On today's BradCast, first, a number of breaking news items, including Shell Oil coming up dry and calling an end (for now) to their misadventurous quest for oil in the otherwise pristine Arctic; NASA announcing the discovery of flowing liquid water on Mars, allowing for the possibility of human travel to the planet; And Presidents Obama and Putin both addressing the U.N. General Assembly, offering conflicting assessments of the worsening crisis in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Then, I'm joined by Neela Banerjee, investigative journalist at Inside Climate News, to discuss the Pulitzer Prize winning organization's explosive new series of reports revealing that Exxon's scientists had confirmed the catastrophic effects of man-made global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels as long ago as 1977. But, rather than continue their work on that finding, they turned tail in an attempt to obscure their own science with the massive funding of climate change denial front groups.

"In the '70s and '80s they really wanted to be seen as a leader in climate research because they understood the implications of climate change for their business as a fossil fuel producer," Banerjee explains. She says Exxon "thought that the best way to shape whatever policies would emerge to limit fossil fuel emissions...was do really good science and have a seat at the table. That's obviously different from the approach they started taking in 1989."

Banerjee, formerly a New York Times reporter and now co-author of Inside Climate's multi-part series based on months of digging into four decades of company documents and interviews with former Exxon scientists and other employees, goes on to explain the known circumstances of the company's sudden about-face to become a major funding source for the denialist movement.

"Even before the question of CO2 appeared on the scene and started to shape their thinking about continuing to produce fossil fuels, Exxon was already starting to think of potentially becoming a diversified energy company," she tells me, detailing the company's early work on lithium ion batteries, solar and nuclear energy and even hybrid cars. "Exxon had this mindset that they were not just wedded to oil and gas."

But then, with a drop in oil prices, things changed, including leadership at the company. Exxon began discussing "uncertainty and kept cherry-picking quotes from scientists to say that there was too much that was unclear to warrant enormous action on cutting back fossil fuels and changing our economy." In other words, they knew, they denied, and they didn't seem to care.

I also ask Banerjee about the lack of corporate mainstream media coverage of her remarkable series --- (even MSNBC has failed to cover it) --- and she describes how its even worse than I had realized. We also discuss whether Exxon (and other Big Oil entities) might face legal liability for obscuring the known harm caused by their products in the same way that Big Tobacco eventually did.

Lots of revealing conversation on all of that and more on today's BradCast...

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On today's BradCast, what else? We dissect last night's GOP debate on CNN at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, CA.

My guests are fantastic! Our old friend, Heather Digby Parton --- Salon contributor, Hillman Foundation opinion journalism award winner, and proprietor of Digby's Hullabaloo blog --- joins us for the hour!

And I'm delighted to welcome back to The BradCast, Fred Karger, the former longtime Republican political consultant, 2012 GOP Presidential candidate, the first openly gay Presidential candidate from either major party and now "indefatigable" activist for equal rights.

No need to tease too much more, frankly. Find out what "Digby" and Karger, who is still (incredibly enough) a Republican --- though "hanging on by his fingernails" --- thought about last night's circus and if any of it will finally shake the party loose from its Trump fever dreams.

Debate analysis and insight that you won't hear anywhere else --- on what actually matters and what actually doesn't. Enjoy!

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On today's BradCast: The most incredible, embarrassing nonsense you may not have even heard about is going on in the otherwise great state of Kansas, thanks to their extremist rightwing Republican legislature and Governor Sam Brownback.

But, first, it rained in Los Angeles today! Yes, amidst a record 500-year drought, rain actually counts as news these days. I explain, along with Desi Doyen who was also there to witness it. (Oh, and here's that harrowing fire footage we described in today's show.)

As if that's not crazy enough, a group of House Republicans are introducing a resolution that calls for climate action in advance of Pope Francis' visit next week and historic address to Congress, in which he is expected to make the case for taking action to curb global warming (and, also, in favor of the Iran peace deal.)

