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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Most humid summer on record in U.S. intensified by Midwestern corn sweat, as Western U.S. swelters; August 2024 was the hottest August on record globally; PLUS: Brazil's Amazon Rainforest saw record number of wildfires in August... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season keeps underperforming expectations; African nations are losing up to 5% of their GDP per year with climate change, a new report says; EPA restores industrial air pollution rule axed by Trump; What has worked to fight climate change? Policies where someone pays for polluting, study finds; World is pumping out 57 million tons of plastic pollution a year; Drying lakes and thirsty trees: In drought-hit Greece, water trucks are keeping crops alive; Former VW boss goes on trial for cheating on emissions tests... PLUS: Biochar doesn’t just store carbon – it stores water and boosts farmers’ drought resilience... and much, MUCH more! ...

Yup. We're back! And we've got lots to begin getting caught up with on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among the many stories reported and discussed on today's program...

• Donald Trump's recent flip-flops on abortion, pandering on IVF and his desecration of Arlington Cemetery for political purposes. (By the way, Dems should embrace Trump's pandering promise to have the Government pay for anyone's fertility treatments. It's the GOP's first baby step toward universal healthcare/Medicare-for-All after all! Sounds great! Hold them to it!)

• More than 10,000 hotel workers celebrated Labor Day by going on strike for better wages and working conditions across the U.S. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden campaigned together, speaking to a packed house of union workers in Pittsburgh on Labor Day, touting the most pro-union, jobs-creating Admin in history and promised to continue it under a Harris-Walz Administration. Trump, apparently unable to find any union workers who wanted to hear from him, stayed home yesterday.

• More than a hundred thousand demonstrators took to the streets in Israel to protest against their far-right Benjamin Netanyahu-led government, demanding a deal for a cease-fire and the release of hostages in Gaza, after six of them were found dead in a tunnel beneath Rafah on Sunday. Twenty-three year old Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin was among those found dead, just days after his parents spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, calling for a cease-fire and the release of more than 100 hostages who remain in Hamas custody following their horrific attack on Israel last October. As we have been arguing for months, however --- and as Israeli protesters are noted as mentioning in this Guardian piece --- Prime Minister Netanyahu is unlikely to ever agree to a deal that would effectively end Israel's war on Gaza, because it would also result in the end of his governing coalition. After that, he will have to face corruption charges filed against him from which he is currently immune...as long as he remains Prime Minister. If all of that sounds like a deal that Donald Trump hopes to win for himself in November, you are right. Tune in for much more on all of this today.

• Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Russia launched another deadly, long-range missile assault on Ukraine, this time on a military academy and nearby hospital. More than 50 were killed, more than 200 wounded. That as Ukraine has finally taken possession of land inside Russia's Kursk region, including some 500 square miles along the Ukrainian border, and continues to plead with the U.S. and Europe to send weapons to help them defend themselves against the two-and-half-year onslaught by its imperialistic Russian neighbor.

• Massachusetts is holding its Congressional and state legislative primaries today, just days after its Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin warned residents in the state about scam text messages being sent to some voters, falsely telling them that they are ineligible to vote. It is just one of the many dirty tricks we will be seeing between now and Election Day, the period of time that I am calling PHASE 1 of this year's general elections.

• And, speaking of, Labor Day is a good moment to mark where things are in the horse race toward Election Day, following the unprecedented plot-twist of the last 6 weeks following Kamala Harris taking over at the top of the ticket. She has surged in the polling averages against Donald Trump --- particularly in the seven critical battleground states --- since then. But, she remains just barely ahead of Trump in the states she most needs to win. Her slim lead nationally and in the most critical battleground states she would need to get to 270 electoral votes, in a system that advantages Republicans, has resulted in, as Politico colorfully describes it today, "the equivalent of a knife fight in a phone booth."

