On today's BradCast: It's crunch time for our disgraced former President in his old home state. Sad! But they ain't playin' in New York. So, get your popcorn ready. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

But first, a few other news items of note...

• The past year has been the warmest on record globally --- on both land and sea --- for likely the last 100,000 years. Some of that warming has long been predicted by scientists, thanks to the continuing release of emissions from burning fossil fuels that are the main cause of global warming. But the sudden spike over the past 12 months has been far worse than predicted based on years of data and computer modeling. Top climate scientists are now baffled about the cause and wondering if, perhaps, they've been low-balling the climate change crisis in their modelling.

• More good news for student loan borrowers today. The Biden Administration is forgiving another $6 billion in loans to some 78,000 public-service workers who were promised over a decade ago that their service would eventually help forgive their debt, only to be lied to and misled by schools and private companies administering their federal loans. President Biden is correcting that today, and will also be informing an additional 380,000 borrowers that they will also see their debt wiped out over the next two years if they keep their payments up to date. As of now, the Administration has forgiven nearly $144 billion in debt, even after the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court corruptly blocked his original plan for $430 billion in debt relief.

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Cairo on Thursday called for an "immediate, sustained ceasefire" and the release of all hostages in Gaza. He said the Administration is supporting U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for same, and reiterated U.S. opposition to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's promised offensive in Rafah unless accommodations are in place to prevent still more harm, death and starvation of the civilian population sheltering in southern Gaza. At the same time, the far-right Prime Minister --- facing felony charges whenever he finally leaves office --- is taking aim at high-ranking Jewish leaders in the U.S. like longtime Israel supporter and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, for having dared to call for new elections in Israel.

• New campaign fundraising numbers are out this week via the Federal Election Commission and reveal that the Biden Campaign and his affiliated fundraising groups are far outpacing the Trump Campaign and its affiliated groups. The Biden Campaign now has more than double the amount of cash on hand as Trump does, even as most of the funds raised by the former President has gone to cover his legal bills over the past year.

• But the jig may finally be up for Donald Trump in New York, where he must come up with some $464 million dollars in cash or bonds by this Monday to avoid the start of seizure of his assets by the state following his loss in the state's civil trial against him, his company and his two eldest sons for massive bank, tax and insurance fraud. Reportedly, the office of state Attorney General Letitia James has already filed judgements in both New York City (home of Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street and other major property assets) and Westchester County (the location of one of his golf courses and an estate he owns called Seven Springs). The filing of judgements is the first step toward the state's seizure of Trump properties as well as bank and brokerage accounts. That process could begin as early as Monday if Trump is unable to come up with a half-billion dollar bond or get some other form of emergency relief from the NY state appeals court between now and then. Moreover, today the trial judge in the case expanded strict oversight by a court-appointed monitor of just about every financial event or attempted event at the Trump Organization to help ensure the longtime con-man is unable to move funds around or pull off any other chicanery to avoid accountability. As noted, they ain't playin' in NY!

• But it's not only civil accountability barreling toward Trump in New York. The judge overseeing his upcoming criminal trial, likely to begin next month, related to hush-money payments made before and after the 2016 election, issued a ruling this week on what evidence may and may not be presented at trial by each side. As WaPo's Jennifer Rubin detailed today, it "couldn't have gone worse for Trump". Judge Juan Merchan, she reports, "ruled against [Trump] in virtually all of his motions to exclude evidence. By contrast, the judge largely granted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s motions to exclude evidence for trial that Trump believed might be exculpatory." The ruling, Rubin suggests, indicates Merchan "will not indulge Trump’s antics nor allow the trial to devolve into a spectacle." We'll see about that. But, she adds: "Based on these rulings, Trump should be quaking in his boots."

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with more stunning heat records in South America (144°F heat index in Rio!); the Biden EPA's largest climate regulation ever; a climate "red alert" issued by the U.N.; and new remarks from ExxonMobil's sleazy CEO Darren Woods claiming that climate change isn't his company's fault, it's YOURS!...