And that's not the only good news today. Australia's crazy rightwing Prime Minister Tony Abbott was ousted last night in a late night coup by his own party, paving the way for a new Prime Minister who actually believes in stuff like climate change and marriage equality!

But then, of course, our main topic today: More on what the hell is the matter with Kansas. Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program attorney Matthew Menendez joins us for an update on the cases he (and a number of other groups) have filed against Brownback on the heels of legislation the Governor signed that would defund the entire state Judiciary system if the courts have the temerity to strike down Brownback's legislation concerning education funding and restructuring (rigging) the judiciary.

"What they passed says if the outcome in a particular lawsuit came out a particular way, then the entire judicial appropriations was no longer valid," Menendez explains. Well, guess what? The court has just found against the state! So, now what?

"This is very troubling," Menendez tells me, detailing how the plaintiffs have been forced to seek a stay on the court's ruling (in their favor!) in order to keep the GOP law from kicking in and defunding the entire court! "In America, where we firmly believe --- or profess to --- in separation of powers, it's essential that judicial salaries not be threatened if legislators disagree with one of their rulings."

So much for the "conservative" belief in the Constitution's co-equal branches of government. Menendez tells me what has just happened in KS, where the cases are now, and what is expected to happen next in what he says could turn into "just a complete constitutional crisis."

Finally, on yesterday's program we played some of 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' remarks at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University as he attempted to reach out and find common ground with some of the 12,000 "conservative" students in attendance. Today, we hear from some of those students as they react to Sanders' speech. Suffice to say, reaching out to those who think they don't agree with you may be a very wise thing to do in today's divided and divisive media world.

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On today's BradCast, the politicization of the Iran peace deal by Israel and the Right in the U.S. is having serious consequences for both.

Military analyst, adviser, author and former naval commander Harlan Ullman --- credited with creating the 'Shock and Awe' doctrine (no Leftie peacenick, he!) --- joins me to explain why he believes the Iran deal is "potentially a strategic game-changer for the positive," and how Republicans and Israel are both wrong to oppose it.

"This agreement, if it is enforced and if it works, gives all sorts of strategic opportunities that will make the entire world safer," he tells me. "For whatever reason, Republicans and [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu don't want to accept that, in large part because of their hatred and disagreement with the Obama Administration."

He believes "a more objective view needs to prevail," but warns that the Obama needs to take special measures to ensure the deal remains enforced. (While I agree with Ullman on the issue, in general, you'll see that there is much we do not agree about when it comes to just about everything else! So, I'm happy to find common ground with him on these points!)

Then, former American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) staffer, turned senior Congressional staffer, turned columnist M.J. Rosenberg, joins me to discuss his recent column on the fall of the nation's once-most powerful Jewish lobby which, after spending millions to try and defeat the Iran deal, may have succeeded only in destroying itself. He explains why he believes that AIPAC made a fatal miscalculation in turning the fight against the agreement into a partisan issue. In the process, Rosenberg says, they have severely weakened the bi-partisan power they once wielded in both Congress and at the White House.

Until now, he tells me, both Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate would "just roll over and play dead when Israel, the Israeli government or AIPAC wanted anything. If AIPAC says 'vote no', you vote no." But those days, he believes, are now over and that's good news, as he describes it, for both Palestine and Israel. He goes on to note that the group no longer represents "the way most American Jews think" and now serves the interests of only "right wing Jews in Israel and right wingers here. Peace is not something that they believe in."

Two fascinating conversations on today's show!

Also on today's BradCast: Bernie Sanders seeks 'common ground' as he speaks to 12,000 students at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University; Climate change consequences continue to hit home, from massive rainfall in Japan to massive wildfires now devastating huge swathes of Northern California...

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Today's BradCast is packed with news from top to bottom. Please buckle up before listening.

First, Big Oil's deceptive scam in California (as discussed on yesterday's show) has succeeded, for now, as Dems pull landmark legislation that would have called for a 50% cut in petroleum usage in the state.

