We're back live on today's BradCast after a much-needed holiday stand down last week, even as the world registered its hottest day on record...four different times on four consecutive days. Other than that, did we miss anything? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The globe is broiling, but it's also flooding for the same reason. Our climate is in crisis. From the U.S. to Canada to Spain to India and China, just to name a few of the "hot spots" over just the past 24 to 48 hours or so. And, in case your other news sources forgot to tell you, it's all our fault. Or, at least the fault of the fossil fuel industry and the politicians and dupes they've bought off over the decades to hoax you into believing that our climate crisis itself is a hoax. It isn't. And, based on the mind-warping records being shattered across Planet Earth right now --- with little hope of cooling any time soon --- a case can be made that if we haven't hit a few disastrous, point-of-no-return tipping points by now, we are certainly on the verge.

Climate warming greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, continue to increase along with smashed heat records. Is it too late to do anything about it?

Longtime climate and energy reporter ANDREW FREEDMAN of Axios joins us today to discuss the mind-blowing records now being shattered by the day, who should be held accountable for it (including those in the media), and if it is or isn't too late for humanity to take action to reverse course

When I ask Freedman if it's hard to wrap his head around all that now seems to be going on in the climate, even after so many years of warning folks that this would be, he tells me, "It is. While my expectations might have been for some of these records, everything everywhere all at once is how it feels right now. It feels that way as a reporter, it feels that way as just a person on Earth."

"The global records weren't something I was expecting to jump out this early in July. The peak is usually later in July," he explains. "It's pretty much a done deal that July will be the hottest July on record, and most likely the hottest month that we've seen since records began." The news he has for the rest of the year, and for next year, isn't much better.

He's got a lot more to say. He's been writing a lot about this of late for some reason.

Then, with an invitation for a "Reverse BradCast" --- where listeners call in to tell me what they think I need to know, and I get to tell them they are wrong about it --- most of our callers today wanted to talk about the climate instead for some reason. And that's probably a very good thing.

As Freedman notes today, citing climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, "Her appeal to people is to say, 'The most powerful thing that you can do about climate change is to have a conversation with somebody about it.' We need to be talking about it more. All these things actually have an impact. It's not just 'Oh well, we're screwed.' It's hard not to think that way. It's hard for me and other climate reporters. But there are a ton of solutions. The question is are we going fast enough?"

So far, the answer, according to most scientists?: No. We absolutely aren't. That can still change. But only if we keep talking about it to everyone who will listen...and even those who don't want to...

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Yup. We're heading back to the critical battleground state of Georgia again on today's BradCast, as their ridiculous Sec. of State gets ridiculouser in his indefensible defenses of his ridiculously vulnerable, brand-new touchscreen voting systems which he is still refusing to upgrade, despite warnings from the federal government and increasing urging from voting system and cybersecurity experts. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST, a few more quick words on yesterday's landmark U.S. Supreme Court opinion [PDF] in Moore v. Harper, in which Chief Justice John Roberts and two Trump-appointed Justices joined with the Court's three liberals to put the kibosh, hopefully once and for all, on the bonkers, so-called Independent State Legislature theory pushed by far-rightwingers. Had SCOTUS given a majority blessing to the fringe Constitutional theory giving complete, unreviewable say over all federal election laws to State Legislatures, it would have wreaked indescribable havoc on some 250 years of election laws across all 50 states. It would also have given authority to those State Legislatures to overturn Presidential elections by selecting slates of electors not chosen by state voters!

As one of the nation's most conservative and respected former federal judges, Michael Luttig, tweeted today: "It would be impossible to overstate the [enormousness] of yesterday's seminal decision in Moore v. Harper. Not only is it now the single most important constitutional case for American Democracy since the Nation's Founding almost 250 years ago. ... It is also now one of the most important constitutional cases for representative government in America. ... Today, it takes its deserved place in the pantheon of great Supreme Court cases that give meaning to the Constitution's genius of a separation of powers --- among the national Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary, and also between the national government and the governments of the respective 50 states of the United States."

But there were three Justices who voted in the minority in that case. As it turns out, all three of them were recently highlighted by investigate journalists for their, shall we say, dubious ethics practices. Clarence Thomas (see here, here, here and here), Neil Gorsuch (see here), and Sam Alito (see here).

