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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump Admin fires Acting FEMA Director just before hurricane season begins; NOAA will stop tracking billion-dollar weather disasters; Forest officials warn wildfire crews are short-staffed due to Trump cuts; PLUS: Texas legislature moves to require solar plants to provide power at night... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Farmer on clean energy foes: "These people are being manipulated"; Running blind: The silencing and censoring of environmental threats to US national security; What's the cost to society of pollution? Trump says zero; House GOP targets clean energy tax credits and pollution rules in budget bill; Global sea levels are rising faster and faster. It spells catastrophe for coastal towns and cities; PLUS: Enviros release climate emissions data after EPA refused... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump Administration denies disaster aid for Arkansas, Kentucky and other states; Nationwide blackouts hit Spain and Portugal; The world's biggest oil companies have caused $28 trillion in climate damages; PLUS: Trump fires all the scientists working on the U.S. Government's flagship climate change assessment... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): A grim signal: Atmospheric CO2 soared in 2024; DOGE employees gain accounts on classified networks holding nuclear secrets; Scientists are raising the alarm about Trump's deep sea mining executive order; Oil companies downplayed extent of spills in Gulf of Mexico; North Dakota enacts first US law shielding Roundup from some cancer lawsuits; Interior plan slashes oil and gas environmental reviews to 1 month... PLUS: Report on national monuments being eyed for energy draws concerns... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Largest coral bleaching event on record, impacting 84% of world's reefs; Trump says he loves coal miners even while cutting programs that help keep miners alive; PLUS: Trump White House guts funding for federal climate and weather research... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Nearly half of Americans breathing unsafe levels of air pollutants; Interior Department to fast-track oil, gas and mining projects; GOP support of carbon capture fractures in Louisiana, nationally; How "beautiful clean coal" is raising costs, and killing us; Oregon House passes bill making large data centers pay for power grid costs; From China to EU, world leaders meet on climate without US officials... PLUS: The economic case for preserving America's wetlands... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: While we were out...The Trump Administration halted construction of major offshore wind farm; Trump EPA exempted U.S. coal plants from new mercury pollution rules; PLUS: Pope Francis, champion of climate action and environmental justice, has left the building... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Exxon presses Supreme Court to rescind your rights; Restarting coal plants after Trump's executive orders makes no economic sense, report says; Trump opens a huge marine protected zone to industrial fishing; Trump touts 'clean coal' but cuts programs that protect miners; Appeals court halts federal judge's order mandating EPA disburse billions to climate groups... PLUS: Texas oilfield company and executive plead guilty in hydrogen sulfide deaths... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Flood-ravaged Carolinas struck by another round of wildfires, as Trump pushes to dismantle FEMA; Melting glaciers around the world threaten water supplies for billions of people; PLUS: Fossil fuel industry pushing Congress to give it 'immunity' from liability for climate damages... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The doublespeak of Energy Secretary Chris Wright; Congress seeks trillions in cuts. Will oil industry's tax breaks skate by?; NIH ends future funding to study the health effects of climate change; The vicious cycle of extreme heat leading to more fossil fuel use; Juliana v. US: Supreme Court decision brings 10-year climate case to an end; Fossil-funded research used to avoid paying workers hurt by 2010 Gulf spill... PLUS: Climate deniers shift focus to renewable energy skepticism... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump Administration's federal funding freeze hits America's farmers hard; Extreme drought, high winds spark more than a hundred wildfires in the Carolinas; PLUS: Trump and Musk fire experienced meteorologists from the National Weather Service... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 50 percent GDP collapse ahead from climate impacts? Actuaries sound the alarm --- who is listening?; Ontario will cut off U.S. electricity exports 'with a smile on my face,' Ford says; In many of Appalachia’s flood-ravaged areas, residents have little choice but rebuild in risky locations; Trump DOJ to drop lawsuit against polluting LA petrochemical plant; How to eat and drink fewer microplastics... PLUS: Wall Street Journal: Clean energy transition is unstoppable... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Top federal prosecutor resigns over improper Trump order to claw back EPA grants for clean energy; Fossil-fueled extreme weather has tripled the price of cocoa and coffee; PLUS: 'King' Trump cancels New York City's successful, first-in-the-nation congestion pricing... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump moves to claw back almost 50 years of NEPA regulations; Electricity demand surges for the world’s two biggest polluters; New EV batteries are making electric cars cheaper and safer; We may be able to trap climate pollution in ordinary rocks; Trump clamps down on independent agencies' power... PLUS: Hurricane Helene’s profound impact on N.C. farms is only now coming into clearer focus... and much, MUCH more! ...

Until they wised-up and changed the lyrics of the Gilligan's Island theme song at the beginning of Season 2, to also mention "the Professor and Mary Ann", the song originally referred to only those two (of just seven!) castaways as simply "and the rest". While the nation has understandably been focused on Trump and Musk's almost complete shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Elon's DOGE Bros' takeover of the computer payment system at U.S. Treasury that cuts checks for about 95% of payments made by the nation each year (about $6 trillion worth), the shutdowns, pauses and freezes at other critical, if smaller or lesser well-known agencies, has felt a bit like "and the rest." On today's BradCast, we focus on...well, the Professor and Maryanne for a bit...along with the other Castaways as well. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Tortured TV metaphor aside, we're joined today by award-winning, best-selling investigative journalist and author DAVID DAYEN, Executive Editor of The American Prospect, to discuss a few government agencies that Donald Trump has pretty much completely put out of business for the moment, maybe permanently, and completely unlawfully.

