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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And again, my head explodes...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Florence floodwaters pose a toxic public health threat; North Carolina begins facing the long road of recovery; PLUS: Trump Interior Department formally rolls back still more methane regulations... 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): 5 Trump policies that will make future flooding worse; Why America should rethink how it talks about-and ranks-tropical storms; Jerry Brown: Trump's 'gross ignorance' main obstacle in climate change fight; Air pollution harms unborn babies. Now we might know why; Mosquitoes are eating plastic. Why that's a big problem; Trump administration levies new tariffs on Chinese solar inverters; The rush for better batteries; Clean energy weathers Hurricane Florence; 57 Detroit schools have lead, copper contamination in drinking water; What would it take to make recycling a national issue?; 'Treating Protest As Terrorism': US plans crackdown on KXL activists... PLUS: How we define a calamity determines how we plan for and respond to them. Or not.... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

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

Perhaps our title for today's BradCast, which is a quote from North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper in advance of Hurricane Florence, should have its apostrophe removed. "Disasters at the Doorstep" may better describe the multiple disasters, breaking and otherwise, covered on today's show. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

It was the final primary election day of the year today, before the crucial November midterms, and we've got coverage of results out of Rhode Island, which voted on Wednesday, and problem reports out of New York, which voted on Thursday. But first, the latest on Hurricane Florence as she begins to make landfall on the U.S. southeastern seaboard and, while downgraded to a Category 2 as of air time, still poses an extraordinary and potentially catastrophic threat to millions of Americans from not just winds, but massive storm surge and rainfall (and a host of toxic threats to go with it.) That's the first, but hardly the only disaster covered on today's program.

Then, reported primary results from the final federal primary election of the year in Rhode Island on Wednesday, where a "computer glitch" via a third-party vendor who runs the state's DVM website imperiled thousands of voter registrations this week. Thankfully, in what may be one of the only disasters averted, as covered today, the problem was discovered in time for those voters to be properly added to the rolls before polls opened for Wednesday's elections. The largely "blue" state saw victories for both centrist and progressive Democrats alike. We report on a number of the noteworthy results.

The news may be less good for voters in New York, which is holding the final primary contests of the year for state and local offices --- their federal primaries were held in June. Problems are being reported today by voters in New York City who said they did not appear on the rolls at precincts today as expected or whose party registrations were inaccurate. Several closely watched contests by progressives are on the ballot, including actress Cynthia Nixon's Democratic primary challenge to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and progressive activist Zephyr Teachout attempt to win the Dem nod for state Attorney General.

We discuss what we know (and don't yet) about those widespread voter registration problems being reported today, which echo massive disenfranchisement problems during the 2016 Presidential primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in the Big Apple. That 2016 disaster was due to an unlawful purge of more than 100,000 voters by the NYC Board of Elections. However, despite persistent claims by many Sanders supporters to this day, no evidence exists to tie the illegal purge to either Clinton or the Democratic Party itself. The cause for what may --- or may not --- have happened today, remained even murkier as of airtime.

Next --- after disturbing breaking news out of Massachusetts where fires have exploded in at least 60 homes in three communities north of Boston, for still-unknown reasons, and out of Hawaii, where Tropical Storm Olivia has nearly topped an earthen reservoir, threatening thousands who live below its dam --- a brief, if angry rebuttal to Donald Trump's twisted and wholly fabricated claim today that some 3,000 Puerto Ricans did not die due to last year's Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

Yes, the President of the United States is now a Maria Denier, claiming that Democrats are somehow behind the officially confirmed numbers --- which are higher than 2005's Hurricane Katrina or the 9/11 attacks --- and simply made them up to "make [him] look as bad as possible". We share the actual facts behind the (conservatively low!) numbers and some of the broad condemnation in response to his false claim from both Democrats and Republicans alike today.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with more on the many threats posed by Florence, Trump's latest undermining of action meant to curb global warming, and a new dire warning from the U.N. Secretary General regarding the quickly growing threat of climate change...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Everything --- EVERYTHING --- is not normal right now. From an imploding Presidency to the GOP's unprecedented withholding of documents for a SCOTUS nominee, to the more "normal" abnormalities we've become shamefully accustomed to, like mass shootings, election fraud and voter suppression in advance of another huge election and, yes, a global climate in crisis. Among the related stories covered on today's very busy BradCast [Audio link to show follows below.]...

