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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: It's not your imagination --- summers really are getting hotter and lasting longer into fall; U.S. taxpayers will pay billions in new fossil fuel subsidies under Republicans' big budget bill; PLUS: Renewable energy investment is surging globally --- just not 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): How Trump's War on Climate Science impacts all Americans; Charlie Kirk's climate denial tracked with his racism; A steady ocean pattern just failed for the first time ever observed; EPA proposal puts US gas exporters in a bind; US energy chief tells BBC nuclear fusion will soon power the world; GOP plan on pesticides faces revolt from MAHA moms; Wind and solar power over one-third of Brazil's electricity for first time
... PLUS: Forget climate. Make electricity bills the issue... and much, MUCH more! ...

It's clear that Donald Trump would much rather we talk about political violence today than his quickly failing economic policies or his 15-year close personal friendship with notorious pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. So we do him the favor of discussing both at the top of today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

From there, it's on to our central story. On yesterday's show, we covered the news of the killing of rightwing activist and longtime Trump ally Charlie Kirk, as reports of his death were just breaking. Today, as the manhunt continues for his seemingly well-prepared killer, we've got more details on both the shooting and the investigation and, with 24 hours of perspective, well-considered analysis of what all of this may mean for the nation as we move ahead.

There is still no known motive for the uncaptured and still-unknown shooter. Yet, a huge portion of the MAGA Right --- from wingnut social media trolls to wingnut billionaires to wingnut elected officials, including the President of the United States --- are, in some cases literally, declaring "WAR" on "the radical left Democrats".

Trump took to the airwaves last night after the murder, conspicuously covering up his right hand in a pre-recorded Oval Office tantrum, in which he condemned political "violence and murder" by "the radical left" as the "tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree, day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible." (Hmmm...Can we think of anybody else who might have demonized those with whom they disagree, day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible?)

"My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges and law enforcement officials," vowed the President who has said the most despicable things about federal judges and pardoned --- on his first day in office --- more than a thousand of his own supporters for their political violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, where hundreds of them literally and physically attacked law enforcement officials.

Trump also failed to mention the violent attacks on elected officials in his four-minute revenge screed, like the ones against the Speaker of House in Minnesota, Melissa Hortman, who was assassinated along with her husband in the middle of the night in their own home less than three months ago by a far-right MAGA dude. The same man also gunned down MN State Senator John Hoffman and his wife in their home that same night, as part of a planned string of attacks against dozens of Democratic elected officials.

Let's also not forget Trump's repeated hilarious jokes over the years about the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi, whose skull was bashed in with a hammer by a guy hunting down Nancy Pelosi. Trump, his sons, and his supporters, have issued jokes about that violent attack for years. Just as Utah's Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee did on social media earlier this Summer to make light of the shootings at the homes of Hortman and Hoffman in Minnesota.

But now, things are different, apparently. While political violence against Democrats doesn't seem to count, with Kirk dead there will be consequences and retribution. "THIS IS WAR," declared the Trumpers on Twitter. "The Democrat Party must be classified as a domestic terror organization and their members and leaders treated accordingly," warned a bunch of them.

"The Left is the party of murder," pronounced Elon Musk, the man with the most Twitter followers in the world. "If they won't leave us in peace, then our choice is fight or die," he tweeted, joining Trump and the others in trying to increase the blood lust, rather than working to cool it down.

At the same time, Democrats --- as they did when their own were attacked --- have been calling for an end to the growing epidemic of political violence and gun violence in this nation. We call for the same.

Among those whose comments or writings over past 24 hours are cited, either positively or negatively, on today's program...

• Gov. Spencer Cox (R-UT)
• Donald Trump
• Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC)
• Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ)
• Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL)
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
• Heather Digby Parton
• Josh Marshall