In addition to Alito's undisclosed, luxury fishing trip to Alaska on the private jet (and dime) of GOP megadonor and vulture capitalist billionaire Paul Singer, as revealed by ProPublica last week, this week The Intercept offers a new story shedding some fresh light on Alito's years of climate change-denialism and his Court decisions on behalf of the oil and gas industry.

NEXT UP, it's back to Georgia, where Republican Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger is reportedly giving testimony in Atlanta today to prosecutors working on Special Counsel Jack Smith's probe of the January 6, 2021 insurrection and the other myriad ways in which Team Trump attempted to steal the 2020 Presidential Election. (One of those ways included Donald Trump's now-infamous phone call to Raffensperger, attempting to strongarm him to "find" the 11,780 votes he would have needed to flip the state's results from the winner, Joe Biden.)

But where Raffy has been seen as a hero by some for refusing to roll over to Trump after the 2020 election, we have explained for years that he is anything but. Now, he's under fire for the massive vulnerabilities discovered by cybersecurity and voting system experts in his new, $150 million Dominion touchscreen voting systems, and for his refusal, as first reported by The BRAD BLOG in mid-May, to install Dominion's security patches to them before the 2024 Presidential election. That, despite urgent warnings from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and many longtime election experts and computer scientists.

Now, Raffensperger's office is going on the offensive, attacking those experts as "paranoiacs and conspiracists", attempting to conflate them with the rightwing, Sidney Powell-organized MAGA loons who tried to steal the election in 2020 and breached the state's voting systems in Coffee County, GA on January 7th, 2021, the day after the Trump-insighted insurrection in D.C.

"The paranoiacs and conspiracists of the world have their beliefs reinforced when they read reports of theoretical 'vulnerabilities' that fail to mention the real-world security measures already in place," sniped Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State's office, to Politico last week. "If the PhDs don’t like being put in the same category as the Pillow salesman, tough noogies," he actually said. "They should stop saying similar things."

We're joined today by one of those paranoiac conspiracist PhD's on today's program. Our guest is DR. PHILIP STARK, Professor at University of California, Berkeley; inventor of the post-election Risk-Limiting Audit protocol; Advisory Board member at the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) and advisor to plaintiffs in the long-running Curling v. Raffensperger lawsuit in Georgia seeking to replace the state's new vulnerable and unverifiable touchscreen voting systems with verifiable hand-marked paper ballots. (The same plaintiffs in the same federal lawsuit were able to win an order from the judge in 2019 that banned the state's previous touchscreen systems made by Diebold after they were found to be so vulnerable and unverifiable as to be unconstitutional.)

Stark has a few choice words of his own in response to both the obnoxious and un-scientific remarks from the Sec. of State's office as well as Dominion, both of whom have been blasting the damning Halderman Report, as created on behalf of plaintiffs in Curling and finding at least nine alarming vulnerabilities confirmed by CISA in the Dominion systems. Both the State and private voting system vendor claim that the Univ. of MI's Dr. Alex Halderman failed to take into account, in his report, the physical protections of the state's 70,000 vote system devices. They believe that will adequately protect next year's Presidential election in the battleground state. In doing so, they seem to be pretending that the Coffee County breach by Team Trump in 2021 didn't already run roughshod over the state's voting systems, including by copying and distributing its sensitive, proprietary software over the Internet.

"If [Raffensperger's] spokesperson can't tell the difference between what we're saying and what the [MAGA] group is saying, then they are not competent to do their job," charges Stark.

"There is a world of difference between 'This system is Swiss cheese from a perspective of security, it's really vulnerable and you need to harden it,' and 'The election was rigged and the wrong person was announced to have won.' That's just not the same claim at all. Secondly, the idea that we should stop pointing out vulnerabilities and trying to improve the trustworthiness of voting systems because someone might twist our words --- the argument seems to be 'You should lie to people in order to increase their trust in you' --- that seems to be perverse. What we want is justified public trust in the outcome of elections."

He summarizes some of the most noteworthy concerns from the Halderman Report --- detailing the ease by which malware can be implanted into the system by a single voter via any one of the state's 35,000 touchscreen voting machines or by one person at the County level who can infect every machine in the jurisdiction --- before explaining how inadequate and naive the Secretary's responses have been.

