We catch up with quite a bit on today’s BradCast, after being buried for much of last week in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for dishonest and disingenuous GOP operative, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as Donald Trump’s pick to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy in the “swing vote” seat on the GOP’s already-stolen U.S. Supreme Court. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]
We discuss that as well today (and whether Democrats should pack the Court if they ever return to power, as we discussed with David Faris on last Wednesday’s show) and much more with tons of callers.
But first, we lead off with the latest on the fearsome Category 4 Hurricane Florence now barreling toward the U.S. Eastern seaboard, fueled by record warm waters, and currently projected to slam the Carolinas with, potentially, as much as four feet of rain as the storm is predicted to stall near the coast.
At the same time, Hawaii is facing down Hurricane Tropical Storm Olivia this week, just two weeks or so after Hurricane Lane dumped record rainfall on the islands, in the second worst rainfall event in recorded U.S. history (second only to Hurricane Harvey in Houston just last year.)
We also have some much brighter news, however, for our climate-changed world out of California today, as Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB-100, a landmark measure to require the state (with the world’s fifth largest economy) to transition to 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045. Along with it, Brown also signed an executive order that would result in carbon-neutral energy production and use for the entire state (including cars!) by 2045 as well!
With that bit of brief, albeit very good news out of the way, we turn to catching up with an Administration (still) in crisis upon the release of Bob Woodward’s new book, FEAR: Trump in the White House and the anonymous op-ed purported to have been penned by a senior Trump Administration official last week, claiming that senior insiders have been secretly blocking the worst of Trump’s most dangerous impulses and, last year, even considered invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the President.
We open up the phone lines today to all of the above, for tons of interesting thoughts from listeners on the op-ed (is the writer a hero or a coward — or a scammer?), the Kavanaugh hearings and the Democrats’ surprisingly unified response to the GOP rush to confirm him before they may lose their slim Senate majority in the upcoming midterms, and much more, as Hurricane Donald continues to lay waste — or, at least, tries to — to much of our nation…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_HurricaneFlorenceOlivia_CA-SB100_Kavanugh_NYTOp-Ed_Callers_091018.mp3]
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EVERYWHERE will probably have mostly 100% free from fossil electricity by 2045. The best coal is gone. Conventional unnatural gas peaked in the US in 1973 and is now half of that flow. Fracked wells are not only toxic but they are much shorter lived than conventional wells. So if there is any electric generation in 2045, it is not going to be from coal and fossil methane … (currently most of the source of electricity). A more practical approach would include the geological reality of depletion and steps to radically reduce electricity usage, including light colored roofs for the millions of homes in California that use lots of air conditioning.
The recent closure of I-5 near Mt. Shasta caused moderate disruptions to truck shipments, including food deliveries. Our “just in time” delivery system is powerful but brittle. The arrival of oil rationing, after fracking subsides, will be a much more difficult and permanent problem. Strange how the loudest voice in the US for any sort of relocalization is Trump – it would be nice to see more ecologically concerned people make this a prominent part of the discourse and of logistics.