Then, new polling finds Bernie Sanders overtaking Hillary Clinton now in Iowa, as well as New Hampshire, while the party's internecine battle over more debates continues. On the GOP side, candidates not named Trump are flailing as they desperately try to get attention. It's not working --- neither is their lost hopes of scuttling the Iran peace plan.

Next, author and national security correspondent Shane Harris joins us to discuss his disturbing new exclusive at The Daily Beast on 50 U.S. intelligence analysts now reportedly charging that the U.S. has been "cooking" its intel on ISIS.

The still-unnamed military intelligence analysts working for CENTCOM, as Harris explains, are reportedly seeing some of their own reports manipulated by higher-ups. "Key pieces of [their analyses] that they feel are very important [are being] taken out, not given the proper context, [and] in some cases making it look like ISIS and al Qaeda are weaker than these analysts actually believe they are."

So are these charges akin to the way intel on Iraq and WMD was manipulated by the Bush Administration in the 2002/2003 lead-up to war, as revealed by the notorious Downing Street Memos ("the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy")? Or are these claims more akin to the hyperventilation over unsubstantiated allegations from the Right concerning Benghazi?

Harris tells me his reporting suggests it is more likely the former than the latter, though it remains unclear who is behind the alleged manipulation of intel and how high up it might go, even if proven true. "What I think is notable is that these 50 --- actually 52 --- professionals who are doing this every day, to go against their bosses, to take this to the IG is a very bold move. They feel very strongly that they have a case," he explains. "I've never seen anything like this. Usually whistle-blowers are in ones and twos, but for a group of people en masse to complain like this is certainly unique in my experience as a reporter."

We discuss who may be behind the alleged "cooking" of the intel and whether President Obama or the White House is somehow directing all of this as the Bush/Cheney Administration was doing in the case of the manipulated intel on Iraq. Tune in for Harris' response to those questions and many others, in what seems, at least as of now, a startling, if still-developing story.

Finally, our latest Green News Report is also a very busy one today, and not only because it includes several fresh examples of Sarah Palin's unparalleled ignorance...

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On today's BradCast, the facts behind the insanely deceptive political ads blanketing the airwaves in California claiming the state will soon start "rationing gas" and "penalize and fine us if we drive too much or use too much gas".

Attorney Timothy O'Connor, Director of the Environmental Defense Fund's California Climate Initiative joins us to explain the absurd Big Oil-funded DontTakeMyGas.org campaign. You'll be shocked to learn that it's sponsored, to the tune of millions of dollars, by the scam artists of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) in hopes of blocking the state's proposed landmark effort (SB-350) to cut petroleum use by 50% by 2030.

"If other states see California --- the nation's leader in gasoline use --- cutting its consumption and its spending," O'Connor tells me, "I think they're going to want some of that for themselves. And that's where I think WSPA really wants to stop this snowball from growing and taking hold, and really rolling into something pretty big nationally."

Also today: Dick Cheney lies again, this time on the Iran Deal; More follow-up on the anti-gay KY County Clerk; And listener calls on all of the above!...

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As noted at the top of today's BradCast, our show changed about five different times right up until air, as we attempted to keep up with busy news events on the ground following the Labor Day weekend.

First up, Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk who was jailed before the weekend after defying court orders to issue marriage licenses was released [PDF] by the Federal Judge who had found her in contempt last week. Waiting for her with a hero's welcome was a crowd of hundreds fomented by former Arkansas Governor turned GOP Presidential candidate turned Fox 'News' host turned GOP Presidential candidate again turned desperately disingenuous opportunist Mike Huckabee.

But what Huckabee failed to note in his defense of Davis --- as do most of the media covering what's going on down there --- is that Davis was sent to jail not for refusing to defy her own conscience as her supporters claim, but for refusing to allow others who disagreed with her in her own office from acting and following their own conscience...not to mention the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.

