A whole lotta stuff happened over the long holiday weekend, much of which the Trump Administration hopes you don't notice at all. We try help you notice them on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

But we start with some of the very few bits of good news we could find, as November's elections --- and our only hope --- loom large. First up: A petition drive in Michigan to place a host of election reforms on the ballot appears to have been successful. With 430,000 signatures submitted (far more than the 316,000 required), it looks like Michiganders will be able to vote for automatic voter registration, same-day registration, no-fault absentee voting and much more this Fall.

In Kansas, following a trial and federal court order, Kris Kobach, the state's embarrassing Sec. of State, has finally added some 25,000 voters to the rolls who had been denied access for lack of "Proof of Citizenship" documents. The court struck down the state law requiring the documentation as unconstitutional after Kobach monumentally failed in his defense of the law during the recent trial on behalf of voters who had challenged it. That hasn't stopped the GOP's top "voter fraud" fraudster, however, from claiming --- you guessed it --- fraud during a recent GOP straw poll in advance of the August primary in the state, where Kobach hopes to win the Republican nomination for Governor. (He lost the straw poll to Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer...by a lot.)

In other (largely) good news, Starbucks says they plan to do away with plastic straws to help save the planet (and comply with local governments who are banning them.)

Then, to the much less good news, as all-time heat records were shattered, by double-digits, here in Southern California over the holiday. Though the wildly corrupt fossil-fueled tool Scott Pruitt was finally forced to resign over the holiday weekend as chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (his resignation letter is amazingly creepy!), his second-in-command, Andrew Wheeler, an actual coal industry lobbyist, will now take over the EPA.

Also in recent days, two issues that Trump claims to have fixed (which he broke in the first place), have proven not to have been fixed at all. Despite Sec. of State Mike Pompeo describing recent "denuclearization" talks with North Korea as "productive", the North's Foreign Ministry characterized the U.S. attitude at negotiations as "gangster-like" and "cancerous" just after he left. That, after Donald Trump recently declared: "There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea".

And, the chaos continues as the Administration is reportedly nowhere near being able to reunite some 3,000 children with their parents, as required by a federal court order and deadlines, after they were separated at the southern border by Trump's immigration goons. That, after identification documents for many of the children were reportedly lost or destroyed, and despite Trump signing an Executive Order two weeks ago which he said would solve the tragic separations that he caused in the first place.

Finally today --- along with a ton of phone calls from listeners on all of the above and much more throughout today's show --- a few words, and some personal remembrances, on the sad passing last week of progressive radio and television broadcaster, and workers' champion, Ed Schultz...

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Desi and I are ducking out for a short breather over the Independence Day holiday. But, before we go, I appeared recently on Free Forum, hosted by longtime broadcaster and great interviewer TERRENCE MCNALLY.

So, with McNally's kind permission on today's BradCast, we bring you that recent interview, originally recorded in studio on June 24, 2018 at KPFK, our flagship Pacifica Radio Network station in Los Angeles, in which the tables are turned a bit on me.

I respond to his questions about my background, the bizarre circumstances --- and, yes, election chicanery --- which helped lead me deep into the world of investigative blogging, broadcasting and muckraking some 15 years ago.

We also discuss detailed concerns about the reported (and still unverified) results of the earth-shaking 2016 Presidential election, how jurisdictions around the country are now moving to new computerized voting and tabulation systems in its wake (even as those systems, with computer-marked, barcoded ballots will only sever to make public oversight of results worse, not better) and what Americans can do right now to fight like hell to assure they are able to vote and have their votes counted as per intent in the crucial 2018 midterms.

Much thanks to Terrence for allowing us to re-purpose his program for today's BradCast! Please see and download his many years of insightful interviews with tons of fascinating and much smarter folks than I, and sign up for his weekly email announcement list, at his website, AWorldThatJustMightWork.com! You can also hear his show on weekends at ProgressiveVoices.com and TuneIn.

We'll be back with ya after the holiday weekend! Please stay safe and, somehow, cool, until our return!

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On today's BradCast: Incredibly enough, one newly nominated Democratic U.S. House candidate had to ask, out loud, on one of the weekend network news shows: "Are we fighting or not?" The question was in reference to whether Senate Democrats planned to do everything within their power to block a vote on Donald Trump's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. [Audio link to show follows below.]

That Democratic U.S. House nominee was progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who unseated the 4th most powerful Democrat in the House just last week in New York's Democratic Primary election by a landslide. She was appearing on NBC's Meet the Press. It's simply stunning that the Democratic Party's response to the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy has been so flat-footed that it's still unclear today, almost a week later, whether Democrats are prepared to fight, all out, against a second Trump nominee for the Court who will be the decisive vote in overturning and reversing decades of hard-won rights on virtually every front.

