On today's BradCast, there are two major stories to cover. Both huge. But the one that is receiving less coverage than it needs, is the one likely to upset American life as we know it for decades.

First today, Donald Trump's former National Security Adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to one count of lying to F.B.I investigators about conversations he had with Russia's U.S. Ambassador concerning sanctions against Russia and a U.N. vote regarding Israel during Trump's transition to office, among other things.

He is being offered leniency by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in exchange for his cooperation in the on-going Trump/Russia probe. The White House spent the day downplaying the charges, though reports and court documents filed on Friday indicate the President's Son-in-Law and senior adviser Jared Kushner could be among those now in the sites of federal investigators. Flynn is the fourth member of Team Trump to be charged by the Special Counsel and the first to have served during the Administration itself.

As that played out on Friday, Senate Republicans continued to push their massive $1.5 trillion tax scam through Congress, which, as we discuss today, is much more than just a massive tax cut for corporations, donors and the wealthiest U.S. citizens. The bill has also become a catch-all for long-sought, far right-wing causes, such as establishing rights for fetuses and repealing a 60-year old ban on partisan political activity by tax-exempt religious organizations.

In addition to offering windfalls for the rich, while increasing taxes on most of the middle-class, the far-reaching legislation will also curb the ability for states and cities to provide basic needs to residents, while otherwise undermining the economic system on a generational scale by removing deductions for state and local taxes, higher education and much more.

Perhaps most disturbingly, as experts and lawmakers admit, the scheme will blow such an enormous hole in the long-term national debt that, as Republicans have made clear, additional massive cuts to social safety-net programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will be next on their agenda. In all, the massive redistribution of wealth from low- and middle-income Americans to the richest elite in the country will serve to cripple generations of younger Americans.

But, yes, Michael Flynn was charged with a crime on Friday and may now sing on the President and his team. The White House is likely unhappy about that, even if Republicans in Congress are unlikely to mind the distraction at all, as they push their generational tax scam over the finish line.

Finally today, speaking of paying a price for generations to come, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump EPA holds climate hearings in Coal Country; Winter heat wave hits Greenland and breaks records in the U.S. West; New federal contracting scandal exposed in Puerto Rico's very slow recovery; PLUS: Good news for breathers in Wisconsin and Missouri... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): NOAA nominee contradicts Trump administration talking points on cause of climate change; Atlantic hurricane season from hell is finally over; EPA curb on PFOA may have reduced number of low birth weight babies; Ex-convict coal baron Blankenship to seek WV Senate seat; Environmentalists assail plan for endangered wolf; Trump Admin may share nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia; Climate scientists watch their words for grant funding; Trump to visit UT to announce national monument cuts; MI wants to replace all lead pipes within 20 years; San Diego sues Monsanto over water pollution; Rising seas will destroy historic East Coast sites; Missouri DNR causes a stink after shutting down attempt to rein in hog farm odors... PLUS: NYT Video series: How to fix global warming... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, it's a grim day in the U.S.A. And while that's been happening quite a bit lately, today seems particularly dark. [Audio link to show follows below.]

As the GOP's devastating tax cuts increases for millions of low- and middle-income Americans and seniors move forward in the U.S. Senate, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, tweeted out three different anti-Muslim propaganda videos initially posted by a member of a far-right extremist nationalist party in the UK called Britain First. The disturbing postings by the President of what are being described as "ISIS snuff films", drew worldwide statements of condemnation from conservative British Prime Minister Theresa May and many other members of Parliament, as well as Muslim and Jewish groups in the US, academics and more. But, at least one person, in addition to Britain First, thanked Trump for the postings: David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK. We discuss this rather embarrassing and dispiriting moment in American history.

Then, we take a much-needed shower before heading to Charleston, West Virginia, where the (now, ironically named) Environmental Protection Agency is holding its one and only hearing on EPA Chief Scott Pruitt's plan to kill Obama's Clean Power Plan, a landmark measure meant to curb dangerous greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Environment reporter EMILY ATKIN of New Republic joins us from WV, after spending the past two days at the forum which she describes as a "tragedy" and a "farce", featuring testimony from coal barons like Robert Murray, CEO of the nation's largest private coal company --- who brought his employees in full mining regalia, hard hats and all, to the hearing room --- as well as from environmentalists who were allowed to testify, but were largely relegated to separate rooms entirely.

