Nope. The 2022 midterms still aren't fully over. At least not on The BradCast, where we're still following every last vote to the bitter end. But that's not all we have for you today. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

In fact, we cover all of the "E" stories on today's program, including Elections, Energy and the Economy, if not necessarily in that order...

• As if the good news of cheap, renewable energy like wind and solar wasn't bad enough for them, the Big Fossil Fuel boys already seem to be freaking out about today's news regarding a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology and the possibility that it could eventually result in clean, virtually unlimited, carbon-free energy.

• New AAA numbers reveal that Joe Biden has lowered gasoline prices in the U.S. to less than they were before Russia's war on Ukraine! (If it was all his fault the price went up, he gets all the credit when it comes down, right?)

• New numbers from the Labor Department today reveal that Joe Biden has Joe Biden has almost ended inflation in the U.S.! (See above.)

• Colorado has finished their "recount" for the U.S. House seat in the state's 3rd Congressional District between incumbent Republican nut Lauren Boebert and her Democratic challenger Adam Frisch. After computers retallied all of the ballots (rather than hand-counts) Boebert was declared the winner by just 546 votes out of more than 325,000 votes cast, in a district which all forecasters saw as "solid Republican". Happily, because the Republican won in this case, there were no death threats to election officials or armed insurrections in response.

• Boebert's razor thin victory means the GOP will have 222 House seats in the next Congress beginning in January to the Democrats' 213. While they lost just 9 seats in in the lower chamber, and the majority along with them, it was an extraordinary midterm election for a party controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House. In addition to holding all of their Senate seats and even flipping one from Red to Blue (a feat not matched since 1934 for a party that controls the White House), Democrats also won Governors races in red states and flipped state legislative chambers in a way that just doesn't happen in this kind of midterm election. Dems won trifecta control (the Governor's office, plus majorities in the state House and Senate) in four more states this year: Michigan, Minnesota, Maryland and Massachusetts. They also held off GOP supermajorities in states with Dem Governors such as North Carolina and Wisconsin. In fact, taking back the majority in the U.S. House, by the barest of margins, is perhaps the only thing the GOP can feel good about this year. Even there, the average pick up is about 20 or 30 seats in elections like this one. And Republicans may have a difficult time electing a House Speaker in January, depending on how things go in the weeks ahead for GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy.

• But there are still a number of midterm recounts and legal contests underway in various spots around the nation. Yesterday, we discussed the recount now underway in the Arizona Attorney General race, after the Democratic candidate, Kris Mayes, was certified to have defeated Republican Abe Hamadeh by just 511 votes out of more than 2.5 million cast. Sadly, as in CO, AZ "recounts" with computers instead of by hand. In Massachusetts, meanwhile, they do it correctly (by hand). Thankfully so. Because a hand recount for a state House of Representatives seat, in which the Democrat initially lost to the Republican incumbent by 10 votes, has resulted in her winning the seat by just one. single. vote. The Republican incumbent is, naturally, filing a lawsuit in response.

• And then there's the battle for control of Pennsylvania's House of Representatives, where Democrats appear to have won the majority from Republicans for the first time in more than a decade. They flipped a net total of 12 seats last month to take control of the House by the barest possible margin, 102 to 101. But then the confusion began. One Democrat actually died back in October but won reelection anyway. Two others also won races for higher office (Lt. Gov and U.S. House) and resigned after the 2021-22 session officially ended on November 30. But now, there is a battle, including in court, for who gets to decide when the special elections to fill all three vacant seats takes place, and who will be elected as House Speaker when the new session officially begins on January 3. We try to make sense of the legislative mess in the Keystone State which even a longtime PA journalist we spoke to is having trouble making sense of!

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with news on a massive Keystone Pipeline spill in Kansas; New evidence of Big Oil's big lies about their pretend commitment to tackle climate change; And news on the nuclear fusion breakthrough announced today by U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The Keystone Pipeline spills again, this time in Kansas; Surprise! Big Oil is greenwashing and deceiving the public about its clean energy investments; PLUS: U.S. scientists reportedly achieve nuclear fusion breakthrough... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): African countries are tapping their fossil fuel wealth. Why aren’t they getting rich?; Climate change is driving millions in Africa to 'raging food catastrophe'; Britain approves new coal mine despite climate concerns; U.S. clean energy held up in permitting; L.A. City Council votes to ban Styrofoam, single-use plastics; Truck makers lobby to weaken U.S. climate policies; That empty space next to highways? Put solar panels on it; Misinformation on clean energy rampant in the Heartland... PLUS: The myth of plastic recycling.... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. Dept. of Justice sues to clean up Jackson, Mississippi's failing, beleaguered water supply; Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano shuts down global CO2 monitoring site; Biden Administration releases strict new methane emissions standards for drillers; PLUS: Interior Department announces new funding to help tribal communities escape rising seas... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): West Africa's deadly rainfall in 2022 made '80 times more likely' by climate change; Black Friday's 'Enormous Environmental Impact' Sparks a Green Backlash; U.S. government pledges $250 million to help ailing Salton Sea; More than 70 percent of English water industry is in foreign ownership; Competitors chip away at Tesla’s US electric vehicle share; CDC expands polio wastewater testing in MI, PA; Puerto Rican towns sue Big Oil for climate damages; Officials fear 'complete doomsday scenario' for drought-stricken Colorado River... PLUS: Poet yells at newspaper article on Greenland ice melting.... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today's BradCast is dedicated to the protester Davids who defeated a fossil fuel Goliath after a 13-year fight to help save us all. Thank you, protesters! And please keep going! Humanity needs you! [Audio link to full show is posted below summary.]