Both Raff's office and Dominion cite a competing study to Halderman's commissioned by Dominion from a group named MITRE. Their unsigned report was created without access to the Dominion machines, unlike Halderman's report, and offers the misleading claim that physical security of the voting systems is likely adequate to prevent exploitation of the vulnerabilities meticulously documented by Halderman. Stark is among nearly 30 election experts now calling on MITRE to retract their report on that basis and others.

"First of all, they're just wrong," Stark charges, wondering what their instructions may have been from Dominion. "I conjecture that they were told to assume that those [physical] protections were in place. I doubt that they did any independent research to determine whether in fact there were effective protections in place."

"I liken this to saying it's completely fine to drive a car on bald tires, as long as you have a policy of only driving straight on dry pavement and never turning sharply, or applying the brakes. Except that's not how it actually works in practice. And here, it's very, very clear that the assumption that there is rigorous physical security around these devices is just not true."

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Extreme heat and deadly storms spread across much of the U.S.; Train carrying hazardous chemicals derails into Montana's Yellowstone River; PLUS: More EV carmakers adopt Tesla's fast-charging standard... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Humans approaching limits of 'survivability' as sweltering heatwaves engulf parts of Asia; Vast fossil fuel and farming subsidies causing 'environmental havoc'; Vast fossil fuel and farming subsidies causing 'environmental havoc'; 'Its absolutely guaranteed': the best and worst case scenarios for sea level rise; Intensifying rains pose hidden flood risks across U.S.; Oil spill from Shell pipeline fouls farms and a river in a long-polluted part of Nigeria; Paris climate finance summit fails to deliver debt forgiveness plan; Samuel Alito's wife leased land to an oil and gas firm while the justice fought the EPA; Giant wind farm takes root off coast of Massachusetts... PLUS: Wolves that nearly died out have recovered, now helping island's ecosystem... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Record-shattering extreme heat broils India and Texas, astonishing forecasters; U.N. closes a fossil fuel industry lobbying loophole; Himalayan glaciers melting at unprecedented rates, new study finds; PLUS: USDA approves first lab-grown meat for sale in the U.S... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Supreme Court rules against Navajo Nation in legal fight over water rights; 'Insane', 'astonishing' jet stream leaves scientists 'at a loss' for words; Groundbreaking youth-led climate trial comes to an end in Montana; Texas farmers are worried one of the state’s most precious water resources is running dry; As Texas swelters, Gov. Abbott rescinds local rules requiring water breaks for construction workers; Cooking gas explosion kills 31 people at a barbecue restaurant in China; Car-rental companies are ruining EVs with 'surprise EV rentals'; DeSantis vetoes flood control funds for blue counties... PLUS: Meteorologist resigns, citing PTSD from threats over climate change coverage... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Raging Canadian wildfires threaten 'summer of smoke' on both sides of the border; Tens of thousands of dead fish wash up on a Texas beach; PLUS: Montana kids' landmark climate lawsuit gets underway, putting the state on trial for failing to address climate change... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Without climate change, these extreme weather events would not have happened; Spike in ocean heat stuns scientists: Have we breached a climate tipping point?; Oil producers say tech will soon handle climate-wrecking fumes. US envoy Kerry says be skeptical; DOE nuclear docs central to Trump’s indictment; Every stage of plastic production and use is harming human health; Summer intern commutes by plane, because it's cheaper than rent in NYC; Could Mother Nature cut off California’s water guarantee?; How Arizona stands between tribes and their water... PLUS: This all-electric neighborhood may be the future of green living... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Gas tanker fire collapses major freeway overpass in PA; Chemical companies agree to billion-dollar settlement, as states sue over PFAS 'forever' chemical contamination in drinking water; Atmospheric CO2 levels spike to new record high; PLUS: Buckle up! El Nino is here to intensify extreme weather around the world... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Landmark 'kids' climate trial begins: how science will take the stand; Tens of thousands of dead fish wash up on a Texas beach due to low oxygen levels; Should Interstate 35 through downtown Duluth be dismantled?; Fossil fuel company net zero plans 'largely meaningless,' report says; Why the U.S. electric grid isn't ready for the energy transition; Farmers under attack for supporting clean energy; Tesla charging network, joining Ford in leveraging the EV leader's tech; Solar, wind covered Belgium’s entire electricity demand for the first time... PLUS: How warming ruined a crab fishery and hurt an Alaskan town... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Canada wildfires a smoky wake-up call for our climate crisis; Saudi Arabia to cut production again to boost oil prices; Biden EPA funds $115 million in repairs to Jackson, MS water system; House Republican sabotage their own natural gas stove bill; PLUS: Ukraine dam's destruction unleashes massive flooding and ecological disaster... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Dirty air can be deadly. Here’s how to protect yourself; Chemical industry used Big Tobacco's tactics to conceal evidence of PFAS risks; Abandoned oil and gas wells emit carcinogens, harmful pollutants; Tensions, gas prices rise as Washington state auctions carbon; Virginia panel votes to exit carbon trading market; The US clean energy manufacturing boom has begun. Now what?; Puerto Rico's record heat wave astonishes meteorologists; Why glass, paper and other options aren’t the simple alternative to plastic that they seem to be... PLUS: The Grand Canyon is losing its river... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Amidst all the madness, we take a moment to revisit a continuing stain on the nation and what can be done about it, with a longtime friend of this program. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