Atkin discusses what the hearings suggest about the current EPA, which is now doing the bidding of the fossil fuel industry itself, as well as how industry leaders and Republican officials admit that coal has a bleak future --- thanks to cleaner, cheaper natural gas and renewable energy --- even while lying about it to those directly suffering in Coal Country, like miners and their families.

The miners, she tells me, "completely buy into" the industry's "War on Coal" propaganda. "And that was what I think is the tragedy of the whole thing. They accept that there has been decline in the industry. The miners that I spoke to --- and just the average coal supporting people in West Virginia that I spoke to --- completely attribute it to Obama-era regulations, and completely believe what they're being told by coal executives and Republican politicians, that once [the Clean Power Plan] is gone, everything's going to be okay. And their industry is going to thrive again in the way that it used to. ... It's the hypocrisy of these executives and these politicians who go in front of the miners and tell them everything's going to be okay when, in other settings, they well admit that the decline of coal is happening no matter what."

Atkin describes her brief conversation at the hearing with Murray, and how his own employees there contradicted one of his claims. And she explains how, though Pruitt chose to hold the forum in Charleston in order "to hear from those most impacted" by the Clean Power Plan, there are many others, in non-coal states, that are "equally affected", including those "communities that surround emitting coal plants [and] communities that surround coal ash pits that hold coal's toxic waste that can seep into groundwater and into water systems."

"The fence-line communities that live near producing plants, which often are disproportionately low-income and minority communities, those aren't based in West Virginia. And I would argue that they are just as impacted by the Clean Power Plan as a coal miner. And yet, the EPA doesn't have any scheduled public hearings in any of those areas."

Finally, we're joined by Desi Doyen for the latest Green News Report, with some of the most encouraging news of the day, before a bit of breaking news out of the U.N. on Trump's continuing threats of war against North Korea...

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On today's BradCast: It's astonishing how many GOP policies, practices and nominees must be pushed through by force, scheming, lying and the breaking of norms and traditions. If any of the stuff they are pushing was actually popular and sought by voters, it doesn't seem like the strong-arm tactics would be necessary. But... [Audio link to show follows below.]

Among the stories covered on today's show:

• Nebraska law disallows state officials from considering Thursday's massive Keystone Pipeline tarsands oil spill in South Dakota in their upcoming decision on permits to build the even larger and more dangerous KeystoneXL Pipeline expansion in Nebraska;
• Things are getting ugly in the U.S. Senate Finance Committee as the GOP attempts to ram through massive, unpopular tax cuts for the rich before the Thanksgiving break;
• Even Fox "News" now finds Alabama's GOP U.S. Senate nominee Roy Moore to be in trouble with voters before the December 12 special election, following growing allegations of sexual assault on minors;
• The U.S. Senate Judiciary Chair does away with 100-year old "blue slip" tradition in order to ram through more of Trump's lifetime appointments to the federal bench;
• Those appointees, a new analysis finds, are almost exclusively white and male;
• They're also "not qualified", dishonest and racist, as investigative journalists have recently discovered;
• So are Trump's appointees to other areas of the federal government, more of whom were forced to resign in disgrace this week;
• In other "Filling the Swamp" news, Trump continues to spin the revolving door with Big Pharma exec nominated to head Health and Human Services (HHS), a Big Coal exec gets rammed through the Senate to head the office of Mining Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), but one wildly inappropriate appointee to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may actually get blocked...by Senate Republicans! What are the odds? Well, we'll believe it when --- and if --- we actually see it...

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On today's BradCast: Have you ever considered running for office? If so, and if you're a progressive, you probably couldn't come up with a better year to it than in the upcoming 2018 mid-term elections! And my guest on today's show says he'd love to help you do it! [Audio link to show follows below.]

But, first up today: It was another day in America, so another mass shooting. We cover today's breaking news out of Northern California where 4 were killed and 10 shot by a gunman who was eventually shot by police in a very rural and economically depressed part of the state. The shooter reportedly fired, sometimes randomly, at some seven different scenes and targeted an elementary school before he was finally taken down. While still officially unidentified as of airtime, the gunman is said to have had a history of domestic violence and neighbors who complained that he was threatening and had recently been heard firing off large magazines of gunfire in recent days. Despite his record, however, he was somehow able to legally obtain the semi-automatic rifle and two hand guns found with him after he was killed.