Finally, as Trump and his duplicitous Administration are now, officially, taking credit for U.S. infrastructure improvements made under Joe Biden's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report where, whaddaya know? While Trump is working hard to kill the U.S. wind and solar energy industries on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, the rest of the world is quickly moving to clean, cheap, renewable energy. And China, not the U.S., is making a mint off of it...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump Administration is taking its War on Wind and Solar on the road; Deforestation is a major driver behind the decline of rainfall in the Amazon rainforest; Developing countries shifting from fossil fuels thanks to cheap Chinese solar; PLUS: August 2025 was third hottest August on record globally... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Fossil-fuel firms receive US subsidies worth $31 billion each year, study finds; Study links more frequent and severe heat waves to pollution from major fossil fuel producers; Warming seas threaten key phytoplankton that fuels the food web; Trump administration dissolves group that authored controversial report sowing doubt in the severity of climate change; Plastic recycling is mostly fictional. Trump's EPA approves... PLUS: California's first solar-covered canal is now fully online... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Apparently, the high price of lying to MAGA viewers about the 2020 election has been totally worth it for rightwing "news" outlets, according to a newly released trove of insider documents. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Two years ago, Fox "News" agreed to pay more than three-quarters of a billion dollars to Dominion Voting Systems to make the voting equipment vendor's defamation lawsuit against them go away. Fox' on-air personalities and their guests had falsely, repeatedly, and without evidence, claimed Dominion used their voting systems to steal the Presidential election from Donald Trump in 2020. Many of the top Fox hosts and executives knew the claims were not true at the time. But they ran with them anyway, as MAGA viewers were fleeing to other, even farther right media outlets like Newsmax and OAN, which were even more shameless in their promotion of evidence-free claims that the election had been stolen for Joe Biden.

Those outlets were forced to pay up as well for their knowing, on-air lies. Newsmax settled with Dominion for $67 million and with Smartmatic for $40 million. OAN similarly settled with Smartmatic --- whose only voting systems in the U.S. were in Los Angeles County in 2020 --- for an undisclosed amount. In every such legal case, to date, the rightwing media outfits chose to pay up rather than face public scrutiny in a court of law, and to see their "news" personalities take the stand to defend claims that emails and text messages revealed during discovery proved that even they didn't believe.

Now Smartmatic's $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox is on the verge of going to trial early next year. Last time, Fox agreed to pay $787.5 million to Dominion to avoid a trial where the jury members had already been selected and journalists, including our guest today, were waiting in the courtroom for the trial to begin.

Late last month, a trove of hundreds of pages of "damning filings" were made publicly available in Smartmatic's case against Fox. Media Matters for America Senior Fellow MATT GERTZ, who joins us on today's show, plowed through them. The documents reveal, among other things, Fox personalities like Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld, discussing "how incredible our ratings would be if Fox went ALL in on STOP THE STEAL"; prime time stars Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham worrying about backlash from viewers for failing to cover phony claims about fraud enough; Bret Baier, the network's supposed "straight news" anchor trying to convince the network to reverse its (accurate) call that Arizona had gone to Biden, given how furious that fact had made Trump and the outlet's MAGA viewers.

"I think we certainly filled in some gaps after the Dominion suit that have been answered to one degree or another through the Smartmatic one," Gertz tells me today, summarizing the newly released documents in the Smartmatic case. "More broadly, what the suit shows is they knew. Fox News' top executives and hosts were well aware that Donald Trump lost the election, that there had not been massive voter fraud, as he had claimed, that kept him from being re-elected, and they went out and said the opposite to their viewers. Night after night, segment after segment. For weeks. They did it because they were worried about losing portions of their market share to outlets like Newsmax and OAN that were perceived as more willing to push those lies."

While Fox has paid a price for that to Dominion, and may have to do so again with Smartmatic, Gertz asserts the lesson for Fox seems to be that it was all worth it. "They have, in the days since then, demonstrated that they are absolutely willing to do it again if the Republican nominee in 2028 tries the same con that Donald Trump did in 2020," he argues, citing the fact that those who tried to tell the truth about 2020 have since been pushed out at the network, while those who were willing to lie are still there, have received promotions, or are now members of the Trump Administration itself.

"What happens is that, because Donald Trump lies so much, he forces his supporters to make their peace with either letting the lie go past and ignoring it, or running with it. There are very few who are willing to say, 'This thing is not happening.'"

Much more on all of that with Gertz today, along with what Monday's agreement among the family heirs to 94-year old Fox owner Rupert Murdoch's business empire likely means for the far-right politics of Fox "News" going forward after he dies. And, far more troubling, the news this week that a far-right Trump supporter and donor with no experience in the news business whatsoever, will now serve as the ombudsman for CBS News as part of the recent concessions made by CBS-owner Paramount to win approval from Trump's FCC for its merger with Skydance.