Today, Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called on Americans to pressure their Senators to block anybody nominated by Trump. The call, via a New York Times op-ed charging that "our rights hang in the balance", comes not a moment too soon and follows a lukewarm response from many Senate Dems (including Schumer) and a tepid commitment by (supposedly) pro-choice GOP Senator Susan Collins of Maine to vote against a Trump nominee who is "hostile" to settled law, such as Roe v. Wade.

It's still unclear whether all Democrats are onboard with blocking Trump's nominee, whether any Republicans will actually join them, and what Dems are willing to do in order to block such a vote entirely for a few months, until at least after this November's election where they could regain the majority. That, even after Senate Republicans blocked Obama's SCOTUS nominee for nearly a year before stealing a majority on the Court with Trump's nominee Neil Gorsuch.

We discuss the possibilities for Dems on today's show, along with what I describe as the necessity for Dems to walk out and deprive the Senate of a Constitutionally-required quorum and bring all business to a halt, if that what it takes to block Trump's nominee. That nominee, of course, would also immediately have a huge conflict of interest in ruling on a President who nominated him or her, even as he was the subject of a serious criminal investigation by a Special Counsel into an alleged conspiracy against the United States and unlawful obstruction of that investigation.

Remarkably, there are still many "Very Smart People" in the media and Democratic politics who seem to feel that the fight is already lost, and that Dems should somehow keep their powder dry until after the crucial midterm elections or else risk losing their chances of winning back one or both houses of Congress this November.

That is nonsense. This is the fight of all of our lives, at this point. Political calculations like that are both outrageous and counter-productive for Democrats for several of the reasons I detail today. If Democrats can't take a stand on this, they should get out of politics all together. They may or may not win the fight, but that's nowhere close to the point.

We open the phone lines today to all of that and more, as both elected Democrats --- and even many of those calling into the show today --- seem to have a very difficult time staying focused on what actually matters at this crucial moment in history and what is at stake for the country itself in the midst of our ongoing Trump/GOP-fueled National Emergency...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement is bad news for the climate; New wildfires hit California and five other states; Federal judge dismisses San Francisco's climate liability lawsuit; Natural gas industry leaking far more methane than previously estimated; PLUS: Bright spots in the primaries as progressive climate hawks win upset victories... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 2 city lawsuits against Big Oil dismissed, but that's not the end of it; Tropical forests suffered near-record tree losses in 2017; Huge stretch of Arctic Ocean is rapidly turning into the Atlantic Ocean; Federal court becoming impatient with EPA over Clean Power Plan; Coral reefs prevent $4.3 billion in flood damage annually; TX Supreme Court strikes down plastic bag bans; 11 states sue Trump Administration over climate super-pollutants used in cooling; Pruitt acts to surrender some EPA veto power over mining, development; Young will pick up climate change bill, advisers warn; Justices give Florida another chance to prevail in water war... PLUS: Kennedy is gone. Now vote... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Political earthquakes. Several of them. All shaking up the political world just within the past 12 to 24 hours. As if we needed still more chaos. [Audio link to show follows below.]

We do our best to navigate through as many of those temblors --- one or two of them quite encouraging, the rest, not so much --- as possible, with the help of our guest today, JOHN NICHOLS, longtime progressive champion and Washington Correspondent for The Nation.

Among the several earthquakes covered today: Antonia Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year old Latina and political novice unseated Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley, the fourth most powerful Democrat in the U.S. House, by a huge margin (some 15 points) during Tuesday's midterm primaries in New York's 14th Congressional District. The defeat of a 10-term incumbent, previously thought to have been a potential future Speaker of the House, by a self-described Democratic socialist who raised and spent millions less than Crowley, has sent shockwaves through the Democratic establishment.

"When we vote, this is what happens," Ocasio-Cortez declared today after her stunning upset victory, following on the heels of her viral campaign video in which she declared the race "about people versus money. We've got people, they've got money." In the strongly Democratic district in Queens and The Bronx, she is almost certain to win this November.

In Maryland, meanwhile, another proudly progressive Bernie Sanders acolyte, former NAACP Chair Ben Jealous bested several other Dems to win the nomination to run on his bold populist agenda against popular GOP Gov. Larry Hogan this November.

Also on Tuesday night, a federal judge in San Diego --- a George W. Bush appointee --- issued a ruling requiring the Trump Administration to reunite families separated at the border within 30 days or less. (Within 14 days, if children younger than 5 are included.)

