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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump in Texas expands fossil fuel infrastructure, lies about clean energy; New study finds target of 100% clean electricity by 2035 would generate 25 million US jobs; Central U.S. wind energy capacity alone could power entire US electric grid, without harming wildlife; PLUS: Agriculture officials alarmed by 'mystery seeds' in the mail... 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): Dr. Michael Mann: It's time for America to reassert climate leadership. It starts with voting; Offshore wind power ‘so cheap it could return money to consumers’; 'Tidal Wave' Of Power Shut-Offs Looms As Nation Grapples With Heat; 'Coal is over': the miners rooting for the Green New Deal; Fossil fuel industry levy should pay for bushfire impact, climate action group report says; Oil and Gas Groups See ‘Some Common Ground’ in Biden Energy Plan... PLUS: Pollution Is Killing Black Americans. This Community Fought Back... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Ohio's GOP House Speaker arrested on bribery charges in corrupt utility company conspiracy; Gonzalo breaks new record in already historic 2020 Atlantic hurricane season; Global methane emissions hit record high; PLUS: Burger King cuts the methane... 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): Congress passes sprawling plan to boost conservation, parks; Global heating: best and worst case scenarios less likely than thought; Arctic sea ice is in a downward spiral, and may break a record in 2020; Leaked DNC platform draft shows the party is improving on climate—just not enough;
How the United States fails its most important fish habitats; EU considers tax, emissions trading for carbon border plan... PLUS: The Sierra Club faces its white-supremacist history... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Joe Biden unveils sweeping climate action plan to create jobs, jumpstart the economy, and solve climate change; Donald Trump officially rolls back yet another benchmark environmental law; PLUS: New analysis shows 'extraordinary' increase in U.S. coastal flooding... 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 made Siberian heatwave 600 times more likely; What Does Net Zero Emissions Mean for Big Oil? Not What You’d Think; Portugal kills coal two years ahead of schedule; The Wood Pellet Business is Booming. Scientists Say That’s Not Good for the Climate; More shoppers, more shops: report shows benefits of designing streets around cyclists and pedestrians; CNBC's Cramer wakes up to battery technology... PLUS: VIDEO: Mason Ramsey Sings About Cow Farts in New ‘Eco Campaign’... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Extended extreme heat wave spreads across U.S.; June 2020 second hottest June ever recorded; Bankrupt oil and gas companies leaving taxpayers with cleanup bill, while giving bonuses to CEOs; PLUS: Environmental group hits Trump on COVID and climate denial... 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): Joe Biden sets out aggressive plan to tackle climate change; How Europe’s green pandemic recovery will push the rest of the world; Investigation rebukes Commerce Department for siding with Trump over forecasters during Hurricane Dorian; U.S. Offshore Wind Power Blown on Course; EPA declines to tighten smog standards amid pressure from green groups; G.A.O.: Trump Boosts Deregulation by Undervaluing Cost of Climate Change; Largest battery storage system in US connects to California ISO grid... PLUS: Intense Hurricanes Are Making "Super Abundant" Spiders More Aggressive... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've got a bit of a roller coaster today between good news and terrible news on today's BradCast. But that's life in the times of Trump and the coronavirus, I guess. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

First up today, the COVID-19 crisis continues to gravely worsen in the U.S., with new record infections and hospitalizations now pretty much every day for the past month. Despite the increasingly desperate concerns expressed by health experts, especially for hotspots where Governors reopened states far too early, some Republicans from the President of the United States on down are calling for measures that will only increase infection rates, hospitalizations and, yes, death.

Florida's Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran on Monday, for example, declared that all public schools must reopen next month to all students for in-person classes five days a week. His emergency order notes that reopening schools is critical to "a return to Florida hitting its full economic stride". That, despite more than 200,000 confirmed cases and new record daily infection rates each day for weeks now in the Sunshine State.

At the same time, in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, Donald Trump held a White House event to demand the reopening of schools and to praise Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis for a "terrific job" in ordering them to open. Trump claimed that schools have been closed elsewhere for "political reasons" and added that "we are very much going to put pressure on Governors and everybody else to open the schools." This is now a death march being led by the President of the United States.

But if Republican politicians are fine sending children and their teachers and their families to their potential deaths, how do you think federal judges appointed by Trump or sympathetic to his political cause are going to react to measures being taken to try and make voting safer for Americans on November 3rd? We're joined again today by Slate's ace legal reporter MARK JOSEPH STERN to discuss Monday's opinions released by the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as a disturbing pattern of rulings at both SCOTUS and on the appellate level over the past two weeks that bodes darkly for this year's crucial Presidential election.