"CBS News has instituted an ombudsman because its parent company was trying to convince the FCC that if he approved their merger, the network's coverage would change in a way he liked," explains Gertz. "They didn't pick a journalist with a reputation for integrity and neutrality. They picked a rightwing think-tanker and Republican donor who has no newsroom experience, but will give Donald Trump what he wants, which is a CBS News that moves its political coverage to the right."

"They are leveraging the power of the Executive Branch through Trump appointees who are willing to corruptly do the President's bidding, in order to force those companies to do so," he asserts. "They are changing the incentives for media outlets so that they need to kneel to the Republican Party's diktats if they want their mergers completed, or if they want to avoid criminal investigations, even. It's certainly a step towards authoritarianism, toward the treatment that Victor Orban of Hungary enforces on media outlets in his country. Orban is someone Trump has said is a model for what he's trying to do."

In other cheery news on today's show...

• The GOP-controlled Missouri state House voted today to approve a new U.S. House map that will likely steal one of the two remaining Democratic seats in the state for Republicans in next year's midterms. They also approved a measure that would make it harder to adopt citizen-led Constitutional ballot initiatives by mandating that measures must win a majority of voters in each of the state's eight Congressional districts, rather than a simple statewide majority as currently required. The move comes in the wake of state voters recently approving ballot initiatives that establish abortion as a state Constitutional right; for the legalization of marijuana; and for the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Both measures adopted by the MO House on Tuesday now head to the state Senate where they are expected to be approved before going to MO's Republican Governor for his signature. The ballot initiative amendment, however, must be approved by voters under the existing, simple statewide majority rules before being added to the state Constitution.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as both electricity usage and prices spike across the country, even as Trump continues to shut down much-needed windfarms and other renewable energy sources around the nation...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Electricity demand is soaring around the country, and so are energy prices; FDA expands recall of potentially radioactive shrimp; Climate change super-charged Europe's worst wildfire season on record; PLUS: Trump Administration moves to revoke the iconic 'Roadless Rule'... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Humans are altering the seas. Here's the the future ocean might look like; Gas turbine manufacturers gun shy about increasing production; Raid on Georgia E.V. battery plant raises new risks for a shaken industry; Global solar installations up 64 percent so far this year; EPA approves four new pesticides that qualify as PFAS; Florida's fix for its struggling insurance market hurt homeowners, data show... PLUS: 'There is only one player': China is becoming world leader in green energy... and much, MUCH more! ...

The Trump Administration is at war against science (and reality) on at least two different fronts, both of which we dig into on today's BradCast. One is the Administration's War on the Science of Public Health, the other is the ongoing War on Climate Science. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

We begin with Administration's full-frontal attacks on public health, as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., testified before a U.S. Senate Committee today, facing tough questions from Democrats and even a few Republicans. Some of the colloquies turned into shouting matches.

Kennedy's years-long personal war against life-saving vaccines --- including the COVID vaccine --- often took center stage throughout the three-hour proceeding. But things had gone off the rails long before he showed up to take several verbal beatings today. Among some of the context for today's hearing: An anti-vax gunman shot up the CDC in early August; Kennedy's cancellation of half a billion dollars in research grants for new mRNA vaccines of the type that helped get us out of the COVID pandemic and could offer cures for cancer and other diseases; His firing of the CDC Director last week, less than a month into her tenure because, as she claims in an op-ed today, she refused to follow Kennedy's demand to "preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric".

Add to that, the state of Florida's announcement this week by its loony Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, that it is lifting all vaccine mandates for school children, including for measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, tetanus and polio. Ladapo compares vaccine mandates for school children to slavery. As one elected official in Florida said in response: "This is a public health disaster in the making for the Sunshine State." Unfortunately, as our guest today seems to concur, the entire nation is now facing the possibility of a similar public health disaster under the second Trump term.

We're joined today for a thoughtful discussion on all of this and more by DR. TYLER EVANS, infectious disease and public health expert and former Chief Medical Officer for New York City amid its COVID-19 response. Evans is now CEO and co-founder of the Wellness and Equity Alliance and author of the new book, Pandemics, Poverty, and Politics: Decoding the social and political drivers of pandemics from Plague to COVID-19.

It's impossible to adequately summarize our wide-ranging conversation, but I will share a few brief quotes...

