fraud after the election!

  "We encourage people to observe the processing and counting of votes," Levy tells me, in describing some of the group's training sessions for volunteer observers. While acknowledging that it's impossible to see inside of tabulation computers, she notes "the processes around it and the output, and what's done with the output, can be observed. In most places, you don't need any special authorization."

  "In our training, we talk about what you'll be able to see when you observe, how to check out what you need to do, what kinds of things to look for and then, also, what to do if you see something that doesn't seem quite right to you."

  In addition to discussing how Scrutineers works and what they do, we also discuss the unique challenges for many of us longtime election integrity champions in the wake of the past four years or so of Trump's blatant lies about election fraud and our electoral system.

  Please stop by Scrutineers.org for dates on upcoming training sessions that you can participate in from home, anywhere in the country. And thank you in advance for your helping to protect our democracy! We really need you this year!

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for a special coverage edition of our Green News Report in the wake of the devastation and tragedy of Hurricane Helene, which --- no matter how obscenely longtime climate change deniers like Donald Trump and Florida's Sen. Rick Scott are now attempting to lie about it --- has been perfectly predictable and warned about by scientists for years. That, as Republicans pretend they have no idea how such a monster storm and horrific disaster could have come about...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 'GNR' Special Coverage: Climate change-fueled Hurricane Helene unleashes widespread death and destruction across the Southeastern U.S., as storm victims face daunting challenge of recovery; PLUS: Donald Trump lied about it... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): "Our hearts are heavy": National Weather Service forecasters write emotional letter to Carolinas, Georgia; Extreme weather is not a hoax. Trump’s climate change denial is dangerous; Bad Climate Socialism: The opening salvos of the interstate insurance wars; Leonard Leo-linked group attacking efforts to educate judges on climate; Residents near Atlanta evacuate due to chemical plant fire... PLUS: End of an era as Britain's last coal-fired power plant shuts down... and much, MUCH more! ...

Yikes. Busy day on The BradCast. Including some remarkable breaking news, both good and bad, throughout the hour. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among the many stories, breaking and otherwise, on today's program...

• When the show began, the monster Hurricane Helene, barrelling toward a direct landfall near Tallahassee and the Big Bend region of Florida's panhandle, was already a dangerous Category 3. By show's end, it had become a terrifying Cat 4. As disturbingly, the storm began the day as a Cat 1! Thanks to record warm Gulf waters caused by man-made global warming, we have yet another case of deadly, rapid intensification for this storm. Experts also warn of an "unsurvivable" 20-foot storm surge on the Gulf Coast. The dangers beyond Florida, in already soaked southeastern states, are also quite serious and severe in the days ahead.

• After what Trump Republicans describe as Joe Biden's supposedly "weaponized" Department of Justice indicted and/or convicted Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (NJ), Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar (TX), and the President's own son Hunter Biden (twice) over the past year, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment on Thursday against NYC's Democratic Mayor Eric Adams. The Mayor, who says he will not resign, was charged on five counts related to corruption on behalf of Turkey. If the Biden's federal government has been "weaponized" against Republicans, they sure have poor aim!

• But, you know who was actually very good at weaponizing the federal government against his political enemies? Yup, Donald Trump, as a deep dive from the NYTimes' Michael Schmidt (free link) detailed over the past weekend. Time and again, during his years in office, then President Trump demanded --- and often got --- criminal and civil investigations by DoJ and highly unusual and invasive audits by the IRS against his perceived political enemies, many of whom, if they worked in the government, were also improperly fired. Schmidt also summarizes (free link) how Trump unleashed his government against such perceived enemies as F.B.I Director James Comey and other senior FBI officials; Hilary Clinton and her 2016 campaign; Obama's Sec. of State John Kerry; his own attorney Michael Cohen; News organizations and reporters at CNN, WaPo and NYT; his own National Security Adviser John Bolton; and many others. And, as Schmidt reminds us, Trump has already stated this month that he plans to do it again if elected to another term.

