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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Developing nations demand rich countries live up to promises at U.N. COP30 climate talks in Brazil; Trump plans to drill off the coast of California; PLUS: Thanks to NOAA, the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was the last commercial freighter to sink in the Great Lakes, 50 years ago this week... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Where the sky keeps bursting: the eastern US is increasingly vulnerable to extreme rain, floods; Former Interior official: Trump is ‘rushing’ deep-sea mining; States blow past Colorado River deadline, Arizona wants feds to order water cuts; Built to Fail: Rules at UN climate talks favor status quo, not progress; How government shutdowns give polluters a free pass... PLUS: Five ways Joe Rogan misleads his viewers about climate change... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.N. climate talks begin in Brazil with calls for faster action, and without the U.S.; 200 million Americans hit with outbreak of Arctic Air; PLUS: Australia has so much solar energy, they're offering everyone free electricity... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): What is COP30, why does it matter and who will be at this year’s UN climate talks?; How Trump officials have transformed the EPA to weaken enforcement; New York gas pipeline gets permit, despite environmental concerns; Voter anger at high electric bills and data centers looms over 2026 midterms; Trump EPA moves to loosen restrictions it once supported on harmful HFCs; Trump Country coal miners with black lung say government is suffocating them... PLUS: Why Trump’s cuts to scientific research are a big win for China... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today was Election Day for major contests in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California, not to mention about 30 other states which also held either statewide or local off-year contests. We'll have full reported results for you, of course, on tomorrow's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

In the meantime, there was a whole lot going on today, while America votes...

• Several polling places were temporarily closed in more than half a dozen New Jersey counties on Tuesday following threats, reportedly via email, ultimately determined by officials to be "non-credible". One local official suggested the emails may have originated "abroad", bringing to mind the emailed bomb threats that resulted in temporary evacuations of a number of polling places in at least five different battlegrounds states on Election Day during the 2024 Presidential election. Those threats were reported, at the time, to have come from IP addresses in Russia.

• Former Vice President Dick Cheney died on Monday at the age of 84. His family announced the news today. We share some thoughts.

• The Trump Administration has fired yet another government watchdog whose job it was to root out waste, fraud and abuse at a federal agency. This time, according to a Reuters exclusive, it was the acting Inspector General at the Federal Housing and Finance Authority (FHFA), whose Trump-appointed activist Director, Bill Pulte, has been issuing bogus criminal referrals to the DoJ about "mortgage fraud" purportedly committed by Donald Trump's political foes, such as New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA). The IG in this case, a 40-year veteran DoJ prosecutor, was said to have been in the process of notifying Congress that FHFA leadership was violating the law by refusing to cooperate with the Office of the Inspector General. To date, the Administration has fired almost 20 IGs at almost every major (and not-so-major) federal agency or department.

• Trump's corrupt Attorney General Pam Bondi filed legal documents on Friday in hopes retroactively fixing some pretty huge problems with the weaponized political indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and NY A.G. Letitia James. The filings attempt to rewrite history regarding the corrupt and almost certainly unlawful appointment of Trump's former insurance lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, as Interim U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. She was expressly appointed to the position after Trump's previous USA either resigned or was fired for refusing to file the politically motivated charges demanded by Trump, due to lack of evidence.

• Trump, almost certainly looking at an embarrassing loss tonight in California's Prop 50 initiative --- which would temporarily rewrite the state's Congressional map in response to a Trump-ordered U.S. House gerrymander in Texas over the summer --- was already falsely claiming this afternoon that the contest was somehow "rigged". CA's Sec. of State called out his evidence-free bullshit in a statement late today.

• Speaking of the Gerrymandering Wars kicked off by our desperate and incredibly unpopular President, Gov. Wes Moore, in the Democratically-controlled state of Maryland, announced a new Commission to consider jumping into the redistricting game before 2026. Maybe.