• On RFK Jr.: "At this point, effectively every trusted and established or distinguished organization around infectious disease and public health are essentially demanding his resignation. Time is up. His answers are circular logic. They're definitely not based in science. And the more he talks --- particularly for folks who really understand the science --- it's like nails on a chalkboard for us."

• On the effect of vaccine conspiracy theories on public health: "If somebody is in the emergency room and you hear two doctors actively arguing about somebody's diagnosis and treatment, how do think that's going to make the patient feel? ... What we're seeing right now with RFK is doing exactly that. His intent is clearly to disrupt as much of the science as well as the implementation of science in public health as much as he possibly can."

• On the politicization of public health: "It doesn't matter if it's a blue or red city, state. At the end of the day, microbes, or other pathogens, or environmental stressors don't understand the difference between red and blue. It's all humans to them. We really need to depoliticize public health. ... We are politicizing everything about public health [and] now it's getting worse."

• On RFK's defunding of mRNA research: "At this point, we have millions of data points demonstrating it is incredibly safe. The mRNA literally is the most effective vaccine against COVID-19. So these claims that somehow they're not effective, or unsafe, are just patently untrue. They're just completely made up. ... This guy is just completely making stuff up. The defunding of the science behind advancing further mRNA vaccines just hurts all Americans."

Evans has much more on all of the above today, as well as on lessons he learned during the worst of the COVID pandemic in NYC; his personal experiences responding to viral outbreaks, like Ebola, around the world; the importance of a competent federal government during an historic pandemic; the lunatic that Florida has installed as its top public health official and more. "If we are removing vaccination mandates, particularly for kids, it is probably one of the most disastrous things we could ever do, from a public health standpoint," says Evans about the cancellation of vaccine mandates in the Sunshine State.

We ran longer than expected with Evans (though it was well worth it), but we still had a few minutes left today for Desi Doyen to take on Donald Trump's latest escalation in his War against Climate Science and specifically on cheap, clean, renewable, abundant wind and solar energy. All of that before closing with our latest Green News Report on new California wildfires; the deadly landslide in war-torn Sudan; and dozens of climate scientists taking on the Trump Administration's absurd "report" by five prominent climate science deniers meant to serve as the basis for the Administration's cancellation of hundreds of billions of dollars in critical climate change initiatives...

Yes, it's a very busy BradCast today...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Wildfires destroy historic California Gold Rush town; Trump further escalates attacks against on US wind energy; Extreme rains trigger deadly landslide in war-torn Sudan; PLUS: Dozens of climate scientists issue scathing rebuttal to Dept. of Energy's science-denying report... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Powerful rain and floods devastate northern India as experts blame climate change; FEMA staffing shortages could hinder disaster recovery efforts, GAO says; Despite Trump's brags, new data shows massive emissions from Texas wells; Explosion at Louisiana oil plant leaves Black community coated in toxic fallout; EPA plans to dramatically reduce wetland protection; Scientists may have identified a culprit behind declining Amazon rains... PLUS: Despite Trump, US scientists continue to work on key global climate reports... and much, MUCH more! ...

We're back on today's BradCast after a much-needed, "end of Summer" break. That's either good or bad news depending on how you (or I) might see it. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The good news for me, I suppose, is that we missed one of the most insanely busy news weeks of Trump's second term. The bad news is that I need to get both you and me caught up on "our story so far", so everything makes sense (or, as much as is possible amidst this insanity) going forward into the Fall (and pending government shutdown at the end of this month.)

To that end, we've got a day-by-day, blow-by-blow, collected summary of much --- if not all --- of the key news from over the last week today. From many of the ongoing losses for Trump in the (lower) courts, to some very encouraging electoral news on several fronts for Democrats, to Americans pushing back (effectively) against the regime on several levels, to some of the not so good news, including natural and man-made disasters and tragedies, and the ever-ongoing, non-stop, self-destructive idiocy of the Trump Administration.

Also, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report, catching you up with some maddening and important stuff there as well!

It doesn't make too much sense for me to go into the details here. I'd be writing and linking all night. So tune in to get caught up on a lot of the unofficial "end of Summer" news to help get yourself buckled up for all the madness that most assuredly lies ahead...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Tennessee is the latest state slammed by this Summer of Floods; New barriers protect much of Juneau, Alaska from glacial outburst flood; Glaciers in North America and Europe lost 'unprecedented' amount of ice over last four years; PLUS: Home-based batteries helping to keep the lights on in Puerto Rico... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Normalizing climate disaster in the Age of Trump; 'No country is safe': deadly Nordic heatwave supercharged by climate crisis, scientists say; How a retreat by the EPA would endanger the U.S. economy; California activates $2 billion solar and energy storage facility; Wildfires fanned by heatwave and strong winds rage across Europe... PLUS: Homeless and Burning in America's Hottest City... and much, MUCH more! ...

