On Senior Night at the Rose Bowl, 24 Bruins were honored before kickoff on a clear, windy night in front of 38,201 fans. It was the last time the senior class would play in the historic stadium.

Coming into the game, the Washington Huskies had a dismal 3-12 record against UCLA at the Rose Bowl. Quarterback Demond Williams Jr. understood the assignment of winning in a stadium they’ve struggled playing in historically. 

“We hopped on it all week in practice. Understanding that playing on the road is difficult, and the history that we have playing here.” 

Both teams opened with empty drives, with Washington punting and UCLA failing to convert on 4th & 4. 

Late in the first quarter, Washington caught a break on offense by recovering a fumble on the first play of UCLA’s second possession. The drive stalled with a 3-and-out, but ended with a 36-yard field goal by Grady Gross. 

About six minutes into the second quarter, Nico Iamaleava fumbled on a quarterback run, giving Washington the ball in Bruin territory. Gross tacked on another field goal to give the Huskies a 13-0 lead. 

After the Bruins punt with under four minutes to go in the half, Williams threw an interception to Cole Martin on the first play of the drive. Shortly thereafter, on 4th & 15, UCLA’s holder fumbled a toss to the kicker on a fake, which was returned for a touchdown by safety Alex McLaughlin. The ensuing extra point gave Washington a 20-0 lead. 

“It was probably too complicated to be honest with you. They were in a block look and then they stemmed out of it,” interim head coach Tim Skipper said. “The communication, on our end, got all jacked up when they stemmed out of it. I’ll take the heat on it.”

McLaughlin was also asked about the bizarre play.

“I was the edge, and I saw him pitching, and I saw a ball on the ground and picked it up, got great blocks from my teammates,” McLaughlin said. “We’ve seen their special teams, they fake a lot of punts, so we were definitely expecting it.”

UCLA’s last chance to score before halftime was squandered by two 10-yard penalties. 

Iamaleava exited the game after he was crunched on a sack by two players with 8:44 remaining in the third quarter. Although he was able to walk off under his own power, he immediately went into the blue medical tent.
 
“When he came out, he went to the tent, then came into the locker room,” Skipper said. “We’ll get updates as we go, but that’s all that I really know.”

Washington took a commanding 34-0 lead on the next drive. With Iamaleava still in the medical tent, redshirt sophomore quarterback Luke Duncan entered the game. Duncan’s 37-yard touchdown pass to Mikey Matthews gave the Bruins their first points of the game. 

“He handled himself well. He went out there and threw the rock,” Skipper said. “It was all positive. Just trying to keep on going.”

After Washington responded with another touchdown drive, Duncan’s second offensive possession stalled on a 3-and-out. Kanye Clark jarred the ball loose from Dezmen Roebuck on the ensuing punt and was returned for a touchdown by Jamir Benjamin. 

The celebration was short-lived, as Williams put the game on ice with a 24-yard touchdown pass to tight end Decker DeGraaf.

Washington head coach Jedd Fisch was UCLA’s interim head coach for the final two games of the 2017 season. Williams closed the night with four total touchdowns (two passing and two rushing), 213 passing yards, and 56 rushing yards to go along. 

“I thought he played really, really well in that second half. I think his completion percentage was
really clean in the second half.” 

The Huskies close the regular season at home against Oregon next week. 

Senior offensive lineman Garrett DiGiorgio grew emotional while reflecting on what playing at the Rose Bowl and his five years at UCLA have meant to him. 

“These last five years have been amazing. I was super grateful to be at this university and to be able to play in the historic Rose Bowl,” he said. It was just a very high emotional game afterwards too because I have a lot of family here. It’s good having people out and supporting you for the last game.”

Earlier in the day, USC fell to Oregon on the road,almost certainly eliminating the Trojans from College Football Playoff contention. This took away an opportunity for UCLA to play spoiler during rivalry week, which occurs the final week of the regular season. With the Bruins eliminated from bowl season, Saturday’s game between crosstown rivals carries far less weight than in recent years. 

Charlie Gonzalez is a volunteer sports reporter for KPFK with experience in sports journalism and broadcasting.

UCLA entered as five-point favorites over a Maryland team that led the FBS in interceptions coming into the game. Sitting at 3-1 in Big Ten play, the Bruins are tied for the second-best record behind Indiana and Ohio State — both upcoming road opponents. Interim head coach Tim Skipper kept his message simple and consistent.

“We talked strain, we talked grinding. Every single play matters, we preach that,” Skipper said. “But literally, tonight, every single play mattered. It took everybody. Frias is a hardworking dude. He was buried on the depth chart at the beginning of the year. He just kept working, never complained.”

On the plane to Michigan State last week, Skipper taped notes to each seat asking, “Are you one-hit wonders?” The challenge worked — interim offensive coordinator Jerry Neuheisel’s aggressive play-calling helped UCLA score 38 unanswered points in a 38-13 win over the Spartans after falling behind early.

“Our whole motivation this week was the standard is the standard — playing winning football, executing, and doing what we needed to do,” Skipper said. “Disciplined football goes hand in hand. We’ve identified our style of play; now we need to match it every single Saturday.”

A delay-of-game penalty wiped out a 55-yard field-goal attempt on UCLA’s second drive, forcing a punt. Maryland struck first with a 24-yard field goal from Sean O’Haire to cap a 17-play drive lasting more than eight minutes.

With under three minutes left in the first half, linebacker Isaiah Chisom forced a fumble recovered by JonJon Vaughns for the game’s first turnover. Running back Anthony Frias II broke loose soon after for a 55-yard touchdown run — one of four carries that totaled 97 yards.

“It means the world to me. I’m just so grateful for God blessing me,” Frias said. “I came here with my dad to watch the Rose Bowl 10 years ago. I’m just so happy all the work is coming to fruition.”

Both teams opened with three-and-outs. Maryland quarterback Malik Washington faced early pocket pressure, his first two passes deflected — one nearly intercepted by Rodrick Pleasant, who finished with three passes defended.

“We took this game with pride,” Pleasant said. “They throw the ball a lot. That was our motto this week: put it on us.”

After averaging 40 points over their previous two games, UCLA led 7-3 at halftime. During intermission it was announced that next week’s matchup at Indiana would host Big Noon Kickoff at 9 a.m.

“A month ago I wouldn’t have believed it,” Skipper said. “That is awesome. It means we’re doing something right.”

Maryland head coach Michael Locksley praised Skipper’s squad afterward.

“I give credit to Coach Skipper and his staff and his team,” Locksley said. “They fought for four quarters. They’re tough, playing together, and playing for each other.”

Late in the game, a targeting penalty on linebacker Trey Reddick led to his ejection. Four plays later, UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava was intercepted by Jalen Huskey — who was also ejected for targeting. The Terrapins suddenly found themselves without two of their best defenders in a one-score contest.

“I’m not a victim,” Locksley said. “It’s my job to coach the football team, and I’m going to stick to that.”

Maryland went for it on 4th-and-2 with 5:16 left in the third quarter instead of kicking a field goal that would’ve cut the deficit to one. Washington’s pass was broken up by Andre Jordan Jr. Two plays later, Jamare Glasker’s pick-six gave Maryland its first lead.

Early in the fourth, UCLA’s Kwazi Gilmer was flagged for an illegal block in the back on a long Jalen Berger run — even though replays showed no contact. The call drew loud boos from the Rose Bowl crowd.

With 7:44 left, Mateen Bhaghani missed a 56-yard field goal wide left. But with four seconds remaining, he redeemed himself with a 23-yard game-winner.

“It was a very special moment,” Bhaghani said. “I’m super appreciative of our offense — Nico and Frias really put their hearts out to get me down there.”

UCLA (5-2, 3-1 Big Ten) travels to Bloomington on Thursday ahead of its matchup with Indiana, set for a 9 a.m. kickoff on Saturday.

When my dad worked with the LA Clippers during the "Lob City" era, I went to a lot of games. Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan. The team had a specific energy involving swagger and chaos. For a minute, it made sense. I started to recognize the players, pay attention to the stats, and follow the storylines. I actually started to believe in "my team." More than that, I could finally connect with friends and family in a language I’d always been shut out of. I could talk about trades and share that "inside-baseball" energy. For once, I wasn’t on the edge. I was in.

Then they were gone. A string of trades, ownership drama, and front-office shakeups wiped the roster clean. The team was reshuffled into something unrecognizable. It felt cheap, like a magic trick you weren't supposed to see from the side. New floors, different walls, no trace of what once mattered. It hit hard. I’d finally started to buy in, and the whole thing turned out to be paper-thin. I wasn’t watching a "culture." I was watching a business doing business.

That moment stuck with me. The more I look at how culture is packaged and sold, the more that Clippers era makes sense. Especially now, as I watch the country drift toward something colder. I am watching ritual become spectacle and meaning turn into merchandise. Sports is one of the last mass rituals we have. For men especially, who are often taught not to grieve or cry, sports is the one safe zone. You can scream, sob, or hug a stranger and call it passion. (Though in my house, my mom was usually the loudest one yelling at the screen). A win feels like redemption and a loss feels personal. But peel back the surface and it’s just commerce.

Everything is for sale. Even the pauses are monetized: “This Home Depot halftime report is brought to you by Samsung, here at the Smoothie King Center.” It’s absurd. Every beat of silence is sold off. You’re never allowed to forget who owns the moment or what they want you to buy. Like reality TV, it simulates intimacy. You follow the lives and pick villains, but at the end of the day, it belongs to someone else. We don’t really ask what we’re getting out of this. Sports gives us the performance of connection and purpose, but not the real versions. It scratches the itch just enough that we stop looking elsewhere. When your favorite player gets traded or benched for being a "PR liability," you’re reminded: this whole thing is conditional.

It wasn’t always this polished. Sports used to come from the dirt through working-class energy, streetball, and union leagues. Athletes weren’t "brands." They were people with real stakes. Muhammad Ali lost his title and his prime years because he refused to fight in a war he didn't believe in. Billie Jean King went to war with the tennis establishment for equal pay. These weren’t endorsements. They were risks. These people had everything to lose, and they were still close enough to the people in the cheap seats to speak for them. Now, players are assets. Teams are portfolio holdings. Fans are treated like a permanent subscription with no refunds. We see billionaires standing cage-side at UFC fights while athletes get bloodied for $50k, yet WNBA players are called "greedy" for wanting more than 9% of league revenue. The market doesn't want truth; it wants predictability. It wants bland, apolitical content that can be licensed and packaged.

