On today's BradCast, we move from the "too soon" moment and on to the GOP's "mental health reform" ruse, in hopes of avoiding any actual legislative action to curb gun violence after another record mass murder in the U.S. [Audio link to show follows below.]

We have some good news, however, following the Sunday night massacre in Las Vegas, which killed 59 and wounded more than 550 others in a hail of automatic weapon fire rained down from a casino onto concert-goers on the streets below: The House GOP has put off plans to make silencers easier to purchase! For a while anyway. Feel better? Other than that, it's either "premature" to discuss legislative changes to help curb America's 30,000+ gun deaths per year, or time to pull out the old "mental health reform" scam again, as House Speaker Paul Ryan did today when pressed for what action Congress might take after the latest "worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history."

While toy guns are illegal to carry on the streets of Vegas, real ones are not. Not even fully automatic machine guns. And even a statewide ballot measure passed by Nevada voters last year to expand background checks has been declared unenforceable by the Republican, NRA-owned state Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt. So, if the only thing that the terrorist-enabling NRA will allow to be enacted in order to prevent a man who was allowed to lawfully amass 42 military-style assault weapons and thousands of rounds of ammo from committing mass murder is "mental illness reform", are Republicans even serious about that much?

We're joined by veteran journalist ART LEVINE, author of the new book Mental Health Inc: How Corruption, Lax Oversight and Failed Reforms Endanger Our Most Vulnerable Citizens (and next week's Newsweek cover story) to discuss Republican hypocrisy after Vegas, and how the hopes of forcing mandatory medication by the Right and concerns about stigmatizing the mentally ill on the Left, have all helped to prevent real mental health reform.

That, even as the American College of Physicians calls for an assault weapon ban in response to the "public health crisis" of our gun death epidemic in the U.S., existing laws to prevent gun use by the mentally infirmed that go unenforced or are otherwise being repealed altogether, and a mental health reform bill which was already passed by Congress and signed by President Obama last year.

Ryan "apparently doesn't know that the Congress --- he is the head of the House --- actually passed a bill called 'Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act'. In other words, it's such a trope, and such a nostrum that's thrown out --- they throw it out like a tic --- when in fact there was a law [already] actually passed! That is one of the areas of hypocrisy about it," Levine tells me, as he cites the hypocrisy of those who oppose improved gun safety laws and claim to support mental health reform while voting for ObamaCare repeal and cutting back Medicaid. "They are moving forward [with] a war on people with mental illness, opioid addiction and chronic pain."

Levine cites a program by Los Angeles County which he writes about in his book, and describes as "a world-class preventative outreach program that stopped over 50 campus attacks." Yet, he goes on to explain, the successful program is "a political orphan" because the Right won't cite it as a national model ("their big golden goal is mandated drug and outpatient treatment") and neither will liberals and mental health progressives ("it stigmatizes people" as being potentially violent, even though the mentally ill, he says, are far more likely to be the victims of gun violence, rather than perpetrators of it.)

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report as Trump finally goes to Puerto Rico for a few hours (to blame the victims of Hurricane Maria) and as China finally forces GM to get back into the electric car business. Also today: Rock in Peace, Tom Petty...

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On today's BradCast, it's one of the darkest days in U.S. history. Again. [Audio link to show follows below.]

At least 58 are dead and more than 500 were wounded in the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday, as a lone gunman rained down thousands of rounds from his fully automatic rifles on to attendees at outdoor country music concert. The shooter, reportedly a retired real estate investor and high-stakes gambler who lived in nearby Mesquite, is said to have killed himself as the Las Vegas SWAT team located him in his room, from where he was firing on the 32nd floor of the Monterey Bay Hotel and Casino, where he had been firing from. He was reportedly in custody of as many as 19 high-powered weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition in his hotel room, which he used to carry out the shooting on concert goers at least 400 yards away.

In the bargain, 64-year old Stephen Craig Paddock was allegedly able to carry out the worst mass shooting murder in modern American history in a matter of 10 to 15 horrifying minutes. After a brief update on some of the important news from over the weekend (other than in Vegas) regarding Puerto Rico and North Korea, we discuss what is known about the massacre as of air time and the White House reaction to it from both the President and his Press Secretary (who says, predictably, that it's "premature" to discuss what to do about such things.)