• Voting Rights advocates had a big victory on Friday, as one of two federal judges overseeing different lawsuits against Trump's bogus election-related Executive Order, issued a permanent ban on his attempt to mandate proof of citizenship documents by those registering to vote with the national voter registration form. The judge made clear --- as we did when Trump originally issued his dumb EO --- that Presidents have zero legal or Constitutional authority regarding elections.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with a grim humanitarian crisis brewing in Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean following last week's monster Hurricane Melissa; record rainfall in New York City; incredibly alarming glacial retreat in Antarctica; and the Trump Administration's Godfather-like thuggery used to block the world's first-ever emissions rules for international shipping...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Humanitarian disaster looms in Jamaica, following monster Hurricane Melissa; Extreme rainstorm shatters records in New York City; Shocking glacial retreat in Antarctica; PLUS: Trump Administration used mob-like tactics to scuttle first-ever emissions rules for international shipping... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Jamaica rushes to prepare for peak tourism season as it digs out from Hurricane Melissa; RFK backs down on Tylenol, moves on to wind turbines; Bill Gates: Climate "super-important" but not "super bad"; Major American LNG exporters habitually break air pollution laws: report; Exxon-funded think tanks to spread climate denial in Latin America, documents show; Dept. of Energy directs $100 million to modernize declining coal plants; After decades, green sea turtles have been saved from extinction --- for now... PLUS: How Alabama Power kept bills up and opposition out to become one of the most powerful utilities in the country... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Melissa leaves a path of climate-fueled destruction, impacts will last long after the storm has passed and news cameras leave; PLUS: States send out SOS amid federal government shutdown to keep millions of Americans from freezing this winter... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): How to help those impacted by Hurricane Melissa; 'Millions of avoidable deaths': Climate change health harms reach unprecedented levels; Archaeological site in Alaska reveals artifacts from impacts of ex-Typhoon Halong; NOAA Hurricane Hunter crews, researchers flying without pay; Annual climate change report finds 'planet on the brink'; Energy prices seize spotlight in Virginia, New Jersey races... PLUS: Despite Trump troubles, Hyundai charges ahead with green steel project... and much, MUCH more! ...

As the November 4th off-year elections are now just days away, New York City voters appear likely to elect a young, charismatic Democratic socialist vowing to raise taxes on the wealthy as their new Mayor. But, as discussed on today's BradCast, that's not the only place where voters may finally have a chance to begin to even the score against the runaway wealth gap between the rich and...everyone else. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST... A few quick news items today, including...

• Hurricane Melissa's record-shattering path of destruction through the Caribbean --- including Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti and The Bahamas --- and now on toward the Canadian Atlantic coast (with effects likely to be felt across much of the U.S. Northeastern Seaboard this weekend.)
• Breaking news on Donald Trump firing all six members of one of the federal commissions that was otherwise set to review the building plans for his threatened, privately-funded 90,000 square foot ballroom at the White House --- for which he has already demolished the East Wing with neither approval nor permission from anyone --- and a giant "Arc d'Trump" that he wants to build somewhere on the National Mall in D.C.

THEN... Just days from Tuesday's off-year Election Day, New York City's Democratic candidate for Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, appears to be well ahead in pre-election polling. If those polls are correct, it seems that NYC voters are offering enthusiastic support for the "Affordability Agenda" on which Mamdani's remarkable campaign has been built, including promises for a rent freeze, universal child care, free buses and for city-owned grocery stores in food deserts across the city's five Boroughs. Some of those programs, according to the candidate, will be paid for by a small surcharge on the income taxes of those earning more than $1 million per year. Though, even if he wins next week, many of those programs --- including the new surcharge on millionaires --- would need approval from the City Council and/or State Legislature before implementation.

Meanwhile, out here in California, some progressives are already looking toward a straight-on wealth tax for the state's 200 billionaires that voters would need to approve in 2026. But there are some unique elements to this ballot proposal that may distinguish it from other such programs forwarded by progressives in the past.

Last week, one of the state's largest unions, SEIU's United Healthcare Workers West, along with U.C. Berkley economist Emmanuel Saez and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, unveiled what our guest today, HAROLD MEYERSON of The American Prospect, described last week as "The First Politically Viable Wealth Tax" in the nation.

The proposal, which its proponents are hoping to place onto next year's statewide ballot, would levy a one-time, 5% tax on the state's billionaires to help fund California's Medicaid program (known as Medi-Cal) following the massive, historic, trillion dollar cuts to the program enacted by Trump and Congressional Republicans in their so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" this past summer.