You can still find the real stuff if you know where to look. You see it in WNBA players walking out during the anthem. These are women who don’t just play with less spotlight, but live with less of a cushion. When you have less to lose, you’re freer to speak the truth. You see it in fans organizing to stop ticket hikes, or in local leagues run by and for the community. You see it in pick-up games at the park, where nothing is for sale and everything is earned. Beneath the ads, the spark is stubborn.

This isn’t really about sports. It’s about what we do with our attention. It’s about how power uses spectacle to distract and divide. For a second, I thought I’d found something worth rooting for. I got to feel what it was like to belong. And even though I "saw the wires," I don't think it was worthless. There is something real in the way people love this. The joy and the heartbreak isn't fake. Whole families bond over it. But once you see how it’s built, you can’t unsee it. You don’t have to be a sports fan to ask who owns the game, who benefits, and what we’re missing while the lights are on and the anthem is playing. Because if the game is rigged, what the hell are we cheering for?

Replacing hand-drawn comics with AI art didn’t just change how our paper looked — it undermined what makes journalism worth doing.

By Noah Velez
Contributor, KPFK

Short deadlines, boring headlines, and last minute updates, I thought would be my greatest challenges as a beginner editor-in-chief. While I was focused on editorial hygiene and getting the basics right, the epidemic of A.I. content started spreading through my newsroom.

My vision for the publication was always rooted in integrity and everything I had learned in my journalism program. I wanted to highlight student life, cover local news stories, and showcase meaningful art, not argue with my staff over whether artificial intelligence should be used to create content. It was even more surprising when my opinion was brushed aside and hand-drawn comics were phased out in favor of AI-generated work dominating the comic section. It felt like an illness had crept in, one I could only really describe as laziness. When my first issue was printed, I was disappointed with the so-called “art” that ran. My opinion-editorial editor had made an entire comic strip with ChatGPT without my approval. The artwork was bloated and disproportionate, everything seemed to be some strange hue of yellow, and the punchlines, I assume, were also generated. The writing might have been aiming for humor, but the strip lacked nuance and just landed flat.

As the new editor-in-chief, I started to question myself, wondering if maybe I was resisting change because of some personal prejudice rather than a real problem with the work. I wanted to understand why my staff felt so strongly about using AI, so I spoke privately with my professor. They told me AI images were part of the industry’s future, echoing what Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has said about generative AI’s potential to “revolutionize nearly every industry.” My professor said we needed to learn how to master these tools because they would eventually become the standard. I disagreed then, and I still do.

During my time as editor, burnout came up often when we talked about the comic section. We had one person responsible for the whole thing. They had a week to develop a joke, draw it, pitch it, and then revise it. It was a lot for one person, so I can understand why some editors looked at ChatGPT and thought it was a shortcut to better time management. Why spend a week on a comic when a program can spit one out in a few minutes? But what makes the work of a real person better than whatever modern technology can produce?

I’ll tell you why: computers aren’t funny, and they don’t have hands to draw.

The problem isn’t just that AI art looks bad. It’s about integrity. A publication that values its readers doesn’t cut corners just to get something done faster. Journalism is built on good sourcing, and that applies to images too. Getting images from a generative algorithm isn’t sourcing. It’s just skipping steps and calling it work.

People often say that because we live in the internet era, the standard for quality has been lowered, but I think the opposite is true. We’re surrounded by fake content now, and people want what’s real. They want quality journalism that understands nuance, writing that offers a unique perspective, and comics that are actually funny while making complex issues easier to understand. That’s why legacy publications like The New Yorker still publish hand-drawn comics — because readers love them enough to keep paying for them.

The human brain runs on about 20 watts of electricity. A computer trying to imitate that uses billions, and still, the result is worse. A program will never match the creativity and odd humor of a person who’s just trying to make something real. The cure for the A.I. epidemic isn’t a faster machine. It’s giving people the time, trust, and space to make work that’s worth printing in the first place.

Cary Harrison's latest episode with important updates and his last interview and memories with the iconic actress Nichelle Nichols, best known for her groundbreaking role as Uhura on Star Trek!

Cary Harrison reveals what’s in Ukraine that Russia really wants. | How Biden & contractors are fueling the war. | Navy vet plans to wipe out billions in fellow Vets' medical debt!

Cary Harrison provides the full reveal on these labs plus the lab origins of the ongoing pandemics as expertly laid out by Dr. Francis Boyle.

Prof. Boyle is famous for drafting the US Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and has lectured on nuclear weapons and international law at West Point - and holds a Magna Cum Laude doctorate in Law and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

From propaganda to pointing nukes at Ukraine' 15 Chernobyls, the reboot of the new Soviet Union is well underway. Historian Harvey Wasserman looks at our 93 nuke plants here as well as the 15 operated by Russia across the Ukraine.
Watch the entire episode here
Harrison's "REALITY CHECK" can be heard every Tuesday at 2PM on KPFK

With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...By DESI DOYEN on 2/22/2022, 10:54am PT  

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Weather disasters impacted 1 in 10 homes in the U.S. last year; Biden Interior Department halts new oil and gas leases in ironic legal fight over costs of climate; Climate-changed rainfall patterns dampen economic growth; PLUS: Biden unveils historic $1 billion in funding for Great Lakes cleanup... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Germany Decertifies Russian Gas Pipeline; Sanctions against Russia come at a cost to the West; Air pollution may affect sperm quality, says study; 3 U.S. states with shuttered nuclear plants see emissions rise; China plans to feed 80 million people with 'seawater rice'; Study shows renewable energy could help prevent blackouts like Texas; Ethiopia turns on the turbines at giant Nile hydropower plant; Conflict and climate change ravage Syria's agricultural heartland; Chicago Mayor denies permit to scrap shredder plant on city's South Side... PLUS: Hank the Tank: Massive bear breaks into dozens of homes near Lake Tahoe... and much, MUCH more! ...Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• Weather disaster affected 1 in 10 homes in the U.S. last year:
  • Weather disasters affected 1 in 10 homes in the country last year, report finds (Washington Post)>
  • Catastrophe Report Warns Of The High Price Tag Of Damage From Extreme Weather Events (Forbes)
  • More than 40 percent of Americans live in counties hit by climate disasters in 2021 (Washington Post)
  • Retirees Squeezed by Climate-Amped Home Insurance (Climate Crocks)
  • Climate Change Could Make Your Old Roof an Insurance Problem (MSN)
• Climate-changed rainfall patterns are harming economic growth:
  • Heavy Rains Have Major Impact on Economies (Climate Crocks)
  • Study: Climate-changed rainfall dampens economic growth (Yale Climate Communications):

    hen estimating costs that climate change will impose on societies, climate economists face a difficult barrier: They can only incorporate into models well-understood and quantified climate damages. Authors of a recent study published in Nature have identified previously unknown economic impacts associated with changes in rainfall...One significant and previously overlooked effect lies in the increase of extreme daily rainfall totals that can disrupt economies by causing local flooding.

  • The effect of rainfall changes on economic production (Nature)
  • Extreme rainfall slows the global economy (Nature)
• Interior Dept. halts new oil/gas leases and permits in wake of judge's ruling:
  • Biden Administration Halts New Drilling in Legal Fight Over Climate Costs (NY Times):

    The Interior Department is pausing new federal oil and gas leases and permits after a judge blocked the government from weighing the cost of climate damage in decisions.

  • Judge blocks key Biden climate metric (E&E News)
• U.S. Coal Country to get historic $11 billion to clean up abandoned mines:
  • US coal communities get historic $11B to clean up abandoned mines (Canary Media):

    The funds support regions and workers grappling firsthand with the transition to clean energy.

  • Biden plan to spend $725M to clean up abandoned coal mines (ABC News):

    Nearly $725 million in federal funding is available this fiscal year to 22 states and the Navajo Nation for the reclamation of abandoned coal mines and cleanup of acid mine drainage, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced.

• Biden unveils historic $1 billion in funding for Great Lakes cleanup:
  • Joe Biden says Great Lakes funding will allow the ‘most significant’ restoration effort in history (Cleveland Plain Dealer):

    Drawing on the words of famed author and Lorain-native Toni Morrison, President Joe Biden on Thursday said cities like Lorain and the rest of Ohio have much to look forward to in the future while announcing $1 billion in funding for restoration of the Great Lakes. "Places like Lorain have a lot of proud yesterdays," he said. "Now, they’re going to have some greater tomorrows because of all of you."

  • Biden announces $1 billion in infrastructure funding to clean up the Great Lakes (CNN)
  • VIDEO: Biden's Lorain, Ohio speech (Yahoo News):

    Biden spoke in Lorain Feb. 17 about the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act which will accelerate clean-up of areas along the Great Lakes.M

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the Society of Environmental Journalists' Daily Headlines page

• Germany Decertifies Russian Gas Pipeline (Climate Crocks)
• Ukraine crisis: sanctions against Russia come at a cost to the west (Guardian UK)
• Air pollution may affect sperm quality, says study (Guardian UK)
• 3 states with shuttered nuclear plants see emissions rise (E&E News)
• China Plans to Feed 80 Million People With ‘Seawater Rice’ (Bloomberg)
• 75 percent Of People Want Single-Use Plastics Banned, Global Survey Finds (Reuters)
• Study Shows Renewable Energy Could Help Prevent Blackouts Like Texas (Washington Post)
• Black Farmers Fear Foreclosure as Debt Relief Remains Frozen (NY Times)
• Ethiopia Turns On The Turbines At Giant Nile Hydropower Plant (Reuters)
• White House Mulls How To Stabilize Gas Prices Amid Russian Hostilities (Washington Post)
• Conflict and Climate Change Ravage Syria’s Agricultural Heartland (NY Times)
• Drought, Wildfires Pose New Threats To California Water Supply (LA Times)
• Hank the Tank: Massive Bear Breaks Into Dozens Of Homes Near Lake Tahoe (NPR)
• Chicago Mayor Denies Permit To Scrap Shredder; Company Vows To Fight On (Chicago Tribune)
• White House Releases EJ Mapping Tool Amid Rising Scrutiny (E&E News)
• Environmental Sacrifice Zones: 8 Places We’ve Given Up—Probably Forever (Environmental Health Network)
• "Rare Earths" from Coal Waste (Climate Crocks)
• How Manchin used politics to protect his coal company (E&E News)
• Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan (The Revelator)
• Green Upheaval: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Foreign Affairs)
• VIDEO: 2050: what happens if we ignore the climate crisis (Guardian UK)
• Guilt, grief and anxiety as young people fear for climate's future (Reuters)
• 99.9 percent Of Scientists Agree Climate Emergency Caused By Humans (Guardian UK)
• An Empire of Dying Wells: Old oil and gas sites are a climate menace. Meet the company that owns more of America's decaying wells than any other. (Bloomberg)
• Climate Fund Choices for Investors Are Multiplying (Bloomberg/Yahoo)
• How climate change could undo 50 years of public health gains (Grist)
• Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration (Pro Publica)
• Exxon's Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• What Does '12 Years to Act on Climate Change' (Now 9 Years) Really Mean? (Inside Climate News)
• VIDEO: A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (The Intercept)
• What genuine, no-bullshit ambition on climate change would look like: How to hit the most stringent targets, with no loopholes. (David Roberts, Vox)
• A Global Shift To Sustainability Would Save Us $26 Trillion (Vox)
• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)
• An Optimist's Guide to Solving Climate Change and Saving the World (Vice)
• The great nutrient collapse: The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention. (Politico)
• The world's bleak climate situation, in 3 charts: We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there. (Vox)
• The Climate Risks We Face (NY Times):

  To stabilize global temperature, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. The window of time is rapidly closing to reduce emissions and limit warming to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the goal set in the Paris climate accord. The further we push the climate system beyond historical conditions, the greater the risks of potentially unforeseen and even catastrophic changes to the climate - so every reduction in emissions helps.

