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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: As Trump steps back from the Paris Climate Agreement, Hawaii steps up; Defiant California partners with China on clean energy; Switching from coal to solar would save 52,000 lives a year; PLUS: Elections have consequences --- Nevada Democrats reverse anti-solar regulations... 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: John Oliver breaks down everything wrong with Trump’s decision to leave Paris agreement; EPA delays ozone rule; U.S. airlines reaffirm aviation emissions deal despite Trump's Paris Agreement withdrawal; Historic heat wave sweeps Europe, Asia, Middle East; Canada moves to work directly with U.S. states on climate change; Coastal cities will flood more often and more severely; U.S. topsoil is blowing away; Trump to put infrastructure burden on cities, states... PLUS: Sec. Zinke to order review of sage grouse management plans - again... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, it's great to be back live at our flagship Los Angeles affiliate station, KPFK on the Pacifica Radio Network in Los Angeles after their recent fund drive. So we throw open the phones to listeners in celebration after several insanely busy news weeks! [Audio link to show is posted below.]

But, first, former FBI Director James Comey released his prepared statement [PDF] in advance of his much-anticipated testimony on Thursday before the U.S. Senate Intelligence committee. In the remarks, Comey details a number of his one-on-one meetings with and phone calls from Donald Trump, including the infamous "loyalty dinner" at the White House in late January and the similarly-infamous early-February meeting in the Oval Office, the day after National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was forced to resign, where Comey charges that he was asked by the President to end the FBI's investigation of Flynn.

We review the details of that prepared testimony, including Comey's confirmation that he did, in fact, indicate to Trump on three different occasions that he was not personally being investigated by the Bureau at the time. Trump's personal attorney cites that testimony to claim the President is "completely and totally vindicated" by it. Others, however, regard the testimony as "explosive" and as confirmation that Trump attempted to obstruct justice.

Also today, more on the leaked NSA analysis charging that Russian intelligence attempted to access the computers of election officials around the country after successfully sending spear-phishing emails to employees at a private voter registration firm. That rather rudimentary hacking effort just before last year's election, no matter who did it (as explained in much more detail on yesterday's show), may have allowed access for the intruders to the computers that program voting machines, results tabulators and voter registration systems around the country. Also, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's offers a response to the arrest of the alleged leaker, Reality Leigh Winner, and the charges filed against her under the 1917 Espionage Act.

Then, as just-retired Dir. of National Intelligence James Clapper charges "Watergate pales...compared to what we're confronting now," we take calls on all of the above and whether listeners believe Democrats should begin impeachment proceedings against Trump (as The Nation's John Nichols argued earlier this week on the show) or at least promise such proceedings if they are elected to the majority in Congress in 2018. We received some rather surprising answers to that question from callers, as well as in regard to the charges filed against Winner!

Finally, we're joined by Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report on the swift and global fallout following Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the historic Paris Climate Agreement...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Fallout is swift, and global, after Trump abandons Paris Climate Agreement; Even Fox 'News' questions the economic case for exiting U.N. climate accord; States and cities step up to fulfill U.S. pledges; PLUS: India announces it will sell only electric cars by 2030... 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): China moves to capitalize on renewable energy after U.S. retreat; California signs clean energy deal with China; Trump to allow seismic testing for oil in Atlantic Ocean; Switching from coal to solar could save 52,000 lives a year; Exxon's climate accounting a 'sham'; 'Wild West' of deep sea mining underway; Monsanto buries inconvenient data as 'confidential business information'; Trump supporters worry about solar industry's prospects... PLUS: How GOP leaders came to view climate change as 'fake' science... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: How Donald Trump continues to be his own worst enemy (and, arguably, the world's) and the case for why Democrats should declare themselves "the accountability party" and immediately begin the effort to impeach the President of the United States. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First, the fallout from Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement continues as, CNN reports today that the Acting U.S. Ambassador to China, a 27-year career foreign service officer, has resigned over the decision. But he's not the only American diplomat Trump seems to have upset of late, as the acting U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. was also forced to publicly take sides against Trump following the weekend terror attacks in London.

At the same time, Trump seems determined to make certain he loses his own Department of Justice's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to restore his second Executive Order "travel ban" which has been put on hold, repeatedly, by federal courts from Maryland to Hawaii. In a weekend long Twitter tirade, continuing through Monday, the President offered one incriminating statement after another, blasting both the courts and his own DoJ, in a series of statements that will almostly certainly be held against him and his own Solicitor General's case to lift the current injunction on his ban.