NOTE: Both BradCast and Green News Report will be standing down next week for a much-needed Spring Break! I'm sure it'll be a totally slow news week anyway. We'll see you after Easter!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Biden EPA issues new tailpipe emissions and pollution rules, the most significant climate regulation in U.S. history; Rio de Janeiro hits record 144°F heat index; Exxon CEO blames the victim, says climate change is your fault; PLUS: U.N. weather agency issues 'red alert' in new State of the Climate Report... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Why Is the Sea So Hot?; Oil executives, meeting in Texas, cast doubts on 'fantasy' energy transition; World 'losing the battle' against electronic waste, UN finds; Natural gas industry blocks building codes meant to make going electric cheaper; Only seven countries meet WHO air quality standard, research finds; Chevron agrees to pay over $13M in penalties for CA oil spills; Lead in water a threat to two-thirds of young children in Chicago; Petrochemicals are killing us, a new report warns in top medical journal... PLUS: NASA scientist: 2023 heat may put world in "uncharted territory"... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: Some very good news about Democrats. Specifically, for the President and the post-pandemic economic recovery. And a bunch of good news about Republicans. At least for those who enjoy watching the fish rot from the head down.

As detailed on today's program...

• Yet more excellent economic numbers were released on Thursday by the Commerce Department, easily beating professional expectations on GDP growth, leading one of those experts to describe the newly released 2023 fourth-quarter numbers as "stunning and spectacular." They are, in fact, just one of the economic indicators that are now better even than the pre-pandemic years, as GDP continues to rise, unemployment remains very low, wages are growing faster than inflation, which is now down below targets set by the Federal Reserve, and the recession that experts predicted for last year is still nowhere in sight. They are the kind of numbers that the former President would have declared as "the greatest economy in U.S. history" and about which TIME Magazine would have put his face on the cover with the headline: "The Man Who Saved the American Economy!" Will any of that happen now that Joe Biden --- who received a rousing endorsement for his 2024 campaign from the half-a-million-strong United Autoworkers Union yesterday --- is the President, rather than Trump? Will anybody in America even hear about these "stunning" numbers and "spectacular" economic growth?

• As to the good news about Republicans, we start with Trump's former Trade Advisor, Peter Navarro. Today he was sentenced by a federal judge in D.C. to four months in prison for two counts of Contempt of Congress after refusing to respond to two 2022 subpoenas from the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee that had been investigating the Trump-incited January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Poor Peter. Perhaps he'll be cell mates with Steve Bannon who received a similar sentence in 2022 for the same crimes.

• A wildly obnoxious member of the far-right extremist Proud Boys group attacked the D.C. Circuit Court's Chief Judge during sentencing on Wednesday as a "clown" and a "fraud". He received 6 years in prison in return for his part in the deadly January 6 insurrection and for attempting to organize a subsequent attack on the government in Portland, Oregon described as "January 6 2.0".

• But, as the fish rots from the head down, it's rotting GOP state parties outside of Washington as well. There is an ongoing, vicious --- and, at times, even violent --- legal dispute --- between the now-ousted Michigan GOP Chair, election denier and failed 2022 Sec. of State nominee Kristina Karamo, and the bulk of the state party that ousted her --- over who now actually controls the state party apparatus in the critical battleground state. In Florida, the recently ousted state party Chair Christian Ziegler -- hand-picked by Ron DeSantis --- is being investigated by state law enforcement on charges of "video voyeurism", after being accused of rape by a woman with whom he and his wife, Bridget Ziegler, the hypocritical anti-LGBTQ co-founder of "Moms for Liberty", had thrupled with --- and secretly videotaped during sex.

  And this week, on Wednesday, Jeff DeWit, Chair of Arizona's Republican Party, abruptly resigned after audio tapes were released by election denier and failed Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in which he appears to be begging her to accept a bribe for not running for the U.S. Senate in the state this year.

  So, that's three GOP state Chairs (the "Party of Law and Order") in three critical swing-states, all being hilariously ousted after allegations of incompetency, sexual battery or bribery within a matter of weeks, in the middle of, arguably, the most important Presidential election year in American history. Keep up the great work, state Republicans!

