On today's BradCast: In case it wasn't clear until now, the stakes for November's midterms couldn't be higher --- for the nation and for the planet --- leading to what might be a difficult choice for some voters. At this point, however, at least in my opinion --- as discussed at the opening of thd show today --- the choices are not difficult at all. [Audio link to show follows below.]

It's now official. Judge Brett Kavanaugh --- alleged sexual assaulter and demonstrably repeated perjurer --- is now Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the U.S. Supreme Court. That means that all five serving Republican appointees on the (currently) nine-person Court, serve under one cloud of illegitimacy or another. That said, while there are ways to reverse the terrifying course the nation (and planet) are now on --- including a difficult path towards restoring a majority to the stolen Court that might actually represent the majority of the country --- it will be neither easy nor painless. Nonetheless, the first major step on that path is the November 6th, 2018 midterm elections less than one month away, and now more crucial than ever.

As if another violent reminder of dangers that now lie ahead, Hurricane Michael is now barreling toward the Florida Gulf Coast, threatening to make landfall in the next day or two, and the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a chilling new report on Monday, warning the worst effects of global warming are now set to arrive far sooner than previously predicted by the conservative scientific body. The new report details, among other things, the enormous contrast in impacts based on the half of a degree Celsius difference between holding the earth's warming to 1.5 degrees over pre-industrial times versus the 2 degrees or more where we are almost certainly headed unless very serious changes --- with "no documented historic precedent" --- are made by civilization, very quickly over the next 10 years. Are the corporate media up to the task of covering this? Much less civilization doing what is now needed?

With all of that (and much more) at stake, we are joined today by the inimitable BOB KINCAID of West Virginia's Coal River Mountain Watch and the Head-On Radio Network (HORN) to discuss WV Senator Joe Manchin's weekend vote in favor of Kavanaugh. He was the only Democratic Senator to do so, despite the nearly 10 point average lead he currently enjoys over his Republican re-election opponent in pre-election polling. Specifically, we focus on why Manchin voted the way he did and, more importantly, the difficult choice that voters like Kincaid now face in choosing between the barely Democratic Senator and his far-right, Trump-endorsed challenger Pat Morrissey.

With hopes of regaining control of one or both houses of Congress now the only way to begin putting the brakes on our Trump/GOP-inflicted national emergency, will progressives be able to hold their nose and vote for some candidates who they would never have even considered voting for during a primary season in which the Democratic Party was finally forced, at least a little bit, towards the progressive left? It's a question that many progressives --- not just in West Virginia --- will now have to seriously ask themselves before November, with many less-than-perfect Democrats on the ballot, but the very fate of the Republic and the planet now clearly on the line.

"Joe Manchin is a 'pro-life' Democrat from way back, going way back to when he was just a little, bitty, grasping, ambition-driven state senator," Kincaid argues, charging that both he and Kavanaugh are hard-core Roman Catholics" and that "He voted the Church doctrine. It's just clear as day."

Kincaid, who comes from generations of WV coal miners, is nonetheless a dyed-in-the-wool progressive who, on previous appearances on the show, has both strongly criticized Manchin and explained how difficult it would be to even consider voting for him in the midterm. The last time Kincaid was on, back in April, he described Manchin thusly: "This is really difficult for me, because Joe's a Democrat the way I'm Neptune, Lord of the Deep. Ya know, not at all."

Today, he says, for those who wonder how Manchin could "dismiss the experiences and the suffering of so many women and vote for a guy credibly accused of sexual assault? Let me explain to you: Joe Manchin has sat around for at least eight years, fully knowing what the toxic consequences are of mountaintop removal on babies in the womb, pregnant mothers, grandmothers, grandsons, sons, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, possums, everything. He has known that it poisons his own constituents, kills his own constituents, and yet he has slavishly continued to support that practice and ignored every bit of the science around it." He adds that "We have about a thousand deaths a year in the counties in West Virginia where mountaintop removal is practiced."

"I say all that," he tells me, "hoping that people will understand that I do not come to a decision about Joe Manchin lightly. I would not trust Joe Manchin with the carcass of a run-over skunk."

So, with the stakes now as high as they are, does he still find himself unable to vote for Manchin? And what of other progressives who may still believe that sitting this one out or voting "third party" or staying home instead of voting is the only way to cleanse the Democratic Party of its overly-conservative, overly-corporatist establishment? Please tune in for this important conversation with Kincaid today, that, he says, "he spent a long time thinking about" after he and I had a private discussion over the weekend, begging the question: "Do I vote as an American first, or a West Virginian first?"

Please listen to today's show and let me know, in comments below, how you feel about either his points or mine.

