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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Death toll rises in catastrophic Kentucky flooding; Extreme heat and wildfires sear the U.S. West; Good times for Big Oil; PLUS: Manchin-Schumer compromise bill could be a game changer for climate... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Electricity rates' shocking rise: it's the fossil fuels, stupid; Feds reverse Trump decision opening up Central California lands to drilling; Scientists say it is 'foolish' to not study catastrophic outcomes; What are 'flash droughts' and why are they so destructive?; House Passes 48-Bill Wildfire-Protection Package; Chemical Recycling Bills Gain Momentum and Opposition in States... PLUS: A Dead Climate Denial Meme is Dead Again... and much, MUCH more! ...

In our opinion, on today's BradCast, the scaled back, surprise "Build Back Better" spending bill compromise (now renamed the "Inflation Reduction Act" to help win over West Virginia's rightwing Democratic Senator) comes not a moment too soon. And, even "scaled back", it's still chocked full of so much stuff that if each of its provisions were passed in separate bills over the past 18 months, we'd likely be discussing Joe Biden as having one of the most successful first two years of any President in history. That said, the bill has not yet been passed, and it could still be a very bumpy ride in the coming days to see it through to the President's signature. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Before we get to that today --- and some callers on same --- a few other headlines covered on today's show...

• Minutes before airtime, news broke that the U.S. killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan over the weekend in a successful drone strike, in which no civilians are said to have been killed. President Biden was to give remarks about what happened on Monday evening.

• Speaking of Biden, he tested positive for COVID again over the weekend, in what White House officials are describing as a "rare rebound" case after finishing his 5-day course of the anti-viral drug called Paxlovid. Well, it can't be ALL that rare, because last week, when the White House announced Biden had tested negative and was cleared to leave isolation, we warned about the possibility of such a rebound, as many Paxlovid users have experienced same. The Pfizer drug has very good results at preventing serious cases and hospitalization, but many patients have experienced a second --- non-fatal --- COVID infection shortly after using it. That is, apparently, the case with Biden. His White House doctor says he has few if any symptoms and will likely be fine, despite needing to isolate again.

• Deadly flash flooding continues in parts of Kentucky today, and warnings for more of the same have been issued for the next several days from Tennessee to Kentucky to West Virginia to Virginia and North Carolina. 37 have so far been confirmed to have died from the horrific flooding in Eastern Kentucky. Governor Andy Beshear believes that toll will continue to rise, as hundreds are still unaccounted for in a number of Appalachian mountain towns after recent, and ongoing, deluges. That, as our climate emergency continues with record heat predicted again this week from the Dakotas to the East Coast.

• On Tuesday, voters will head to the polls in six states: Ohio, Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington state for primary elections. And there are a lot of 2020 election deniers (and worse) on the GOP ballots. We quickly preview just a few of those insane races today and will have noteworthy reported results, of course, on Wednesday's program.

Then, it's on to the so-called Inflation Reduction Act --- a scaled down version of the Build Back Better Act that Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema killed last year. If successfully adopted this time, it would increase federal revenue by some $750 billion over the next ten years, allowing for some $450 billion in spending on a bunch of several long-overdue programs. Most of them have been progressive priorities for years.

Only Democrats in the U.S. Senate will be needed to pass it under Senate reconciliation rules, but all 50 will have to be there (not out with COVID) and vote yes. Sinema has yet to comment on the measure, even as Manchin has been taking to media over the weekend to try and sell her on it.

If passed, the 725-page measure [PDF] will: Allow Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices; Cap out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs for seniors at $2,000 per year; Expand federal subsidies for premiums for individuals who purchase health insurance on the federal Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) exchanges; Set a minimum 15% tax for corporations who make more than $1 billion in profits per year; Increase policing of tax cheats; and, perhaps most critically, invest some $369 billion in climate and energy projects to cut deadly greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 through investments that hasten the nation's move from dirty fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy.

What the bill won't do is raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year, as Biden has long promised. That, despite blatant lies from Republicans such as Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) who, when announcing he tested positive for COVID today, lied about the bill, declaring on Twitter that he will "continue to fight Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin's massive tax increase on working families." That is a lie. There is no "massive tax increase on working families" in the bill. Republicans hope you are dumb enough to be duped to the contrary.

In order to win over Manchin, whose family and campaign have long been propped up by fossil fuel interests, the bill does mandate oil and gas lease sales on federal lands be auctioned off in exchange for the approval of on- and off-shore wind and solar projects. Even there, however, oil and gas companies will be required to pay higher royalties on whatever they extract, and will be fined for failing to prevent methane leaks that exacerbate global warming. So, yeah. Art of the compromise. But, according to most climate experts we've read, heard from or spoken with, it's a compromise well worth taking..and comes not a moment too soon, as our climate emergency worsens by the day.

