On today's BradCast, Donald Trump may be failing in the courts, in Congress, failing the planet itself, but when it comes to military adventurism in Syria, the U.S. media --- left, right and center --- all seem to be fully on board. That, despite the lack of independent evidence supporting the White House's justification for its unauthorized, unconstitutional, and likely illegal April 6 cruise missile attack on the sovereign, if war-torn Middle East nation. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Today, we follow-up yesterday's interview with Theodore A. Postol, MIT Prof. Emeritus of Science, Technology and National Security Policy, by speaking with independent investigative journalist Robert Parry of Consortium News, who recently asked: "Did Al Qaeda Fool the White House Again?"

We discuss Postol's analyses, as covered in detail on yesterday's show, charging that the evidence presented by the White House to justify its military attack on Syria --- purportedly in response to a deadly April 4 chemical weapons incident allegedly carried out by Bashar al-Assad's government against civilians in the rebel-held Idlib province --- does not support the claims being made by the Administration and echoed uncritically by the U.S. media.

Parry, formerly an Associated Press reporter who helped break the Iran-Contra scandal in the mid-80s, responds to my questions about the remarkable lack of media coverage of Postol's analyses (if only to debunk them), as well as the seemingly complete lack of skepticism by the entirety of the U.S. corporate mainstream media on Syria and other recent U.S. military adventures. That, even after having been fooled before (Iraq, is just one example), and otherwise claiming a new found interest in fact-checking and skepticism in the Trump Era.

"We've seen now a recurring situation," says Parry. "We had the case of the Iraq War, where you might've thought 'well, after that, the New York Times and the Washington Post and others will be more skeptical and more self-critical about the need to show skepticism'. But that hasn't happened. In fact, it's gone increasingly in the other direction."

"For the first two months or so of his Presidency, everything he said was put under a microscope and often laughed at, often rightly so," he tells me. "So there's been this attitude that this guy is not to be trusted on anything he says. Yet, he immediately jumps to a conclusion, way before there could've been any serious intelligence analysis of it, that Assad was responsible for this incident, and the mainstream media completely flipped around and just rallied to his position and then refused to listen to any alternative points of view on this."

As a former mainstream journalist himself, before founding Consortium News in 1995 as "the first investigative news magazine on the Internet," Parry speaks to the "tremendous downside to your career if you ask too many questions" in the corporate media, whether covering Republican or Democratic administrations.

Parry describes some of "serious questions" raised by Postol analyses concerning "not only the logic" behind the alleged sarin attack that seems wildly counter-intuitive for Assad to have carried out, "but the evidence that's been presented in connection with the April 4 incident."

Also today: CNN and CBS fail miserably during their coverage of last weekend's worldwide March for Science by offering platforms to fossil-fueled climate change denialists; Arkansas kills two more prisoners; Federal court blocks Trump's Executive Order concerning "sanctuary cities" and Trump, the self-declared "Great Negotiator", reportedly folds once again like a paper tiger, this time concerning budget threats for his long-promised Mexican border wall...

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On today's BradCast, we find Fox 'News' and its twisted wingnut agenda at the center of just about all of the stories and issues we cover today, from the remarkable need for scientists to stand up for science-based facts, to a continuingly clueless President, to a disgraced Bill O'Reilly and more. [Audio link to complete show follows below.]

The Trump administration is now seemingly both for and against the Iran Nuclear Deal, apparently. At least they seem to be taking every side of the issue this week, despite Trump's repeated campaign vows to rip up or renegotiate the deal and his 2015 charge that it "will go down as one of the dumbest and most dangerous misjudgments ever entered into in history of our country". But that's what happens when everything your President seems to know about policy comes pretty much directly from the scam artists and friends of sexual harassers known as Fox "News".

Which brings us to my conversation today with my guest, D.R. Tucker of Washington Monthly (and too-occasional BRAD BLOG contributor). As a former rightwinger turned climate change hawk and avid media critic, he has some strong opinions and smart thoughts in advance of this weekend's March for Science and next weekend's People's Climate March.