Republican elected officials who represent the area offered "prayers", as usual, in the wake of this latest shooting. Democratic Gubernatorial hopefuls in the state vowed to take action to help curb American's continuing gun epidemic.

In not-unrelated news, it happens to be "National Run for Office Day", as declared by a host of progressive organizations. To help celebrate, we're joined today by ROSS MORALES ROCKETTO, co-founder of Run for Something, a national progressive organization dedicated to helping first- and second-time progressive grassroots candidates --- particularly millennials, women and people of color --- step up and run for state and local offices.

The group, "born of the tears of the 2016 election", hopes to run more than 1,000 candidates across the country next year, for everything from state representative to city council to local library boards and Boards of Education. They also saw at least 32 of their endorsed candidates win races in last week's 2017 off-year elections, including a number of stunning underdog Democratic victories by first time candidates against long-entrenched Republican office holders.

Rocketto explains how and why he formed the group along with a former Hillary Clinton Campaign staffer; how they determine which candidates to endorse and help; what is needed to run and win a successful grassroots progressive campaign; and how you --- yes, YOU! --- may wish to consider visiting their webpage and getting started to run for something yourself in 2018!

"What we're really trying to do is recruit and support the next generation of progressive Democrats running down-ticket," he tells me. "We think that 2018, for example, is going to be the year of the down-ballot candidates. We know that only 5% of state legislators across the country are millennial, and the millennial generation is going to be the largest voting bloc in the next set of presidential elections. That's what we're setting out to do specifically in 2018."

"We've been hearing from people all across the country that in this particular moment, they want to make a difference in their communities. And, honestly, one of the best ways and the most effective ways to make a difference in your community is to run for office locally," Rocketto says. "The things that impacts people's lives the most on a day-to -day basis tend to be at that local level. And that's what's been so powerful about the stories that we hear from our candidates that are running."

He goes on to cite stories of some of them, like 22-year old Heather Ward in Pennsylvania, who ran and won last week for school board "in a district that is largely Republican" to become the youngest ever to serve on the board, and transgender candidate Danica Roem who unseated a virulent homophobe in Virginia's House of Delegates. We also discuss other progressive groups similarly working to recruit grassroots candidates, like Bernie Sanders' Our Revolution, which supported a 30-year old Marine vet Lee Carter, who unseated the GOP House Majority Whip in Virginia while running as a Democratic Socialist.

Also on today's program: Late updates on Alabama's disastrous GOP nominee for U.S. Senate, Roy Moore following new allegations yesterday of a violent sexual assault against a minor; Several hearings held today in the U.S. House and Senate; and Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: At U.N. climate talks in Bonn, Germany, the U.S. presence is a bit schizophrenic; New report shows Paris Agreement targets are not nearly enough; Senate approves fossil fuel lobbyist for top EPA air pollution position; PLUS: Puerto Rico governor estimates damages after Hurricane Maria at nearly $95 billion... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Trump dines on shark fin soup in Viet Nam; African-Americans take brunt of oil industry air pollution; EPA proposes reversing truck exhaust air pollution standards; Methane leaks in NM worse than thought; Republicans' tax cut bill has good news, bad news for renewable energy; Slow EPA response to Harvey pollution cleanup angers residents; NM's ancient Chaco Canyon endangered by drilling operations; U.S. fishery managers reject bid for catch limits on crucial menhaden; Author of DOE grid study describes being pressured to fault regulations; Trump's China natural gas deal raises ethics issues for Wilbur Ross... PLUS: After Flint water crisis, Michigan pushes to have nation's toughest lead water rules ... and much, MUCH more! ...

The fallout --- and disturbing mysteries --- following a lawsuit filed in Georgia after its U.S. House Special Election last June get curiouser and curiouser, as we learned late last night that the state Attorney General's office has now quit its defense of the Secretary of State and the state's other top election official defendants in the case. We discuss all of those bombshells and still-dropping shoes with one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit on today's BradCast. [Audio link to today's must-listen show follows below.]