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as astonishing climate change-fueled extreme weather continues to batter the infrastructure across U.S. cities; ExxonMobil sues its own shareholders so they can try to keep polluting as long as possible; and the U.S. Postal Service finally begins rolling out its new fleet of clean electric delivery vehicles, thanks to demands from climate advocates and funding from Joe Biden and the Democrats...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Astonishing record rain and flash flooding cause widespread damage in San Diego; Despite recent cold, Winter overall is getting warmer in the U.S.; Oil giant ExxonMobil sues its own shareholders to block climate initiatives; PLUS: USPS unveils new EV charging stations and delivery vehicles... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Plastic bag bans have already prevented billions of bags from being used, report finds; Biden vetoes GOP measure to block EV charging stations; Biden pauses LNG approval process; Scientific breakthrough may save northern white rhino through surrogacy; Why the war in Ukraine is bad for climate science... PLUS: Atomic scientists keep 'Doomsday Clock' as close to midnight as ever... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Happy 2024! While we were out...December 2023 was the hottest December on record, and 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded; Warm winter causing snow drought in U.S.; Landmark youth climate lawsuit to finally proceed to trial; PLUS: Some good news, including the historic Endangered Species Act turning 50... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Big oil 'fully owned the villain role' in 2023, the hottest year ever recorded; Brace Yourself For A Blockbuster Year On Energy And Climate; West Australia bans commercial native logging; Europe Escaping Russia's Gas Blackmail with Clean Energy; A flood-prone historic site decides to live with rising water rather than fight it; What If Farmers Had to Pay for Water?; Polar Bear Dies From Bird Flu As H5N1 Spreads Across Globe... PLUS: Floatovoltaics Could Help The Southwest Generate Power And Conserve Water... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Powerful Category 5 Hurricane Otis slams into Mexico and the history books; Demand for fossil fuels will peak by 2030, IEA projects; Big Oil doubles down, acquiring new fossil fuel reserves; PLUS: New Republican House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson is a climate science denier (of course)... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Cyclone Tej causes dramatic flooding in Yemen; Debunking 21 misleading myths about EVs; Inside the campaign to put an oil boss in charge of the COP28 climate summit; Earth's vital signs worse that at any time in human history; Company works to replace fossil fuel heating with batteries; Fossil fuel firms spent millions on US lawmakers who sponsored anti-protest bills... PLUS: The trillion-dollar quest to make green steel... and much, MUCH more! ...

Global chaos continues today on The BradCast, in Gaza, in elections around the world, in the U.S. House and, of course, for our worsening climate crisis. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Our coverage today includes...

• ISRAEL V. HAMAS: Some encouraging news last night, after an apparent diplomatic breakthrough on opening up the Gaza Strip to humanitarian aid seemed possible following days of shuttle diplomacy by U.S. Sec. of State Antony Blinken and some nine hours of marathon negotiations with Israel's P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu. The effort, reportedly at the direction of President Biden, resulted in the announcement that he would be visiting Tel Aviv on Wednesday --- a first for a U.S. President during war time --- for a meeting with Netanyahu, followed by meetings with the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority in Jordan. The last part of that encouraging news may have begun to disintegrate with the late Tuesday bombing of a hospital in Gaza, said to have killed hundreds of civilians, including women and children. Hamas blames Israel. Israel blames Hamas. The innocent people of Gaza pay the price.

• DEMOCRACY V. AUTOCRACY: There were elections both in the U.S. and several nations around the world over the weekend. In three of the four cases --- Louisiana, Ecuador and New Zealand --- the news was not good for small "d" democrats (or capital "D" democrats in Louisiana), as voters chose rightwingers to displace progressives (or conservative Democrats in Louisiana). But don't forget about Poland! There the news was far better in a nation which has had a front-row seat to the existential battle against fascism, as it borders both democratic Ukraine and Vladimir Putin's authoritarian Russia. Polish voters, in record numbers, voted out the ruling far-right party in favor of opposition centrist and progressive parties led by former EU President Donald Tusk. Good news indeed in perhaps the weekend's most important election.

