On today's BradCast, we're still trying to keep our eye on the ball, as Trump and the Republicans work to take away both health and voting rights even as the nation is otherwise consumed with new breaking news in the ongoing criminal investigations of Team Trump. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

First up today, a few comments on the news regarding Donald Trump, Jr.'s meeting with a Russian attorney during the campaign last year and the federal election laws he may have violated in the bargain. But, with everyone else in the world covering that story today, fewer are covering the ongoing plans by the Senate GOP to try and repeal the health care for millions of Americans in exchange for tax cuts for the wealthy, possibly as early as next week, according to a top Senate Republican. And, if not next week, shortly thereafter, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has now cancelled much of the August recess in hopes of jamming both ObamaCare repeal and a major tax cut scheme through Congress before Summer ends.

Similarly, with all of the noise regarding the incompetence and/or corruption of Team Trump, it's important to keep an eye on their ongoing efforts at voter suppression via Trump's so-called "Election Integrity" Commission which has already resulted in voters around the nation removing themselves from registration roles for fear that Commission Vice-Chair and notorious "voter fraud" fraudster Kris Kobach will publicly release the personal information of registered voters, such as birthdate, social security number, military status, etc., as he recently promised in a letter to all 50 states seeking that data.

But, as Kobach has made a career out of pretending there is a massive voter fraud epidemic and threatening prosecution against voters for small and often inadvertent violations of the law, you'd think his Commission would follow the rule of law to the letter. That does not appear to be the case, however, as at least four different legal complaints, alleging violations of federal law, have already been filed against Kobach and the Commission over the past week, even as even more notorious GOP 'voter fraud' fraudsters are being quietly added to the Presidential panel.

THERESA LEE, staff attorney at the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, one of the groups which have filed legal complaints against the Commission, joins us to explain their lawsuit [PDF] charging multiple violations of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), how this Presidential Commission on elections is wildly different from those created in the recent past, and what it is that Kobach and friends are really up to under the sham Commission's pretext of combating 'voter fraud'.

"One of the main purposes of the Act was public accountability, the idea that if the government is getting advice, it should not be biased advice, and the public should know what's going into it," Lee tells me, describing the extraordinary imbalance of the Trump-Pence-Kobach Commission and the secrecy under which it has so far been operating.

Finally today, it's the return of the Green News Report with Desi Doyen after a week off over the holidays, and just in time for another heat wave across much of the country, embarrassment at the G-20, and both good news and bad in California...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: At G-20 summit, the world moves forward on climate change as Trump retreats alone; Trump Administration announces 'red team' effort to question mainstream climate science; Court rejects EPA bid to roll back methane emissions rule; Volvo to make every car model electric; PLUS: California's green governor trumps Trump with global climate summit... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The Power and Peril of “Climate Disaster Porn”; The Uninhabitable Earth: When will climate change make earth too hot for humans?; Obama Rues Loss of ‘American Leadership’ on Climate Change; Tribal, environmental groups sue over methane rule delay; Nuns protest Atlantic Sunrise pipeline by building chapel on route; Environmental groups slam Senate energy bill; Deep industry ties in Trump's deregulation team; Coal no longer fuels America, but the myth remains; Ganges River in India "dying", succumbing to pollution; Trump analysis of WOTUS omits economic benefits of clean water... PLUS: Franken and Letterman take on climate change in hilarious web series.... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: I'm back! With huge thanks to Angie Coiro for filling in for us over the past week! But, if you thought the June 20th U.S. House Special Election in Georgia's 6th District was over, well, it's not quite yet, as our guest today, one of the plaintiffs in the Election Contest filed last week in state court, seeking to overturn the results, makes clear. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

But first, the G-20 Summit which wrapped up over the weekend in Hamburg, Germany made very clear that it is now the U.S. (or, more accurately, the Trump Administration) against the world. Old allies like Germany, France and Great Britain are forming new alliances with nations like China, to move ahead without the U.S. in the wake of the Trump Administration's plan to pull out of the landmark Paris Climate Agreement to curb the man-made release of greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Meanwhile, back here at home, Democrats continue to wring their hands about what they believe to be a hacked or otherwise manipulated Presidential election in 2016, even while failing to do anything about voting systems that are easily hacked, manipulated and otherwise 100% unverifiable.