• Looks like its a big day for corrupt NYC Mayors! Today the D.C. Court of Appeals permanently disbarred former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, after New York state also permanently revoked his license to practice law earlier this Summer. The disbarments are related to the disgraced former Mayor and federal proseuctor's false legal filings claiming election fraud, without actual evidence, following the 2020 election on behalf of the loser Donald Trump.

• In related news, even as jury selection was underway in a major defamation trial in Delaware pitting voting machine vendor Smartmatic against the rightwing propaganda outlet known as Newsmax, a last minute, still-confidential settlement was struck between the parties. As CNN reports today, "The settlement is the latest in a string of 2020 election defamation cases to reach an out-of-court agreement before trial. Fox News famously settled with Dominion Voting Systems last year for a record $787 million, and the far-right channel One America News settled with Smartmatic earlier this year." They also note that "Newsmax still faces a separate defamation lawsuit over similar claims that was filed by Dominion." As referenced during the show, here is one of BRAD BLOG's exclusive investigative reports from 2010 that disgraced former Trump attorney Sidney Powell cited (and bastardized) as part of her defamatory allegations against both Smartmatic and Dominion, as subsequently echoed by all the rightwing fake news outlets and discredited and now disbarred yutzes like Giuliani.

• Finally, as the deadly Hurricane Helene speeds toward Florida, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report, with news on both that storm and Hurricane John (which continues to pound Mexico); how global warming has made all of these storms much worse; and Joe Biden's promotion of climate action at both Climate Week in NYC and his final address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Massive Hurricane Helene menaces Florida; Global warming doubled the odds of Central Europe's catastrophic flooding; PLUS: Biden promotes climate action at his final U.N. address and at Climate Week, but warns success is fragile... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): America's climate and economy are on the ballot; Hurricanes have changed. The way we prepare for them should, too; As Galveston faces rapid sea level rise, developers are building new condos; Extreme weather has a surprising impact on voters' attitudes about climate change; Another train car leaked dangerous chemicals in Ohio. Here's what to know; Cattle burn as 'monster' wildfires rage in Argentina ranchlands... PLUS: Global solar growth is on track for another record-breaking year... and much, MUCH more! ...

The stakes seem high enough on every level that it remains remarkable, as we muse at one point on today's BradCast, that mainstream corporate media barely mentions, much less reports on any of it. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Kamala Harris has clawed back a lot of ground that voters were initially giving to Donald Trump when it came to the question of who they trusted most to handle the economy. Recent polling finds the two largely tied on the issue, despite the fact that, under the Biden-Harris Administration, GDP is at record highs, unemployment at 50-year lows, there has been record job creation (above and beyond the restoration of jobs lost during the pandemic), middle-class wages are rising substantively for the first time in decades, inflation is largely back to pre-pandemic levels, interest rates are finally being lowered by the Fed, energy prices are dropping and major Wall Street indexes continue to meet and beat all-time record highs.

Sounds like a pretty good economy. You'd think the incumbent Administration might be rewarded for it. But, oh, well. Trump says nobody can afford to buy back anymore. So there's that.

Harris has already put forward a host of new economic proposals [PDF] in her campaign, including $6,000 child tax credits for families with newborns; $25,000 to help first-time home buyers afford down payments; increasing the amount that new, small businesses can deduct for startup costs from $5,000 to $50,000. She detailed still more plans for what she describes as her "Opportunity Economy" in Pittsburgh today.

By way of contrast, Trump wants to give another trillion dollar tax break to the wealthy and huge corporations, institute and enormous national sales tax for consumers on all imported goods, adopt some gimmicky, ill-defined schemes such as "No Tax on Tips" (which Harris favors as well) and otherwise "Drill, Baby, Drill" to pay for it all (even though oil and gas drilling, for good or ill, is already at record highs under Biden-Harris). I'd link to those proposals but they don't appear to be detailed anywhere, other than, perhaps, in Project 2025.

Corporate mainstream media does a lousy job of highlighting economic facts and the starkly different visions of the candidates. But they do an even worse job when it comes to educating the electorate about some of the landmark legislation that the Administration was able to get through extraordinarily narrow Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, all of which are transformational for the American economy, American jobs and the global climate.