On Wednesday, however, things to several turns for the worst. First, the stolen 5 to 4 majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, in yet another far-right ruling overturning decades of established law, struck down so-called agency fees that public sector unions had been allowed to charge non-union members in exchange for representing them in collective bargaining negotiations. Though federal law still requires that non-union members receive the same pay and benefits as union members, the Court's final ruling issued before Summer recess means public sector unions are likely to lose millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of members. The decision is seen as a huge blow to labor and a long-sought victory for Republicans. In her dissent to Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion finding the 40-year old violated First Amendment free speech rights of non-union members, Justice Elena Kagan charged her GOP colleagues with "weaponizing the First Amendment" for political purposes. "At every stop," she charged in her opinion, read from the bench, "there are block-robed rulers overriding citizens' choices. The First Amendment was meant for better things."

But the day's largest earthquake, by far, came shortly thereafter, as 81-year old Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative Ronald Reagan appointee, who was often the swing-vote on issues such as abortion, gay rights and other progressive causes, announced he would be retiring at the end of July.

Nichols, author of The Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse, helps us navigate all of the above today, with analysis and insight on all of today's political earthquakes, as well as my argument that Senate Democrats must now follow the so-called "McConnell Rule" --- which Senate Republicans used to prevent a vote on Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee to fill a vacant SCOTUS seat, for nearly a year in 2016 before it was ultimately filled by Trump's nominee Neil Gorsuch in 2017.

Not only must Dems insist on no voting on any Trump nominee to SCOTUS until after the November Election and the seating of the next Senate, just as McConnell and the Republicans did in 2016, but since Repubs unilaterally changed the Senate filibuster rule in order to force Gorsuch's confirmation through with a bare majority, Dems should consider walking out entirely --- for months, if necessary --- if the absence of a Senate quorum might prevent a vote on whoever Trump nominates to fill Kennedy's seat.

Yes, shut it all down, if necessary. As I argue today, the stakes are now that high. In order to prevent the further erosion of enumerable long-held American rights and values, Democrats now need to put it all on the line in advance of the 2018 midterm primary, which could flip the balance of the upper chamber to the Democrats. Nichols responds with his own thoughts in response to my assertion, and much more --- including on some of the otherwise very good news for progressives from Tuesday's primaries...

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As the GOP's stolen U.S. Supreme Court further undermined American democracy today...and as climate change-fueled extreme weather resulted in a tar sands oil train derailing and leaking hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude into the drinking water supply for Iowa (and perhaps even Nebraska)....and as the President of the United States lied about immigration facts again while calling for the violation of both U.S. and international law by ending all Constitutional Due Process rights for those seeking asylum in the U.S....many of the always-reliable hand-wringers in the corporate mainstream media and the same Rightwingers who went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to support a bigoted baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple, are just beside themselves that some Administration officials are facing public protests for their abhorrent complicity in undermining so much that the U.S. supposedly stands for.

We detail all of that on today's BradCast, and open up the phones to listeners on all of it, including calls on whether it's appropriate (and/or long overdue) to protest/shun public officials in their private lives (at restaurants, etc.); what really needs to be done regarding immigration (lots of fact-checking today to Trump's continuing lies about it), and whether, as student protester Mario Savio said, when kicking off the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964, this is a "a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels...upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"...

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On today's BradCast: Trump gets even uglier as he's forced to back down on his lies about his immigration policies. A few election results out of D.C. and Arkansas. And some thoughts for progressive voters as we barrel towards this November's crucial midterms. [Audio link to show posted below.]

First up: A quick round-up of results and problem reports following primary elections on Tuesday in Washington D.C. (where voters adopted a $15 minimum wage measure for those in the service industry, despite a cynically and wildly misleading "Save Our Tips" campaign funded by the restaurant industry in opposition to Initiative 77) and in Arkansas (where runoffs were held following primaries and a computer tabulation "fiasco" late last month on 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems made by ES&S.)

Next: After repeatedly claiming he didn't have the legally authority to keep parents and children together after they were arrested crossing the border, Donald Trump buckled under growing political pressure and signed an executive order on Wednesday to allow parents and children to stay together after being arrested crossing the border.

Many questions (and legal challenges) lie ahead regarding the new policy and what will now happen to those 2,300 children ripped from their parents over the past month following the Administration's chaotic and ill-considered "zero tolerance" policy at the southern border.

We cover a number of related stories to all of that today, as well as some response to our coverage of the issue over the past week. That response includes a bit of a rant in return, regarding the necessity of voting for Democrats this November --- good ones or bad ones --- in service of putting some brakes on the disastrous cruelty and incompetence of Trump/GOP rule in D.C. (Or, for those who prefer the chaos and cruelty of the Trump Administration, and there are many who do, the option to vote for Republicans or stay home entirely in support of still more of it.)

I've got a bit of a rant today (and so does Desi) on the incredibly lazy argument, still heard from some progressives --- even after all that we've seen in the Trump Era --- that "both sides are the same". We've got a few words for those who forward arguments which support that notion, which serves only to perpetuate the worst of the Trump/GOP's inhumane and horrifically destructive policies.