Next up today: As the carnage of gun violence continues from coat to coast following the recent, live on-air shootings in Roanoke, Virginia (include another mass shooting at a school here in California and the critical injury of one of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's top legal staffers), we speak to author David Hemenway about solutions, as detailed in his book Private Guns, Public Health.

"People from around the world come and they just cannot understand why the United States allows this to happen --- compared to all the other first world countries and high income countries --- that we are allowing so many Americans to be killed," Hemenway tells me while explaining how our epidemic of gun violence must be regarded as an issue of public health. "First we have to admit we have a problem, and the numbers are just overwhelming."

While he concedes that, no matter what we do, "we are going to have lots and lots of guns in the Unites States," they can and should be made safer. "One of the analogies we make in public health is in the motor vehicle area," Hemenway explains. "Fatalities per mile driven in the United States have fallen over 85% because the cars are so much better, and the roads are so much better. Yes, we ought to look at the individuals [perpetrating the violence] but we can do so much more, so much more cost-effectively, if we also look at the system. Let's make a system where it's hard to make errors, hard to behave inappropriately, and then when still some people do, let's make it that nobody dies."

"For example, we'd like manufacturers to do a better job about making child-proof guns --- which they made 100 years ago --- to make it harder for kids to unintentionally kill themselves. We can say 'You know, it's the kid's fault, it's the parent's fault, it's somebody's fault fault fault,' or we can solve the problem, which is make it so that when you take out the magazine the gun won't fire. It's not rocket science."

Hemenway, Professor of Health Policy and Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, offers other common sense solutions, including the need for better data collection, currently made scarce by both legislation and intimidation by gun proponents. "Whenever there's a motor vehicle death, we get 150 pieces of information collected consistently and comparably. We want to get good data on the number of guns in households in each state, but the Center for Disease Control is afraid to ask questions about that because they'll get beaten up by Congress."

He also discusses a number of myths from opponents of gun safety laws, including the claim that women need guns to protect themselves from predators and the notion that households are safer with a gun to protect the occupants. "Only about a third of households have guns," Hemenway tells me. "And the two-thirds that don't have guns, turns out they are much, much safer than the one third that does."

Also on today's busy broadcast: Breaking news from the Freddie Gray killing in Baltimore; Breaking news on the Iran Deal from U.S. Senate Democrats; and more...

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Over the weekend at the DNC Summer Meeting in Minneapolis, 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate Martin O'Malley excoriated his party for their 'rigged process' of Presidential debates. Bernie Sanders agreed and BRAD BLOG's legal analyst Ernest A. Canning apparently does too.

He wrote about it this week, including his concerns that the process could result in a 1968-like rift within the party. He joins us to discuss it on today's BradCast.

Also today, in a victory for President Obama (and for peace and diplomacy) it looks like the Iran Deal now appears to be sealed in the U.S. Senate --- despite wild disinformation about it (and a Republican base which appears clueless about that and much more).

We also take listener calls on all of the above, including some on our programs earlier this week on the KS statistician being blocked by the state from examining evidence she believes suggest "voting machine manipulation" and the attorney representing the couples suing the KY County Clerk who refuses to issue marriage licenses in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Plus: Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report as we get ready to take a few days off for the holidays. (But, don't worry, your BradCast will be ably guest hosted once again by the excellent Nicole Sandler of RadioOrNot.com for a couple of days until we're back after the holidays!)

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Buckle up! On today's BradCast, we jump on board the crazy train to dissect last night's GOP/Fox 'News' Presidential Debate(s)!

My guests today are award-winning blogger/journalists Heather Digby Parton of Digby's Hullabaloo and Paul Rosenberg of Random Lengths News --- both also contributors for Salon.

Can Trump ever be derailed? Fox 'News' and Roger Ailes sure seems to be trying. And does any of it actually matter a year and a half out from the general election and more than six months before any votes are ever cast? We discuss all of the above (after "Digby" and I take short victory lap concerning Donald Trump!) and much more in today's post-debate roundtable!