First, Monday's new opinions: The Court decided unanimously that states may prevent so-called "faithless electors" from casting their vote in the Electoral College for someone other than the Presidential candidate chosen by the state's popular vote. The issue stemmed from two combined cases of "faithless electors" in 2016, one of which was brought by plaintiff Michael Baca against Colorado. Baca appeared on The BradCast in December of 2016 to explain the reasons for his planned "faithless" vote in the Electoral College that year, before he was later prevented by the state from casting it.

While that opinion, written by Justice Elana Kagan received most of the media attention on Monday, another opinion handed down by the Court that day is likely of far greater import. The Court's 6 to 3 decision, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh writing for the majority in a case concerning robocalls made to cell phones, actually reveals some very encouraging news regarding a challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) that will be heard next session by the Court. Kavanaugh's opinion, striking down one element of a robocall law as unconstitutional while upholding the rest of the law, suggests the challenge to Obamacare by GOP-controlled states and the White House --- seeking to strike down the entire health care law as unconstitutional based on the constitutionality of one single, now meaningless, provision --- is likely to fail.

As Kavanaugh crucially noted in his opinion, in words that will be remembered next year during the ACA case: "Constitutional litigation is not a game of gotcha against Congress, where litigants can ride a discrete constitutional flaw in a statute to take down the whole, otherwise constitutional statute."

"It's important to note that seven justices agreed with [Kavanaugh] on that particular point," Stern tells me. "Only Thomas and Gorsuch disagreed."

And with that seemingly very good news out of the way, we turn to a flurry of recent decisions by both SCOTUS and a number of federal appeals courts that are extremely concerning and revealing as to how right-wing controlled federal courts will be dealing with voter suppression cases and measures intended to make voting easier during the pandemic this November. Recent court rulings in cases out of Florida, Wisconsin, Alabama and Texas, as Stern explains, are very troubling indeed and suggest we could be in for no small amount of chaos, disenfranchisement and, yes, deadly disease, in this year's critical general elections.

There are more opinions to come from the Court before they are finished for the summer. Quips Stern darkly today: "We've got a handful left, and we will see if the Supreme Court breaks our democracy before the end of the term."

Finally, we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, with a bit more news out of SCOTUS and lower federal courts, including some surprisingly very good news on several controversial oil and gas pipelines!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Big and bad news for pipelines, good news for those who oppose them; Japan reeling from another round of record rains and catastrophic floods; Warren Buffett bids to control nearly 20 percent of nation's natural gas storage; PLUS: House Democrats unveil comprehensive proposal to reach net zero emissions by 2050... 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 Activists See ‘New Era’ After Three Major Oil and Gas Pipeline Defeats; Climate change denial expands on Facebook as scientists face restrictions; Grim Day for Pipelines Shows They’re Almost Impossible to Build; US signs order for first West Coast gas-export terminal; Rapid Arctic Meltdown In Siberia Alarms Scientists... PLUS: Think Covid-19 Disrupted the Food Chain? Wait and See What Climate Change Will Do... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. fracking pioneer Chesapeake Energy files for bankruptcy; BP warns investors of a future with less oil; Sorry, endangered species, U.S. Supreme Court won't stop Trump's border wall for you; PLUS: Flood risks to U.S. homes far higher than previously estimated... 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): House Democrats unveil ambitious climate package, steering toward a net-zero economy by 2050; South Pole warmed three times the global rate in last 30 years; PGE first major utility to support bans on natural gas; Democrats’ infrastructure bill has a special delivery: Electric mail trucks; Clean Energy Milestone: First offshore wind installed in U.S. federal waters; China’s CO2 emissions surged past pre-coronavirus levels in May... PLUS: Space agencies unveil site showing lockdown changes to Earth... and much, MUCH more! ...

Seriously, at some point American officials will need to be prosecuted for mass murder for their criminal delinquency and deceit in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, which has, so far, in just four months, cost the lives of more than 122,000 Americans. Those prosecutions should begin (if not end) with the man currently serving as President of the United States. That is particularly true in the wake of his criminal admission at his Death Rally in Tulsa last week, when he admitted that he told his "people...slow the testing down, please!" The White House later said Donald Trump was just joking, but when asked if he was kidding, he publicly admitted otherwise. "I don't kid," he said, "let me just tell you, let me make it clear." And we now have hard evidence on today's BradCast to prove that, perhaps for the first time, he was finally telling the truth. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

On Wednesday, confirmed new coronavirus cases in the U.S. set a single day record of more than 38,000. At the same time, hospitalizations are rapidly increasing in a number of states around the country, including states such as Florida, Texas, Arizona and Oklahoma, where denialist Republican Governors reopened for business far too quickly, in direct contradiction to almost all health experts.

