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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Green News Report Special Coverage: Finally --- Climate change takes the spotlight, at least for a few minutes, in a Presidential Debate.... All that special coverage 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): Mississippi River Basin Gets A Grade Of D; From March to a Movement: Climate Events Stretch From Sea to Rising Sea; Chesapeake Waters Warming, Study Says, Posing Challenges To Healing Bay; Alpha Natural Discloses Payments to Climate Change Skeptic Chris Horner; Lawsuit Alleges Illegal Water Use by Nestlé in Drought-Stricken Calif.; Massachusetts: With Expenses Rising, Pilgrim Nuclear Plant Will Close... PLUS: State, Feds Won't Pursue $92M More in '89 Exxon Valdez Spill... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Biblical rain and record flooding in South Carolina --- is this the new normal?; India announces it will cut its carbon emissions; PLUS: EPA announces new ozone rules to cut dangerous air pollution... 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): Warming temperatures to in the West; Q&A: Former Exxon scientist on oil giant’s 1970s climate change research; Environmentalists: TPP a disaster for the environment; California leads a quiet renewable energy revolution; New York's revolutionary plan to remake its power utilities... PLUS: Solar City claims new solar panel efficiency breakthrough... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: A new entry into the 2016 Democratic presidential race --- and yes, we've got his position on climate change; Oil industry's deceptive ad campaign succeeds in California, as the state breaks new ground in climate and energy legislation; PLUS: Sarah Palin wants to be Energy Secretary --- and then quit... 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): Are scientists who collaborate with GMO industry tainted?; What Media Should Know About The Fossil Fuel Industry's Latest Pro-Smog Pollution Campaigns; Global warming could push bacteria species into overdrive; Obama:Act Now or Condemn World to a Nightmare; New study reveals the possibility of hurricanes 'unlike anything you've seen in history'; Scientists discover that the world contains dramatically more trees than previously thought - but it's not good news; 6.5 Million Americans Drink Water Contaminated With the Chemical Used to Make Non-Stick Pans... PLUS: Climate Change Is Darkening Seattle's Water Forecast... and much, MUCH more! ...

Over the weekend, supposedly moderate, supposedly reasonable 2016 GOP Presidential candidate Carly Fiorna discussed climate change --- for four long minutes --- with Yahoo News' Katie Couric. In the bargain, as climate journalist David Roberts of Vox.com noted, "everything she said was wrong." Really wrong.

Roberts joins me on today's BradCast to dissect Carly's clap-trap, and to discuss a new report from those lefty, environmentalist, tree-huggers over at Citi GPS (the research arm of Citigroup), finding that moving to clean renewable energy now, in order to try and help mitigate climate change, is ultimately less expensive for the world than sticking with our current fossil fuel economy status quo.

"Moderate Republicans have decided that outright science denial is no longer working for them," Roberts explain in regard to Fiorina's bizarre climate comments. "They've concluded that it makes them look old and cranky and backwards, and it's hurting them with young people and Latinos. So there's at least a small collection of Republicans who have started thinking 'How do we oppose doing anything without denying the science?' That's the dilemma that's in front of them. That's what Fiorina is trying to solve here."

The results, for the failed businesswoman and failed U.S. Senate candidate, as we discuss point-by-point --- from her silly claims to Couric about wind farms and birds, to the one about solar power requiring "huge amounts of water" --- were as disastrous as her failed reign as CEO of HP.

"Republicans have spent so long dug in on this stupid science debate over climate change," Roberts tells me, "they haven't bothered to notice or look around or educate themselves at all about what's going on in this area. So, now they are leaving science denial behind --- slowly but surely --- [and] wandering out into this territory where they know almost nothing. They're just stepping on rakes everywhere."

Summarizing Citi's new report, Roberts explains its findings this way: "It's basically, 'Do you do the same thing you're doing at enormous risk, or do you take this alternative route which costs about the same and avoids this enormous risk?' At the end of all this they basically say, 'Why would you not do this? It's got so many benefits and so little downside. Why aren't we doing that?' And, of course, why we aren't has everything to do with politics."

"If you want to say that the transition to clean energy is going to destroy the economy, then the burden of proof is on you at this point, because there's so much research saying otherwise," he adds during our wide ranging --- and kinda fun --- conversation!