• U.S. HOUSE CHAOS: After winning his party's nomination to become House Speaker last week, election denialist and far-right Ohio Republican Jim Jordan was unable to win the 217 vote majority from his own caucus in the first round of voting on the House floor on Tuesday after GOP hard-liners deposed former Speaker Kevin McCarthy two weeks ago, and then refused to support the winner of the private caucus election that nominated Steve Scalise last week. Republicans no longer recognize elections as valid, unless they win them. As TPM's Josh Marshall recently wrote, regarding the election denialism Republicans invented to try and steal elections from Democrats in 2020, "It’s like the virus had escaped the lab. It wasn’t just Freedom Caucus weirdos anymore. It's now treated as a given that caucus elections are purely advisory or essentially meaningless." Or, as TAP's David Dayen quipped last week, while asserting that the internecine House GOP chaos "could really go on indefinitely" and that the lack of a House Speaker actually matters to millions of Americans (including you this Thanksgiving), "In the Future, Everyone Will Be Speaker for 15 Minutes."

• CLIMATE REALITY AND LIES: Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the Mississippi River hits records lows amid drought, along with rivers in the Brazilian Amazon Basin; Exxon Mobil makes a huge investment to expand its deadly fossil fuel production, even as climate change ravages bees, beer, coffee and chocolate; and years-long GOP lies about China taking no action on climate change are exposed as lies yet again...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Mighty Mississippi River falls to new record lows; Exxon Mobil acquires a major fracking company, expanding its fossil fuel production; PLUS: Climate change is coming for bees, beer, coffee and chocolate... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Biden's 'hydrogen hubs' will receive $7 billion in federal funding; Record-breaking wildfires blanket Brazil with smoke; One million coal jobs face the axe globally by 2050; Company drops plan for gas power plant in polluted New Jersey town; Pakistan floods: Climate change is the catastrophe to end all other catastrophes; Data: Global warming may be accelerating... PLUS: Farm in Kenya first to produce fossil-free fertilizer on site... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: California sues Big Oil over climate damages; Another investigation shows Big Oil execs plotted to deceive the public, discredit climate science, and delay action; PLUS: Mass protesters demand the end of the fossil fuel era as Climate Week and UN General Assembly get underway... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): New study debunks anti-heat pump propaganda; Ohio to become manufacturing hub for electric flying taxis; Pepsi Tesla semi-truck proves long-range battery capability in real-world test; Biden to target industrial pollution in a 2nd Term, if he gets one; States are criminalizing climate/environmental protests; Dire warnings about Libya dams went unheeded; How a national macro-grid could accelerate the movement to electrify everything; Ohio injection wells suspended over 'imminent danger’ to drinking water'... PLUS: A summer light show dims: why are fireflies disappearing?... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Amidst all the madness, we take a moment to revisit a continuing stain on the nation and what can be done about it, with a longtime friend of this program. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

FIRST UP, however, a few news headlines...

• The cost of our climate crisis strikes home for a huge swath of the nation, as smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires chokes American states from Minnesota to New York to the Ohio Valley to the Carolinas.
• Joe Biden's EPA announces it is sending $115 million to Jackson, Mississippi to begin repairing the city's long deteriorating water system. It's the first of some $600 million Congress has allocated to support long-overdue water infrastructure upgrades in the state's capital city, where more than 80% of the population is Black and drinking water supplies have repeatedly failed in recent years.
• The corrupt U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has asked for another 90 days before filing his annual financial disclosures, following months of brutal investigative reporting revealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of his undisclosed luxury vacations, real estate deals and more with billionaire GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.

THEN, we're joined by Alabama's former Democratic Governor DON SIEGELMAN, who recently penned an op-ed at Washington Post with the state's former Republican Governor Robert Bentley. As explained in their piece, both men have come to "regret" overseeing executions during their time as the state's chief executive after witnessing, first hand, "the flaws in our nation's justice system" during their own prosecutions.