Finally: As a reminder what can happen in a mostly normal, progressive country, Canada, on Tuesday night, ended 90 years of failed prohibition policy, by approving the sale and use of recreational marijuana across the entire country...

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On today's BradCast: More disappointing (if not deadly) rulings on voting rights were released on Monday from the U.S. Supreme Court, and callers ring in on the growing outrage of the last few days, thanks to the parent/child separation of Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" policy at the border.

First up today, two long-awaited rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court on partisan gerrymandering were finally handed down on Monday. In both cases, as our guest today, FairVote's DAVID DALEY details, the Court decided to essentially punt the cases back down to lower courts.

Daley, author of RATF**KED: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy, which details the GOP scheme to implement extreme partisan redistricting following the 2010 census, explains that Wisconsin Republicans will be allowed to keep their wildly unfair state assembly districts for yet another election, and that, in Maryland, where Democrats admit to having gerrymandered a U.S. House district to their own advantage, that gerrymandered district will also stay in place, almost a full decade after being implemented. That, despite lower courts finding those districts to be unlawful and unconstitutional, and other pending cases --- such as the federal court which found all of the U.S. House districts in North Carolina to have been unlawfully gerrymandered by Republicans --- still on hold and awaiting a hearing at SCOTUS.

"That's what's so frustrating and sad about today," Daley tells me. "They had a buffet of statistical standards and evidence that all pointed in the same direction and that revealed exactly what had happened here, and, instead, they ducked." He explains the basis on which the Court punted in both cases and how "Republicans have essentially been able to run out the clock to steal, in some ways, the entire decade of power, especially in state legislatures around the country."

While the "silver lining" on this today is that the Court did not declare, as some had feared, that it was up to legislatures, not courts, to fix the problem that legislatures themselves created, Daley argues that this was a missed opportunity. The Court's swing-vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, has long suggested he'd be open to finding partisan gerrymandering unconstitutional once and for all. But, once again, in both of today's cases, he ducked. That means --- should the 81-year old Justice (or any of the others) leave the Court before another case comes up to offer a definitive ruling --- things could become much worse, for generations, if Trump is allowed to appoint a replacement.

Then, as even some Republicans (a precious few) begin to finally turn against the Trump Administration's grotesque and inhumane new policy which separates children from their parents after they are detained crossing the southern border with Mexico --- resulting in thousands of kids being locked away in detention centers in just the past few weeks --- how long can Trump continue to falsely blame the Democrats for his own Dept. of Justice's new "zero tolerance" policy?

Trump and his department chiefs continue to double down on his false claim, despite the growing outrage from Americans after disturbing stories, pictures, and sounds of abuse continue to be reported out of these detention centers around the country, with media finally gaining very limited access to them.

We open the phone lines today to callers on all of those issues, as the chilling rise of Trump's GOP-approved authoritarianism in the U.S. continues to stun the nation and the world...

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On today's BradCast: The immigration horror stories of children being ripped from their parents and of asylum seekers fleeing domestic abuse in their home countries are beginning to pour in. We speak today to a longtime immigration attorney at the center of a number of landmark rulings, who is now representing the woman from El Salvador whose grant of asylum was unilaterally overturned this week by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. [Link to audio of the show is posted below.]

There are now more than 11,000 children who have been separated from their parents at the southern border being held in detention centers across the country by the U.S. Government. It's unclear whether that number includes the 2,000 kids taken from their parents over a recent six week period, as reported by AP today, under the Trump Administration's new "zero tolerance" policy, which requires criminal, rather than civil, prosecution against those who cross the border unlawfully.

This week, some members of the media finally received a limited first look inside one of the largest such detention centers --- a converted Walmart superstore in Brownsville, TX --- where some 1,500 boys, aged 10 to 17, are being warehoused. They are living five in each room built for four people, are forced to stay inside for 22 hours a day, and are being held, on average, for about 50 days each in the facility, before they are either sent to foster care or reunited with their parents (if those parents can find them within the government system.)

Media reports this week include horrific stories of babies being ripped from their mothers' arms while breastfeeding and parents being told that officials are simply taking their children to bathe them, before they are shipped away to a detention facility. Somehow, Donald Trump and his White House are managing to blame all of this on Democrats, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions is justifying these new Dept. of Justice policies by quoting the bible. We cover some of those nightmarish stories, reports that an outdoor tent city, in sweltering southwest TX near El Paso, is being planned to store more than 400 more children --- who are now being separated from their parents at an alarming rate --- and a confrontation between reporters and Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders over these matters during a briefing on Thursday.

In a separate, if related issue earlier in the week, Sessions issued a decision, attempting to change decades of U.S. immigration policy regarding asylum claims by immigrants fleeing their home countries on the basis of domestic abuse and gang violence.

