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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Caribbean islands brace for impact --- again --- this time from Hurricane Maria, with more storms in the wings; Trump still in denial about the climate link to extreme weather; Interior Secretary Zinke recommends ten national monuments for modification; PLUS: As the United Nations gathers in New York City, it's the 30th anniversary of the first global climate treaty... 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 great nutrient collapse: The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat; Study: ‘Unprecedented’ rain, warmth for Alaska by end of century; Florida's poop nightmare comes true; America is on the verge of a 'ratpocalypse'; 3rd hottest August on record; Trump administration working toward renewed drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; UK press watchdog says climate change denying article was faulty... PLUS: Evidence of spills at toxic site during Harvey floods.... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Desperate conditions in the Caribbean and US Virgin Islands in the wake of Hurricane Irma; Eight dead in sweltering Florida nursing home as power remains out for millions; New major gasoline spill and new lawsuits in the wake of Hurricane Harvey; PLUS: Understanding the impact of a warming world on extreme weather events... 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): Damage from hurricanes adds to growing cost of climate change; Economist's view: Learning from Harvey; Harvey wrecks up to a million cars; The looming Superfund nightmare; Too much CO2 behind nutrient collapse in most plants; Why getting the power back on in Florida could take weeks; US House votes to block climate rules; CA sues Trump Administration over fuel economy standards; Trump Administration delays limits on toxic metal releases from coal plants... PLUS: Irma Won’t “Wake Up” Climate Change-Denying Republicans. Their Whole Ideology Is on the Line... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Big wins for Democrats, a public face-plant for a renowned GOP "voter fraud" fraudster, more on Irma's historic devastation, and the scientific facts behind what helped to make it so devastating, from someone who actually knows. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

Before we get to the increasingly disturbing situation on the ground following Hurricane Irma in Florida and elsewhere --- and why that storm and Harvey before it were so terrible in the first place --- a few news items of note today. First up: Democrats took over two different state legislative seats in special elections wins on Tuesday, one in Oklahoma and one in New Hampshire. Both races were in districts that Trump won by very large margins last November. The victories for Dems --- including huge reported vote swings from R to D --- are of a piece with a series of other special elections held so far this year, including four in Oklahoma alone.

In, yes, related news, former President Jimmy Carter offered some noteworthy statements on North Korea that President Donald Trump may wish to notice, and also some words about worldwide democracy and the need for public oversight of ballot counting.

In the meantime, following some wildly misleading claims about stolen elections and "voter fraud" in New Hampshire from Kris Kobach, the vice-chair of Trump's so-called "Election Integrity" Commission and Sec. of State of Kansas, panelists and members of his own commission, including NH's own Sec. of State, blasted the GOP "voter fraud" fraudster, to his face, during the Commission's second public meeting, held on Tuesday in...NH!

While Republicans are very quick to use even the most sketchy threads of "evidence" they can possibly discover to claim that our democracy has fallen victim to a massive Democratic "voter fraud" conspiracy --- and that we must take radical steps to prevent it, even if it means millions of our fellow citizens lose their RIGHT to vote --- there is, apparently, a very different standard for "evidence" when it comes to climate change. On that, decades of peer-reviewed evidence and tens of thousands of studies don't seem to do the trick, for some reason. That evidence, is simply dismissed by the GOP's fossil fuel-funded cronies. Now it's costing the U.S. --- and the planet --- bigly.

After an update on the death toll and deteriorating conditions in some parts of Florida following Hurricane Irma, we're joined by Penn State University climate scientist and author DR. MICHAEL E. MANN, to discuss what made Hurricanes Harvey and Irma so historically extraordinary (and deadly) and why now is absolutely the right time, despite claims to the contrary by top officials in the Trump Administration and their fellow wingnut denialist community, to discuss the growing impact of our climate crisis and the relationship between that and hurricanes, flooding, wild fires, drought and more across the globe.

