It's our last BradCast today before our Thanksgiving break. And, frankly, it was a very different show than the one I went to bed last night pondering for today. Blame the pathetic, desperate, criminal coward in the White House. Again. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Today, in several posts to his failing social media site, an increasingly unhinged Donald Trump, the President of the United States, called for six Democratic members of Congress --- four House members and two Senators, all distinguished veterans of the U.S. armed forces or intelligence services --- to be killed.

Their "crime"? Advising U.S. service members, in a 90-second video on Tuesday, that they may --- indeed, they must --- "refuse illegal orders."

It's not particularly controversial. But today, Trump, who is floundering in virtually every aspect of his job, pretended to be outraged, repeatedly describing the comments from those Democrats as "SEDITIOUS", describing them as "TRAITORS" and calling for them to be put to "DEATH!" (That, even though he pardoned actual seditionists that he incited to try and overthrow the U.S. Government on January 6, 2021.)

In addition to his own words, Trump also elevated another wingnut loon on his social media site who declared: "HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!"

Just two months ago, Republicans pretended to be furious about political violence and words that might lead to it following the murder of a far-right Republican activist. But, since Trump is now calling for the deaths of Democratic members of Congress, his lackeys and quislings at both the White House and in Congress are joining Dear Leader. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, pretending to be furious today, for example, falsely charged that those six elected officials and distinguished veterans "encourage[d] young troops to disobey orders". He forgot to mention that the orders in question are unlawful ones, as the Dems repeated over and again while reminding those "young troops" of their oath to defend and follow both the Constitution and rule of law, and encouraging them: "Don't give up the ship."

I had a word or two to say about all of this on today's program. So did a lot of other folks both in and out of Congress, some of which we share as well.

In not unrelated news on today's show...

• NBC News reports that the senior military attorney for the U.S. Southern Command, which has, so far, killed more than 80 people in boats off the Caribbean and Pacific coasts near Venezuela, determined that U.S. strikes on small boats said to be carrying supposed "narco-terrorists" (as the Administration describes them) were unlawful. His opinion, however, was overruled by Trump's political appointees in D.C. The service members who participated in those extrajudicial killings could, as the lawyer reportedly warned, eventually face accountability under U.S. and/or international law.

• TPM's Josh Kovensky reports that federal prosecutors in Chicago have dropped a whole bunch of supposed "domestic terrorism" cases against people who protested against Customs and ICE agents in Chicago in recent months. Among those who saw their charges dropped: A woman who was shot five times by a CBP officer who bragged to colleagues about it afterwards, and who falsely claimed the woman participated in a convoy of cars that "rammed" and "boxed" the federal agents in. And a 70-year old Air Force vet initially charged with felony assault, which was later downgraded to a misdemeanor and finally dropped all together by Trump prosecutors on Thursday.

• Last week, we told you about the Trump Administration's draft plan, reported by Washington Post, to open up off-shore oil drilling along the entire coast of California, off the West Coast of Florida (in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, not on the Atlantic side near Mar-a-Lago, of course), and off of Alaska in the pristine High Arctic region, where responding to a spill or a Deepwater Horizon-like disaster would be all but impossible. Today, the Administration officially unveiled the proposal and elected officials --- including both Democrats in California and Republicans in Florida --- vow to fight the effort.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as this year's U.N. climate summit wraps up in Brazil; as Iran faces an historic drought in Tehran that could result in the evacuation of some 10 million people; and as the developing world is now turning to China for billions of dollars of investment and development in clean, cheap, renewable energy, since the Trump Administration has taken the U.S. out of that increasingly lucrative industry.