Meyerson is careful to delineate between Mamdani's income tax proposal of the wealthy (which he also supports), and the one in CA which would tax wealth itself, including assets owned such as stocks, etc. So, why does he see this one as the "first politically viable" such tax? For one reason, one of the well-worn critiques of such programs is that it would lead wealthy residents to flee or deter other wealthy people from moving in. In fact, Mamdani's main opponent in the NYC mayoral race, former state Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary, has repeatedly made that case against Mamdani's plan.

But, whether Cuomo's attack is true or not (Mamdani calls it exaggerated), the CA proposal introduced last week undercuts the critique entirely.

"First, it only applies to the wealth of people from this year, calendar 2025," explains Meyerson. And the "5% tax on wealth can be paid, spread out, over the next five years. It takes effect [if adopted by voters next year] in 2027. If you move into the state and you're ridiculously wealthy anytime after the end of this year, this doesn't apply to you. It only applies to the wealth of this year. If you move out of the state, you're still liable, under the terms of this tax, for paying it. So it is structured in such a way that it eliminates the argument that it will cause billionaires to move out --- because it only applies to billionaires in the state as of this year --- and that it will keep billionaires from moving in because, assuming they move in after Dec. 31st of this year, it doesn't apply to them."

That element alone of this proposal is likely to take the wind out of the sails of many of those who will certainly oppose the measure next year, if it qualifies for the ballot (supporters have until June to gather enough signatures). Meyerson believes that, especially in this blue-leaning state, the idea will be so popular that even conservative billionaire (and former Republican turned Democrat) Rick Caruso, who is likely to run for Governor, would have little choice but to support it. "It would look awfully self-interested, and against the interests of those Californians --- of whom there are gazillions --- reliant upon Medi-Cal, if he were to oppose it, or not take a stance on it," Meyerson tells me. "The optics would look pretty damn bad."

But there are other critiques that wealthy opponents will try to levee as well. Socialism! If it passes, Dems will just want to make it permanent! etc. etc. Meyerson speaks to all of those and offers his insights into the NYC election next week (and establishment Dems such as Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, who have remarkably failed to back the city's Democratic candidate for Mayor), the Prop 50 redistricting referendum in CA, and the gubernatorial contests in both New Jersey and Virginia...

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We've got a lot of news from all over the world, and no small amount of explainers to go with it on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Deadly, record-shattering Hurricane Melissa finally makes landfall in Jamaica as a catastrophic, slow moving, 185 mph Category 5 storm. As discussed, this is likely to be very very bad. The island nation has set up a support and donations site here.

• So much for Donald Trump's recent declaration of "everlasting peace" in the Middle East, as Israel reignites its brutal attack on Gaza following its claim that Hamas has violated the recent peace agreement.

• "Peace President" Donald Trump continues his unlawful killing spree in international waters with the announcement that he ordered the U.S. military murder of another 14 alleged "narco-terrorists" on four small boats off of Mexico's Pacific coast. That, as the Administration redeploys its largest aircraft carrier to the Caribbean, not to help storm victims in Jamaica, but almost certainly to wage --- or, at least, threaten --- war on Venezuela (and, perhaps, Colombia).

• Weird and related?: U.S. Defense Dept. officials are being required to sign NDAs. WTF?

• Twenty-three Democratic state Attorneys General announced they are suing the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to continue food assistance to some 42 million low-income Americans via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP, previously known as food stamps). The suit follows the agency's flip-flop on using already-appropriated emergency contingency funds to feed hungry American families amid the ongoing federal government shutdown. If funding ends on November 1, as planned by the USDA, it would be the first time in the 60-year history of the program.

• Following Friday's announcement by Trump's corrupted Dept. of Justice that it plans to send federal monitors to polling places in five counties in California and one in New Jersey during next Tuesday's November 4th elections, for unexplained reasons, the Golden State has announced it plans to dispatch state monitors to oversee the federal ones.

• The Gerrymandering Wars continue and expand. Following Trump's arm-twisting of state GOP lawmakers in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina to rewrite U.S. House district maps to steal seats from Democrats next year --- and Democrats' attempted responses in California and Virginia --- Indiana's Republican Governor has called a special session of the legislature to try and steal another GOP House seat from Democratic voters. But Dems aren't done responding yet, as House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries is said to be in talks with Illinois lawmakers about redrawing that state's map to further favor Dems next year. We do all of the math for ya today, breaking down which party's voters would come out ahead if all of these plans are successful. The answer may surprise you. But the corrupted, rightwing, activist U.S. Supreme Court could still blow up everything (in favor of Republicans) before all is said and done in the critical 2026 midterms.