FIRST UP, however, a few news headlines...

• The cost of our climate crisis strikes home for a huge swath of the nation, as smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires chokes American states from Minnesota to New York to the Ohio Valley to the Carolinas.
• Joe Biden's EPA announces it is sending $115 million to Jackson, Mississippi to begin repairing the city's long deteriorating water system. It's the first of some $600 million Congress has allocated to support long-overdue water infrastructure upgrades in the state's capital city, where more than 80% of the population is Black and drinking water supplies have repeatedly failed in recent years.
• The corrupt U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has asked for another 90 days before filing his annual financial disclosures, following months of brutal investigative reporting revealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of his undisclosed luxury vacations, real estate deals and more with billionaire GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.

THEN, we're joined by Alabama's former Democratic Governor DON SIEGELMAN, who recently penned an op-ed at Washington Post with the state's former Republican Governor Robert Bentley. As explained in their piece, both men have come to "regret" overseeing executions during their time as the state's chief executive after witnessing, first hand, "the flaws in our nation's justice system" during their own prosecutions.

Siegelman discusses one death penalty case in particular, the 2000 execution of Freddie Lee Wright, which he says he is now "personally haunted by", telling me today that Wright "should never have been charged with capital murder in the first place. He was exonerated by a jury, 11-1 voted to acquit him of this crime. Then the D.A. came back and struck Blacks from the jury and got a conviction."

There are many other such cases, and he details a few of them. In fact, while AL currently has 167 people on death row, both Bentley and Siegelman write that "at least" 146 of them should have their death sentences commuted. Siegelman tells me he believes all of them should be spared from the barbaric practice of state execution.

He and Bentley are calling for several reforms of the criminal justice system, particularly as it applies to the death penalty. Siegelman details reforms he seeks for the secret Grand Jury system and the outrage of "judicial overrides" that allowed judges to overrule juries to issue death sentences and the lack of unanimous verdicts required for sentencing a convicted criminal to death.

Siegelman also discusses the politics of the death penalty, including during the time that he held the power to block executions as Governor. We discuss that awesome and horrible power as it is wielded by government officials today, even after all that we now know about the racial injustices of a Jim Crow era system that disproportionately targets people of color and has been found to have been exercised against innocent people in the cases of at least 12% of those who have been put to death.

"Here we are in 2023, still using a method that was devised after the Civil War as a way of thwarting a Black juror. The white power structure at the time had a unanimous verdict. But they said, 'No, you know, with Blacks being able to be on a jury, we can't risk not being able to put somebody to death when we want to, so let's go with a non-unanimous jury.' So that's where this relic of the Jim Crow era came from. It was purely a racist process."

"It is just wrong, certainly morally wrong, for Alabama or for any other state. Now Florida has even lowered the bar," notes Siegelman, citing a bill recently signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. "Alabama has a 10-2 verdict. Florida has an 8-4 verdict, to make it even easier to put people to death by this relic of the 1870s."