For the record, while the shooting in Vegas was the worst in modern history, according to GunViolenceArchive.org, the Las Vegas massacre marks the 273rd mass shooting in 2017, in 275 days so far this year. A total of 11,652 people have been killed in all gun violence incidents this year, with 23,512 having been injured. (Those statistics do not include the number of suicides by gun, which would tens of thousands of more victims to those totals for 2017, according to the Archive.)

No motive is currently known for the shooting, though it hardly matters. Whether homegrown terrorist or ISIS recruit, it's very easy to legally obtain obscenely deadly, military-style assault weapons in this country. The results are the same, no matter the motive.

Then, we examine just some of hard data on violent gun deaths in the U.S., much of it compiled by Vox.com's Zack Beauchamp, including why studies find the rates of murder and suicide by gun in the U.S. are so much higher (some 25 times higher) than in other prosperous developed nations with otherwise comparable crime rates. The difference between those countries and ours? The number of guns per capita. We also look at the available empirical data on how (and if) gun safety laws actually reduce the rate of both homicide and suicide in countries around the world (including the U.S.) after gun safety restrictions are strengthened and/or loosened. Australia, for a number of reasons, provides a particularly stark example. But other nations do as well.

Much of what we cover and discuss today, on the surface, seems as if it should be blatantly obvious. The data sets are true no matter how one feels about guns and the Second Amendment and why the Founders enacted it. Unfortunately, many of these facts are not as well understood by the public as one might think and hope, particularly given the partisan political restrictions on tracking and/or debating and/or even discussing these matters. That, thanks in no small part to the decades of propaganda and partisan political campaigning by the terrorist-enabling National Rifle Association (NRA) and the arms lobby that it represents...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Calls grow to accelerate aid for humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria; Adding danger to desperation, major Puerto Rican dam now at risk of total failure; Good news and bad from toxic Superfund sites flooded by Hurricane Harvey in Texas; PLUS: Unusually warm ocean fueling record Atlantic storm season... 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): 2017 foreshadowing hurricanes to come; Textbook example of how climate misinformation spreads through right-wing media; Park Service: Obama water bottle ban had 'significant' benefits; Tioga oil pipeline spill cleanup still ongoing after 4 years; Houston approves buy-out of 200 flood-damaged homes; Duke Energy will post coal ash disaster maps after all; EPA sued to implement stormwater plan; Hundreds of industrial plants discharging pollutants into OH waterways; France reaffirms opposition to weedkiller glyphosate... PLUS: SC regulators investigating failed S.C. nuclear project for 'looking to cut corners'... and much, MUCH more! ...

"Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not." - Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, 1968

It is really of no moment whether or not the mainstream media was correct when it proclaimed that "Medicare-for-All" will be "dead-on-arrival in a Republican-controlled Congress."

Politically, the decision by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), together with 16 co-sponsoring Democratic Senators, to introduce a new "Medicare-for All", single-payer healthcare bill, must be seen as a stroke of political genius --- a strategy that could provide a path to securing Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress as a result of the 2018 midterm elections.

Most Americans, including the author, thought the national trauma occasioned by "repeal and replace" ended on July 28 with the dramatic thumb down presented by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). But, alas, like a zombie, another monstrosity --- the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson ACA repeal bill --- has arisen from the crypt of its legislative graveyard. And this time, the desperate hope was to move so swiftly that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will not have time to score it.

According to the Center for American Progress, Graham-Cassidy would not only add 32 million to the ranks of the uninsured but create huge premium surcharges for pre-existing conditions, ranging from $17,320 for pregnancy to $142,650 for metastatic cancer.

Republican willingness, indeed outright audacity, to repeatedly bring back a legislative obscenity that elicits as little as 12% support amongst the American electorate, is, in part, reflective of the tactically flawed strategies of their Democratic opposition.