"[Trump] has absorbed all of the rightwing tropes of the past 30 years and made them his own. He's ingested them, digested them, regurgitated them, played with them, shaped them into figurines, and just endlessly fascinated himself with them, and invited people to play along with him," Rosenberg tells me. "And people are happy to do so, because he is their ideal --- he is a super-wealthy person who is 'just one of us'."

For her part, Parton says the debate actually does matter, for one reason, "because what we're seeing are the contours and outlines of the Republican argument. I think it's pretty clear they're going to be running as war-mongering, tax-cutting, slash-and-burn politicians who are going to roll back everything that's happened in the last eight years. And they're going to do it all in the first day, so that's good."

A fascinating and fun discussion! Plus: Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report' on another new candidate in the GOP race and the pushback against the President's new rules for emissions cuts...

What a week. An incredibly busy one, but we've got some really good shows to show for it, I think. Enjoy today's!

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It was a much bigger show today than we had expected when we started it!

First up on today's BradCast, author, peace activist David Swanson joins us to discuss Obama's speech today at American University on the Iran Nuclear Agreement. While Swanson is (somewhat uncharacteristically) optimistic and encouraged by the deal, he has concerns about how Obama and other Dems are misleading Americans in order to sell it. "I love that, for once, President Obama wants peace. I love that, for once, he's using diplomacy rather than war. I wish he would use that in eight other places on earth," Swanson tells me. "But at the same time he's pushing the propaganda of his opponents."

Then, Swanson asks, "Why Won't Bernie Talk About War?" A new petition from RootsAction.org asks Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to start speaking up against U.S. militarism which, as Swanson argues, the U.S. Senator from Vermont has, up until now, been very reluctant to do for some reason.

Then, as we went to break, huge news came in from the very conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal striking down the Texas GOP's polling place Photo ID restriction law. The opinion confirms most of a lower court judge's previously ruling finding the restriction to be in strict violation of the Voting Rights Act as well as the U.S. Constitution. Constitutional law expert Ian Millhiser joins us to explain the very encouraging opinion from the court --- which comes, incidentally, just one day before the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 --- and what happens next.

"The court got that voter ID laws do not really serve the purpose that their supporters say they're supposed to serve," Millhiser explains. "The court got that this was an attempt to dress up something that looks like a legitimate voter regulation in order to really do something else, which was to prevent groups like racial minorities and low-income voters who tend to prefer Democrats over Republicans from casting a ballot."

But, he also warns, "this wasn't a total victory for the good guys." Listen to the show for all the details.

Finally, in the few minutes we have left, we squeeze in some Presidential politics in advance of tomorrow night's first GOP Presidential debate, as sponsored --- and rigged by --- Fox "News". And, yes, that Republican debate will take place, ironically enough, on the 50th Anniversary of the landmark federal Voting Rights Act which Republicans used to support...until they decided they couldn't win elections anymore if all those "people" (read: qualified American voters who tend to vote Democratic) were allowed to vote.

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On today's BradCast...

• Obama responds to critics of the Iran deal --- legitimate ones and Republicans. (I'm glad the grownup is driving.)

• Trump continues to rise --- and for good reason. (Should we endorse him?)

• NAACP wants to sandblast a huge monument to the Confederacy --- which feels a bit too Taliban-y for my tastes. (But am I wrong?)

• All of that and more today, including: Listener calls on all of the above; I wrestle with technical probs; and Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report! Enjoy!

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Yes, Donald Trump is still leading in the national polls, but, after that, we turn to slightly more serious topics on today's BradCast, as a nuclear deal is finally struck between Iran, the U.S., China, Russia, France, Great Britain and Germany.

But, of course, those heads you hear exploding are (mostly) Republican Presidential candidates who, it seems, are either talking about another deal entirely or they haven't a clue how foreign policy actually works or maybe they've been living in a cave over the past 15 years. (Particularly the years from 2000 to 2008.)

