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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: Trump signs slew of executive orders to bail out the declining, polluting coal industry; Torrential rains and flooding cripple Congo's capital city; PLUS: Big banks quietly planning ways to maximize profits amid climate chaos... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump makes sweeping move to undercut state climate laws like California's; In the rain-soaked South, storms portend future ‘generational’ floods; White House ends funding for key US climate research body; US exits carbon talks on shipping, urges others to follow, document says; NOAA contracts being reviewed one by one, throwing the agency into chaos; Threatened carbon pipeline filed hundreds of lawsuits against landowners... PLUS: More oil and gas FAFO as crude keeps diving... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Millions of Americans reeling from widespread damage after relentless extreme storms; Trump's global trade war increasing the cost of reconstruction after disasters; Federal funding cuts halt repair work on America's most iconic hiking trails; PLUS: Senate Republicans push to strip California of its clear air car standards... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Myanmar earthquake death toll tops 3,500, with heavy rain forecast to continue; NPS restores original Harriet Tubman, Underground Railroad webpage; Worries grow over risk to Americans as Trump cuts health, safety agencies; Forecasters predict another active 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season; Nations considering the 1st global tax on emissions from shipping... PLUS: US ends food aid for millions. World Food Program calls it a 'death sentence'... and much, MUCH more! ...

Earlier this month, Donald Trump issued an Executive Order calling for the "Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production". As discussed with our guest on today's BradCast, it's difficult to see that separately from his buddy Elon Musk's recent declaration that "logically we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized." [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

BUT FIRST... A few items of note...

• It was amusing watching corporate media outlets tip-toe in their reporting around the facts of Tuesday's successful return to Earth by astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore after being stranded on the International Space Station for 9 months following what was supposed to have been an 8 day mission. The pair were safely brought home in a SpaceX capsule that splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. Can you see the dilemma for the nation's major news outlets yet? We discuss. And laugh. (And also point out that the mission was tasked to Elon Musk's SpaceX by NASA last August, under President Joe Biden. No, Donald Trump did not "rescue the astronauts", as his Administration seems to want you to believe.)

• In more important news, after covering a string of losses in federal court for Trump on yesterday's program, a few more came in after we got off air. One was a major ruling that blocked his Order banning transgender people from serving in our nation's military. (Try not to laugh at Trump's straight-faced assertion in his EO that service by transgender people, many of whom have received top military honors, "conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life." Cuz if anyone knows about living an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life, it would be the Commander-in-Chief who was found liable for nearly $100 million for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Caroll and found guilty of 34 criminal felony counts related to hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to help him cheat to win an election and other honorable, truthful and disciplined living by Corporal Bonespurs.)

• In response to yesterday's program focused, in part, on the lower courts holding firm, for now, against Trump and Musk's rampant lawlessness, we received some interesting feedback from a number of listeners who seemed to view those victories for the Constitution and Rule of Law --- short-term or otherwise --- as hardly worth celebrating, given that all hope is now lost and, in short, America is all but over. While understanding the sentiment, I disagree with that thinking for several reasons, a number of which we discuss today.

THEN... Following news of yet another court loss for Trump late on Tuesday, in which a D.C. U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan blocked the Administration's attempt to claw back some $20 billion authorized by Congress and allocated by President Biden as part of his landmark climate initiatives before leaving office, we discuss a recent Executive Order signed by Trump that would massively expand logging and clear-cutting of our national forests and other public lands.

MATT SEDLAR, climate analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, is here to discuss what this scheme is really about; how it relates to Trump's trade war with Canada; the various dangers it poses to both the economy and climate; and how it has little to do with improving forest management or wildfire protection, as Trump's EO falsely claims.

Sedlar explains how the Order appears to directly contradict pretty much everything else that Trump has been doing at the very same time.

"Laying off Forest Service workers, National Park Service workers, and putting out this Executive Order expanding logging, canceling leases for various offices and visitor centers for national parks across the United States," Sedlar tells me, "all point to the privatization of the public lands. Eliminating what we know of as national forests and national parks, and opening it up to making it into a revenue stream."

"It leans more towards that and less towards what he is saying, that this is forest management. Because the science simply does not support what he's saying. It didn't support it in the '80s when you had researchers and scientists warning against it, and it's definitely not going to support it now."

"These are all moves to generate revenue without a look at how this affecting long-term sustainable development. It's all short-term gain for long-term losses," he argues, citing both the costs to the fight against climate change and the bipartisan popularity of our National Parks and Forests.