Among the stories covered with appreciation on today's program...

• It was a huge, hard-fought, well-deserved win for the unprecedented coalition of environmentalists, tribes, scientists, farmers, ranchers, and even a few journalists, behind the defeat of TC Energy's enormous, dangerous KeystoneXL Pipeline. For 13 years, the company, formerly known as TransCanada, had fought to build a 1,200 mile pipeline to send 830,000 barrels each day of toxic, sticky tar sands crude from Alberta, Canada to refineries in Texas for export overseas. For 13 years, protesters stood up against the project, which threatened rivers, streams, native lands, farms, drinking water aquifers and the climate itself. One of the nation's greatest climate scientists James Hansen warned in 2012 that if the Alberta tar sands are full developed, via projects like KXL, it would be "game over for the climate". After President Obama canceled the pipeline's permit due to the damage it would cause for the environment via climate change, it looked to be game over for KXL itself. But then Donald Trump got elected and reversed Obama. When Joe Biden took office, he cancelled the permit once again as one of his very first actions, and has refused to back off, despite pleas from both Canada and the company. On Wednesday, TC Energy finally gave up the game. The KeystoneXL Pipeline is now really, truly dead. We all owe the coalition of protesters and activists a huge thanks. But the fight now continues elsewhere...

• In Minnesota this week, a similar coalition of activists stood up demonstrations against another Canadian company named Enbridge Energy, which is replacing a 1960's era pipeline called Line 3, said to be deteriorating and unable to operate at full capacity, with a steel reinforced pipe the same size as KXL's. Also like KXL, the upgraded Line 3 would also pump more than 800,000 barrels a day across thousands of rivers, streams and native lands from the Alberta tar sands to Wisconsin. So the protesters are back at it. Hundreds were arrested during protests this week, even as a helicopter from the federal Border Patrol (unlawfully?) buzzed over them from about 20 feet, kicking up dust and debris on more than 1,000 peaceful demonstrators. They are calling for President Biden to take similar action on Line 3 that both he and Obama took in lifting permits for KXL. The Administration has yet to take a position on Line 3, but protesters are back at it, with some blocking off the entrance to a construction site this week, by parking --- and spending the night chained to --- a boat named "Good Trouble" that they parked in front of one of the Enbridge construction sites. We cover that critical new battle today.

• These actions to save the environment are for good reason, as we are currently seeing very clearly in the Southwest, which is facing another record "megadrought" right now. Lake Mead --- the nation's largest reservoir, which provides water for agriculture and human consumption to seven states --- is at its lowest level since it was built in the 1930s. Water cutbacks are already in place and likely to become much more severe by August if the lake's level, which sits on the border of Nevada and Arizona continues to drop. More than 86% of AZ is already under "extreme" or "exceptional" drought. Power supplies in the region are also likely to be affected, as Mead supplies water to Hoover Dam, which has already cut back electricity generation due to the low water levels. In California, reservoirs are now at 50% of normal capacity, with mountain snow-pack already gone two months earlier than normal, vegetation moisture at record lows, Summer just beginning and fire season set to begin as early as this month. All of this, thanks in no small part to man-made climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels like the ones that won't being flowing through the KeystoneXL and --- if environmentalists win more battles --- through massive pipelines like Line 3 or Dakota Access. This fight matters. Not only for the future, but for the immediate present, as those of us out West can attest right now.

• Meanwhile, overseas, President Biden is kicking off his first trip as President, meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson today, after speaking to U.S. troops about the importance of reinforcing democracy over rising autocracy upon his arrival in Europe yesterday. Johnson warmly welcomed Biden as the two leaders today reaffirmed their nations' "special relationship" by renewing the World War II era Atlantic Charter signed by FDR and Winston Churchill.