Trump also thought it wise, for reasons few can figure out, to disparage (now, at least twice!) the Mayor of London following the attacks in Britain on Saturday. And while Trump had plenty to say about London, it should be noted he had far less to say last week after two American men were killed defending Muslim women from an anti-Muslim tirade by a self-proclaimed "patriot" on a train in Portland, Oregon.

Moreover, Trump has, so far, had absolutely nothing to say following a mass shooting rampage on Monday morning in Orlando, Florida. That attack, with a semi-automatic pistol, allegedly carried out by a white, non-Muslim American, killed five of the shooter's former co-workers, all said to have been shot in the head multiple times by the assailant who then killed himself. Some suicide attacks, it seems, are worse than others to this President and his party which continue to insist on making firearms easier to obtain, even by the mentally ill.

Then, as Trump's approval ratings continue to fall, and a plurality of Americans, according to at least one poll, support his impeachment, we're joined by progressive author and journalist John Nichols of The Nation who argues that the time to begin the effort to impeach Donald Trump is now. Nichols details his case for impeachment, from both a Constitutional and historical point of perspective, and offers just some of what he believes should be investigated during impeachment proceedings in the U.S. House of Representatives.

"Congress doesn't have to wait" for the DoJ Special Counsel to complete its own criminal investigation, Nichols tells me. "In fact, it shouldn't wait...to allow the office of the Presidency to be polluted, to be undermined, to be warped in a way that might harm the country."

"Virtually half --- and I suspect after recent events it may get higher --- of Americans now say that the President should be impeached," he argues. "I know that a lot of people would like to begin with the list of particulars of what Trump did. But the fact that there is mass popular support for impeachment, [that's] the place at which we ought to begin. A representative branch of government should respond to that. It should recognize that there are tremendous numbers, tens of millions of Americans, who believe that this guy is governing in a way so atrocious, so damaging, that action should be taken to remove him from his position."

"We ought to stop fetishizing the impeachment power and start recognizing that it is a tool of governance that was established to make government work better. Not to create a Constitutional crisis, but to address the potential of a Constitutional crisis," Nichols says.

"If Democrats are serious about politics, they have to be about accountability," he tells me. "I think when you take [impeachment] off the table, as so many Democratic leaders have suggested we should, you really disarm. You put yourself in a position where holding a President to account is left to chance, left to long term processes that lack the urgency that the American people would like to see."

So, should Dems go so far as to promise impeachment to voters if they are elected to the majority in Congress in 2018? Or does such a promise risk political blow-back making it harder for them to take majorities in the House and Senate in the first place? And, frankly, should that even matter? We discuss all of that and much more along those lines today, and also the national Democratic party's failure to adequately support their own candidates in special U.S. House elections in recent weeks, in both Kansas and Montana, and whether they've learned any lessons on that in advance of still more U.S. House special elections set for both Georgia and South Carolina later this month...

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On today's BradCast: The political price of becoming the world's pariah, and new documents finally released by the Trump Administration prove yet again that they are doing anything but "draining the swamp" as promised.

The brutal fallout, including both nationwide and worldwide condemnation for President Trump's regrettable decision to pull the US out of the historic Paris Climate Agreement, continues as the Administration tries and lies to explain the wildly irresponsible and seemingly senseless move, while also working hard to avoid answering whether or not the President of the United States still believes that climate change is a "hoax", as he's previously asserted.

As that story unfolded this week, the Administration was finally forced to release the ethics waivers they say were granted to dozens of White House and executive agency officials allowing them to avoid ethics requirements set out in Trump's Executive Order issued, purportedly, to keep corporate lobbyists out of the government and ensure those working for the Administration did not work with companies whose employ they had just left.

But getting the waivers released at all was "like pulling teeth," according to my guest today, Craig Holman, the long time Government Affairs lobbyist, specializing in campaign finance and government ethics at Public Citizen. He joins us to discuss what is revealed by the waivers released by the White House so far, and why Trump's approach to ethics guidelines cannot even be compared to previous Administrations. "There is a sea-change of difference between the Obama system and the Trump system," he says, describing how even though Obama issued some waivers himself, he did so only in line with "a very tough legal standard" and only after it was "demonstrated that no one else could do the appointee's job."