• Finally, Desi Doyen is back with our latest Green News Report with more on the monstrous Hurricane Melissa; the Trump Administration's withholding of disaster funding to states that didn't vote for him; and the deadly, expensive climate change threats that continue to worsen, whether the Administration removes climate science data from its websites or not...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Monster Hurricane Melissa batters Jamaica, the strongest storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season; Trump Administration denies disaster funding to blue states that did not vote for him; PLUS: Billion-dollar weather disasters hit new record the United States... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Storm drenches Central Florida, creating 'particularly dangerous' situation; Trump Transportation secretary says he will pull $160M from California over non-citizen truck licenses; EPA plan to kill a major climate rule is worrying business leaders; Trump offshore drilling plan faces fierce opposition in Congress; Exxon sues California over new climate disclosure laws... PLUS: Ranchers agreed to leave a national park. Then RFK Jr. got involved... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've done quite a bit on The BradCast over the years, from investigative reporting, to deep dive explainers and interviews with experts and news makers, to ranting monologues, to taking calls from listeners on all manner of things. But, unless I'm mistaken, I believe this is the first time we've turned the show into a game show! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... Before we get to our fun (if disturbing?) game today, a few news items of note...

• Category 5 Hurricane Melissa looks to be a monster deadly storm in the Caribbean on several different levels. It's slamming smack-dab into Jamaica overnight tonight. In addition to record wind speeds (satellite records showed the storm, in record warm waters, topping 190mph for a time last night according to satellite records, which would be a Cat 6 if there actually was such a thing on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale), it's also incredibly slow moving. That means it is likely to dump a lot of water --- as much as 40 inches of rain in some places --- as it slowly swamps the entire island. Desi Doyen also joins us for a few insights on how climate change has worsened just about every aspect of this deadly storm.

• Earlier this year the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA), detailed how "multi-year contingency funds" would be used to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to "continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown." Last week, however, as the shutdown drags on, a USDA memo explained that, despite already appropriated Congressional funding to be used for such a contingency, federal SNAP money would no longer be made available to states after November 1 if the shutdown was still ongoing. That, after Republicans already slashed some $186 billion from the program in Trump's so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" earlier this year. More than 40 million people rely on SNAP to put food on the table --- the vast majority of them employed, by the way --- but the Trump Administration is now planning to help starve people (including millions of their own voters) rather than even negotiate with Democrats who are refusing to help Republicans keep the government open until hundreds of millions (in fact trillions) of dollars in Trump/GOP health care cuts for Americans are restored.

• Next Tuesday is Election Day in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, California and elsewhere. On Friday, Trump's Dept. of Justice announced that federal monitors were being deployed to polling places in five counties in California and one in New Jersey (which both have Democratic governors), though none to Virginia, which has the most contests on the ballot next week...and a Republican Governor. DOJ has yet to explain why monitors are being deployed or under what law they are doing so. Election experts --- and CA's Governor --- warn this may be a trial run for what the Administration is planning for next year's critical midterms.

THEN... It's on to "Who Wants to be a U.S. Citizen?", the first BradCast call-in game show!

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced that it was making it more difficult to pass the test required for those applying to become U.S. Citizens. They are doubling both the number of questions asked PDF on the Naturalization Civics Test and the number of correct answers that need to be given to pass the test.

According to experts, the questions are also more difficult than they were previously. So, today, we open up our phone lines to listeners --- most of them, presumably U.S. citizens! --- to see if they could answer the questions now being asked of prospective citizens by this Administration.

Like the Trump Administration, we make up the rules of the game as we go. And our listeners did fairly well! But I'll bet they did a helluva lot better than our current President would have been able to had he been forced to pass this test!

Tune in for what turned out to be both an amusing and troubling hour of fun and games with our lucky listeners!...