Also on today's show: Glenn Beck's coming-soon tyranny apocalypse; Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both continue to surge in New Hampshire polling...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: It's official: July 2015 was the hottest month ever recorded on Planet Earth; Record wildfire season in the U.S. gets even worse; Scientists stumped by mysterious whale deaths in Washington State; Oil prices hit hard by China stock crash; PLUS: Obama boosts clean energy, calls out the fossil fuel industry's anti-free market ideology... 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: Carly Fiorina did a 4-minute riff on climate change. Everything she said was wrong; CA drought made worse by global warming; Pesticides in paradise: Hawaii's spike in birth defects puts focus on GM crops; The American lawn is now the largest single ‘crop’ in the U.S.; Sen. Feinstein asks Obama to create 3 desert monuments... PLUS: Solar power crosses threshold, gets cheaper than natural gas... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast I'm joined by investigative journalist Steve Horn of DeSmogBlog to discuss his new article investigating the federal judges who oversaw the case that allowed the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline to move forward.

That KXL southern leg is now operational, despite the unusual way in which the Army Corps of Engineers seems to have helped TransCanada, the pipeline's owners, avoid the normal type of environmental review process that has otherwise been in place for similar projects since the 1970s. Horn's investigation looks into the question of whether two federal judges actually stood to profit from their rulings, whether they should have recused themselves from the cases in question, and how "a game of Orwellian rhetoric" allowed the Administration to approve the project without standard environmental scrutiny.

The process "happened behind closed doors," Horn tells me, creating a "horrible precedent" in the bargain. "Basically it happened without public hearings. That was the entire premise of the lawsuit." That suit, however, brought by the Sierra Club, was ultimately rejected with the help of two federal judges --- U.S. District Court Judge David Lynn Russell and 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Bobby Ray Baldock (both Reagan nominees) --- who Horn finds, each stood to gain financially from the pipeline being built.

Horn describes the Southern portion of the KXL pipeline as "extremely important", as "it connects to the rest of the Keystone pipeline system," allowing for "the highest amounts of oil in recorded history now flowing from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast." He charges that a disturbing precedent has now been set that allows Big Oil "to usurp long-standing [environmental] processes."

Horn also raises a very interesting possibility concerning Obama's upcoming trip to The Arctic --- the first such visit by a sitting President --- amid his Administration's recent final approval for Shell Oil to begin drilling off shore there.

Also today --- cuz I could use some laughs --- the "patriotic" gun owner who accidentally shot himself while volunteering to guard a racist gun shop in Oklahoma; The Republicans in Maryland hoping to relax lead paint regulations; More on Donald Trump's 'military advisers' (or laughable lack thereof); And some actual accountability for the executives of "Freedom Industries," the chemical company that poisoned WV's drinking water in 2014...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: For the first time in history, more than half of US Forest Service budget is going to fight wildfires; Australia's climate treaty targets denounced as too low; New Zealand breaks up with coal; PLUS: Free solar for African schools, thanks to Elon Musk... 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: Bill Maher Interview with Dr. Michael Mann; El Niño vs. the Blob: which will win out this winter?; Japan is trying to bring back nuclear power; No techno-fix for irreversible ocean collapse; Explainer: what's a gigaton?; Shell spills toxic gas in Deer Park, TX; GOP presidential candidates rake in $62m from fossil fuels; Judge approves ExxonMobil settlement for Arkansas pipeline spill; Walruses running out of sea ice again this year... PLUS: 'They Figured Our Neighborhood Is Black, So They'll Do It'... and much, MUCH more! ...

While the nation is getting more progressive by the day, it doesn't appear to be getting much easier for progressives in the corporate media. On today's BradCast, we talk about two progressive journalists both fired from two different corporate media outlets within the past week.

Award-winning syndicated editorial cartoonist, author and columnist Ted Rall joins us to discuss his bizarre firing by the Los Angeles Times last week after the LAPD leaked a 14-year old audio tape of Rall being ticketed for jaywalking to the paper. They claim it disproves a recent claim about the incident made by Rall in an LA Times column last May. Audio enhancement of the poor quality tape, however, suggests otherwise.

Why did the paper trust the LAPD without authenticating a 14-year old audio tape that appeared from nowhere? And was the firing about more than just that one column?

"Look, I pissed off cops. I've done many anti-LAPD cartoons and essays over the years. The LAPPL [Los Angeles Police Protective League] made clear in their blog that they have long been angered by me, and they are crowing about my dismissal. So, just at a bare minimum, think about how disturbing this is," Rall tells me. "The LAPD, or the LAPPL, passed illegally --- basically stole something out of the evidence room --- slipped it to the top editors at the LA Times, one of the biggest and most widely-respected metro-dailies in the United States, in order to get me fired. In order to send a message to other reporters, 'don't screw with cops'."