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us today to begin catching up on much that we missed in climate and environmental news after being off just one week, including the role of climate action in the 2024 contest; new data on deadly extreme heat in the U.S.; China meeting its renewable electricity targets six years early; and the Klamath River, now finally running free again along the California/Oregon border after being dammed up for more than 100 years!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: While we were out --- Catching up on climate and energy in the 2024 presidential race; Canada's wildfires last year emitted more carbon than India, new study finds; Extreme heat killed a record number of Americans in 2023; China hit its renewable electricity target six years early; PLUS: The mighty Klamath River is flowing freely 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): You just lived through the most humid summer on record; Why is climate change causing ‘record-shattering’ extreme heat?; PFAS chemicals from sewage sludge fertilizer may be poisoning America's land; Carbon credits: how one company went off the rails; PA will monitor East Palestine water wells after train derailment; COP29: countries still far apart on financing... PLUS: Pope Francis says Earth is 'sick' in new climate change warning... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Democrats are appealing to voters with popular policies, while joyfully bringing down the rafters at the DNC in Chicago. Trump and Republicans, by contrast, are scheming to steal an election they sure seem like they are counting on losing at the ballot box. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage on today's program...

• Democrats are cleaning Donald Trump's clock of late on a number of quantifiable metrics: television ratings for their national convention, versus the GOP's last month; polling numbers; crowd sizes; fund raising; and volunteer get-out-the-vote efforts. As silly as it seems to compare some of those things between the two parties, it's more important than you may realize that we do so. Because Trump is now lying about all of them. It's part of laying the groundwork to use lies about all of those things in support of a post-election effort --- if he loses at the ballot box --- to claim it was stolen from him, "again". To then inject chaos into the certification of Electoral College votes in hopes of tossing the decision to state legislatures or the courts or, most likely, the U.S. House where Republicans are likely to control enough state delegations to install Trump into office, even if they don't hold a majority of seats in the chamber. Yeah, I realize it all sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense. But, we were told the same back in back in late 2020 and early 2021 when warning about what was likely to happen on January 6th. Plus, Trump and his allies are essentially explaining the ploy out loud each and every day at this point, as when Trump told supporters in North Carolina on Wednesday: "Our primary focus is not to get out the vote ... We have all the votes ya need."

• On Tuesday's show I detailed how Republicans were hoping that the corrupted, activist, rightwing U.S. Supreme Court majority, in an emergency ruling, would give them the okay to purge more than 40,000 voters from Arizona's rolls just weeks before early voting begins in the critical battleground state where Joe Biden won in 2020 by just over 10,000 votes. Today SCOTUS came back with their decision, which is mostly --- but not entirely --- good for the state's voters, blocking the worst of what the GOP had hoped to do. For now. We break down the, somewhat confusing (and poorly reported) details of their brief shadow docket ruling [PDF], along with the observation that Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch would have overturned decades of precedent to allow all of the voter suppression Republicans sought. And that Republican Justice Amy Coney Barrett, interestingly, voted along with all of the Court's liberal Justices (who are all now women) to block the worst of the purging, and who would have blocked the GOP scheme in its entirety if it was up to the four of them.

• It was another rollicking, superstar-studded Day 3 at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday night, where Minnesota Governor Tim Walz formally accepted the party's nomination as Kamala Harris' Vice-Presidential running mate. He brought down the house in his joyful, pitch-perfect acceptance speech, becoming both America's Dad and America's Coach in the bargain. But not before folks like Oprah Winfrey shook the rafters and even joined a number of Republican heroes, like Georgia's former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who was there on Wednesday to reach out to undecided, independent and even Republican voters to help, as Walz put it, "turn the page" on the Trump era. We share extended excerpts today.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as Democrats have woven issues of climate change and climate action into the very fabric of this week's DNC and, as she also reports, not a moment too soon...

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NOTE: We'll be standing down from The BradCast (and Green News Report) for a much-needed breather next week, before returning after the Labor Day holiday for the sprint to Election Day! (I might have said "sprint to the finish line", but for the fact, as suggested at the top of today's program, November 5 is very likely not even close to the finish line this year!)