We're joined today by KAREN MUSALO, Professor of Law and the Director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at the University of California Hastings College of Law to discuss the Administration's new policy. Musalo represents "A.B.", the El Salvadoran woman whose grant of asylum by the U.S. Immigration Board of Appeals was unilaterally overturned by Sessions on Monday, along with his announcement of the Administration's cruel new policy which declares that domestic abuse will no longer be an allowable basis for asylum seekers.

The longtime immigration rights attorney pushes back today, detailing the disturbing circumstances under which her client, Ms. A.B., fled her home country, explaining several poorly understood aspects of the U.S. Immigration Court system (which is part of the Dept. of Justice, not the federal Judicial branch --- so, judges work for Sessions), and stressing that the Attorney General is misinforming the public by claiming that asylum seekers fleeing domestic violence will no longer be allowed in the country.

"Clearly what the Attorney General is trying to do with issuing this decision is to send a strong message that cases of women fleeing domestic violence or people fleeing gang violence are not legitimate asylum claims," Musalo tells me. "But for those of us who are experts and understand the law, and read his decision closely --- he may want to send that message, and he did in fact reverse a 2014 precedent that clearly stated that survivors of domestic violence were eligible for asylum --- but there's a whole framework of law that has developed in the 38 years since the 1980 Refugee Act was enacted."

She says: "The reason I'm underscoring that point is that I think he's going to try to bully judges and asylum officers into thinking this is the law, there's no way around it, they should deny these cases --- and also, making lawyers think they shouldn't bring cases on behalf of their clients. So I feel it's very important to point out this is what he's trying to do, but that's not how the law is properly interpreted."

Musalo also stresses that, despite reports of an increase in those seeking asylum from Central America due to domestic abuse since the 2014 change in policy, "The number of claims have not skyrocketed as a result of the Obama Administration recognizing domestic violence as a basis of protection. That's simply not true."

"This has really made people rise up and say, "How can it be in the year 2018 that we have an Attorney General who says that you can send a woman to her death, back to a country where the police and the courts just sit by?," Musalo notes, citing Central American countries like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras with the "highest homicide rates in the world [and] the highest femicide rates in the world, denoting gender-motivated killings."

There is a lot of important and enlightening information that Musalo imparts today --- more than I can adequately share in a short description here --- so I urge you to listen to the full conversation on today's program.

Finally today, Stephen Colbert, just before Father's Day, had a few thoughts of his own on CBS' Late Show in response to Sessions' use of a bible passage to justify the Administration's cruel and alarming new policy of separating children from their parents at the border. It also should be considered a must-listen...

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Follow @GreenNewsReport...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: EPA Chief Scott Pruitt finally losing support among Republicans amid another new scandal; Antarctica's ice melting three times faster than predicted; DNC bans corporate fossil fuel donations; High-tide flooding has doubled over the last 30 years; PLUS: Electric cars have become so cheap to drive, even the Trump Administration can't ignore them... 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’s environmental rollbacks put thousands of lives at risk; New records show Puerto Rico's death toll from Hurricane Maria much higher than official government figure; All 5 FERC federal energy regulators don’t believe there’s a national security emergency on coal; Judge shows skepticism to New York climate change lawsuit; NV Energy 2.3-cent solar contract could set new price record; U.S. shale firms miss out on $70 oil after hedging at $55; Volkswagen to pay Vermont $6.5 million in emissions lawsuit... PLUS: Trump wants to bail out coal and nuclear power. Here’s Why That Will Be Hard... and much, MUCH more! ...

It was another wildly busy BradCast today. I know. What else is new? But, with Trump declaring today on Twitter that "There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea" (Phew! That was easy!) and that "Our Country’s biggest enemy" is the media(!), we had plenty of time to cover a lot of other things, the day after Tuesday's five state primary. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Among those stories...

Maine's Republican Governor Paul LePage, the dumbest in the nation, was accidentally right (sort of) in his poorly stated opposition during yesterday's primaries, to Ranked Choice Voting (or RCV, also sometimes known as Instant Runoff Voting or IRV). On Tuesday, Maine was the first in the nation to use RCV in a statewide election, despite the fact that it's very difficult to count, virtually impossible for the public to oversee, requires central tabulation and computers to pull off, and candidates and voters in many places where it's been tried in the past have found that it's impossible to understand why some candidates won and others lost.

(NOTE: Before you send me your hate mail, progressives and third-party people, please listen to today's show first, and also note that I'm willing to entertain a much simpler method of voting/counting which solves many of problems that folks who support RCV are concerned about. It's called Approval Voting. Basically, that allows voters to vote 'yes' or 'no' for as many candidates as they like. Whoever receives the most 'yes' votes wins. Simple. Overseeable. No computers necessary. And, it helps to avoid the "spoiler effect" that many proponents of RCV hope to solve. Listen to the full show, and then feel free to send your hate mail. UPDATE: Here's one more nightmare scenario for RCV, if you still need one.)