It's a tough call on today's BradCast as far as which is worse: the stupidity or the outrage in response. (It's the stupidity, stupid.) But we report, you decide. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Donald Trump's many wars on America, Americans, American democracy, American values and the rest of the world, including livability on the planet itself, continued this week, as one of this nation's greatest accomplishments turns 60 years old, even as it founders under years-long GOP assault. And, coincidentally, the state of Texas plays a part in just about every one of our stories today...

• We kick things off with some goodish news. Following the unspeakable tragedy last month when at least 135 people, including dozens of camping school children, were killed during flash flooding on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Texas Hill Country, the Trump Administration is finally allowing the National Weather Service to hire new meteorologists and other critical staffers. That, after Trump's DOGE scam resulted in the firing and early retirement of hundreds at the now hollowed-out NWS.

• As another heat wave broils much of Texas this week, cheap, clean, renewable energy --- including wind and solar (as well as battery storage for when it's dark or the wind isn't blowing) --- has helped prevent collapse of the state's grid under extraordinary demand, even as some of its coal and gas plants were taken off line due to the climate change-intensified heat.

• Nonetheless, the Trump Administration has been doubling down this week on its war against cheap, clean, renewable energy, such as wind and solar, on behalf of the fossil fuel industry which has captured it. Former fracking CEO turned Trump's Energy Secretary Chris Wright was making the media rounds this week, attempting to justify the Administration's Orwellian removal of Congressionally mandated National Climate Assessments from government websites. He told CNN it's simply an effort to "fix" the science contained in those reports, released every four years after being compiled, peer-reviewed and fact-checked multiple times over several years prior to publication by hundreds of scientists and more than a dozen federal agencies. Wright is hoping to counter the peer-reviewed science on climate change in those landmark quadrennial reviews with a "report" released by the Dept. of Energy last week, as authored in two-months time by five notorious climate science deniers hand-picked by the former fracking executive. Wright's denialist, AI-assisted slop is now being used as the basis for the Administration's effort to scrap every federal climate change-related regulation enacted since 2009.

• Meanwhile, the GOP's War on Democracy continued on Thursday, as Texas state lawmakers remained in other states to try and save it. They are breaking quorum in the Lone Star State's House of Representatives in order to prevent passage of a new U.S. House map, ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott at the direction of Donald Trump, which would steal five seats currently held by Democrats in majority minority districts in next year's midterms. Republican state officials --- from its Governor to its corrupt Attorney General to its U.S. Senator to its Republican House Speaker --- are hoping to enlist Trump's FBI to hunt down, round up and arrest the fleeing Dems in other states, despite no criminal charges against them and a state Constitution that allows them to break quorum (according to the state's all-Republican Supreme Court.) That, as California advances its own effort --- to be placed before voters this Fall --- to counter Texas' attempted mid-decade gerrymander. We get you all caught up with the latest in this harrowing ongoing saga today.

• The Republican attack on democracy --- including on U.S. House districts drawn by federal court order to correct Texas districts found in violation of the Voting Rights Act --- comes on the very same week that the landmark Act, which added tens of millions to to the voting rolls since its passage, turns 60 years old. The VRA has been under successful attack by Republicans in recent years. But today we mark the law's 60th anniversary with some of the remarks upon its signing by heroic President Lyndon Baines Johnson...of Texas.

• Finally, born and bred Texan Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, detailing some of the remarkable actions taken this week by the Trump Administration --- remarkably, as energy costs and demand are quickly rising --- to roll back successful efforts to incentivize cheap, clean, renewable energy. Among the new fronts in his war this week: An absurd "energy density" requirement for power sources; an attempt to rescind $7 billion appropriated by Congress during the Biden era to help defray the cost of residential rooftop solar in low- and middle-income communities; orders to shut down on-going wind energy projects; and Trump's ridiculous mandate that wind farms may no longer be built any closer than a mile from roads and railways...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Nations gather in Geneva to again confront the global crisis of plastic pollution; Trump EPA moves to claw back billions in community grants for rooftop solar; PLUS: As energy costs rise, Trump Administration escalates its war on cheap renewable energy... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): You Are Contaminated [with plastic]; Document shows plastics industry knew recycling was false solution in 1974; At least one killed as massive wildfire in southern France continues to burn; Costs to build gas plants triple; Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose; JD Vance's team had water level of Ohio river raised for family's boating trip; Solar is EU's biggest power source for the first time ever in June 2025... PLUS: The Air Conditioning Dilemma: Cooling homes heats the planet... and much, MUCH more! ...