The poorly-named bill called the Inflation Reduction Act, while including some measures for lower inflation, is also the largest ever single investment in climate action in world history, clocking in at as much as $1.2 trillion in size. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, offers about $500 billion to upgrade our rail and road systems, build out a national EV charging network, upgrade the electric grid and much more. The CHIPS and Science Act authorizes $280 to onshore manufacturing factories and jobs in high-tech industries. All of which, though they are just barely getting started, will amount to millions of new jobs and a cleaner, renewable, electrified future that will slash global warming emissions in half by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050...if they stay on the current trajectory.

Trump has promised to end that trajectory and kill as many of those programs as possible, despite the cost to the economy, jobs and a livable climate for all.

We're joined today by RYAN COOPER, Executive Editor of The American Prospect, to discuss the economic and climate stakes of this year's election, as he recently reported on for The Prospect, as our two potential futures are now starkly divergent, with trillions of dollars, millions of jobs (in all 50 states) and a clean, renewable energy future hanging in the balance.

As Cooper explains at The Prospect, a recent independent analysis comparing best-case scenarios for Harris versus Trump and his Project 2025 plan find that by 2020, "she would actually beat the 50 percent emissions reduction target slightly (and hit net zero by 2050), add 2.2 million jobs, save $7.7 billion in yearly household energy costs, increase GDP by $450 billion per year, and prevent 3,900 early deaths from air pollution."

"For Trump, they estimated that by 2030, he would stall out emission cuts (meaning an increase relative to Harris by 1.75 billion metric tons [of climate choking emissions] per year), destroy 1.7 million jobs, increase household energy spending by $32 billion, decrease GDP by $320 billion per year, and increase early deaths caused by air pollution by 2,100."

And yet, according to pre-election polling, the two candidates are largely tied when it comes to who voters believe will best handle the economy!

Cooper says blame not only falls on mainstream corporate media, but on Democrats who "really haven't been selling" their climate and economic agenda. Also, he tells me, I may be "imagining a much more rational and grounded political party in the Republicans than actually exists. This is a cult of personality," he emphasizes, with members who are "brain-poisoned" at this point. Despite the "overwhelming popularity" of federal government programs that help assure clean air and water, "the idea that [millions of renewable energy and manufacturing] jobs are going to cause a realignment among Republicans against liberal, clean energy, Toyota Prius-type stuff, is somewhat wishful thinking. Maybe in five or ten years it may be a different story."

These are, in fact, enormous, economy-shifting projects that take time to fully play out and integrate into society and the American psyche. "Under Biden, only about 17 percent of the $1.6 trillion authorized in his climate bills and the American Rescue Plan had gotten out the door as of this April," Cooper reports at The Prospect. "More has been done since then, but much more remains."

Despite those obstacles, the media really are failing to educate the electorate on this, failing to explain the extraordinary breadth of the Biden-Harris climate achievements which would likely be exceedingly popular if Americans fully understood them. "Nobody wants their air and water polluted outside of hard-core 'rolling coal' truck owners. Nobody wants to give their kid brain cancer so a chemical company can make more money," Cooper says, chalking up much of the lack of understanding among the electorate to "the incredibly biased information space in political media. Ordinary people are just not hearing about this stuff. When you tell swing voter panels about this stuff, most of them refuse to believe you!"

"We are talking about the industries of the 21st century," he stresses. "The whole world is re-gearing everything around renewable energy --- the cheapest energy in most of the world that has ever been produced. The whole industrial supply chain, everything, how we live, is being transformed. It's significant. I think it will be seen as the Industrial Revolution was."

True. Unless America elects Donald Trump, who has promised to gut it all. There is much more worth tuning in for in my conversation with Cooper today.

ALSO TODAY... Speaking of Trump's Project 2025, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) explains how Team Trump's promise to "dismantle the administrative state” includes dismantling and/or privatizing dozens of federal agencies, putting as many as one million jobs at risk; Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) cites the menace of Project 2025 in a U.S. House subcommittee hearing on whistleblowers today; And Jason Kravits wraps it all together in a brilliant Schoolhouse Rock-style satirical tune to end today's BradCast on a high note...