"Until I was actually convicted of something that didn't exist except in the minds of the prosecutors, I thought that our system would somehow or another work itself out and be fair," he tells me. "But at the moment that I heard the word 'guilty' from the foreman of my jury, I said a prayer. It was instantaneous, more like a flash, asking God to forgive me because I remembered setting execution dates as Attorney General. And I remembered those that came before me while I was Governor asking that their sentences be commuted."

"But it wasn't even then that I realized how perverted our system of justice is. If in everything there is a purpose, or in every situation one should find a purpose, it was as if God was telling me, 'Okay, Governor, you see what's wrong. Now go fix it.'"

NOTE: We have covered Gov. Siegelman's personal story many times over the past two decades, before, during and after his time as a political prisoner as he was targeted for prosecution by a corrupt Republican cabal, including Karl Rove, state officials, and a federal judge who was eventually forced to resign after being arrested for beating his wife. Alabama's Governor from 1999 to 2003 and the only Democrat to serve in every statewide office, Siegelman tells his story in full in his 2020 book, STEALING OUR DEMOCRACY: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation.

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The only good day in court this week for rightwing extremist yutzes was at the U.S. Supreme Court today, unfortunately. Other than that, as detailed on today's BradCast, it's not going well for them. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the many stories of note covered on today's program...

• Last year, the corrupted, far-right, activist extremists on the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out precedent and ignored the text of federal law to gut the EPA's ability to regulate carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act. Today, those same corrupted yutzes gutted the EPA's ability to regulate pollution of our wetlands under the Clean Water Act. Once again legislating from the bench, Justice Sam Alito was even opposed on this matter by Justice Brett Kavanaugh who accused the majority of rewriting federal law and undermining the original intent of Congress.

• 58-year old Oath Keepers founder, one-time BradCast guest, convicted seditionist and rightwing extremist yutz who shot his own eye out back in 1993, Stewart Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison on Thursday for the terrorist attack he helped organize on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. It was the longest sentence to date for the Trump insurrectionists who failed in their attempt to overthrow the government in order to steal the 2020 Presidential election.

• This week, Richard "Bigo" Barnett, the 63-year old rightwing extremist yutz who made himself infamous among the 1/6 insurrectionists by posing for photos with his feet up on a desk in the office of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (carrying a "stun device" and a 10-pound steel pole he brought with him from Arkansas), was sentenced to 4 and a half years in federal prison. Sad!

• Former TV news anchor, Trump Mini-Me Wannabee election denier and rightwing extremist yutz Kari Lake lost yet again in Arizona court this week, in what was her last chance to prove that the 2022 election for Governor was somehow stolen from her by Republican officials in Maricopa County (Phoenix). She not only lost again, but lost hilariously and is now, along with her attorneys, facing potential sanctions for their "heinous and profoundly harmful" claims that the 2022 election was "rigged", according to County attorneys citing Lake's multiple false claims, both before and during the latest trial, about the election she lost to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs by about 17,000 votes last year.

• House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his merry band of rightwing extremist yutzes in the U.S. House continue to hold the global economy hostage with their demands for massive cuts to popular social safety net programs in exchange for voting to raise the dumb debt ceiling. We've spent many shows in recent weeks discussing their dangerous threats, and the several ways that President Biden could fairly easily avoid a catastrophic, first-ever default by the U.S. Government without acceding to their threats.

  So why hasn't he taken advantage of those options, such as his ability to invoke the section of the 14th Amendment which declares "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law...shall not be questioned"? What explains Biden's various inscrutable responses when asked by reporters of late about using the 14th? And why has the Administration been hedging in their response to a lawsuit from a union of government employees suing them to invoke the 14th?

  Well, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell offered a sort of grand unification theory this week that could explain all of that. Matching up his theory --- which posits that Biden and his lead negotiator, Steve Richetti, are up to some serious Dark Brandon 3-D chess --- with the various public reporting available to those of us outside of the negotiating room, would actually explain some of the inexplicable comments from Biden and, frankly, his willingness to negotiate on the debt ceiling with Republicans at all after months of the Administration saying they refused to do so.

  O'Donnell concedes his theory is little more than a well-educated guess, based on his personal knowledge of Biden and Richetti from his time as a U.S. Senate staffer some years ago. But, if he is right, and if Biden can pull all of this off, it would avoid not one, but two upcoming fiscal cliffs at the same time, both the Debt Ceiling and the budget negotiations later this year which Republicans would otherwise almost certainly use to shut down the government as they have in years past in advance of next year's elections. O'Donnell's theory could even include ending the ability for rightwing Congressional yutzes to use the Debt Ceiling law as a hostage taking device ever again in the future.