"For a long, long time in this country, there has been this sort of anti-intellectual, anti-science mentality. It's been monetized, as people like [Fox 'News' owner] Rupert Murdoch have proven. And it has to be resisted," he tells me. But, he adds, while "these marches are a long overdue attempt, I would argue, to resist it, marching alone is not going to accomplish it. The march has to continue right to the ballot box to throw out people who are anti-science, and elect those who are pro-science."

He does not reserve his ire only for FNC, however. The "false gods of false balance" at other news outlets are also to blame, he charges, for the intensifying climate crisis, much of its collateral damage and the fact that Americans remain so woefully uninformed about so much of it.

We also discuss the firing of disgraced Fox "News" star and alleged serial sexual harasser Bill O'Reilly, as he is reportedly set to receive a parting gift of as much as $25 million from his longtime enablers at FNC on the way out the door. Tucker also has some thoughts on the pretend rightwing "outrage" over the successful campaign to encourage corporations to pull their sponsorship from O'Reilly's show (a trick, he explains, learned from those "outraged" rightwingers themselves), as well as idea on where O'Reilly may find welcome employment next. (No, not in hell, but close.)

Finally today: Another prisoner receives a stay in Arkansas' unprecedented attempted killing spree; Some ironic federal court karma that may be about to bite Donald Trump (again); And pot activists in D.C. on 4/20 come up with a clever way to spark up interest for their issue among Congressional staffers and media on Capitol Hill...

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Today on The BradCast: So, what now? What's the next step for Donald Trump's seemingly perpetually faltering Presidency? He and Congressional Republicans suggest they'll go for Tax Reform next. But will that scheme be any more successful than the big promises that Trump has, so far, tried and failed to accomplish? [Audio link to show follows below.]

His Muslim travel ban was blocked for the foreseeable future, once again last night, by a federal judge in Hawaii. His border wall, if it ever actually gets built, won't be paid for by Mexico, apparently, but by U.S. tax-payers. Reportedly, the Administration's not even sure where to put it. His attempt at repealing and replacing ObamaCare went famously down in flames. His effort at rolling back Obama's climate legacy is already facing its first legal challenges on a number of fronts and in a number of courts.

But he and Congressional Republicans say massive reform of the tax code will be next, even though it hasn't been successfully accomplished since the 1980's. And, in hopes of getting some Democrats on board, the Administration has been floating the idea of a massive infrastructure bill, perhaps, to go with it. But is Trump's version of a "Grand Bargain" to bring enough Republicans and Democrats together to accomplish this next scheme any more viable than his previous ones? (Or more viable than when Obama tried, but failed, at something similar?) And, does it help that Trump attacked both Democrats and the far-right Congressional Freedom Caucus today?

The great Heather Digby Parton of Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo returns today to discuss all of the above, and a bit more, including whether Democrats can actually hold together in opposition; some little-noticed hypocrisy related to Team Trump attorneys hoping to block a sexual harassment-related lawsuit against a sitting President; an interesting explanation for Ivanka Trump's "new" role in the Administration; and whether Senate Democrats can or will successfully filibuster to keep Judge Neil Gorsuch from being confirmed to the GOP's stolen U.S. Supreme Court seat, as vacated with the death of Antonin Scalia more than one year ago...

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A few weeks ago, Donald Trump's top White House strategist Steve Bannon vowed to bring about the "deconstruction of the administrative state". On today's BradCast, it sure looks like he's getting what he and Trump set out for. [Audio link to show posted below.]

First up today, after a week of devastating analyses of the bill by GOP leadership and Trump to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) and replace it with the American Health Care Plan (the Republican plan), the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finally came out today with its estimate [PDF] of what the scheme will cost Americans in money and health care. And it isn't pretty.

Some 14 million Americans will go without health insurance in 2018 under the Republican scheme, according to the CBO's estimate, which they note is based on "the middle of the distribution of potential outcomes." Some 24 million Americans will go without by 2026, as compared to projections for the current law. Hardest hit, as a number of reports over the weekend have found: elderly and rural voters in areas where support for Donald Trump was highest in the 2016 election.

Then, as Trump prepares to announce his "historic" slashing of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of federal jobs from non-military programs, hundreds, if not thousands of key roles at Executive agencies across the federal government remain unfilled. Many agencies are currently gutted following the resignation and/or firings of Obama staffers, and top appointments remain vacant in the meantime (because Trump has failed to nominate people to fill the roles, much less see public Senate confirmation hearings for the appointees.)