News is coming in from every direction on today's BradCast, though there does seem to be a recurring theme throughout: a wholly corrupt Presidency. [Audio link to today's show follows this summary.]

Among today's delights...

• In the wake of another mass shooting yesterday in New York City, a Reuters exclusive finds the Trump Administration's Dept. of Justice cancelled tens of millions of dollars in gun violence prevention grants last April, as established in 2022 under Joe Biden via the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The DOJ has also cancelled tens of billions of dollars in grants for mental health programs. Thoughts and prayers are largely all that remain.

• Remember that tricked-out, $400+ million flying palace jumbo jet bribe that Donald Trump accepted (in violation of the Constitution's foreign emoluments clause) from Qatar to use as a "free" Air Force One? Looks like that "free" plane --- which Trump plans to keep for himself after leaving office --- is costing U.S. tax-payers about a billion dollars to ready for His Majesty's use. And it looks like Trump is now stealing that money from funding previously appropriated for maintaining and updating America's dilapidated Cold War-era intercontinental nuclear ballistic missile stockpile.

• Senate Republicans this week are fast-tracking approval of a lifetime appointment for Donald Trump's personal criminal defense attorney turned senior DOJ official, Emil Bove, to become a federal appeals court judge. That, after a third whistleblower came forward this week with yet more evidence regarding Bove's corruption at DOJ, including dismissal of corruption charges against the NYC Mayor, and Bove's instruction to DOJ prosecutors to violate court orders if necessary to advance Trump's unlawful mass deportation agenda. [Update: After airtime, just as I was getting ready to hit publish here, despite whistleblowers and scores of former judges warning against his appointment, Senate Republicans confirmed Bove for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.]

• The great satirical song writer Tom Lehrer died this week at the age of 97. We take the opportunity to enjoy a momentary respite from the rest of the day's madness to enjoy a couple of his wildly clever --- and often still timely --- tunes today.

• Today, just as Project 2025 called for, Trump's EPA Chief Lee Zeldin officially submitted a corrupt proposal to the White House for overturning the EPA's landmark 2009 "endangerment finding". The 2009 scientific finding currently serves as the legal underpinning for virtually all federal regulations meant to curb the greenhouse gasses that are warming the atmosphere at an alarming pace and creating deadly climate chaos. This is a very big deal, as we discuss today. Though I'm hoping to get into more of the legal ramifications of this move on tomorrow's program.

• Finally, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report documenting just some of the latest deadly effects around the world hastened by the unfettered burning of fossil fuels and the endangerment it causes the public, thanks to emission of climate warming gasses such as CO2 and methane. Oh, and Donald Trump (because he believes they mess up the view from his golf courses) is killing both clean, renewable wind energy projects and the tens of thousands of jobs that go with them...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Massive algae bloom and marine heat wave are decimating South Australia's coast and fisheries; Iran grapples with water crisis and extreme heat; Wind-driven wildfires force evacuations in Greece, Turkey; PLUS: Donald Trump's irrational hatred of wind energy is killing jobs across the U.S.... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump Environmental Protection Agency moves to repeal finding that allows climate regulation; Cheap Tricks for Hard Problems: Picking up nickels in front of the climate steamroller; Black women fight for life in Houston's most toxic neighborhood; As Trump shrinks FEMA, local emergency managers say they're barely getting by; Fishing groups push to delay protections for endangered right whale to 2035... PLUS: The Drying Planet: New data shows huge swaths of land across the globe are quickly drying... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: A healthy environment is a human right, U.N. world court says in landmark climate ruling; Trump Administration working overtime to Make America Polluted Again; Climate-intensified extreme weather is driving up food prices around the world; PLUS: New U.N. analyses find booming clean, renewable energy has hit a global tipping point... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump EPA is said to draft a plan to end it ability to fight climate change; Courts banned this herbicide twice. The EPA wants to bring it back; White House unveils sweeping plan to remake electric grid to boost AI; Trump Admin cancels $4.9B loan for biggest transmission line in US; Court upholds a landmark clean-heat rule in Southern California; Hundreds of NASA employees, past and present, sign letter of formal dissent... PLUS: Gutting Chemical Safety Board endangers millions of Americans, groups warn... and much, MUCH more! ...