This week, Dayen reported at TAP about Trump's takeover of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created in 2011 in response to the Great Recession. It is the only federal agency specifically focused on protecting consumers. It was the brain-child of Elizabeth Warren during the Obama Administration, before she became a U.S. Senator, and it actually holds major banks and other huge corporations financially responsible to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars for ripping off Americans. No wonder the Republicans have been trying to shut it down since its inception. Now, as we discuss today, it appears they have done so. Unlawfully.

In late November, Elon Musk posted on Twitter/X: "Delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies." In fact, the CFPB doesn't duplicate the work of any other federal agency. But the small, independent Bureau very well might have made it more difficult for Musk to take advantage of suckers on X with a new payment app he is rolling out.

Trump's newly-minuted U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent --- who allowed the DOGE Bros into the agency's computer payment system --- is also serving as Acting head of the CFPB. "The first thing Bessent did is he said, 'Put a pause on all litigation, all enforcement, all rule-making, and all communications,'" at CFPB, Dayen explains today. "They've basically turned the agency into a ghost town." Employees there tell him they are still able to do things like examine data and work on reports. But they just can't publish them or act on anything "that can protect consumers in real time."

We also discuss how Trump has effectively shut down the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with his unlawful removal of one of its Commissioners (who is now suing). Without her there, the Board which adjudicates union elections, worker rights and investigates labor law violations, no longer has a quorum to do any of that. "So it's a free pass for companies who don't want any consequences for union busting behavior to just continue to do it, appeal everything into a netherworld that half-exists and half-doesn't now," Dayen says.

All of this is illegal, of course. But Trump's captured DoJ certainly isn't going to do anything about it. Will the courts? As you know, SCOTUS has been captured and corrupted as well.

Dayen tells me he is also very concerned about whatever the DOGE Bros are doing inside of the nation's payment system at Treasury. Shortly after my conversation today with him, however, the news broke that Musk's lead Bros inside of Treasury's computer system, 25-year old Marko Elez, had resigned after a series of racist posts were discovered from a Twitter/X account that he deleted in December. If you're wondering if those posts are somehow out-of-context or written years ago, just last July he Tweeted: "Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool." So, yeah.

Also today, we discuss some of the very serious and under-reported concerns regarding the H5N1 bird flu above and beyond what it is doing to spike the price of eggs on grocery store shelves. The virus appears to be both quickly spreading AND mutating. Unfortunately, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) are also effectively handcuffed by the Trump Administration in what they are allowed to study any communicate to the public about it. Not that Trump that we have reason to worry about Trump's leadership during a deadly pandemic or anything.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with more news on the DOGE Bros' ongoing infiltration and attack on the U.S. Government and our Constitutional order, such as over at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where they have reportedly now descended, after the disgraced "scientist" who helped facilitate Trump's fake hurricane in Alabama years ago (remember "SharpieGate"?) has now been tapped to run the entire agency. In addition to producing critical climate and data on our oceans, the agency also houses the National Weather Service, which Project 2025 calls for privatizing. Sadly, she has even more today. Though we do close on an amusing note!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Donald Trump's on-again, off-again tariff threats spike global energy prices; Administration deletes climate change and environmental justice across the government; Study finds microplastics in human brains; PLUS: Trump dumped billions of gallons of much-needed reservoir water in California... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): How climate change could upend the American Dream; Tribes push to control reservation water as Wyoming seeks to send it outside; In wind for Trump, Shell walks away from major New Jersey offshore wind farm; State Farm seeks an emergency insurance rate increase after LA wildfires; PLUS: Rats! More rodents are infesting cities as scientists blame warmer temperatures... and much, MUCH more! ...

When we allow a felon to become President of the United States (thanks, in no small part, to extreme rightwing activists on the Supreme Court ignoring and rewriting the 14th Amendment), it's not surprising that he'd quickly begin violating laws and undermining the U.S. Constitution. When that felon also hopes to be a dictator, we certainly shouldn't be surprised that one of his first targets is the Constitution's landmark guarantees of a free press, as discussed on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

FIRST... Unfortunately, the First Amendment isn't the only one Donald Trump is hoping to dismantle. According to nonprofit news outlet CalMatters, ICE has already begun rounding up migrant workers in Central California, resulting in about 75% of farm-workers staying home this week during peak harvest season for oranges and other produce in America's "Salad Bowl". If that continues longer term, economists are predicting "absolute economic devastation" locally, skyrocketing food prices and shortages across the country nationally, along with a "recession-level event if this is the new long-term norm."