We've got much more on all of the above on today's show, and we open up the phone lines to callers to get some of their thoughts on the "Inflation Reduction Act" as the world melts down, and the 2022 primary general election is now less than 100 days away...

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When Democrats outfox Republicans you know the world has gone bonkers. But, welcome to another BradCast from Bonkers World! [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

With weeks of unprecedented global heat records around the world and here in the U.S., and more deadly flash flooding --- today it was Kentucky's turn, sadly --- a major deal to finally take on climate change among Democrats comes not a moment too soon.

Surprising apparently everyone in D.C., corrupt coal-state Senator Joe Manchin and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a deal on Wednesday night to raise taxes on huge corporations and allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices in order to help pay for pharmaceutical subsidies for the elderly, expansion of subsidies for individuals who purchased health care on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) exchanges and...wait for it...to make the federal government's largest-ever investment to fight climate change and decrease carbon emissions that cause it by 40% by 2030.

It's not saying much, of course, to say "largest-ever investment" to fight climate change, given how little the U.S. government has ever spent on it, thanks to fossil fuel-funded Congressional denial and obstruction. And whether this measure can actually curb that much of the deadly emissions causing our climate emergency remains to be seen. But the agreement struck, in apparent complete secret by Manchin and Schumer for what is now called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (nee: Build Back Better Act), is set to raise $739 billion in revenues and spend some $433 billion on long-overdue investments (including at least $369 billion for climate) over the next decade. It will also decrease the deficit by hundreds of billions and will keep Joe Biden's long promise to not raise taxes on individuals or companies making less than $400,000 a year. (Shumer/Manchin's one-page summary is here. Full 725-page bill is here. Both PDFs.)

Yes, the new proposal is smaller than Biden and the Democrats had originally hoped, and leaves out some critical stuff for another day. It also includes some pretty outrageous fossil fuel-friendly provisions to win over Manchin. But, all told, this bill is nothing to sneeze at.

The question, of course, is whether all Dems in the Senate (including Manchin, who has a habit of changing his mind, if you haven't heard) and enough Dems in the House can agree to pass the bill. No Republican votes will be needed to pass the spending measure under the Senate's special reconciliation rule.

Schumer says the bill will be put up for a vote next week. That, after he outfoxed Mitch McConnell to broker the deal in the first place. McConnell is so hopping mad about it all that he's now, foolishly, actually taking it out on combat veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits. We explain how all of this happened on today's show, along with details on what is actually in the bill --- both good and bad --- and what is not.

If it's passed successfully --- still a big "if" --- it could prove to be a breakthrough for Dems in advance of the November elections which, as we've discussed, may not play out with a Dem shellacking as pundits citing "Conventional Wisdom" have long told you. We've been arguing in recent weeks and months that these are decidedly UNconventional times and --- along with the potential...hopeful...maybe passage of this major new bill and its revival of a Joe Biden/Democratic Party agenda --- there are additional reasons this week to remain skeptical of the "Conventional Wisdom" from TV pundits and op-ed geniuses about this year's midterm elections.

Desi Doyen is along for the ride as usual today, with keen insight and smart explanation of the climate portions of the new Dem deal and our latest Green News Report...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Manchin and Schumer reach deal on climate and energy bill; Russia slashes gas deliveries to Europe; PLUS: US Postal Service quadruples its plan to buy all-electric vehicles... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Zeitgeist Matters: If you want to know who changed Manchin's mind --- you did; Climate disinformation leaves lasting mark as world heats up; Streaming service Hulu is rejecting ads about climate change; 1odead in 'One of the worst flooding events in Kentucky's history'; Hurricane flood maps reveal the climate future for Miami, NYC and D.C.; Biden Administration announces initiatives to boost solar energy use; Wildfire pollution may pay surprising role in fate of Arctic sea ice; Grim heat and stressed grids make dangerous outages more likely... PLUS: Largest Audubon chapter yet is changing its name, rebuking an enslaver... and much, MUCH more! ...

Sending our love and best wishes to get better soon today to our regular BradCast guest host, Nicole Sandler, who cracked a couple of ribs over the weekend, so wasn't able to fill in for us on yesterday's show as previously planned. But, we're back today with --- you'll be shocked to learn --- lots of news to cover! [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Among today's many stories of note...