The Madness of King Donald's massive, recently signed tax cut and spending law continues to be a focus on today's BradCast. As does his madness and non-stop lying, in general, and the deadly climate disasters that continue to worsen by the day, coincidentally, following adoption of the Republican anything-but-beautiful bill that guts U.S. investment in cheap, clean, climate saving, renewable energy. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Before we get to our guest today, some quick news items, including...

• A few independently verifiable fact-checks on the mountain of a lies told by Donald Trump during Tuesday's ridiculous, televised "Cabinet Meeting" at the White House, including several of his falsehoods regarding inflation, his tariff policy, his massive spending bill, China's use of wind energy, California's clean and reliable power grid, and more.

• The climate chaos continues seemingly unabated this week. First it was record deadly flash-flooding in Texas on Friday. Then record deadly flash-flooding on Sunday in North Carolina. And, on Tuesday, deadly flash-flooding in Ruidoso, New Mexico, in an area scarred by wildfires and flooding just last year. (Also, Chicago saw a months worth of rain in about 90 minutes on Tuesday, stranding vehicles, triggering rescues, etc.) The Fox "News" Weather website had fairly good coverage in their story headlined: "Deadly walls of water pummel communities across three states in just one week, spawn unprecedented devastation". But, can you guess what they forgot to even mention in their coverage of all of that deadly climate-fueled chaos in less than one week? Right. Not a single mention of the manmade global warming and climate change which exacerbated the chaos, made it more likely, more intense and, sadly, more and more deadly.

THEN... We are joined by RYAN COOPER, Managing Editor at The American Prospect, who (presciently?) filed a story late last month about how climate-fueled disasters cost the U.S. almost a trillion dollars over the past year, far outpacing estimates even by Nobel Prize winning economists. And that was before the seemingly non-stop disasters of the past week.

It was also before Donald Trump gutted much of Joe Biden and the Democrats' landmark Inflation Reduction Act investments in clean, renewable energy, as Trump did when he signed the GOP budget monstrosity last Friday. Imagine how much farther the trillion dollars of damage from last year alone could have gone if it had been used to combat climate change instead.

"This is the real irony of what is happening here," Cooper explains today. "President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act was expected to cost about a trillion dollars in spending over ten years...a really big policy. But economic analysis now indicates that repealing that and replacing it with coal subsidies and whatnot [as the Trump/GOP law does] isn't going to boost GDP, it's going to reduce it. It's going to hurt economic growth." And, of course, the climate.

"Now that solar panels and batteries have gotten so cheap, this is the best way to drive economic growth. So we're cutting off our nose to spite our face. We're allowing China to monopolize the industries of the 21st century, while the American auto industry is going to be stranded, using obsolete technology, while China takes over the rest of the world with dirt cheap electric vehicles. So much for America First."

Cooper argues: "It's just completely senseless in way that's almost impossible to describe what Republicans have done to America and to the American economy. And the world, too."

But the gutting of clean energy investment is hardly the only under-reported absurdity in Trump's big bill. While there has been much coverage of its trillion dollars worth of cuts to health care via Medicaid, much less reportage has been given to the fact that --- unless Congress adopts a fix, and quickly --- as much as $500 billion will be cut from MediCARE as well over the next ten years, including $50 billion over the next year alone.

All of that to help pay for $4 trillion in tax cuts to mostly wealthy people, at the additional cost of $3 trillion added to the national debt.

Cooper and TAP's David Dayen this week rounded up even more under-reported idiocy from the Trump/GOP megabill, that we finally find time to cover today, including ten bizarre items hidden in the bill, such as its perverse incentives for states to defraud the SNAP food stamp program; a provision that exempts oil and gas drilling companies from paying taxes at all; and something that Cooper and Dayen refer to as "The Mass Shooter Subsidy". (Yes, it's as outrageously stupid as it sounds...)

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MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)