We've been covering this entire mess for months now (years, really), but particularly since the lawsuit [PDF] was filed in July, after the somewhat surprising results from June's U.S. House Special Election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District, where GA's former Republican Sec. of State Karen Handel reportedly defeated Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff, but only on the state's 100% unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting systems. (He defeated her nearly 2 to 1 on the only verifiable ballots in the race, the mail-in paper votes. Everything else regarding the results is unverifiable speculation.)

Late last week, we learned via Frank Bajak at the Associated Press, that technicians at Kennesaw State University's Center for Elections, which has been contracted to program all of Georgia's computer voting and tabulation systems systems for some 15 years, "wiped clean" the election server that was used to program the elections, ballots and tabulators, just days after the suit was filed in July. Its two backup servers were also subsequently wiped and "degaussed three times" in August, the day after the suit was moved from state to federal court.

GA's chief election official, Republican Sec. of State Brian Kemp, claims he knew nothing of the server deletions until AP's report last week. Previously, a huge fan of the Center for Elections at Kennesaw, Kemp cited the "gross incompetence" and "undeniable ineptitude" of the folks at KSU for whatever happened. Nobody has yet to take credit, however, for giving the instructions to delete the servers which held critical evidence that plaintiffs had hoped to have forensically investigated as part of the lawsuit. And then yesterday, in another flip-flop, Kemp called the entire matter "#fakenews".

All of that is disturbing on its own, but even more so in light of revelations earlier this year that the election server in question --- which stored personal data for all of GA's 6.7 million voters and the electronic ballot programming and administrative passwords for the state's voting and tabulation systems --- was left completely accessible online, no password necessary, for at least 6 months. Kennesaw was notified about the vulnerability by a data security researcher in August of 2016 (months before last year's Presidential election), but they failed to secure the server until after Politico's Kim Zetter revealed the vulnerability just prior to the GA-06 U.S. House race this year. (Samantha Bee's Full Frontal covered much of the story up to this point on her show last night, posted here.)

Then, on Wednesday evening, AP's Bajak offered another bombshell in reporting that the Republican state Attorney General's office, which had been defending Kemp, Kennesaw and the state Elections Board in the matter, has now pulled out from defending them. The reasons offered by the state AG and Kemp's campaign for Governor (he's running in 2018) have conflicted with each other or with known evidence obtained during the multi-partisan lawsuit, which a Kemp campaign spokesperson describes to AP yesterday as "a tasteless nothingburger cooked up by liberal activists who know their lawsuit is nothing short of stupid."

One of those "liberal activist" plaintiffs, Republican MARILYN MARKS, a longtime Election Integrity advocate and Executive Director of the Coalition for Good Governance, joins me today to try and help us all figure out just what the hell is actually going on in this increasingly disturbing case.

Marks confirms that nobody still knows who ordered the server deletion, nor why the state AG has dropped out of the case. "It's an enormous mystery, and the mysteries continue to increase every day," she says.

"I think that Brian Kemp is --- and rightfully so --- getting a black eye here," Marks tells me. "What he has done is shameful. There's no way to explain it. So I'm sure his defenders and campaign managers are doing everything they can to go on the offensive and try to make other people look like they are to blame, and that their candidate is innocent. But I think when people step back and say, wait a minute, if they erased the servers --- and they did it twice --- they did it for some reason. And it wasn't because our lawsuit was stupid."

She goes on to explain the "number of conflicting stories that Brian Kemp's people are telling" about when and why the compromised servers were deleted and why the AG's office is no longer willing to defend the case. She also details whether any of the information plaintiffs had hoped to examine from the servers might still be available in what is believed to be a partial copy of the servers obtained by the FBI when they came in to examine the reported data breach that occurred earlier this year, when the servers were discovered to have been left vulnerable online.

Marks' appearance on today's show comes just days before Georgia voters head to the polls for municipal elections being held next Tuesday, which will also be overseen by Kemp, programmed by Kennesaw, and run on the same wildly-hackable, 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting and tabulation systems that lead to this entire mess in the first place. She recently wrote [PDF] to Kemp and other election officials to ask them to make paper ballots available to voters since, as she tells me today, if the system was contaminated during the months it had been left vulnerable on the Internet, "They wouldn't have had time, even within the last year, to have cleaned up everything. Because, as you know, that malware can travel down to the memory cards, the voting machines, the optical scanners, and the jump servers down in the counties. Things could have traveled there in the last six months, year, two years --- and there's been no effort to try to disinfect all of the various components. I mean, there are 27,000 of these touch-screen voting machines in Georgia. There's no way that they should be in use when we know that this system was subject to a high degree of risk."