With major security concerns about last month's U.S. House Special Election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District --- where Democrat Jon Ossoff reportedly lost to Republican Karen Handel by 4 points after leading in virtually all of the pre-election polls --- you'd think Dems would be raising holy hell about the fact that Georgia still uses 100% unverifiable voting systems. That is particularly alarming in Georgia, since the state was recently discovered to have kept the passwords for those easily-manipulated 100% unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting systems (along with the state Voter Registration databases and much more) on a completely unprotected web server for at least 7 months between August of last year and March of this year. The revelation regarding the massive security breach reported just days before the June 20 election at Kennesaw State University --- which has long been contracted to program all of the state's voting, tabulation and voter registration systems. That breach, we have since learned, only became known after the data was found and downloaded by at least two different cybersecurity researchers in those seven months.

But while the DNC seems to be "moving on" despite the unverifiable reported results of the the most expensive U.S. House race in history (in which the only verifiable votes in the race, the paper absentee ballots, reported Ossoff defeating Handel by a nearly 2 to 1 margin), a multi-partisan group of voters in the state of Georgia has now filed an election contest [PDF] in court, seeking to void the results and hold a new election on verifiable paper ballots.

I'm joined today by one of the plaintiffs in the suit, MARILYN MARKS, a former Republican candidate for office, longtime election integrity advocate, and Executive Director of the Coalition for Good Governance. We discuss the group's legal complaint, why they are filing it, what they hope to achieve, and if the GOP-majority House of Representatives will move to have her case tossed out of court on Constitutional jurisdictional grounds (as has been the case in similar Election Contests in recent history.)

The state's unverifiable equipment should lead the court to void the results of election, she argues, since it "absolutely cannot meet Georgia's statutes right now and it cannot be used going forward, not even in the municipal elections coming up in November."

Moreover, Marks explains, "we are asking that the court order Sec. of State [Brian] Kemp to re-examine the equipment, just as citizens [and more than two dozen world class computer scientists and e-voting experts] had asked back in May, before the June election...He refused."

She adds that "we want to see these paperless, unverifiable, anybody's-guess-who-won equipment gone from Georgia," and by "we" she means a coalition of Democrats, Republicans and the head of the far-right Constitution Party, who are plaintiffs in the suit. "We have members of our Coalition for Good Governance who literally also campaigned for Karen Handel, who very much support this lawsuit. So, it wasn't just about winning. They believe we're doing the right thing, even though it may very well overturn their candidate's victory. "

"Georgia is the poster child for unbelievably lax security and inviting in, with a welcome mat, any bad actors who want to walk in. Our experts have said...one after the other after the other, 'Look, the security is so lax in Georgia that you must presume the system has been compromised, you cannot rely on the votes coming out of these machines,'" Marks tells me.

But will Congress intercede to block the suit, as they have in the past after the declared winner has already been seated? (See their letter from 2006 here [PDF] that resulted in a contested U.S. House election in CA being dismissed by the court.) And why, by the way, are Democrats (and Republicans, for that matter) so resistant to stand up and demand elections and results that are overseeable by the public? I discuss all of that and much more with Marks today...

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Sure, Brad and Desi can take the week off from The BradCast. It's a holiday - how big a news week can it be?

So much for that. Your guest host this week is me, Angie Coiro, and right up front I've gathered various reactions and opinions on North Korea's claim to have successfully tested a missile that could hit Alaska. More headlines: the American Enterprise Institute (!) has found that the gender pay gap has tripled since Trump moved into the White House - it's 37% compared to the national 17%; accusations of CNN's "blackmail" of a "15-year-old" ex-Redditor turn out to be wrong in both senses; and Rep. Maxine Waters has some deliciously spicy words for HUD's Ben Carson. And White House aides are - not surprisingly - nervous about Trump's pending meeting with Putin.