• At least four were killed, including the shooter, in another mass shooting today, this time in downtown Cincinnati. Shamefully, the bloodbath barely cracks today's national headlines."This is not normal, and it shouldn't be viewed as normal. This is abnormal. No other industrialized country has this level of active multiple shootings on a regular basis," Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley said at a news conference today;

• It was day 3 of U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump's nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Republicans continue to rush through his confirmation while withholding tens of thousands of documents from both the Senate and the public, leading Democratic U.S. Senators Cory Booker (NJ), Mazie Hirono (HI) and others today to risk expulsion by releasing several "committee confidential" documents which are being withheld from the public. The documents being withheld, as suggested by several of the Senators, either reflect poorly on Kavanaugh or show him as having misled Congress in previous Senate testimony during his years as a George W. Bush staffer. "We are in uncharted and unprecedented territory here that the process has broken down, reflecting what is happening in our nation generally," warned Sen. Richard Blumenthal (CT);

• The White House is reported to be in "total meltdown" and the President "absolutely livid" after Wednesday's publication of a bombshell New York Times op-ed said to have been written by "a senior official in the Trump administration". The explosive piece claims the President is unstable, out of control, and that a group of Administration insiders have been working to contain the worst of his impulses. One top Administration official after another on Thursday denied penning the column, as Trump has suggested it to be "TREASON", called for the Times to turn over the writer's identity to "government at once", and as a former CIA Director (and Trump critic) John Brennan warns the situation is "dangerous" and "will get worse before [it] gets better."

Then, after a short remembrance for the late Burt Reynolds, who died today at 82, we move to the one thing Americans can and must do to try and restore a semblance of normality to the nation: participate in the November 6th midterm elections! To that end, we have several items of note regarding election integrity...

• In Texas, the 2018 dirty tricks are officially under way. An infiltrator into Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D)'s surging campaign to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R) used the campaign's text messaging system to send fraudulent messages regarding bringing "undocumented immigrants to polling booths" and "the dangers of socialism";

• In Michigan, two white, male, Republican-appointed federal appeals court judges overturned a lower court judge who, after a full trial, blocked the state GOP-majority legislature's ban on straight-ticket voting, finding the measure "a disproportionate burden on African Americans' right to vote". Both the lower court judge who previously blocked the measure and a third appeals court judge who dissented from her fellow appeals court panelists, were African-Americans appointed by a Democratic President. The U.S. Supreme Court, in the recent past, has blocked a host of court rulings that change election law just before elections, even when they might have protected thousands of voters from disenfranchisement. Will they step in to block this late federal court ruling?;

• In Virginia, Shaun Brown, an independent candidate for the U.S. House in the Commonwealth's 2nd Congressional District, was removed from the November ballot after a judge determined fraudulent petition signatures were used to place her on the ballot in hopes of peeling off votes from Democratic candidate Elaine Luria. Staffers from the office of first-term incumbent GOP Rep. Scott Taylor are said to have submitted many of those fraudulent signatures. Five of Taylor's staffers invoked the Fifth Amendment in the case, refusing to answer whether they were acting on Taylor's instructions. (We also take the opportunity to review just a few of the similar cases of election and signature petition fraud from former top GOP officials, such as Newt Gingrich, Thaddeus McCotter and Mitt Romney).

And, finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our 900th(!) episode of the Green News Report! In which we cover the dangers posed by Kavanaugh to the environment as illustrated during his Senate confirmation hearings, and a round-up of the latest havoc being wreaked around the globe from our climate in crisis.

If you are able and/or haven't done so recently, please consider a donation to support our work on both The BradCast and in celebration of the 900th Green News Report! We rely only on you to keep going! Really. Please stop whatever you are doing and take about 60 seconds to help us continue! It's greatly appreciated and much needed!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Brett Kavanaugh on the U.S. Supreme Court spells big trouble for environmental standards and climate action; PLUS: Extreme weather slams into Japan, and the Gulf Coast, and Wisconsin... 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): 8 states fight Trump’s attempt to declaw Migratory Bird Treaty; Farm bill proposal could wipe out communities’ power to ban pesticides; ACLU: Government plotted to surveil, disrupt Keystone XL protesters; 8 bird species are rirst confirmed avian extinctions this decade; Dozens of elephants killed near Botswana wildlife sanctuary; Zinke hires critic of Endangered Species Act for senior post; Dire climate change warnings cut from Trump power-plant proposal... PLUS: A global shift to sustainability would save us $26 trillion... and much, MUCH more! ...