In the meantime, hundreds of unknown campaign staffers with no government experience at all, and others who are longtime industry lobbyists, are still heading up his "beachhead" transition teams, effectively controlling dozens of federal agencies on behalf of the Trump Administration. Those findings come via an analysis by ProPublica, based on responses to public records requests

Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), joins us to explain what that means, and the havoc these folks --- some just out of high school and college who had worked on the Trump campaign, others lobbyists for industries being overseen by the very federal agencies they now oversee --- are able to wreak on government and policy while barely even being noticed by media or Congress.

"The level of separation between industry and the government has gone from a thin veneer of separation to no separation whatsoever," Hauser warns, describing the situation as "an intentional breeding ground for corruption".

"The State Department is a topic of particular concern," he tells me. "They have only nominated the Secretary of State. That is the only nominee. So you've seen the Obama people all leave. You've seen the strata of the top professional career people pushed out. You've seen no names offered. So you have a complete vacuum at the top of the State Department, beneath Sec. of State Tillerson. And the only people with any authority are the people who can claim to be acting on behalf of the President via their status on the 'beachhead.'"

"I think people seem to be underestimating what a federal government that seems to be more focused on enriching Donald Trump, his family, and his closest allies, could do to the lives of normal people," he explains, charging that the entire operation appears to be little more, at this point, than an attempt at "wrecking the country for financial gain."

Finally today, we close with one more story of a very popular (and right-leaning) town that supported Trump "bigly" last November, but now, perhaps, having second thoughts about what his immigration policies are doing to their own business interests...

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On today's BradCast: with quickly mounting pressure from both Republicans and Democrats following reports that he failed to disclose meetings with Russia's U.S. ambassador as a Trump surrogate during last year's campaign, Attorney General Jeff Sessions finally announces he will recuse himself from any investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia. [Link to audio of show posted below.]

The breaking announcement today comes just hours after Trump said there was no need for Sessions to recuse himself, as some Democrats are now charging that sessions should resign for having "lied to Congress". But did he?

Also today, before and during his address on Tuesday to a joint session of Congress, Trump shamefully avoided responsibility for his botched raid in Yemen by hiding behind a Navy SEAL widow and his generals who, he claimed, described the mission as a great success, having obtained loads of actionable intelligence. The following day, however, it was inconveniently reported that "ten current U.S. officials across the government" disputed the President's characterization. They charge that no significant intelligence was obtained during the raid that was quickly approved by the President and led to the death of a U.S. Navy SEAL and 25 civilians, including 9 children.

Then, we're joined by New Republic's Jeet Heer on the "dark, dystopian, and divisive message" delivered by Trump to Congress this week, and on the corporate media's abject failure to accurately report on the address to the American people.

"I was kind of shocked at the coverage that the speech was receiving," Heer tells me. "I grant you, by Trump standards, this was more moderate and Presidential but only by those standards." He goes on to describe the "Jekyll and Hyde" nature of the speech in which he may have softened his tone, but still detailed extremist policies that harken back to his "American Carnage" inaugural address.

Heer also rings in on today's breaking news of Sessions' recusal, describing the new AG and former Senator "as a man who wanted to impeach a President over perjury. So, I think 'Do we have a different standard for him than Bill Clinton?'"

Finally today, Desi Doyen returns with our latest Green News Report on the new EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt who is also now being accused of having lied to Congress during his nomination hearings...

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On today's BradCast, I'll be your guest host, Angie Coiro. Would you like to sit at the bar? Maybe not a bad idea.

Have you had the Trump/Russia links up to here? You have a friend in RJ Eskow, host of The Zero Hour. He's not convinced; he advises skepticism and clear thinking when it comes to sorting the proven from the unproven.

With people fleeing America over the northern border in fear, with at least one report of a man who killed himself rather than be forced back into Mexico, with an Oscar-nominated cinematographer kept out of the US, and a Holocaust scholar from France almost deported --- it's time to take a long look at sanctuary cities, emboldened local police forces, and how to stay focused on resistance. Heralded civil rights attorney/activist Jim Brosnahan of Morrison & Forster in San Francisco, and Heather "Digby" Parton of Hullabaloo take on the many facets of that disaster.