Trump's EPA got dinged by a DC federal court, leaving intact for the moment President Obama's plan to curb oil industry methane emissions. I talked with Jane Mayer not too long ago, about how demonstrably false "science" funded by dark money ends up part of mainstream dialogue, eventually yielding battles just like this. She discusses too the influence of Steve Bannon in the White House, and how investigating the Kochs compromised her own safety.

Finally, taco salad + Queen Victoria + Chris Christie = revelations about America's class system. You'll just have to listen.

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Desi Doyen and I will be off from The BradCast next week. (Angie Coiro will be guest-hosting for us during our much-needed break.) But we sure are being sent away with a mess in this country --- and in the world --- before the July 4th holiday. Though we still manage to find a few rays of hope today nonetheless. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

Among the many stories covered on today's jam-packed BradCast...

• After years of persistence by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), a powerful U.S. House committee finally votes to repeal the post-9/11 "Authorization for the Use of Military Force" which has been used and abused by Presidents from Bush to Obama to Trump to deploy U.S. troops and military action across the globe ever since. Can it pass in the rest of Congress? (Lee was the only member of the House or Senate to vote against the original Authorization in 2001.);
• A new heat record for planet Earth may have just been recorded in Iran, amidst the Middle East's latest deadly heat wave, just as scientists have been warning for decades;
• The U.S. Senate recesses for the 4th of July without Republicans coming up with a plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act that can earn 50 votes from their caucus. But a new scheme to repeal only is now being floated by a GOP Senator and it could make things very difficult for Democratic ObamaCare supporters when they return;
• KAIT SWEENEY, Press Secretary at the grassroots Progressive Change Campaign Committee joins us to discuss their efforts and recommendations over the holiday recess to convince vulnerable GOP Senators to oppose the GOP plan to replace Obamacare by slashing Medicaid in exchange for billions in tax cuts to the rich. (And how to convince Democrats to push for a single-payer "Medicare-for-All" style system or, at least, a public insurance or Medicare buy-in option. "We are not going to go backwards," she vows.);
• Dept. of Homeland Security admits, yet again, that they have done no forensic investigation of any electronic voting machines or tabulators anywhere in the country since the election, despite their repeated allegations that Russia attempted to manipulate the 2016 President race and despite the extraordinary vulnerability of our easily-hacked, oft-failed computerized voting and counting systems;
• The man running Trump's so-called 'Election Integrity Commission' (really a "Voter Suppression Commission"), Kansas Sec. of State and top GOP "voter fraud" fraudster Kris Kobach, shoots himself in the foot with his request to all 50 states on behalf of the sham Commission, for voter registration and voting record data, including private information such as Social Security number, birthdate, military status, etc., on every voter in the nation (which he also promises to make public). Also, yet another top Republican "voter fraud" scammer, Hans Von Spakovsky, is added to the President's Commission;
• MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski charge the White House attempted to blackmail them prior to Trump's horrible tweet about her this week, revealing again what a dangerous moment this is for the country under a twisted Presidency;
• And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report before we hit the dusty road over the July 4th holiday...

If you can hit our tip-jar to help us fill up the Prius tank once or twice over the next week, it will, as ever, be greatly appreciated! Enjoy the show and please have a safe and peaceful holiday!...

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On today's BradCast: It's been 29 years since NASA's chief scientist, Dr. James Hansen, offered landmark testimony to the U.S. Senate in June of 1988, explaining that scientists had determined with 99% certainty, as the New York Times reported it at the time, that record atmospheric warming since the 1950s "was not a natural variation but was caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide and other artificial gases in the atmosphere." [Audio link to show follows below.]

Of note in the Times coverage at the time --- headlined "Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate" --- there was nobody quoted from the fossil fuel industry offering denial to the basic scientific facts about which Hansen and others testified that day, based on temperature records going back (at the time) 130 years, and finding that the first five months of that year had been the hottest on record. (The record temperatures that year don't even rate among the top 20 anymore.)

"It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here," Hansen told the paper after his 1988 testimony. "Global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming,'' he testified to the Senators. ''It is already happening now.''