Tactically, with the 2018 midterms on the horizon, the introduction of a "Medicare-for-All" --- a single-payer healthcare bill that by every objective measure is vastly superior to our existing corrupt, inefficient, dysfunctional and deadly government-subsidized, "free market" system --- has the potential to be a game changer, especially if the latest "repeal and replace" measure somehow defies the momentary odds and succeeds...

On today's BradCast, we open the phone lines to callers, mainly on the Donald Trump v. Kim Jong Un madness that may get us all killed. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

As you'll recall, in an unprecedented speech by a U.S. President, Trump called Kim "Rocket Man" and threatened to "totally destroy North Korea" at the United Nations General Assembly.

That, as reported today, was apparently a surprise even to Trump's top officials, who are said to have "warned him not to deliver a personal attack on North Korea’s leader at the United Nations." In turn, North Korea said they are considering a test of a hydrogen bomb above and the Pacific, and Kim issued an unprecedented first-person response, describing Trump as a "mentally deranged dotard". Trump answered back via Twitter (naturally), calling Kim a "madman". But the school yard bully act by both is far more complicated, nuanced and, yes, dangerous, as revealed in part by the full statement from Kim, which we share today.

Then, Sen. John McCain now says he's a "no" on the last-gasp desperate efforts by Senate Republicans to gut the Affordable Care Act with the wildly unpopular Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson amendment, that would take hundreds of billions away from federal health care, and result in loss of coverage for at least 21 million Americans. Does McCain's announcement finally signal the end for the GOP's zombie-like attempt to '"repeal and replace" ObamaCare? Don't count your chickens just yet.

Also today: breaking news on the Guajataca Dam in Puerto Rico that is now reportedly failing following Hurricane Maria, and threatening tens of thousands already struggling without power in the wake of the record storm; and a 30-year old reminder from then UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, of all people, that, yes, the nations of the world can come together to save the planet in the fight against deadly emissions.

Callers ring in today on all of that and more (and even on NASA's totally "fake" moon landing!) in a very lively, and occasionally chilling, BradCast...

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On today's BradCast, the "fun" from this week's United Nations General Assembly continues today, with the leaders of both Iran and North Korea pushing back against incendiary comments by the U.S. President. And the "fun" in the U.S. Senate continues as well, as the GOP frantically attempts (again) to repeal 'ObamaCare' at the very last minute. [Audio link to show follows below...]

First up, in response to Donald Trump's threat earlier in the week at the U.N. to "completely destroy" his country, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called Trump "deranged" and said he would "pay dearly" for those threats and, undoubtedly, for new financial sanctions Trump announced today via executive order. (We also discuss questions about Trump's claims regarding China with those new sanctions.)

For his part, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani lashed back at Trump's characterization of Iran as a "murderous regime" and a "corrupt dictatorship", calling the remarks "ignorant, absurd and hateful" and coming from "rogue newcomers to the world of politics." And, at the same time, Trump surprised his own top cabinet officials this week by claiming he'd made a "decision" regarding the anti-nuclear arms agreement struck in 2015 with Iran (and China, Russia, France, UK and Germany), even as the US, the other nations in the deal, and the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) all agreed that Iran had fully upheld its side of the bargain to date.

If Trump is seen as willing to break that multilateral international deal --- on the heels of withdrawing from the landmark global Paris Climate Agreement --- should any nation in the world, much less North Korea, even consider making a deal with the U.S. and Donald Trump? We discuss.

Then, Republicans in the U.S. Senate are frantically hoping to pass a bill to finally repeal the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare") before the end of next week, when Senate rules will make it much harder, if not impossible, to do so. The latest attempt, the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson bill, would take billions of dollars from so-called "blue states" that expanded Medicaid and radically increased the number of insured citizens under ObamaCare, and give those dollars to "red states" instead --- before tossing Medicaid recipients in all states over a cliff in 2027.

Financial journalist and author DAVID DAYEN of The Nation and The Intercept (and everywhere else) joins us today to detail what he describes as the "shocking dishonesty" of the particularly hypocritical sales pitch Republican sponsors of the legislation are deploying in hopes of boondoggling lawmakers and the public in a desperate bid to justify passage of the unpopular scheme. We also discuss/debate why the Senate GOP is so eager to pass legislation that will result in the loss of health care for millions, including many of their own voters, and whether Republicans in the U.S. House will be willing to go along with it.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report' following the record Hurricane Maria's devastating landfall on Puerto Rico, the latest catastrophic earthquake in Mexico, and more fallout from world leaders following Trump's address at the U.N...