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate change and climate action woven into the Democratic National Convention; 99% of Americans have been affected by extreme weather just since May; PLUS: Buckle up --- 2024 is second only to 2023 for billion dollar weather disasters so far this year... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Microplastics are infiltrating brain tissue, human organs, studies show; Oil companies and Leonard Leo's dark money are funding push by GOP states to block climate laws; Fracking wells forced on many US landowners, study finds; Trump vows to ax clean power plant rule; In Wisconsin senate race, voters wil pick between two candidates with widely differing climate rules; Focus on heat illness intensifies after death of Baltimore sanitation worker; Ford delays new EV plant, cancels electric three-row SUV as it shifts strategy; Multi-day energy storage from Minnesota to Maine... PLUS: Multi-day energy storage from Minnesota to Maine... and much, MUCH more! ...

It was a very late night for us here at your friendly neighborhood BradCast. And it's only Day 1 of the DNC. Wish us luck to make it through the week. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The DNC kicked off with a mighty bang on Monday in Chicago, amid lively speeches from a joyful, rollicking cavalcade of Democratic Party superstars, both longtime and upcoming. Before we share a few of our favorite and/or most newsworthy moments today, however, we've got to focus on some "track condition" business for this November, rather than the horse race.

The Arizona Republican Party, now joined by the RNC, is asking the corrupted rightwing U.S. Supreme Court for expedited help in purging some 40,000 perfectly legal American voters from the rolls in the critical battleground state in advance of November's Presidential election. Early voting begins there in a matter of weeks, and ballots must be printed even sooner.

At issue is a fight that AZ Repubs have been waging --- and losing --- over and over again over the past two decades. But they're still trying, clearly hoping that the current, Trump-packed, rightwing activist SCOTUS may be more friendly to their pleas. When the state was almost fully controlled by Republicans back in 2004, they adopted a law to require "documentary proof of citizenship" for those newly registering to vote. That, even though some 13 million Americans do not have access to birth certificates, etc.

But the National Voter Registration Form --- created as part of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to make it easier to register to vote in all 50 states, particularly those with a history of suppression --- requires only an attestation to citizenship, rather than documents. Courts determined years ago that AZ's state law is preempted by the NVRA.

Despite the lack of any evidence of any non-citizens registering or voting in AZ, petulant Republicans in the state then instituted a two-track registration system after losing at SCOTUS in 2013. The new system would allow those who registered to vote with the federal form (without proof of citizenship) to vote only in federal races --- for President, for example --- but not in state or local contests.

In 2018, the state agreed to a consent decree that would allow those "federal only" voters to vote in all races where Arizona was able to determine the voters' citizenship status via their own records at the department of motor vehicles. But now, AZ Republicans are suing yet again, and are being joined by the RNC, to prevent those "federal only" voters --- more than 40,000 of them in the state --- from voting either for President or by mail. And they are asking SCOTUS to decide by this Thursday, given that ballots need to be printed shortly thereafter.

All of that idiocy in a state where Joe Biden won in 2020 by just over 10,000 votes and where Republicans (as in many states) would rather prevent (certain) people from voting, than actually offering popular policy ideas for them to vote in favor of.

Then, it's back to the horse race today --- or, at least the horses in the stable preparing for the race --- as we share a number of clips from Monday's rousing Day 1 of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. There was a lot to choose from on the first night, but we share just a few of the highlights today, including Kamala Harris' surprise appearance on the evening's torch-passing from the current President; Reverend Sen. Rafael Warnock (D-GA) on taking care of our neighbors, including those in Gaza; Joe Biden's call to end Israel's war in Gaza once and for all; superstar Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Harris' support for the working class versus "two-bit union buster" Donald Trump; UAW President Shawn Fein bringing down the house again with his declaration that "Donald Trump is a scab!"; rising freshman superstar and former public defender Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) comparing resumes of the two Presidential candidates. ("She became a career prosecutor while he became a career criminal, with 34 felonies, two impeachment and one porn star to prove it."); Hillary Clinton blowing out the United Center with her impassioned recitation of the history of those women working toward finally breaking "the highest, hardest glass ceiling" of them all (amid unstoppable, if satisfying, chants of "LOCK HIM UP!"); and finally, Joe Biden's moving, heartfelt closing stem-winder, detailing an impossibly long list of accomplishments by the Biden-Harris Administration, and his vow to become the top volunteer for the Harris-Walz ticket...