The panel of scientists warned that "If the current pace of the buildup of these gases continues, the effect is likely to be a warming of 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit from the year 2025 to 2050." They were pretty much exactly on target, so far, with those projections. Then Senator Timothy E. Wirth (D-CO), chair of the Committee, responded: "'As I read it, the scientific evidence is compelling: the global climate is changing as the earth's atmosphere gets warmer. Now, the Congress must begin to consider how we are going to slow or halt that warming trend and how we are going to cope with the changes that may already be inevitable."

In the 29 years since --- particularly in the seven years since the Supreme Court's Citizen United opinion unleashed unlimited fossil fuel industry funds into our electoral process --- Republicans (and some Democrats) have instead figured out how to "cope with the changes" by denying they exist at all, or pretending there is uncertainty about who is responsible for it.

But the science is very clear, even more now than than. (And it was even clear some 30 years prior to Hansen's 1988 testimony, as a clip from a 1958 television program, dug up by Desi Doyen and played in part on today's show, makes evident.) And yet, the President of the United States and his top lieutenants --- among them EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Energy Secretary Rick Perry --- have been taking to the airwaves of late to confuse the public with blatant misinformation to distract from the point that man is responsible for all of Earth's warming recorded since the 1950s.

Marking the 29th anniversary of Hansen's testimony, naturalist and author Tony Russell penned a very simple, very clear explanation --- "Global Warming in a Nutshell" --- of the very simple science and math behind global warming, how we know that man is responsible for the 48% increase of heat-trapping CO2 over the past 60 years (CO2 emitted by the burning of fossil fuels lacks a specific carbon isotope, so we can actually measure it!), and what we must do about it...and quickly. He joins us today to discuss that article, and the reasons he wrote it. "I have 9 grandchildren," he tells me, "so they are very much on my mind."

"In some ways, I'm starting to see our situation as desperate," he warns, explaining how it is that we know that disinformation from folks like Pruitt and Perry is simply, and demonstrably, wrong. "When you have warming in the pipeline, with CO2 hanging in the atmosphere that's going to continue to re-radiate heat for tens of thousands of years, and we keep adding new carbon dioxide to the mix, there's no way to stop it. We're loosing a runaway train."

Noting that natural sources, such as oceans and forests, have been able (at least up until recently) to absorb some 50% of the carbon we release, Russell explains: "If you want to stop adding to the CO2 in the atmosphere, then humans have to cut their emissions by 50% from current levels. The figures you see are usually on the order of cutting emissions by 20% by, say, the year 2025. Every year that you hold it at 20%, then 30% will go into the atmosphere. CO2 levels will keep on climbing, more long term warming will be locked in. It really is that simple."

We've covered climate quite a bit over the years on The BradCast and, of course, on our Green News Report. But sometimes it's important to go back to the basics on how stark the science and the reality of our dire situation now is.

On the same topic, speaking of U.S. Senate testimony that's been too-much overlooked, as Dr. Joe Romm at Climate Progress notes this week, Sen. Al Franken (D) recently "set climate deniers' last strawman on fire" during an exchange last week with Sec. Perry, when the Minnesota Senator pointed out that even the Koch Brothers own climate scientist Richard Muller recently conceded that all of the recent warming in the atmosphere was due to our burning of fossil fuels. We play the remarkable exchange today in full.

Also today: Wildfires break out across the West (for some reason); Senate Republicans are having a difficult time getting to 50 votes on their legislation to repeal ObamaCare (at least without Democrats helping); And our small, bitter President unleashes an ugly, bitter, embarrassing and mostly just sad assault against journalist Mika Brzezinski, from atop his bully pulpit (pun intended)...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Experimental 'clean coal' plant...switches to natural gas; Trump's EPA moves to undo landmark clean water rule; World's first floating wind farm takes shape off the coast of Scotland; PLUS: Utah lawmaker blames environmentalists for massive forest fire... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump Administration officials question climate change while praising carbon cuts; EPA official pressured EPA scientist to change testimony; More than 20 wildfires blazing across the West; We have until 2020 to get emissions under control; Carbon in atmosphere mysteriously rising even as man-made emissions remain flat; DOE Sec. Perry's claims on grid reliability immediately debunked by federal regulator; Trump's monument review stirs passions in NM; Report reveals U.S. nuclear industry negligence; Ozone hole recovery jeopardized by new chemical... PLUS: The future of Coal Country.... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, it ain't over till it's over. And, despite a brief setback in the Senate on Tuesday, the GOP's attempted assault on American health care is anything but over. [Audio link to complete show is posted below.]