Finally, as voter registration deadlines end this week in more than a third of the states, the disturbingly high purge rates of voting rolls in a number of them continues. Particularly of concern are states with a history of racial discrimination at the polling place, who --- until the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013 --- had been required to receive preclearance from the federal government for such purges. A new list of purged GA voters has finally been obtained by reporter Greg Palast, who has created a searchable database for hundreds of thousands of purged GA voters, but the deadline to re-register is Tuesday. And the lists from other states are not as easily accessible. Please go to your state and/or county website to register or check your status as soon --- and as often --- as possible between now and November 6th! Yes, the fate of the planet now rests on it...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Florence clocked in as the second wettest storm in US history; North Carolina now grappling with outbreak of giant mosquitoes; Trump Administration using catastrophic climate change to justify rolling back fuel efficiency standards; PLUS: French president calls on UN to reject trade deals with any country not in the Paris Climate Agreement... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump Administration prepares a major weakening of mercury emissions rules; No one knows what would happen if mosquitoes were to disappear; Republican Congress allows parks program to expire over the weekend; NAFTA 2.0 avoids 'climate change,' talks ozone, air and sea pollution; Across the Arctic, lakes are leaking dangerous greenhouse gases, and one lake is behaving very strangely; Federal court again upholds state nuclear subsidies; U.S. Supreme Court keeps ban on new uranium mining at Grand Canyon; EPA chief defends rule rollbacks while at children’s health event; Scientists uncover genetic basis for toxic algal blooms... PLUS: Supreme Court rejects California billionaire's 'private beach' case... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: It's National Voter Registration Day as the crucial midterm general elections on November 6th are now exactly 6 weeks away. Other than that, today's news may be somewhat less encouraging --- though we, and the world, manage to have a bit of a laugh at Donald Trump's expense, in the bargain. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up: Happy National Voter Registration Day! Do you need to register to vote before November 6th? Have you checked your registration lately to make sure it's accurate? Today is a great day to do so!

Today is also a great day, apparently, for the world to laugh at the President of the United States, as they literally did at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. Not with Donald Trump, but at him, during his address to the Assembly.

While there, during a joint media avail with the President of Colombia, Trump also took the time to attack the two named women who have accused his U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, of sexual assault during high school and his first year at Yale. Trump also dismissed the allegations as little more than "a con game being played by the Democrats." That, even as new information continues to buttress the allegations by the women and as the calls grow louder (even from Mormon women) for a full, legitimate investigation of their charges, which the White House and Republicans refuse to ask the FBI for (and which even potential Kavanaugh swing vote Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) now says she'd like to see.)

Meanwhile, Kavanaugh, a longtime GOP operative who claimed during his initial Senate confirmation hearings just weeks weeks ago that "the Supreme Court must never be viewed as a partisan institution", took to the right-wing Fox 'News' air waves on Monday night for a softball interview with his wife, in hopes of defending himself against the growing allegations. He and his first accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, are scheduled to give testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. In advance, the all-white, all-male Republicans on the Committee have announced they are hiring a woman to ask questions of Ford on their behalf, though they won't identify her. They have also now scheduled a committee vote on Kavanaugh's nomination the very next day, on Friday.

At the same time on Thursday, Trump is scheduled to meet at the White House with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the Republican who oversees the Robert Mueller Special Counsel probe into the alleged conspiracy between Team Trump and Russia. The meeting, at which many expect Rosenstein will be fired, follows a misleading exclusive report published by the New York Times charging Rosenstein had suggested secretly taping Trump and recruiting White House staffers to invoke the 25th Amendment early last year. As subsequent reporting by other outlets reveals, however, Rosenstein was reportedly being sarcastic with his comments, according to people who were actually at the meeting in question. Nonetheless, we are still barreling toward a potential Constitutional Crisis as early as Thursday, thanks in no small part to the pretext for firing Rosenstein --- and perhaps Mueller, shortly thereafter --- äs provided by the Times' reporting.

We're joined today by former Media Matters media critic, author and political writer ERIC BOEHLERT of ShareBlue to discuss both of these stories and where they may be headed, as well as for some insight into what the hell is wrong with the New York Times.

On the Supreme Court, Boehlert says, among many things of note today: "With Merrick Garland, and with Kavanaugh, the Republican Party in 18 months is this close to demolishing the legitimacy of the United States Supreme Court. That has huge implications, not just for law and justice, but for an authoritarian like Trump. Because corrupting the high courts is always a goal of any authoritarian, just like de-legitimizing the free press."

As to his analysis of the "institutional problems" at the Times, you'll have to tune in for details, but he notes: "There does seem to be a pattern. When they get things wrong, they get things wrong in a way that helps Republicans."

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the impacts of Hurricane Florence continue in the Carolinas two weeks after landfall, including new evacuations, more record flooding, the toxic release of coal ash into North Carolina waters, and the media failure to connect the climate change dots to all of it. She also offers a bit of good news for us today, for a change, out of Cleveland, OH! So there's that!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The impacts of Hurricane Florence ain't over yet, with new evacuations underway; As predicted, Florence flooding spills toxic coal ash waste in North Carolina; National TV media failed to connect the dots between Florence's impacts and climate change; PLUS: Endangered species and more hang in the balance as Republicans rush to get their nominee onto the U.S. Supreme Court... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Kavanaugh confirmation fight is also about the future of economic and environmental regulations; At this rate, Earth risks sea level rise of 20 to 30 feet, historical analysis shows; Hurricane Florence blows hole in Trump team's case for helping coal and nuclear power; ARPA-e seeks an energy holy grail: long-term energy storage; Super Typhoon Trami explodes in strength on its way toward Taiwan; Will Florence force a hog waste reckoning in N.C.?; Donald Trump called himself an environmentalist; Federal judge restores grizzly protections, canceling bear hunt; National parks are getting hotter and drier. What’s the outlook for 2100?... PLUS: The fracking industry's water nightmare is coming true... and much, MUCH more! ...

Voting is now officially under way in the 2018 midterm general elections, as Early Voting finally began on Friday in Minnesota and South Dakota and, very shortly, in at least half a dozen other states around the country in advance of Election Day on November 6th. Voting, however, will not be nearly as simple and verifiable for voters in Georgia, as we discuss in some detail on today's BradCast. [Audio link to complete show is posted below.]