"In a word, warmth," Mann tells me when I ask him why Harvey and Irma, from a meteorological perspective, were so uniquely devastating. "Warm oceans mean more moisture in the atmosphere, moisture that's available for record rainfall like we saw in Harvey. It also means greater intensification of these storms --- and indeed, we saw the most intense hurricane ever in the open Atlantic, Irma, at a 185 miles per hour."

He notes that "over the last three years, when global ocean temperatures have been at their warmest, we've seen the strongest hurricane ever, globally, which was Patricia in the Pacific a couple of years ago, we have seen, obviously, the strongest storm in the Northern Hemisphere [Irma]. We've also seen the strongest storm in the Southern Hemisphere [Winston]."

"We've warmed the global oceans more than one degree Fahrenheit. That amounts to about a 7% increase in wind speeds. That 7% increase in wind speed means roughly 20% increase in destructive potential. It's not coincidental that we're noticing that. That is not a subtle climate signal. That is a very tangible impact that warming is having on the destructive potential of these storms."

Mann goes on to explain how the U.S. is "falling behind" Europe when it comes to investment, and accurate results, in climate and weather forecasts; responds to critics who use "straw men" and denial to "muddy the waters" and "poison the well"; draws an interesting parallel between Superstorm Sandy and the Sandy Hook mass murder, in response to those who say "now is not the time to discuss climate"; explains why he believes, as a professor of meteorology, there are still so many broadcast meteorologists in the dwindling denier community (and casts some of the blame for that on his own Penn State); and why he feels that recent comments about climate change from Sen. John McCain may offer reason for optimism.

"Ironically, the era of Trump, as adverse as it might feel when it comes to climate action, may ironically be creating a divide within the Republican Party that could end up leading to a governing coalition for action on climate," says the ever optimistic Mann near the end of today's conversation...

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On today's BradCast --- 12 years to do the day since Hurricane Katrina made landfall --- the disaster from Hurricane Harvey continues in Houston. How bad will it get? And will officials finally take action to avoid more such catastrophes? [Audio link to show follows below.]

Catastrophic flooding from Harvey continues today, as an all-time continental U.S. record of nearly 52" of rainfall has been recorded, two of Houston's reservoirs have over-topped their dams, a levee has been breached South of Houston, thousands of rescues continue, tens of thousands are stranded in their homes and in shelters, and we are still days away from the water receding.

It's difficult to explain how much water has fallen. As noted on today's show, generally speaking, one inch of rain equals one foot of snow. So, if this were snow, it would be 50 feet deep in some places! Seth Borenstein at AP reports "By the time the rain stops, Harvey will have dumped about 1 million gallons of water for every man, woman and child in southeastern Texas." Already, as of Tuesday, he notes, "15 trillion gallons of rain have fallen on a large area, and an additional 5 trillion or 6 trillion gallons are forecast by the end of Wednesday...That’s enough water to fill all the NFL and Division 1 college football stadiums more than 100 times over."

DAVID ROBERTS, environment, energy and politics journalist from Vox.com, joins us to discuss the ongoing disaster --- the type of which he has been warning about for more than a decade --- and what we know and don't about the effect of climate change on this storm and its unprecedented rainfall. We discuss the failure of infrastructure officials, in Houston and elsewhere around the nation, to take appropriate measures to help mitigate, much less adapt to, a quickly changing climate that scientists have long warned will become more and more destructive thanks to the continuing man-made emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.

"Take climate change completely out of the equation, you still have a Gulf Coast that's subject to these mega-storms every so often, and is planning terribly for them," he notes. "In your Floridas, your Miamis and Houstons, they're just building everywhere they can, and they are all --- institutionally, by habit and by law --- extremely biased in favor of developing, including in these vulnerable areas." Will the destruction of Harvey finally force officials to take appropriate action?