• Our global climate emergency continues to worsen, as it's been hitting the U.S. --- in addition to Europe and Asia --- hard over the past week or two. In addition to record high temps in the Midwest, South and Northeast in recent days (some of which may be seeing some relief), after two weeks of record heat, more than 9 inches of rain fell on my old hometown of St. Louis, Missouri today, smashing a century-old record. Flash-flooding is predicted to occur in various places from Kansas to West Virginia, Virginia to Tennessee this week, and triple-digit temps will once again slam the usually-cool Pacific Northwest. It's a climate in chaos that will only get worse until (or IF) we do something to slow the burning of climate warming fossil fuels.

• Just one state, North Carolina, is holding elections today, runoffs in a number of municipal contests. Next Tuesday will be very busy, however, with primary voting in Ohio, Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington state. Over the weekend, AP called last week's 10-way Democratic gubernatorial primary in Maryland for Oprah-endorsed Wes Moore, the former CEO of an anti-poverty nonprofit. He would become the state's first black Governor if he defeats Trump-endorsed, insurrection-promoting, 2020 election-denying, right-winger Dan Cox. Last week, Cox defeated the centrist Republican candidate endorsed by the state's current, popular, two-term Republican Governor, Larry Hogan, to win the party's Gubernatorial nomination. This, like the Governor's race in Pennsylvania (more on that below), now becomes another very critical state for Democrats to win in 2022 in order to help stave off the threat of election theft in 2024 by a Republican who has said he would not have certified Joe Biden's victory in 2020, had he been Governor at the time, even though Biden won MD by more than 33 points.

• Longtime listeners and readers know we always warn after Election Days that problems with voting and tabulation systems sometimes do not appear until days or weeks (or longer) after Election Day. We've got a doozy of an example of that today, on the heels of the June 28 primaries in Illinois where, in Winnebago County, all the referendums on the ballot that day falsely appeared to have been adopted by more than 90% of the vote. Luckily, in this case, hand-marked paper ballots used in the County and cast by some 20,000 voters, ended up saving the day, allowing votes to ultimately be counted correctly as cast, even after the computer tabulators didn't. We explain.

• BREAKING THIS AFTERNOON: New York Times has obtained previously undisclosed emails between top Trump allies organizing what even they described as a "fake" electors plot in seven states after the 2020 election, in hopes of stealing it for their man. Members on the email chain acknowledged that the phony electoral votes "aren't legal under federal law", but they hoped to spring them on Dems and media anyway "so that members of Congress can fight about whether they should be counted on January 6th." The plotters included a bunch of GOP attorneys, state GOP party officials, Trump campaign staffers and activists and included Rudy Giuliani and Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. They all knew about it, and they all knew that it was unlawful. The plot also included Doug Mastriano, who, the Times reports, served as the point person for the fake elector scheme in Pennsylvania. Mastriano is now the pre-disgraced, far-right, Christian Nationalist Republican nominee for Governor in the Keystone State.

• All of that, as both the criminal probe and the House Jan. 6 Committee's investigation of the deletion of Secret Service text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021 heats up and as President Biden, said to be quickly improving from his bout with COVID, offered remarks on video tape to a black law enforcement group in Florida on Monday, about Trump's refusal to stop the insurrection or even condemn the rioters he incited (as the J6 Committee went further in revealing over the weekend.) As Biden correctly told the cops in FL: "You can't be pro-insurrection and pro-cop. You can't be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy. You can't be pro-insurrection and pro-American."

• Finally, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report, with news on a huge new wildfire which has exploded near Yosemite; a new study finding concurrent heat waves are now six times more frequent thanks to climate change; and new details on a 2020 pipeline spill in Charlotte, North Carolina which now turns out to have been 30 times larger than previously known --- making it the largest inland spill in U.S. history...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: State of emergency declared over explosive new Oak Fire near Yosemite National Park; Simultaneous, concurrent heat waves are now six times more frequent, thanks to global warming; PLUS: New study quantifies just how much climate damage rich nations have caused to poor ones... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The 7 climate tipping points that could change the world forever; Dramatic NASA photos reveal Lake Mead water levels at lowest point since 1937; Gavin Newsom hopes California can become epicenter of wind energy; FPL Secretly Took Over A Florida News Site And Used It To Bash Critics; Air Conditioning Will Not Save Us... PLUS: Is California Carbon Capture Play a Climate Solution or a Ruse?... and much, MUCH more! ...