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The first six months of the year in the U.S. featured the costliest weather and climate-related disasters on record. The "good news", however, as we discuss on today's BradCast, is that we know about it. Had it been up to the Trump Administration, we would not have. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We've also got some other good news today, including some rather stunning, surprising news in the Gerrymander Wars. But we begin today with climate, scientists pushing back against the Trump Administration to save the world, and a fantastic guest to discuss it all.

Since 1980, the Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters Database at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has tracked disasters that caused at least one billion dollars in damage each. Amid our quickly worsening climate crisis, the number of such disasters each year --- and the cost of them --- has been skyrocketing.

According to the latest update to that database unveiled this week, as of June 2025 there were a total of 14 weather events that exceeded $1 billion in damages this year, totaling more than $100 billion, including the Los Angeles wildfires which caused more than $60 billion in damage alone, clocking in as the costliest wildfire in U.S. history.

Between 1980 and 2024, there were an average of nine such disasters each year. But over the past five years, the average is now 24 per year and climbing. If it weren't for the folks at the non-profit Climate Central, we wouldn't have any of these numbers, since the Trump Administration shut down that database as of this year, on behalf of their deadly, dirty fossil fuel-industry friends. Thankfully, Climate Central has picked up the ball, the records going back to 1980 and the scientists who tracked this critical data --- who were pushed out of NOAA earlier this year --- to continue upkeep of the critical dataset that has long been relied upon by states, cities, farmers, insurance companies and many others.

We're joined today to discuss this and much more by meteorologist, climate scientist and award-winning science communicator TOM DI LIBERTO, who is now Media Director at Climate Central. He formerly served in NOAA's Office of Communication and served as Senior Climate Scientist at NOAA's critical Climate.gov site. That site has since been shutdown by the Administration (though it is being resurrected at Climate.us) and Di Liberto was fired by earlier this year, by form letter, after 15 years at the agency, along with more than 1,000 others who have been laid off as Trump continues to gut climate science and research at the nation's (formerly) most prestigious climate organization. NOAA also houses the National Weather Service.

"The amount of information that goes into creating this billion-dollar disaster analysis is a lot," Di Liberto explains. "For a long time, the one place that could manage to do all that was a government agency like NOAA. It was much too difficult for an individual company to be able to do this." He tells me that while some groups, like insurance companies, collect similar data "that data ends up being proprietary, unlike the billion-dollar disaster dataset, which was freely available when it came out of NOAA."

He describes the database --- now reborn at Climate Central, along with a lot of other critical data that might otherwise have been lost or destroyed --- as "a jewel" in both the U.S. and across the globe, because "other countries looked to it as a model for what they wished they could do."

My conversation with Di Liberto today is broad ranging, on that, on what the latest updates to the database warn us regarding the climate crisis; why it was shut down by Trump; why Republicans dismiss the database as "deceptive" ("I think when they said 'deceptive' they meant 'powerful'."); how and why he was fired by the Administration; why they want to make climate data disappear ("If you can't see it, you can't deal with it" even though "billion-dollar disasters will continue to happen whether we call them billion-dollar disasters or not."); what morale is now like at NOAA; and whether the agency can possibly be rebuilt after --- and if --- this man-made Trump nightmare finally ends.

Di Liberto is an excellent communicator on all of this. Please tune in for our very lively and informative conversation! You'll be glad you did.

ALSO TODAY... In, frankly, stunning news, Democratic state lawmakers in Virginia unveiled a seemingly ingenious plan today to rewrite their map for Congressional Districts before next year's midterms that could result in flipping as many as three currently "red" U.S. House seats to "blue" in the critical 2026 midterms. The unexpected scheme comes in direct response to unprecedented Trump/Republican mid-decade gerrymandering schemes in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina (so far). It is not an easy path. It will require two different successful votes both this year and next by both chambers of the state Legislature, and adoption of a state Constitutional amendment in a statewide special election early next year. But it actually appears doable, despite a Republican Governor (at the moment), an election for a new Governor and for every seat in the House of Delegates in just twelve days, and a wickedly clever technical administrative procedure by Dems in both the state House and Senate. Tune in for the full details. But it's great to see Dems even trying to pull off something that usually only Republicans would do!