Tune in, of course, for much more!...

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I've gotta be quick with today's BradCast summary, as Trump's first address during his second term to a joint session of Congress is coming up shortly. And I don't want to miss a single lie! (Full coverage tomorrow, natch). [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

But the central theme of today's show: Donald Trump is bad for business. He has no clue how to run a business, much less a country, which should decidedly not be run as a business. They are two very different things. But even on his own terms, Trump is lousy at running the country as a business.

Among our many stories today underscoring those points in various ways....

• Today, Trump's 25% tariffs against our two largest trading partners and friends, Canada and Mexico, kicked in, earning blowback from the otherwise even-tempered and very polite Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And, again, the U.S. stock market took another dive in response to Trump's "dumb" trade war, wiping out all gains since the election on the major indexes, thanks to Trump being lousy at his job.

• Among Trump's biggest supporters last November were farmers. Now, they too, are beginning to notice what a clown he is, after the Trump Administration began wiping all climate related data from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture website (cuz climate change doesn't exist if you delete website references to it), along with information on programs regarding grants and subsidies for farmers. All of which they rely on, especially as the Summer growing season is set to begin. A group of farmer's and environmental groups have now filed suit against Trump's USDA, demanding the returns of the databases and tools (that we paid for, before Trump thought it made good "business sense" to waste all of those tax-payer dollars.)

• Cuts and mass layoffs at our beloved National Parks, in advance of the busy Summer tourist season, aren't going over much better with the public --- or the crucial staffers who keep the parks open and clean and some 375 million visitors a year safe. About 4,000 workers at both National Parks and U.S. Forests have now been laid off for specious, and potentially unlawful, reason. People will die because of these pointless cuts. Park experts believe it may take centuries to rebound from the damage to the parks these cuts will cost.

• But what about all of that "waste, fraud and abuse" that Elon Musk and his DOGE Bros are telling us they are axing within federal government agencies? More than$100 billion, Musk is now claiming! Last week, we detailed how the DOGErs quietly deleted billions of dollars in claimed "savings" from their so-called "Wall of Receipts" website, documenting government contracts they'd cancelled at agency after agency. It turned out their "receipts", numbers and claims to go with them were riddled with errors. Last week, they had claimed to have "saved" American tax-payers some $65 billion. But thanks to excellent reporting by a number of outlets, it appeared the number was closer to just over $2 billion at best. The buffoonery continued over the weekend, however, as the Bros once again quietly removed still more false items --- about 1,000 of them! --- and replaced them with others again. You'll be stunned to learn the largest of those new "receipts", as well, are also riddled with errors and false claims.

• This week we are "celebrating" --- if that's the right word for it --- our 16th Anniversary of connecting the climate change dots over your public airwaves in our world famous Green News Report. We have been producing it, week in and week out, over all these years, of course, thanks only to support from readers and listeners like you! Today, in our latest GNR, Desi Doyen has news on Trump's funding freezes crippling the nation's farmers; climate-fueled wildfires exploding in the Carolinas; and mass layoffs now underway at NOAA and the National Weather Service...

• Finally, since Trump is so bad at both business and diplomacy, even a major oil company, Norway's Haltbakk Bunkers, is now refusing to fuel up U.S. Naval vessels in protest of Trump's disgraceful treatment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House last Friday. "We have today been witnesses to the biggest shitshow ever presented 'live on tv' by the current American president and his vice president," the company posted to social media shortly after. "Huge credit to the president of Ukraine restraining himself and for keeping calm even though USA put on a backstabbing tv show. It made us sick. Short and sweet. As a result, we have decided to immediate STOP as fuel provider to American forces in Norway and their ships calling Norwegian ports. ... 'No Fuel to Americans!' ... We encourage all Norwegians and Europeans to follow our example. SLAVA UKRAINA".

Running the government "like a business" is working out great! Welcome to "America's Golden Age"!...

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On today's BradCast: What's in it for Donald Trump? Seriously. Why does he want to break the government? [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

I know why Elon Musk wants to dismantle and destroy the federal government piece-by-piece (so his government contracts can't be policed or businesses regulated, etc.) And I understand Trump's need for retribution against his perceived enemies. But why does Trump want to seemingly dismantle damn near every federal agency, from the U.S. Forest Service to USAID and beyond, no matter how ham-handedly? No matter how much it grows (not shrinks) the national debt, no matter how many Americans (including his own voters) it puts out of work, and no matter how much the chaos he is wreaking continues to sink his approval ratings? No matter how much none of his flailing lowers the price of eggs.