Finally, Dave Johnson of Seeing the Forest and The Campaign for America's Future deconstructs Trump's promised tax cuts, and their connection to failing infrastructure.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

It's a dark day on today's BradCast, as hate crimes continue to rise across the country and Donald Trump's Administration issues new, radical guidelines on the detention and deportation of immigrants. [Audio link to show posted below.]

Wendy Feliz of the American Immigration Council joins us to help unpack the Department of Homeland Security's disturbing new instructions to law enforcement regarding the arrest and deportation of virtually any undocumented immigrant at any time for any reason, including the most minor of crimes or even just a suspicion of such crimes.

The memos issued today are "sort of our worst fears realized," she explains, before detailing the "very stark and very punitive" measures that are "broader than is almost imaginable."

"Essentially, they've done away with all the priority enforcement memos that were written under the Obama Administration, whereby they were trying to narrow down who was deportable. That's just basic Law Enforcement 101 --- the idea that if you go after jaywalkers with the same force that you go after bank robbers, then you're not really doing a good job of stopping people that pose a real threat to society."

Feliz goes into the troubling details of the orders --- which, she charges, are "going to be very disruptive, and potentially disastrous to the economy" --- and the madness of attempting to allocate law enforcement resources for the expulsion of 400,000 people for 11 million instead. Those numbers will now include both children and those who came here as children and had received legal federal work permits under Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. We also discuss what is likely to be an explosion of litigation in response to the orders ("Make American litigate again," Feliz quips) and what it is that those directly affected by these new mandates must now do in order to try and both defend and protect themselves.

Also today, the unprecedented string of bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers across the nation continues, with the organizations now reportedly targeted in at least 26 states since the first of the year, and some 200 headstones desecrated in a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri (the one where my grandparents are buried, in fact).

On the upside, Donald Trump has finally spoken out, sort of, against the string of anti-Semitic events and has also appointed someone who is not insane to be the next National Security Advisor following last week's resignation/firing of Michael Flynn.

Desi Doyen joins us once again for the latest Green News Report on the confirmation of EPA enemy Scott Pruitt as the next head of the EPA and with some good news on wind energy. Finally, we close with a bit of breaking good news from the courts concerning guns...

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On today's BradCast: There may appear to be chaos right now at the federal level of lawmaking --- in both the Executive and Legislative branches. But that disarray may be working out just fine for Donald Trump and his supporters, as my guest today explains. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

First up, however, Senate Democrats win one for a change, as Andrew Puzder, Trump's labor-hating billionaire nominee to head the Department of Labor removes himself from contention after a number of Republicans threaten to vote against his confirmation. At the same time, however, Congress sends a bill to the President that will kill an Obama era regulation, instituted in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, that would have made it slightly more difficult for some with mental disabilities to purchase fire arms.

Then, while the "unbelievable turmoil" surrounding this insane White House right now may be alarming to many Democrats and progressives and other reality-based individuals, for Trump supporters living in their own versions of "reality", they may be hearing and seeing exactly what they had hoped from this President --- even as chaos continues to keep both critics and the non-wingnut media off balance and on edge.

D.D. Guttenplan, editor-at-large at The Nation, joins us to explain how much of the on-going chaos is being purposely deployed, not unlike a military strategy developed to avoid anti-aircraft fire during World War II. "I think it's deliberate, and I think it's working," he tells me. And while the temptation to respond to every outrage from this White House may be "satisfying, in the long run it's going to exhaust us."

He makes the case, based on his reporting in the industrial rust belt, that many Trump's supporters are quite pleased with his Administration so far, and that until Democrats begin to focus on winning back those otherwise Dem-leaning voters, they will continue to be overwhelmed by the "barrage of comments, and picked fights, and scandals, and daily assaults on whoever is most vulnerable among us."

"As long as we're being reactive, we're not prioritizing, and we need to prioritize," Guttenplan contends, before going on to detail what he believes some of those priorities need to be in order for Democrats to both win back their voters and the White House along with it.