Meanwhile, as media continue to focus on the extraordinary allegation of sexual assault against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh (and Trump's new response to them), as made by Palo Alto University psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford, and whether or not she will appear to give testimony about it to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee next week, the continuing danger and toxic fallout from Hurricane Florence continues in both North and South Carolina a full week after the storm first made landfall. An urgent warning Thursday from Duke Energy about the imminent rupture of a giant holding pond reservoir where toxic coal ash waste is stored became a reality on Friday. At the same time, the human death toll from the storm rose to at least 42, with new evacuations called for in South Carolina on Friday due to still-rising rivers as thousands remained dislocated or without power in North Carolina.

Next, we move to the shameful situation in Georgia, just weeks out from the crucial midterm elections, where Sec. of State Brian Kemp --- the Trump-endorsed Republican who is running for Governor this year against Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams --- is allowing inaccurate voter registration forms, falsely instructing first-time voters that they must mail in proof of residence when registering, to be used across the state.

Even more disturbing is the fact that Peach State voters will be forced, once again, to vote on 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems on Election Day, despite a U.S. District Court Judge finding them this week to be "unverifiable" and featuring "serious vulnerabilities" which are "not just a theoretical, paranoid notion at this point," as defendants in the case, including Kemp, had argued in court. Nonetheless, in response to a motion filed by plaintiffs seeking to force the state to allow Election Day voters to use the same hand-marked paper ballots used for absentee voting for years across the state, Judge Amy Totenberg is allowing GA's unsecurable and unverifiable 16-year old Diebold touchscreen voting machines to be used yet again this November. In her ruling [PDF], she cites defendants' claims of "chaos" and forced poll closures they threatened would ensue if hand-marked paper ballots were ordered for use at polling places this year.

We're joined today by longtime Election Integrity advocate and one of the plaintiffs in the GA case, MARILYN MARKS of the Coalition for Good Governance, to discuss this week's ruling and Kemp's disingenuous defense of his indefensible voting systems.

"The defendants put the judge in a very difficult place because they essentially threatened that they would sabotage the election. They didn't really use those words, but they said, 'We're going to shut down early voting locations in Fulton County'. Fulton County [Atlanta] has 21 early voting locations. They said 'We'll go down to three'. In their briefing, they said they'd go down to one. They also said they may close Election Day polling places if she were to require them to go to a paper ballot," Marks tells me. "And so the vast majority of Georgia's voters are going to vote on what the judge has basically said is going to be an unconstitutional system."

"The court was already very well aware of the science, and she was quite aware of the lack of any effort, and lack of any science, and lack of any expert testimony put on by the defendants. So I think that her decision didn't rest on the science. It was this whole threat of chaos."

Moreover, she says, the state has also falsely claimed that counties were required to use the unverifiable touchscreen systems. "The state not only had been saying it was required by state law, but they had threatened the counties who began to recognize it wasn't required by state law, and that the counties, local authorities, have the ability, on their own, to go to paper ballots. The Secretary of State has been threatening them, telling them 'No, you do not have that authority.' They even told the press that they would punish counties that went to paper ballots."

While Marks, who is a Republican herself, reports the multi-partisan plaintiffs are justifiably disappointed in the court's ruling for the short term, she also details several key findings from the ruling which will be important to the continuing efforts both in this case and other federal challenges like it around the country. Among the favorable finding are that plaintiffs do, in fact, have Constitutional standing to challenge such voting systems in federal court, and that "further delay", according to Judge Totenberg, in moving the state to a verifiable voting system after this year's elections, is "not tolerable".

"The important thing here," Marks explains, is that the judge "said that we were likely to prevail on the merits as we move forward in this case, and our claims are related to constitutional claims. And that is what the scholars, the lawyers, the election advocates across the country are recognizing as such a very important finding in the ruling she has made here. That we are likely to prevail in our argument that this is an unconstitutional system, when the voters cannot rely on an auditable, verifiable system."

Marks also explains one moment from the hearing where she said she thought later: "Man, I'm glad Brad isn't here to hear this, or his head would have exploded." My head subsequently explodes when she relays the story and for much of the rest of my interview today.

While Abrams, Kemp's African-American opponent in the Gubernatorial election, is calling for voters to cast hand-marked paper absentee ballots this year to increase the likelihood of them being accurately tallied, Marks explains why she is not certain that is actually a better option for voters in the state. She details the Catch-22 that GA voters are once again facing, not unlike the Catch-22 Judge Totenberg said she found herself in while deciding how to rule on plaintiffs' motion this week.

And again, my head explodes...

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On today's BradCast: While much of the media have turned away from the continuing --- and, in some cases, worsening --- disaster following Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas in order to focus on the fight over the U.S. Supreme Court (which we cover as well today), flood waters continue to rise, along with the storm's immediate death toll, and new toxic threats and emergencies continue to develop.

On the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria's deadly landfall in Puerto Rico --- where some 3,000 U.S. citizens died from the storm and its aftermath --- we're joined by author and disaster historian SCOTT KNOWLES of Drexel University and the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. Knowles says "Trump is wrong," regarding his denial last week of the startling death toll from Maria. He explains the well-established methodology behind its determination, while noting the response "is deeply political. There are winners and losers in the count." Thus, he notes, a similar denial of years of death and disease for first responders after 9/11 and the PTSD suffered by veterans years after wars have ended. "I think we have to talk very clearly and very honestly about the impact of disasters not being confined just to the moment in which they occur."