Siegelman discusses one death penalty case in particular, the 2000 execution of Freddie Lee Wright, which he says he is now "personally haunted by", telling me today that Wright "should never have been charged with capital murder in the first place. He was exonerated by a jury, 11-1 voted to acquit him of this crime. Then the D.A. came back and struck Blacks from the jury and got a conviction."

There are many other such cases, and he details a few of them. In fact, while AL currently has 167 people on death row, both Bentley and Siegelman write that "at least" 146 of them should have their death sentences commuted. Siegelman tells me he believes all of them should be spared from the barbaric practice of state execution.

He and Bentley are calling for several reforms of the criminal justice system, particularly as it applies to the death penalty. Siegelman details reforms he seeks for the secret Grand Jury system and the outrage of "judicial overrides" that allowed judges to overrule juries to issue death sentences and the lack of unanimous verdicts required for sentencing a convicted criminal to death.

Siegelman also discusses the politics of the death penalty, including during the time that he held the power to block executions as Governor. We discuss that awesome and horrible power as it is wielded by government officials today, even after all that we now know about the racial injustices of a Jim Crow era system that disproportionately targets people of color and has been found to have been exercised against innocent people in the cases of at least 12% of those who have been put to death.

"Here we are in 2023, still using a method that was devised after the Civil War as a way of thwarting a Black juror. The white power structure at the time had a unanimous verdict. But they said, 'No, you know, with Blacks being able to be on a jury, we can't risk not being able to put somebody to death when we want to, so let's go with a non-unanimous jury.' So that's where this relic of the Jim Crow era came from. It was purely a racist process."

"It is just wrong, certainly morally wrong, for Alabama or for any other state. Now Florida has even lowered the bar," notes Siegelman, citing a bill recently signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. "Alabama has a 10-2 verdict. Florida has an 8-4 verdict, to make it even easier to put people to death by this relic of the 1870s."

"Until I was actually convicted of something that didn't exist except in the minds of the prosecutors, I thought that our system would somehow or another work itself out and be fair," he tells me. "But at the moment that I heard the word 'guilty' from the foreman of my jury, I said a prayer. It was instantaneous, more like a flash, asking God to forgive me because I remembered setting execution dates as Attorney General. And I remembered those that came before me while I was Governor asking that their sentences be commuted."

"But it wasn't even then that I realized how perverted our system of justice is. If in everything there is a purpose, or in every situation one should find a purpose, it was as if God was telling me, 'Okay, Governor, you see what's wrong. Now go fix it.'"

NOTE: We have covered Gov. Siegelman's personal story many times over the past two decades, before, during and after his time as a political prisoner as he was targeted for prosecution by a corrupt Republican cabal, including Karl Rove, state officials, and a federal judge who was eventually forced to resign after being arrested for beating his wife. Alabama's Governor from 1999 to 2003 and the only Democrat to serve in every statewide office, Siegelman tells his story in full in his 2020 book, STEALING OUR DEMOCRACY: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation.

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In the first 43 days of 2023, there were 67 mass shootings. This is America. What, if anything, are we ever gonna do about it? Welcome to today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the many stories covered today...

• Three students were killed, five were in critical condition at Michigan State University's East Lansing campus as we went to air today, following yet another mass shooting massacre on Monday night. "Run, Hide, Fight" was the message texted to students by MSU at 8:31pm, as gun fire broke out. That might as well be the national anthem for a generation of students who grew up in the wake of the demise of the federal Assault Weapons Ban. It was allowed to expire in 2004 by George W. Bush and every terrorist-supporting Congressional Republican who, since then, has refused to renew it. They have chosen to place support for their donors in the deadly gun industry over the lives of tens of thousands of Americans killed by guns each and every year since. Horrifically, some of the students victimized by Monday's shooting at MSU had also lived through another mass shooting at their high school back in 2021.