When you thought things couldn't get any more insane (nobody actually thought that, did they?), 79-year old President Biden tests positive for COVID. The White House says he is suffering only "very mild symptoms". We'll hope it stays that way and he gets well soon. Meanwhile, we're still busy trying to save the world on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

Tonight, the bipartisan House Select Committee investigating Donald Trump's Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and his many other attempts to steal the 2020 Presidential election, holds the last of their summer series of blockbuster public hearings, for now. We'll see if Fox "News" bothers to carry this one, since they didn't last time, choosing to run an ad-free episode of Tucker Carlson's show instead. God forbid their groomed viewers turn away during commercials for even a second and learn any actual news.

But, of course, Fox isn't the only rightwing TV channel lying to their viewers day in and out about these remarkable, historic hearings, the deadly events of January 6, and all of the other ways Trump tried undermine American democracy. A new report finds that Newsmax is duping their viewers even worse than Fox, if that's possible, broadcasting at least 40 false claims about the J6 attack since the Committee's hearings began last month. Among the station's lies peddled repeatedly to their easily-played viewers: There were only a few hundred rioters in the Capitol that day (DoJ pegs the number at around 2,000); They were "unarmed" (except for all of the guns, knives, pepper spray, spears, brass knuckles, baseball bats, etc.); and that Trump ordered the National Guard to the Capitol, but was blocked by Nancy Pelosi (the President, not the Speaker of the House, commands the National Guard.)

In any event, whether Fox or Newsmax carry tonight's hearings and/or lies about them, we'll tell you the truth about them on our own Special Coverage on tomorrow's BradCast.

Today, we discuss the need for the long-overdue expansion of the Supreme Court. New polling finds approval of the Court has plummeted over the past two years. According to Marquette University Law School's poll today, 66% of Americans approved of SCOTUS in September of 2020. That number is now at stunning 38%. Their survey follows Gallup's recent finding (before the overturning of Roe v. Wade) that confidence in the Court is at an all-time historic low since they began asking the question in the 1970s.

Of course, this comes on the heels of Mitch McConnell nuking the Senate filibuster in order to pack the High Court with Donald Trump's three corrupt, extremist Republican nominees, including one of them (Amy Coney Barrett) just eight days before the 2020 election. That, after McConnell had changed the size of the Court for over a year while refusing to seat Barack Obama's nominee to the seat vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia in February of 2016, because, according to Mitch, the vacancy came just too close to a Presidential election, when the voice of the American people deserved to be heard first.

But now, with SCOTUS closing out its term with an unprecedented spate of radical rulings --- rolling back long-held Miranda rights; throwing out states Second Amendment rights to well-regulate the concealed carry of firearms; further eroding the long-standing Constitutional separation of church and state; blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from protecting the environment through the regulation of carbon pollution; and, of course, overturning the privacy rights and reproductive freedoms established 50 years ago by Roe v. Wade --- it sure seems like a re-balancing (and de-corrupting) is in order!

Given the striking down of privacy rights in Roe, Democrats in the House have been scrambling to codify reproductive freedom into federal law, along with bills that guarantee the right to both interracial and same-sex marriage, and even the right to use contraception. That, after the Court struck down the same privacy rights in 'Roe' that are the basis of those other Constitutional rights that Justice Clarence Thomas called for revisiting in his concurrence to the majority opinion overturning Roe.

But while codifying those rights into federal statute is critical (most House Republicans voted against all of them this week!), expanding the Court, to UNpack and UNsteal it, so that it represents the American people once again is even more critical.

On Monday, a group of Democratic lawmakers called for exactly that, touting their Judiciary Act of 2021 [PDF] which would expand the number of seats on the Court from 9 to 13. But that measure, so far, has not yet even received a Committee hearing, much less a vote on the Democratic-controlled House floor. What gives?

We're joined today by SARAH LIPTON-LUBET, Executive Director of the non-profit Take Back the Court organization, to discuss exactly that. Her group was formed in 2018 to warn of the danger then posed to democracy itself by the GOP's stolen Supreme Court, and to call for its expansion as the only strategy to re-balance SCOTUS after its 2016 theft. [We spoke with Aaron Belkin, the group's founder, back in 2020.)

"Republicans already changed the size of the Court for a year while they blockaded Merrick Garland's nomination. So a Republican power grab, that's just a part of reality. Given that, isn't a world where we fight for what's right better than a world where we surrender unilaterally?," Lipton-Lubet posits today, when I ask her about the fear expressed by some Democrats that Republicans will just take similar action the next time they are in control of both chambers of Congress and the White House. "To folks who are worried about what Republicans might do in the future, I have to say I'm really worried about what they've done already, and about what we need to do to fix the harm that they've caused in the here and now. They've stolen the Court. They've overturned Roe. They've undermined our democracy. And expanding the Court is our only shot at rebalancing the system and regaining those rights."