And finally, as if that wasn't enough, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as environmental groups line up to endorse the Harris-Walz ticket; another catastrophic flooding event unfurls, this time in Connecticut; and new evidence finding that climate change has dramatically exacerbated both the likelihood and severity of wildfires around the globe...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Another round of rain and deadly catastrophic flooding, this time in Connecticut; Climate change dramatically increased the likelihood and severity of record wildfires last year, new study finds; PLUS: As Democratic National Convention gets underway, climate and environment groups endorse the Harris-Walz ticket... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Americans have saved billions with a law they know next to nothing about; The biggest winners of Biden’s green climate policies? Republicans; DC Appeals court tosses Biden Administration pipeline safety rules; Oil and ink mix as Chevron reports 'the news in Texas, New Mexico; Why do so many pelicans keep dropping dead in California?; Water treaty between Mexico and U.S. faces biggest test in 80 years... PLUS: Nearly 68 million suffering from drought in Southern Africa... and much, MUCH more! ...

It's become very clear of late, as discussed on today's BradCast, that, whether the corporate media or rightwingers like to admit it or not, it is now progressive political policies that are popular among Americans. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

With progressive policies in place from the Biden-Harris Administration, for example, the U.S. economy continues to be the envy of the industrialized world. New, falling unemployment numbers and growing retail sales announced on Thursday, combined with recent data finding the annualized inflation rate has now fallen below 3%, sent the stock market soaring again on Thursday. Well, except for Donald Trump's failing media company (DJT), which fell to its lowest price since going public in January. Since then, the loser stock has shed more than 50% of its market value and a full two-thirds since its high-water mark in March. (We tried to warn MAGA investors. Oh, well.)

Just one of the progressive economic policies of this Administration is the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, signed by President Biden in 2022 after being adopted by Democrats in Congress without a single Republican vote. Among many other things, the IRA allows Medicare, for the first time in history, to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. On Thursday, the Biden-Administration announced they have completed their first round of price negotiations on ten popular drugs which will save tax payers at least $6 billion a year and $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs to beneficiaries.

"Under the law I signed," Biden explained today in Maryland at a rally with Vice President Kamala Harris, "Medicare can negotiate lower prices for another 15 drugs next year, 15 the following, and 20 after that until every drug is covered. That's the law. Now!" As the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office determined before passage of the bill in 2022, the measure will save the federal government nearly $100 billion over a decade --- something that Republicans used to pretend to care about, at least until every single one of them voted against it.

That's just one example of popular progressive policies at work, of course. Harris' running-mate, Gov. Tim Walz, has signed a boatload of them into law in Minnesota, including the protecting abortion rights; legalizing recreational marijuana; implementing popular gun safety reforms; providing legal refuge for trans youths; enacting laws that expand paid family and medical leave; banning noncompete agreements; providing universal public school meals; free public college education for households with income less than $80,000/year; and capping the price of insulin in Minnesota (years before Biden was able to do so nationally.)

That alone is a virtual laundry list of both top progressive aims and popular policies that could be implemented at a national level. So, will a Harris-Walz administration be able to move such policies forward if elected in November? And what else do progressive activists hope to see from a new, Democratic administration?

We're joined today by ALAN MINSKY, Executive Director at Progressive Democrats of America, in advance of the group's 20th Anniversary Progressive Central gathering in Chicago this week ahead of the Democratic National Convention. Sen. Bernie Sanders will be keynoting the two-day gathering, co-hosted by a number of other progressive organizations and publications, with a speakers list featuring a huge list of progressive members of Congress, activists, and journalists.

So, how do progressives feel heading into next week's DNC after nearly four years of the most progressive Presidential administration in decades; an historic, month-long political whirlwind; and a brutal year of protests against Israel's horrific response in Gaza to last year's attack in Israel by Hamas? Minsky and I discuss the "turbulence" and "high stakes" of the moment, and the revelation, for much of the nation, that progressive policies are the popular ones.

"Progressive policies directly address the interests of the average household," Minksy explains, citing "four massive ticket items that just block people from achieving the American dream" so they "don't have to work three jobs to make ends meet."