He offers some of the political and civic history behind focusing on such natural disasters (as Trump and others do) as singular, limited events, not unlike the type of nuclear attack which the federal government set about preparing for in the 1950s and 60s. That work, as Knowles described in a recent New York Times op-ed, gave rise to the birth of social science disaster research. In the 1990s, he explains, that resulted in a "re-think" about what the Federal Emergency Disaster Agency (FEMA) could accomplish under President Bill Clinton, in order to focus on "long term thinking of preparation and community-based preparation" for major disasters, only to see the Agency revert back to its focus on emergency recovery following the 9/11 attacks. "September 11 turned the clock back to 1951," he argues.

As to lessons learned from more recent disasters, such as Hurricanes Harvey and Maria last year and Florence this year, Knowles cites the U.S. construction industry as one of the most politically powerful at the state and local level, helping to ensure that well-understood threats, like those linked to the impacts of global warming, too often take a back seat to commercial development. "The fact is that the most powerful lobby in any statehouse across the country is the construction industry. They call it the 'FIRE sector' --- finance, insurance, and real estate. I call it the 'finance-construction complex.' There are very, very strong, deep-pocketed interests in building, and that's across the country," he tells me. "Those rules are handled almost entirely at the state and local level. So federal policy can change, but it will still have a lot of trouble telling Georgia, the state of North Carolina, the state of South Carolina, what they can and can't allow along the coastline, or in California, what they can and can't allow along a wildfire corridor."

Knowles also sees "an emerging consensus in emergency management" that we are likely to soon see proposed changes to certain disaster warnings and metrics, such as the Saffir-Simpson scale that categorizes hurricanes from 1 to 5. He argues the scale "is now in the way of effective risk communication," as it has become increasing unhelpful and arguably counter-productive for the public in appreciating the real and immediate threats posed by storms in a climate changed world.

"We have to get very serious about the issue of environmental protection and not just acting like disasters are just aberrant things that are only going to happen once in awhile," says Knowles. "The coal ash and the animal waste in North Carolina --- that's a huge environmental nightmare, but you can find a nightmare like that waiting in all fifty states."

Next, an update and a few thoughts on the battle over U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and whether Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexual assault in the 1980s, will testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee next week. Ford's attorney now says she is willing to do so --- though not by the Monday deadline arbitrarily set by Senate Republicans --- presuming "terms that are fair and which ensure her safety." For his part, Judge Kavanaugh has reportedly spent three days this week attending practice sessions at the White House for his response to the Committee. But, if he is completely innocent of the charges as he claims, why is so much practice actually necessary? We discuss.

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for the Green News Report with the latest on the growing toxic toll of Hurricane Florence, the long road of recovery that lies ahead, and this week's announcement by Trump's Interior Department of still more rollbacks to methane regulations, despite the impact of the greenhouse gas on climate change and the natural disasters like Florence that it helps to super charge...

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On today's BradCast: Except for our Florence coverage, it's all about November 6th, including the GOP's rush to seat another alleged sexual predator on the U.S. Supreme Court. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up today, a quick update on the still-ongoing disaster of Hurricane Florence, with the human death toll rising to 37 and the poultry and pork death tolls in the millions, after three feet of rain fell on parts of the Carolinas, thousands remain in shelters, and the environmental disasters --- including toxic human waste and animal waste now streaming into swelling rivers and floodwaters --- may just be beginning.

Next, the reason why Republicans are in such a panic to minimize the allegations of attempted rape by Brett Kavanaugh, their nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, in any way they possibly can in advance of the quickly arriving November 6th midterm elections. That minimization includes avoiding both time and an FBI investigation at any cost. The White House could have already requested one, which Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) insisted was "the very right thing to do" --- at least during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the 1991 sexual harassment allegations by Anita Hill against then-nominee, now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Then, you may recall at the beginning of the year I reported on a strange conversation I had on Twitter with Alabama's Sec. of State John Merrill regarding the state's voting systems, resulting in Merrill blocking me on the social media site. It wasn't the first time Merrill had blocked election experts or journalists or his own constituents. But, even after a federal court later in the year found that Donald Trump was violating the First Amendment rights of his constituents by blocking them on Twitter, Merrill still refused to unblock anybody. A query to his office about that, just before the state's May primary elections, resulted in a bizarre and unhinged exchange via phone and email with the Secretary. Today, Merrill is being sued by the ACLU of Alabama for violating his constituents' First Amendment rights for blocking them and, of course, that means that AL taxpayers will likely be on the hook to pay for the so-called "conservative" Merrill's knowingly unconstitutional behavior.

Also, speaking of transparency and the rule of law, the U.S. Supreme Court, just weeks before the 2018 midterms, has allowed a lower court ruling on "dark money" to take immediate effect, meaning that some political non-profits will now have to disclose the names of wealthy donors who spend more than $200 per year in hopes of buying elections. The Koch-sponsored hit squads, including their ringers on the FEC, are none too happy it.

Finally, we've got some good news for voters in California, where the Governor has now signed a bill requiring election officials to notify voters when local officials believe signatures on Vote-by-Mail ballots don't match the one on their registration file. Such voters will now be notified at least eight days before any results are certified, so they have a chance to fix the problem, which could happen for many reasons, before the ballot is simply discarded (as tens of thousands have routinely been tossed in previous elections).