• BoJo wasn't the only one to welcome America's new President. A new survey out today from Pew Research Center underscores the support by the publics of 16 economically developed nations who couldn't be happier to see Biden in place rather than Trump, after trust in the U.S. overseas fell to historic lows under the previous President. We cover some of the striking numbers from Pew today, including, for example, the 75% of respondents who express confidence in Biden to "do the right thing regarding world affairs", versus the paltry 17% in the same countries who thought as much about Trump. Overall favorability for the U.S. skyrocketed 23 points since last year, but other numbers from the survey suggest the U.S. still has a long way to go to in restoring their leadership role after damage done to the nation and the world during Trump's failed tenure.

• Texas' corrupt Attorney General Ken Paxton is facing still more trouble. Sad! The state's top law enforcement official is already facing multiple indictments on felony securities fraud in Texas, even as the FBI is now investigating him for abuse of power, following a complaint to the feds by eight of his own top staffers. Now, as AP reports in an exclusive today, Paxton is also in trouble with the Texas Bar Association, which is investigating a complaint brought after the frivolous lawsuit he filed at the U.S. Supreme Court last year to overturn the Presidential election results in four states won by Biden. That case --- which the state's own solicitor general refused to represent at SCOTUS --- was thrown out by the high court. Now Paxton faces potential disbarment in the Lone Star State, even as he faces a primary challenge from George P. Bush (Jeb's kid) before next year's election.

• Finally, Desi Doyen has more on both the KeystoneXL victory and Line 3 protests in our latest Green News Report, with still more news on the G7's feeble efforts to support renewable energy last year and the collapse --- and restart --- of Biden's negotiations with Congressional Republicans on his massive and long-overdue infrastructure proposal...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Finally! Hard-won victory for tribes and environmentalists as controversial Keystone XL pipeline is actually dead; Mass arrests at Line 3 pipeline protest in Minnesota; G7 spent $50 billion more on fossil fuel projects than renewable energy in 2020; PLUS: Biden's infrastructure talks with Republicans collapse, and start all over again... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Alaska Native Corp. To Protect Its Land, Deals Blow To Pebble Mine; Amid Mega-Drought, Rightwing Militia Stokes Water Rebellion in West; Canada Launches C$647 Million Bid To Avert Pacific Wild Salmon Collapse; B.C. Agrees To Defer Old-Growth Logging For 2 Years In Fairy Creek Area; Red States Warn of ‘Collusive’ Tactics by Biden in Kids' Climate Case... PLUS: Oregon House Moves To Curb Forest Institute’s Power and Budget in Wake of Blockbuster Investigation... and much, MUCH more! ...

Yes. We're obsessed of late with Joe Manchin on The BradCast. But that's only because the fate of the entire progressive Biden and Democratic Party agenda is now being blocked by him...which also means the fate of American Democracy and even life on Planet Earth depends on the seemingly inexplicable whims of one obstructionist Democratic Senator from West Virginia. Other than that, no biggie. Why obsess? [Audio link to full show is posted at end of summary.]

Before diving back headlong into that frustration today with someone whose endured it first-hand far longer than many of us, some slightly more encouraging news today, beginning with the rather huge breaking news that broke, literally, as we began today's show.

The Keystone XL Pipeline is dead. Kaput. Over. Done. Yeah, we know you've heard that before, but this time it's the pipeline's owner themselves, TC Energy (formerly TransCanada), conceding that their 13-year dream of a massive 1,200 mile pipeline to ship 830,000 barrels of dirty tar sands oil each day from Alberta, Canada to refineries in Texas for shipment overseas amid catastrophically dangerous global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels is now, officially, cancelled. That, after Joe Biden cancelled the permit granted to the company by Donald Trump. And while we've got some other good-ish news items today, that one will likely prove to be the most expansive and enduring. Finally.

As far as news we'd actually planned to cover today, President Biden will reportedly commit at the G7 in Britain this week to buying some 500 million doses of COVID vaccine to donate to nations who desperately need them, as infection and death rates plummet in the U.S. while soaring in much of the world. The announcement will come as a new, highly transmissible and more dangerous viral variant is overtaking much of the UK and beginning to gain a foothold in the U.S.

The Administration also, according to NBC News today, has begun efforts to permanently close the extra-judicial, extra-constitutional detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in advance of the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that led to then-President George W. Bush opening the shameful Gitmo chapter in the first place. While President Obama, upon taking office, had ordered the facility to be shut down in 2009, Congressional Democrats helped block that effort. Obama did, however, succeed in radically reducing Gitmo's prison population from about 250 to about 40 until Donald Trump stopped the U.S. relocation program. Biden's Administration reportedly hopes to close the facility permanently during his first term.

While Presidents can take certain Executive Actions regarding things like vaccines and Gitmo, acts of Congress are needed for the big stuff. Which bring us --- maddeningly enough --- back to Manchin today. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's plan to bring up stuff for a vote this month that Manchin supports --- only to see all of it filibustered and blocked by Republicans --- got underway, with the GOP filibuster of the Paycheck Fairness Act on Tuesday. The measure, originally co-sponsored by Manchin and already passed by the House, is aimed at eliminating the appalling gender pay gap between women and men. Manchin announced he was "disappointed" by the floor vote that received support from ZERO Republicans, much less the ten votes that is currently required to overcome obstructionist GOP filibusters in the Senate.