Those four blocks, he explains, start with childcare. "It's almost prohibitively expensive to have a child in this society". And then the cost of higher education. "You get out with a degree, and you face housing costs, either rents or mortgages, both prohibitive for building anything like the kind of financial security that you want to have. And then, finally, of course, healthcare costs overwhelmingly shredding the finances of people and families late in life."

"Again, only progressives on all four fronts have clear policy solutions to each of those prohibitive costs that American families meet," he tells me, adding, "And these are practiced around the world in other countries, available for us to pursue. They're not radical ideas. They're commonsense ideas."

"The other thing progressive are willing to address that the other groups are not, because they just accept that it's there, part of the wallpaper of American society, and that's the clear spaces in our society where there is deep, endemic poverty. The urban core, small town and rural America, deep poverty in indigenous communities, and still in the Southeast --- the former Confederate states --- most of that region is still tremendously poor. Only progressives address this."

There is more, much more to chew on in our conversation, including the way disparate elements of the left can come together to achieve solutions to these issues, and how to "persuade a Harris-Walz Administration and their economic advisors that the way forward is to go further on those four big ticket items."

"Only the United States has a latent group of about 100 million people who can be lifted up, by very well understood mechanisms, into the middle class," observes Minsky. "When that happens, that is an economic boom."

As to the vibes on the ground in Chicago, where some progressive organizations are planning to protest the Biden-Harris position on Israel? "Free speech society, open society, that's where I want to live," says Minksy, before adding, in reference to the violence at protests at the DNC in the Windy City almost 60 years ago: "Chicago doesn't feel like it's 1968. It just doesn't. There will be notable actions. But, as much passion as there is out there, I don't think it's quite broadly at the level of what was going on in the country during the Vietnam War in 1968." We'll see if he turns out to be right about that.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as another storm, Hurricane Ernesto, spins up virtually overnight in record warm Atlantic waters and the U.S. Forest Service finally tells the freeloading Arrowhead Springs bottled water company to get lost and stop its near-century long theft of California's water for profit...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Ernesto knocks out power to Puerto Rico, again; Beach restoration projects protect wealthy homeowners at taxpayers' expense; PLUS: U.S. Forest Service blocks bottled water company from taking California's mountain spring water... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Climate change-worsened wildfires drastically increased odds, severity of 2023 wildfires; Parts of Canada's boreal forest are burning faster than they regrow; In major shift, US to back global target to reduce plastic production; Nearly $10B in Hurricane Debby damage was in areas without flood insurance; Texas oil regulator under scrutiny as zombie wells gush back to life; Texas likely undercounting heat-related deaths; UK firm violating toxic pollutant limits at Louisiana wood pellet facilities... PLUS: The climate law's $8.8 billion in home energy rebates are starting to roll out... and much, MUCH more! ...

Was the Trump Campaign really hacked as they've recently claimed? If so, was it actually by Iran, as they also claim? And, If so, isn't that a far greater threat to national security than the corporate media reporting on it seem to understand, so far? Those are just some of the questions asked and answered on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... before we get to our guest today with answers to those questions, another tropical storm has spun up very quickly this week in the record hot Atlantic Ocean. Desi Doyen has the latest today on the climate change-fueled Hurricane Ernesto as it blows by Puerto Rico, which is still rebuilding its crippled power grid from previous storms, and heads toward Bermuda.

NEXT... it was primary Election Day on Tuesday in Connecticut, Vermont, Minnesota and Wisconsin with Congressional and state primaries and even some ballot initiatives for good measure. We've got several noteworthy reported results from all four states after what appears to have been a smooth Election Day in all of them, along with a look ahead and what a number of the contests may portend for November.

THEN... You probably saw the headlines over the weekend about someone calling themselves "Robert" approaching Politico, New York Times and Washington Post with what they claimed to be internal Trump Campaign documents, such as vetting documents for GOP Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance. You probably also heard that the Trump Campaign is claiming they were hacked by Iran, and that Microsoft, just one day earlier, had issued a security bulletin [PDF] stating that a hacking outfit tied to Iran had "sent a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor." (That "former senior advisor" appears to be federal convict, Republican dirty trickster and longtime Trump buddy, Roger Stone.)