"This would be disturbing, even if I'd been lying," Rall explains. "Even if I'd been fibbing, this would be the nuclear option." He believes, however, that the professionally enhanced audio tapes completely exonerate him and tells me that the LA Times (who has yet to respond to my request for comment on this) has stayed mum since the professionally enhanced audio has been published.

"This is a huge story. This is an epic example of corruption at the highest levels of government and media. I don't want to use the 'c' word, conspiracy, but it might legally be considered a conspiracy," Rall believes. He tells me he is now considering his legal options against both the paper and the police.

Also on today's program, D.R. Tucker of The Washington Monthly (and, too occasionally, of The BRAD BLOG) joins us to discuss MSNBC's firing of Ed Schultz last week and the impact it may have on corporate coverage of both the TPP and of climate change, particularly following Schultz' remarkable reporting last year which subsequently led to his reversal on support for the Keystone XL pipeline.

"It's not often that you see somebody have a principled change of heart," Tucker explains. "And of course he was pilloried for that by the shills for the fossil fuel industry for daring to change his mind. But he stood his ground, and he basically maintained, right up until the day he was off the air, that the Keystone XL was a bad idea."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on Obama's new EPA rules for slashing carbon emissions at power plants in a landmark action to fight global warming...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Obama announces historic climate action to slash carbon emissions; Clean energy is booming around the world --- especially in China; PLUS: Bad day for Big Coal as the nation's largest coal company files for bankruptcy... 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): Memo to media: Clean Power Plan is not about Obama's "legacy"; Media Disclosure Guide: naming the industry groups attacking EPA's Clean Power Plan; Ted Cruz says scientists 'falsified' global warming data; Raging CA wildfires force evacuation of 13k; Glaciers have shrunk to lowest level on record; Coffee: the bitter end of our favorite drink?... PLUS: Methane in atmosphere may greatly exceed estimates... and much, MUCH more! ...

Last week, Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosures for the 2016 Presidential contest confirmed that wealthy Super PAC donors are now spending more than three times as much as small donors. As Politico describes the "gusher of cash" now pouring into American elections from millionaires and billionaires, the "67 biggest donors, each of whom gave $1 million or more, donated more than three times as much as the 508,000 smallest donors combined."

At the same time as that obscenity plays out, a select few GOP Presidential candidates auditioned for the Koch Brothers and rich friends over the weekend in California, where Charles Koch compared their political fight to the Civil Rights Movement. Seriously. Politico's Tarini Parti, joins us on today's BradCast to discuss all of the above and Politico's own controversial role in the weekend confab.

Then, Chuck Lindell of the Austin American-Statesman joins us to discuss today's indictment and arrest of Texas' brand-new Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-Tea Party) on three felony counts related to securities fraud. Thanks to a law Paxton helped pass when he was a member of the TX House, he could now be facing life in prison if convicted on the charges being brought by Special Prosecutors (one of whom was formerly Republican U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's defense lawyer). The indictment is in response to a complaint filed by one of Paxton's fellow GOP statehouse members. None of that, of course, has kept the state's Republican Party from declaring the entire matter to be a partisan witch hunt.

Lindell also updates us on the status of Texas' even more notorious felony indictment, the one against the state's former Governor and current GOP candidate for the 2016 Presidential nomination, Rick Perry. The trial in that case, Lindells tells me, "could take place as early as December --- or right before primary season opens up" in January.

Finally today, President Obama unveiled the new EPA rules for cutting carbon emissions at power plants in all 50 states by some 30% over 2012 levels. Can you hear the wingnut heads exploding?...

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Today, for a change, we're happy to offer you a (virtually) Trump-free BradCast! You're welcome!

First, a quick update on a conversation we had last week with FBI Special Agent turned 9/11 whistleblower turned TIME Magazine's 2002 "Person of the Year", Coleen Rowley. We had her on to speak about the difference between terrorism and hate crimes, as defined by the federal government, and as randomly applied after the (apparently non-terroristic) race-based hate crime shootings in Charleston, SC versus the shootings at U.S. Marine facilities in Chattanooga, TN last week. The latter which is being investigated as "terrorism". (My full conversation with Rowley from last week is here.)