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report! But even that ends on a high-ish note today! At least for the whales!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Groundbreaking report reveals powerful link between poverty and the climate crisis; The world is not on track to meet the Paris Climate Agreement's 2030 targets; The U.S. government is shut down, but not for the fossil fuel industry; PLUS: Endangered Right Whales bouncing back!... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Ten years of the Paris Agreement: the present and future of extreme heat; Trump policies gutting US oil production; Super-warming methane gas is being tackled too slowly, UN says ahead of COP30; Biggest meat producers unleashing more methane than biggest oil firms; Anti-science bills hit statehouses, ending public health protections; Tropical Storm Melissa expected to become major hurricane... PLUS: American e-waste is causing a 'hidden tsunami' in Southeast Asia... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: CO2 levels in the atmosphere hit highest ever recorded, U.N. says, warning of more extreme weather to come; Victims of July 4 Texas Floods still struggling to get financial aid from Trump's FEMA; Sea levels are rising faster than ever due to man-made global warming; PLUS: Salmon reach Klamath River headwaters for the first time in more than a century... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The government is shut down, but not for fossil fuels; 'Leaving the world’s poorest behind': Nearly 900 million poor people face climate shocks, says UN; Mystery heatwave warms Pacific Ocean to new record; New Florida law blocks communities' efforts to be more sustainable and resilient; California has a new law to prevent big grid battery fires... PLUS: Brazil OKs oil drilling near mouth of Amazon River ahead of UN Climate Summit... and much, MUCH more! ...

I was hoping for at least some optimism from my guests on today's BradCast regarding the future of the landmark Voting Right Act of 1965. I'm sorry to say, I didn't get much in that regard. But I learned a lot. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The corrupted U.S. Supreme Court held a nearly three-hour Oral Argument this week after the activist Republican Supremes actually asked plaintiffs from a case last year in Louisiana to come back this term and argue something else entirely: Essentially, whether one of the last standing sections of the Act barring discriminatory election practices, Section 2, somehow violates the Constitution itself.

The case is Louisiana v. Callais. Its origins are complicated, though one of our guests explains it quite simply today. Basically, following the 2020 Census, the Republican legislature in Louisiana drew a U.S. House Map that all but ensured no less than 5 Republican Congressional Districts and just one that might be won by Democrats, because it has been packed with a large majority of the state's Black voters. But Louisiana's voting population is more than 30% Black. So voting rights advocates sued for a second majority-minority district under Section 2 of the VRA. They won. But now a group of White voters in the state (several of whom didn't even know they were listed as plaintiffs!) are attempting to turn the VRA on its head, arguing --- as Mark Joseph Stern summarizes it, that "it's racist to remedy racism" --- by claiming that minority voting opportunity districts amount to an unlawful racial gerrymander violating the rights of the white voters under the 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution.

By way of reminder, those Amendments, in brief, bar discrimination against voters on the basis of race, and allow for Congress to adopt laws enforcing the Amendments by protecting all voters. Almost a century after the Amendments were ratified, Congress finally passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to do exactly that. Republicans, including now Chief Justice John Roberts, have spent the better part of the last five decades or so trying to roll back the protections for minority voters afforded by the VRA and the post-Civil War Amendments.

After working for the Reagan Administration in the early 80s (unsuccessfully) to try and weaken the Act, in 2013, John Roberts, as Chief Justice, wrote the Shelby County v. Holder Opinion that gutted Section 5 of the VRA. That Section mandated that jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination at the polling place must preclear all new election-related laws before they went into effect to make sure they were not discriminatory. In 2019, in a case known as Rucho v. Common Cause, Roberts' Opinion for the Court's majority held that gerrymandering for partisan purposes was perfectly legal under federal law, leaving only racial gerrymanders protected against. Now, he and the rest of the far-right activists on the High Court are gunning for Section 2, which is meant to protect voters in all 50 states, including from racial gerrymanders of the kind that Louisiana was found to have engaged in after the 2020 Census.

We're joined today by two experts in election law and redistricting, from both the legal and political sides to try and make sense of all of this. Professor JOSHUA A. DOUGLAS teaches election law at the University of Kentucky College of Law. His latest book is, appropriately enough, THE COURT v. THE VOTERS: The Troubling Story of How the Supreme Court Has Undermined Voting Rights. DAVID DALEY is a Senior Fellow at FairVote.org, whose latest book, appropriately enough, is ANTIDEMOCRATIC: Inside the Right's 50 Year Plan to Control American Elections.