We start off with some very good news on today's BradCast, for a change. (The less good news comes later...but it's nowhere near as bad as the good news is good.) On Wednesday, the California state legislature adopted a measure that will require the state to use only 100% "carbon-free" electricity by 2045. The landmark climate change bill, which state lawmakers have been debating for two years, now awaits the signature of Gov. Jerry Brown. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

We're joined by Vox.com's environment and energy journalist DAVID ROBERTS to discuss what that actually means, if the goal is feasible, and what could prevent Brown from signing the landmark measure. (For a complete and, yes, wonky explanation of the debate over a separate if related measure that could hold up Brown's signature on this one, see Roberts' recent article here.)

Roberts breaks down what the legislation's change from 100% "renewable" to 100% "carbon-free" electricity means and why the entire effort is such a huge frickin' deal that deserves more coverage than its likely to get right now. Last year, the state of Hawaii lead the way by adopting a similar measure, but with California as the world's 5th largest economy, this move, as the Los Angeles Times recently reported, would truly turn the Golden State into a world leader on climate change action.

"If you put together the size of the economy, the nearness of the targets, and the ambition, I think this is as big as anyone has gone. I think this is as big as it gets," Roberts tells me. "I don't think there's another economy in the world that is comparably large and carbon-intensive, that has anything close to comparably ambitious goals."

The measure also increases the state's current goal of moving to 50% renewable energy by 2030, up to 60% by the same year. That, as Roberts explains, because California has almost reached its previous goal already, years earlier than planned! "They'll probably beat these targets, too," he says. "One of the reasons this is happening is most utilities in California are closing in on their 2030 targets already, and its 2018."

As usual, Roberts makes all of this otherwise-wonky stuff accessible to mere mortals --- and actually enjoyable. Well, at least I enjoyed it. Hope you will too!

Then, back to some less good news of the day. On Thursday, President Trump informed Congress that he wants to cancel the scheduled pay raise for federal workers that is due them in January, charging "Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases". That, after giving a $1.5 trillion tax cut to corporations and the wealthy last December and signing a $717 billion defense appropriation bill just weeks ago. Both have resulted in what even the White House now admits will be unprecedented year-after-year trillion dollar deficits. Trump and Republicans now hope to force the "forgotten men and women" of the working class, that he pretended to care about during the 2016 election, to pay the price for it, even though non-military federal workers have already seen pay and benefits cuts of more than $200 billion since 2011 and now earn 5% less than they did at the start of the decade.

In West Virginia, coal baron and convicted felon Don Blankenship will not be allowed to run for the U.S. Senate this year on the Constitution Party's ballot line. The state's Supreme Court (or what's sufficing for it at the moment, with two of its five members recently resigned and the three others facing impeachment by the GOP state legislature --- see my conversation with Slate's Mark Joseph Stern about that earlier this week), agreed with their Sec. of State that Blankenship's candidacy would run afoul of the state's "sore loser" statute after he placed third last May in the Republican primary contest for that party's Senate nomination. The ruling is good news for the state's Attorney General and GOP Senate nominee Patrick Morrisey, as Blankenship might have siphoned off some of his support. Morrisey hopes to unseat the conservative incumbent Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin, this November.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with more on today's encouraging news out of California, some bad news for those who live in areas with high air pollution, and the disturbing news that Puerto Rico's Hurricane Maria is now officially the deadliest U.S. natural disaster in more than 100 years --- though Donald Trump still thinks he did a heckuva job in his response to it...

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Follow @GreenNewsReport...

(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: California sets the most significant clean energy target in world history, while facing dire new predictions for climate impacts; Air pollution is making us dumber; PLUS: Hurricane Maria now officially the deadliest U.S. natural disaster in more than a century... 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): California's huge energy decision: link its grid to its neighbors, or stay autonomous?; Hurricane Maria will be a permanent stain on Trump's legacy; Detroit turns off every public school's drinking water due to high levels of lead, copper; Milestone for earthquake forecasting; New York AG: Exxon climate fraud investigation nearing end; Court overturns Trans Mountain oil pipeline approval; EPA to reconsider Obama-era curbs on mercury emissions by power plants; Trump donor buys California power plant, asks feds to change energy market; Western countries 'should deal with own waste' amid plunge in China's plastics imports... PLUS: What comes after plastic?... and much, MUCH more! ...