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We continue our laser focus on the track conditions for the 2024 horse race on today's BradCast, with somewhat better than usual news in a couple of different states. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our many stories covered on today's program...

• Hurricane John made landfall on the west coast of Mexico overnight, after spinning up from a tropical storm to a full-on Cat 3 in a single day, before blowing ashore. That, thanks to the storm's rapid intensification over record warm waters due to climate change. With that ominous note, Tropical Storm Helene, currently in the Caribbean, is also spinning up quickly over record warm waters and could soon become a very large and very dangerous hurricane as it guns for landfall along Florida's Gulf Coast by Thursday night.

• It looks like the threat is over in Nebraska for now. As we reported last week, Republican lawmakers in the state --- one of just two which divvy up Electoral College votes by Congressional district, rather than winner-take-all --- were being hard-pressed by Team Trump to change the way the state apportions electoral votes before November's election, just six weeks away. Kamala Harris' "Blue Wall" strategy of reaching the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House by carrying battlegrounds Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania along with the other traditionally "blue" states, requires that she also win the one single Congressional district around Omaha, as Joe Biden did in 2020. It is, as a grassroots campaign in the district characterizes it, a "blue dot" in an otherwise very "red" state. Nebraska's Republican Governor said last week that he would be willing to call a special session of the state legislature to change the 30-year old law for apportioning electoral votes to advantage Trump, if Republican lawmakers had the votes to do it. On Monday, however, a former Democratic state Senator turned Republican announced he would vote against the scheme, all but killing the possibility for now, according to the Governor today. As we discuss, however, that Omaha Senator may have had ulterior motives above and beyond his seemingly altruistic decision to simply do the right thing for democracy.

• Good news late last week out of Arizona as well! Some 98,000 registered voters will not be blocked from voting in state and local elections and ballot measures this year. That, after a unanimous ruling from the state's Supreme Court on Friday. Republicans in the state have been working for years --- decades, in fact --- to purge voters from the rolls who failed to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote. There are a bunch of good reasons that registrants wouldn't have done so. (For example, if they registered prior to the state's 2004 requirement, or registered via the National Voter Registration Form which does not inform Arizona voters that proof of citizenship documents are required to vote.) But, last week, when the state announced that, thanks to a newly discovered glitch in the state registration database, nearly 100,000 voters were on the rolls without having submitted proof of citizenship --- due to some confusion with how the state motor vehicle office renews driver's licenses --- the matter ended up at the state Supreme Court. And, shockingly, the AZ Republican Party in this case, in a remarkable flip-flop from years of advocacy to the contrary, argued to keep those voters on the rolls! Why? Well, as it turns out, the voters in question, according to the state's Democratic Sec. of State (who also argued to allow the voters to remain fully registered), there were about 10,000 more Republicans on the list of voters than Democrats. Apparently, the GOP isn't that concerned about non-citizens voting after all --- as long as they're registered as Republicans. (Please note: Despite years of attempts by Republicans to mandate citizenship documentation or demand the purging of potential non-citizen voters, they have failed to offer evidence that more than a miniscule handful of non-citizens are actually registered to vote, much less actually voting in U.S. elections.)

• The only way to vote that is more dangerous and less publicly overseeable than touchscreen voting is Internet Voting. And, yet, as much as cybersecurity and voting system experts advocate strongly against it, more and more states are allowing online voting for overseas citizens and military voters. One such state, apparently, is Montana, whose online voting system was opened for the 2024 election on Friday. It took only a few hours, it seems, before one voter noticed that Kamala Harris' name wasn't on the ballot in the Presidential race.

• Joe Biden gave his final address as President of the United States to the U.N. General Assembly today. We're happy to share a few excerpts from his remarks on the need for the world to come together to end wars, take on the climate crisis, safeguard against the dangers of artificial intelligence and protect democracy...among other things.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as Climate Week kicks off in New York along with the U.N. General Assembly; Microsoft announces plans to reopen Three Mile Island, the site of the nation's worst nuclear accident, to power its Artificial Intelligence program; and California's Attorney General files a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against ExxonMobil for their decades of lies about the viability of plastic recycling...