There is much more today in my conversation with Marks than I can adequately summarize here. So please give today's show a listen for the full story --- or, as much as we know about it to date --- along with many other mind-blowing details.

Also on today's show, a few other items, including Trump's non-scientist nominee for the USDA's chief scientist post, rightwing talk radio host Sam Clovis, withdrawing his nomination after becoming entangled in the Special Counsel's investigation of Team Trump (as you might have been able to predict, had you listened to Tuesday's BradCast with guest Marcy Wheeler); Clovis' fellow climate science denier Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chair of the U.S. House Science Committee announcing he will not run for re-election; and, in the latest Green News Report, Desi Doyen reports on, among many other things, EPA chief Scott Pruitt removing all of the scientists from the EPA's scientific advisory panels...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: EPA Chief Scott Pruitt purges scientists from EPA science boards; Winters in the U.S. are getting shorter; Exxon Mobil fined for Gulf Coast air pollution; Hurricane Maria has officially caused the longest blackout in U.S. history; PLUS: Trump Administration proposes doubling entrance fees to your national parks... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Non-scientist Sam Clovis withdraws his nomination for USDA’s top scientist post after being linked to Russia probe; Coastal town bans tar sands, gets in big fight with tar sands industry; Coal miners reject retraining awaiting Trump's coal comeback; Alaska reviews all North Slope wells after spill linked to melting permafrost; Senate Democrats tear into Trump's NASA nominee, a climate science denier; U.S. to halt controversial 'nuisance animal' killing methods in CA; New data analysis suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries... PLUS: Top Trump environmental pick said goal of UN 'climate crusade' is 'all-powerful' government... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Trump continues to blow up the GOP today. But what, if anything, will stop him from doing the same, literally, to the world? [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Yet another Republican U.S. Senator has decided they've had enough. Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake stunned D.C. today by joining Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker in deciding that he will not run for re-election in 2018 after all. He offered a blistering rebuke of Donald Trump, fellow GOP members of Congress, and the Republican Party itself while making his announcement on the Senate floor on Tuesday. That development came after a remarkably rancorous (and, in truth, very sad) series of media/Twitter back and forths earlier on Tuesday between Corker and Trump.

We cover all of the above today, with a focus on Corker's charge that the President of the United State is, himself, not only failing the country, but a real and present threat to national security in regard to North Korea and other foreign policy concerns.

With that in mind, following the disturbing report over the weekend that the U.S. Air Force is now preparing for the possibility of placing nuclear-armed bombers on 24/7 ready alert for the first time since the end of the Cold War, we are joined by longtime nuclear weapons policy analyst STEPHEN SCHWARTZ of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Schwartz, formerly the longtime Executive Director and Publisher of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (keepers of the infamous "Doomsday Clock"), explains the reasons --- sensible or otherwise --- the White House and US military might make this extraordinary move, which, he charges, is fraught with any number of perils. It's particularly puzzling, he explains, given that the U.S. already has hundreds, if not thousands of nuclear-armed Intercontinental Missiles at the ready on both land and sea. It is, at various times, a chilling, maddening, and (somewhat) comforting conversation and incredibly enlightening from top to bottom.

(For those interested, here's that disturbingly graphic idea from Roger Fischer in the 1981 Bulletin that I mentioned, regarding making a President's decision to launch nukes much less abstract".)

Schwartz speaks to, among many other things: Why the Air Force may be doing this; How China and Russia, much less North Korea, may respond; Whether or not Congress should finally step in to ensure the U.S. never launches a nuclear first strike, no matter who occupies the Oval Office; Whether or not he agrees with Corker's assessment that Trump is a threat to national security and world peace; And what, if anything, might prevent Trump from "pushing the button" in "a fit of Twitter pique."

"I think we are long overdue for the point of having a national discussion over what it means to put one person and one person alone in charge of authorizing the use of nuclear weapons," he tells me. "Regardless of who is President, if anything good comes out of this, it will be that people are much more aware of the power that a President has to incinerate the world, how many nuclear weapons we have, still, and what our plans are for them."