As states like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut --- hit hardest and earliest at the beginning of the pandemic --- have seen case numbers and hospitalizations plummet, they've instituted quarantine restrictions on travelers from some of the currently hardest hit states. As of Wednesday, the list included Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Texas.

When asked what he would say to the leaders of some of those states, including Florida, whose Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had issued a quarantine on travelers from the NY metro area early in the pandemic (while failing to mandate appropriate restrictions in his own state), New York's Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo said today: "You played politics with this virus and you lost. You told the people of your state and you told the people of this country, White House, don't worry about it. Just open up, go about your business, this is all Democratic hyperbole. Oh, really? Now you see 27 states with the numbers going up. You see the death projections going up. You see the economy going down. It was never politics, it was always science. And they were in denial."

Well, many of them are still in denial. And not just denial, but taking purposeful, affirmative efforts to lie to their people about COVID-19 numbers in their own states. The expert who ran Florida's once-lauded COVID-19 tracking website, but was fired because, she says, she refused to manipulate the data, sent out a warning this week. She charges that officials have been "instructed this week to change the numbers and begin slowly deleting deaths and cases so it looks like Florida is improving next week in the leadup to July 4."

In West Virginia, the state's Republican Gov. Jim Justice, a billionaire coal baron, has forced out the commissioner of the state's public health bureau because he didn't like the numbers she was reporting, as cases rise in at least 11 counties. He had previously lauded her at regular COVID-19 press briefings where she spoke. She was not at his latest briefing on Wednesday and released a statement upon her forced resignation that night, urging state officials "to stay true to the science".

Meanwhile, as the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), conceded that the infection rate in the U.S. is likely 10 times higher than the number of cases currently reported (that's 23 million probably infections, instead of the official 2.3 million reported as of today), states like Texas are seeing not just increased cases, but spiking hospitalizations, which have doubled over the past week. In Houston, ICU beds were 97 percent full by Wednesday. (In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has barred hospitals from reporting those numbers anymore.) Even Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is now warning of the state's "massive outbreak", while still failing to mandate masking or even allowing local officials in Houston or anywhere else to do so on their own.

And yet, with all of that, Donald Trump really has told his "people" to "slow the testing down." Talking Points Memo's Josh Kovensky has been documenting the refusal by the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to approve extensions for federally funded testing at 13 sites across five states, including Texas. Where more than 40 such sites were once funded by the federal government across the country, only 13 sites remain, and they have been told by the Trump Administration that those resources will end on June 30th, despite desperate requests from officials in Texas, Illinois and Pennsylvania for the much-needed aid to continue.

That's just a taste of today's program, which raises the very serious question: Should these people be held accountable for the thousands --- perhaps tens of thousands --- of American citizens who are likely to die, thanks to their purposeful efforts to ignore science and health officials for purely brazen political purposes?