"This is only headed in one direction," she warns. "The ideologues on the Court are only going to get more radical. They're only going to get more unhinged. I think leaders can lead, or they try to play catch-up later after countless people have been irreparably harmed. And that's really the situation we're in."

"Living under the control of this Court --- it's not tenable. It's not sustainable. It's not going to stand," she argues. "Eventually we are going to get there." So, why are the bulk of elected Democrats, including the President, still pulling their punches and dragging their feet on this? We discuss that and much more with Lipton-Lubet today.

Finally, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report on a week that has been so grim for the climate that we're considering a new name for our GNR. Tune in to find out what it might be!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Cascading consequences of extreme heat are piling up. Scientists warn it will get worse; E.U. warns member nations to conserve gas as Russia tightens its grip; PLUS: President Biden announces plans for Executive Actions to tackle climate change... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The terrifying truth: Britain’s a hothouse, but one day 40C will seem cool; Here's how the climate crisis is driving heat waves and wildfires; Diesel fuel spill fouls Bahama's white sand beaches; War and warming upend global energy supplies, amplify suffering; Biden Admin tosses Trump habitat rule curbing protections for endangered species; The science of heat domes and how drought and climate change make them worse; Starvation threat not over for Florida manatees; California forests are vanishing as wildfires burn larger and more intensely... PLUS: 'The scale is hard to grasp': Avian flu wreaks devastation on wild seabirds ... and much, MUCH more! ...

It appears to be Climate Week on The BradCast. Who knew? Simultaneous record-smashing heat waves across the globe (as discussed in some detail on our previous show) from Asia to the U.S. to Europe (where more than a thousand have already died because of it) will apparently continue to continue all week and, likely beyond. Especially after recent actions by our corrupt Supreme Court and the corrupt Sen. Joe Manchin. But there is still plenty that President Biden and you can do about it. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

In Britain, unlike these United States, they have kept records of temperatures for hundreds of years. And never, until today, has the thermometer broken 40 degrees Celsius. Today it did. Smashing 2019's record of 38.7C (or 101.7 Fahrenheit) to hit a remarkable and sweltering 40.3C (or 104.5 Fahrenheit). As Desi helps to put that into perspective today, Britain is more northern in latitude than Calgary, Canada!

While many meteorologists thought, when they saw 40C predicted by computer models a few weeks ago, that it must have been in error, turns out it wasn't. The Chief Scientist at the U.K.'s Met Office today said this kind of temperature in Britain was "virtually impossible" before human-caused climate change.

Here in the U.S., temperatures in much of the country are also breaking records this week, with heat alerts in more than 20 states. All of that on the heels of the corrupt U.S. Supreme Court, last month, making up a pretend "doctrine" to declare that the EPA may not regulate carbon emissions, even though both the Clean Air Act and the Court's own previous ruling mandate that they must. And on the heels of West Virginia's corrupt "Democratic" Senator Joe Manchin, who makes millions --- both personally and to his campaign coffers --- from the fossil fuel industry.

So, what now? Following Manchin's latest Lucy with the football stunt late last week, President Joe Biden declared he would "use every power I have as President to continue to fulfill my pledge to deal with global warming." That pledge includes cuts to man-made greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming to bring carbon emissions down to 50% of what they were before 2005 by 2030 and to reach net-zero by 2050. But with 50 obstructionist Republicans and (at least) one obstructionist Democrat in the Senate, and a corrupt Supreme Court, what tools are available to Biden at this point?

Plenty, suggests our guest today, DR. LEAH STOKES, author, podcaster, and climate policy expert at U.C.-Santa Barbara. Before we get there today, she offers her thoughts on the corruption of both Manchin and the High Court.

Democrats, she explained, when discussing how far they were willing to go to get Manchin to "yes" on a climate deal, pretty much offered him everything he could have wanted through what amounted to 18 months of his bad faith "negotiations."

"It wasn't far-fetched that he would get to 'yes,' because they were willing to give him a lot of things that he wanted --- things that would have helped invest in jobs in West Virginia. For example, there's a program that helps create manufacturing jobs in coal communities. That was in this package. There was also money for things like carbon capture and sequestration, a technology that Manchin really wants to see happen, as well as hydrogen," explains Stokes. "The [Chuck] Schumer team gave him everything he wanted and he still couldn't get to 'yes' --- claiming that somehow it was inflation, when the reality is that economists have told us that the package would fight inflation."