"I don't worry about Donald Trump so much deciding in a fit of Twitter pique or whatever to launch a nuclear attack," he warns. "I worry that his ignorance, and his arrogance, and his complete lack of knowledge about all things nuclear, not to mention all things foreign policy, will end up getting him blundering into some sort of crisis from which there will be no real escape."

On that point, Schwartz also offers his assessment of whether the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists will move their Doomsday Clock forward once again in their annual assessment, after moving it forward to "2 and a half minutes to midnight" back in January. That was well before the recent disturbing threats by Trump to bring "fire and fury" and "totally destroy" North Korea several weeks ago. The last adjustment was also prior to the Trump Administration's wildly aggressive actions to undermine environmental policy meant to mitigate the existential threat of Climate Change, which the Doomsday Clock has also taken into account since 2007.

Finally, speaking of our climate crisis (and making it worse), we're joined by Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report as the hottest World Series in baseball history gets under way out here in Los Angeles, with the mercury hitting a record 104 degrees today...in late October...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New report finds pollution kills more people every year than war, disaster or hunger; US Senate to vote on disaster relief for hurricane victims; EPA censoring climate science and government scientists; PLUS: It's the hottest World Series in professional baseball history --- literally... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Puerto Rico considers privatization for island's generation; Whitefish: Small Montana firm lands Puerto Rico’s biggest contract to get the power back on; EPA to repeal emissions standards for large trucks; Video: War on the EPA; EPA shifts on toxic chemicals after installation of chemical industry executive; Ex-FERC commissioners slam DOE Perry's bid to subsidize coal; NH senators question EPA over findings on toxic NH landfill; Congress moves to gut Antiquities Act protecting America's treasures; Oil terminal backers pour money into Washington State race; What you should know about GOP move to drill in ANWR; Flying insects vanish from nature preserves... PLUS: As dams burst, Trump seeks to gut new, key safety rules... and much, MUCH more! ...

Among the demonstrably real, not fake, news stories covered on today's BradCast [Audio link to show posted below]...

• A brief word about the mercilessly toxic and sad "debate" Donald Trump injected into the American body politic this week to divert from his failure to recognize U.S. special forces killed by ISIS during a still-mysterious ambush in Niger, the shameful lie told by his Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, in service of Trump's failure, and the White House doubling down on that lie despite video evidence to the contrary;
• Speaking of wishing reality away, the EPA removes more facts about climate change from its website, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt charges peer-reviewed climate science is biased due to grants from the EPA (and hints at a purge of scientists), while his highly-paid corporate cronies are appointed to top agency posts and begin their work in defiance of the U.S. Senate (and the Rule of Law);
• A federal judge rules the guilty verdict against federal criminal and former Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio will not be vacated despite Trump's Presidential pardon and a plea from his Dept. of Justice to ignore the Rule of Law;
• More apparent violations of the Rule of Law and lies about the income of Alabama's GOP U.S. Senate nominee Roy Moore (twice removed as state Supreme Court Justice for defying federal court orders) are unearthed in advance of the state's Special Election in December;
• And, so-called "conservatives" in the U.S. Senate pass a budget resolution to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion dollars, while cutting nearly $500 billion from Medicare and $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade, in order to fund massive tax cuts for rich people...

Also today, a brief plea to stop by BradBlog.com/Donate to help Desi and me continue to bring you independent news from the Land of Reality (and the Rule of Law) over your public airwaves as long as we can! My continuing thanks to those who have already done so! To everyone else: Now is great time to help us out! (Pretty please?)

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"This storm [Hurricane Maria] is no longer killing Americans," an exasperated Rachel Maddow exclaimed on MSNBC in mid-October. "The federal government's response to this storm is now killing Americans."

Setting aside Donald Trump's own self-assessment that his government's response was a "10" out of 10 --- that it couldn't have been better --- actual facts reveal otherwise.

Congress need not await the outcome of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia in the 2016 election, before determining if President Donald J. Trump should be impeached.