• The Uninhabitable Earth: When will climate change make earth too hot for humans? (New York Magazine):

  Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak - sooner than you think.

• A beginner's guide to the debate over 100% renewable energy (Vox):

  Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it's possible for the whole world to run on renewables - we merely lack the "political will." So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.

With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... GNR's 13th ANNIVERSARY! By DESI DOYEN on 2/17/2022, 11:24am PT  

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. sea levels to rise by at least a foot by 2050, causing profound flooding; Rio hit with deadly torrential rains, floods, and landslides; PLUS: Good news for breathers --- Biden to restore California's clean car standards... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Corn-based ethanol may be worse for climate than gasoline; Nuclear fusion: why the race to harness the power of the Sun just sped up; Zinke broke ethics rules as Trump's Interior Secretary; Oil firms' climate claims are greenwashing, study concludes; Firefighters file multiple lawsuits over PFAS in gear, foam; Jordan tries to save rare red sea corals that can take climate change; CA will put solar panels over canals to fight two disasters at once... PLUS: Flourishing plants show warming Antarctica undergoing 'major change'... and much, MUCH more! ...

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• Torrential rains trigger deadly, catastrophic flash floods and landslides:
  • VIDEO: At least 78 dead from mudslide in Rio de Janeiro (NBC News)
  • Mudslides, flooding kill at least 94 people in Brazil (The Week/MSN):

    At least 94 people have been killed in Petropolis, Brazil, after heavy rains caused mudslides that destroyed homes and washed away vehicles, local government officials said Wednesday.

• NOAA warns U.S. sea levels to rise by at least a foot by 2050:
  • 2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report: Global and Regional Sea Level Rise
    Scenarios for the United States (NOAA)
  • Sea level to rise one foot along U.S. coastlines by 2050, government report finds (Washington Post):

    This amount of water battering the coasts “will create a profound increase in the frequency of coastal flooding, even in the absence of storms or heavy rainfall,” NOAA said. "We’re unfortunately headed for a flood regime shift," said William Sweet, an oceanographer at the NOAA National Ocean Service and the nation’s top scientist on sea level rise. "There will be water in the streets unless action is taken in more and more communities."

  • US Could See a Century's Worth of Sea Rise in Just 30 Years (AP)
  • U.S. sea levels to rise by a foot through 2050, causing "profound" flooding (Axios):

    The U.S. is poised to see as much of a rise in sea levels through the year 2050 as it has experienced in the past century, with additional increases through 2150, according to a comprehensive new federal report out Tuesday.

  • VIDEO: NOAA press conference --- U.S. coastline to see up to a foot of sea level rise by 2050 (NOAA)
  • VIDEO: Dr. Michael Mann on MSNBC Talking About New NOAA Sea Level Rise Report (YouTube)
  • VIDEO: Locked In: Sea Level Will Rise a Foot by 2050 (Climate Crocks)
• Biden White House unveils 'Buy Clean' initiative to decarbonize industrial sector:
  • The White House Is Going After One of Climate Change’s Thorniest Problems (The Atlantic):

    It requires building new factories. Lots of them...In order to bring new technologies to market, Washington is willing to act as an investor, matchmaker, and consumer for fledgling innovations. It will design markets to serve public needs, cut loans that banks won’t write, and ensure competition among linchpin firms. The government, in short, is ready to care about stuff again, the real-world economy of flesh and steel.

  • Biden Administration Promises to Buy ‘Clean’ Industrial Materials (NY Times):

    A new Buy Clean Task Force will be created to ensure federal agencies buy construction materials that are manufactured in a way that produces fewer emissions. The Energy Department will spend $9.5 billion to encourage the commercial-scale development of clean hydrogen, a zero-carbon alternative to natural gas that is currently expensive and complicated to produce. The White House on Tuesday will also issue new guidance on deploying technology that can capture pollution from sources like smokestacks or from the air and then permanently store it.

  • Biden and ‘Buy Clean’ task force will tap infrastructure funds to cut emissions from steel, aluminum and concrete (MarketWatch)
• Biden EPA restores CA authority to set more stringent tailpipe standards:

   

  • Biden will allow California to set climate limits on cars. The move could influence the rest of the country (Washington Post):

    "It’s worth recognizing that the only reason the feds are where they are on greenhouse gas emission standards for cars is because California went there first," said Cara Horowitz, co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. "The importance of California’s authority shouldn’t be dismissed just because the feds have now caught up to California."

  • California Returns as Climate Leader, With Help From the White House (NY Times):

     

    The Biden administration is restoring the state’s power to set its own limits on tailpipe pollution and is largely adopting the state’s rules regarding heavy trucks.

  • Biden administration to reverse Trump-era California auto emissions rollback (Axios)
  • Biden administration is finalizing a waiver for California to set its own vehicle emissions standards (CNN):

    Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson Nick Conger confirmed the EPA's final decision on the waiver is expected soon. "We are working to finalize a decision on the California waiver and we expect to issue a decision in the near future," Conger told CNN.

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the Society of Environmental Journalists' Daily Headlines page

• Corn-Based Ethanol May Be Worse For the Climate Than Gasoline, a New Study Finds (Inside Climate News)
• Nuclear Fusion: Why the Race to Harness the Power of the Sun Just Sped Up (Inside Climate News)
• Zinke Broke Ethics Rules While Leading Trump’s Interior Dept.: Inspector General (Washington Post)
• Oil Firms' Climate Claims Are Greenwashing, Study Concludes (Guardian UK)
• Firefighters File Multiple Lawsuits Over PFAS in Gear, Foam (Bloomberg)
• World Spends $1.8T A Year On Subsidies That Harm Environment: Study (Guardian UK)
• Power Grid Upgrade Costs to Handle Extreme Weather Divide States (Bloomberg)
• Students From 5 Top Universities Sue To Compel Fossil-Fuel Divestment (Washington Post)
• Jordan Tries To Save Rare Red Sea Corals That Can Take Climate Change (Mongabay)
• CA Will Put Solar Panels Over Canals to Fight Two Disasters at Once (Earther)
• New Faces on FERC Could Help Speed a Clean Energy Transition (Inside Climate News)
• Flourishing Plants Show Warming Antarctica Undergoing 'Major Change' (Guardian UK)
• Never Believe a Bank’s Net-Zero Pledge (The New Republic)
• How Manchin used politics to protect his coal company (E&E News)
• Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan (The Revelator)
• Green Upheaval: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Foreign Affairs)
• VIDEO: 2050: what happens if we ignore the climate crisis (Guardian UK)
• Guilt, grief and anxiety as young people fear for climate's future (Reuters)
• 99.9 percent Of Scientists Agree Climate Emergency Caused By Humans (Guardian UK)
• An Empire of Dying Wells: Old oil and gas sites are a climate menace. Meet the company that owns more of America's decaying wells than any other. (Bloomberg)
• Climate Fund Choices for Investors Are Multiplying (Bloomberg/Yahoo)
• How climate change could undo 50 years of public health gains (Grist)
• Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration (Pro Publica)
• Exxon's Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• What Does '12 Years to Act on Climate Change' (Now 9 Years) Really Mean? (Inside Climate News)
• VIDEO: A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (The Intercept)
• What genuine, no-bullshit ambition on climate change would look like: How to hit the most stringent targets, with no loopholes. (David Roberts, Vox)
• A Global Shift To Sustainability Would Save Us $26 Trillion (Vox)
• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)
• An Optimist's Guide to Solving Climate Change and Saving the World (Vice)
• The great nutrient collapse: The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention. (Politico)
• The world's bleak climate situation, in 3 charts: We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there. (Vox)
• The Climate Risks We Face (NY Times):

  To stabilize global temperature, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. The window of time is rapidly closing to reduce emissions and limit warming to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the goal set in the Paris climate accord. The further we push the climate system beyond historical conditions, the greater the risks of potentially unforeseen and even catastrophic changes to the climate - so every reduction in emissions helps.

• The Uninhabitable Earth: When will climate change make earth too hot for humans? (New York Magazine):

  Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak - sooner than you think.

• A beginner's guide to the debate over 100% renewable energy (Vox):

  Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it's possible for the whole world to run on renewables - we merely lack the "political will." So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.

Guest: Former Asst. USA Randall D. Eliason; Also: Climate disaster in Rio; Retail sales boom under Biden; I.G. finds Trump Interior Sec. 'misused public office for private gain'...

By BRAD FRIEDMAN on 2/16/2022

The clean up on aisle 45 seems to never end on The BradCast. But a whole bunch of experts (including our guest today) suggests our disgraced former President is inching ever closer to some very bad news --- at least in New York. [Audio link to full show is posted at end of this summary.]

First up, some other news not getting enough coverage today...

• Our climate emergency continues to worsen, as 10 inches of rain fell in three hours in a mountainous tourist area near Rio in Brazil on Tuesday. As of airtime at least 58 were confirmed killed by the downpour and the deadly mudslides it triggered. That comes on the heels of at least 40 killed in similar storms in Brazil last month, as the nation's President, Jair Bolsonaro, has allowed for the acceleration of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, contributing to our worsening climate crisis and resulting in these deadly, extreme weather disasters.