Finally, speaking of avoiding distractions, last week, while everything else has been going on, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) arrested and detained a man who came here from Mexico with his parents illegally when he was seven years old. Despite legal work permits from the federal government's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program under Obama, no criminal record, and claims by Trump that immigrants like him would not be rounded up, he has been detained for the past week in Tacoma, Washington, according to his attorneys, in the first such case reported since the new President took office...

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On today's BradCast: Is it just me, or is it getting Nixon in here? [Audio link to show is posted below.]

As they asked during Watergate: "What did the President known and when did he know it?" That's just one of the many questions quickly emerging in the hours since last night's resignation of National Security Advisor, Lt. General Michael Flynn, following revelations that he spoke with the Russian Ambassador about U.S. sanctions prior to Trump's inauguration and then lied about it to the media, the public, Vice President Mike Pence --- and perhaps even the FBI.

As they also said during Watergate: "It's not the crime, it's the cover-up." The Logan Act, as I explain today, was never really the problem. It's a weak statute and has never actually been prosecuted in its history, dating back to the 1790's. It's the lies and the possibility of blackmail in the wake of those lies that are now (among) the many problems for this White House.

The continuing --- and growing --- disarray of the not-even-one-month-old Trump Administration extends to the amazing contradictions from high-level officials at the White House about all of this over the past 24 hours, and to Trump himself, who, just last Friday, seemed to feign ignorance about Flynn's conversations with Russian officials. That, before the White House confirmed this afternoon that the President was directly informed about all of this by the Department of Justice weeks ago.

Among questions now being raised, even by some Republicans in the House and Senate: Why didn't Trump act weeks ago on this? Is it plausible in anyway that Flynn went "rogue", or was he, in fact, authorized and/or directed --- by someone on the Trump transition team --- to discuss lifting sanctions against Russia with their Ambassador? If so, by whom? Was he also directed to lie about it? If so, by whom and why are so many seemingly lying about it all now? We discuss those questions and many others on today's show.

Also today: the Republican-majority Senate confirms former Goldman Sachs exec and billionaire Wall St. "Foreclosure King" Steve Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary along party lines (though with the help of one Democratic senator); A federal court denies the Trump Administration's attempt to forestall hearings on his Muslim travel ban Executive Order; and Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with the latest on the Oroville Dam crisis in California and much more...

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Officials were warned. Twelve years ago. On today's BradCast: Another round of storms are on the way and the state of California is on edge, as the nation's tallest dam remains at imminent risk of failure and some 188,000 residents have been forced to flea the path of what could result in one of the nation's worst dam disasters. [Audio link to show posted below.]

On Sunday night, California state officials issued the emergency evacuation order in Northern California, for cities and counties beneath the Lake Oroville Dam, 150 miles north-east of San Francisco (and directly north of the state Capitol in Sacramento), as the auxiliary spillway at the nation's tallest dam appeared to be in imminent danger of collapse and an historic catastrophe.

As of Monday, the hillside beneath the spillway's lip is reportedly holding, for now, but the lake, which supplies drinking water to much of the state, is near capacity with a week of rains predicted to be on their way, and the main spillway already crippled by a nearly 300 foot wide gash.

The disturbing scenario playing out at this hour is precisely what had been predicted by environmental groups 12 years ago, but their warnings were discounted by both state and local officials.

Eric Wesselman, the Executive Director of FriendsOfTheRiver.org --- one of the groups who attempted to warn officials a dozen years ago, of precisely this scenario, joins us with the latest details on the potential collapse, human and environmental impacts, and some thoughts on why it was that his group's warnings were ignored back in 2005.

"We have a little reprieve here," Wesselman tells me about attempts to mitigate disaster during the current break in the weather. "That is a critical little window of opportunity because there's an expected [storm] system coming in, if not two or three, on the heels of the one we just had. They're using this time to do what they can to shore up the spillways and to continue releases so that they can lower the level of the reservoir to make room for expected inflow," he says, adding: "It's gonna be a nail-biter"

"If it's not drought, it's floods," he notes, concerning California's ongoing battle with climate change, while explaining his organization's efforts to avoid such disasters, like the one we're now seeing, before they become reality. "The goal of Friends of the River is not to have a 'gotcha' moment here --- but it's to get to a place where stakeholder groups like ours are taken more seriously at the table when critical decisions are being made and considered, and that we're not just dismissed."