The deadly denial about the coronavirus is a fast-motion mirror of the Republican denial, for brazen political purposes, regarding climate change. Today we close with some accountability and/or attempts at accountability on that front in our latest Green News Report, in which Minnesota's Attorney General has now filed a consumer fraud lawsuit against Exxon, Koch, and the American Petroleum Institute, citing, by way of just one example, a "proprietary" document from Exxon warning about the dangers of "CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere...due to fossil fuel combustion" that "will cause a warming of the earth's surface" and "dramatic environmental effects before the year 2050." That prescient, on-the-money document is dated October 16, 1979, before Exxon went on to spend millions of dollars over decades to misinform the public that climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels was little more than a hoax. Desi Doyen joins us for that attempted accountability and a bit more that has actually succeeded in a refreshingly encouraging GNR today. And it comes not a moment too soon...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Minnesota sues Exxon Mobil for lying to the public about climate change; Justice Department whistleblowers expose corrupt investigation into California deal with automakers; PLUS: Chemical giant Bayer to pay billions to settle Monsanto weedkiller lawsuits... 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): District of Columbia sues four oil majors for misleading consumers on climate change; Trump insists on fireworks at Mt. Rushmore, increasing risk of wildfire and COVID spread; Black households pay more for energy than white households: analysis; Facebook 'fact check' policy creates loophole for climate denial groups; The danger of Amazon's $2 billion climate change venture capital fund; Court rejects logging plan for Tongass Nat'l Forest; 'Bomb trains': LNG shipments by rail approved in U.S.... PLUS: Video: A Bold Vision of DERP Down Under... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Months-long Arctic heat wave delivers all-time record high --- in Siberia; Extreme heat now kills more Americans than hurricanes or floods; Trump Administration rolls back decades-old protections for migratory birds as Trump lies about wind again at his sparsely attended Tulsa rally; PLUS: U.K. builds world's largest liquid air battery... 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): Big Oil is scared shitless; Slip-up reveals Chevron ties to architect of climate attack; Epidemic of contaminated medical waste is following the coronavirus; Record plume of Sahara Desert dust aims at Southeast U.S.; Long-simmering water battle comes to a boil in CA; Utility ransomware attacks becoming more sophisticated, new 'honeypot' operation finds... PLUS: Capitalism is destroying 'safe operating space' for humanity, warn scientists... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. Supreme Court clears the way for controversial fracked natural gas pipeline; Microplastics are raining down on our national parks; Trump plans to open up Florida for offshore drilling --- after the election; PLUS: Administration accelerates resource extraction and cruel wildlife hunting practices on the public's lands... 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): Trump’s EPA balks at a chance to save black lives; A war against climate science, waged by Washington’s rank and rile, protecting their jobs; Trump administration blocks tribes from protecting their waters; Americans increasingly understand that climate change harms human health; Scientists warn against Trump's consumer protection nominee... PLUS: Love is Blind: How Germany's Long Romance With Cars Led to the Nation's Biggest Clean Energy Failure... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Buckle up --- Tropical Depression Cristobal's impacts ain't over yet; Melting permafrost causes catastrophic oil spill in Russian Siberia; May 2020 was the hottest May ever recorded globally; PLUS: Trump uses coronavirus emergency to justify new rollbacks of public health and endangered species protections... 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): Racism Is Killing the Planet: The ideology of white supremacy leads the way toward disposable people and a disposable natural world; Population Of Top 10 Counties For Climate Disasters: 81% Minority; BP to cut 10,000 jobs as virus hits demand for oil; Poisonous toads invade South Florida; Court overturns EPA approval of popular herbicide made by Monsanto... PLUS: Borrowed time: Climate change hits the U.S. mortgage market... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Tropical Storm Cristobal takes aim at the U.S.; Study confirms global warming is increasing extreme rainfall events in North America; Building new wind and solar projects now cheaper than running existing coal plants, new study finds; House Dems propose major infrastructure bill with a focus on climate resilience; PLUS: University of California divests from all fossil fuels... 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): "There is no climate justice without defunding the police"; Arctic fuel spill prompts Russia’s Putin to declare emergency and slam slow response; Judge rejects Bernhardt's Alaska Izembek refuge land swap; How to speed up the clean energy transition; Our infrastructure is being built for a climate that's already gone; U.S. court overturns EPA approval of Bayer's dicamba weedkiller; Epidemic of wipes and masks plague sewers, storm drains... PLUS: Renewables surpass coal in US energy generation for first time in 130 years... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump EPA moves to block states' authority over pipelines; United Nations delays crucial climate summit for a year due to pandemic; Good news for breathers: 13 more coal plants to close in 2020; PLUS: Siberian heat wave brings 'zombie fires'... 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): EU green recovery package sets a marker for the world; As a busy hurricane season looms, NOAA's credibility has taken a hit, new emails show; New study shows global warming intensifying extreme rainstorms over North America; Energy firms urged to mothball coal plants as cost of solar tumbles; New Trump public land rules will let Alaska hunters kill bear cubs in dens... PLUS: Can planting a trillion trees stop climate change? Scientists say it's a lot more complicated that that... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: NOAA warns hurricane season could be a doozy --- especially during a pandemic; Plague of locusts expands into India; New York and New Jersey reject controversial fracked-gas pipeline; PLUS: New ad campaign links Trump's coronavirus denial to climate change denial... 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): Michigan dam failure shows the Midwest's growing vulnerability to climate change; Will Floating Turbines Usher in a New Wave of Offshore Wind?; How fast will you need to flee from the heat?; As Fishermen Flounder, Trump Clears A Path For Farming The Oceans; Record Drop In Energy Investment, Warns International Energy Agency; Trail of spills haunts Dakota Access pipeline developer... PLUS: How a Contrarian Scientist Helped Trump's EPA Defy Mainstream Science... and much, MUCH more! ...