• The Biden economic boom continues, despite corporate media's continuing obsession with inflation. On Wednesday, the Commerce Department reported consumer spending surged in January, and at much higher numbers than can be attributed to inflation. Retail sales nearly doubled what Dow Jones had previously estimated would be seen in January. A separate report today also found that industrial production spiked three times higher than estimates for last month.

• Donald Trump's disgraced Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, "misused his public office for private gain" and lied about it to government ethics officials, according to a report [PDF] released Wednesday by the Department's Inspector General. Despite vowing, upon his confirmation as Trump's Interior chief in 2017, to disassociate with a foundation he worked with and a related commercial venture while serving as Secretary, Zinke was found to have communicated with the group dozens of times via email and text; had private meetings with them in D.C.; and played an "extensive, direct, and substantive role" in a commercial development project that would also benefit a private commercial project of his own in Montana. The I.G. reportedly referred the matter to Biden's Dept. of Justice, which --- for reasons unknown --- declined to bring criminal charges against Trump's disgraced former Interior chief. And, because no accountability was ever brought over this matter --- or a host of other personal Zinke scandals revealed while he served under Trump --- the wildly corrupt Zinke is now running again for high office in Montana, hoping to win back his old U.S. House seat this year.

Then, it's on to our guest today, for insight on a number of related matters.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Trump's longtime accounting firm, Mazars USA, informed him and his family business last week that they would no longer be doing business with them. Moreover, they informed Trump that nearly 10 years of annual financial statements they'd prepared for him and the Trump Organization should no longer be relied upon to be accurate in any way, as it was based on faulty information supplied by Trump.

The company informed Trump that Statements of Financial Condition created from 2011 to 2020 were being retracted and that, due to a "conflict of interest", they would no longer be working for his company. The news came via a court filing on Monday by New York state Attorney General Letitia James in response to the attempt by Trump and his children to avoid depositions in James' civil investigation into alleged bank, tax and insurance fraud by all of them. The Manhattan D.A. is also running a concurrent criminal probe into many of the same matters.

Since that news became public this week, a number of legal experts have explained that Mazars' "conflict of interest" almost certainly means the firm is now cooperating with New York prosecutors against Trump and his businesses. Longtime Trump investigative reporter David Cay Johnston told CNN on Tuesday that he believes Trump and his company and maybe even his kids, will, in fact, be indicted on racketeering charges in the state.

We're joined today by former Asst. U.S. Attorney RANDALL D. ELIASON, who spent years as Chief of the DoJ's Public Corruption/Government Fraud section in D.C. He's now a law professor at George Washington University Law School where he is an expert in white collar criminal law. Eliason offers helpful insight into Trump's increasingly serious New York troubles and discusses his recent opinion piece at Washington Post calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to explain himself in regard to the DoJ's probe (or lack thereof) into the 10 or more obstruction of justice allegations detailed by Robert Mueller in the report on his Special Counsel investigation.

On the New York matter(s), Eliason cites a recent comment he'd heard that Mazars' dumping of Trump suggests "the ship is leaving the rats." He charges that the financial firm is clearly "trying to distance themselves, and that suggests they see something bad coming down the road for their client." He concurs that "the most likely explanation for what's going on is that Mazars is now cooperating, either in the criminal case or the civil case, or both, and potentially testifying against Trump and the Trump Organization. That definitely creates a conflict of interest, to where they'd say, 'Well, I can't be your accountant anymore because now I'm actually a witness against you.'"

Eliason also offers a very helpful explanation of what racketeering charges actually are, and how, if Johnston is right, that might play into the New York state prosecutions and even the investigation by Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis into Trump's conspiracy to steal the 2020 election in the Peach State. Eliason further helps us understand how both the NY state Attorney General and Manhattan D.A. could both ultimately bring charges for the same set of fraud crimes, but as a civil matter (resulting in fines and other such penalties) by the A.G. and as a criminal indictment (potentially resulting in prison time) by the D.A.

As to the curious case of Merrick Garland, as Eliason highlighted in his recent Post op-ed, he does not count himself among those who think that Biden's Attorney General is necessarily dropping the ball. But he does believe an explanation is warranted to the American people regarding any potential investigations of Trump on the many cases of obstruction painstakingly spelled out in Mueller's Special Counsel report on Russian interference in 2016 and Trump's related firing of FBI Director James Comey.

On Monday, the statute of limitations into the oldest such obstruction allegation cited by Mueller has now run out. (That, as Eliason detailed at the Post, was "Trump’s alleged request to then-FBI Director James B. Comey to drop the criminal investigation of disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Other acts of possible obstruction soon will be similarly time-barred.")

"This clock is ticking away," Eliason tells me today. "Given the size of the investigation, the seriousness of the investigation, the detail in that report, even though DOJ doesn't normally comment on cases that it's not going to bring, or that it's not prosecuting, in this case they should. They should tell us something about what's happened with that Mueller Report now that we have an administration in office that is not filled with Trump appointees."

Eliason spells out why he believes that, while the DoJ doesn't usually comment on such cases, "this is a unique case" where "a lot of people are really convinced that the evidence of obstruction was pretty overwhelming" and that "it's bad for the Department and bad for the country if that just is allowed to fade into the distance and nobody ever says, 'Hey, we did take a look at this, and here's what we decided.'"

In fact, Eliason believes there is evidence to suggest that Garland is carefully looking at Trump's potential criminal exposure in regard to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, but is less certain about his handling of the Mueller allegations and thinks "there should be some closure on that.".

All of this, of course, as the clock may also be ticking toward an announcement by Trump that he plans to run for President again in 2024. How would that affect any potential federal indictments against the twice-impeached former President? We discuss that matter --- "practically speaking, that gets really hairy --- as well.

Finally, in our closing few minutes, a few more thoughts on Trump's worsening New York woes from someone else with a unique perspective. George Conway, the longtime Republican attorney and husband of Trump's former Campaign Manager and White House aide Kellyanne Conway, tells CNN why he believes the Mazars news to be far worse for Trump than his two impeachments as President...

 CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

THE RICK SMITH SHOW CAN BE HEARD EVERY SUNDAY AT 11am ON KPFK

THE WRONG FIGHTS FOR THE WRONG REASONS

“I CAN HIRE ONE HALF OF THE WORKING CLASS TO KILL THE OTHER HALF” – JAY GOULD.

The strategy of “divide and conquer” is as old as warfare itself. When attacking a larger and more powerful enemy, separate that enemy into smaller groups, then eliminate them one at a time. Never engage the enemy in its entirety.

Never allow that enemy to unite.

This tactic was centuries old long before railroad tycoon Jay Gould said the quiet part out loud in the 1890s, and it is still the wealth class’s game plan today. Seek out the enemy’s differences, exploit them, drive the enemy apart, then gobble up the wealth left behind on the battlefield. Rinse, then repeat. It’s not complex, but it’s a strategy with a perfect historical batting average. Every time the rich swing it, it connects. So, every time we hear about the latest success story – on the economy, or jobs, or the return of US manufacturing – the right responds with scary sounding terms like “Critical Race Theory” or anti-vaxxer hysteria or some other such nonsense. Anything to make you hate your neighbor because hate is all they ever have to offer. Rage candy force fed to scared people who are usually wondering how they’re going to pay for prescriptions or daycare or college – and often all of these at once. The fear never doesn’t work.

And while the rich have been playing this game for centuries, the current state of division in America is not entirely their fault. They are certainly exposing our weaknesses to drive us apart, but we don’t exactly make this difficult. I mean, while there are entire television and social media networks built and maintained solely for the purpose of dividing America for profit, we watch those networks, share those memes, and dive headlong into the fray every time we are invited to do so. And no matter how clever or well-intentioned we are, we almost always make these divisions larger. It’s time to stop. It’s time to unite under a banner that exposes the real problem and the core sickness at the heart of the American experiment. That sickness is greed, and solidarity is the cure.

The “divide and conquer” strategy used by the rich for centuries exposes its own weakness in its very definition by admitting that it is almost always used to defeat a superior force. Whether it’s the union busters at Amazon or Starbucks, the executives at Fox News, or the CEO of any Fortune 500 company, all are aware that the working class is the most powerful political force in America, and should we ever recognize that simple fact, all of America will change immediately after. This is why Jay Gould felt the need to hire half of us to kill the other half, and it’s why the cowards at Fox and Facebook spend so much time and effort slicing and dicing us by race, gender, religion, etc. It’s the only thing that can keep us from holding them accountable for generations of thievery. And their success in doing so is why Jeff Bezos can launch a penis rocket into space, thank his poverty-adjacent workers for paying for it, and not be tarred and feathered for his stunning arrogance.

That said, the situation is far from hopeless, and workers are showing us the way. All over America, working people of all backgrounds are coming together to reshape America one small piece at a time by democratizing one workplace after another. In almost every instance, people from all the sliced and diced groups set aside our differences and fight together for better wages, hours, and conditions, and in doing so, we are seeing the very beginnings of our immense power. We are beginning to understand why they fight so hard to divide us; it’s because we are, first and foremost, a Union.

Brett Pransky is a writer, an English professor, and the Executive Producer of The Rick Smith Show. When not in the classroom, Brett uses his graduate degrees in Rhetoric and Business to help people understand the dangers associated with increasing corporate control over the levers of government and how to confront the deception used by those who profit from that control. Brett calls Columbus, Ohio home, and he hates writing about himself in the third person. He would also like everyone in America to download The Rick Smith Show podcast HERE.

By DESI DOYEN 

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New report finds staggering cost to achieve net zero emissions globally, while warning the cost of climate action is far cheaper than inaction; Air pollution even more deadly than previously thought; KFC and McDonald's launch new plant-based menu options; PLUS: Biden Administration revokes two controversial mining leases in Minnesota... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): EPA acts to curb air, water pollution in poor communities; For the first time, study links air pollution from fracking to early deaths among nearby residents; Record rainfall in South Africa triggers floods, significant crop losses; Gas stoves worse for climate than previously thought; EPA to probe whether biogas operations from hog farms violate civil rights of nearby residents;Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

DHS warns that rightwing extremists could attack power grid; CA redwood forest returned to native tribes... PLUS: Key crops face major shifts as world warms... and much, MUCH more! ...

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• Pipeline company knew ruptured pipeline was severely corroded:
  • Pipeline spills 300,000 gallons of diesel near New Orleans (AP)
  • Pipeline spills more than 300,000 gallons of diesel fuel near New Orleans (CNN):

    The company initially reported between 200-300 BBLs (8400 -12,600 gallons), had spilled; however on December 28, the company estimated the loss of diesel to be more than 300,000 gallons.