Scott Walker, a very serious candidate for the Republican nomination, is particularly daft on the issue, opposing the agreement with Iran on absolutely ridiculous grounds. But his domestic policy is quite a different and far more disturbing matter. It includes a legal/political/Constitutional philosophy that, while once rejected by the courts and largely left for dead, is now "ascendant within the Republican coalition," as my guest, constitutional law expert Ian Millhiser explains on today's show.

"One thing that has transformed amongst the American right in the last several years is a desire to implement their agenda through any means necessary --- and if that means bypassing the democratic process and just getting their friends on the Supreme Court to implement it, they're happy to do that," Millhiser tells me while discussing one key dog-whistle offered during the Wisconsin Governor's announcement of his 2016 GOP candidacy on Monday.

"What they're doing here is they're trying to effectuate a wholesale transfer of power from the two branches of government that are elected to the one branch of government that is not elected," he says. "And I don't care what your agenda is, that's not something that should be done."

Not a dime's worth of difference between the two major parties? We discuss that laziest of knee-jerkisms --- you decide...

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On this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio (and many other fine affiliate stations), we talk to physicist, former Clinton Administration official and founding editor of ClimateProgress.org Joe Romm about Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell's "immoral" attempt to undermine the U.S. in international climate talk negotiations as the big U.N. treaty summit is set for Paris later this year.

Romm, who served as Chief Science Adviser for last year's Emmy-award winning Years of Living Dangerously series on Showtime, also breaks a bit of news on The BradCast by confirming that there will be a season two for the groundbreaking environmental documentary series. He promises that "it will be on a cable network that has a far greater reach" than Showtime, though he can't let us know which one yet.

PLUS: Rand Paul jumps into the 2016 GOP Presidential circus; Ohio's Republican Gov. John Kasich does the right thing (sort of) in vetoing a new GOP voter-suppression scheme in the state; Jeb Bush appears to have committed a felony in Florida; California's Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom does the right thing before everybody else (again) in announcing support for full legalization of marijuana in the Golden State; and much more, including Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report.

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[This article now cross-published by Salon...]

Most of the attention that will be paid today to this interview by NBC's Savannah Guthrie will, no doubt, focus on Sen. Rand Paul's dismissive and somewhat condescending treatment of the female Today anchor. It does echo, after all, a similarly condescending and arrogant tone he struck last February during an interview with CNBC's Kelly Evans when he, literally, "shushed" her and told her to "calm down a bit", as she asked him uncomfortable questions.

But what caught my eyes and ears in this latest video (posted below) was something else entirely. And it's something which reflects far more poorly on Guthrie and the corporate media in general than it does on the junior Senator from Kentucky and now 2016 Republican Presidential candidate.

While it's true Paul appears to have trouble dealing respectfully with female interviewers and is now wildly reversing many of his previously strongly held foreign policy positions in hopes of wooing GOP voters, it's the mindset behind Guthrie's opening question which disturbs me far more. And it's one that we've seen before in the supposedly "mainstream" media...

After another (too-long) fund drive break at Pacifica Radio's KPFK, we were finally back today with a live and fresh BradCast!

And, if you've been following The BRAD BLOG lately, you'll know that I think so much of what's going on, in the media, in Congress, and just about everywhere else of late, is just insanely dumb.

So, on those topics today, I was delighted to be joined by our friend Eric Boehlert of Media Matters to discuss the media hypocrisy over Hillary Clinton's email "scandal" (while ignoring other, almost identical matters that actually are or were scandals) and the massive lies of Bill O'Reilly that somehow nobody seems to care about.

I also had a few words to say about the GOP's latest, embarrassing Iran idiocy, and their, um, unconvential methods of governing for the next two years, as well as the media's failure to say the words "global warming" and/or "climate change".

Yes, all of that and much more in a very lively hour! And Desi Doyen even joins us at the end for an uplifting Green News Report (sort of).

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