We also discuss some of the heroic action now being taken to not only save countless human lives and property beneath the dam, but those of endangered species. Wesselman also warns about what he fears may be the "mis-reaction" or "knee-jerk" response to this crisis from both the Trump Administration and Congress.

Speaking of which, also on today's show: The federal courts may have put a hold, for now, on Trump's "Muslim travel ban" Executive Order, but his other orders on immigration proceed apace, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency raids reportedly rounding up hundreds of allegedly undocumented aliens for deportation in about a dozen states over the past several days, even as Trump continues to lie about the effects of those raids. Again: Watch what he does, not what he says!

Oh, and happy World Radio Day! In 2016, more people still listened to the radio than watched TV or smartphones! Yes, our public airwaves still matter! I suspect about 188,000 Americans caught in traffic, for hours, trying to flee last night's potential dam disaster, may agree.

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On today's BradCast, Trump took a serious thumping from a federal appeals court this week, but his other Executive Orders on immigration move forward nonetheless, resulting, for a start, in the heart-breaking deportation of an undocumented married mother of two young U.S. born children on Thursday. [Link to full audio posted below.]

Today we cover both Trump's embarassing smack-down by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late yesterday, and the real life effect of his extreme immigration policies. For the latter, we are joined by Maria Castro, a 23-year old organizer with People United for Justice. She was was arrested in Phoenix this week along with other supporters of 36-year old Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, who was deported to Mexico on Thursday, after coming to the U.S. when she was 14 years old.

Castro, an American-born citizen, describes how she and her family find themselves in a similar situation with her own undocumented immigrant mother who originally came here 24 years ago on a legal visa, but is now at risk of deportation. She discusses her arrest and efforts to help Garcia de Rayos who had been dutifully meeting with officials from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency every six months since her 2008 arrest during a raid at her workplace in Mesa, Arizona. Garcia de Rayos she was convicted of a 6th-degree felony for using a fraudulent Social Security number so she could work (and pay into benefits that she would likely never receive back.)

During our conversation, Castro, who successfully worked to defeat controversial Maricopa County (Phoenix) Sheriff Joe Arpaio last November, describes the mixed feelings of the community as he lost while Trump won. We also discuss the mood in the community among those now threatened by Trump's policies, how they plan to fight it (along with your support), and her criticism of Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, who has been outspoken against the Garcia de Rayos deportation, even while, Castro charges, helping to facilitate it in a number of ways.

"My mother is undocumented," Castro tells me, adding that even a jay-walking ticket could now result in her being sent away. "Anything could happen. Any type of interaction with law enforcement could lead to her deportation. She was deported (over a decade ago) and she fought her way back to us. I was 12 years old and my little sister was in kindergarten. We needed our mom, and she made it happen."

As to going public with her name on the record, she tells me: "I have faith in my community and in the resistance, and the work that we do. I feel that the more I lean on my community, the more people I have to support me, the better. For us, for me, what we need to do as a community and community organizers, is we need to start to come together. We can no longer sit in our homes and watch TV and share things on Facebook."

I hope you'll tune in for today's interview. I think it's important to hear.

Finally, in the middle of the night last night (2:30am), Republicans in the U.S. Senate, on a party-line vote, confirmed Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Trump's nominee to head Health and Human Services, despite a long list of corruption allegations concerning insider stock trading and more, and racists across the country celebrated the confirmation this week of new U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

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Today on The BradCast, a story out of France today, discussed at top of show, proves that things could be much, much worse. That said, with things as bad as they are, we discuss what needs to be done to restore sanity to Congress and how to save the Supreme Court, the right to vote, the truth, and everything else that is supposed to come with "democracy". [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Among the stories covered on today's show...

• Civil rights opponent Jeff Sessions of Alabama was confirmed last night as the U.S. Attorney General largely on party lines, save for West Virginia's Democratic Senator Joe Manchin who voted for him. Should Manchin be primaried? Or is the fight for a Democratic majority as a check against Trump and the GOP more important? (I welcome your short and sweet comments on that for possible use on air! Email me, if you like: BradCast - at - BradBlog.com)

• Then, are Democrats taking the bait by taking the side of Trump's stolen Supreme Court nominee Neal Gorsuch, who claims to be "disheartened" by Trump's recent attacks against a federal judge? Answer: Yes, they are. But you can help stop that.