During the discussion, Rowley noted how the difference between "terrorism" and "hate crimes" seems to be "clear as mud" to FBI and federal prosecutors, with "terrorism" charges now "uniquely set for Muslims or for Arab nations". But she also mentioned how terror charges are also applied to animal rights activists, specifically mentioning "mink farms". While we didn't have time to discuss that aspect last week, the very next day, news broke about the arrest of animal righs activists who'd released thousands of mink across the country. The crimes they are charged with, according to AP, "terrorizing the fur industry...under a conspiracy to violate the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act."

Next, we're joined by Dr. Michael E. Mann, climate scientist, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology and Director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, creator of the infamous "Hockey Stick" graph, and author of more than 160 peer-reviewed publications, as well as the book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines to discuss last week's "bombshell" new study from NASA's former chief scientist Dr. James Hansen, warning that sea level rise of 10 feet or more is likely to happen much sooner than scientists previously expected. It could happen even as early as 2050.

Mann tells me Hansen's disturbing study suggests that "climate change is proceeding faster, and it's larger in magnitude than what the IPCC [UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] reported. And that's been true at every juncture. We have tended to underestimate the rate and magnitude of the changes...What Hansen has shown is that indeed there is reason to at least suspect the possibility of a worst case scenario that is a lot worse than anything the IPCC talks about."

We also discuss the politics of this entire fine mess and the irony of 2016 GOP Presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, both of Florida, denying the realities of the science --- each in their own way --- as their own state will be among the first to begin to disappear. That, of course, is only if Hansen is right --- as he has been in pretty much every case since he first rang the alarm about global warming in the U.S. Senate back in 1988.

"If we had acted when we already knew that there was a potential problem [back in 1988]," says Mann. "If we had acted then, then the emissions curve would be a bunny slope...a pretty gradual, smooth transition. It wouldn't be very hard to do, it wouldn't be very expensive. Instead, what several decades of delay have bought us is that we now face the black double diamond slope. That's what we're confronting now."

Listen to the entire conversation, please. It's really important and Mann --- who actually is a scientist (hint, hint, GOP candidates!) --- knows what he's talking about.

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On today's BradCast, we start where we left off on yesterday's show, regarding Thursday's amazingly corrupt and disturbing ruling in favor of Scott Walker and his cronies --- by the amazingly corrupt Wisconsin Supreme Court --- and how, if Republicans have their way, that ruling may soon enough become the law of the land for the entire nation.

As our producer Desi Doyen noted on today's show: "This is your early warning system." Ignore at your peril. Then it was on to a couple of quick items and updates, including dumb Confederate flag wavers in Oklahoma and Maine's even dumber Governor Paul LePage.

From there, we head to North Carolina, where "the most extreme anti-voter bill passed by any state since the Jim Crow Era", as we initially described it when it was passed by state Republicans back in 2013, is finally now facing trial against the NAACP, the ACLU, the DoJ and other democracy and voting rights advocates.

We are joined by The Nation's author/journalist Ari Berman, who was in the federal courtroom in Winston-Salem, NC this week as the trial finally got under way. The results of this trial are likely to head all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, one way or another, and may well determine the future of voting rights in this country. The new voting restrictions were passed in 2013, just days after the U.S. Supreme Court demolished the provision of the Voting Rights Act that otherwise, says Berman, would have kept this law --- which is "already disenfranchising voters" --- from even taking effect.

"That's such a clear case study to me that the Supreme Court was wrong when it said that the special protections of the Voting Rights act weren't needed." Berman goes on to explain why he believes NC, a state which had made astounding progress in voting rights over the previous decade, has now become the new Selma, Alabama, where the bloody fight for voting rights led directly to passage of the federal Voting Rights Act in 1965.

"In North Carolina, they had seemingly everything," Berman tells me. "They had all these voting reforms --- early voting, same day registration, pre-registration for 16 &17 year olds. And it was all taken away or reduced" when the GOP took over both the state legislature and Governor's mansion for the first time since Reconstruction in 2013.

"What Selma in the 1960s and what North Carolina in the 2013-2015 era shows is how far these conservative white Southerners will go to protect political power. There aren't billy clubs. There aren't literacy tests. But they're saying this is how black turnout increased --- North Carolina went from 48th in voter turnout in the late 80s, to 11th in voter turnout in 2012 --- Republicans there basically said we're gonna tamp this turnout down."