But Manchin has long vowed to oppose the simple majority vote needed to eliminate or even reform the filibuster. He announced as much again last weekend when he also declared his opposition to the Democrats' For the People Act, a massive election and campaign reform bill that, among other things, mandates early voting and no-excuse absentee ballots in all 50 states, ends partisan gerrymandering, and curbs dark money in campaigns. 49 out of 50 Democratic Senators are co-sponsors. Every Republican and Joe Manchin oppose it (even though he co-sponsored the bill in 2019!) Manchin's reason for opposition is, apparently, because no Republicans support it (nor did they in 2019!), even as they are adopting voter suppression measures at the state level all over the country right now.

All of that, amid a massive rightwing effort by dark money groups led by the Koch Network to target Manchin to keep him opposed to both filibuster reform and the For the People Act, while a stunning 79% of West Virginians (including 76% of Republicans in the state!) support the Democrats' sweeping election reform package.

We've been trying of late to figure out Manchin's game and a way to move the country (and planet) forward through it. We've struck out so far. So today we turn to our old friend ROBYN KINCAID (formerly known as Bob Kincaid), a 9th generation West Virginian, host and creator of the progressive Head-On Radio Network, co-founder of the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency Campaign and President of the Coal River Mountain Watch.

As a longtime opponent of deadly mountain top removal coal mining, Kincaid has years of experience in dealing with Manchin beginning during his days as a state official, including as Governor. If anyone has insight and helpful advice on how to deal with Manchin, it's the always colorful Kincaid, who kicks things off by explaining what it is that the rest of the nation may not know, but needs to, in order to understand him, beginning with the contention that also includes Manchin's politico father, that "No Manchin has ever voted for a Democrat whose name wasn't Manchin."

"He is the Queen of the May right now," Kincaid tells me. "Everybody is paying attention to him. He is on the lips of every political observer in the country, and he is, I assure you, basking in it."

But why the intransigence when it comes to taking the action necessary to move litigation forward that he, himself (not to mention his own constituents, in big numbers), actually supports?

"He gets hold of an idea and he hangs onto it like a junkyard dog with a bone," explains Kincaid. "For years and years, when we would talk about mountaintop removal, he would answer by saying 'We have to have balance', for about ten years. Now the word is 'bipartisan.' I don't think he fully understands how 'bipartisan' works. Because if he wants bipartisanship, it's HIS job to lean in and use coercive power and say, 'Listen, y'all can come along, or I break the filibuster.' But I don't think he's as willing to play hardball with the Republicans as he is with somebody like Joe Biden and Democrats because he is more philosophically aligned with the Republicans."

Offering a very generous benefit of the doubt that some of Manchin's institutional concerns about doing away with the filibuster are sincere, Kincaid explains that "West Virginia relies profoundly on things like Medicaid and Medicare, and forms of federal government assistance for a workforce that has been beaten and bedraggled and tormented over the years. ... I think in the back of his mind, he can foresee a future where there's a Republican-controlled Senate with no filibuster where they they can do what they wish. He knows as well as anybody else what the Republican wish-list is in the modern Republican Party of Nitwit Nero [Trump]. That is a world without Social Security, a world without the Affordable Care Act, a world without Medicaid. And that means a West Virginia that is already as...as... [heavy sigh]...as beaten down as we are, that we'll be even more so, and left to perish."

Among the many other mysteries of Manchin on which Kincaid offers insight today:

• Is he captured by the rightwing Koch Network's dark money?
• Is there any hope in threatening to primary him (even though he's not up for reelection again until 2024)?
• Why would he oppose a measure (the For the People Act) THAT HE HAD CO-SPONSORED IN 2019(!) and that is so wildly popular in WV?
• What does he want and can he be bought off, given that Democrats are looking to spend hundreds of billions right now via Biden's American Jobs and Families Plans?

We also take a few minutes to discuss Kincaid's Appalachian Communities Health Emergency (ACHE) Act, "that has the power to stop mountaintop [coal] removal once and for all". The bill has been reintroduced as H.R. 2073 and Kincaid asks BradCast listeners to "please, pretty please, go to the phone, go to your keyboards, call, send an email to your members of the House of Representatives and say please co-sponsor H.R. 2073, the ACHE Act, because it means the world to West Virginia. It means the world to Appalachia. It literally means a future for us."

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On today's BradCast: Now that the new Administration is actually inside the White House, the extent of the unspeakable mess left behind by the previous occupants are only just now beginning to come to light. [Audio link to show follows summary below.]