Trump, on the other hand, "eliminated any criteria for issuing waivers" and even went a step further by failing to disclose them until group's like Holman's and the aggressive current head of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), Walter Shaub, required White House Counsel Don McGahn (who also apparently waivered himself!) to do so.

In addition to top White House officials like Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway and Reince Priebus receiving waivers, Holman explains, "We saw people like Shahira Knight, who was a lobbyist for Fidelity on retirement issues, stepping in to the White House and being the special adviser for retirement issues, which would appear to be a violation of the ethics Executive Order. But was she issued a waiver? We didn't know. So we're banging at the door of the White House wondering what was going on." (As it turns out, yes, she got one too.)

Holman is more troubled still by the fact that almost all of the waivers seem only to have been created this past Wednesday, in order to meet a disclosure deadline on Thursday. "I've gone through each and every waiver, and almost all of them are undated, and unsigned," he says. If it's true that they were issued retroactively, Walter Shaub, the Director of the OGE told the New York Times, "There is no such thing as a retroactive waiver...You have violated a rule." Richard Painter, George W. Bush's White House ethics lawyer told the Times,"The only retroactive waiver I have ever heard of is called a pardon."

But what punishment exists for violating Executive Orders and ethics rules, even though both supposedly carry "the force of law"? And who, exactly, would enforce such violations, anyway? White House Counsel Don McGahn? Attorney General Jeff Sessions? Can groups like Public Citizen sue for enforcement? We discuss all of that and much more with Holman today.

Finally today, an iceberg the size of Delaware is on the brink of falling off of an Antarctic ice shelf; the Special Counsel's investigation of the Trump Administration may reportedly be widening to include a probe of AG Jeff Sessions himself; and what is likely the real (and disturbing) reason that Trump ultimately decided to pull out of the Paris Accord? All of that and much more on today's BradCast!...

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On today's BradCast: Making history and breaking history. From historic worldwide climate pacts to nuclear arms treaties, from Trump and Russia to Nixon and the Soviet Union and back again. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First, in an historic Rose Garden speech on Thursday, President Donald Trump --- against the advice of world leaders, major American companies, and even many in his own Administration --- announced his intention of pulling the U.S. out of the historic Paris Climate Agreement. The landmark 2015 pact is signed by nearly 200 nations and was crafted as part of a 20-year U.N. effort to decrease greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, in hopes of avoiding the worst effects of man-made climate change.

Trump's announcement has largely been met with worldwide derision from China to India to Russia to the EU and back here at home. And his announced intention of "renegotiating" a different deal was quickly nixed today by France, Germany and Italy. We offer extended experts from Trump's remarks announcing his intention to withdraw, some much-needed fact-checking, and a look at where the tortured decision --- which will take four years and another Presidential election --- leaves the U.S.

But, as that unfortunate history was being made today, we also take a look back at historic parallels for the recently reported, and seemingly bizarre, attempt by Trump's son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner to create a secret back-channel line of communications with Russia during last year's Presidential transition.

Princeton University political history professor and author Julian E. Zelizer, joins us to describe two different similar back-channels created with two different countries (including one to Russia --- actually, then, the Soviet Union) by Richard Nixon, both during his campaign and his transition.

One such line of secret diplomacy, Zelizer explains, turned out to be hugely successful for both the U.S. and USSR alike. The other...well, it didn't turn out so well, even as we've only learned details about both in recent years. Zelizer also describes the recent history of diplomatic back-channel diplomacy by Presidents other than Nixon and Trump, offers a few other uncomfortable parallels for the current President, and explains why Kushner's purported scheme to use Russian facilities to speak with the Kremlin is so bizarre, even, apparently, to the Russians themselves.

"Part of the idea that both Richard Nixon believed in, and his top National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, was that there needed to be a new approach to handling U.S. relations with the Soviet Union," Zelizer tells me. "The key to doing this was simply opening up the lines of dialogue. [Kissinger] sets up a back-channel, as it was called, to the Soviet ambassador, which is top secret. He believed this had to be done around the existing government bureaucracy. They were worried about leaks, they were worried about political push-back."