As noted, we'll be taking some much-needed downtime in the week ahead. But, while we're "gone", please have a happy and safe Thanksgiving --- and remember the advice from those six Dems in their video yesterday: Don't give up the ship!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Monster Hurricane Melissa batters Jamaica, the strongest storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season; Trump Administration denies disaster funding to blue states that did not vote for him; PLUS: Billion-dollar weather disasters hit new record the United States... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Storm drenches Central Florida, creating 'particularly dangerous' situation; Trump Transportation secretary says he will pull $160M from California over non-citizen truck licenses; EPA plan to kill a major climate rule is worrying business leaders; Trump offshore drilling plan faces fierce opposition in Congress; Exxon sues California over new climate disclosure laws... PLUS: Ranchers agreed to leave a national park. Then RFK Jr. got involved... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Nations gather in Geneva to again confront the global crisis of plastic pollution; Trump EPA moves to claw back billions in community grants for rooftop solar; PLUS: As energy costs rise, Trump Administration escalates its war on cheap renewable energy... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): You Are Contaminated [with plastic]; Document shows plastics industry knew recycling was false solution in 1974; At least one killed as massive wildfire in southern France continues to burn; Costs to build gas plants triple; Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose; JD Vance’s team had water level of Ohio river raised for family’s boating trip; Solar is EU’s biggest power source for the first time ever in June 2025... PLUS: The Air Conditioning Dilemma: Cooling homes heats the planet... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: A healthy environment is a human right, U.N. world court says in landmark climate ruling; Trump Administration working overtime to Make America Polluted Again; Climate-intensified extreme weather is driving up food prices around the world; PLUS: New U.N. analyses find booming clean, renewable energy has hit a global tipping point... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump EPA is said to draft a plan to end it ability to fight climate change; Courts banned this herbicide twice. The EPA wants to bring it back; White House unveils sweeping plan to remake electric grid to boost AI; Trump Admin cancels $4.9B loan for biggest transmission line in US; Court upholds a landmark clean-heat rule in Southern California; Hundreds of NASA employees, past and present, sign letter of formal dissent... PLUS: Gutting Chemical Safety Board endangers millions of Americans, groups warn... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: House Republicans' budget proposal effectively kills Inflation Reduction Act's clean energy incentives; Trump EPA to roll back first-ever limits on 'forever chemicals' in your drinking water; Global sea level rise is accelerating; PLUS: Australia's Labor Party wins big, doubling down on renewable energy and climate commitments... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Toxic wildfire pollution infiltrates homes of 1 billion people a year: study; Republicans' 'clearly unprecedented' gambit to kill climate programs; Trump's 'fear factor': Scientists go silent as funding cuts escalate; FEMA cuts emergency training as hurricane season looms; Georgia shields maker of Roundup weed killer from some cancer claims; Balcony solar took off in Germany. Why not the US?... PLUS: Trump promised U.S. dominance. Instead, energy companies are faltering... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Drastic cuts to National Weather Service endanger public safety, former weather chiefs warn; Trump Justice Department sues four states to block climate laws and lawsuits; PLUS: Trump moves to open up the sea floor to mining and shrink national monuments... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 75 percent of North America’s bird species are in decline, study says; Rural communities were promised millions in disaster funds. Trump says no; Scientists map where orphan wells pose threats to aquifers; Trump admin. plans to shut down money-saving Energy Star program soon, sources say; Park Service suspends air-quality monitoring at all national parks; 150+ Nobel-Prize winning scientists warn of imminent global famine... PLUS: Treated Like Dirt: Uncovering the toxic soil lurking in L.A.'s burn zones... 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! ...

We remain on the precipice of a Constitutional Crisis on today's BradCast, as our Man Baby President has now begun defying court orders. Some reasonably argue we are there already, but we will truly be there when (and if, but mostly when) he defies an order from the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court. For now, he's testing the waters by defying lower court orders. For the most part, those courts are largely holding firm in defense of the Constitution and rule of law, as the Administration continues to lose in ruling after ruling. Sadly, that hasn't prevented people from dying thanks to our reckless, lawless President and his top fundraiser's wasteful, fraudulent, abusive and deadly closures of critical Executive Branch agencies. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among today's coverage...

• In a pathetic, early morning, MOSTLY ALL-CAPS social media rant today, Donald Trump demanded that a federal judge --- who reasonably ruled temporarily against his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport hundreds of Venezuelans --- be "IMPEACHED!!!". The law has only ever been used during wartime, as it mandates the detention, imprisonment or deportation of non-citizens in the U.S. only from a "foreign nation or government" that has "declared war" against us or that has "perpetrated, attempted, or threatened" "any invasion or predatory incursion." Venezuela has done none of those things. The ruling against Trump followed an unusual late-night, emergency hearing on Saturday. The judge ordered the Administration to pause deportation to an El Salvador prison of alleged Venezuelan gang-member migrants until Trump's use of the war-time law could be further adjudicated. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered any U.S. migrant flights en route to El Salvador be returned the U.S. The Administration appears to have ignored the court order and has been stonewalling the judge's demand for information on when planes left and landed ever since. Thus Trump called for his "IMPEACHMENT!!!" winning an unusual, if very gentle, slap on the wrist from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in a rare public response today.