"These disasters seem like a time --- which are very rare in the U.S. these days --- when we set our petty squabbles aside and come together to help people," observes Roberts, before wondering: "What's going to happen when these kinds of crises are striking different regions of the country regularly? Or every year? Or multiple cities at once, as climate exacerbates all this and makes all these disasters worse? I wonder how our capacity for empathy is going to keep up."

We also discuss some new revelations regarding Exxon's decades long private knowledge and public denial of global warming, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry's recently commissioned Energy Dept. study on the effect of renewable energy on the power grid and its relationship, if any, to hastening the demise of the coal industry.

Then Desi Doyen joins us for Green News Report special coverage of the Harvey disaster and, speaking of Exxon, news of refinery shutdowns and toxic petrochemical spills amid the flooding at two of its units in Houston.

Oh, and Donald Trump showed up in Texas today and reportedly turned the appearance into a rally "in front of a few hundred Trump supporters who somehow managed to know exactly where the president was doing the briefing," according to Dallas Morning News' pool reporters. "What a crowd, what a turnout," he said...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 'Green News Report' Special Coverage: Hurricane Harvey causes long term, widespread devastation across Houston and Southeast Texas... 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): More than 20 Texas representatives and senators voted against Sandy aid. How will they vote on Harvey?; Want to be mad about government insurance? Be mad about the program that will be critical after Harvey; Why Hurricane Harvey became so extreme; Scientists asked to remove 'climate change' from grant proposal; Tree-killing beetles spread into northern US forests linked to global warming; 29 states just banned laws about seeds... PLUS: Lummi Nation declares state of emergency after salmon spill... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: With millions of Americans imperiled by a massive, potentially "catastrophic" hurricane tonight, the President of the United States took the moment to give the finger to the Pentagon by signing a ban on transgender service members in the military. [Audio link to show follows below.]

(Note: Giving the finger to the federal court system and the U.S. Constitution itself, with a pardon of the reviled Sheriff Joe Arpaio, didn't happen until the hurricane became a Category 4 and we were already off air today.)

First today, Hurricane Harvey is set to slam into the Texas Gulf coast as dire warnings are issued by the National Weather Service that some areas may be "uninhabitable for weeks or months" thereafter. The startling language in the forecasts echo that not heard since it was used by in the extraordinary NWS warning issued prior to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 12 years ago this week (as we also covered on air at the time).

Our own Desi Doyen --- a native of south Texas herself --- explains the concerns of changing, global warming-fueled weather patterns that are leading forecasters to predict that Harvey may stall in place for days, dropping massive amounts of rainfall (as much as 40 inches in some places) over the next several days, before the storm could move back out to the Gulf only to return for a second landfall. Are state and federal officials --- with many key posts still unfilled by Trump --- fully prepared for what's to come?

Then, we're joined by SUE FULTON, former President of Sparta, an organization supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members of the military and their families, to discuss Donald Trump's recent surprise Twitter-announcement that "The United States government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military."

Fulton, a former U.S. Army Captain and a member of the first coed graduating class at West Point, had worked with the Obama Administration's Pentagon on the policy that had previously lifted the ban on openly transgender service members last year. She describes the detailed and meticulous process that had been carried out by the Department of Defense, with stakeholders from every branch, as well as outside organizations, and the military's own interest in carrying out the policy change that Trump is now reversing.

We discuss how Trump's own process to reverse the policy change appears to run precisely counter to the one carried out by Obama, as well as the wishes of military leaders and service members and the vast majority of Americans of all parties. We also discuss why Trump appears to be carrying this reversal out, despite both the success of lifting the ban to date and comparable changes to similar exclusionary policies that had previously barred both women and openly gay members.

Fulton has a lot to share and inform us about all of this. I strongly recommend tuning in for today's show in full.