• Next, after new Attorney General Sessions takes office and immediately lies about violent crime statistics, what would he be willing to lie about next in order to make it harder for Democratic-leaning Americans to vote? Michael Slater, President and Executive Director of Project Vote joins us to discuss not only the "voter fraud" myths being perpetuated by Trump, but how American voters need to start working NOW on how to prevent (more) voter suppression and assure the right to vote.

While Slater tells me he believes the media are getting much better in their response to GOP "voter fraud" lies, he warns that Democrats still need a lot of help and organizations when it comes to keeping their eye on the ball. "The Democrats have never been as supportive of voting rights, and put as much energy into expanding voting rights, as we have seen the Republicans in their efforts to restrict voting rights," he notes, during our, at times, chilling, but hopefully enlightening conversation.

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, as news breaks that the 3-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has unanimously rejected Trump's bid to restore his stayed Executive Order banning immigrants, travelers and refugees from seven majority-Muslim countries...

All of that and much more on today's BradCast!...

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On today's BradCast: Despite the New England Patriots' amazing, come-from-behind overtime victory at the Superbowl, it was yet another very rough weekend for Donald Trump. [Audio link to show follows below.]

More startling insider reports continued to pour out from the leakiest White House ever over the weekend, as a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush temporarily blocked Trump's entire Muslim immigration and refugee ban on Friday, and then refused to reinstate it late on Saturday, despite an emergency motion by the Administration.

Moreover, more than 100 major corporations told the court they opposed the ban on Sunday, and a bunch of very senior former security and intelligence officials and cabinet secretaries (mostly Dems, but also a number of Republicans) filed a brief with the court on Monday explaining why Trump's order makes the U.S. less, not more, safe.

All of that took place before John Yoo, the GOP lawyer who penned the infamous "torture memos", arguing in favor of brutal and sweeping executive powers on behalf of the Bush Administration, announced in an op-ed today that even he thinks Trump has gone too far. As if all of that wasn't bad enough for Trump, even conservative members of parliament from one of our oldest and best allies are now announcing they want nothing to do with him, following what they describe as his racism and disrespect for the judiciary after his weekend Tweets blasting the federal judge who stayed his travel ban.

But one thing didn't suck for Trump this weekend, the "gobsmacking" victory by his friend Tom Brady and the Patriots over the Atlanta Falcons, who managed to lose despite a 25-point margin. The Falcons' stunning loss --- grasped from the jaws of what seemed like certain victory --- had a disturbingly familiar ring for many Democrats watching the game. But Lindsay Gibbs, sports writer at Think Progress, joins us for some much-needed perspective for progressives on the politics surrounding and, at times, overtaking Sunday's big game.

"With Trump, everything is political these days. There's no escaping our reality right now," argues Gibbs. "These days, even saying stuff like 'America is Beautiful' is seen as a politically charged statement." But, she notes, citing many of the surprisingly progressive and not-sexist-as-usual ads aired during the game (including the stunning spot from 84 Lumber, which Fox would not allow to run in full), "the fact that all these ads were touting these progressive values, or were openly mocking Trump, does say that right now companies think inclusiveness sells."

Finally today, another disturbing update from the still-insanely-warm-and-getting-warmer Arctic.

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On today's BradCast: The 'Muslim Ban', one week after it was ordered, is even worse than it initially appeared. But, despite the chaos and heartbreak, the response from Americans and those around the world, is heartening. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Chaos continues in the wake of Trump's executive order banning most travel from 7 majority-Muslim countries. And there were reportedly audible gasps in a federal courtroom in Virginia on Friday, as a U.S. Government attorney revealed that some 100,000 legal visas had been rescinded in the week since Donald Trump's order was signed. (A State Department official later claimed the number was really 'only' about 60,000.)

Jess Hanson of the National Immigration Law Center joins us to describe the continuing crises as "terrifying", as her organization works to assist green card holders who are still being prevented from entering or returning to the U.S., immigrants and other legal visa holders still being detained without legal representation or blocked from traveling here despite federal court orders, and those who are otherwise unconstitutionally losing their rights under the order.