"Nixon was totally paranoid and frightened about the existing bureaucracy in the State Department, and to some extent in the Defense Department, and was really determined to try to do things --- which would ultimately lead to his downfall --- on his own. And to have these kinds of communications without the official government knowing what he was doing, and subverting him."

Sound familiar? In that case, as Zelizer writes at CNN, it was actually a huge success that eventually resulted in the SALT I Agreement to limit nuclear weapons in both nations. The other Nixon back-channel was far more nefarious, dealing with his campaign's attempt to scuttle peace talks by Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam before his election.

In both Nixon cases, it took years before we even learned about any of it. In the more recent case of Kushner and Russia, Zelizer notes, "There's a lot of uncertainty, both about context and the substance of this effort, which is why it is something that's raised a lot of suspicion and is the focus of an investigation. It's not the back-channel, it's what this back-channel was meant to do and why it was being put into place --- if it's true."

Finally, Desi Doyen re-joins us for special, breaking Green News Report coverage of, well...see if you can guess...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 'GNR' Special Coverage: President Trump announces he will withdraw the U.S. from the landmark United Nations Paris Agreement, sending shockwaves around the world... 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): Larsen C ice shelf on verge of breaking off; Wind power rising but falling under political cloud; Commercial plant starts removing CO2 from the air; California Senate sends package of climate bills to offset Trump; Trump would face legal battle to withdraw from 1992 treaty; Extreme warmth has dominated U.S. weather records since 2010; EPA reportedly helped Paris agreement opponents place op-eds in newspapers; Financial firms lead shareholder rebellion against ExxonMobil climate change policies... PLUS: Judge blocks Montana mine, in victory for grassroots groups... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, the Trump Administration leaks the suggestion that they, are indeed, planning to drop out of the historic 2015 world pact to limit the dangerous global rise of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent, or at least stall, the worst effects of climate change. [Audio link to show follows below.]

The comments from unnamed White House sources today that President Donald Trump plans to withdraw from the landmark U.N. Paris Climate Agreement are ricocheting across the globe. But will he really drop out? If so, what do leaders from the rest of the world --- friend and foe --- have to say about it? What do leaders here in the U.S. think? What do senior members of his own administration think? What will Trump's own voters think?

And how can it be that Republicans have been so wrong, for so long, even now, on the issue, including over the past decade when they insisted over and again that China and India would never be willing to cut emissions? (Both countries are willing and have each reaffirmed their commitment to the pact, despite Trump's threats to get out.)

How would the decision effect both the global climate itself and the United States' standing in the world? What are the costs financially of ceding leadership on issues of energy and climate, particularly at a moment when the costs of renewable energy like wind and solar are absolutely plummeting and even many fossil fuel companies (and even some coal companies!) are both recognizing the dangers of global warming and encouraging Trump to stay in the agreement with nearly 200 other nations?

What are Trump's legal options for getting out of the pact, and what the hell explains his grievance and bizarre affection for the dying and dirty coal industry, anyway? Oh, and what do ExxonMobil shareholders think about it all?

Those are just some of the many questions asked and answered on today's show, featuring Desi Doyen of The Green News Report, at this perilous moment in world history...

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On today's BradCast, the Trump-toxified GOP appears to have abandoned all pretense of "values" and "personal responsibility" to elect someone to federal office even after he violently assaulted a journalist on the Eve of the Election. And a longtime voting rights group announces they are forced to shutter their doors for lack of funding. What's wrong with this picture? [Audio link to show is posted below.]

On Thursday, after being cited on assault charges for "body slamming" a reporter from The Guardian the night before, Republican Greg Gianforte was nonetheless elected as Montana's next U.S. Congressman in the Special Election to fill the seat vacated by Donald Trump's Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke. The At-Large seat for the state's only member of the House of Representatives has long been held by Republicans. And, though Trump won the state by more than 20 points last November (Zinke won his seat by 16 points), first time Democratic candidate Rob Quist was polling within single digits of Gianforte and thought to have a shot especially after the GOPer melted down on Election Eve.

Alas, it wasn't to be. We discuss what the Dem loss means going forward (they did swing the vote from GOP to Dem by some 10 points since November), why it likely happened (more than 72% of voters had already cast votes by mail before the meltdown, and many Republicans liked it anyway), Gianforte's apology (only after the election was over), how Trump's own threatening rhetoric has poisoned his party, and how House Speaker Paul Ryan could, Consitutionally, prevent the criminally-charged Gianforte from being seated in the House of Representatives, if he wanted to (and how you can help encourage that).