• Air pollution even worse than previously thought:
  • Even Low Levels of Soot Can Be Deadly to Older People, Research Finds (NY Times):

    The American Petroleum Institute, which represents oil and gas companies, did not review the Health Effects Institute research but questioned the need for tighter pollution rules. In a statement the trade group said "the current scientific evidence indicates the existing standards are effectively designed to protect public health and meet statutory requirements."

  • EPA's air pollution standards are deadly for older Americans (Ars Technica):

    Small reductions in PM2.5 pollution could save over 140,000 lives.

• Study finds cost of climate inaction far greater than action:
  • McKinsey: fundamental transformation of global economy needed for net zero (Guardian UK):

    $9 trillion of annual investment required to avoid most catastrophic climate impacts, consultancy says...Bob Ward, a policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, UK, said: "The McKinsey investment figures are not the net costs of reaching net zero globally, but instead the upfront annual costs without taking into account the benefits.

  • VIDEO: Dr. Michael Mann on Sky News' Daily Climate (Dr. Michael Mann/Twitter)
  • McKinsey calculates the staggering capital spending required to reach net-zero by 2050 (CNBC)
  • The net-zero transition: What it would cost, what it could bring (McKinsey):

    This McKinsey report offers a detailed look at the economic and societal impact of the transition to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

• Biden Interior Department cancels controversial mining permits in Minnesota:
  • Biden Administration Revokes Mining Leases Near Minnesota's Boundary Waters (Huffington Post):

    Opponents argue that allowing the project to move ahead could forever sully the vast network of federally protected rivers, lakes and creeks, often pointing to the hard-rock mining industry's long legacy of polluting water resources across the country. Extracting sulfide-bearing minerals like those Twin Metals is after could trigger the release of toxic sulfuric acid that can persist indefinitely.

  • Biden admin cancels mining leases near Boundary Waters (E&E news)
  • Biden administration revokes Trump-approved Minnesota mining lease (AP):

    "The Boundary Waters are a natural treasure that is simply too important to risk - and the costs for people and wildlife too steep," [Collin O'Mara, present and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation] said...Twin Metals is not connected to the proposed PolyMet Mining Corp.'s project at nearby Babbitt and Hoyt Lakes, which is currently mired in legal challenges and regulatory proceedings.

• GM to invest $7 billion in MI to ramp up EV manufacturing:
  • GM Pouring $7 Billion Into New EV Plants In Michigan (Forbes):

    GM President Mark Reuss highlighted that the company is utilizing existing facilities for the conversion rather than building greenfield sites which will save GM time and money. However, $4 billion to retool an existing plant, points to essentially an all-new factory anyway.

  • GM to spend $6.6 billion on EV plant investments in bid to dethrone Tesla in electric car sales by 2025 (CNBC)
• Fast food giants introduce plant-based menu options:
  • McDonald's McPlant burger made with Beyond Meat sold better than expected, analyst says (CNBC)
  • McDonald’s expands test of McPlant burger created with Beyond Meat (CNBC)
  • KFC’s new plant-based nuggets look and taste close to the real thing (Spokesman-Review)
  • Plant-based meat alternatives, like new nuggets from KFC, sound healthier. But are they? (Louisville Courier Journal/Yahoo News)
• Swapping out high-impact foods reduces environmental impact 40 percent:
  • Swapping just one item can make diets substantially more planet-friendly (Tulane University)
  • Food Swaps Can Radically Change a Diet’s Carbon Footprint (Environment News Service)
  • Swap shrimp for cod to cut a meal’s carbon footprint by a third, say scientists (MSN News):

    Scientists at Tulane University in the US say swapping higher carbon food for lower carbon alternatives can make a dramatic difference to the climate effect of a person’s diet.

  • Subtle changes to your diet could help the environment, study finds (Consumer Affairs):

    Replacing one meat-based option with a plant-based option could lower your carbon footprint.

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the Society of Environmental Journalists' Daily Headlines page

• EPA acts to curb air, water pollution in poor communities (AP)
• For the First Time, a Harvard Study Links Air Pollution From Fracking to Early Deaths Among Nearby Residents (Inside Climate News)
• South Africa's Heaviest Rain on Record Causes Destructive Floods (Yahoo Finance)
• Study: Gas stoves worse for climate than previously thought (Washington Post)
• Gas Stoves in the US Emit Methane Equivalent to the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Half a Million Cars (Inside Climate News)
• EPA to Probe Whether North Carolina’s Permitting of Biogas From Swine Feeding Operations Violates Civil Rights of Nearby Neighborhoods (Inside Climate News)
• Judge Refuses To Delay Release Of Disputed DAPL Documents (Bismarck Tribune)
• PFAS Widespread In Water- And Stain-Resistant Outdoor Clothes, Home Linens (EHN)
• Key Crops Face Major Shifts As World Warms (BBC)
• Youngkin Pick Wheeler Defends EPA Record, Criticizes Media (AP)
• Redwood Forest in California Is Returned to Native Tribes (NY Times)
• DHS Warns That Right-Wing Extremists Could Attack Power Grid (Daily Beast)
• EPA Criminal Cases Against Polluters Drop By A Third [during Trump Adminstration] (E&E News)
• Canada Watchdog Says Funds For Inactive Oil Well Cleanup May Fall Short (Reuters)
• Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan (The Revelator)
• Green Upheaval: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Foreign Affairs)
• VIDEO: 2050: what happens if we ignore the climate crisis (Guardian UK)
• Guilt, grief and anxiety as young people fear for climate's future (Reuters)
• 99.9 percent Of Scientists Agree Climate Emergency Caused By Humans (Guardian UK)
• An Empire of Dying Wells: Old oil and gas sites are a climate menace. Meet the company that owns more of America's decaying wells than any other. (Bloomberg)
• Climate Fund Choices for Investors Are Multiplying (Bloomberg/Yahoo)
• How climate change could undo 50 years of public health gains (Grist)
• Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration (Pro Publica)
• Exxon's Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• What Does '12 Years to Act on Climate Change' (Now 9 Years) Really Mean? (Inside Climate News)
• VIDEO: A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (The Intercept)
• What genuine, no-bullshit ambition on climate change would look like: How to hit the most stringent targets, with no loopholes. (David Roberts, Vox)
• A Global Shift To Sustainability Would Save Us $26 Trillion (Vox)
• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)
• An Optimist's Guide to Solving Climate Change and Saving the World (Vice)
• The great nutrient collapse: The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention. (Politico)
• The world's bleak climate situation, in 3 charts: We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there. (Vox)
• The Climate Risks We Face (NY Times):

  To stabilize global temperature, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. The window of time is rapidly closing to reduce emissions and limit warming to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the goal set in the Paris climate accord. The further we push the climate system beyond historical conditions, the greater the risks of potentially unforeseen and even catastrophic changes to the climate - so every reduction in emissions helps.

• The Uninhabitable Earth: When will climate change make earth too hot for humans? (New York Magazine):

  Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak - sooner than you think.

• A beginner's guide to the debate over 100% renewable energy (Vox):

  Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it's possible for the whole world to run on renewables - we merely lack the "political will." So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.

Also: A history lesson for Manchin; And Biden finally calls for Senate filibuster reform to pass voting rights and election protection legislation...

By BRAD FRIEDMAN on 1/11/2022, 6:47pm PT  

As it turns out, it wasn't an attack from highly skilled opposition mercenary warriors trained in the art of espionage, deception and surprise attacks that took down the Cyber Ninjas. It was their own incompetence, dishonesty and hopes of escaping huge court fines for failing to follow the rule of law that appears to have done them in. Or, perhaps they're just in hiding, ready to pounce again when they are least expected! [Audio link to full show is posted at bottom of this summary.]

First up on today's BradCast, however, before we get to the "death" of the Ninjas and their ongoing clown show, President Biden and Vice President Harris traveled to Atlanta on Tuesday to call for U.S. Senate filibuster reform in order to pass voting rights and election protection legislation with a simple majority. That, in hopes of countering voter suppression and election subversion measures being adopted by GOP controlled states across the nation.

All 50 Senators who caucus with the Democrats (plus Vice President Harris) are on record in support of the critical Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. But in the U.S. Senate, while that simple majority vote may be enough to cut taxes or allow drilling and mining on previously protected federal lands or seat Supreme Court Justices for life, it's currently not enough votes to protect American democracy. Not with the Republican Party now fully in opposition to both voting rights and democracy while Senate rules require a 60-vote super-majority to pass both pieces of legislation.

As Biden pointed out in his remarks today --- for the first time, offering a full-throated call to reform the Senate rules --- the united GOP opposition to voting rights is fairly new. Until recently, even Republicans voted in support of expanding and protecting voting rights at the federal level --- at least enough of them to overcome a Senate filibuster. But not anymore. At the same time, obstructionist Democrats Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) have refused to allow the majority to create a carve-out to the filibuster --- akin to hundreds of others in the Senate --- to adopt the legislation that both of them claim to support.

This week, Manchin even went so far as to describe the filibuster to reporters as a critical Senate tradition that has been in place "for 232 years." In fact, the filibuster as we now know it has been in place since 1975, as historian Max Kennerly explained on a Twitter thread in response to Manchin. "232 years ago, in 1790, a simple majority could end any debate," he notes. And Adam Jentleson, Harry Reid's former Chief of Staff who wrote a book on the filibuster, went so far as to alert Manchin to how much the Constitution's framers virulently opposed a super-majority requirement for anything at all, quoting both "father of the Constitution" James Madison and Alexander Hamilton from The Federalist Papers. (Which is why there is no such requirement in the Constitution.)

Whether the Biden/Harris calls in Atlanta for reform will have any effect on the clueless Manchin and the similarly disinformed or dishonest Sinema remains to be seen. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer continues to insist that "failure is not an option", vowing a series of votes on the matter between now and Monday's Martin Luther King Day holiday.

Meanwhile, the GOP fight against election integrity may have hit a few embarrassing snags after their infamously failed "post-election forensic audit" in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona last year. As you already know, the state GOP Senate's taxpayer funded audit theater found no Chinese bamboo in the County's 2.1 million hand-marked paper ballots, but it did declare that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by even more votes than originally certified. And if you follow The BradCast, you also may know that real election audit experts discovered that even those numbers were apparently "made up out of whole cloth" by the Ninjas, whose actual count of the ballots (never mind the results on them) was off by tens of thousands.

The final report that the Ninjas and its CEO Doug Logan produced last year on behalf of the GOP State Senate, also included 77 claims of "possible" fraud in the County's reported tallies and other questions to raise alarms about the legitimacy of tens of thousands of "maybe" illegal votes.