• The author of the now-sunsetted 1994 federal Assault Weapons Ban, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), announced today that she will not be seeking reelection next year. The news was not a surprise. Three Democratic House members --- Katie Porter, Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee --- have already announced or made clear their intentions to run for the 89-year old Senator's seat next year. Feinstein's political career was formed, in no small part, out of gun violence after she personally attempted to save the life of Harvey Milk after the assassination of the San Francisco City Supervisor and then-Mayor George Moscone. She was elected to replace Moscone as Mayor and eventually became California's first female Senator. Today we share just one of the petty, ironic, patronizing attacks against her on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1993 --- by a later-discredited Republican Senator --- during her successful campaign to pass the landmark gun safety legislation.

• Former South Carolina Governor and Donald Trump's U.N. Ambassador Nikky Haley released a video on Tuesday declaring her intention to run for the 2024 Republican Presidential nomination. In it, she claims, "I don't put up with bullies". But her history as a 2016 Trump critic --- of his lying, support for the KKK and more --- before then choosing to become his U.N. Ambassador and sing his praises for years thereafter, suggests otherwise. That said, Trump, for reasons we explain today, is delighted to have her in the race.

• A lot of horrible stuff came out of Donald Trump's endless lies about voter fraud and his evidence-free claims that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen from him when, in fact, he was actually trying to steal the election from Joe Biden and the American people. There was his deadly 1/6/21 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, followed by a host of newly restrictive voting laws adopted by Republican-controlled states, using his false claims of fraud as cover for new means of voter suppression. But, in a (very) few cases, some GOPers have figured out that the computer voting systems and tabulators their party has supported for years, actually make it more difficult, if not impossible, for Americans to oversee the results of their own elections. Last month, a court in rural Cleburne County, Arkansas mandated a change from computer tabulated elections to hand-marked and hand-counted paper ballots. The group who pushed the measure hopes to do the same in the state's 74 other counties. At the same time, the County Clerk in Nye County, Nevada --- which moved last year to a hand-count protocol as a parallel tally to its computer tabulation --- says that the hand-counts by some 200 volunteers in the rural county were ultimately more accurate than the computer tallies. (Just as we've been trying to tell ya for about 20 years now.)

• Also, some important news was broken by the Washington Post over the weekend. But it was largely buried by the media's over-inflated panic about "balloons". As it turns out, Donald Trump's campaign paid some $600,000 to a research group in late 2020 for a study on that year's election results. Specifically, the firm was tasked to ferret out any possible evidence of fraud in six key swing-states that might have swung the election from Trump to Biden. As one of those familiar with the study explained to WaPo: "They looked at everything: change of addresses, illegal immigrants, ballot harvesting, people voting twice, machines being tampered with, ballots that were sent to vacant addresses that were returned and voted. Literally anything you could think of. Voter turnout anomalies, date of birth anomalies, whether dead people voted. If there was anything under the sun that could be thought of, they looked at it." But the results of the study were never released. Why? Because the well-paid researchers were unable to find any evidence that the election was stolen, fraudulent or even in error in anyway. The results were given to Trump, however, in December of 2020. Nonetheless, days later, on January 6, 2021, he continued his lies anyway, leading directly to the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, for which he has yet to be held to account in any way.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with the wildly under-reported news of the chemical train derailment, fire and controlled release of toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio last week; After ExxonMobil declared record profits last year, they have signaled their intent this year to do away with their algae biofuel research scam they've been green-washing their company with for years now; And some seemingly good news for EVs following Sunday's Super Bowl...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Ohio residents sue over fiery chemical train derailment after governor's decision to release toxic chemicals; Exxon drops its algae biofuel charade; PLUS: Electric vehicles dominate Super Bowl ads, signaling potential culture shift... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): As climate change disrupts ecosystems, a new outbreak of bird flu spreads to mammals; Deep sea mining noise poses harm to blue whales, scientists warn; Coal ash waste along shores of Great Lakes threatens water quality; US's first solar panels over canals pilot will deploy iron flow batteries; Ford to build EV battery plant in Michigan, use Chinese tech; Orphan well cleanup in Pennsylvania underscores enormity of task ... PLUS: Farewell radiators? Testing out electric infrared wallpaper ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Apparently, our week of GOP debunkery continues on today's BradCast. I have a feeling we may be at it for quite some time, as Republicans are just getting started with their crash and burn majority control of the U.S. House. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