Next up, while partisan eyes remain on political candidates, and GOP-controlled states like New Hampshire and many others use phony "voter fraud" claims to try and make it harder for left-leaning voters to vote, non-partisan, non-profit voting rights groups are forced to fight for resources just to stay in operation. One such group, the decades-old ProjectVote.org, which has helped register millions of voters, trained voter registration groups around the country, helped to expose how a GOP scheme to promote fraudulent "voter fraud" claims led to the U.S. Attorney Purge during the George W. Bush Administration, and has otherwise filed lawsuits in more than a dozen states to ensure compliance with 1993's National Voter Registration (or "Motor Voter") Act, announced this week they are being forced to shut their doors at the end of the month due to a lack of funding.

Project Vote's President and Executive Director Michael Slater joins us today to discuss the sad and maddening news at a time that groups like his are needed more than ever.

We discuss some of Project Vote's many accomplishments, going back to their founding in the 80s, how the Right has created a "machine to develop propaganda to justify policy outcomes that are in no way in the interests of democracy", improvements (if not enough) in the media in shining a light on the GOP's "voter fraud" lies; and how "folks in the funder community" need to step up to make sure others can fill the void that will be left behind in Project Vote's absence.

"I would encourage people that make contributions to set a portion of those contributions aside for democracy work," Slater says. "There are a number of very good organizations that do democracy work that include Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Brennan Center, League of Women Voters, Common Cause --- there's a range of good organizations. The challenge, I often think, is that as an emergency comes up like what we've seen with the attacks on immigrant rights, people immediately put all of their available money into those programs or those emergencies, and they they forget about the ongoing work that we need to do on the democracy sector."

Yup. I would also argue, as I have for years, that many partisans seem to have no problem giving money to candidates and political parties, but only look to support "the democracy sector" after their candidate has lost an election and it is otherwise too late to do anything about it. Or, as in this case, after the folks doing the difficult democracy work are forced outta business.

Finally, to help get all of that our of my system, some encouraging news, believe it or not, concerning the Trump Administration's deliberations on whether to drop out of the landmark UN Paris Climate Agreement, and a musical moment guaranteed to leave you feeling groovy over the upcoming holiday weekend...sort of...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump's proposed budget cuts deeply into the environment and Superfund programs; Landslide buries California's iconic Pacific Coast Highway 1; Wind farm company proposes to retrain unemployed coal miners to be wind technicians - for free; PLUS: Pope Francis offers a gift and a message to President Trump... 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): Scientists publish an entire study refuting Scott Pruitt on climate change - by name; Pruitt's regulatory rollbacks are a boon to the oil and gas industry; Trump’s budget delivers Big Oil’s wish on reducing Strategic Petroleum Reserve; State appeals court rules Exxon must turn over records to NY prosecutor; NASA faces steep cuts in Trump budget; Mystery solved - how did whales get so big?; FERC will not delay proposed pipeline through state forest; OECD: tackling climate change will boost economic growth... PLUS: How a small PA town is standing up to fracking... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, we do our best to surf today's news tsunami, with a focus on a few troubling and under-appreciated stories amid the political flood pouring out of Washington and around the world in the wake of the DoJ's appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Among the huge number of quickly moving and/or under-covered stories pieced together on today's show...

• CA Assembly bill calls for Donald Trump's impeachment;
• U.S. launches new airstrike on Syrian forces (despite Congressional failure to authorize attacks on a sovereign nation, which could result in war with Russia);
• Michael Flynn blocked President Obama's planned offensive against ISIS, which was opposed by Flynn's secret client Turkey;
• Trump Team was told of FBI investigation of Flynn long before inauguration;
• VP Mike Pence, head of Trump Transition, still claims he knew nothing about Flynn's ties to foreign nations;
• Suspicion grows over Team Trump attorney, White House counsel Don McGahn;
• Senate Intel Chair offers two different stories on Flynn subpoenas;
• House Oversight Chair announces he's quitting Congress next month;
• Mueller's appointment receives mostly bipartisan support, as....;
• ...White House turns 'chaotically dark', cancels Kellyanne Conway appearance on Fox 'News', before...
• Trump turns against appointment of Mueller to describe it as 'unprecedented witch hunt', which 'divides the country', even as he begins to separate himself from 'Russia collusion' and prepares to throw campaign team under the bus;
• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with, among other things, a citizen call to action to save National Monuments set for possible repeal by the Trump Administration...