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I don't know if they're gonna lose or not. But, as we report on today's busy BradCast, the disgraced former President and his Republican party this week sure do have the stench of losers on them. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among our many stories covered today...

• Breaking just before air time: Turns out North Carolina's Trump-endorsed freak show Republican Lt. Gov and gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson is even more of a freak show than previously known. And, by his own words on a porn site he frequented for many years, a "black NAZI!". Good luck this November in NC, Republicans!

• Stock market hits record highs today after the Fed lowered interest rates Wednesday more than expected, signaling post-pandemic inflation is back under control. Donald Trump's failing media company, however, which trades as DJT, hits record lows today and still appears to be on track to become a penny stock by November 5.

• The already terrible situation in the Middle East gets worse, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds news ways to keep the war(s) going to keep himself out of prison.

• House Republicans and Donald Trump stay on track to cause another government shutdown at the end of this month, just before the election, after House Speaker Mike Johnson's dead-on-arrival scheme, on behalf of Trump, to demand a new law to prevent already-unlawful non-citizen voting fails to get the support needed for passage from Republicans.

• J.D. Vance continues Trump's lies about "illegal" migrants taking over Springfield, Ohio. They're not "illegal". Trump, as President, gave them legal protected status. Vance says he gonna call them "illegal" anyway, as the Republican Mayor of the now-terrorized town begs them to knock it off, asking for "help not hate".

• New polling continues to look good for Kamala Harris in swing states. But the Democrats "Blue Wall" strategy of winning the White House by winning Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania --- along with all of the other traditionally "blue" states --- could hit a snag if Team Trump's newly reignited scheme, reportedly now being led up by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Pathetic) is successful. This week Graham was in Nebraska meeting with the state's Republican Governor and members of the legislature, encouraging them to call a special legislative session to change the way the state divvies up Electoral College votes.

  Currently, NE is one of just two states, along with Maine, that apportions Electoral College votes by U.S. House District. That means Harris is likely to win one of the state's votes, in the Omaha district, in the otherwise very "red" state. But Team Trump wants the state to change the law to move to a winner-take-all system just weeks before the election (and just 10 days before vote-by-mail voting begins!) in hopes of a scenario where, even if the Democrats' three-state Blue Wall strategy is successful, the Electoral College end in a 269-269 tie with NE's 2nd Congressional District vote given to Trump instead of Harris. That would send the decision of who will become the next President to the U.S. House, where the vote would be by state delegation, where Republicans are likely to hold a controlling majority even if Democrats win the House back in November.

  If this insane-but-theoretically-plausible scenario proceeds as Team Trump desperately hopes, however, Democrats may still have an ace in the hole...in Maine.

• A government watchdog group gets a hold of to emails among Georgia election denialists serving as county election officials, detailing their conversations about plans to block certification of 2024 election results in the Peach State if it looks like Donald Trump is going to lose it again.

• Texas' wildly corrupt Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing county election officials in state court to prevent them from sending voter registration forms to eligible but unregistered voters in several different Democratic-leaning Counties. The Counties are now, in turn, suing Paxton in federal court, charging his efforts amount to voter suppression in violation of longstanding federal laws.

• While the Lone Star State is busy suing its own election officials for daring to register voters, here in California, state lawmakers have passed a law, SB 299, to make the state's current automatic voter registration system even more automatic, potentially enabling the ability to vote for an additional 4.7 million eligible but currently unregistered voters. Politics Girl does the heavy lifting for us today. You can get more details from the grassroots coalition of more than 140 groups supporting the measure right here.