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On today's BradCast, Here come more hurricanes, political and otherwise. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Hurricane Maria, on a similar path to the devastating Hurricane Irma just over a week ago, has now strengthened to a deadly Category 4 before its projected landfall on many of the same Caribbean islands still reeling from Irma. But Maria is hardly the only storm swirling right now in the Atlantic and the Pacific (including Jose, Norma, Lee and Otis!).

Then, while Republicans and so-called "conservatives" last week pretended to be furious about the suggestion that Trump was working out an agreement with Democrats to protect some 800,000 kids of undocumented immigrants --- previously protected by DACA until Trump reversed it --- from deportation, in exchange for non-Border Wall border security, it turns out they're not all that angry after all. Evidence to support that argument --- along with the GOP's stated intention to balloon the national debt with massive new tax cuts and military spending --- underscores, yet again, that Republicans, like their President, have no real ideology, other than saying and doing what they believe is necessary to stay in power.

Yes, even anti-immigration zealot Rep. Steve King (R-IA) who claimed, after the deal between Dems and Trump was made public last week, that Trump's base was "blown up, destroyed, irreparable, and disillusioned beyond repair," said over the weekend that he was "gonna stick with President Trump".

Speaking of a lack of "convictions" (pun intended there), we're then joined by former Asst. U.S. Attorney RANDALL D. ELIASON, now a blogger and professor of law at George Washington University, to explain the ongoing corruption trial of sitting U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ). Given the recent constraints the U.S. Supreme Court has placed on charges of bribery and public corruption by officials (see SCOTUS' dismissal last year of the guilty convictions against Republican Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and the limits on quid pro quo political bribery detailed by Citizens United and related rulings), can prosecutors successfully make charges stick against Menendez, who is charged with a number of felony counts relating to taking a huge amount of "gifts" from a physician friend, allegedly in exchange for "official acts" by the Senator.

"It's basically an exchange for these luxury trips, and jet trips, and pretty large political donations over the years, that Senator Menendez was working on these various things on Dr. Melgen's behalf," according to federal prosecutors, explains Eliason. "What the government has to prove is that there was a corrupt link between the two, that it was because of the gifts that the Senator was doing this."

Eliason, who headed up the Public Corruption/Government Fraud section at the U.S. Attorney's District of Columbia office for many years, walks us through the legal weeds of the case, which has received shockingly little attention in the corporate media, as storms --- both political and climatic --- have sucked up a lot of press attention in recent weeks.

And, though the investigation into Menendez was begun under Obama (on the heels of a completely fake news story, published by a Rightwing "news" outlet), are there any lessons we may take from this prosecution as it relates to potential charges being investigated against Team Trump? As it turns out, there are, as the always-insightful Eliason details today.

Finally, Trump's Homeland Security Advisor H.R. McMaster claimed over the weekend that Trump might be willing to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, but only if the there were better terms for the U.S. Our own Desi Doyen has a thought or two in response to that claim...

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On today's BradCast, we finally catch up on a whole bunch of stories previously postponed "due to weather", and a bunch of new stories today, on North Korea, London terror attacks and our President's disturbing response to both. [Audio link to show posted below.]

Among the many stories covered on today program:

• First, some good news (before everything else goes to hell), a federal court blocks Attorney General Jeff Sessions' attempt to withhold DoJ funding from so-called "sanctuary cities";
• North Korea's latest missile test bodes ominously, but there is a potential way to avoid war, if officials are smart enough to use it;
• Another terror attack in London today and, as Scotland Yard and Prime Minister Theresa May described it, Trump's very "unhelpful" response to it;
• Speaking of terror, Donald Trump is very quick to comment on alleged Muslim terror attacks, but both he (and the corporate media) are very good at ignoring and/or downplaying domestic acts of terror by white people with guns, including a deadly high school shooting this week in suburban Washington and one of the worst mass murders in a decade this week in suburban Texas.
• The growing cost to the U.S. economy of Harvey, Irma and other increasingly intense storms (another may hit the U.S. in the coming week) --- and the ever-increasing costs of ignoring climate change altogether;
• More on the massive Equifax hack;
• Hundreds of thousands of voter files left unprotected online (again), this time in Alaska;
• The election office in Ohio largest county, with voted ballots inside, was discovered completely unlocked and vacant, just days before a municipal election;
• Both bad and good news out of the California state legislature, including the success of a Dem-supported bill (AB 840) that will make election fraud easier to carry out by keeping nearly 40% of the state's ballots from being subject to any post-election hand "audits" (if you're in the state, feel free to contact Gov. Jerry Brown to ask him to veto it!) and the passage of a different bill that Donald Trump won't like at all;

And, finally today, a few pieces of listener mail, also both good and bad, at the end of another insane week in these United States...

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On today's BradCast: The Art of the Scammer; the Equifax outrage, and Dems work to win back the populist Left. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Donald Trump is working very hard to have it both ways since reversing Barack Obama's Executive Order last week on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (or DACA). The program had served to protect some 800,000 children of undocumented immigrants, brought here through no fault of their own, from deportation. On Wednesday night, following dinner with the President, Democratic Congressional leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi announced they had struck an agreement with Trump to pass DACA legislatively, in exchange for more border security, as long as it didn't include Trump's long-promised border wall with Mexico.

Trump has been flip-flopping and flop-flipping on that reported deal ever since, pretending that his wall is already being built, and trying to otherwise appease his angry(ish) base at the same time he's apparently trying to close a deal with both Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress.

Then, we're joined by blogger GAIUS PUBLIUS to discuss his coverage of last week's massive Equifax data breach, including what you can and should do to protect yourself in its wake, and whether the massive credit monitoring firm will face any accountability at all for what they did to help cause --- and cover up --- the hack which reportedly exposed the personal information of some 143 million Americans.

We also discuss Sen. Bernie Sanders' single-payer "Medicare-for-All" health care bill, introduced in the U.S. Senate this week, with the co-sponsorship of some 16 Senate Democrats, many of whom are thought to be 2020 Presidential contenders. What does the sudden popularity of "Medicare-for-All" in both the U.S. Senate and House signal for Democrats? And will their tepid steps towards economic populism help turn the tide for them at the national level in 2018 and 2020?

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, on the long tail of catastrophic devastation left behind by Hurricanes Irma and Harvey. And, as if all of that isn't enough, also today: Yet another hurricane comes ashore in Mexico (their second in the past week), and North Korea launches another ballistic missile over Japan...

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On today's BradCast, the corporate media fall for it again. They always do. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Over the past several days, following Donald Trump's agreement last week with the Democratic Congressional leadership to extend the nation's debt ceiling (to pay our bills!) and continuing funding the government for another three months, the corporate media have been falling over themselves to declare "Trump the Independent" (AP)! A President who is "upending 150 years of two-party rule" (NYTimes) and out-Bull Moosing even Theodore Roosevelt as a "populist dealmaker able to cut through the mores of Washington to get things done" (WaPo), as he finally carves out a "bi-partisan path" forward!

We open the phone lines today to tons of callers to see if they're buying that ridiculous narrative from an easily-played corporate media any more than I am.

Also today, as we try to begin catching up with some important news that has otherwise gotten washed away in recent days by Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, the Virginia Board of Elections has finally decertified the easily-manipulated, oft-failed, 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems used in some 22 voting jurisdictions in the state. The race is now on, in advance of their gubernatorial election this November, to replace them with verifiable paper ballots systems.