So, are all of those things actually connected, as the Trump Camp is claiming? And, after Donald Trump repeatedly lauded the publication of internal campaign email documents hacked from the Clinton Campaign by Russia in 2016, how hard should we now be laughing at his own 2024 Campaign spokesperson warning: "Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America's enemies"?

It's difficult not to chuckle at how the worm has turned, but for our guest today, national security journalist MARCY WHEELER of Emptywheel, joining us to explain what is seemingly being missed by the mainstream coverage of the events --- accurate or not --- as noted above.

First, we try and sort out with Wheeler what is actually known versus still speculative, and how much of it could amount to Team Trump conflating events in hopes of playing the victim and/or protecting themselves from the publication of documents said by "Robert" to be marked as "privileged & confidential". It's certainly interesting to compare how the media have treated these internal campaign documents versus Hillary's in 2016.

But the larger concern, as Wheeler reports this week, is that since Trump doesn't seem to firewall his Campaign documents from the legal documents related to the many criminal cases against him, there are very serious concerns that whoever hacked his campaign emails --- if, in fact, they did --- may also have gained access to highly classified information related to those cases, such as the felony charges he is facing in Florida for having stolen highly classified national security information when leaving office in 2021.

"Donald Trump has not firewalled his campaign from his crimes," Wheeler tells me today. "If you were to hack their computer, it would be a gold mine. It would be a gold mine that would make all of us less secure."

"Remember, we know one of the documents charged against Donald Trump [in the stolen documents case] summarizes the 2019 plans against Iran if they attacked us," she warns. Also, there were documents pertaining to what we know about Iran's nuclear program. She says that, if in fact you have hacked email accounts from the law firm that was vetting J.D. Vance, "then you're getting a lot closer to things that go to Trump's stolen documents case. That's one of several reasons where, if the Iranians were successful, as Russia was [in 2016], you could have a snowballing effect on the national security implications here."

"Most normal humans beings firewall these things," Wheeler asserts, while detailing the way Trump's campaign business is known to have been co-mingled with his legal defense funding and more. "Donald Trump has never kept those separate. We know he hasn't kept them separate. Those are the reasons why the fact that Donald Trump may have been hacked raise additional concerns."

And, oh yeah, there is the newly revealed evidence, via the Dept. of Justice, that someone linked to Iran was recently working on an assassination plot against the former President. That, too, as she details today, plays into this initially hilarious and, on second thought, potentially horrifying turn of events...

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It was another not good day on The BradCast for entitled rightwingers working hard to undermine our American democracy. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

• Disgraced 2020 election denier, former Mesa, Colorado County Clerk and failed Republican Sec. of State candidate Tina Peters was found guilty by a jury of her peers on Monday for seven crimes related to her 2021 breach, copy and unlawful distribution of Mesa County's proprietary Dominion voting system software that she was elected to protect.

  BACKSTORY: Peters' breach in CO, which set off alarm bells at the time among voting system experts across the country, was one of several similar schemes apparently organized, in part, by former Trump attorney Sidney Powell in a futile effort to prove the 2020 election was stolen from him. Similar breaches were carried out in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where some of the breachers are also facing state criminal charges. Deadbeat fellow election denier and reportedly nearly bankrupt MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who is being sued for defamation by several voting machine companies, aided and abetted Peters' crimes in various ways after the Mesa County voting software was released while she was on stage at Lindell's silly "cyber-symposium" in South Dakota.

• Former-Democrat-turned-independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was found by a New York judge on Monday to have used a "sham" address to establish residency in the state where he doesn't actually live. As a result, after a four-day hearing, he will not be allowed to appear on NY's Presidential ballot. Moreover, the ruling may threaten his eligibility for some of the 19 state ballots where he has already qualified to appear and/or the 20 or so states where he is still hoping to do so.