In addition to breaking down Wednesday's oral argument, we discuss why this case is being heard again the first place; how it demonstrates how much Section 2 of the VRA is still very much needed; why there is no specific time-limit after which legally-mandated, race-based solutions to discriminatory violations of the law and Constitution must be ended (as Justice Kavanaugh and others suggested); what is likely to happen if Section 2 is killed or merely eviscerated (at least a dozen minority members of Congress will almost certainly lose their seats in short order); and both if and, crucially, when the Court may issue its Opinion in this matter.

We dig into a lot of details and angles on all of this, so I'm not even going to try to summarize our conversation here. Please tune in for that. You'll be much smarter in the bargain. But, suffice to say for now, Daley, who has written several books on Rightwing gerrymandering, notes that, if Section 2 is struck down, it "would be an electoral bonanza for the Republican Party." He characterizes what will follow as an "unprecedented Gerrymander Armageddon".

Douglas, who also has a podcast and newsletter titled "Democracy Optimist", is not much more optimistic. "I think we are going to see a lot more states engage in this so-called mid-decade redistricting. We're already seeing some states do this in response to President Trump trying to make sure that he doesn't lose the House in the midterm elections," Douglas explains. "I think you're going to see a lot more states, Louisiana included, redraw their maps. And what this is going to mean is that you're going to have a much more partisan skew. It is going to be even that much harder for Democrats to take back the House in 2026, just because race and party are so closely aligned in many states, particularly in the South."

Daley believes a ruling is likely to come as early as January, in time for states largely in the old Confederate South, to rewrite maps before the 2026 primaries begin to prevent Black voters from being able to elect a candidate of their choosing next year.

Douglas, a self-described "glass-half-full kind of person" sees the potential for a bit of wiggle room on both the release date of an Opinion, and how it might be tempered by the ongoing Gerrymandering Wars already underway, thanks to Trump's desperation to avoid a humiliating loss of Congress next year.

FINALLY TODAY... Breaking news, mid-show, as Trump's former National Security Advisor turned Trump critic John Bolton is indicted on 18 federal charges related to his alleged retention of classified documents after being fired by Trump in 2019. And Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the cost of Trump's cuts to the National Weather Service begin to turn deadly...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump cuts to National Weather Service resulted in faulty forecast of deadly Alaska storm; Trump EPA canceled flood control grants for Alaskan tribal villages hit hard by that storm; PLUS: Trump trying to pressure other nations to ditch clean energy but many aren't listening... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The Carbon Rains of October: From Alaska typhoons to coal-juiced Nor'easters; Rare earths: Why China can collapse the U.S. with one decree; Panama’s coastal waters missed their annual cooldown this year; 'When I pass piles of fishing nets, I see piles of money': a one man recycling revolution on the Cornish coast; Natural gas prices are low, but your monthly gas bill up. Here's why... PLUS: What are climate tipping points?... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: The War in Gaza may be in the middle of a very fragile ceasefire, but the Wars both For and Against Democracy in America continue apace today. And, according to our guest, the effort underway in one otherwise very "red" state today is heartening. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

FIRST UP... Some news following our brief respite yesterday...

• After the good news yesterday, regarding the release of all living Israeli hostages held by Hamas as part of a cessation of hostilities in Gaza brokered by the U.S. and a number of other countries, a few violent flair-ups and Israel pulling back on several elements of the deal offer worrisome signs for the nascent, fragile peace deal. Israel reportedly killed six Gazans on Tuesday, and Hamas reportedly murdered a number of fellow Palestinians as the military arm of the group began to retake control of the war-torn enclave amid Israel's partial retreat.

• Back here at home, Democrats saw another big (and, according to Newsweek, "shock") victory up in Fairbanks, Alaska, where Democratic Mayoral candidate Mindy O'Neall ousted Republican-backed Mayor David Pruhs. It is both the first Democratic mayoral victory and first time that a sitting Mayor has been unseated in about a decade in Fairbanks. And yet, it is another instance of a huge shift by the electorate toward Democrats in special and local elections since Donald Trump took office again, just nine long months ago.