I wish our countries had "scandals" like this one instead...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Virginia's Governor sets up statewide carbon cap-and-trade system; Bears Ears National Monument targeted for repeal on behalf of oil and gas industry; EPA gets an earful on which pollution regulations to repeal --- or not; PLUS: See it while you still can --- Glacier National Park's glaciers are going, going... 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): 5 reasons why the Regulatory Accountability Act is bad for science; Vulnerable communities lash out as companies sway climate talks; Nearly half of CA salmon species face extinction; Loggers hope to fire up chain saws in Trump era; Iowa senator slams Rick Perry for undermining wind energy; Pesticide sickens workers one month after Trump EPA refuses to ban it; Scientists identify another coral reef devastated by warming; Is the era of nuclear power coming to an end?... PLUS: Blood tests significantly underestimate blood levels, CDC warns... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Our friend David Roberts of Vox.com on making sense of Donald Trump's seemingly senseless decision making process --- and, somehow, learning to live with it and/or contain the damage. [Audio link to show follows below.]

But, first up today, some good news! The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear North Carolina Republicans' appeal of the U.S. 4th Circuit Appeals Court ruling last year striking down what many have describes as the "Mother of All Voter Suppression" laws. The appellate court had found that state Republicans included provisions in the law that were intentionally discriminatory in that they were drafted in order to "target African-Americans with almost surgical precision".

But while that law was blocked last year in NC and will now remain blocked for the foreseeable future there, a similarly discriminatory Photo ID voting restriction was allowed to be used in Wisconsin last year, where Trump is said to have won by just 22,000 votes despite some 300,000 voters in the Badger State --- disproportionately African-American, poor, elderly and students --- who do not have the type of ID now required to vote under the GOP's restriction.

Last week, we detailed a new analysis of the affect of that law on the Presidential election results in WI last year, finding that some 200,000 otherwise legal voters may have been prevented from casting their vote. Today, we detail some of the specific voters who were prevented from voting last November, because of the discriminatory law, including, as AP reports: "The Navy veteran whose out-of-state driver’s license did not suffice, or the dying woman whose license had expired, or the recent graduate whose student ID was deficient", among others.

Then, we're joined by Vox' Roberts who, late last week, published a Tweetstorm in response to Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, in which he attempted to explain why it's so difficult, if not impossible, for journalists, politicians and the public to make sense of the President's decision making process. That is largely, Roberts detailed in his Tweetstorm and in a follow-up article at Vox and to me today, because Trump doesn't have any such process --- at least beyond what feels good at the moment he makes the decision based largely on whatever the last person he talked to told him about the issue.

Roberts' assessment, which cites psychological conditions such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder and something called "Theory of Mind", actually helps to illuminate the reasons for Trump's otherwise, seemingly, reason-free process.

"There's clearly something wrong with the dude," says Roberts. "From all indications he just doesn't have those beliefs and commitments that carry over from situation to situation. By all indications on the surface, what he's doing is: every situation is new. He gropes around for what makes him feel powerful or in charge, and then sort of lunges at that, with no thought of commitments that came before, or consequences that might come after, or how it relates to other things he's said, or other people he's committed to, or anything really!"

"I compare it to a goldfish. Every situation is new. Every day is new. And he's just this sort of bundle of impulses." But while that, Roberts explains, makes Trump so difficult to cover from a journalistic standpoint, or to understand from a political or voter's perspective, it's also what makes him exceedingly dangerous. "Imagine if there's a viral outbreak, or imagine if North Korea really tries to provoke him. Even his allies --- even the people in his administration --- have to be thinking 'Do I know what he's going to do in that situation?'"

While many try to explain Trump's decisions as some grand design, or even as an attempt to distract from one issue or another, Roberts argues it's usually far simpler (and more troubling) than that. He also speaks to what we --- journalists, politicians and citizens --- can all do now in hopes of minimizing the damage that he will be able to cause until he finally leaves office one way or another...

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