First up: More Trump-fueled embarrassment for the U.S. around the world, according to a new Pew Poll survey and even with our otherwise longtime allies in Germany, where the Trump Administration's Commerce Secretary became a laughing stock, in advance of next week's G-20 summit.

And then, in the wake of Senate Republicans pulling their health care bill from a vote on Tuesday, their hopes of undermining the American health care system by repealing the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare") continues. That, despite several new polls confirming that the Senate GOP's measure is wildly unpopular among the American people and even among Republican voters. One poll shows support for the scheme at just 12%, another at 17%, with almost all of the data gathered prior to the CBO analysis finding the measure would result in 22 million Americans kicked off the health care rolls.

Nonetheless, even as Trump seems to have no clue, what is actually in the bill or what it will and won't do, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has access to some $200 billion to buy off a number of wavering Senators to get him to the bare minimum 50 votes he needs to strip health care from millions of Americans in exchange for huge tax cuts, the promise of undermining Medicaid and much more.

A new version of the bill could be locked down by Friday, before Congress leaves for their holiday recess.

Today we open up the phone to listeners on the issue (a few others, somewhat amusingly), before finishing up with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report as climate change-fueled early Summer heat waves are already bring death and destruction around the world...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Nearly 160 killed in fuel truck explosion in Pakistan; Wildfire evacuations in Spain; Sea level rise accelerating faster than predicted; Trump Admin approves deadly seismic testing in Atlantic; PLUS: Hundreds of American mayors pledge to move their cities to 100% renewable electricity in 20 years... 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): Carbon in atmosphere rising, despite emissions remaining flat; Coal baron sues HBO comedy show host John Oliver; Trump and Modi meeting silent on climate; EPA official pressured EPA scientist to change testimony; CA to list glyphosate as cancer-causing, Monsanto threatens to sue; FirstEnergy's Ohio nukes not necessary to maintain grid reliability; Coal not necessary to maintain grid reliability; Invasive Asian carp found in waterway beyond Great Lakes barrier; EPA under investigation for low-balling methane emissions estimates from oil and gas; First-of-it's-kind 'clean coal' plant probably won't burn coal at all; Four die in SW heat wave... PLUS: Campaign to eliminate plastic straws sucking in thousands of converts... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Donald Trump repeatedly promised not to cut Medicaid during his Presidential Campaign. During his Inauguration, he vowed to "end the American carnage". Now he's prepared to slash Medicaid under the GOP health care legislation, which is certain to create untold "American carnage" in its wake. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Hospitals, doctors and other health care providers have been blasting the Senate Republicans' health care bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare", since the legislation, crafted in secret, was finally unveiled on Thursday. It has not aged well in the past 24 hours. That's for very good reason, as my guest today, IGOR VOLSKY, health care reform advocate, a Vice President at the Center for American Progress, and co-host of the Thinking CAP podcast explains in detail.

Volsky, who we last spoke with during the Democrats' fight to enact Obamacare back in 2009 and 2010, explains how the GOP plan's cuts and restructuring of both the ACA's Medicaid expansion and the traditional, 52-year old Medicaid program will stifle or end medical care for massive numbers of children and elderly, not to mention the poor.

"Medicaid is a program that covers 74 million Americans," says Volsky. "It's not just lower income Americans --- who we usually, I think, think of when we talk about Medicaid --- 49% of all births are covered by Medicaid. 64% of all nursing home residents have Medicaid coverage. 76% of poor children, 39% of all children. So you're really talking 20% of Americans rely on Medicaid. The House bill cuts it by about $834 billion. The Senate bill is even worse. Because not only do they go after [Obamacare's] Medicaid expansion, but they also cap the [traditional Medicaid] program and change the way its funded by the federal government."

"It's really going after lower-income and middle-income Americans in a way that we've never seen before," he tells me. "They want to push those folks into private insurance. That's really the end goal --- to drown the program over time in the bathtub entirely."