Also, good news for Democrats in Wisconsin, where the "gold standard" of Wisconsin polling outfits finds divisive, two-term Republican Gov. Scott Walker now trailing Democrat Tony Evers in this year's Gubernatorial race.

And, in Kansas, yet another top former Republican official has endorsed Laura Kelly, the Democratic candidate for Governor, in her race against controversial GOP nominee Sec. of State Kris Kobach...

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On today's BradCast, things are not looking good for Republicans and Donald Trump's second nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

But, first up, before we get to our guest today, a quick update on the damage wrought by Hurricane Florence on the East Coast and the huge expected costs for rebuilding that is being exacerbated by Trump's trade wars, including his announcement on Monday that the Administration is imposing a 10% tax (which may be raised to 25% next year) on another $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. That, home construction experts in the Carolinas charge, will raise the costs of rebuilding and repairs following the damage from the record rainfall and flooding of Florence, as it continues to wreak havoc and death on the East Coast.

Then, late last night, a federal court in Georgia issued a ruling, following a full hearing last week, on the Motion for Preliminary Injunction filed by the non-partisan Coalition for Good Governance, seeking to force the state to switch from the unsecurable, 16-year old, 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems used in all precincts across the state, to the hand-marked paper ballot systems already used by every county for absentee voters. While U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg made clear [PDF] she was very sympathetic to the concerns of the plaintiffs --- and that they have the legal standing to sue --- she appears to have bought into the defendants argument that a switch to paper ballots this late before the November midterms would result in chaos at polling places.

Next, the Republican panic to save the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh before the November midterms continues to evolve by the hour, on the heels of the revelation of the allegation by Palo Alto University psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford that Kavanaugh and a friend by the name of Mark Judge sexually assaulted her during a party more than thirty years ago when they were all high school students. Kavanaugh denies the allegation completely, says neither the attempted rape nor anything like it ever happened, and that he was never at the party in question (even though Ford hasn't identified the specific party).

We're joined by Salon and Hullaballoo's HEATHER DIGBY PARTON today to try and make sense of the charges, the GOP's ham-handed response to it, Kavanaugh's ugly history as a Republican operative, and the newly announced hearing scheduled by Senate Republicans in the Judiciary Committee for next Monday. The Committee's chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) insists that only Kavanaugh and Ford will be allowed to testify, even before there has been an FBI investigation of the charges and, apparently, before Grassley even bothered to hear back from Ford as to whether she's willing or able to show up.

"The idea that they're saying, 'Oh, we have to hurry up, there's a deadline on this,' it's an arbitrary one," says Parton. "And they're trying to say now that 'this accuser, this alleged victim, if she doesn't show up at a moment's notice, sorry, there's nothing we can do about it, what choice do we have but to put an accused sexual assaulter on the Supreme Court?' It's absurd on its face."

With Kavanaugh's complete denials, the matter is no longer really even about a sexual assault 36 years ago. It's about a nominee for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land seemingly lying about it today. Can this nomination even survive at this point...much less make it to Monday?! We discuss.

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with more news on the ongoing fallout from the deadly Florence, the even larger and deadlier Typhoon Mangkhut currently ravaging The Philippines and China, and an update on the chain of natural gas pipeline explosions in dozens of homes near Boston late last week...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Florence continues to wreak havoc and death on the East Coast; The strongest storm of the year (so far) slams into the Philippines and Hong Kong; PLUS: Boston-area residents slowly return home after natural gas explosions destroy dozens of homes... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): The Unequal Burden of Climate Change: Hurricane Florence and Super Typhoon Mangkhut laid bare the disproportionate consequences for poor communities; 5 things that must change after Hurricane Florence; 100% renewable energy is wildly popular. Utilities are struggling to deal with it; EPA administrator denies states' request to stop cross-state coal plant pollution; 8 ways that EPA's helping the coal industry; Watchdog: EPA asbestos protection for schoolchildren lagging; Feds allow construction of Atlantic Coast Pipeline to resume; Oldest nuclear plant in US closes, unable to compete... PLUS: Germany launches world's first hydrogen-powered train... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, as my producer Desi Doyen likes to say, we once again attempt "to squeeze a 10 pound show into a 1 pound bag." [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up, the latest on Hurricane Florence, now downgraded to a tropical storm but wreaking extraordinary havoc, storm surge, flooding, hundreds of rescues and now at least five deaths. The monster storm has largely stalled over the Carolinas to dump, according to one meteorologist, 10 trillion gallons of rainfall, or enough to fill more than 15 million Olympic-size swimming pools.

Also today, Donald Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort finally pleaded guilty in a deal to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller that requires him to cooperate on the Trump/Russia investigation and, as Marcy Wheeler describes, is "pardon proof".

Next, an update on the still-unexplained natural gas explosions that set dozens of homes ablaze north of Boston, a story which broke at the very end of yesterday's BradCast.

Then, a brief followup on the reported widespread problems with voter registrations in New York during their state and local primaries on Thursday, the final primaries of the season before the crucial 2018 midterm elections in November. Those reported failures for some voters at polling places helped underscored at least one of the important outcomes from Thursday's contests.