For now, however, especially with all of the breaking news I'm still trying to follow tonight, I'll share just this one quote from Fulton for now: "[The Pentagon] did not make this decision to open transgender service willy-nilly --- they made it based on their judgment about military readiness. That's as it should be. I hear people telling me, 'This should be about military readiness', and the answer is: this is absolutely about readiness. This is about having the strongest, most effective military force that we can muster to protect and defend the interests of the United States. And, as part of that, the Pentagon has determined that allowing transgender people to serve --- to keeping that talent within the armed forces, and continuing to recruit talent from as broad a pool as possible --- is right, is the best thing to create this strongest possible force. And that decision was made carefully. Now that decision is being overthrown based on no evidence. In fact, based on saying that the evidence that the Pentagon itself uncovered and determined to be accurate should somehow be thrown out the window."

Then, as luck would have it, no sooner did I finish speaking with Fulton, then news broke late today that, in fact, Trump has made good on his threat and has officially signed new guidance, ordering the Pentagon to proceed with restoration of the ban on transgender service members.

That, just days after calling for "unity" in the country, and telling members of the military at Fort Myers: "Every person who puts on the uniform makes our nation proud. They all come from across our land. They represent every race, ethnicity, and creed. But they all pledge the same oath, fight for the same cause, and operate as one team --- with one shared sense of purpose."

What an extraordinary monster. And I'm being very polite here...

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On today's BradCast: Now that he's President, after years of decrying "our very stupid leaders" for "wasting" blood and treasure to stay in Afghanistan, Donald Trump announced on Monday night that the U.S. will be spending more blood and treasure to stay in Afghanistan --- for an indefinite period of time. [Audio link to show follows below.]

But, he claimed, justifying his flip-flop, he has a "new" strategy for "victory" in the war torn nation, more than 16 and a half years since the U.S. first invaded following the 9/11 attacks. What exactly is that "new" strategy? Based on his prime-time televised address from Fort Myer in Arlington, VA, it's not entirely clear. Then again, neither is whatever the hell is going on in Afghanistan. "It's complicated," my guest explains today.

Joining me to try and help us understand America's longest war and where it goes from here under the ownership of Donald Trump is blogger, historian and longtime Middle East/South Asia expert JUAN COLE, of the University of Michigan. Professor Cole, who has been writing about this "invisible war" at his "Informed Comment" blog since 2002, describes the difficulties faced by the last three U.S. Presidents in Afghanistan --- not to mention previous colonial powers from other nations --- and how Trump's plans appear to be both different and the same as his two predecessors'.

If President Obama was unable to succeed with his counter-insurgency strategy with 100,000 U.S. troops, it seems unlikely that Trump, with some 12,000 soon to be there, will do much better with his "not nation building --- killing terrorists" strategy.

"There's no real danger the Taliban are going to take over the [Afghan] government and kick us out," Cole tells me, in trying to explain why we are still there. "However, if the U.S. got out, I don't imagine that the government in Kabul would last more than a year."

So, is it possible to ever get out, at this point? What good has 16+ years of bombing, 1 trillion in tax-payer dollars and the lives of some 3,500 U.S. troops --- not to mention untold millions of Afghans --- actually accomplished? We discuss the roots and the reasons for the ongoing quagmire and much more with the good professor.

"Whatever resources and capacity Afghanistan had to be an independent country were destroyed from 1978 forward, once the [Soviet] Communists took over, and then Reagan conducted what I call the 'Reagan Jihad'," Cole explains. "He got all the Muslim fundamentalists all together --- including what became al-Qaeda --- to kill the Communists. Since that time, since 1978 forward, Afghanistan has been roiled and in turmoil. I figure a couple million people have been killed. The country has no real resources. It's one of the poorest countries in the world. So this is just not a place, especially given what was done to it in the last 30 years, that is very likely to stand up a government. This is one of the reasons the U.S. is stuck there."

"The thing that puzzles me --- I can't entirely understand it --- is that no one in the United States cares about Afghanistan. No one cares if we're there or we're not there. If troops are killed over there, it hurts me in my gut. I'm an Army brat. But they put it on page 17 of the Washington Post. And it never comes on cable news," says Cole, adding: "It's an invisible war."