• Late last week, a federal judge in California ordered the reinstatement of thousands of federal workers at six different federal agencies, after finding that Elon Musk and his DOGE Bros unlawfully fired them without the legal authority to do so. An hour or two later, a federal judge in Maryland, in a separate lawsuit on a different legal basis, ordered that federal workers at 18 different agencies must be restored to their previous positions. The judge in CA has since made clear that rehiring the workers only to put them on immediate paid leave is also in violation of his order.

• In a major ruling today, a federal district court judge in Maryland ordered the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) --- which Trump, Musk and his DOGE Bro wrecking crew shut down almost entirely in the earliest days of his second term --- to be reopened. The judge ruled that Musk "likely violated the United States Constitution in multiple ways" in shuttering the critical international aid agency, which Musk described on his social media site ïn early February as having personally fed "into the wood chipper". USAID, among other critical work, supplies food to starving children and life-saving medicine to the sick around the globe. While Musk, the world's richest man, has claimed that "No one has died as a result" of his (unlawful, unconstitutional) closure of the agency, the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, in a must-read, gut-wrenching report (gift link) traveled to South Sudan and elsewhere to find "that is not true", before going on to document how and where "the efforts by Musk and President Trump are already leading children to die". Unless aid is somehow quickly restored, Kristoff reports, those efforts are likely to kill millions in the coming months and years.

• The wasteful, fraudulent and abusive efforts by Trump, Musk and DOGE has not been entirely for naught, however. Turns out someone finally found a "dead" person receiving Social Security! Even if that person turned out to be very much alive and is now trying to get the funds that were suspended for some reason by the Social Security Administration in mid-February, turned back on. The DOGE dismantling of the SSA --- where field offices are being shuttered and 7,000 workers are scheduled to be laid off --- isn't helping.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as deadly extreme storms killed more than 40 people in the U.S. over this past weekend; Trump's mass firings at NOAA are set to undermine accurate weather forecasting; and his Interior Dept. just cancelled the six-month old permits for construction of an off-shore wind-farm in New Jersey...

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We've got a few explainers on today's BradCast. But I thought you might find it useful to be armed with some facts, truth and understanding right about now. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our explainer coverage today...

• Not long after we got off air today, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer signaled he would allow Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans to adopt a bad six-month spending bill rather than fight them, because that fight would results in a government shutdown as of midnight on Friday. It's certainly a dilemma for the Dems, many of whom seemed to come around to the decision to fight rather than fold today. Even the nation's largest federal workers union --- whose members would arguably be first and most directly effected by a shutdown --- persuasively called on Dems to do just that, arguing: "With thousands of federal workers either fired, placed on administrative leave, or at immediate risk of losing their jobs, AFGE members have concluded that a widespread government shutdown has been underway since January 20 and will continue to spread whether senators vote yes or no on H.R. 1968." Schumer's announcement that he will vote with Republicans to end debate on the Continuing Resolution Friday, suggests the GOP is likely to get the support of at least eight Democrats Senators that will be needed to overcome a filibuster tomorrow. But, we'll see if a few more Dems find the spine to stand up against Trump and stand up for Americans before then.

• Speaking of AFGE, they and a few other unions won a big victory today. They had sued the federal government to restore the jobs of thousands of "probationary" federal workers unlawfully fired by the Trump Administration. Today, a federal judge ordered those workers, at the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and Treasury to be rehired "immediately". U.S. District Judge William Alsup excoriated the Trump Justice Department's legal justification for the layoffs and their refusal to present evidence to support their case. "It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie," railed Judge Alsup from the bench. "That should not have been done in our country. It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements."