It's certainly not in the name of "efficiency" or cutting "waste, fraud and abuse", as the evidence makes plain, no matter how many lies and quickly disproven claims about "million and millions" of dead people receiving Social Security checks or Musk's DOGE Bros claiming to have "saved" at least $55 billion in Government contracts to date. (It's more like $2 billion.) All false claims that both Trump and Musk repeat, only to have to walk them back when proven wrong, time and again.

We discuss a lot of that at the top of the show, along with a bunch of related news headlines from over the weekend, before opening up the phones today to listeners for answers to that simple question: What's in it for Donald Trump? Why does he really want to dismantle the government?

We talk to a lot of callers with a lot of differing explanations (though being controlled by Vladimir Putin seems to be a listener fave...even if it doesn't fully answer all of my questions about Trump's behavior here.)

Perhaps Trump's recently-confirmed Sec. of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, gave away the truth on Fox "News" over the weekend, when he falsely claimed that Trump ran on "reprivatizing the economy". He didn't run on that. Though Project 2025 --- which he pretended to disavow during the campaign --- certainly called for it. Is that his game? Cripple federal government so private corporations can then fill the gap and offer the same services to the American people for a higher price that includes profit to those private corporations?

Please tune in for lots of interesting discussion today. And, if you have a better explanation for why Trump wants to kill the U.S. government by gutting hundreds of thousands of government jobs and services, seemingly at random, for no easily discernible reason, feel free to let me know in comments below...

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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! ...

Incredibly, many Trump-supporting MAGA dupes still believe any of this is being done in the name cutting government "waste, fraud and abuse" --- much less "efficiency" in the federal government. As discussed on today's BradCast, I guess there are still millions who won't give a damn about any of it unless --- more likely, until --- it effects them directly. And it will. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

As David Dayen helpfully reported last month at The American Prospect, if you fired every single federal worker in existence --- all 2.3 million of them --- you'd save about $271 billion per year. While that may sound like a lot, it's just 4% of the annual budget. Of course, we'd lose much more in uncollected tax revenue, unprosecuted fraud in the private sector, lives lost, just to name a few big points. And, of course, Americans, such as Social Security recipients would lose a lot on a personal level when there was nobody left in government to send out their monthly checks.

But, as Republicans have been telling us (lying to us about) for decades now, the federal government has just become too bloated. It must be cut down to size, even if it's randomly done through mass firings at every federal agency, of anybody viewed as legally fireable (whether they are or aren't doesn't matter.) But here's another fun fact from Dayen: in 1960, amid the Golden Age of America's middle class, the federal government comprised 4.3% of all workers. Today, that number is just 1.4%.

Other than that, our government is huge, bloated and out of control! Who needs all that air traffic safety, security of nuclear weapons, food inspections, safe drinking water, disease tracking, cancer cures, law and order, disaster response, medical care, education, Social Security checks or life-saving weather reports and climate data? The federal government is just too "big". Let's gut it all! Legally or otherwise!

Much more on all of this --- and some of the heroes (even Trump-appointed ones!) trying to block and/or call attention to the worst of it --- on today's program, as culled from, among others, some of the following source material...

• AP: Delta jet flips upside down on a snowy Toronto runway and all 80 aboard survive
• Rolling Stone: FAA Employees Say Trump and Musk's Firings Are Dangerous
• AP: Trump fires FAA air traffic control staff, just weeks after DC crash
• NYT: Adams's Lead Prosecutor Quits Defiantly: 'It Was Never Going to Be Me'
• WaPo: Mass resignation marks a new kind of defiance in the second Trump era
• WaPo: High-ranking D.C. federal prosecutor resigns in protest
• WaPo: Musk's DOGE seeks access to personal taxpayer data, raising alarm at IRS
• WaPo: Top Social Security official exits after clash with Musk's DOGE over data
• NBC: Department of Homeland Security preparing to fire hundreds of senior leaders this week
• Bloomberg: US Health Department Layoffs Expand to Medicare, FDA
• NBC: CDC 'disease detectors' among hundreds fired as Trump administration ramps up agency cuts
• Politico: Mass firings continue across nation's health agencies
• Guardian: NOAA imposes limits on scientists, sparking concerns over global forecasts
• The Hill: EPA fires nearly 400 workers after OPM order
• The Hill: EPA puts employees who tackle pollution in overburdened communities on leave
• The Hill: National Science Foundation cuts 10 percent of staff
• Wired: National Science Foundation Fires 168 Workers as Federal Purge Continues
• AP: Trump's firing of 1,000 national park workers raises concerns about maintenance and operating hours
• SF Chronicle: Yosemite halts camping reservations, with no timetable for their return
• Fox 13 Utah: 'Crisis' at Zion as mandated job cuts hit popular national park
• Reuters: USDA probationary staff fired at three agencies, sources say
• NBC: USDA says it accidentally fired officials working on bird flu and is trying to rehire them
• The Oregonian: At least 600 workers to leave Bonneville Power Administration, spurring concerns about transmission grid
• CNN: Hundreds of FAA probationary workers fired by Trump administration, union says
• AP: Trump wants states to 'clean up forests' to stop wildfires but he cuts funds