On yesterday's program, we shared a few clips from interviews this week with the new Republican Chair of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky. He explained why he was dead set on his committee investigating the connection between classified documents found by Joe Biden's aides at his Delaware residence (and immediately returned to the federal government) and concerns about "influence peddling" by the President and his family. That, despite any actual evidence to support the allegations.

Comer also made clear he had no interest in his Committee investigating the former President, despite the hundreds of classified documents he'd stolen from the White House (and refused to return, with many still missing) and mountains of evidence of influence peddling by Donald Trump and many of his children, including son-in-law Jared Kushner who received $2 billion from the Saudis just after Trump left office.

There was one point Comer focused on, however, in an effort to buttress his case. "There's one email that's been identified that is suspicious, that we want to look into," he explained. "We want to make sure that this one email that was on Hunter Biden's laptop wasn't one of the classified documents" found at Biden's residence in DE.

This claim seems to stem from an allegation first published by a New York Post columnist, apparently. GOP Senators have also been citing the same claim of late. Sen. Ron Johnson (WI) recently argued on Fox Business that an email from 2014, said to have been found on what Republicans have long claimed to be an "abandoned" laptop from the President's son contained "a very detailed analysis of what's happening in Ukraine." Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) alleged on a podcast that information in the email "could easily have come from a classified briefing."

Washington Post's Glenn Kessler examined the allegation and the evidence today. He found that the facts stated in the 22-point email said to be from Hunter actually lined up with information that was not only on the public record at the time, but published by major news outlets just weeks before the date of the email. "Laptop email suggests Hunter Biden read newspapers, not classified documents," Kessler's headline reads today. He awarded "Three Pinocchios" to the claims from Johnson and Cruz, as echoed by Oversight Committee Chair Comer on Sunday.

At the same time, Hunter Biden, after years of staying quiet about all of this, appears to now be pushing back. His attorneys recently sent legal letters to Fox "News" and Tucker Carlson, for example, demanding they retract and apologize for what the letters characterize as defamatory statements. They've also sent letters seeking criminal investigations by both state and federal authorities into the dissemination of his personal data by folks like Rudy Giuliani in the run-up to the 2020 election, making clear that while some of the data discovered was his, he neither authorized its public release, nor dropped off an allegedly abandoned laptop at a repair shop, as the GOP story, initially spread by Giuliani, goes.

Much more on all of the above today. But if Republican members of Congress believe that House investigations into this sort of stuff is what voters want them to do, after months of campaigning on claims of out-of-control crime, record inflation, high gas prices, etc., they are likely very wrong. At least according to a new report on focus groups of independent voters in Wisconsin, Virginia and Texas.

Next up today, we share some of the remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the House floor today before a vote by House Republicans to remove her from the Foreign Affairs Committee based on comments they regard as anti-Israel four years ago. In truth, the move by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy --- who was finally able to scrounge up the minimum number of votes needed to remove her (all Dems voted in her favor) --- was clearly revenge for Democrats removing Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green (GA) and Paul Gosar (AZ) from their committee assignments during the last Congress. That, after they each posted violent threats against Democrats. (For example, Green promoted a comment from a supporter calling for the assassination of then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Gosar posted a video in which he is depicted as decapitating Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden with a ninja sword.)

Then, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as Big Oil profiteers announce all-time record profits after a year or two of inflating gas prices; and the Biden EPA announces some very good news for longtime opponents of what would have been a toxic mining project in a pristine part of Alaska.