As it turns out, however, according to a 93-page, point-by-point rebuttal [PDF] of each of those claims, released last week by the Republican-majority Maricopa County Board of Supervisors after months of investigation, 76 of the Ninjas' 77 claims were completely wrong.

For example, according to the Ninjas' final audit report, 5,295 voters "potentially voted in multiple counties" in Arizona. The county found, however, that, in reality, just 5 voters may have done so. (They've forwarded their findings to the state AG). The Arizona Republic's Jen Fifield offers a helpful, detailed summary of most of the key rebuttals from the County, explaining how the Ninjas got it so embarrassingly wrong on virtually every "misleading, inaccurate and false" score.

The County's response to the Ninjas' pathetic report was mostly lost, however, amid the news the next day that the Cyber Ninjas were claiming to be no more. A spokesperson announced that they had shut their doors and all employees, including founder and CEO Logan, had been let go, following a contempt ruling from an Arizona Superior Court Judge. He found that failure by the Ninjas to turn over thousands of pages of public records documenting their "audit", its financing, and their communications with officials about it in two separate lawsuits violated the law. The plaintiffs sought a $1,000/day penalty until the documents were turned over. The judge informed the Ninjas they would be fined $50,000/day instead! They then declared they no longer existed, like a ninja disappearing into the night! Except they are really shitty ninjas.

The judge has stated that their claims at insolvency in an attempt to shut down to avoid the court fines was not going to work, threatening to apply the $50,000 daily fine to individuals with the company, like "former" CEO Logan. As it turns out, Logan formed a second company last year named Akolytos, using the same business and mailing addresses as the Cyber Ninjas. But his hopes of escaping the court fines through that second company may not work either, as journalist Kim Zetter details in her latest, excellent Zero Day newsletter. SAD!

Finally, as the Northeast grapples with a brutal cold snap today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, detailing the record warmth of 2021, and the disturbing increase in emissions causing our climate emergency over the past year...

 CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...

By DESI DOYEN on 1/11/2022

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. emissions spiked in 2021, jeopardizing Paris climate targets; 2021 clocked in as the fifth hottest year ever recorded; PLUS: New York State's new Governor goes big on climate and clean energy... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The hidden agenda behind the attack on vaccine mandates; Disinformation rampant on clean energy; USDA to double cover crop planting to address climate change; Manchin's coal corruption is so much worse than you think; Biden to scrap plan for wider Alaska oil drilling; Lakes are losing their ice cover faster than ever; US has twice as many abandoned oil and gas wells as previously thought; Fusion energy is a reason to be excited about the future... PLUS: From small to large, five green hydrogen projects to watch... and much, MUCH more! ...Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'..

• 2021 clocked in as the 5th warmest year on record:
  • 2021 ranks as fifth hottest year on record as global greenhouse gas emissions rise (CNBC)
  • The last 7 years have been Earth's 7 hottest (Axios)
  • 2021 Temperature Records Now Coming In (Climate Crocks)
• U.S. emissions spiked in 2021:
  • U.S. greenhouse gas emissions jumped in 2021 (Axios)
  • Spike in coal use helped push U.S. greenhouse gas emissions higher in 2021 (Yahoo News)
  • U.S. Emissions Surged In 2021, Pushing Nation Off Its Climate Targets (Washington Post)
  • AUDIO: U.S. greenhouse gas emissions jumped in 2021, a threat to climate goals (NPR)
• U.S. saw 20 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2021:
  • Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (NOAA)
  • U.S. saw second-most billion-dollar weather disasters on record in 2021 (Washington Post):

    A record warm December fueled a pair of devastating tornado outbreaks, two of the year's 20 billion-dollar events.

  • U.S. had its second-highest total of billion dollar climate disasters in 2021 (Axios):

    The 20 separate billion-dollar disasters rank 2021 in second place for the highest number of disasters seen in a single year, behind 2020, which had 22 such events. The cost of these disasters last year was higher than in the 2020 record year, in addition to the death toll.

• NYS Gov. Kathy Hochul unveils ambitious climate agenda:
  • From off-shore turbines to electric school buses: New York talks big on climate (Grist)
  • N.Y. governor proposes 1st-ever statewide ban on gas hookups in new buildings (Yahoo News)
  • VIDEO: New York State of the State Address (C-SPAN)

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the Society of Environmental Journalists' Daily Headlines pag

• The Hidden Agenda Behind the Attack on Vaccine Mandates (Slate)
• Disinformation Rampant on Clean Energy (Climate Crocks)
• Globally, Hurricane Ida, Europe Floods Made 2021 Costly For Disasters (AP)
• U.S. Aims To Double Cover Crop Planting To Address Climate Change (Reuters)
• Manchin's Coal Corruption Is So Much Worse Than You Knew (Rolling Stone)
• Biden Administration To Scrap Trump Plan For Wider Alaska Oil Drilling (Reuters)
• Lakes Are Losing Their Ice Cover Faster Than Ever — What That Means (The Narwhal)
• ‘Drastic’ Rise In High Arctic Lightning Has Scientists Worried (Guardian)
• Rising heat and hardships could hit San Joaquin Valley within three decades, study predicts (LA Times)
• Interior: US has twice as many abandoned oil and gas wells as previously thought (The Hill/Yahoo News)
• Senate plans Nord Stream 2 sanctions vote this week (E&E News)
• Fusion energy is a reason to be excited about the future (Vox)
• Electric cars aren’t just vehicles. They’re big batteries. (Recode)
• Mass Die-Off of Penguins Caused by 2019 Heat Wave, Study Says (Newsweek)
• From Small to Large, Five Green Hydrogen Projects to Watch (Triple Pundit)
• Florida Homeowners Seeing Flood Insurance Sticker Shock (Climate Crocks)
• Judge halts mega-resort in California wildfire zone, says residents could die trying to flee (Sacramento Bee)
• The Ghost Wolves of Galveston Island (NY Times, behind paywall)
• Solar power has changed Syrian refugees' lives in Jordan - and they want more (Climate Change News)
• Green Upheaval: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Foreign Affairs)
• VIDEO: 2050: what happens if we ignore the climate crisis (Guardian UK)
• Guilt, grief and anxiety as young people fear for climate's future (Reuters)
• 99.9 percent Of Scientists Agree Climate Emergency Caused By Humans (Guardian UK)
• An Empire of Dying Wells: Old oil and gas sites are a climate menace. Meet the company that owns more of America's decaying wells than any other. (Bloomberg)
• Climate Fund Choices for Investors Are Multiplying (Bloomberg/Yahoo)
• How climate change could undo 50 years of public health gains (Grist)
• Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration (Pro Publica)
• Exxon's Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• What Does '12 Years to Act on Climate Change' (Now 9 Years) Really Mean? (Inside Climate News)
• VIDEO: A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (The Intercept)
• What genuine, no-bullshit ambition on climate change would look like: How to hit the most stringent targets, with no loopholes. (David Roberts, Vox)
• A Global Shift To Sustainability Would Save Us $26 Trillion (Vox)
• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)
• An Optimist's Guide to Solving Climate Change and Saving the World (Vice)
• The great nutrient collapse: The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention. (Politico)
• The world's bleak climate situation, in 3 charts: We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there. (Vox)
• The Climate Risks We Face (NY Times):

  To stabilize global temperature, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. The window of time is rapidly closing to reduce emissions and limit warming to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the goal set in the Paris climate accord. The further we push the climate system beyond historical conditions, the greater the risks of potentially unforeseen and even catastrophic changes to the climate - so every reduction in emissions helps.

• The Uninhabitable Earth: When will climate change make earth too hot for humans? (New York Magazine):

  Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak - sooner than you think.

• A beginner's guide to the debate over 100% renewable energy (Vox):

  Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it's possible for the whole world to run on renewables - we merely lack the "political will." So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.

Listen to story:

Download: mp3 (Duration: 13:02)

FEATURING DARRYL JORDAN - The latest United Nations Climate conference that just wrapped up in Glasgow, Scotland, resulted in an agreement that started out as inadequate to meeting the climate catastrophe, and ended up being further watered down to appease oil and gas interests.

The 26th Conference of the Parties, or COP26, drew thousands of delegates representing nearly all of the world’s nations, as well as hundreds of fossil fuel lobbyists who ensured that the dirty energy fueling climate change remains in use.

But there were also thousands of people from around the world representing civil society, Indigenous and frontline groups experiencing the direct effects of climate change, farmers, trade unionists, students, and more. Their job was to push delegates as far as possible toward a phasing out of fossil fuels.

For more information visit https://ittakesroots.org.

GUEST: Darryl Jordan, with the East Michigan Environmental Action Council & the It Takes Roots Black Caucus.

RisingUp with Sonali can be hear every Tuesday on KPFK at 4PM (PT) also on the site at https://risingupwithsonali.com/

DECEMBER 14, 2021 Watch Full Show 

GUESTS

• Jaz Brisack

  barista at Starbucks in Buffalo, New York.

LINKS

• Jaz Brisack on Twitter
• Starbucks Workers United on Twitter

Image Credit: Twitter: SBWorkersUnited

We look at the historic workers’ victory at the Elmwood Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York, where workers successfully voted to unionize last week, making them the first to do so among the coffee chain’s 9,000 locations in the United States, and sparking new efforts at stores across the country. We speak to one of the 19 employees who voted in favor of forming a union about confronting the company and overcoming the challenges. Starbucks hired “the most notorious union-busting law firm in the country and literally ran not even a textbook anti-union campaign but an almost unprecedented anti-union campaign,” says Jaz Brisack, a barista at the Starbucks located in Buffalo.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we turn now to look at the historic workers’ victory at the Elmwood Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York, where workers successfully voted to unionize last week, making them the first to do so among Starbucks’ 9,000 locations in the United States.

WORKERS: [cheering]

AMY GOODMAN: Workers cheered as the results of their vote were announced. Nineteen workers voted in favor, eight against, forming the union. A union vote failed at a second Buffalo Starbucks location, and a third election at the Buffalo airport Starbucks has not yet been confirmed after nearly half the “yes” votes were challenged. The National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, will now review those votes. The victory in Buffalo came despite Starbucks’ union-busting efforts and could trigger similar drives at more of its stores across the country. Already, on Monday, workers at two Massachusetts Starbucks, in Boston and Brookline, filed paperwork with the NLRB petitioning to unionize.

For more, we’re joined by one of the Starbucks workers you just heard cheering in Buffalo. Jaz Brisack is a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks store there. She is now the first — this is now the first location of Starbucks to unionize. She’s with Starbucks Workers United.

Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, Jaz. Why don’t you explain the significance of your victory, and also what Starbucks did, bringing in management from all over, the highest levels, to try to pressure workers?

JAZ BRISACK: Thanks so much for having me. And I think, like you’re saying, it’s important we won our union, thank goodness. And the Genesee store, which was actually packed with people who don’t even vote at that store, to try to inflate the voter list, we’re confident that they’re going to also be the other of the first unionized Starbucks. But it shouldn’t have had — we shouldn’t have had to go through all of the union busting that we’ve gone through in the past four months.

Starbucks sent in a SWAT team, they called it, of upper managers, over a hundred of them, led by the president of Starbucks North America, Rossann Williams. And these managers came into our stores. They were there in every shift, every day part, pulling people off the floor, working on the floor so that they could prevent us from being able to have honest conversations with our partners. And we went from having, you know, 85% at my store — 100% of voters signed up on union cards at Genesee — to fighting for our lives to even win one of these first Starbucks unions.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk, Jaz, about some of the conditions that prompted the employees to believe that they needed to unionize?

JAZ BRISACK: I mean, honestly, we were unionizing because we wanted a voice in the workplace. We didn’t think that Starbucks was by any means the worst employer. There’s things that could always be better. I had a co-worker — when we started the union campaign, she had been there 11 years. She was making 16 cents more than a new hire. And certainly, like, healthcare and mental health and certain things could be better. But we really just want a voice on the job. And we want — we don’t believe that any job should not have a union, because we think that everything should have more democracy.

And I think the real crisis or tragedy here is, we would have won so many more stores already if we had actually had a fair process for these votes. But instead, Starbucks took advantage of every delay tactic possible, most of which were loopholes created by the Trump labor board, to delay us getting to our votes and actually being able to unionize, and to give them more time to have anti-union meetings and threaten us with losing benefits, losing the right to pick up shifts or transfer, and trying to pit us against our fellow partners, against our managers, and blame the union for all of the stress and tensionn that we were feeling.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk about the company tactics? Starbucks portrays itself as an enlightened, socially conscious company. Were you surprised by the vehemence with which they marshaled their forces to prevent this union drive?

JAZ BRISACK: One hundred percent. In the beginning, we actually asked them to sign the fair election principles, which is a set of guidelines that sets a higher standard than U.S. labor law for how companies act during union elections. And, you know, it seems naive that we expected them to sign it, but, instead, this company, that says that they’re a social justice company — they say they’re a different kind of company — hired Littler Mendelson, which is the most notorious union-busting law firm in the country, and literally ran not even a textbook anti-union campaign but an almost unprecedented anti-union campaign of bringing in literally the COO, the president of Starbucks North America and all of their other corporate underlings to try to disrupt Buffalo and turn our stores upside down.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about what happened at the other two Starbucks where the workers were attempting to unionize? The results, not completely in — is that right? — are being challenged on both sides.

JAZ BRISACK: So, at Camp, they were totally disrupted. And there were some ballots that weren’t actually counted, so we’re still figuring out what all happened there. And then, at Genesee, they had stacked the voter list with partners from other stores that were remodeling. Not every worker who worked at that store got a ballot. They selectively picked who they wanted to receive ballots and put on that voter list. One of our partners told Bernie Sanders during the town hall that he hosted that it was like if you had partners — sorry, if you had tourists from Texas visit Vermont and then vote in Senator Sanders’ Senate election. So, I think once those ballots are cleared up, it’s going to be a clear victory at the Genesee store.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, your response to hearing that Brookline and a Boston store are already attempting to unionize there? And go beyond just Starbucks, your message?

JAZ BRISACK: I think our movement is growing. I’m incredibly proud of the Boston partners, the Arizona partners and the partners in the other stores in Buffalo. I do want to note that there’s three more stores that are going to union elections. And Starbucks is terrified that Elmwood will be the first domino, so they’re already cracking down much harder. We have an organizing committee leader, Angel, in one of these stores who’s being written up and retaliated against for the most minor of things. They’re finding ways to target her, because they realize that what they were doing earlier wasn’t enough to stop us and break us apart, so they’re trying to go even harder. So we need even more community pressure on Starbucks to stop union busting and actually come to the bargaining table and work with our union instead of busting it.

AMY GOODMAN: Jaz Brisack, I want to thank you for being with us, barista at the Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York, which has become the first location in the United States to unionize, the first Starbucks location. She’s with Starbucks Workers United.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Also: We finally got boosted!; And, another deadly climate change fueled disaster devastates Midwest...

By BRAD FRIEDMAN on 12/13/2021, 6:26pm PT  

We've got a lot to catch up with on today's BradCast, after a weekend lost to recovery from our Moderna booster shots. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

First up, we discuss how things went following Friday boosters for both Desi and myself. For me, as after the second shot, not so good (though much better than actual COVID!) For Desi...it was pretty much business as usual beyond a bit of fatigue. Either way: Go get your shots! Also, just before air, California announced they are re-instituting a statewide mask mandate for indoor, public spaces amid another surge in COVID cases.

Next, 74 people are now confirmed dead in Kentucky alone, and more than a dozen were killed in four other Midwestern states on Friday night after a swarm of very late season tornadoes devastated an eight-state area, as unusually warm December air met with a cold front. Predictably, a climate change-fueled disaster ensued as the states, particularly Kentucky, now wrestle with mass power and water outages amid freezing temperatures for tens of thousands of residents while trying to sift through rubble and continue recovery efforts. Desi details the extreme weather's known connections to climate change and how (and if) corporate media are bothering to cite the causes for yet another deadly, intense, out-of-season extreme weather event.

Then, also breaking over the weekend, the release of a PowerPoint document called "Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for JAN 6". It was obtained by the U.S. House Select Committee investigating January 6, from Donald Trump's former Chief of Staff Mike Meadows. The document was turned over to the Committee as part of a tranche of email and text message documents from Meadows before he decided he would stop cooperating with them. He will now almost certainly face federal criminal contempt charges, just as Trump's former aide Steve Bannon is now facing for also failing to answer lawful subpoenas from Congress.

This latest "smoking gun" document --- a 38-page version of which was circulated after the election last year, and a very similar 36-page version dated on Jan. 5 --- further cements the details behind the broad criminal conspiracy to steal the 2020 election from Joe Biden and the American people by Donald Trump and his minions. In this case, those cronies include the bulk of his Campaign staff and attorneys, much of his White House staff, members of the Dept. of Justice and a whole bunch of elected officials both in Congress and in the states.

We walk through a number of the evidence-free assertions made in the PowerPoint presentation which, according to Meadows, was to be shared with people "on the Hill" on January 5. Among those assertions, that China and Venezuela had "systematically gained control over our election system constituting a national security emergency," after "electronic voting machines were compromised."

Of course, there is zero evidence included in the document for those extraordinary claims. And those referencing Venezuela are known to be nonsense, since they are directly based on my own exclusive reporting at The BRAD BLOG from 2008 to 2010, which Team Trump subsequently lifted, twisted, mangled and bastardized to somehow support their false, easily-disproven and evidence-free narrative.

As to the "national security emergency" cited by the document, Trump was encouraged to declare one in order to then order ballots collected by the National Guard and U.S. Marshalls in all 50 states, to be counted by them once "invalid" and "fraudulent" ballots were somehow removed. Those same National Guard members, Meadows' documents also assert, according to the House Committee, were also to be tasked to "protect pro Trump people" on January 6 during the attack on the U.S. Capitol after Pence refused to go along with the plan to declare the Electoral College votes invalid. The last effort by Team Trump to steal the election was, as we all know, to hurl thousands of his gullible supporters at the Capitol itself in hopes of preventing the Constitutional certification of Joe Biden's legitimate election victory. The subsequent deadly attack was exactly what Bannon blatantly teased on his "War Room" podcast on January 5th. They were all in on it, including a bunch of members of Congress, as the Jan 6 Committee has recently been suggesting.

We explain much more detail on what is revealed by the ridiculous claims in the PowerPoint presentation on today's program, and how the guy --- retired U.S. Army Colonel Philip Waldron --- who reportedly circulated it among the dupes on the Right, actually met with Meadows at the White House as many as 10 times in the run-up to January 6th.

But the main point is this: Donald Trump and his minions employed a coordinated attempt to steal the 2020 Presidential election. It was not haphazard and it was not just low level operatives. And it was not, as media and many Dems still mis-describe it, an attempt to overturn or reverse or question or subvert the results. It was not an attempt to ferret out "voter fraud" or "election fraud". Donald Trump tried to STEAL the 2020 election and this was the "Rosetta Stone" road map for it. It would help the nation understand how close we came to losing what is left of our democracy entirely if it was described in those simple, basic and absolutely accurate terms.

What do about it? That will, no doubt, be the subject of future programs. But, at least today, hopefully, you will understand what happened and what didn't --- along with what they tried to do, and what they failed to do --- so we can all take action to make sure, somehow, something like this can never happen again...

 CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

WHEN A MESSAGING PROBLEM ISN’T A MESSAGING PROBLEM

Sifting through the settled dust of the Virginia elections and the mind-numbing postmortem shouting from every wannabe pundit with a Twitter account, I can’t help but feel as if those of us on the left can be counted on to consistently and sometimes acrobatically miss the point. Rather than working within the confines of what the data tells us about any given public argument, left leaning voices tend to speak to a created world that operates “as it should” rather than a real world that operates as it does. This is why, even with months to counter the GOP created panic over Critical Race Theory, Democrats simply stood on the tracks and let the train roll right over them, then blamed the usual suspects afterward. And this twirling mass of ineptitude is at its most obvious and most self-serving when we encounter this dead horse of a sentence: Democrats are bad at “messaging.”

This old trope is as certain a thing as there is in American political discussion, as certain as the right foaming about socialism or the NRA showing up on the third day after a mass shooting to tell us about “good guys with guns.” But much like many other simple and knowable facts, like we are not on a slippery slope toward communism, and AR-15s do not make anyone safer, we also know that the “Dems messaging problem” stuff is simply nonsense. The real problem is what it has been for about the last 40 years, a lack of access. We can’t reach people who are not in the room to be reached, and right-wing media has successfully placed half of the electorate in their own personal media silos.

Put simply, Dems make cogent, reasonable arguments that would work if only anyone persuadable were present to hear them. To be clear, it is not that no one listens to these arguments. Many do. The problem is that this communication happens almost entirely outside the silo. The people hearing the message already believe it, and those who don’t can’t be found. Even tired old cliches like “preaching to the choir” do not accurately describe just how much the left-leaning media environment has become a self-serving feedback loop. It sounds good, but it does very little work beyond giving Democrats a platform to impress each other and turn pretty words into better and more profitable gigs.