And now it's left to the courts to find out if those rights, once granted, can be taken away by political whim --- and if NC, and other states with a history of racial discrimination in elections, will be forced once again to face preclearance from the federal government before they can enforce any new voting restrictions.

Berman has a lot of insight on all of this. His new book, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, will be published next month to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of passage of the VRA. As I note during the show, the book is an exhaustively researched and heart-wrenching documentation of the uniquely American and harrowing tale of the fight to vote in this country --- and the outrageously long and continuing effort to block it. That fight continues, sadly, to this day. Go buy his book!

Finally, Desi joins us again for some listener email and then a stunningly upbeat Green News Report for a change!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Senator Lindsey Graham chides fellow Republican candidates on climate change; Regional cap and trade programs bring in big bucks for states; Dirty coal on the way out in the U.S.; PLUS: The climate action movement gets a big assist from a big boy band... 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): ExxonMobil lied: gave millions to climate-denying lawmakers despite pledge; Zooplankton are eating plastic, and that's bad news for ocean life; CNN advances debunked claim that changes in Sun's "heartbeat" could lead to "deep freeze"; Across the globe, wildfire season is lasting longer; Air pollution kills more people than poverty; CA Gov. Jerry Brown signs bill prohibiting fines for brown lawns; SeaWorld accused of infiltrating animal rights group; Plaquemines Parish rejects BP settlement offer as too small... PLUS: Traffic jam: Congress speeds toward highway cliff... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: WI Gov. Scott Walker jumps into the 2016 race - we report on his (predictable) position on climate change; Warmest June on record for the Western United States; Exxon Mobil knew about man-made global warming in 1981 - and then funded climate denial industry for 30 years; PLUS: No, we are not headed into a new 'mini-ice age' - the latest denialist theory debunked... 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): In Pennsylvania city, the poor are paying the price for a bad water deal; Japan is building huge solar power plants that float on water; China: June coal imports fall 34 per cent; Iran Nuclear Deal Is Reached After Long Negotiations; Pipeline Safety in the Congressional Spotlight; Presidential Candidates Say 'No' To Fossil Fuel Funding... PLUS: Australia: Tony Abbot's government pulls the plug on household solar... and much, MUCH more! ...

A busy week kicked off today on The BradCast! Scott Walker makes his 2016 run for the GOP nomination official; Hillary Clinton takes shots at both him and Jeb Bush in a major economic speech; And the long-awaited NAACP/ACLU/DOJ trial begins in North Carolina against "the most extreme anti-voter bill passed by any state since the Jim Crow Era".

But after those updates, we dig into debunking a new global warming denier scam that began making the rounds over the weekend, concerning a "mini ice age" that wingnuts are now certain will happen instead of the planet continuing to warm at record rates just as scientists have long predicted.

The nonsense begin in the Rightwing denialist media, but has since been making its way into the theoretically legit media as well.

Physicist and former Clinton Administration Dept. of Energy official Joe Romm joins me to help with the debunkery and warns that, unfortunately, "there's no escape from the catastrophic consequences of human-caused global warming by hoping the sun does something. The only hope is that humans do something, which is to slash carbon pollution, and have a global treaty negotiated in Paris in December and take action like the United States is doing through the President's EPA Clean Power Plan, replacing dirty fossil fuels with clean, renewable energy that lasts forever."

The new study being cited by deniers "doesn't mean anything about the long-predicted global warming trend," he tells me. "Anybody who cites this study to suggest that global warming science isn't real, or somehow we're going to avoid catastrophic warming this century, literally has never talked to a climate scientist," Romm says, describing the newest "'Jiggery-pokery' from the climate science deniers."

We also discuss a new email charging Exxon knew about CO2 and climate change since the early 80s, but spent millions in the decades since to fund the denier movement instead of taking action. And I also get Romm's thoughts on a newly unearthed 1969 Nixon Administration memo warning about CO2, global warming and sea level rise.

Finally: Since Walker is announcing his 2016 run for President today, it seems a good time to revisit the audio of that prank 2011 phone call to him from "David Koch" during the height of Walker's union-busting campaign. The call was a hoax, but Walker had no idea. We play some clips from the call to help you remember it all, along with a bit of my 2011 interview with then Buffalo Beast editor Ian Murphy, the man who played "David Koch" during the prank call. (If you're interested, you can hear my complete 2011 interview with Murphy, while guest hosting The Mike Malloy Show on April Fools day that year, right back here.)

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