• Yesterday, you may have seen headlines about Trump's EPA chief Lee Zeldin declaring a rollback of more than 30 important health, safety and environmental regulations. (Eg: "Trump takes an ax to more than a dozen pollution rules in rapid-fire deregulation".) In fact, none of those regulations have actually been rolled back. Yet. "Today I'm pleased to make the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history," the new EPA Administrator dramatically declared in a two-minute video filled with one lie after another, falsely describing "suffocating rules that restrict nearly every sector of our economy and cost Americans trillions of dollars." The video was released to accompany Zeldin's Wednesday essay in the Wall Street Journal offering more false and misleading details on those lies.

  Today, we step through the key lies, explain the truth about them, and what Zeldin's announcement really amounts to. No, there is no "EV mandate" and the U.S. is already "energy dominant" as it was when Trump took office after America long ago became the world's leading producer of oil, gas, coal and renewable energy under President Biden, who also adopted a number of landmark climate initiatives that increased manufacturing, boosted the economy, produced clean energy and made America safer for everyone.

  It will be a long and difficult path for Trump's EPA to overturn dozens of health and safety rules long in place, as well as the agency's landmark 2009 scientific "endangerment finding" on the adverse health effects of planet warming carbon pollution on which a number of those regulations, adopted under the Clean Air Act, are based.

  Bottom line: the Trump Administration plan, as detailed by Zeldin, will increase pollution, worsen the climate crisis, allow more deadly cancer-causing toxins into our air and water, and force Americans to pay the bill for all of it through what Desi Doyen describes as a "pollution tax". You may support Zeldin and Trump's scheme to do all of those things, but let's be clear about what their announcement yesterday is calling for.

  The fossil fuel industry --- already the most profitable industry in the history of civilization --- immediately declared their support for the effort. Few others have done so and many have vowed to challenge it in court. Now it's up to all of us to fight against these unpopular plans. Tune in today for more details that may help to give you the ammunition to do so.

• Finally, Desi Doyen has a bit more on the Trump EPA's vow to Make America Polluted Again, and much more in our latest Green News Report...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hottest January on record globally surprises scientists; Trump Administration halts all funding for national EV charging network; Trump tries to cancel paper straws; PLUS: Super Bowl ads take a break from electric cars... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): New data shows giant petrochemical plant has failed to boost local economy; More solar and battery storage were added to Texas’ grid than any other power source last year; Trump's freeze stalls federal firefighter hiring; Trump killed a major report on Nature. They're trying to publish it anyway; US-funded group attacking pesticide critics shuts down... PLUS: 'Backsliding': Most countries to miss vital climate deadline as COP30 nears... and much, MUCH more! ...

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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! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Donald Trump weaponizes disaster, calls for dismantling FEMA; First rain in months helps douse Los Angeles Fires; PLUS: New York City's congestion pricing is working, with fewer crashes and pedestrian injuries... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump’s scorched earth executive orders for the environment; Ocean warming accelerating rapidly, new study warns; Stanford sea turtle study uncovers new effects of global warming in the Pacific Ocean; Trump looks to seize control of California water; Notorious WV chemical plant polluting water with toxic PFAS, lawsuit claims; Storm Eowyn brings hurricane-level destruction to Ireland... PLUS: How Big Insurance’s investment in fossil fuels came back to bite it... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump nominates climate science deniers and fossil fuel profiteers to head key federal agencies; Winters are warming up quickly across the U.S.; PLUS: President Biden offers hope for climate action, the first U.S. President ever to visit the Amazon Rainforest... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The climate fight will continue; Trump might nix America as a climate tech leader. 5 charts show China winning that race; Weather extremes influence illegal migration and return between the U.S. and Mexico, study finds; Why hydropower is failing in Zambia --- and could fail others; To protect the ozone layer and slow global warming, fertilizers must be deployed more efficently, UN says... PLUS: EPA in Elon Musk's crosshairs... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: He hasn't even been sworn in and he's already violating federal law. Surprised? In this case, the law that he's violating is one that he himself signed into law in 2019. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The flood of wholly-unqualified appointments to cabinet level posts and other top appointments, since Donald Trump barely won a plurality (not a majority) of the national popular vote two weeks ago, continues. You're probably well familiar by now with the nominations of alleged child sex trafficker Rep. Matt Gaetz for U.S. Attorney General, the nation's top law enforcement official, and of Fox "News" weekend host Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary.