On the right, however, this is not the case. Sure, the GOP and its corporate money have created a mighty media juggernaut; this is not new information. But what many don’t understand is that the right not only controls its own media empire, but it also controls those who try (honestly or not) to compete with their noise. Evidence of this is everywhere. For example, on a Monday morning a short time ago, an op-ed appeared in the Washington Post. It called on Joe Biden to “respect” Trump’s executive privilege and not force Mark Meadows – Trump’s former chief of staff – to testify before the January 6 commission. The piece was written by one of the lawyers representing Meadows, yet no one seemed to think this was a conflict-of-interest worthy of a little scrutiny, so the liberal bastion of journalistic fairness ran the piece, and the right-wing media machine pitched its tent right in its opposition’s backyard.

Even on Twitter, which is probably about a D+40 environment, a new attack trends every day. A few days ago, it was #RacistJoeBiden, and shortly after they trended one of their favorite bits of projection as the term “pedo” became a national thing for a day. Tomorrow it will be something equally nonsensical, but it will trend anyway, because the right-wing machine controls it all.

The left defends itself, sometimes well and sometimes not, but it always and only defends. There is no offensive game in progressive media. None whatsoever. If there were, then right wing space would occasionally have left leaning voices present, losing often but sometimes winning and always at least arguing. But this does not happen, and the mere thought of it is almost laughable. The right chooses the ground for every fight, and exists in every competitive space, while at the same time walling off its own territory entirely and without even a hint of a challenge from anyone on the left, or the center for that matter. This has been the case for well over 40 years, beginning with the complete domination of the radio waves, and growing from there. The left now competes with entire generations who grew up on propaganda, and while the propagandists are to blame, so are those who surrendered their lunch money to right-wing bullies half a century ago, and who have made no real attempt to get it back.

So, when Democrats tried to tell well-meaning Virginians that they were being lied to about critical race theory, and that Youngkin is so much more like Trump than he pretends (which he certainly is), it had no effect. When the train of high-profile Democrats, Obama included, came to town to help, it had no effect. Democrats lost the 2021 Virginia Governor’s race over 40 years ago, when they chose to stop competing for anyone who didn’t already agree with them. This is why, when 2022 arrives, the result will be the same. And when that dust settles, and the bloodbath is fully realized, pundits and wannabe influencers will moan and quake about “messaging problems” without ever realizing that literally no one who needs to hear the message is listening.

They’re not even in the room.

RICK SMITH can be heard every Sunday at 11am on KPFK
More info at https://www.thericksmithshow.com/

Listen in as Rick Smith and Cary Harrison discuss the dominance of corporate interests on American radio stations, and what we need to do to restore balance on the airwaves!

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Guest: Nicolas Rivero of Quartz; Also: House finally passes Biden BBB agenda, hard part waits in Senate; VA school board unbans books; Fight for majority control of VA House of Delegates not over yet...

By BRAD FRIEDMAN on 11/19/2021 7:00pm PT  

Apparently it's another myth busting episode of The BradCast today. It would be nice if lousy reporting from the corporate media --- particularly regarding the economy --- didn't make these so frequently necessary of late. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

But, first up today, a few other stories of note today...

• The 17-year old white kid who crossed a state border into Kenosha, Wisconsin to unlawfully wield a semi-automatic weapon before using it to shoot three anti-racism protesters, killing two of them, was acquitted of all charges today. So, we guess it's now open season to shoot anyone ya like, as long as you claim it was done in self-defense. And, yes, as long as you're white.

• Democrats in the U.S. House finally came together today to pass the Build Back Better Act, President Biden's nearly $2 trillion landmark spending bill to expand healthcare, childcare, education, eldercare and much MUCH more, including the most substantive action to combat the global climate crisis in the history of the nation. Every Republican in the chamber voted against it. The transformative legislation includes scores and scores of long-overdue provisions that, if virtually any one of them were passed on their own as a standalone bill, it would be, to paraphrase the President, a BFD. But, of course, while getting it through the House took months, that was the easy part. Now, the crowning achievement of Biden's agenda will have to get through the U.S. Senate, where, without any Republican votes, all 50 Senators who caucus with the Democrats will have to sign off on in order to pass it under Senate budget reconciliation rules. That means obstructionist Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema may feel free to water it down further than they already have, or kill it all together. We'll find out what happens when the upper chamber picks up the measure, after the Thanksgiving holiday.

• A few days ago, we reported on the Spotsylvania County, Virginia School Board's 6 to 0 vote last week to begin removing certain books from their school's libraries after a debate about whether they should ban the books or both ban and burn them. It was one of several stories we highlighted to underscore the unmistakable drumbeat of rising authoritarianism in our country right now. But, at least on that story, there is some good news this week. Democracy struck back! After 4 and a half hours of public comment at the Board's subsequent meeting this week, cut off only because it was midnight, the Board voted to reverse it's ban! Though the Board's two book burning proponents stood their ground, they lost in a 5 to 2 vote. All thanks to excellent local media reporting and a huge turnout from teachers, librarians, parents and teachers who spoke passionately in favor of libraries and books while calling for the book burners to resign.

• Following up on another story we covered earlier this week, on the media's horrifically misleading reporting on inflation, we share part of a Paul Waldman excellent column from WaPo that sounds as if it could have been ripped straight from The BradCast's coverage that day, myth busting the very same issues that we did.

• Then, picking up on a related-ish myth that needs busting as well this week, we're joined by NICOLÁS RIVERO of Quartz, to discuss his recent myth-busting, deep-dive reporting on our current, pre-Christmas, "post-pandemic" supply chain issues and why, despite no shortage of bad reporting on this, a shortage of truck drivers is not actually to blame.

   

  In fact, the industry has been claiming virtually every year since 2005 (and, really, going back to the late 1980s as Rivero documents), that they have a shortage of drivers. Last month, the American Trucking Associations announced a shortage of 80,000 drivers, declaring it "an all-time high for the industry." That, despite the fact that states issue more than 450,000 new commercial driver's licenses every year. Something doesn't add up here. At the same time, as Rivero tells me today, "between 1995 and 2017, the turnover rate at big trucking companies averaged 94%," according to the industry's own data. "That means that every year, they are refilling the equivalent of virtually every driving position, because people are quitting and leaving."

  "The real shortage," he explains, is not of truckers, but "of good trucking jobs that can attract and retain workers in a tight labor market." So, why isn't supply keeping up with demand in that supposedly free market? Rivero discusses the industry's "race to the bottom," leading drivers to take equal or better paying jobs elsewhere that don't come with all of the burdens --- especially for long-haulers --- the industry now forces onto their drivers.

  We also discuss the trucker's unions' part in all of this, and how --- and if --- Biden's new infrastructure bill might actually improve the situation, for drivers, for the industry and, yes, for our "post-pandemic" supply chain woes.

• Finally, in our closing few minutes (before standing down to hit the road ourselves for the holiday next week!), the fight for control of the Virginia House of Delegates may not be as over as it appeared almost three weeks ago, when Republicans were declared by media to have taken the majority back from the Democrats during the off-year elections. A very close race in one district and a tallying error in another very close race (leading the Dem who currently holds that seat to withdraw her concession), has now resulted in two upcoming recounts. Republicans will control 50 seats in the 100-seat chamber. The question is now whether the GOP will control the chamber outright or --- long shot as it may be --- if both races flip to the Democrats resulting in a 50-50 power sharing agreement. Luckily, the commonwealth recently moved from 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems to hand-marked paper ballots. So a fair, overseeable count of voter intent is now possible in the state where Republican Glenn Youngkin was declared the winner in the Gubernatorial race and Republicans swept the other two statewide races on November 2nd for Lt. Governor and Attorney General.

We'll be watching over the holidays, even as 'The BradCast' and 'GNR' stand down next week for a much needed recharge of batteries and some long-overdue family time. We'll see ya after the holiday! Desi and I both hope it will be a healthy and happy one for all!...

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While October has been renamed #Striketober due to the increasing number of labor actions going on across the country, and the coverage of those actions has been fairly positive, this trend simply can’t continue, and there are a number of very simple reasons why.

The legislative response to the strikes is a key indicator here. In the video below, Rick talks about two proposals meant to “address” the shortage of labor not by addressing the real shortage (which is in substandard wages & conditions) but by attacking worker safety and finding new ways to exploit the working class. One bill calls for a lowering of the minimum age for CDL drivers from 21 to 18, and the other intends to make it legal for children as young 14 to work until 11pm at night. Both will harm worker safety, and very likely drop wages as well.

To batter an overused cliche’, these proposals are the canary in the coal mine, and they signal the coming turn in how the fight for better wages, hours, and conditions is presented to the American people. This is not a prediction. It is a certainty.

Rick: “If we do hit an era, a period of of high, inflation, I can see it coming – and mark it on your calendar that I said it today – this is going to turn around and be blamed on all of the striking workers who are demanding better wages hours and conditions.

This is going to be put on all the people who marched out of jobs and said ‘No, we’re not working in this service industry for crummy wages. We’re not working without health security or retirement security. We demand better for ourselves and for our fellow workers.”

I guarantee you that the message will be ‘Well see – they got what they wanted. They wanted higher wages and they got higher wages and it ends up costing you – you the consumer … end up costing you more.’

I can see this coming as clear as day.”

As I said before, this is a certainty, one of several, actually. When it happens, the language used will be exactly what it always is. The words used to describe working people will be “them” and the words used to describe the corporate marks will be “you” and even though “you” and “them” are economically identical members of the same team, the corporate wedge will try to divide us. And this division will come from everywhere, including the more trusted media sources. After all, every single one of them is owned by the same people who have been dragging down wages for 50 years, and fairness and objectivity left journalism a long time ago.

And if history tells us anything on this subject, it tells us that corporate power wins this fight every single time. But unlike the certainties mentioned above, this outcome has not yet happened this time around, so we can still choose to stick together and support working people through the attacks that we all know are coming.

I’m not saying we will, because I don’t believe we will. But we could, we should, and I choose to believe that people can still surprise me.

Brett Pransky is a writer, an English professor, and the Executive Producer of The Rick Smith Show. When not in the classroom, Brett uses his graduate degrees in Rhetoric and Business to help people understand the dangers associated with increasing corporate control over the levers of government and how to confront the deception used by those who profit from that control. Brett calls Columbus, Ohio home, and he hates writing about himself in the third person.