But the GOP's scheme will also adversely affect those who receive health insurance via the Obamacare exchanges as well as via employers, while giving massive tax cuts to a tiny handful of very wealthy families in exchange.

"My favorite statistic is that for the 400 richest tax filers, they get a tax cut totaling --- are you ready for this? --- 2.8 billion dollars," Volsky explains. "You look at this bill, and it looks like Republicans don't think they'll ever have to face a fair election ever again." Hmmm...

We also discuss what you can do to help derail this deadly plan (among those things, call your Senators and otherwise check out the Center's TrumpCareToolkit.org for more info), and which Republican Senators may be in a position to block the scheme together.

Finally then, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with a bunch of news related to Trump's super-genius Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry and much more....

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump suggests solar panels on his border wall with Mexico; Energy Secretary Rick Perry goes full science denial; Trump Administration seeks to reactivate Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository; Plastic pollution has reached Antarctica; Renewable energy actually helps electric grid stability; PLUS: British government to invest a billion dollars in shift to electric cars... 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): Tropical Storm Cindy drenches Gulf Coast; Worldwide coal bleaching event may finally be ending; Methane leaks spike in natural gas production in NM; Publishers defend Greenpeace in dispute with logging company; Zinke screws up 3 denier talking points in Senate hearing; Volcanoes 'triggered dawn of dinosaurs'; Miami-Dade signs on to Paris Agreement... PLUS: Solar paint makes hydrogen fuel from solar energy and water vapor... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, given the reports that Donald Trump is now personally being investigated for obstruction of justice, we unpack the chaos that may soon come about if the Deputy Attorney General is forced to recuse himself (or is fired) from overseeing the Special Counsel's probe of Team Trump. [Audio link to complete show follows below.]

But, while all the madness of the DoJ's Trump investigations are going on, Senate Republicans indicated today that they will call for a vote on their secret Obamacare replacement bill before the July 4th recess next week. They also announced they will have the votes needed for passage. If they are right, the results are likely be devastating for millions of Americans, and not only the poor. One of out three elderly Americans in nursing homes, for example, rely on Medicaid to cover the costs, and the GOP is about to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the program in exchange for massive tax cuts for the wealthy.

We discuss that and, as record heat blasts the Western US, the unbelievably stupid explanation for climate change just offered by Energy Secretary Rick Perry (it's not CO2, he says, it's "the ocean waters and this environment that we live in"!) We also offer a very quick preview of the U.S. House Special Elections being held today on 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting machines in BOTH Georgia and South Carolina. (We'll have full results, whatever they are reported to be, on tomorrow's show).

Then we're joined by attorney, author, columnist and UNH asst. professor SETH ABRAMSON to step through his recent 50 tweet(!) tweetstorm detailing the 'bedlam' that is likely to ensue when and if (he insists "when") Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein is forced to recuse himself from overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Team Trump and, reportedly, obstruction of justice by the President himself in his firing of FBI Director James Comey.

The chain of events that could come about as the result of Rosenstein's recusal, as Abramson details on the show today, are amazing and could lead to a very real Constitutional Crisis and even completely separate obstruction of justice charges against Trump based on an entirely different investigation related to his February mass firing of all of the US Attorneys.

Lots of somewhat jaw-dropping 'bedlam' unpacked and explained and to be absorbed in detail on this front on today's show, including whether or not Rosenstein himself could come under investigation; who the next officials in line are to take his place (first, a friend of Ted Cruz' named Rachel Brand, then a man named Dana Boente) and what their conflicts are; how Trump could personally come to appoint the person overseeing the Special Counsel's investigation after we go through Brand and Boente; and why, if sitting Presidents cannot be indicted, as many argue, Mueller would be carrying out a criminal obstruction of justice investigation of Trump in the first place.

"Honestly, If I were to lay out the full complexity of the situation right now at the DoJ, which goes well beyond the question of Rachel Brand possibly becoming the Acting AG in the very near term, it would take --- and I am not exaggerating --- probably about 500 tweets," Abramson tells me. "We are in so many unprecedented situations and sub-situations at the DoJ, it is bewildering even for attorneys," he says, adding later: "This is the most complex and public litigation of probably the last 100 years in American political history."