We're joined by The Intercept and New Republic contributor DAVID DAYEN to discuss reported results out of New York, where progressive actress and activist Cynthia Nixon challenged two-term Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and progressive Fordham University law professor Zephyr Teachout vied for the Democratic nod to become the state's next Attorney General. Alas, those underdog progressive upstarts on the statewide ballot were unsuccessful, though, as Dayen reports, Teachout was undermined by a rightwing Democratic Congressman who, he tells me was likely "placed in there to depress Teachout's upstate numbers on behalf of Wall Street special interests."

Still, he says, both challenges managed to force Cuomo and his party to the left on a number of important matters already. That move to the left was more of a lurch, however, at the state Senate level, where 6 of 8 members of the so-called Independent Democratic Conference (or IDC, a group of corporate Democrats who had caucused with Republicans in the Senate, giving the GOP control of the otherwise Democratic-majority body) were turfed out by progressive challengers. That, Dayen argues, is likely to result in a huge difference in the legislation enacted by a state legislative body that has been blocked for years, with Cuomo's help, from adopting a number of long-overdue progressive reforms on everything from healthcare to fiscal matters to New York's antiquated election laws.

"There was this host of progressive legislation that was clogged in the state of New York because of Republican control of the state senate, which was facilitated by Democrats. It's confounding that this went on for so long!," he observes."Andrew Cuomo is a throwback to the New Democrats, the Clinton era. And he believes that if he was forced to sign progressive legislation, it would hurt his ultimate ambition, which is the presidency. He's still stuck in a 1990s mindset that you can't go any further left than, I guess, 'midnight basketball' laws in order to win the Presidency."

And, as primary season voting is finally now wrapped up, we discuss the various ways in which voters and broadly diverse candidacies have helped to redefine the Democratic Party over the past year. "The Democratic Party is one of the more diverse parties at this point in history that we've seen, certainly ever in America, maybe elsewhere. Representation absolutely matters. The people who are the workhorses of the Democratic Party --- women, people of color --- want to see themselves represented in the leadership that is going to carry the party forward."

Also, on this week's 10th anniversary of the 2008 global financial meltdown, Dayen, author of the widely acclaimed Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud, explains how even a decade later no real accountability has ever been brought to the elite who caused the crisis and how even Barack Obama's own Treasury Secretary was allowed to undermine him in a way that is not dissimilar to the actions discussed in the recent anonymous New York Times op-ed regarding a "resistance" inside the Trump Administration.

Dayen also discusses several other way in which the ramifications of the Wall Street bank bailouts still reverberate throughout the American body politic, by "set[ting] the table for demagogues. And that's what happened in 2016."

Finally today, some details from concerned scientists on the nuclear plants currently threatened by the massive flooding of Florence, specifically, the Duke Energy-owned Brunswick plant in North Carolina which houses two reactors almost identical to the GE-designed reactors which melted down after power-outages following the 2011 tsunami-caused flooding in Japan...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Officials warn Hurricane Florence could knock out power and other essential services for weeks; 10 million people are also in the path of Super Typhoon Mangkhut; Trump Administration diverted $10 million from FEMA and gave it to ICE; Trump EPA moves to make it easier for oil and gas companies to release methane into the air; PLUS: U.N. chief warns of dangerous tipping point on climate change... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Climate change wrought this freak of nature called Hurricane Florence; Administration announces plan to streamline oil and gas extraction in national forests; Top green group to spend an unprecedented $60 million on 2018 races; US 'likely' has taken over as the world's top oil producer; Rush Limbaugh spreads disinformation on Hurricane Florence, climate change; Former EPA chief Pruitt in talks for his next job: coal consultant; Miss Michigan denounces Flint Water Crisis in Miss America intro; Heat killed a record number of people in Phoenix last year as days, nights grow warmer... PLUS: Category 6? Climate change may cause more hurricanes to rapidly intensify... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: A multitude of terrifying threats from Hurricane Florence loom large across at least four states in the Southeast, as millions of Americans hunker down or evacuate on the final week of primary elections in the U.S. before the crucial 2018 midterm elections. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up, after a quick warning to ignore the President of the United State's assertion that the federal government is "totally prepared" for the damage that awaits the still-growing Hurricane Florence (while citing his Administration's response to last year's Hurricane Maria that killed nearly 3,000 citizens in Puerto Rico as "an incredible unsung success"), we head to New Hampshire for the penultimate federal primaries of the season. (Rhode Island voted today and New York holds state and local primaries on Thursday.)

On Tuesday, voters in the Granite State went to the polls with, happily, few problems reported so far, beyond the larger than anticipated turnout, particularly in a number of the state's many college towns. That may signal good news for Democrats, at least until the state GOP's new law making it much harder for college students to register to vote kicks in in 2019 (unless its blocked by courts before then). We fill you in on the noteworthy reported results today, including the single mom, Molly Kelly, who won the Democratic primary for Governor, the openly gay man, Chris Pappas, who defeated 10 other Democrats (including Bernie Sanders' son) to win the U.S. House nomination in one of the swingiest swing districts in the country, and 27-year old refugee from Afghanistan, Safiya Wazir, who unseated a four-term incumbent Democrat and appears poised to become a NH state Representative just 9 years after leaving her war-torn country for a better life in these United States.