Finally today, a programming announcement for The BradCast! We will be moving to a four-day-a-week, Monday through Thursday schedule (with rebroadcasts scheduled for Friday) for the foreseeable future. While there are no emergencies, as noted on the program, there are several reasons for this change. Catching up on some long overdue health issues (physical, emotional, mental) is just one of them. We're fine. But, after moving from a weekly to a daily schedule back in early 2015, in order to cover the 2016 elections, and then staying with that schedule thanks to the "surprise" ending of that election, and then continuing on through four years of Trump and a years-long pandemic...well, we've got a lot to catch up with here and hope you will both understand and forgive us for our need to take Fridays off for a while. Perhaps even permanently. (Feel free to leave any complaints in the comments section below, however!)

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Big Oil posts all-time high record profits; Biden hits the road to promote long-awaited infrastructure upgrades; Earth saw 42 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2022; PLUS: Biden EPA finally vetoes Alaska's controversial proposed Pebble Mine... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Biden Admin. recommends major Alaska oil project; Clean energy saw as much investment as fossil fuels for the first time in 2022; Arizona copper mine proposal could advance clean energy but scar sacred tribal lands; One of climate change's great mysteries - clouds --- may finally be solved; How just 25 oil companies are set to blow the world’s 1.5°C carbon budget; Global elite produce almost half greenhouse emissions, UN saysPLUS: The right words are crucial to solving climate change ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Seriously, what did you think was eventually going to happen after years of Republicans being lied to that elections were being rigged against them? Lots to discuss on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

The shooting spree for now --- we hope --- has come to an end in Bernalillo County (Albuquerque) New Mexico with the arrest of a Trump fan boy and failed Republican state House candidate who lost his election last November by nearly 50 points. With the help of four others, he's allegedly been shooting at the houses of local and state Democratic elected officials over the past month and a half. He was finally nabbed on Monday night. Luckily, no one was killed in the at least four houses he visited and targeted.

Today, we tell the story and detail how elections work in the state (after their disastrous use of touchscreens back in 2000, they now use hand-marked paper ballots tallied by computer tabulators with results confirmed, theoretically, by hand-counted, post-election audits); how the shooter should have been more of a concern much earlier (even before Republicans nominated this dude who only recently ended a 7-year prison sentence); and the fact that none of what happened over the past coupla months in the state's most populous Dem-leaning County should really have come as a surprise. After more than two years of Donald Trump lying about "rigged" elections --- and the state Republican party lying along with him --- it's almost more surprising that this hasn't happened sooner.

It was, as Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller observed at a news conference on Monday night after the arrest, "what we had all feared and what we had suspected --- that these shootings were indeed politically motivated." He correctly added: "They were dangerous attacks not only to these individuals … but, fundamentally, also to democracy. ... This was about a rightwing radical, an election denier ... And someone who did the worst imaginable thing you can do when you have a political disagreement, which is turn that to violence."

And, in another example today of why, when Republicans tell us what they are going to do, we should believe them: the GOP economic terrorists in the U.S. House, as Washington Post reported on Friday, are now making plans for crashing the nation's (and world's) economy by refusing to increase the U.S. debt limit this year.

Hopefully, there will be a large enough handful of not-insane Republicans in the House to work with Dems to raise it in order to pay for what the U.S. (Congress and Presidents of both parties) have already bought, so that we can avoid a first-ever default of U.S. Government debt payments. But, even the dangerous game that the hard-right, radical extremist Republicans are preparing for could send markets --- and the credit rating of the U.S. --- plummeting. As TPM's Josh Marshall smartly headlined a short item on some of these points over the weekend, paraphrasing an infamously ignored Presidential Daily Briefing from August of 2001: "House GOP Determined to Strike US".

Finally, with the seemingly endless storms in California finally ended, for now, we're back to the continuing water woes in the U.S. West. And it's not looking good for Arizona right now. Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on that and U.S. solar manufacturing seeing a massive boost, thanks to legislation passed by Dems and signed by President Biden last year (and opposed by all Congressional Republicans); and Exxon scientists from the 70s, sadly, are proven to have been exactly right in their warnings about climate change. Unfortunately, Exxon paid millions to make sure you never heard about those warnings...

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