But, of course, Manchin personally makes millions from his family's coal business. So, as Stokes observes, "It's really not that complicated" as to why he was never negotiating in good faith. "There's that Upton Sinclair quote, 'It's hard to get a man to understand something when his paycheck relies on him not understanding it.' Senator Manchin personally profits from the fossil fuel industry. He's making half a million dollars a year --- that's three times more than his Senate salary --- directly off of fossil fuels. So he is lining his pockets when it comes to the fossil fuel industry. He is in bed with the fossil fuel industry both for his personal profit and for his role as a Senator."

As to the Supreme Court, she notes that, even after their recent opinion, "trying to delay progress from the Biden Administration, just like Sen. Manchin," there are still options left for the President. She explains how "the EPA still retains a lot of authority" and that "the Biden Administration retains very important tools, and they need to start using them right now."

We discuss the potential Executive Actions that Biden can now take --- including the declaration of a National Climate Emergency, which may free up even more actions that he could take --- as well as how his Administration is also now free to block many of the programs that they had been holding out as fig leaves for Manchin (and his fossil fueled GOP pals) on hopes of making a deal, including something called the Mountain Valley Pipeline in West Virginia.

But could the Supreme Court subsequently block Biden's Executive Actions as well? We discuss that too. Ultimately, however, as Stokes wrote in her New York Times op-ed over the weekend, despite Manchin, despite SCOTUS, she ultimately remains bullish. "In the long run," she argued, "fossil fuels are just too expensive, dirty and dangerous."

Whether or not humanity will survive that long, remains a separate question, but Stokes cites actions that not only the President can take, but that Governors across the country are already taking, and actions that we can all take which she explains, make an important difference in this fight.

"We should not underestimate the power that we all have," she says, before detailing a long list of things that individuals should be looking at in "our own lives, looking at the fossil fuels that we use," from moving to electric cars and e-bikes, to induction stoves and heat pumps. Especially in states like California, where "a lot of us are going to need air conditioning who haven't had it in the past, and a heat pump is a clean, electric appliance that both heats and cools your home." She notes that CA's Gov. Gavin Newsom recently passed incentives in the budget "that will pay people $3,000 through their contractors to help them afford to put an electric heat pump into their home."

"The solution is not about sacrifice," argues Stokes. "We're talking about cleaner and better technology. It's not about sacrifice, it's really about better solutions. And that's why we're going to win."

Also today, a preview of the closely contested primary races being held today in Maryland, particularly the race for Governor, in one of the few states where Democrats believe they may have a chance of flipping the seat from Red to Blue.

And finally, as our accidental "Climate Week" continues, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with much more on all of the above...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Simultaneous record deadly heat waves strike across the globe; Last month tied for the hottest June ever recorded globally; PLUS: Senator Joe Manchin again tanks Biden and the Democrats' climate and clean energy agenda... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): What Joe Manchin cost us; Humanity faces 'collective suicide' over climate crisis, warns UN chief; The cold crunch: How to cool people without overheating the planet; German solar sets new record, while France's nuclear gasps in the heat; Texas power plants running nonstop risk breakdown; Dems cite 'disturbing' data on crypto, demand new rules; Scientists rush to save 1,000-year-old Bristlecone Pine trees on the brink of death; Some EVs now pay for themselves within a year... PLUS: Shocking report shows how Australian land and wildlife are being destroyed at rapid pace... and much, MUCH more! ...

It was a very hot BradCast today --- in most every way you might imagine. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

This week, a billion or so in China are suffering under record extreme heat and humidity. The death toll from relentless record heat, drought and wildfires in Portugal and Spain has now topped 1,000, as the heat spreads to France and the rest of Europe where Ireland and the U.K. are likely to see triple digit temperatures and a red flag extreme heat advisory for the first time.

Here in the states, as AccuWeather reports, sweltering highs approaching 110 degrees Fahrenheit will continue as temperatures "reach their highest levels of the year so far from Rapid City, South Dakota, to Wichita, Kansas, as well as Oklahoma City and Dallas" and everywhere in between. Electric grids, particular in Texas, are under extraordinary stress (the power went out during a Houston TV station's live weather forecast, as they warned of possible power outages) with little immediate relief in sight.

Apocalyptic conditions are now being experienced across the globe thanks to a climate crisis caused by the burning of fossil fuels. That, even as the corrupt, U.S. Supreme Court at the end of last month made up a pretend "doctrine" (the "major questions doctrine", found nowhere in the Constitution or American case law) to bar the EPA from regulating carbon emissions, as mandated by federal statute in the Clean Air Act.

At the same time, corrupt, fossil fuel industry-funded "Democratic" Senator Joe Manchin continues to undermine any and all environmental initiatives agreed to by every Democrat in the U.S. House and all but him (and, to a slightly lesser extent, corrupt AZ Democratic Sen. Kirsten Sinema) in the Senate, designed to curb deadly greenhouse gas emissions.