Then, all eyes (pun intended) on the disturbing amount of cyclonic activity churning across the globe --- not just off the Eastern U.S. seaboard --- at the peak of hurricane season. The "monster" storm, Hurricane Florence grew in size today, as its movement continues to slow, and as it's trajectory appears to have taken a slight turn toward the southwest. The storm's brutal winds, surging waters and threat of days of unforgiving rainfall, now pose a grave threat to some 10 million residents of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and, as of Wednesday's latest predictions, Georgia.

But, while Florence may be the fiercest and most immediate threat to Americans, it's hardly the only storm worth keep an eye on, as nine --- count 'em --- nine storms across the globe are now either hurricanes, typhoons, tropical storms or depressions, or otherwise threatening to become one of the above at any moment. Among the most immediate non-Florence threats are Tropical Storm Olivia, slamming into Hawaii today (just two weeks or so following Hurricane Lane's record 50 inches of rainfall dumped on some parts of the island), Category 5 Typhoon Mangkhut, which just slammed Guam and now heads toward The Philippines and Hong Kong, and another storm currently brewing in the record warm Gulf of Mexico waters that could visit Texas and/or Louisiana by this weekend, even as Florence wreaks its own separate havoc on the East Coast. (Is Trump's FEMA "totally prepared" for all of that also?)

According to our guest today, 30-year veteran Weather Channel meteorologist, "Climate Guy" GUY WALTON this amount of cyclonic activity is not normal, and much of it is attributable to warming waters and highly unusual weather patterns in a climate-changed world.

"As you get more heat, you'll get more storms, and that's exactly what we're seeing," says Walton who points to sub-tropical storm Joyce, which was just named today, taking its place along with Hurricanes Helene and Isaac behind Florence in the Atlantic. "That will make four in the Atlantic basin alone. And if you look at the Gulf of Mexico, there could be a potential fifth, I guess named Kirk. If we have five simultaneous named systems in the Atlantic basin, that would be a record."

As to Florence, he warns: "Meteorologically, the greatest concern is the slowing of the storm and stalling right off the Carolina coast, right around Wilmington, and then very, very slowly moving south or southwest back towards Charleston. If that's the case, you could have winds and waves for many, many hours, if not for two or three days, just lashing at the shore. And that could produce more damage than, say, a Category 4 Hugo," in 1989, which killed 27 in South Carolina, left nearly 100,000 homeless and wreaked nearly $10 billion in damage.

"These things usually move northeast, they don't move southwest or west. If it does, that would be highly unusual. And devastating," he tells me.

Walton explains how climate change-fueled weather patterns are resulting in slower moving storms causing much more rainfall and flooding in recent years and why he believes some broadcast meteorologists --- versus climatologists --- are still either climate deniers or simply fail to connect the dots of increasingly extreme weather to global warming. He also discusses his upcoming children's book on climate, with Nick Walker, The World of Thermo: Thermometer Rising.

Finally today, we bounce off of Will Bunch at the Philadelphia Daily News today with a few thoughts on talking about the rapidly increasing dangers of climate change, even while a major storm imperils millions of American citizens. As Bunch observes, many of them live in southern states with political leadership that has ill-served their residents by lying to them about climate change science over a shameful number of years, even as they now find themselves at the center of some of its most threatening and deadly effects...

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On today's BradCast, we're closely watching a number of things: Major storms, major elections, and major lies (under oath) revealed as coming from the nominee for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

First up, we're watching the "monster" Category 4 Hurricane Florence closely this week, as it quickly increases in intensity, even while slowing down over record warm waters before its predicted landfall later this week, in what could result in a catastrophic wind and rainfall event in the Carolinas and Virginia by week's end. Officials warn power could be knocked out for weeks, but, citing his Administration's "unsung success" in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria (after which nearly 3,000 Americans died and power remained out for nearly a year), Donald Trump declares the federal government is "totally prepared". The National Weather Service now says that nearly 5.5 million people are threatened by the incoming storm.

We're also watching the final week of primaries before the crucial 2018 midterms this fall, with New Hampshire voters taking their turn to vote on Tuesday. But we're also still watching the fallout from earlier primaries this Summer, including an all-Republican State Objections Board in Kansas which, this week, a) Voted to allow a Republican state House candidate who was arrested and charged with election fraud last week to stay on the November ballot, and b) Dismissed a challenge to the incredibly narrow reported win (just 343 votes out of some 317,000 cast) by Sec. of State Kris Kobach several weeks ago, after he was certified to be the state's GOP nominee for Governor, despite an unknown number of uncounted or rejected provisional and late Vote-by-Mail ballots across the state and serious malfunctions of a new voting and tabulation system in the state's most populous county. Kobach's own deputy chaired this week's meeting of the three-member, all-GOP State Objections Board and personally appointed the County Clerk who purchased the new, unverifiable touchscreen ballot marking device system which spectacularly failed during their first outing in Johnson County last month.

Next, we're also still watching the proceedings for Donald Trump's latest nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrapped up last week, but not before revealing that Kavanaugh appears to have lied to the Senate under oath, multiple times, during his previous confirmation hearings for the U.S. Court of Appeal in Washington D.C., regarding whether he had received stolen documents from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee while serving as an operative in the George W. Bush Administration.

We're joined today by LISA GRAVES, the author of some of the documents stolen by one of Kavanaugh's fellow GOP operatives who worked in the Senate at the time Kavanaugh was shepherding controversial, hard-right Bush judicial nominees through the confirmation process. Graves, who is now co-founder of the non-profit Documented and former Executive Director for the Center for Media and Democracy, was Chief Counsel for Nominations for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) back when the stolen documents in question were pilfered.

