{"id":14721,"date":"2023-07-13T18:30:26","date_gmt":"2023-07-14T01:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14721"},"modified":"2023-07-22T10:28:01","modified_gmt":"2023-07-22T17:28:01","slug":"a-whole-bunch-of-news-and-why-it-matters-bradcast-7132023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14721","title":{"rendered":"A Whole Bunch of News and WHY It Matters: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 7\/13\/2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_SAGAFTRA-WGA-UnionsTogether_071323.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">We not only cover a whole bunch of news stories on today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>, we also explain what they mean and why they matter. As always, we want you to not only know what happened, but <i>understand<\/i> why it did and what can be done about it, so you can pass that important information on to others. [<em>Audio link to full program follows this summary.<\/em>]\n<p>Among the <i>many<\/i> stories both reported and <i>explained<\/i> on today&#8217;s program&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Film and TV actors<\/b> of SAG-AFTRA join the Writers Guild of America (WGA) in going <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment-arts\/business\/story\/2023-07-13\/sag-aftra-board-strike-plan-vote\">on strike against producers<\/a> in hopes of proper payment and residuals for streaming services and AI usage, among other appropriate demands.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>We take another quick spin through my new favorite website &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/FoxWeather.com\">FoxWeather.com<\/a> &#8212; where they report on all of the catastrophic effects of climate change now devastating much of the planet, but because <b>Fox hates its duped readers and viewers<\/b> so much, they never even once explain <i>why<\/i> all of these disasters are now happening. (Hint for Fox &#8220;News&#8221; dupes, if I&#8217;m lucky enough that you stopped by: It&#8217;s the climate change, stupid, as caused by the burning of fossil fuels.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/news-events\/press-announcements\/fda-approves-first-nonprescription-daily-oral-contraceptive\">Biden FDA approves<\/a> the first ever <b>over-the-counter birth control pill<\/b>. Happily, this should be bring the abortion rate way down. So, rightwingers will be delighted with this news, right?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Dumb GOP megadonors<\/b> in <b>Illinois<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2023\/07\/13\/uihlein-republican-donors-illinois-battle-00106087?cid=apn\">lose<\/a> their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/f\/?id=00000189-4cc0-d8dd-a1ed-7ce557510000\">ill-considered fight<\/a> to prevent the use of clean, electric leaf blowers on their 22-acre estate. But it&#8217;s a win for their neighbors and for the rest of us. (And even for them, whether they too dumb to know it or not!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A state court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/07\/13\/nyregion\/redistricting-democrats-ny.html?unlocked_article_code=n_ebEcd4AMCy8tGslIglleaPz1Yg4ml8SQDXHL6L3KLkyeuUktKmpCTxBnPsh-BMPGdiVOjDRP4xCaEircf9_bAVn4JvAz0xl-5AITZAqhCV5UBmSvu9h91__Q7dc_Ty74FJ71wyRgxzyzamXHMVhzIEtb_ej\">orders<\/a> <b>New York<\/b> to <b>redraw U.S. House<\/b> maps before the 2024 elections. That alone could end up flipping the House back to Democratic control next year, after the GOP flipped four NY seats from &#8220;blue&#8221; to &#8220;red&#8221; last year, after the state court blocked an attempted Democratic gerrymander. It&#8217;s complicated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Great news for <b>North Carolina<\/b> residents! After Republicans on the corrupted U.S. Supreme Court recently blocked Affirmative Action for college admissions at the University of North Carolina (and everywhere else in the bargain), the school has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/unc-free-tuition-north-carolina-undergraduates-financial-aid-affirmative-action-2023-7?amp\">announced<\/a> it will be <b>offering FREE tuition<\/b> to many in-state students &#8220;as part of their continued effort to boost diversity&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Late last month, the corrupt rightwing SCOTUS majority used their recently invented-from-whole-cloth &#8220;Major Questions Doctrine&#8221; to block the <b>Biden Administration<\/b> from using the specific text of the federal HEROES Act to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans to borrowers. The President has <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2023\/07\/joe-biden-new-student-debt-plan-supreme-court-analysis.html\">announced a new plan<\/a> to use a <i>different<\/i> law to accomplish even broader forgiveness, though it will take a bit more time than his initial plan. In the meantime, beginning next month, a <b>newly restructured repayment plan<\/b> for loans <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/student-loans-debt-college-cancellation-forgiveness-34152bb5000128a413efd2287887a37a\">will allow millions to pay just $0 a month<\/a> (you read that right) without seeing any interest added. Their entire loan may then be considered as paid in full after 10 years. We break down the key details of the new plan and how Republicans are already attempting to undermine it, because they hate people who aren&#8217;t millionaires or billionaires.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally, it&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14720\">our latest disturbing <i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a> with Desi Doyen here to drive you crazy as the summer of climate catastrophes continue. Among our coverage: another major insurer flees <b>Florida<\/b>; <b>California<\/b> works out a deal with manufacturers to phase out polluting big rigs; and the U.S. becomes the blackout capital of the world, thanks to the <b>many failures of natural gas<\/b>&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman-StrikeSAGAFTRA-OPill-TheUihleins-NewMapNY-UNCTuition-BidenStudentLoans_071323.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pandora.com\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/PC:1000025838\">Pandora<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9icmFkYmxvZy5jb20vcG9kY2FzdGdlbi9icmFkY2FzdC9mZWVkLnhtbA\">Google<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-BradCast-w-Brad-Friedman\/dp\/B08JJRN86R\/ref=sr_1_1\">Amazon<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><strong>The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, <em>The BradCast<\/em> and <em>Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We not only cover a whole bunch of news stories on today&#8217;s BradCast, we also explain what they mean and why they matter. As always, we want you to not only know what happened, but understand why it did and what can be done about it, so you can pass that important information on to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,675,21,543,299,1245,220,1611,28,753,1691,548,634,16,14,1110,288,49,320,477,1628,498,111,43,771,300,126,313],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-14721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-california","category-climate-change","category-democrats","category-department-of-education","category-education","category-election-2024","category-election-reform","category-electric-vehicles","category-electricity","category-extreme-weather","category-fda","category-florida","category-fox-news","category-gerrymandering","category-health-care","category-illinois","category-joe-biden","category-kpfk","category-labor-unions","category-natural-gas","category-new-york","category-north-carolina","category-race","category-republicans","category-rights-and-freedoms","category-us-supreme-court","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14721"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=14721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}