Other than that, slow news day.

Also, on similar notes, we close today with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, as the costs of our climate crisis continue to mount in from coast to coast in recent days; Trump's FEMA is already denying critical disaster aid; and the Administration is desperately trying to find fired Dept. of Energy workers after figuring out that they were the ones who safeguarded the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile...

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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 at his Inauguration pledges to reverse U.S. climate and pollution policies, quickly signs Executive Orders to do so; Americans coast to coast grapple with climate-intensified extreme weather disasters; PLUS: Trump announces withdrawal of U.S. from Paris Climate Agreement, again... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Fact-checking President Trump’s 2025 inaugural address; Trump Targeted Scientists in His First Term. This Time, They’re Prepared; EPA Staff Directory Reveals Trump Appointees; Moss Landing, The World’s Biggest Grid Battery, Just Caught Fire Again... PLUS: Storm-Hit Town Voted For Trump, Who Vowed To Overturn Law To Fix Its Homes... and much, MUCH more! ...

It's been a rough 24 hours or so. But we are among the lucky ones, as detailed at the top of today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

The photo of a massive fire nearby first came in via cell phone from a neighbor before we had even been able to publish yesterday's show to the blog. The show was, of course, about the ongoing wind and firestorms here in Los Angeles., including an interview with a longtime colleague whose house burned down on Tuesday night in Pacific Palisades.

Now it seemed to be happening to us. The City began sending alerts to all of our phones, telling us to get ready for an evacuation. From my back patio, I could see the huge flames and orange plumes rising out of Runyon Canyon, a park just a few blocks from where we live. It would come to be known as the "Sunset Fire" for some reason, as reported by the national media. Which meant that most of you probably learned more about the fire and what was going on than we did being in the middle of it.

The photo used above for our graphic today was taken by another neighbor at the end of our block about 30 minutes before the "GET OUT NOW!" order came from the City. As you can tell, it was unsettling to say the least.

Long story short (we share the longer version on today's show, with a bunch of interesting Lessons Learned along the way), after the mandatory evacuation order came, we, and a whole bunch of others folks in the area, grabbed up whatever belongings we felt we needed and high-tailed it out of here. Or, at least tried to. The narrow streets here in the lower Hollywood Hills were packed, in what national media correctly described as a sudden, chaotic evacuation.

Anyway, with the winds having died down from hurricane force levels 24 hours earlier, firefighters were able to get airborne again and knock down "our" particular raging inferno in fairly short order. "Only" 60 acres said to have burned. The mandatory evacuation order was lifted by morning and all was well upon our return. Safe and sound. But, as noted, tune in for more of the harrowing details.

It was inconvenient, and not a lot of fun. But we were among the lucky ones. More than 2,000 10,000(!) structures have now reportedly been destroyed or damaged in at least 4 different raging fires around Los Angeles, in what is being described as the most costly fire disaster in U.S. history, if not the most deadly. Six people are now reported killed, though authorities say that number is expected to climb when, and if, they are finally able to get the largest fires under control. Winds are predicted to pick up again tonight and through next week, though not as high as they had been over the past 48 hours or so. Stay safe out there. But do tune in for a few tips we learned over the past 24 hours about sudden, unexpected evacuations.

Also today, President Jimmy Carter --- who, speaking of harrowing experiences, was once lowered into a melted down nuclear reactor core! --- was finally laid to rest today. We share details and a few audio excerpts from today's memorial service at the National Cathedral in D.C.

Finally, Desi Doyen has our latest Green News Report, with more details on the L.A. fires and their connection to climate change, as we miraculously were able to produce both that and a 'BradCast' today...which I didn't see as remotely possible at about 7 or 8pm last night. But we made it. We are among the lucky ones...