After that conversation today, a quick look at Trump's domestic war with the leadership of his own party and others, before we finally turn to Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report, on how corporate lobbyists from Monsanto, Exxon and other major corporations continue to game the system for their own profits, while playing the rest of us for suckers...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Monsanto pesticide, approved by secret process, is decimating crops; Trump disbands federal climate advisory committee; Appeals court lets Exxon off the hook for Arkansas pipeline spill that destroyed a neighborhood; PLUS: Trump's National Park Service ends ban on plastic disposable water bottles... 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 Interior Department cancels mountaintop removal study; CA defies Trump, proves environmental regulation boost economic growth; EPA to delay plan forcing Texas to address coal plant pollution; Murray Energy boss: Trump has broken a promise to coal; Oil refiner's secret campaign against biofuels; Solar advocates get surprising win in NV; VA governor urges Trump to drop VA from offshore drilling expansion; EPA coordinated with Monsanto to slow herbicide review... PLUS: Emails show Trump EPA promised 'new day' for chemical agriculture industry.... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hundreds dead in massive Sierra Leone mudslide triggered by torrential rains; This year's Gulf of Mexico dead zone is largest on record; 124 degrees for ten days straight in Iraq, as scientists warn 'super heat waves' to get more frequent across globe; Fossil fuel industry gets $5 trillion in subsidies per year; PLUS: It's not your imagination, Florida --- sea levels really are rising faster in the Southeast... 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): Fast-melting Arctic an ominous sign'; Global warming explodes devastating larch beetle population; Exxon refinery still pumping toxins into black community in Texas; Trump EPA polluter fines drop 60%; Alaskan towns face rising seas as Trump Admin cancels federal help; EPA Pruitt carrying out his deregulatory agenda in secret; US and Mexico finalize CO River water deal; Houston is missing the next energy revolution; UT counties testing 'molten salt' nuclear power ... PLUS: The West's latest mining frenzy is over 'extraterrestrial' gold.... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Federal scientists leak National Climate Assessment report; Trump Administration officially files to withdraw from Paris Climate Agreement, but may want to stay in; EPA report proves environmental regulations don't hurt the economy; PLUS: Good news! Keeping Obama's climate policies would save Americans $300 billion a year by 2030... 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): Coal plants might be even more toxic than we thought; How climate change became a question of faith; Hilcorp's environmental violations come to light as it prepares to drill in fragile Arctic; 10 states back water agencies against tribes in CA water lawsuit; Monsanto weedkiller blamed for crop losses; Tesla developing self-driving electric semi-truck; EPA cracks down on polluter after finding high levels of brain-damaging manganese in a low-income neighborhood... PLUS: Sea level did, in fact, rise faster in Southeastern U.S. than elsewhere... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Europe grapples with relentless heat wave, nicknamed 'Lucifer'; Flash drought causing crop failures in the Great Plains; Trump's Department of Agriculture nixes phrase 'climate change'; PLUS: The electric utility industry knew about global warming in 1968, but chose to lie about it and build more coal plants anyway... 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): Al Gore's carbon footprint doesn't matter (and yours doesn't either); Scientists fear Trump will bury blunt climate report; Interior Dept. rescinds coal valuation rule; WV gov wants new federal coal subsidies; Keystone XL pipeline fate discussed in hearings all week in Nebraska; EPA staff forced to work on fossil fuel industry wish list, former official says; Forestry experts say many forest fires should be allowed to burn; In sweltering South, climate change is now a workplace hazard... PLUS: Pipeline Payday: how pipeline builders win big, whether gas is needed or not... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, Congress is in recess and the President may be on a 17-day "working vacation", but that doesn't seem to have kept Donald Trump from his usual barrage of lies to the American people. And, speaking of lies, just like the oil and coal companies, a new report finds the nation's utilities companies learned decades ago about the threat of global warming...before deciding to launch a PR campaign to cover it up. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

First up today: Trump's misleading claim that a new immigration proposal he is supporting will bar legal immigrants from obtaining various public welfare benefits for five years after entering the U.S. Which, by the way, is already federal law, even if Trump either doesn't appear know it, or is simply choosing to lie about it. Trump's new proposal, however, is even crueler, as we discuss today.