  BACKSTORY: Back in 2011, we reported on then Utah U.S. Senate candidate Mitt Romney having done damn near the same thing. He had owned mansions in both New Hampshire and California, but, in 2010, he fraudulently registered to vote for a U.S. Senate Special Election in Massachusetts, where he had previously served as Governor, using his son's unfinished basement as his voting address. Nonetheless, despite their pretend opposition to election fraud, the Republican Party would later go on to nominate the fraudster Romney as their Presidential nominee in 2012.

• Longtime opponents of workers and organized labor unions, Donald Trump and Tesla/Twitter owner Elon Musk, held what the New York Times described as a "two-hour ramble" on Monday night, on Musk's rickety, now largely rightwing social media site. It didn't seem to go well for either of them. It began about 45 minutes late after Musk's streaming audio platform kept failing. (He blamed a cyberattack. Trump blamed China. Evidence and folks who work at Twitter/X suggested there was no cyberattack at all.) But, at some point in the conversation, Trump and Musk began cackling approvingly about the idea of firing workers who threaten to strike or join unions. On Tuesday, the United Auto Workers, who have been encouraging Tesla workers to unionize, filed legal complaints against each man charging violations of the National Labor Relations Act.

  BACKSTORY: The UAW, and almost every other major labor union, has endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. UAW President Shawn Fain appeared at a rally with Harris and her running-mate Tim Walz in Detroit last week (the one with 15,000 attendees who Trump claims were not there, but were all A.I.) and described Trump as "a scab" who "doesn't know shit about the auto industry and doesn't give a damn about the working class in this country."

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, after the hottest July ever recorded; millions of gallons of raw sewage spills across parts of Florida following Hurricane Debby; and Republicans scheme, via Project 2025, to delete all federal government references to "climate change" if Trump is able to win back the White House in November...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Debby left a parting gift --- tons of raw sewage spills; July 2024 was the hottest July ever recorded globally; PLUS: Republicans' Project 2025 calls for deleting all references to climate change from the federal government... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): More than 47,000 people died in Europe last year due to heat, report says; 'It's Torture': Brutal heat broils Texas prisons, killing dozens of inmates; How to stay safe in the Texas heat; In Pennsylvania's competitive Senate race, fracking takes center stage; Climate change is making us sick, literally, as extreme rainfalls overwhelm outdated sewer systems; Taxpayers on the hook to protect high-end beach communities; 'Massive disinformation campaign' is slowing global transition to green energy... PLUS: How close are the planet's tipping points?... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Tropical Storm Debby isn't done with the East Coast yet; Hottest oceans in 400 years endanger Australia's Great Barrier Reef, scientists warn; PLUS: Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate, Gov. Tim Walz, is a proven climate champion... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Harris faces racial attacks for promoting climate policies; July ends 13-month streak of global heat records as El Nino ebbs, but experts warn against relief; Fossil fuel industry's 'massive disinformation campaign' is slowing global transition to green energy; Tropical weather brings record rainfall. Experts share how to stay safe in floods... PLUS: Death toll for birds may be more than 1 billion a year in U.S.... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: Well, the past 24 hours have turned out to be rather historic. At least I hope. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

After having become the nation's first female Vice President, Kamala Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Asian immigrants, was officially selected on Monday night by Democratic National Party delegates via an online roll call vote to become the first woman of color to lead a major party's Presidential ticket.

But the California Democrat stepped on her own history-making moment by Tuesday morning when announcing her selection for Vice President: 24-year Army National Guardsman, former high school teacher and football coach, 12-year Congressman and two-term Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

In the hours since, the affable, blessedly normal, very progressive 60-year old, union-supporting Nebraska native --- who flipped a rural Minnesota Congressional seat from red to blue in 2006 --- became a bit of a national sensation, it seems to me. He was, after all, the one who appears to have cracked the code of how to attack the Republicans' standard-bearer Donald Trump and his Vice-Presidential candidate J.D. Vance with a simple, and even "Minnesota Nice" dismissal by referring to them as just plain "weird".