Then, after more calls on that as well, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with the continuing aftermath of the devastating and deadly Irma disaster, and a few folks who are pushing back against climate change denialism from several different surprising places...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: After widespread devastation in the Caribbean, Hurricane Irma takes aim at the U.S.; Hurricane Harvey leaves behind a man-made ecological disaster; PLUS: Record heat waves and wildfires across the West --- and FEMA is out of money... 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): Hackers gain access to US electric grid; 2017 wildfire season in West is far worse than predicted; $2B to clean up toxic firefighting chemicals at military bases; Harvey swept toxic liquid mercury ashore, source still a mystery; Is your shampoo poisoning your drinking water?; 240-year old record shows coral reef losses worse than previously believed; NC sues company over river pollution; EPA political appointee now in charge of approving all grant applications; Oroville Dam investigators say inspectors missed multiple cues... PLUS: Harvey's toxic aftermath was preventable.... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, an insane hurricane season suddenly gets insaner, what Democrats should do to counter our insane President's threat to nearly 1 million young undocumented immigrants, and how Democratic legislators in California are about to undermine one of the few post-election audit laws in the nation. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Three hurricanes (Irma, Jose and Katia) and one still-unnamed tropical depression are all now spinning in the Atlantic, with the massive, record-breaking Category 5 Irma devastating Caribbean nations, slamming Puerto Rico and still on target for south Florida, where evacuations are being advised. Desi Doyen joins us for the latest.

Then, after some good news, for a change, for voters in Illinois and word that Donald Trump's Kris Kobach-led "Election Integrity" Commission is violating federal law by using personal email addresses for public business (Lock them up!), we move to some troubling news for voters in California.

I'm joined by longtime Election Integrity advocate JIM SOPER, just back from lobbying at the California state legislature in Sacramento, against an amendment to an election bill (AB 840), slipped in at the last minute by Dems in the state Senate and supported by Democratic Secretary of State Alex Padilla. Soper, founder of CountedAsCast.org and co-chair of the Voting Rights Task Force, explains how the state Senate's 11th-hour changes to a bill that had already passed in the Assembly, would put some 4 million vote-by-mail and provisional ballots out of reach of the state's already-weak post-election 1% "audit" law.

Soper explains the sleight-of-hand, and what California voters need to do to help prevent it --- and quickly --- as well as what voters in other states can learn from this mess.

"They snuck this in, hoping we wouldn't notice," he tells me. "We're now in the end-game period in the legislature, where the last votes are being taken. They tried to sneak it in. We got a call last week, and we've just been at it full bore ever since, trying to mount an opposition, saying, 'Wait a minute - you have to subject all the ballots --- all of them --- to a random spot check.' The [county] Registrars are saying, 'Oh, no we don't, we're just trying to check the scanners and once we've proved with the first batch that they're good --- they're good.' No. That's not what the law says."

"Instead of following the law," Soper explains, "they want to re-write the law so they don't have to include 4 million ballots in the spot check." That, he details, creates a very "predictable" road map for defrauding the election system.

Finally, following up on yesterday's show with Salon's Heather Digby Parton, we open the phone to callers today to get their thoughts on what Congressional Democrats should be willing to trade --- or willing to threaten --- in exchange for passage of a legislative version of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (or DACA) program which Donald Trump cruelly decided to end this week. Some 800,000 "dreamers" are now at risk of being deported by the Trump Administration in six months, to countries that many of them don't even remember, for the "crime" of being brought here as children by their undocumented immigrant parents.

Listeners ring in on that topic today, including one who claims to be an immigrant himself, even while asserting that Trump "solved" the problem with DACA. As you may imagine, lively conversation therewith ensues...

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On today's BradCast: The Trump Administration imperils the lives and futures of nearly one million "Dreamers", as heat and fire burn up the West, flood waters continue to ravage Texas and Louisiana, Congress returns to an impossible schedule, war concerns remain on the Korean Peninsula and now a record shattering new hurricane is gunning for Florida. [Audio link to show follows below.]

In addition to still-mounting death toll from the Hurricane Harvey disaster in Texas and Louisiana, the holiday weekend brought a bevy of disturbing news, including a major new nuclear test (possibly a hydrogen bomb) in North Korea, threats by Donald Trump to end a trade deal with our allies in South Korea (for some reason), and record wildfires and heat up and down the Western U.S., including here in Los Angeles.

All of that, however, may pale in comparison to what could be in store over the next several days, as Hurricane Irma, a record Category 5 storm, threatens Caribbean nations in the Atlantic, and could grow even more intense over the next several days with a trajectory toward south Florida, where record warm waters could place us all even further into uncharted climate territory than we are already.