She explains today how some of the very few recently-released emails from Kavanaugh's tenure during the Bush Administration revealed last week that he lied to Congress during testimony about his knowledge of, and personal participation in, what was a major Senate email theft scandal in the early and mid-2000s.

"It was the first time that we saw evidence that he had seen talking points, draft materials, content from the materials that were stolen," she tells me, detailing how she had long suspected as much, after the initial scandal broke over a decade ago. "It was so shocking what was happening at the time, in terms of that sort of confidential material being stolen, that Senator Hatch expressed his mortification and assigned the U.S. Sargent-at-Arms, who was a Republican, to lead an investigation." But that probe, she adds, did not have subpoena power, so last week was the first time the public finally saw the incriminating documents revealed by Sen. Leahy during last week's hearings.

Graves is now calling for Kavanaugh to be impeached whether or not he is confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ironically, a complaint has been filed with Kavanaugh's boss on the D.C. Court of Appeals, Chief Judge Merrick Garland, Barack Obama's 2016 nominee to the Supreme Court who, for the first time in history, Republicans refused to even hold a vote on.

Kavanaugh's confirmation still appears likely, despite a very slim Senate GOP majority that could be lost in this November's midterms, and the presence of Republicans like Utah's Orrin Hatch who served on the Judiciary Committee at the time of the theft of those Democratic documents and continues to do so today. Hatch was just one of the Senators who Kavanaugh, we now know, appears to have blatantly lied to, under oath, during hearings in 2004 and 2006. Hatch was also a loud supporter of the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for having lied under oath.

Graves argues that Kavanaugh's testimony from those years "compared to the evidence that he lied," is now "very strong and warrants a full investigation". She also says she has yet to speak to anyone in Congress about her call for impeachment following the new revelations. "I believe the American people have a right to know that this is what's happening. And I believe the Senate should stand up and defend itself against this sort of perjury. There are certainly other right-wing judicial nominees that the White House could nominate who don't have this track record, who haven't played this role, and who perhaps also don't have this extreme view of Executive power, where --- if Brett Kavanaugh were confirmed --- he could be called to rule on cases involving cases of potential perjury or lying to investigators,"

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with more on the dangers (and causes) of the looming Hurricane Florence off the Eastern seaboard, and another major storm currently threatening Hawaii this week; a brand new pipeline explodes in Pennsylvania, owned by the same company which owns the Dakota Access Pipeline that Trump approved in 2017, despite months of protest by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota; and, thankfully, some very good news about several new landmark actions taken by California this week to combat the growing menace of global climate change...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Powerful Hurricane Florence takes aim at the U.S. East Coast; Hawaii braces for its second major storm in two weeks; Brand new pipeline explodes in Pennsylvania; PLUS: California blazes new path of action to fight climate change... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Nearly 10K people have gotten cancer from toxic 9/11 dust; U.N. chief warns of a dangerous tipping point on climate change; Trump Administration wants to make it easier to release methane into the air; Brett Kavanaugh could be worse than you think - here's how he’ll gut environmental protection; Pipeline dumps 8,000 gallons of jet fuel into Indiana river; California fire agency requests more money; California passes 100 percent clean energy bill, but punts on several plans for getting there... PLUS: Superfund: Acting EPA chief Wheeler will shape massive cleanup efforts linked to his former clients... and much, MUCH more! ...

We catch up with quite a bit on today's BradCast, after being buried for much of last week in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for dishonest and disingenuous GOP operative, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as Donald Trump's pick to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy in the "swing vote" seat on the GOP's already-stolen U.S. Supreme Court. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

We discuss that as well today (and whether Democrats should pack the Court if they ever return to power, as we discussed with David Faris on last Wednesday's show) and much more with tons of callers.

But first, we lead off with the latest on the fearsome Category 4 Hurricane Florence now barreling toward the U.S. Eastern seaboard, fueled by record warm waters, and currently projected to slam the Carolinas with, potentially, as much as four feet of rain as the storm is predicted to stall near the coast.

At the same time, Hawaii is facing down Hurricane Tropical Storm Olivia this week, just two weeks or so after Hurricane Lane dumped record rainfall on the islands, in the second worst rainfall event in recorded U.S. history (second only to Hurricane Harvey in Houston just last year.)

We also have some much brighter news, however, for our climate-changed world out of California today, as Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB-100, a landmark measure to require the state (with the world's fifth largest economy) to transition to 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045. Along with it, Brown also signed an executive order that would result in carbon-neutral energy production and use for the entire state (including cars!) by 2045 as well!

With that bit of brief, albeit very good news out of the way, we turn to catching up with an Administration (still) in crisis upon the release of Bob Woodward's new book, FEAR: Trump in the White House and the anonymous op-ed purported to have been penned by a senior Trump Administration official last week, claiming that senior insiders have been secretly blocking the worst of Trump's most dangerous impulses and, last year, even considered invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the President.

We open up the phone lines today to all of the above, for tons of interesting thoughts from listeners on the op-ed (is the writer a hero or a coward --- or a scammer?), the Kavanaugh hearings and the Democrats' surprisingly unified response to the GOP rush to confirm him before they may lose their slim Senate majority in the upcoming midterms, and much more, as Hurricane Donald continues to lay waste --- or, at least, tries to --- to much of our nation...

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