Good News After Bad: ‘BradCast’ 10/26/2023

• Grim news in Maine, Acapulco and the U.S. House, followed by much better news in Colorado, Georgia, and for union workers of the UAW…

I promise, things get brighter after the first segment of today’s BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Among our stories, first grim, and then much less so, today…

• We begin with the horrible news out of Lewiston, Maine, following Wednesday night’s mass shootings that has, so far, resulted in 18 dead and another 13 wounded, with several still in critical condition. The state was largely shut down as of airtime, with a broad, statewide manhunt underway for the suspect who is alleged to have had serious mental health issues…but was still able to obtain a deadly, high-powered, military-style assault rifle for his rampage somehow, because…freedom!

• Similarly grim news out of Acapulco, where a climate change-fueled Hurricane Otis experienced explosive intensification off the Pacific Coast this week, as it spun up from Tropical Storm to a catastrophic Category 5 in just twelve hours time. As of airtime, 27 were confirmed dead in Mexico, with searches underway for more missing as authorities struggle to clear major roads of knee-deep mud and restore power to the battered resort city and nearby villages.

• All of that, amid what is likely to be the hottest year ever recorded, as Republicans in the U.S. House just elected a long-time climate science denier from the oil and gas state of Louisiana to be House Speaker. Rep. Mike Johnson received more money last year from the fossil fuel industry than any other. Since 2018, the far-right religious zealot has received some $240,000 from the industry. Some of it, as it turns out, came — unlawfully — from Russian oligarchs, according to FEC investigators last year.

• IN BRIGHTER NEWS…A federal judge in Georgia has ordered the state’s legislature to reconvene to redraw its Congressional and state legislative maps before 2024, after…