That's just some of the news as Congress returns to session this week with a virtually unprecedented calendar of "must-pass" bills by the end of the month to avoid government shutdown and default.

And, it is into that mix that Donald Trump decided on Tuesday to have his Attorney General Jeff Sessions announce the Administration is ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program instituted by President Obama. The much-derided new policy threatens some 800,000 children of undocumented immigrants, brought to the U.S. by their parents through no fault of their own, many of whom have never known any other country.

Salon's award-winning columnist and blogger HEATHER 'DIGBY' PARTON joins us today to discuss what Trump's cruel new policy will mean and whether our already-dysfunctional Congress may finally be able to pass legislation in the next six months to allow those "Dreamers" who came out of the shadows under the previous Administration to avoid deportation by this one.

"This is going to be seen as an historic day," Parton argues. "It's one thing to let things kind of slide, [Trump's] nasty rhetoric, and say he's kind of a showman, he's somebody who has activated the racist, bigoted, xenophobic id of White America because they have all these anxieties and he's sort of exploiting that --- that is real. This is a real thing that they are doing potentially to close to a million people. This is a million people, all over the United States, deeply embedded into our economy, into our culture, into our communities."

"The fact that they were brought here with no say in it, and had absolutely no control over what was happening to them, they're going to have to pay for that decision by their parents. It's really, really ugly," she explains. "Since Trump took office, we've seen that picture of the Statue of Liberty crying, many many times. This is the day when it really comes home. The Emma Lazarus poem that's on the bottom of there says everything, and Trump has just basically defaced it."

Trump had previously claimed he would "deal with DACA with heart." Parton, citing Sessions making the announcement on Tuesday (not Trump) and the now desperate need for Congress to clean up this new mess somehow before six months is out, tells me: "'Cowardice' is the way to put it, not 'heart'"

She also has a controversial thought or two on whether Democrats in Congress ought to make a deal with Republicans in exchange for funding Trump's border wall with Mexico in order to circumvent the unspeakably inhumane course of events that could transpire now that the President has decided to overturn DACA...

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On today's BradCast: As bad it's all been, it's about to get much worse, as the devastation from Harvey continues and as Congress returns to session following the Labor Day holiday. [Audio link to show follows below.]

But first up today: What we know and don't (and why we don't) about the explosions at a swamped chemical plant north of Houston; Russia warns the U.S. that further sanctions against North Korea would be "dangerous"; U.S. continues diplomatic tit-for-tat with Russia by ordering several more diplomatic facilities closed, and; Special Counsel Robert Mueller is now reportedly working with NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in their criminal probes of Team Trump in what could serve as an end run around Donald Trump's pardon power of his associates at the federal level, and even a hedge against the possibility of the President removing the Special Counsel from his post in some way.

Then, as horrible as August has been on so many levels, TPM Congressional reporter ALICE OLLSTEIN joins us for some breaking news, and to explain why September could be even worse as Congress reconvenes next week following Summer recess, with "a nightmarishly short calendar during which they must pass a host of bills" to, among other things, approve a budget to keep the government from shutting down and avoid a federal default by raising the debt ceiling.

That, along with the need to fund disaster relief for Harvey, reauthorize children's healthcare and the national flood insurance programs by the end of the month, amid ongoing feuds between Trump and GOP Congressional leadership while the President threatens to shutdown the government if Congress fails to fund his border wall, almost assure what Ollstein characterizes as "The September From Hell".

Even if we had a "Congress who generally got along, and generally got along with the President," Ollstein tells me, "it would have been so hard to pass all of these bills that are coming up. But we don't have that. We have a President who is attacking members of his own party --- leaders in his own party --- and the opposing party. We have a lot of bad blood."

Add to it all the Trump/GOP hopes of passing huge tax cuts ("an even heavier lift than health care reform," she says) and today's late breaking news from Ollstein, fresh off a call with the Health and Human Services Dept. announcing the Administration plans to slash the Affordable Care Act's advertising budget by 90% in advance of this year's truncated Open Enrollment period, and it all amounts to not only a September from Hell, but likely a rest-of-the-year from same.