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: We will be off from Monday's BradCast due to a previously scheduled, unchangeable appointment. We'll be back Tuesday, as normal, but I didn't want you to worry, given everything otherwise underway in L.A. over this past week!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Extreme wildfire crisis now the most destructive in Los Angeles history, as Green News Report is forced to evacuate; Climate change is intensifying extreme fire conditions; PLUS: President Biden designates two new national monuments, protecting sacred tribal lands... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Jimmy Carter raised climate change concerns 35 years before Paris Accords; Trump promises to end new wind farms; What are the factors the caused the unseasonal CA fires?; California wildfires threaten insurers already teetering from climate shocks; To save the Great Salt Lake, farmers will have to grow less alfalfa; Coal was on its way out. But surging electricity demand is keeping it alive... PLUS: Biden FWS declines to remove grizzly bears from endangered list... and much, MUCH more! ...

Tick-tock. Time is running out for all of the Trump scams, as detailed on today's BradCast. Unless, of course, he wins on November 5th --- or has more success stealing the Presidential election this year than he did in 2020. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the Trump scams, rackets and accountability for having fallen for them on today's program...

• Melania Trump, according to her new book, is virulently in favor of abortion rights. According to her publisher, she also wanted $250,000 to be interviewed by CNN.

• You know about many of Donald Trump's legendarily failed rackets from the old days: Trump University, Trump Steaks, Trump Water, Trump Vodka, Trump Casinos, just to name a few. More recently, during the time he's been running for President again, there's been Trump Sneakers, Trump Bibles, Trump Digital Trading Cards, Trump Coins, Trump Cryptocurrency and, introduced just last Friday, "Swiss-made" Trump Watches. He's selling them for $100,000 a pop! Even though, according to experts, they appear to be Chinese-made crap, if they even exist, and appear just as likely to be an open invitation to foreign influence peddling and money laundering. We explain.

• All of the above enumerated rackets, by the way, are private rackets. Any profits from them do not go to his Presidential Campaign, but straight into Donald Trump's pocket. And so --- according to the new 165-page filing [PDF] by Special Counsel Jack Smith, unsealed by U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan on Wednesday afternoon --- was Trump's attempt to steal the 2020 election. New evidence in the filing from prosecutors in his 4-count federal indictment in D.C., further details how the disgraced former President and convicted felon was fully aware that he'd lost the election in 2020, but didn't care. He was going to fight to steal it anyway. He also knew he had put Vice President Mike Pence's life in grave danger on January 6th, 2021. His response: "So, what?" And all of that, as prosecutors argue in their brief, was done in Trump's capacity as a private candidate for office. It was not done as part of his official duties as President. Smith's motion is meant to make that case in hopes of preventing the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court from dismissing the case on the basis of their absurd, anti-American, anti-Constitutional, made-up-from-whole-cloth ruling in Trump v. U.S. declaring criminal immunity to sitting Presidents for crimes committed as part of their "official" duties.

• In Colorado today, a state judge unleashed a brutal, if accurate, take-down of disgraced former Mesa County Clerk, Tina Peters during her sentencing hearing. Once a MAGA superstar, she is now a convicted felon on charges related to a criminal scheme to breach voting system software in her own County, based on false claims that fraud software was implanted in them to flip votes from Trump to Biden in 2020. The judge told Peters today: "I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen. You are no hero. You abused your position and you’re a charlatan." He called out her continuing claims of evidence-free fraud as "just more lies. No objective person believes them. No, at the end of the day, you cared about the jets, the podcasts and people fawning over you." He then sentenced her to nine years in prison before she was handcuffed and hauled out of the courtroom to immediately begin serving her time. See ya, Tina! May she be the first of many.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the deadly disaster in six states continues to unfold in the U.S. Southeast following Hurricane Helene, which at least succeeded in finally helping to bring the issue of climate change to the top of Tuesday's Vice Presidential debate between Democrat Tim Walz and Republican J.D. Vance...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: After another climate disaster, climate change was finally front and center at the Vice Presidential Debate; PLUS: Ongoing climate disaster Hurricane Helene, now the second deadliest hurricane in modern U.S. history... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Two separate climate studies find that fossil fuel pollution intensified Hurricane Helene rainfall; Helene isn’t the first time Trump inserted politics into a natural disaster; At what price will oil shale drillers stop drilling?; Hurricane gives Democrats a climate opening in Florida; 'Everything is dead': Ukraine rushes to stem ecocide after Russia poisons river; American dams weren't built for today's climate-charged rains and floods... PLUS: Who will care for Americans left behind by climate migration?... and much, MUCH more! ...