When it comes to the still-worsening COVID crisis --- just one of the several crises left for President Biden to clean up in the wake of the unprecedented failures of the Trump Administration --- apparently it's all much worse than feared. There was, reportedly, no coordinated effort in place at all to deal with national distribution of vaccines, nor to deal with the difficult task of safely reopening schools and businesses in hopes of reviving the still-worsening economic crisis that Trump and Congressional Republicans also left behind for the new Democratic Administration to clean up as well.

After yet another Democratic President is left to clean up yet another economic disaster following yet another Republican Administration, one might wonder why it is that Americans and many in the media continue to falsely suggest the GOP is the party of fiscal responsibility, when they are clearly the complete opposite. I've got a thought or two today on how that scam continues, year after year after year, despite actual facts to the contrary.

Among the many stories covered on today's program, as the "clean up on aisle 45" gets under way on the first full day of the new Biden Administration...

• Biden signs at least 10 Executive Orders to begin a "full-scale, wartime" effort to deal with the utter failure of the previous administration to have any national plan at all to get folks vaccinated or even tested, much less to get schools reopened. His new 200-page national plan is here [PDF]. He also vowed that America will be hearing more about the COVID crisis from their scientists, from here on out, rather than their President;

• The new, weekly jobless claim numbers from the final week of Trump's Presidency are out today, and they are horrendous. Since the crisis began last March, for the 44th week in a row, they once again are hundreds of thousands of applications higher than the worst-ever week during the Great Recession. (Ya know...the last time a Dem Prez had to save the economy after a Republican Administration destroyed it.);

• Perhaps you can take some comfort in the fact that at least Trump's own businesses are tanking as well, thanks to his fatally horrific decision to pretend the coronavirus was a hoax and to do nothing about it --- other than to make it far worse than it should have been;

• Biden's first full day clean-up also included firing a number of wingnut Trumpers who had burrowed in at several Executive Branch agencies. One of them is the top lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board who is decidedly anti-labor!;

• Meanwhile, in the nether-reaches of the Internet, there is much sadness, confusion and despondency. Adherents of the ridiculous QAnon conspiracy theory --- who believe that Democrats and "deep-staters" are secretly baby-eating, satanic, pedophiles (oh, like they're not!) and that Trump, as a super-genius, had a secret plan to round them all up, arrest them in mass and execute them at the Inauguration, before reclaiming his rightful second term --- are disappointed today for some odd reason and have reportedly "lost all hope". Turns out that, after none of that actually happened, as promised by "Q" for years, the QAnon dupes and stooges are only now beginning to realize they may have been played for suckers all along;

• Also newly disappointed of late by their former hero, Donald Trump, is the rightwing racist street gang Proud Boys. Following Trump selling them out after the January 6th U.S. Capitol riots, many in the extremist hate-group seem to have decided the former President is a "shill", "extraordinarily weak" and "a total failure". (SAD!);

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with more news on Biden's efforts to clean up and reverse scores of anti-environmental regulations and actions taken by the previous Administration, and on renewed hopes for the revival of real climate action by the U.S. Government...if a few questionable Dems in the Senate play along...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: GNR Special Coverage: Democratic President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris take office and get right to work, renewing hope for meaningful U.S. climate action... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Greta Thunberg pokes Cruz in tweet welcoming US back to Paris accord; US Rejoins the Paris Agreement, but Rebuilding Credibility on Climate Action Will Take Time; Could Baltimore's Climate Change Suit Become a Supreme Court Test Case?; Bernhardt Rescinds Wilderness Protection Order Before Leaving Office; Electric Car Batteries With Five-Minute Charging Times Produced... PLUS: Northwest’s Salmon Population May Be Running Out of Time... and much, MUCH more! ...

Looks like we made it! Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. was sworn in as the nation's 46th President on Wednesday. Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first female, black and South Asian Vice President. And the nation's worst President and greatest sore-loser ever became a former President at the same time, fleeing D.C. like the coward he is just after dawn. All of which we cover in today's BradCast Inauguration Special. [Audio link to show is posted below summary.]

On his way out the door, Donald Trump unleashed a load of pardons and commutations for his corrupt allies and wealthy friends, abusing the Presidential pardon power in an unprecedented, but hardly surprising, way. We detail just some of the 144 grants of clemency he issued just after midnight, including for Steven Bannon, his former campaign manager and fired White House senior political strategist (who was indicted for defrauding millions of dollars from Trump supporters for a project to build a wall on the U.S. southern border); Elliot Broidy, former RNC fundraiser and Trump Inaugural Treasurer who pleaded guilty to selling his services to lobby Trump on behalf of a foreign billionaire; Paul Erickson, GOP operative and boyfriend of alleged Russian spy Maria Butina; a last second pardon for Albert Pirro, the real-estate developer, GOP fundraiser and convicted felon husband of Fox "News" host and Trump suck-up Jeanine Pirro; and more than 100 others like them. The raft of 11th hour pardons led one good government advocate to wryly charge that "Amazingly, in his final 24 hours in office, Donald Trump found one more way to fail to live up to the ethical standard of Richard Nixon."