• Finally, at the end of a busy show, Desi Doyen joins us form our latest busy Green News Report, as the climate crisis rapidly worsens around the globe, despite new U.N. warnings; North Carolina estimates damage from a brutal, sudden tropical storm this week will top $7 billion; and as a new study finds Joe Biden's air pollution policies will save some 200,000 lives in the U.S...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.N. weather agency warns the world is not moving fast enough to avert climate chaos...which may already be here; North Carolina storm damage estimated to top $7 billion; PLUS: New study finds Biden's climate policies will save 200,000 lives from toxic air pollution... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): A Vote for reality: Scientific American endorses Harris; Scientists warn 70% of the world’s population to see rapid increase in 'unprecedented' weather; Biden Admin spending climate cash fast, as Trump threatens to cancel it; EPA scientists said they were pressured to downplay harms from chemicals. A watchdog found they were retaliated against; The Gulf Coast is sinking, making hurricanes like Francine even more dangerous; Norway's electric cars outnumber petrol for first time in 'historic milestone'... PLUS: Hundreds of elephants to be killed in Zimbabwe and Namibia as food and water resources run dry... and much, MUCH more! ...

I think we've got a humdinger for ya on today's BradCast. At least if you, like me, are still scratching your head every day as to why --- after all these years and all we now know about the disgraced former President and cognitively declining convicted criminal, and after last week's crushing debate defeat --- about a half of the nation's voters are still supporting this guy. Yes, his supporters are even out here in theoretically "liberal" Southern California, as our callers demonstrate today! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

First, we catch up a bit on some of the weekend's news, including the little that is currently known about the second attempted assassination of Donald Trump at one of his golf courses on Sunday; the many lies Trump told about immigration, the economy and wildfires during an appearance out here in Los Angeles on Friday (when he threatened to let the state burn to the ground if California Gov. Gavin Newsom --- who he called "Newscum" --- refused to do Trump's bidding if he becomes President again); and as Trump ignored and exacerbated the number of bomb and terror threats now being made against the residents of Springfield, Ohio.

After nearly a full week of Trump (and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance) making false claims that Haitian immigrants in the town are "illegally" there --- (They aren't. Both President Biden and then President Trump granted them the right to be there under a 1952 law) --- and that they are eating the dog and cat pets of other residents, Trump continues to double-down and make things even more perilous for the folks of Springfield, both old and new.

The Ku Klux Klan and other neo-Nazis have now descended on the town. The state's Republican Governor Mike DeWine has decried the rhetoric and false claims by Trump and Vance as "disgusting". The woman who made the initial Facebook claim, highlighted by Vance, about a neighbor's cat disappearing has admitted she had no first-hand knowledge and says she regrets her post. And the city has had to shut down or lock down city hall, elementary schools, college campuses and hospital facilities over the past week, thanks to Trump supporters threatening political violence.

Despite all of that, Trump had the temerity on Sunday night to blame the "rhetoric" of Biden and Harris for a mentally unstable guy's failed attempt to shoot the former President at one of his Florida golf courses. While both Biden and Harris immediately condemned the thwarted attack, noting "there is no place for political violence in America", Trump charged that it was the President and Vice President's words that that has put HIM In danger. He went so far as to tell Fox "News" that it was "their rhetoric [that is] causing me to be shot at," in the same breath that he charged they "are destroying the country --- from both the inside and out."

So, with all that we know about this guy, how can it be that he is still largely neck and neck with Kamala Harris in pre-election polling just 50 days out from this year's critical election?!

I thought I'd open the phones today specifically to Trump supporters (and, yes, we have them here in Southern California) to answer that question, by inviting them to let us know why they are still on board with him. They don't get a free pass. I challenge them a bit, but let them explain themselves in the bargain.

And, yup, if we can believe the very first caller, "Luther," who says he is from Arkansas, it is for at least one of the very worst reasons you can possibly imagine. You'll decide if he's for real or not. He was rather convincing. But the callers that followed didn't necessarily have much better reasons for their support of this guy.