Anyway, LePage has threatened to not certify Tuesday's elections in his state because they are using RCV, which voters adopted in 2016. He's wrong about that and somewhat right about his RCV concerns, but --- because it's LePage --- for all the wrong reasons. I explain in detail on the show.

Speaking of this country's failure to even be able to count 1+1+1 reliably and overseeably in elections (even without adding the complicated algebra of RCV), the state of Nevada took its new, 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems out for a test drive across the state in their primary election on Tuesday. It did not go well. At some precincts, some candidates did not appear on some screens. Other precincts reported candidates pre-selected on their touchscreens (possibly left over from a previous voter, whose ballots may not have actually been cast.) And other problems that we describe on today's show.

We also cover some actual election results from Tuesday's primaries in Maine, Virginia, North Dakota, South Carolina and Nevada, as well as special elections in Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker (R) had attempted to prevent two special elections for the state legislature from happening at all --- because he feared the seats would flip from "Red" to "Blue" --- one of those seats in the state Senate did, in fact, flip to the Democrats for the first time in four-decades, in a very Republican district.

In Virginia, GOP voters nominated Corey Stewart, a far rightwing, Trump-endorsed Confederacy defender as their nominee to challenge Sen. Tim Kaine for the U.S. Senate this year. In South Carolina, former Governor, now U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford was turfed out in his primary by another Republican for not being Trumpy enough. And, in D.C., retiring Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee (correctly) charged that his party has become little more than a Trump "cult".

In Canada, meanwhile, the House of Commons unanimously pushed back on the Trump Administration's weekend attack on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following the G7 summit, and on the tariffs imposed by Trump on steel and aluminum from our longtime friends and allies to the north. And the next day, in a complete coincidence, Trump's DHS hardened their border policy with Canada to, supposedly, prevent criminals and terrorists from entering the U.S.

Finally today, a ballot initiative that would break California into three states appears to have qualified for this November's ballot! While the measure is currently said to be very unpopular with actual voters in the Golden State, it seems at least as unthinkable that it could pass as that Donald Trump could ever become President of the United States...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: California voters choose climate action at the polls; Yet another ethics scandal for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt; Federal judge orders EPA to cough up scientific evidence humans are not driving climate change; PLUS: Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord could cost the U.S. economy trillions... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The heat is back on high as May 2018 smashes US temperature records; Documents show Trump officials took actions on coal baron's energy policy requests; China has built a road so smart it will be able to charge your car; Electric vehicles will grow from 3 million to 125 million by 2030, International Energy Agency forecasts; Trump's move to please farmers on biofuels reform draws refinery union ire; First grid-scale liquid air energy storage plant launches in UK; Eerie silence falls on Shetland cliffs; NOAA: U.S. coastal flooding breaks records as sea level rises... PLUS: 'Ecotopia' teaches low-carbon living to Californians who aren't waiting for Trump to save the climate... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: It was a wild ride on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, particularly in California, as eight states (CA, AL, IA, MS, MT, NJ, NM and SD) all held their held their mid-term primary elections, along with another special election for MO's state legislature.

Most eyes were on the Golden State Tuesday, as Democrats see as many as seven U.S. House seats currently held by Republicans that they may be able to flip this November. But, thanks to California's "Top Two" or "Jungle Primary" system, where all candidates, from all parties, run in the same primary --- with the top two vote-getters going on to compete in November --- there was a very real chance that Dems could have been shut out of some of those flippable races altogether, due to the sheer number of Democrats on yesterday's ballot. That bullet appears to have been dodged, so far. As of Wednesday afternoon, it appears that Dems will place in the two top in each of those races, though votes are still being tallied across the state, and a number of Election Day concerns have muddied some of the water.

One such concern is the more than 118,000 voters whose names were left off of the printed voter rosters at the polls in Los Angeles County, due to a "printing error". Though voters were all supposed to have been given provisional ballots if their names did not appear, the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which leads the national Election Protection coalition, reported in a statement last night that "many were not".

Meanwhile, in the northern part of the state, it was a failure of electronic pollbooks in CA's San Mateo County that forced some voters to cast hand-marked paper provisional ballots (arguably better than the county's 100% unverifiable electronic voting system, however!) And a similar failure of computerized e-pollbooks from a private vendor in eight different South Dakota counties also jeopardized that state's election on Tuesday.

We're joined today by JIM DEAN, longtime chair of Democracy for America (DFA), which has has been fighting to build a broad, progressive grassroots coalition since Dean's brother Howard famously ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination back in 2004. Dean, whose DFA-endorsed candidates won some and lost some on Tuesday, excoriates the national, "institutional" Democratic Party for meddling in state primaries, including in CA, where, he argues, voters, not the party, should be allowed to decide who will run in November.