Much to our surprise, however, Trump did not pardon his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, any of his children or himself! We would have bet good money he'd have pardoned some or all of them. (Especially himself!) But he apparently didn't.

As if his list of pardoned fraudsters, liars and other assorted and unrepentant criminals wasn't wasn't slimy and sleazy and swampy enough for ya, Trump also issued one last. middle of the night Executive Order to rescind his own 2017 EO that barred Executive Branch officials from lobbying their own agency for five years after leaving office, in addition to a lifetime ban on lobbying for any foreign government. In reversing his much vaunted ethics rule from his first year in office, he made clear yet again that he was only ever pretending for his base of dupes and suckers that he wanted to "drain the swamp" in D.C.

In much less sleazy news, on Day One of the Biden Administration, the new President signed an unprecedented raft of Executive Orders at the White House after his Inauguration, meant to begin to undo some of the most egregious excesses and corruption of the previous Administration. The orders focus generally on four concurrent crises Biden has vowed to immediately begin tackling, including COVID-19, the economy, racial injustice and climate change. Among the EOs planned to be signed on Wednesday, according to AXIOS:

But after Trump mercifully fled town early on Wednesday, a remarkably moving and socially distanced Inauguration Ceremony was held at the U.S. Capitol, under extraordinary security precautions following the massive MAGA Mob of violent, rioting insurrectionists who attempted, to little avail, to block Biden's decisive 2020 victory from being formally affirmed by Congress just two weeks ago today.

We share some key moments from today's ceremony, including Biden's full, crisp, and tremendously on-point Inaugural Address. The new President, among other things, declared that "Democracy has prevailed" and vowed to be a "President for all Americans" while calling for "unity". He pointedly noted: "We must end this uncivil war" and went on to observe that "Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson. There is truth and there are lies, lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation, to defend the truth and defeat the lies."

Finally, we close with a few thoughts on this wonderful, historic and long overdue day from both Desi and myself, at the end of four (actually five) hellishly long, painful, destructive, difficult and deadly years as the "American Carnage" of the Trump Era hopefully begins to fade as a new day begins...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Biden unveils economic recovery plan with focus on climate; Also plans blitz of actions to undo Trump's environmental rollbacks; Trump unleashes last last-minute spree of rollbacks and polluter giveaways; PLUS: It may finally be the end of the line for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Toyota to Pay a Record Fine for a Decade of Clean Air Act Violations; Climate scientists sound the alarm on a climate 'tipping point'; 'Cautious optimism' about fighting climate change: Dr. Michael Mann; Weakened 'forever chemical' assessment sets hurdle for Biden; 'Unrig the data.' How utilities embellish carbon cuts; PNW: A Thin Green Line with Global Impact; Los Angeles Lifts Air-Quality Limits For Cremations As Covid Deaths Double... PLUS: The Capitol Riot and Climate Disinformation... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've got a bit of a roller coaster today between good news and terrible news on today's BradCast. But that's life in the times of Trump and the coronavirus, I guess. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

First up today, the COVID-19 crisis continues to gravely worsen in the U.S., with new record infections and hospitalizations now pretty much every day for the past month. Despite the increasingly desperate concerns expressed by health experts, especially for hotspots where Governors reopened states far too early, some Republicans from the President of the United States on down are calling for measures that will only increase infection rates, hospitalizations and, yes, death.

Florida's Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran on Monday, for example, declared that all public schools must reopen next month to all students for in-person classes five days a week. His emergency order notes that reopening schools is critical to "a return to Florida hitting its full economic stride". That, despite more than 200,000 confirmed cases and new record daily infection rates each day for weeks now in the Sunshine State.

At the same time, in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, Donald Trump held a White House event to demand the reopening of schools and to praise Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis for a "terrific job" in ordering them to open. Trump claimed that schools have been closed elsewhere for "political reasons" and added that "we are very much going to put pressure on Governors and everybody else to open the schools." This is now a death march being led by the President of the United States.

But if Republican politicians are fine sending children and their teachers and their families to their potential deaths, how do you think federal judges appointed by Trump or sympathetic to his political cause are going to react to measures being taken to try and make voting safer for Americans on November 3rd? We're joined again today by Slate's ace legal reporter MARK JOSEPH STERN to discuss Monday's opinions released by the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as a disturbing pattern of rulings at both SCOTUS and on the appellate level over the past two weeks that bodes darkly for this year's crucial Presidential election.