The phrase "high crimes" that appears in the Impeachment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, according to the Constitution Society, "refers to those punishable offenses that only apply to high persons, that is, to public officials, those who, because of their official status, are under special obligations that ordinary persons are not under, and which could not be meaningfully applied or justly punished if committed by ordinary persons."

It is an impeachment threshold that can be found in President Trump's reckless and callous disregard of his special obligation to protect the lives and safety of the 3.6 million American citizens who reside in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico --- a U.S. territory that the President formally recognized, as early as September 21, as the site of a "major disaster"...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Alaska National Wildlife Refuge on the chopping block --- again; California officials warn of toxic ashes from the state's devastating wildfires; Like Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands struggling without power or clean water; PLUS: Shell Oil opens electric vehicle charging network at gas stations --- in Britain... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Video: 1 million Americans without power in Puerto Rico; Paris talks set in awkward moment for Trump Admin; With fast-charging, electric cars will soon match or beat gasoline cars in every respect; Iowa governor: Trump 'committed' to ethanol; Hurricane Maria recovery requires extensive federal response; Trump abandons plans to help climate refugees; Developing world struggles with obsolete pesticides; EPA says higher radiation levels pose 'no harmful effect'; Company to pipe water out of Mojave desert to cities... PLUS: Trump voters in storm-ravaged county confront climate change.... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Deadly, historic firestorms in California's Wine Country continue to rage out of control; Risk of water-borne diseases rise in battered Puerto Rico; PLUS: Trump's EPA greases the way for massive, controversial Pebble Mine in the world's most valuable salmon fishery... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): The people of Puerto Rico have become political opponents for Trump; 10 Hurricanes in 10 Weeks: With Ophelia, a 124-year-old record is matched; Key changes needed to prevent fiery rail crashes; Most US oil executives see prices below $60 per barrel through 2018; EPA reveals sharply lower cost of climate change to justify repealing Clean Power Plan; Homebuyers not warned reservoirs would flood their homes; Trump nominates privatization advocate AccuWeather CEO to head NOAA; Texas EPA allows coal plants to pollute even more; Coal ash dam failures would impact hundreds, maps show... PLUS: Study shows North Atlantic wind farms could power the whole world.... and much, MUCH more! ...

Donald Trump appears to have either never read the U.S. Constitution that he is sworn to protect and defend, or he just doesn't understand it, or he just doesn't care about it, as his new attack on the press being "able to write whatever they want to write" reveals again today. But that may be the least of our problems at the moment --- and on today's BradCast. [Link to full audio posted below.]

After quick updates today on still rising death tolls in the continuing unspeakable disasters following Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the massive, ongoing and deadly wildfires in California, it's back to North Korea, where the U.S. military continues to flex its muscle and threaten the nation in a way that we would neverallow another nation to do off our own shores. With B-1 bombers and F-15 fighters now conducting missile launch drills off both costs of the Korean Peninsula (even North of the Demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea) and the USS Ronald Reagan steaming its way there, we continue to provide reason and cover for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to increase his own military arsenal. In the bargain, as a new poll reveals, two-thirds of Americans now feel Trump's rhetoric threatening to "completely destroy" the isolated nation is making the situation worse, not better, between the two countries.

Then, we're joined by progressive Alaska Dispatch News columnist SHANNYN MOORE to explain the gob-smacking scheme --- approved just one hour after Trump's EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt met with a lobbyist from a Canadian mining company, as recently revealed by internal emails --- to re-kindle the possibility of federal approval for Pebble Mine on Alaska's pristine Bristol Bay watershed.

The move toward allowing the mammoth copper and gold mine comes after years of protest by Alaskan natives (like Moore), three years of study by the Obama Administration's EPA (which found the mine could "result in complete loss of fish habitat" in the sensitive spawning ground of more than half of the world's sockeye salmon), risks the loss of some 14,000 jobs, and runs directly counter to last November's statewide ballot initiative in which voters sought overwhelmingly to protect the area from mining interests and irreversible destruction. (You may leave public comment for the EPA here on this, before October 17th.)

We also talk with Moore, who, like many Alaskans, is a hunter and gun-owner, about her most recent column on the terrorist-enabling NRA/GOP's indefensible block of any and all legislative gun safety measures, despite wildly overwhelming support from Americans --- of all parties --- for a wide variety of such reforms in the wake of last week's massacre in Las Vegas...

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