  I realize that's a lot of "ifs", but, yes, all of that is actually a possibility based on all of the reporting on the matter so far, including late updates today from both Reuters and New York Times. It's all explained in detail on today's show.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with grim news on global heating and the rightwing extremist yutzes both causing it and refusing to do anything about it...

* * * SHOW NOTE: We're taking a very much-needed break over Memorial Day week from both the The BradCast and Green News Report. So it may be quieter than usual around here over the next week. Please forgive us, and we'll see ya shortly thereafter!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Super Typhoon Mawar slams into Guam; Global heating could expose billions to unlivable temperatures by 2100; Fossil fuel industry owes the world $23 trillion in climate reparations, new study concludes; PLUS: Climate activists disrupt oil industry shareholder meetings... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Supreme Court weakens EPA power to enforce Clean Water Act; Chevron’s carbon offsets are mostly junk and some may harm, research says; France bans short-haul flights as it looks to cut transport emissions; Lawmakers near deal on energy permitting in debt ceiling talks; Energy Department cancels $200M Microvast battery grant in Texas due to GOP opposition; In Panama, legal rights given to sea turtles, boosting 'rights of nature'; Interior's oil plan is coming. Here's what to watch; U.N. slams carbon removal as unproven and risky...PLUS: The global treaty to save the ozone layer has also slowed Arctic ice melt... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Western states reach landmark agreement to stave off multi-decade drought crisis on Colorado River; World's lakes are shrinking due to human overuse and climate change; PLUS: Minnesota Democrats poised to enact landmark environment and climate legislation... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): A CO2 pipeline rupture in Mississippi has lessons for future projects; Competition, abundant minerals, Biden tax breaks lead EV price drop; More than a third of the area charred by wildfires in Western North America can be traced back to fossil fuels; Supply crunch on electrical transformers needed to avoid blackouts and quit fossil fuels; Could Guyana’s Exxon ruling scare big oil off risky exploration?; US’s largest clean energy transmission project hits major milestone... ... PLUS: New York’s public housing is sinking — literally... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: World Meteorological Organization predicts Earth likely to blow past 1.5 degree Celsius climate target by 2027; Italy and Somalia stricken by torrential rains and deadly floods; PLUS: Buckle up --- the entire U.S. will see an unnaturally hot summer, NOAA warns... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Weather extremes --- What happens to people after a disaster?; E.P.A. announces crackdown on toxic coal ash from landfills; A billion new air conditioners will save lives but cook the planet; 'Halliburton Loophole' lets fracking firms pollute water without oversight; US power grids vulnerable to extreme heat conditions this summer; Methane mitigation in Texas could create thousands of jobs... PLUS: Can climate change be funny? Bill Nye gets laughs in a show about humankind's existential threat... and much, MUCH more! ...

Apologies in advance if you need to rinse off today's BradCast with a hot shower. We did our best to keep it family friendly. It wasn't always easy. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

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

• It's Election Day in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and parts of Florida for some key state, municipal and special elections. We run down several of the key races and will have noteworthy results, as available, on tomorrow's program.

• The political group calling itself "No Labels" is reportedly working to become an official political party in all 50 states in hopes of placing a Presidential candidate on the ballot in 2024. The group, founded in 2010, claims to be a non-partisan "centrist" coalition of both Democrats and Republicans, though their efforts to date seemed designed mostly to harm Democrats. See, for example, their lobbying of Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema in opposition of reforming the Senate filibuster in 2021. Also, internal documents have revealed their funders include far-right dark money billionaires such as David Kochand Peter Theil, according to Daily Beast, and Clarence Thomas benefactor Harlan Crow, according to New Republic. Now, the Secretary of State in Maine is charging the group has been scamming voters into signing a "petition" that is actually a change of party form. Just 5,000 voters need to become members in the state for the party to be allowed on the ballot. Apparently 6,000 have now signed up and the state has some questions about it.