First, Monday's new opinions: The Court decided unanimously that states may prevent so-called "faithless electors" from casting their vote in the Electoral College for someone other than the Presidential candidate chosen by the state's popular vote. The issue stemmed from two combined cases of "faithless electors" in 2016, one of which was brought by plaintiff Michael Baca against Colorado. Baca appeared on The BradCast in December of 2016 to explain the reasons for his planned "faithless" vote in the Electoral College that year, before he was later prevented by the state from casting it.

While that opinion, written by Justice Elana Kagan received most of the media attention on Monday, another opinion handed down by the Court that day is likely of far greater import. The Court's 6 to 3 decision, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh writing for the majority in a case concerning robocalls made to cell phones, actually reveals some very encouraging news regarding a challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) that will be heard next session by the Court. Kavanaugh's opinion, striking down one element of a robocall law as unconstitutional while upholding the rest of the law, suggests the challenge to Obamacare by GOP-controlled states and the White House --- seeking to strike down the entire health care law as unconstitutional based on the constitutionality of one single, now meaningless, provision --- is likely to fail.

As Kavanaugh crucially noted in his opinion, in words that will be remembered next year during the ACA case: "Constitutional litigation is not a game of gotcha against Congress, where litigants can ride a discrete constitutional flaw in a statute to take down the whole, otherwise constitutional statute."

"It's important to note that seven justices agreed with [Kavanaugh] on that particular point," Stern tells me. "Only Thomas and Gorsuch disagreed."

And with that seemingly very good news out of the way, we turn to a flurry of recent decisions by both SCOTUS and a number of federal appeals courts that are extremely concerning and revealing as to how right-wing controlled federal courts will be dealing with voter suppression cases and measures intended to make voting easier during the pandemic this November. Recent court rulings in cases out of Florida, Wisconsin, Alabama and Texas, as Stern explains, are very troubling indeed and suggest we could be in for no small amount of chaos, disenfranchisement and, yes, deadly disease, in this year's critical general elections.

There are more opinions to come from the Court before they are finished for the summer. Quips Stern darkly today: "We've got a handful left, and we will see if the Supreme Court breaks our democracy before the end of the term."

Finally, we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, with a bit more news out of SCOTUS and lower federal courts, including some surprisingly very good news on several controversial oil and gas pipelines!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Big and bad news for pipelines, good news for those who oppose them; Japan reeling from another round of record rains and catastrophic floods; Warren Buffett bids to control nearly 20 percent of nation's natural gas storage; PLUS: House Democrats unveil comprehensive proposal to reach net zero emissions by 2050... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Climate Activists See ‘New Era’ After Three Major Oil and Gas Pipeline Defeats; Climate change denial expands on Facebook as scientists face restrictions; Grim Day for Pipelines Shows They’re Almost Impossible to Build; US signs order for first West Coast gas-export terminal; Rapid Arctic Meltdown In Siberia Alarms Scientists... PLUS: Think Covid-19 Disrupted the Food Chain? Wait and See What Climate Change Will Do... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Powerful Cyclone Amphan headed for one of the world's poorest regions amid a pandemic; Man-made climate change leading to more intense hurricanes; Trump E.P.A. refuses to limit toxic rocket-fuel chemical in your drinking water; PLUS: What the Covid crisis should teach us about the climate crisis... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): EPA Settlements: Will Coronavirus get polluters off the hook?; Companies worth $2 trillion are calling for a Green Recovery;
When will renewables pass coal? Sooner than anyone thought; 'Stealth' bailout shovels millions of dollars to oil and gas companies; American Climate Video: In Case of Wildfire, Save Things of Sentimental Value... PLUS: Thinking of buying a bike? Get ready for a very long wait... and much, MUCH more! ...

At the BRAD BLOG and on today's BradCast, we'll even fight for Donald Trump's right to vote --- even from prison, should he find himself there at any time in the near-ish future. [Audio link to show follows below.]

But, first up today, a bit of impeachment-related news, even as Congress is on recess for the Thanksgiving holiday. The House Judiciary Committee (as opposed to the House Intelligence Committee) has announced a new impeachment hearing for next Wednesday. Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler sent a letter to the President on Tuesday, inviting him and his counsel to attend and potentially question witnesses in the hearing titled Titled "The Impeachment Inquiry into President Donald J. Trump: Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment." Along with his invitation, Nadler also offered a warning about the White House's continued refusal to make witnesses and documents available to the Constitutional proceedings in the U.S. House.

In related news, Trump's Dept. of Justice on Tuesday filed for a stay to a blistering federal court ruling ordering that former White House Counsel Don McGahn appear for scheduled testimony in response to a lawful Congressional subpoena regarding the House's examination of the Robert Mueller investigation. McGahn played a key role in the probe, helping to detail Trump's multiple attempts to obstruct the Special Counsel's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and Team Trump's cooperation with the effort.

The DoJ is now seeking a pause pending an appeal to U.S. District Judge Ketanji Jackson Brown's scathing 121-page ruling [PDF] issued on Monday, in which she eviscerated the DoJ argument that Presidents and their current and former White House officials enjoy "absolute immunity" from Constitutionally-mandated Congressional oversight. "Stated simply," the Judge wrote, "the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings."