In related news, Trump's Executive Order signed on Monday, seeking to redefine, by fiat, the text and clear meaning of the 14th Amendment's very first sentence establishing birthright citizenship to anyone born here, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents, ran into its first legal roadblock in Court on Wednesday. A Reagan-appointed federal judge declared today that the Order "boggles the mind," calling it "blatantly unconstitutional". He temporarily paused the Order nationwide in the first of five different challenges brought by 22 state Attorneys General. If allowed to be enacted, as one of the challengers argued in court today, it would "impact hundreds of thousands of citizens nationwide who will lose their citizenship under this new rule."

THEN... Trump doesn't seem to much care for the First Amendment either. And, shamefully, a number of mainstream broadcast news outlets owned by major corporations have been all too eager to help him dismantle it. See Disney-owned ABC News' pathetic agreement in December to settle Trump's absurdly frivolous lawsuit with blatantly unconstitutional claims. Instead of fighting the defamation suit, they agreed to contribute $15 million to Trump's Presidential Library fund. See also the reports last week that Paramount-owned CBS News is in talks to do the same thing over another ridiculous complaint that 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris in a way that Trump didn't like.

While those outfits are settling private lawsuits, Trump's new Federal Communications Commission Chair, Brendan Carr is weaponizing the FCC to go after the same news outlets. Last week, President Biden's outgoing Chair dismissed several specious complaints against ABC, CBS and NBC that echoed Trump's private lawsuits, declaring "the FCC should not be the President's speech police" and that "the FCC should not be journalism's censor-in-chief." This week, however, the newly seated Carr un-dismissed those complaints (if not the ones against a Fox affiliate, for some reason).

We're joined today by JOHN BERGMAYER, the Legal Director at good government group Public Knowledge. He charges that "Chairman Carr has made it plain he intends to weaponize the FCC to threaten political speech and news coverage he disagrees with." You're not surprised right?

"We have things like defamation law against a public figure, but you can't just prove that they are wrong, or you disagree with them, or they're being unfair or 'mean to me'. You have to prove they are 'actively deciding to harm me' through conscious deception," Bergmayer explains today. "That's a very hard standard to meet. I don't think any of these cases meet the very tough requirements for the FCC to decide in the complainants favor."

He also adds: "It's really notable that Chairman Carr did not reinstate a complaint that was against a Fox affiliate in Philadelphia, that was based on the Fox affiliate airing information that it knew, that was judged to be, defamatory."

"It really is a troubling sign that the current Chairman views these regulatory tools as a means to advance his cultural and partisan agenda," Bergmayer tells me. "What's particularly disturbing is that the Chairman wants to pick fights with the First Amendment rights of broadcasters or use dubious theories of law to go after perceived slights by Big Tech."

We also discuss the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling earlier this month that appears to end the FCC's ability, as a federal agency, to ensure Net Neutrality and an Open Internet (not that Trump or his FCC would have any particular interest in doing so.)

FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, following an unprecedented blizzard in the U.S. South; yet another new, climate-changed fueled fire amid record dry weather here in L.A. County; Trump's delusional claims about California's water supply; and more...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.N. plastics treaty negotiations collapse in South Korea; U.N. COP29 climate talks end with weak agreement in Azerbaijan; PLUS: Extreme drought is an immigration issue, study warns... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Landmark climate change case opens at the top UN court as island nations fear rising seas; Microplastics are sickening and killing wildlife, disrupting Earth systems; Here’s what happened when experts at COP29 played a climate change board game; How MAGA wants jurists to reshape climate policy; A warning from California's record marine heat wave; UN calls for $2.6 trillion investment to reverse land degradation; News Corp's ‘Special Report’ on natural gas was paid for by industry... PLUS: Inside the plastic industry's battle to win over hearts and minds... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Cuba hit with double whammy --- first a national power outage, then Hurricane Oscar; Historic rains, flooding strike New Mexico, France, and Bangladesh; World sees largest, longest coral bleaching event on record; PLUS: Oil lobby prepares to overturn Biden climate rules under Trump... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The Coming Financial Hurricane: How Hurricane Milton and other climate chaos could trigger the next economic crisis; Can the tire industry be sustainable? Guayule farmers say yes; AR may have vast lithium reserves; U.S. approves mega geothermal energy project in Utah; Flesh-eating bacteria cases rise in Florida after hurricanes Helene and Milton; Extreme storms have obvious and not-so-obvious economic impacts; IEA expects global clean energy investment to hit $2 trillion in 2024... PLUS: One of the largest solar projects in US opens in Texas, backed by Google... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The planet just lived through the hottest summer ever recorded --- again; Extreme heat and wildfires broil the U.S. West, as storm Francine threatens the U.S. Gulf Coast; PLUS: State Ag Commissioner warns parts of Texas are running out of water... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Debate Night! Hot Hot Hot; 1 in 4 U.S. homeowners is financially unprepared for costs of extreme weather, report finds; How Trump could turn a $400 billion Green Bank into a fossil fuel lender; Solar farms look to produce more than power: pollinator-friendly habitat; Planes, trains and monster diggers: The vehicles pushing the limits of electric power ... PLUS: Conservative activist Leonard Leo launches $1 billion crusade to 'crush' liberal media... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

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

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