• Little wonder then that Trump has called on GOP-controlled states to gerrymander their U.S. House maps in hopes of flipping "blue" seats to "red" before a single vote is even cast in next year's critical midterms. Texas redrew their already-gerrymandered earlier this year in hopes of stealing five "blue" seats next year in majority-minority districts. And lawmakers in North Carolina announced plans on Monday for a mid-decade redistricting there as well, to take away yet another seat from Democratic voters in the closely divided state. NC had a fair, 7 to 7 court-drawn U.S. House map in 2022, only to see Republicans take control of the state Supreme Court, which allowed a redrawn, 10 to 4 gerrymander in 2024. On Monday, state Republicans announced plans to redraw the map again for 2026, to steal one more seat from Democrats. That, of course, rather than simply change their policies to ones actually supported by the majority of voters.

BUT AFTER... Texas and before North Carolina, it was my old home-state of Missouri whose Republican Governor and state Legislature last month moved to undermine voters with an unprecedented mid-decade gerrymander of the Show-Me State's U.S. House Map.

While Republicans already control 6 of 8 Congressional Districts in the state, with just two Democratic seats left --- one in St. Louis in the Eastern part of the state, the other in Kansas City in the West --- state lawmakers recently voted to split up the Kansas City district held for the past 20 years by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II.

Pro-democracy groups and voters, however, are pushing back. Several lawsuits have been filed challenging the new map as a violation of the state constitution. And a coalition of democracy advocates called People Not Politicians (PNP) is fighting back in another way: with a referendum that, if allowed on next year's statewide ballot, would immediately stop the gerrymander from moving forward in 2026, as a "citizens veto", until the entire state was able to ring in on the legislation at the ballot box.

Today, we're joined by PNP Policy Director RICHARD VON GLAHN, who has worked on 10 previous Missouri ballot initiatives, including the successful ballot campaign last year to raise the minimum wage and provide workers paid sick leave in the state. It was adopted with 58% of the vote. He seems very confident about the group's ability to get this referendum before voters next year.

"We can let the people decide if the legislation passed by the General Assembly should go into effect or if they should have to start over," he tells me. "We have done this 27 times in Missouri's history, and 25 of those 27 times that an issue has been put up for a vote, citizens have over-ridden what the legislature has done."

Von Glahn says the coalition is "not just on pace, we are ahead of pace" to qualify for the ballot, which would immediately restore the state's previous Congressional map for next year. "In the 72 hours after the legislature first passed this, we had over 2,000 Missourians volunteer, saying, 'Put a clipboard in my hands, I'm ready to go out and hit the streets and talk to my neighbors.'"

Of course, the state's Republican Attorney General and Sec. of State are already pushing back, attempting to disqualify about 25,000 signatures that were gathered even before the state's Republican Governor Mike Keyhoe signed the new law. Von Glahn explains today why he's confident that their objections will not stand. They are currently challenging the AG's determination in court. But, even if they lose that legal battle, he argues, they will qualify for the ballot anyway with well over the 110,000 or so signatures needed.

"It is a completely frivolous action by the Attorney General," he says, asserting that the AG "just made up words in the [state] constitution to try to thwart this." Nonetheless, the seasoned ballot initiative organizer vows: "We are also going to turn in such an overwhelming number of signatures, that whether the signatures from the first two weeks are counted or not is not going to be a factor."

He also notes that volunteers gathering signatures are not just Democrats in the otherwise supposedly "red" state where voters, just last year, voted for adding a right to abortion in the state's constitution after Republican state lawmakers adopted a near-total ban. "Voters don't ask us, 'Well, will this benefit Republicans or Democrats?' Because this is actually about centering VOTERS in our democracy. No one wants to feel like a political pawn or that our elections are manipulated behind our backs. That's why, as we are out working on this and talking to voters, it is not a PARTISAN message. It is really, like the name says, people, not politicians should be the center and focus of our democracy."

Please tune in for many more encouraging words about all of this from Von Glahn.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report, as at least three major storm systems from three different directions slam the U.S. at the same time from the East Coast to the West and all the way up to Alaska. Oh, and also, remember that National Weather Service meteorologist who Trump found to agree that a hurricane had been predicted to hit Alabama back in 2019? That guy, Trump's "Sharpiegate" dude, has just been confirmed by Republicans in the U.S. Senate to head up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which houses the National Weather Service...

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