Also, not discussed by Trump (and barely noticed by much of the corporate media): the weekend bombing of an Islamic mosque in Minnesota. And, also today: Emails obtained from the USDA reveal that employees at the federal agency were instructed to avoid the use of phases such as "climate change" after Trump took office, even when dealing with farming issues that are directly affected by climate change. That on the heels of Trump's nominee for the top science position at USDA, a non-scientist and denialist rightwing talk radio host, having described progressives as "race traitors".

Then, speaking of denialism, we're joined by DAVE ANDERSON of the Energy and Policy Institute on his new report documenting how the nation's utilities companies learned of the threat of global warming decades ago --- at least as long ago as 1968 --- before purposely choosing to mislead customers and the public about it so they could continue to profit from the burning of cheap, dirty coal.

"What they wanted to do was put the science on ice, you could say," Anderson tells me. In fact, they even created an astroturf outfit calling itself the "Information Council on the Environment" (ICE) in order to mislead the public with a series of magazine and radio ads meant to dispute the science of global warming. (See the "Chicken Little" ad in the graphic above.)

The newly reported revelations echo those recently discovered about Exxon and other fossil fuel companies which confirmed the science of climate change and dangers of burning carbon decades ago, before spending millions on climate change denialism in hopes of confusing and misleading both the public and their own investors.

"Earlier reports had been commissioned by President Lyndon Johnson, and before him, John F. Kennedy, that also touched upon the possible threat posed by CO2 emissions," Anderson says. "Even way back then, government was starting to get involved in climate research, and it seems like utilities were involved in the creation of those reports, and probably knew even earlier than 1968 that this could be a problem."

"In 1971," he documents, "they saw this as a really long term potential issue for power generation. ... Once it exploded onto the front pages of the New York Times, after some pretty interesting Congressional testimony in 1988, it seems like the utilities kind of freaked out. They started looking for people who could spread the message that climate science wasn't legit, and even a hoax."

"One of the interesting documents that we found was Congressional testimony by an expert from the Electric Power Research Institute, which is the utility industry's own R&D shop," Anderson says. "He actually warned Congress that if climate change proved to be a major concern, it could actually make the burning of fossil fuels essentially unacceptable. That was a pretty bold statement in 1977."

A number of large oil and coal companies have recently been sued for their denialism, in cases which mirror those against Big Tobacco in the 90s. (Which makes sense, since Big Fossil Fuel employed many of the same "experts" and attorneys who spent decades misleading the public about the harms of smoking.) Will the utilities companies, some of which are still lying to the public about this, face similar accountability soon? We discuss that and much more today.

Finally today, another Fox 'News' star is suspended amidst new allegations that he sent unwanted genital photos to colleagues. Are we starting to see a pattern here yet?...

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On today's BradCast, there's at least one place in the country where time seems to have stopped and Donald Trump remains wildly popular. But that place isn't Washington D.C. right now. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Some Republicans in the U.S. Senate are finally beginning to separate themselves from the historically unpopular President Trump and his similarly unpopular agenda. They've even taken steps to try and keep Trump from removing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and hiring someone willing to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller over the August Senate recess and thereafter.

With Trump's approval ratings plummeting, even in Rightwing polls that Trump used to favorably cite (as recently as June), GOPers like Arizona's Senator Jeff Flake, whose own approval rating is now even lower than Trump's, are now hoping to distance themselves from the President, in Flake's case, even after recently voting with him to take health care away from tens of million of Americans.