But, as our guest today, The Nation's progressive journalist, author, longtime Walz fan and native son of MN's neighboring rust belt state of Wisconsin, JOHN NICHOLS, makes clear, Walz didn't just come from nowhere. He has a history that Nichols has been sharing for days --- well before today's announcement --- on his Twitter feed, with links to some great Walz moments over the years. His incredibly moving radio ad when first introducing himself to run for Congress in 2006; his sweeping video ad announcing his gubernatorial run in 2018; an impassioned, ass-kicking speech at the MN Legislature as Governor in 2023, as the 2nd Amendment supporter and 24-year veteran, deployed both domestically and overseas, promised (and then delivered) long-overdue gun safety laws to finally help stop the massacre of school children; being hugged by school children after signing a bill to ensure free public school breakfast and lunches for all; a telling moment when the Governor, in well-worn blue jeans, bends over to tie the shoe of a little girl.

"He is kind of an outsider on the national political scene," Nichols tells me today, when explaining why he's been posting Tweet after Tweet in support of Walz in recent days. "As of a couple of weeks ago, it's safe to say that 99 out of 100 Americans couldn't have identified him out of a lineup. So in a very short amount of time, this guy has come not from the mainstream, inner circle of the elite Washington Democratic Party, but from way outside, up on the border with Canada."

"So I think there was a lot that people needed to understand quickly about the guy, and that's one of the reasons why I posted a lot of those old campaign ads and videos --- so people could understand that he didn't just appear out of nowhere. This is kind of an amazing political figure."

America is certainly learning that as of today, after what Nichols reported at The Nation this afternoon as the Paul Wellstone disciple who rose to the top during "a two-week 'virtual campaign' in which [Harris' Veep contenders] would present themselves to the party and to the candidate and to the nation. ... And, in so doing, she freed herself up to the prospect that the final pick might not be a predictable insider, or, to be more precise, the predictable choice of the predictable insiders."

"There's nothing radical about Tim Walz," Nichols tweeted today, "except for his faith in the American people. He believes in an America where we treat one another as neighbors, lift one another up and build a future where no one is left behind. Walz is the opposite of JD Vance."

Nichols has a lot to share about Walz' background, Harris' courageous selection, and how he believes that Trump has been "destabilized" by all that has happened over the past two weeks following Joe Biden stepping aside to make way for Harris. "Trump really does believe in a cult of personality. So, he couldn't possibly imagine that Biden would ever give up the leadership of the party, never give up the candidacy. Well, Biden isn't a cult of personality guy. He did give it up. That threw Trump off. I think Trump is still destabilized simply by that reality."

"And then comes this good-humored guy out of the Midwest. Somebody who really does speak to a lot of the people Trump has tried to speak to, but instead of Trumpish-language --- 'I'm a billionaire from New York who knows things you don't know.' Tim Walz comes along and says, 'I'm a teacher from Mankato. I know a lot of things you know. I get you. I get what you need. And I'm telling you, you're not getting it from a weirdo.' Suddenly, it's like the whole conversation has changed. ... And the Republicans are frankly going crazy."

Nichols also explains how Walz on the ticket from neighboring MN, will "absolutely" have an effect on voters in the "Blue Wall" state of WI and beyond, and why the Trump Campaign's laughable attack on Walz as a "West Coast wannabe...obsessed with spreading California's dangerously liberal agenda far and wide" is probably going to miss by a California mile.

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the climate change-enhanced Hurricane Debby wreaks havoc across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina; as climate change changed the Paris Summer Games; as victims of the climate change-exacerbated wild fires in Maui get a small measure of justice; and as oil major BP is now all but conceding that fossil fuels will soon be on their way out...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Debby brings astonishing rains and flooding to Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina; Climate change is a partner in the Paris Summer Olympics; PLUS: Plaintiffs in last year's catastrophic Maui Fires reach a settlement with Hawaiian Electric... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Meet Tim Walz: Kamala Harris's vice-presidential pick, a surprising Green New Dealer; As U.S. Heat Deaths Rise, Some Landlords Oppose Right To Air Conditioning; Sudan's Famine-Stricken Zamzam Camp Hit By Devastating Floods; More Americans Are Moving Into Flood And Fire Hot Spots; Minnesota Settles ‘Deceptive Environmental Marketing’ Suit Over Plastic Bags... PLUS: Wyoming Offers To Sell Land To Grand Teton Park — Or Developers... and much, MUCH more! ...