Anyway, you'll be the judge. And I welcome your comments in response. Give it a listen. I think you'll "enjoy" today's program...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Presidential debate focused on fracking and energy politics, but climate change got short shrift as fires rage in the U.S. West and Hurricane Francine slams into Louisiana... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Why can't we just tell the truth about fossil fuels?; Levels of potent warming gas methane soar, and people are mostly to blame; Amazon’s shipping and delivery emissions just keep going up; California, Nevada face 'dangerous situation' from fires, officials warn; Extremists keep trying to sabotage the electric grid. What if they succeed?; Girls may be starting puberty earlier due to chemical exposure: study; What happens to the environment and health regulations Biden will leave unfinished?... PLUS: US cave system’s bats and insects face existential threat: discarded Cheetos... and much, MUCH more! ...

I must try and keep today's BradCast summary short to finish up in time to watch tonight's Presidential Debate (which we will be covering in detail on tomorrow's program, natch.) [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We start off with breaking news out of Missouri, where the state's Supreme Court has overturned a lower court ruling that had blocked an abortion rights measure from appearing on this November's ballot. Now the measure --- enshrining the right into the state Constitution, if approved by voters-- will be on the ballot this year in the Show-Me State, along with about eight others, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and South Dakota. That news is likely good for Democrats, who support the freedom for women and their doctors to determine their own medical procedures, and bad news for Big Government Republicans who don't. In the seven states where voters have been allowed to ring on reproductive rights since the corrupted SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, all of them have sided with freedom, even the normally "deep red" states.

NEXT... We cover another right being attacked by Republicans, of late: the right to vote. In this case, the right for former felons in Nebraska, who have fully completed their sentences, including parole, probation and restitution, to register and participate as voters.

Back in 2005, the state adopted a law allowing former felons the right to register and vote following a two-year waiting period after completion of their criminal sentences. Tens of thousands were immediately re-enfranchised. Earlier this year, in April, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of the state legislature, the two-year waiting period was removed. But in mid-July, just two days before the new law was to take effect, and advocates were gearing up to let folks know about it, the state's Republican Attorney General, Mike Hilgers, issued an advisory opinion that the new state law was unconstitutional and so was the twenty-year old measure adopted back in 2005! Furthermore, the state's Republican Sec. of State, Bob Evnen, used that opinion to notify election officials that registration for all former felons must immediately cease!

Voting rights advocates sued and the state Supreme Court is set to hear the case this week. In the meantime, however, chaos has ensued in the state, with former felons uncertain whether they can vote or even register to vote this year. Many, according to my guest today, journalist ALEX BURNESS of Bolts Mag, who recently penned an excellent deep dive article on this mess, are now afraid to register or vote at all, for fear of being sent back to jail for it. That, Burness explains, is largely the point of all of this.

Adding to all of it, as we discuss, is the fact that the Nebraska --- which is mostly a "red" state --- is one of just two that split up its Electoral Votes according to U.S. House Districts, rather than simply winner-take-all. This year, that means that, if Kamala Harris is able to win in all of the so-called Blue Wall States (MI, WI and PA) and all of the traditionally Democratic ones, she would wind up with exactly the 270 needed to win the White House...presuming she also wins the one electoral vote from Nebraska's 2nd District, which leans "blue". Tens of thousands of disenfranchised voters, however --- or, even just fearful ones --- in Omaha, could decide the Presidency this year.

"If you wanted to skew the electorate --- even by a few thousand votes in what could be a very close 2nd Congressional District, that could literally decide the presidency --- if you were looking for levers you could pull at this late hour, that's one of them," Burness tells me. "In fact, it's a very good one."

There is much more to discuss on all of these points with Burness today, including the outrage of using a Jim Crow-era law to suppress the vote in 2024, and the irony that 34-time convicted felon Donald Trump is allowed to run for President of the United States, even while former felons who have served all their time are being prevented from even voting for or against him. A similar outrage is underway in a number of other GOP-controlled states, including Mississippi as Burness recently reported, this year.

THEN... We answer some very smart --- and, even, moving --- listener mail, including a snail mail letter we recently received, if you can believe it!

And FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with coverage of the extreme heat and wildfires broiling California and elsewhere in the Western U.S., even as Hurricane Florence spins up seemingly overnight in the Gulf of Mexico, where it is now threatening Texas and Louisiana, including, potentially, New Orleans...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The planet just lived through the hottest summer ever recorded --- again; Extreme heat and wildfires broil the U.S. West, as storm Francine threatens the U.S. Gulf Coast; PLUS: State Ag Commissioner warns parts of Texas are running out of water... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Debate Night! Hot Hot Hot; 1 in 4 U.S. homeowners is financially unprepared for costs of extreme weather, report finds; How Trump could turn a $400 billion Green Bank into a fossil fuel lender; Solar farms look to produce more than power: pollinator-friendly habitat; Planes, trains and monster diggers: The vehicles pushing the limits of electric power ... PLUS: Conservative activist Leonard Leo launches $1 billion crusade to 'crush' liberal media... and much, MUCH more! ...

"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...

Yup. We're back! And we've got lots to begin getting caught up with on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among the many stories reported and discussed on today's program...

• Donald Trump's recent flip-flops on abortion, pandering on IVF and his desecration of Arlington Cemetery for political purposes. (By the way, Dems should embrace Trump's pandering promise to have the Government pay for anyone's fertility treatments. It's the GOP's first baby step toward universal healthcare/Medicare-for-All after all! Sounds great! Hold them to it!)

• More than 10,000 hotel workers celebrated Labor Day by going on strike for better wages and working conditions across the U.S. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden campaigned together, speaking to a packed house of union workers in Pittsburgh on Labor Day, touting the most pro-union, jobs-creating Admin in history and promised to continue it under a Harris-Walz Administration. Trump, apparently unable to find any union workers who wanted to hear from him, stayed home yesterday.

• More than a hundred thousand demonstrators took to the streets in Israel to protest against their far-right Benjamin Netanyahu-led government, demanding a deal for a cease-fire and the release of hostages in Gaza, after six of them were found dead in a tunnel beneath Rafah on Sunday. Twenty-three year old Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin was among those found dead, just days after his parents spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, calling for a cease-fire and the release of more than 100 hostages who remain in Hamas custody following their horrific attack on Israel last October. As we have been arguing for months, however --- and as Israeli protesters are noted as mentioning in this Guardian piece --- Prime Minister Netanyahu is unlikely to ever agree to a deal that would effectively end Israel's war on Gaza, because it would also result in the end of his governing coalition. After that, he will have to face corruption charges filed against him from which he is currently immune...as long as he remains Prime Minister. If all of that sounds like a deal that Donald Trump hopes to win for himself in November, you are right. Tune in for much more on all of this today.

• Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Russia launched another deadly, long-range missile assault on Ukraine, this time on a military academy and nearby hospital. More than 50 were killed, more than 200 wounded. That as Ukraine has finally taken possession of land inside Russia's Kursk region, including some 500 square miles along the Ukrainian border, and continues to plead with the U.S. and Europe to send weapons to help them defend themselves against the two-and-half-year onslaught by its imperialistic Russian neighbor.

• Massachusetts is holding its Congressional and state legislative primaries today, just days after its Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin warned residents in the state about scam text messages being sent to some voters, falsely telling them that they are ineligible to vote. It is just one of the many dirty tricks we will be seeing between now and Election Day, the period of time that I am calling PHASE 1 of this year's general elections.

• And, speaking of, Labor Day is a good moment to mark where things are in the horse race toward Election Day, following the unprecedented plot-twist of the last 6 weeks following Kamala Harris taking over at the top of the ticket. She has surged in the polling averages against Donald Trump --- particularly in the seven critical battleground states --- since then. But, she remains just barely ahead of Trump in the states she most needs to win. Her slim lead nationally and in the most critical battleground states she would need to get to 270 electoral votes, in a system that advantages Republicans, has resulted in, as Politico colorfully describes it today, "the equivalent of a knife fight in a phone booth."

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us today to begin catching up on much that we missed in climate and environmental news after being off just one week, including the role of climate action in the 2024 contest; new data on deadly extreme heat in the U.S.; China meeting its renewable electricity targets six years early; and the Klamath River, now finally running free again along the California/Oregon border after being dammed up for more than 100 years!...

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