Finally today, another heartbreaking story of yet another immigrant victim of Trump's, now facing deportation and separation from his family despite spending months in the clean-up efforts at Ground Zero after 9/11...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Record heat wave scorches Western U.S.; New criminal indictments in the Flint Water Crisis; Massive wildfire in Portugal kills more than 60; May 2017 was second, or third, hottest May ever recorded; PLUS: A court victory and major environmental award for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe... 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): CNBC allows Rick Perry to spout nonsense on live TV; Bitter scientific debate erupts over the future of America's power grid; Big Oil joins organization calling for a carbon tax; Scientists report nearly-unheard of Antarctic melt event; PA Supreme Court rules oil and gas royalties from public lands must be used for conservation; U.S. electric grid experts say no cyberattacks in 2016, but still cause for concern; Hundreds of scientists call for ban on anti-bacterial chemicals; Fish are migrating north, away from warmer waters; Once rare, wildfires increasing across Great Plains; Houston fears rising sea levels; Atlantic salmon population continues to decline... PLUS: Exxon makes a biofuel breakthrough... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, we cover the breaking news of several mass shootings that happened today in the US, and the reactions to them, and/or lack thereof. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

In Alexandria, VA during early morning batting practice for a charity baseball game between Republican and Democratic members of Congressman, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), a Congressional aide, a member of the Capitol Police and a lobbyist were taken down in a hail of least at 50 bullets, during a shooting spree that reportedly went on, according to Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), who was also on the scene, "for 5 to 10 minutes".

House GOP Whip Scalise and the Tyson Foods lobbyist, Matt Mika, are both said to be in critical condition following surgery as of air time. The alleged shooter, reported to have been a supporter of Bernie Sanders' Presidential campaign and an opponent of the Trump Administration (with a history of domestic violence), was eventually killed by members of the Capitol Police and the Alexandria Police after a lengthy gun battle.

We have reaction from lawmakers and statements of unity issued in the aftermath by the President, the Republican and Democratic House leaders, as well as the condemnation of the violence from Sen. Sanders.

Shortly thereafter, in San Francisco, five were shot, three fatally, before the shooter killed himself at a UPS facility.

Neither incident is believed to be related to international terrorism (the shooter in VA was a white, middle-aged man from Belleville, IL, the shooter in San Francisco has not been identified as of air time), yet a Republican Senator led off a hearing today by appearing to link the attack in D.C. to Islamic extremism.

Despite some 32,000 gun deaths per year and so many mass shootings by domestic extremists, including the 2011 Tucson shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, which killed six and wounded 12 others, Congress has failed to take any action (other than to pass a bill signed by Donald Trump earlier this year making it easier for the mentally ill to purchase firearms.)

We take some great calls from listeners today, with some very smart insight on all of the above and the reasons for it (one sagely notes, after recognizing the violence on which our country was build, "we have lost our national soul"), before a few quick news headlines, details of which we must put off until another day due to the breaking news. And then, finally, we're joined by Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report...

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*** NOTE: I'm on the road for the next two days, so will be running 'Best Ofs'! But please read this (which I couldn't get to today, but it's VERY important!) in the meantime. We'll be back with a fresh BradCast on Monday!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Interior Sec. Zinke recommends redrawing Bears Ears National Monument --- even as 99% of Americans want their national monuments unchanged; Climate change has made heat waves more deadly in India; U.S. coastal cities to see more 100-year floods more frequently; PLUS: French President puts his money where his mouth is, enticing U.S. scientists to come work in France... 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): U.S. left as a footnote to G7 climate talks; Who are the Republican lawmakers whose bills attack public lands?; There's a new way U.S. is committing to Paris Climate Agreement; West Coast waters rapidly acidifying, threatening fishing industry; Pros and cons of fracking; Human activities taking a toll on the deep ocean; Interior Secretary floats privatizing campgrounds; 'No pattern of deception' in Gold King Mine Spill; On nuclear waste, Finland shows U.S. how it can be done; EPA delays chemical safety rule until 2019... PLUS: The dying Salton Sea... and much, MUCH more! ...