In short, as Sen. Bernie Sanders made clear over the weekend, Manchin --- whose family literally makes millions from the coal industry, and whose campaign takes in millions from the fossil fuel industry --- "has sabotaged the President's agenda" as our existential climate crisis quickly worsens.

Manchin and all 50 Republican Senators in the upper chamber and every single Republican in the U.S. House continue to prevent Democrats from all efforts designed to save humanity. But, somehow, to some on the Left, it is the fault of Democrats?! And it is Democrats who may be voted out of their majorities in both chambers this November? Really?! What gives?

We open the phones today to some of those very questions, as there are a whole bunch of folks calling themselves progressives out there who are, somehow, blaming Democrats for this mess and many others. We try to have a conversation with a few listeners about that. Tune in to today's lively BradCast to see how it goes!...

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I don't relish saying "I told ya so" on The BradCast. But, in today's lead story, unfortunately, I have to yet again. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

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

• We've been telling you for months that West Virginia's corrupt Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin --- whose family makes millions from the coal industry and campaign rakes in millions from the fossil fuel industry --- never had any intention of allowing any environmental measures to pass that might actually help reduce the deadly emissions that are causing our climate crisis. Nonetheless, his fellow Democrats and corporate media, like Charlie Brown, seem to keep buying his BS claims that he really really wants to adopt environmental provisions and raise taxes on the wealthy to help pay for them. After months of more pretend negotiations, Lucy pulled the football away from Charlie Brown yet again on Thursday night.

• Gas prices are finally falling. Will Joe Biden get credit for that, since he was inappropriately blamed for Big Oil's record profits from war profiteering and price gouging? (Which all Republicans in Congress refused to outlaw recently?)

• Texas' privatized, unregulated electric grid is on the brink of collapse yet again, thanks to record heat (which is thanks to a fossil fuel industry-sponsored climate crisis that all Republicans and Democrat Joe Manchin refuse to do anything about.) Will Lone Star State voters this November finally figure out who is to blame for the outages --- and hundreds of deaths that continue to come with them --- during both extreme heat and cold in the state?

• Oh, look! The Secret Service seem to have accidentally erased all of their text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, even after the Dept. of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General asked to see them. Luckily, not much happened over those days that the American people would very much like to know about.

• Oh, look! A D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer has reportedly testified to the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection and Donald Trump's other attempts to steal the election that there was a physical altercation with Secret Service officials inside Trump's limo when he wanted to go to the Capitol instead of back to the White House that day. The alleged under-oath corroboration has so far received much less corporate media notice than the anonymous, still-unnamed person at the Service who claimed that Cassidy Hutchinson was lying during her explosive public testimony late last month about what she'd been told about the incident just after it happened. And the Secret Service officials who were supposed to come forward to dispute her story to the Committee have still failed to do so. (Sure would have been helpful if the Service hadn't erased their text messages from that day.)

• Mesa County, Colorado's disgraced County Clerk (and recently failed GOP candidate for Secretary of State), Tina Peters, is in yet more legal trouble. The easily-duped MAGA election fraud conspiracy theorist --- now charged with 7 felonies and 3 misdemeanors related to her orchestrating an illicit scheme to unlawfully copy and publicly distribute very sensitive voting system software last year --- had a warrant issued for her arrest by a Judge on Thursday after she left the state without court permission to speak at another evidence-free MAGA election fraud conspiracy conference in Vegas.

• But the actual election fraud perpetrated by GOP officials running for office continues. Just a few short weeks after 5 of the 10 Republicans running for the Gubernatorial nomination in Michigan were struck from the ballot for turning in tens of thousands of fraudulent petition signatures, it's happened again. This time in New York. The GOP nominee for Governor, U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin --- who voted against confirming Joe Biden's 2020 Electoral College victory and whose website features a "Team Zeldin Election Integrity Task Force" page, vowing to work "around the clock now and into November to ensure we have fair elections" --- apparently turned in nearly 13,000 fraudulent petition signatures, including 900 pages of photocopies of signatures, in hopes of appearing on the Independent Party ballot line this fall. The Libertarian Party challenged the fraudulent signatures and the state Board of Elections confirmed the fraud, denying Zeldin a third line on the November ballot.