"If we aren't good enough to expand the electorate in these districts, to have enough support so that one of the Democratic candidates is going to survive this top two 'jungle primary' system --- if we're not good enough to do that, then it doesn't matter whether they engineer a Democratic second place finisher or not," he contends.

He also suggests that this week's primaries in CA, may signal that it's time to end the state's "experiment" with the Top Two system, while otherwise observing that Tuesday, overall, was a very good day for Democrats and progressives alike. Dean tells me he is "celebrating" the "plethora of candidates that are out there running and putting themselves out" in response to the nation's "little Fort Sumter moment in 2016."

We also discuss what effect the 2nd place finish by Republican businessman John Cox to take on Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom in the Gubernatorial race this November in CA is likely to have on Dems chances of flipping several House seats from "red" to "blue" and how the U.S. Senate contest between two Democrats, Sen. Diane Feinstein and the more progressive (DFA-endorsed) second-place finisher, state Senate President Kevin de León, might effect voter turnout across the state as well.

As to the party's national message, such that there is one to date, Dean believes the candidates who are running this year will force the party in the right direction. "Last year, canvassers were being told not to talk to voters about immigration and gun control," he says. "It's time for us to start standing up. The thing that is so great about these candidates, they're pushing this out. You may not agree with their positions, but they are pushing this stuff out. We are having a lot of progressive positions that do have traction. $15 an hour is another one. Medicare For All. A lot of things are going to come out in the primary process, and we just have to make sure the leadership doesn't buckle that down" as they have in years past.

"I think the candidates are going to change that. I'm confident their aggressive style is going to force the leadership to actually say what they're for, and not say 'you gotta vote for us because the other guy's really bad', which is not a winning message."

There was more good news elsewhere for Democrats and progressives on Tuesday, including in New Mexico where Debra Haaland now appears poised to become the first Native American woman ever in the U.S. House after winning her primary. And progressive grassroots upstart Susan Herrera unseated a long-serving, rightwing corporatist Democrat in the state's House of Representatives, making reform in NM for things like automatic voter registration and gun safety legislation now much more likely. There is no Republican running against her for the seat this fall.

Finally, in Missouri, Democrat Lauren Arthur won a special election for the state Senate, in a district that has been held by Republicans for more than a decade. Her whopping 19-point victory (a nearly 25-point swing since Trump won the district by 5 points in 2016), appears to be freaking out many Republicans in MO and elsewhere, who worry about the potential "blue wave" that Dems hope to see crashing ashore this November...

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On today's BradCast: As voters head to the polls in eight states (CA, AL, IA, MS, MT, NJ, NM and SD) on Tuesday, we cover a few "sorta victories" elsewhere for now, including at the U.S. Supreme Court. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Reports of problems at the polls have already cropped up, however, in South Dakota, where electronic pollbooks failed in eight counties, and here in Los Angeles, where a "random issue with the print job" on paper rosters at polling places, according to the County Clerk, has led to some voters needing to cast provisional ballots.

As we await election results and likely reports of more problems elsewhere, a "sorta victory" for Twitter users who had sued the President after he blocked them on Twitter. Those seven plaintiffs were finally unblocked by Trump after a federal court found last month that he was violating their Constitutional First Amendment free speech rights. But, on the same day those seven were unblocked, the Dept. of Justice appealed the court's ruling anyway.

In Alabama, another "sorta victory" as the story of Sec. of State John Merrill blocking folks on Twitter for pointing out his errors as the state's top election official, has finally been picked up by the corporate media in the state. That, just hours before voters headed to the polls, with Merrill himself on the ballot. The coverage comes after we first reported on Merrill's behavior months ago (when he blocked me for being right about the state's computerized election tabulators), and again last week after he sent me a flurry of insane emails [PDF] in response to a simple query as to whether he planned to unblock followers now that a federal court has found his behavior to be in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The Montgomery Advertiser's weak coverage, however, largely serves to offer the Sec. of State a platform to call election experts and journalists "trolls" (for being correct and polite), while still refusing to unblock them.

In Arizona, a lawsuit against the state for keeping tens of thousands of registered voters off the rolls for failing to provide "proof of citizenship" before being allowed to vote has now been settled with a consent decree that will enfranchise many voters, even if it will still result in thousands being disallowed from voting in state and local contests. So, a "sorta victory" there as well.

And, at the U.S. Supreme Court this week, a "sorta victory" for both anti-gay bigots and civil rights advocates as the long-awaited ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. CO Civil Rights Commission, a case involving a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex couple's wedding reception is finally decided by a narrow 7 to 2 ruling in favor of the baker...sorta.