"There have been a lot of organizing efforts with volunteer attorneys on the ground, in U.S. airports, and a massive effort to try to communicate with people who are traveling to the U.S. who are in this situation, to let an attorney on the ground know what airport they're arriving to so that if the individual is allowed to board their flight, when they land in the United States, there is an attorney waiting for them," she explains. But, she adds, "not everyone has the opportunity or resources to find a U.S. attorney before they leave their country of origin" and "a lot of these cases of detention and not allowing someone to speak with an attorney are simply slipping through the cracks."

"Tens of thousands of people...their family, their friends, whatever reason they were going to come to the United States or return to the United States, that has a ripple effect. It's affecting all of us," Hanson tells me. "It's easy to dehumanize numbers --- 'Oh yeah, 60,000 out of 11 million, that's just a drop in the bucket'. But 60,000 or 100,000, whatever the numbers are, that's a lot of people, and it's having global --- honestly global --- effects."

We discuss all of that, as well as the other immigration-related Executive Orders receiving much less coverage since Trump's ban was enacted. Hanson also details a number of ways that you can help.

Also today: The Dept. of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General announces a probe into the Trump Administration's disastrous implementation of the ban; A large swath of Americans already want to see the wildly unpopular Trump impeached; GOP Senators are apologizing to our allies for Trump; Phones are ringing off the hook at the U.S. Capitol; And we share a few more signs of hope and encouragement (and even some laughs!) from both home and abroad after just two weeks(!) of this insanely inept and calamitous Administration.

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Today on The BradCast: You're all "on notice"! Public pressure begins to put both Congress and the President on notice. Donald Trump puts Australia(!) and Iran on notice. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) seem to be putting themselves on notice. [Audio link to show posted below.]

Nationwide protests and phone calls to Congress seems to be working. At least a bit. We cover a number of encouraging points in that regard today, from businesses like Harley-Davidson shying away from hosting a visit by the President at their Wisconsin factory for fear of huge protests, to one Congressman killing his own bill that would have sold off millions of acres of public lands, to still-plummeting approval ratings for both Trump and his wildly unpopular Executive Orders.

But, in the meantime, Trump continues to tick off international friend and foe alike with his incompetent, make-it-up-as-you-go "foreign policy". It's distressing, if amusing, when he pisses off friends like Australia and Mexico, but it's chilling and damned dangerous when he begins saber rattling with nations like Iran, which he is now threatening with military action and new sanctions for some reason.

Then, as the Administration takes action to dismantle environmental protection by agencies like the EPA, some federal agencies, like the CDC, seem to be sabotaging themselves, rather than waiting for Trump to do so. At least it seems that with the CDC's recent cancellation of long-planned conferences on climate change and LGBT issues.

Former CDC official Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who helped found the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control before going on to eventually become President Emeritus of The Task Force for Global Health, joins me today to help us understand the culture and some of the thinking that seems to be going on amongst the CDC's leadership since the election of the new, anti-science, anti-fact President.

"They act in response to signals," Rosenberg says about the CDC, citing the Trump Administration's aggressive early steps to undermine science-based federal agencies. "Things like that don't go unnoticed. It may be that people at CDC say we're committed to helping the public but we don't want to lose our jobs."

Rosenberg, who worked at the CDC for 20 years, famously battled the gun lobby-funded Congress in the 90s, as they passed the Dickey Amendment legislation to prevent research into gun violence prevention. (My interview with Rosenberg last year, on that topic specifically, is here.)

While he explains that "most of the people at CDC are very committed to serving public health and the public good" and "work very hard to protect the nation --- whether its from Ebola, heart disease, diabetes, bird flu, or climate change," he adds that he was eventually fired "by a Director of CDC who decided that he would rather keep his job than protect the science. And I think that was a terrible turning point for CDC."

Rosenberg explains the agency's role in helping to determine the many "health effects of climate change" which, he notes, "even the politicians who are pro-business and pro-economic development need to understand. You can't respond in a rational way, or a productive way, if you don't understand the problem."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report where, as usual, everything is awesome!...

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