Neither have any experience leading huge organizations (or even medium-sized ones) with millions of employees --- or even any experience at all at the organizations they have been tapped by Trump to lead. And Hegseth, who was disqualified from serving in the National Guard during Joe Biden's 2021 inauguration as a potential "insider threat" due to his White Supremacist tattoos, was also revealed over the weekend by Washington Post to have paid off a woman to settle her accusations of sexual assault. He reportedly denies the rape allegation, if not the settlement.

The Trump Transition team claims they knew nothing about any of it when they selected Hegseth to head DoD. That should give you chills. Perhaps that's because the Transition team hired a private firm to vet Trump's nominees, rather than rely on the FBI, as they would be doing, had Trump complied with the bipartisan amendment to the Presidential Transition Act that he himself signed into law during his first term.

The measure also requires Presidential candidates to sign agreements with the White House and General Services Administration by October 1 before an election to begin the transition process with a publicly disclosed ethics policy and a public statement of how the future President plans to avoid conflicts of interest while serving, if elected. It allows for FBI vetting of incoming officials to grant access to classified documents and other material from the previous Administration at the nation's 438 Executive Branch agencies that they will control. Signing the agreement, as required by law, also includes a vow that Transition teams may take no more than $5,000 from any one person for certain transition costs, and that they will publicly disclose the names of those donors, among other things.

Donald Trump has, so far, refused to sign any of those agreements, alarming ethics, national security and legal experts as he begins defying federal law (again) even before taking office for a second term as President.

Joining us to explain the national security and other serious consequences and ramifications of all of this is LISA GRAVES. She is uniquely qualified to discuss these issues, given her service in all three branches of the federal government, as a Former Deputy Asst. Attorney General at the U.S. Justice Dept.; former Chief Counsel for nominations in the U.S. Senate; and former Deputy Chief for the Article III Judges Div. of the U.S. Court system. She now heads up the government watchdog and political research organization, True North Research.

We've got a lot to discuss with Graves today, beginning with what alarms her most about Trump's refusal to sign the Presidential Transition Act agreements. She identifies the avoidance of the FBI background investigation process as a "huge red warning flag."

"He does not want his cabinet appointees to go through the regular clearance process. The FBI background process is a long-standing part of the process," she tells me. It's "designed to help look at whether you have any issues that could made you blackmailable. That's part of it. For people who are seeking access to our most sensitive information, there are additional national security assessments. The investigators are looking at: do you have stability, trustworthiness, reliability, discretion. Do you have good character and judgment, honesty, and unquestionable loyalty to the United States to ensure that people who get positions of trust, with access to our most sensitive information, have unquestioned loyalty to the United States and not a foreign power."

Graves argues that "many" of Trump's nominees "have serious deficits in more than one of those categories." She also tells me that Trump's own "track record would raise serious concerns about his trustworthiness, his reliability, about his fitness for having access to information."

As to Trump's plans to force the U.S. Senate into recess, so that he may avoid the Constitution's mandate for "advice and consent" on top-level appoints, she describes the scheme as "un-American, unconstitutional, and unprecedented."

Tune in for much more insight from Graves on all of this on today's program.

FINALLY TODAY... A few more items related to the U.S. House Ethics Committee's ongoing deliberations into whether to release their report on the alleged paid sex trafficking by Gaetz of at least two different 17-year old girls. And then Desi Doyen joins us for details on Trump's newly announced nomination of fracking company CEO and climate change denier Chris Wright as the next chief of the Dept. of Energy. She also has some thoughts on Trump's Interior Dept. nominee, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, and on former Rep. Lee Zeldin who has been nominated to head the EPA, and how ALL of those men spell very bad news for our world's quickly-worsening climate crisis...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Record heat and drought fuel wildfires in the Northeast; U.S. Senate majority and future of climate action hang in the balance of this year's election; PLUS: Biden Administration investing in innovation, and racing the clock to allocate climate and infrastructure funding... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The climate stakes of the Harris-Trump election; Trump withheld wildfire disaster aid from WA State; EPA imposes stricter standards to protect children from exposure to lead paint; Florida's taxpayer-backed insurance fund denied 77% of hurricane damage claims; Russia amplified hurricane disinformation to drive Americans apart, researchers find; Feds OK rules for U.S. to begin electric air taxi service... PLUS: Biden Admin puts $428M into new manufacturing projects in coal communities... and much, MUCH more! ...