• Really, we did our best to keep this report no more graphic than PG-13, but it has to be told because there are some very serious crimes sort of hidden in the new 70-page lawsuit [PDF] filed against Rudy Giuliani by a former employee who accuses him of some pretty horrific "sexual assault, battery, gender discrimination and harassment, fostering a hostile work environment, retaliation, breach of contract, and violations of state labor laws."

  The hostile work environment allegedly included "misogynistic, racist, and antisemitic communications, constant sexual attacks, threats when she brought up the salary she was owed, and threats when she finally found the courage to confront him with her fears and the possibility of legal action."

  But of potential criminal note in the suit filed by Noelle Dunphy against Giuliani in New York on Monday, is not only the off-the-books payments (she says he gave her just $12,000 of the $1 million he'd promised), but that the former NYC mayor, federal prosecutor and Trump attorney was, according to the lawsuit, allegedly "selling pardons for $2 million, which he and President Trump would split." (!!!)

  Moreover, Dunphy claims to have audio recordings of Giuliani, including "some in which she says he can be heard making sexual comments, demanding sex and making sexist, racist, and antisemitic remarks." Does she have any in which Rudy is discussing selling Presidential pardons and splitting the proceeds with Trump? I suspect prosecutors may want to find that out in the not-too-distant future.

• Speaking of antisemitism, on Monday, Florida Governor and desperate Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis signed yet another bill forcing his far-right ideology onto others with yet another ban on freedoms. This one bars public colleges and universities from investing in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. DeSantis has previously enacted state-imposed bans on various forms of free speech and books that his far-right Big Government state lackeys find objectionable. That has already resulted in bans on books said to cite issues of race, gender and sexuality, including math books (somehow) and social study texts. But now the Jewish Telegraphic Agency is reporting that the State is also banning educational textbooks on the Holocaust and/or forcing publishers to modify them in order to receive official State approval for use in Florida K-12 schools and public universities. “This is what modern day fascism looks like," charges human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid. "Remember, the main reason extremists would want to ban teaching about a past atrocity is to make it easier to enable that atrocity in the future."

• We do have at least one story today that isn't creepy and horrible today, ironically enough. The still-Rightwing-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court actually issued a ruling that isn't insane, overturning a lower state court's insane, seemingly Fox "News"-inspired order that hospitals must use Ivermectin horse-medicine to treat COVID-19 when a patient insists. The ruling overturns that madness comes in advance of liberals taking over the state high court majority beginning in August, following the election of a new liberal justice in the Badger State earlier this year.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with news on a devastating cyclone in Myanmar; the enormous cost of plugging abandoned oil and gas well in the Gulf of Mexico; and the Biden EPA's proposal of landmark new to curb climate warming emissions from the nation's power plants...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Powerful Cyclone Mocha causes widespread destruction in Myanmar, Bangladesh; It'll cost $30 billion to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico alone; PLUS: Biden EPA unveils new rules to clean up carbon pollution from the nation's power plants... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Climate/crop impacts could come sooner than previously thought; Unusually early heat wave in Pacific Northwest tests records; Youth lawsuit challenging Montana’s pro-fossil fuel policies is heading to trial; Is carbon capture viable? In a new rule, the EPA is asking power plants to prove it; What’s behind the severe decline in Florida’s citrus harvest?; Your homeowners' insurance bill is the canary in the climate coal mine; EPA looks to toss 'deceptive' plastics recycling symbol... PLUS: Nature lawyers up: growing number of countries and courts say the environment should be endowed with legal rights... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Shell refinery fire in Houston finally out, but pollution concerns remain; Biden Admin proposes money-saving efficiency standards for dishwashers; Greenland ice sheet melting faster than thought; Oil and gas production's billions in public health impacts in U.S.; PLUS: Minnesota to enact nation's strongest restrictions on PFAS 'forever' chemicals... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): EPA proposes new rules that would dramatically slash planet-warming pollution from power plants; EPA tightens pollution standards for power plants, with a big loophole for coal and gas; Norway's EV transition well underway - with few hitches; Supreme Court upholds California animal-cruelty law that bans narrow cages for pigs; New pipeline agency rule aimed at cutting methane leaks; 'Mind-boggling' methane emissions from Turkmenistan revealed; New Florida law allows radioactive waste to be built into Florida roads... PLUS: Can we engineer our way out of drought? ... and much, MUCH more! ...