But not everyone is cutting ties with Trump. In fact, West Virginia's wealthiest man --- and, not coincidentally, its newly-elected Governor and longtime coal baron --- Jim Justice, changed his party affiliation this week from Democratic to Republican. And he announced it at a Donald Trump campaign rally on Thursday night.

We're joined today by 9th generation West Virginian BOB KINCAID, host of Head-On Radio and President of Coal River Mountain Watch, to explain Justice's flip and why so many in the state still believe in Trump.

"Jim Justice earned his money the old fashioned way --- he inherited it," quips the always-colorful Kincaid, noting many more of the Governor's very Trump-like characteristics. Kincaid warned Democrats long ago about Justice, whose flip, he tells me, is "almost a killing stroke for the now-moribund West Virgina Democratic Party."

"Trump's approval ratings may be in the toilet in the rest of the country, but they're not in the toilet here --- this is still the Trumpiest place in the world."

We also discuss the surprising votes by both of WV's U.S. Senators (Republican Shelly Moore-Capito and Democrat Joe Manchin) during the Senate's recent attempt to repeal ObamaCare. ("Joe Manchin getting something right can be filed under 'even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then,'" the progressive Kincaid says. As to unseating him next year in a primary, he handicaps the odds, and details what would occur if it did, beginning with the phrase: "If pigs grew wings, and sheep were perched in trees, and leprechauns rode across the open plain on three-legged unicorns, and a progressive actually beat Joe Manchin in the primary...")

Tune in for the always-delightful visit from our old friend and longtime Coal Country hero on all of that, and more, including an update from the front lines now that the pretend "War on Coal" is finally over and, as Trump will tell you lie to you, tens of thousands of coal jobs have finally returned!

Lastly today, Desi Doyen joins us for a shocking amount of encouraging news in our 799th(!) Green News Report, including several setbacks for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, and a major oil company CEO who's now buying an electric car as he sees the world moving to renewable energy and the end quickly nearing for Big Oil...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: DHS waives environmental laws, prepares to bulldoze wildlife refuge for Trump's border wall; Court of Appeals orders EPA to enforce methane regulations; Now Great Britain to phase out all diesel and gasoline cars; PLUS: Shell Oil CEO says his next car will be electric!... 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): EPA Chief Backtracks On Delaying Rules Reducing Emissions; The Gulf Of Mexico's Dead Zone Is The Biggest Ever Seen; Dangerous Pollutants in Military’s Open Burns Greater Than Thought; Scott Pruitt's Crimes Against Nature; The long and winding road of electric car adoption; The Miami area endured an absurd flooding event Tuesday afternoon... PLUS: Al Gore says fight for Paris accord, climate will continue despite Trump's policies.... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: a hodge-podge of mid-Summer news and D.C. dysfunction with listener calls to help make it all better somehow. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Among the stories covered on today's very busy show:

• Trump reluctantly signs a new bipartisan bill sanctioning Russia, North Korea and Iran (and why Bernie Sanders didn't support the bill either);
• A recently discovered Department of Justice announcement signals political appointees at Trump's DoJ civil rights unit plans to target affirmative action measures at colleges and universities on behalf of white Americans;
• A federal judge rules Alabama does not have to notify thousands of former felons that their right to vote has been restored;
• In addition to every single voting machine being hacked at last weekend's DefCon hackers conference in Las Vegas, electronic pollbook systems were also hacked there, and one contained the personal records of some 650,000 Tennessee voters.
• A long-serving, top EPA official resigns citing Trump Administration rollbacks to environmental protection in a blistering exit letter [PDF].

Then we open up the phone lines to callers on any and all of the above (and more), before Desi Doyen joins us finally for the latest similarly-busy Green News Report on South Carolina canceling plans for new nuclear plants, new studies predicting big trouble for humanity (especially those who live near the coast) and much much more...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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