• Finally, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report, with a passel of climate related stories that are so grim, we can't even bring ourselves to tease them here. On the other hand, she does have one pretty good piece of news out of California...so there's that!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Spain and Portugal hit with driest climate in more than a thousand years; Yes, U.S. summers are getting hotter, longer, and more dangerous; California enacts nation's most sweeping law to phase out single-use plastics; PLUS: Deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest hits new all-time record high... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Rich nations caused climate harm to poorer ones, study says; Is burying power lines fire-prevention magic, or magical thinking?; Haaland defends Interior policies, cites unused leases; EPA faces legal dead ends after SCOTUS climate decision; Spain and Portugal face fires and locusts; Critics condemn Biden administration move to approve new oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope; Midwest wind energy transmission line gets supersized; Advanced E.V. batteries move from labs to mass production; NIH: Common chemicals linked to preterm births... PLUS: Once nearly extinct, bison are now climate heroes... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've got a grab bag of news items on today's BradCast, though almost all of it ends up making the same case: 'Both sides' are decidedly not the same. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We kick off with some listener mail, critical of our recent show discussing why it's so deadly important to elect Democrats in 2022 in order to have any chance of saving American democracy itself --- and much more along with it --- before 2024. The listener argues that, in fact, democracy no longer exists in the U.S. following 2010's Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court. He argues that "both of the two major parties" are now so corrupted that "the chances of non-corporate funded candidates" being elected to national office are now "equivalent to nil". While that may come as a surprise to folks like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, just to name a couple, there are many other reasons our correspondent couldn't be more wrong. We explain why.

The bulk of the news items in the rest of today's program underscore why that lazy "both sides are the same" notion (while founded in fragments of cynically misreported truths) is dangerously wrong. They also underscore how those on the Left who buy into that self-defeating nonsense are being played as assuredly as Donald Trump and his MAGA buddies have played their own gullible supporters.

Among those news stories covered today...

• Elected Republicans members of the Texas state House, ironically calling themselves the "Texas Freedom Caucus," have sent a letter to a Dallas law firm threatening them with legal "consequences" including "felony criminal prosecution and disbarment" for reimbursing their own employees for out-of-state travel as needed to obtain an abortion, now that Texas Republicans have ended such rights and personal freedoms for residents of the Lone Star State.

• A Donald Trump-appointed federal judge has laughed Steve Bannon's attempt to delay his pending federal trial out of the courtroom. The trial, on two counts of Contempt of Congress in response to the former Trump aide's unlawful refusal to respond to subpoenas from the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection and Trump's many failed attempts to steal the 2020 election, is scheduled to begin next week and could result in up to two years in prison for Bannon.

• At the same time, Mother Jones has obtained leaked audio of Bannon speaking to supporters of his Chinese billionaire pal/funder three days before the 2020 election, explaining that Trump planned to declare victory, whether he won the election or not, and pretend to be the victim of fraud. "He's gonna say they stole it...he's not going out easy...Trump is gonna do some crazy shit," Bannon promised (sound familiar?), as they all laughed about what would become the most dangerous assault on American democracy in our history.

• DoJ has sued Arizona for violations of the National Voter Registration Act and Civil Rights Act, following the signing of a new voter suppression law earlier this year. Adopted by the state's GOP-dominated state legislature and signed by its Republican Governor, the new measure would block voters from voting in the 2024 election without first presenting documents proving their citizenship.

• Wisconsin's GOP-dominated state Supreme Court finds absentee ballot drop-boxes are now illegal in the Badger State. Donald Trump declares the ruling to be proof that he actually won Wisconsin in 2020! (He didn't.) And a Republican state lawmaker running for Governor vows to reverse the state's election results in response.

• In Georgia, a pathetic audio clip from the Republican Party's U.S. Senate nominee, Hershel Walker, discussing climate change --- ("Since we don't control the air, our good air decided to float over to China's bad air. So when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then...now we got we to clean that back up.") --- underscores, once again, the sad, cynical (and ill-considered) scheme by GOPers to push this seemingly mentally ill former football star as their candidate to run against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock this fall.

• And finally, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report, as wildfires once again threaten California's iconic Giant Sequoias; Utah's Great Salt Lake is drying up; and offshore wind power is booming...in China...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Wildfires again threaten iconic Giant Sequoias, this time in Yosemite; Offshore wind power is booming --- and China is leading the way; PLUS: Utah's Great Salt Lake is drying up... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Europe’s new heat wave is going to be expensive; Dems eye deal with Manchin on clean energy package; EPA describes how it will regulate power plants after SCOTUS setback; 'Disturbing': weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples; Russia’s war in Ukraine forces Arctic climate projects to pivot; Summer in America is becoming hotter, longer and more dangerous... PLUS: If Republicans retake Congress in November, here’s what their agenda will look like... and much, MUCH more! ...