Slate legal reporter MARK JOSEPH STERN joins us to explain how Justice Anthony Kennedy, with his majority opinion. tries to "have his cake and eat it too," by largely kicking the can down the road for another day, while ostensibly siding with the baker against the state Commission on rather dubious religious freedom grounds.

The decision, however, also appears to strengthen the existing right of states to bar discrimination by similar businesses on the basis of sexual orientation. So much so, that, under the ruling, the two plaintiffs, according to their ACLU attorney, should be able to walk into Jack Phillip's Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, CO today and purchase a cake for their wedding anniversary, if they wished. If they are blocked, that would be in violation of the Constitution. Nonetheless, a definitive opinion from SCOTUS on the issue of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation will have to wait for another day.

"If the Supreme Court applied the same standard to the [Trump] travel ban case as they have applied to Masterpiece, the Court would have no trouble striking down the travel ban as a violation of First Amendment religious freedoms," Stern tells me, when I ask whether Kennedy's weak religious liberty argument here may apply more to some religions than others. "Unfortunately, I do not think the court is going to be consistent. I think, instead, the Court's going to wind up applying a much stricter standard when it's Christians' rights on the line, than when it's Muslims' rights on the line. And we're all going to be very disappointed in this kind of inconsistent religious liberty --- 'for me, but not for thee.'"

Stern offers smart insight on the Court's opinion(s) --- which were widely misreported elsewhere on Monday --- as well as another decision this week from the Court on the Trump Administration's failed attempt to punish the ACLU for supporting a teen immigrant who sought a lawful abortion after being detained at the border. That ruling, at least, was a complete victory, he explains, not just a "sorta" one.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with news on two deadly volcanoes in Guatemala and Hawaii, the Administration's new scheme to bail-out the coal industry, Canada's new scheme to nationalize a controversial pipeline, and more distressing fossil fuel and climate change news...

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On today's BradCast, we're joined by our old friend CENK UYGUR, host and founder of the wildly popular online news outlet, The Young Turks and the entire TYTNetwork. [Audio link follows below.]

We have a wide-ranging conversation on a host of important topics, beginning with the chaotic mid-term primaries coming up next Tuesday in California, where, for example, 32 candidates, from all parties, are vying in the same race for the top two slots to go on to the November general election in the fight for longtime Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein's seat.

Of even greater concern to Democrats hoping to win back one or both chambers of Congress, are seven Republican U.S. House seats thought to be flippable in the Golden State this year. However, thanks to the state's "Top Two" primary system and a glut of Democrats on the ballot, the progressive vote could be split in a number of those races, resulting in no Democrats qualifying for the November ballot at all in several of those contests next week.

Uygur discusses the pros and cons of California's strange primary system and much more, including how both corporate and independent media ought to be covering the "insanity" of Donald Trump, who he describes as "the monster in office...on fascism's doorstep".

The corporate media, he argues, "are afraid of offending Republican viewers. Their business imperative to not lose a certain percentage of their audience is coloring how they cover the truth of the matter. In reality, they should go out there and do what we do, and say: 'If you believe this, you are nuts. It's not remotely true.' But they're afraid they are going to turn off 30% of the country, and lose advertising dollars."

"We are a news outlet that is proudly activist," he tells me when I ask whether TYT is a political organization. "The rest of mainstream news and corporate news say 'Hey, relax, don't do anything. Do the news, but don't care about it, don't try to fix anything! Fixing anything is bad!' And we don't agree with that. We think that you can present the news and say, 'Now here's what you can do to fix it.'"

As to independent outlets, he charges, "we're not emphasizing enough that the President of the United States is a combination of mentally unhealthy, certainly unstable, incredibly dumb and, most importantly, fascist."

We also talk about the continuing internecine battle between the progressive and establishment wings of the Democratic Party, whether they can and will and should come together this November, and we even chat a bit about the sad story of Roseanne Barr who, Ugyur believes, "similar to Kanye West, similar to Glenn Beck, similar to Alex Jones...all have mental health problems."

Uygur, who is also a founder of Wolf-PAC (fighting to get all money out of politics), and a former founding member of Justice Democrats (fighting to put progressive Democrats into office), also makes the case for a number of progressive U.S. House and Senate candidates in California endorsed by one or both of those groups.

Also on today's show: While the economy is supposedly doing great, according to Donald Trump and the GOP, wages are failing to rise commensurately, even after the massive tax cuts passed last year, largely for the wealthy and corporations. Now why would that be? And, some encouraging news today out of Virginia, which is poised to finally expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare") to some 400,000 residents, thanks to voters who turned out last November to flip enough seats in the state legislature from "red" to "blue" to finally assure health care to hundreds of thousands in the state. And, finally today, a bit more good news for Democrats, as new polling finds a majority of young voters plan to turn out to vote in this year's mid-terms, and they are far less Republicans than the population at large...

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