Enjoy the upcoming holiday weekend if possible, but buckle up thereafter, as Ollstein warns: "We thought it couldn't get any crazier than August, but get ready."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with more coverage of the ongoing devastation from Harvey, before we finish up with some actually very good news concerning nuclear power, solar power, and the nation's largest utility company...

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On today's BradCast, the Harvey disaster continues, even as skies clear over Houston. And a Democratic Congressman joins us to blast several of Trump's new policies, issued as the record storm was rolling in. [Audio link to show follow below.]

Floodwaters have begun to recede a bit in Houston, as some sunshine finally returns and the airport begins to re-open after five hellish days. But its only "the end of the beginning" in the Bayou City, cautions one meteorologist as Harvey moves back onshore near the Texas/Louisiana border, continuing to threaten lives there and in states to the north, even as officials expect the death toll in and near Houston to surge in the days ahead. Moreover, a nearby chemical plant in Crosby is likely to explode soon, due to the flooding, according to the company's CEO.

All of this as Congress prepares to return from their long Summer recess after Labor Day, and members respond to some of the startling Executive Actions taken by Donald Trump as the record-shattering hurricane slammed ashore last Friday night.

We're joined by CONGRESSMAN HANK JOHNSON today to discuss some of those actions, including the President's pardon of former Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was found guilty of criminal contempt of court for violating federal court orders against detaining Latinos on nothing more than suspicious of being undocumented and Trump's less-noticed Executive Order reversing President Obama's restrictions on the Pentagon's infamous "1033 Program".

On the Arpaio pardon, Johnson tells me: "President Trump has proclaimed loudly, by that action, that he will use the power of the presidency to benefit himself, and to benefit his supporters, his friends, and his family. And so it does not augur well for a future for this country under Donald Trump."

"To follow up the notorious pardon of Joe Arpaio with a rescinding of President Obama's executive order which placed limits on the Pentagon's 1033 program --- it does send a clear message to law enforcement that it's open season on the civil rights of anyone who you choose to violate the civil rights of. It's not a good thing for America."

The DoD's "1033 Program" supplies surplus military weapons and equipment --- such as automatic rifles, mine-resistant vehicles, armored drones and even grenade launchers --- for free, to local law enforcement agencies around the country. Johnson has been introducing and re-introducing his bi-partisan "Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act" (H.R. 1556) for three successive years now and explains today --- as Republican Sen. Rand Paul appears to agree in the Senate --- why curbs must be placed on the program.

In an op-ed by Johnson, to be published by the Guardian on Friday, he explains one of the things that "makes it dangerous is the fact that 1033 requires that the equipment be 'placed into use' within 12 months of being acquired." He tells me today that means that "if they don't use them, then they have to turn them back in. And so it's a recipe for misuse. It's a recipe for abuse of civil rights of the citizens who law enforcement is sworn to protect and serve. It's frightening that this onslaught of weaponry, straight from the battlegrounds of Afghanistan and Iraq, will find its way back to the streets of America's cities and towns."

The controversial program originally came to the nation's attention after military vehicles and gear were deployed by local law enforcement in Ferguson, MO in response to protests after the police killing of African-American teenager Michael Brown in 2014. After the nation was horrified by the militarization of local military and it was discovered that some weaponry had been disappearing, or was being sold by local agencies, Obama placed restrictions on the program that Trump, last Friday night, lifted with a stroke of his pen.

I also ask Johnson about whether he believes Congressional Republicans from Texas will support Harvey disaster relief upon their return next week (unlike after SuperStorm Sandy slammed the East coast in 2013), about his Election Integrity bill, and whether he intends to join fellow Democrats in the House who have filed Articles of Impeachment against President Trump.

Finally, Defense Secretary James Mattis appears to be separating himself somewhat from Trump --- though not nearly as much as some on the Left are suggesting --- following the order to ban transgender members of the U.S. Military and saber-rattling with North Korea. And, as more longtime State Dept. officials announce they are leaving, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's job may be on the line following a clear separation from the President's "values" following Trump's statements about neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville...

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