Trump, however, appears to feel otherwise. In addition to appealing the order, Trump tweeted today that "The D.C. Wolves and Fake News Media are reading far too much into people being forced by Courts to testify before Congress," adding that while he "would love" to have top Executive Branch officials like Sec. of State Mike Pompeo, acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security Advisor John Bolton testify in impeachment hearings in the Ukraine bribery affair, he is only "fighting for future Presidents and the Office of the President. Other than that, I would actually like people to testify."

But whether Trump wins his "absolute immunity" defense while President, it is unlikely to help him once he is out of office. To that end, yes, we'd hate to see him lose his right to vote if he ever should find himself imprisoned for any of his countless crimes. In the meantime, however, there are millions in prison who have already lost that right --- a right, not a privilege, even if many treat it that way --- while behind bars. There has been some noteworthy successful (and even bi-partisan in some cases) efforts of late in a number of states to help enfranchise former felons or those out of jail on probation or parole though state constitutional amendments, legislation or executive actions. But when it comes to the right to vote for those still in prison, the debate has been slower and more contentious. Currently, only Maine and Vermont allow prisoners to vote, a policy which Vermont's U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders strongly defended during a CNN Presidential Candidate Town Hall earlier this year.

At the same time, as our guest today, DANIEL NICHANIAN, Editor of The Appeal Political Report (better known as @Taniel on Twitter) points out, lawmakers in eight states and D.C. have filed legislation this year to allow people behind bars to exercise the right to vote. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) has done the same at the federal level.

After a Republican New York state Assemblyman recently described a state Senate bill there that would enfranchise convicts as "insulting [to] members of law enforcement and the criminal justice system who worked diligently to get these dangerous predators off the street," Nichanian reached out to prosecutors, correctional facility officers and elected officials in Maine and Vermont to see if they agreed. You'll be surprised to learn that not one of them did, with almost all either finding it to be no problem or, more frequently, lauding the connection to "the real world" that voting allows imprisoned citizens as they pay their debt to society.

Nichanian, a Senior Fellow at the Justice Collaborative and expert on criminal justice reform and mass incarceration, shares insight from the officials he spoke with, and explains why reform on this issue (which disproportionately affects minorities) --- and a number of related topics --- is long overdue.

"We are not treating the right to vote as an inalienable, fundamental right of U.S. democracy, as a right that every citizen should have, and have protected," he tells me, explaining why "ending felony disenfranchisement would also mean that law enforcement professionals are no longer the arbiters of who gets to exercise democratic rights."

Nichanian notes that "the way in which we talk about people who are incarcerated, it would seem like we forget that these people have families, they have kids who go to school, and the school board elections matter to them. They have families who also need to care about their elected officials."

"There's all sorts of arguments of whether people are worthy of voting or not, whether people have shown enough civic capacity to vote or not," he argues. "And I find all of that universe of questions to be questionable, because we are claiming for ourselves the power and authority to decide whether our fellow citizens should have the same rights as us. I find that to be a problematic question. And I think that's just the bottom line: whether we want the right to vote to be a protected right for all U.S. citizens."

He says that "we are definitely seeing the criminal justice reform conversation encompass these issues of rights restoration, as a tool of re-entry, as a tool of thinking about how people remain human, as a way of thinking about economic justice and racial justice throughout the process." But whether that, theoretically bipartisan effort will ultimately become a fight for re-enfranchising felons remains to be seen.

We also discuss how the imprisoned population is used in the fight over apportionment, with the incarcerated counted in the census and for redistricting purposes, even while that huge chunk of the population is disallowed from exercising any real political power through the vote. "The time to address it is literally now, because the next round of redistricting and map-drawing is coming up. If this is going to be reformed, it has to be in the next couple of years, or else we'll have ten more years of problems on this."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us today for our latest Green News Report as "climate emergency" is named "Word of the Year" by the Oxford Dictionary and, unfortunately, for very good reason...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate change finds its way into the latest Democratic debate; Greenhouse gas concentrations reach record highs; 2019 is the wettest year on record for the Lower 48; PLUS: The words heard 'round the world - "climate emergency" is Oxford Dictionary's 2019 'Word of the Year'... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): U.N.: 'Bleak' outlook as carbon emissions gap grows; Trump EPA scales back safety rules adopted after chemical blast; No, koalas aren't 'functionally extinct'—yet; Supreme Court won't throw out climate scientist's defamation suit; 'Biblical destruction' from storms in Europe; New solar heat technology could help solve tricky industrial heat problem; How cities are turning food into fuel; Tesla's Big Battery to get even bigger... PLUS: 10 ways to accelerate progress against climate change... and much, MUCH more! ...