Today on The BradCast: On the eve of Donald Trump's scheduled Monday summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dept. of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller brought eleven new felony charges against twelve Russian military intelligence officials on Friday. They were charged with various crimes related to cyber-interference in the 2016 Presidential election. And, a bi-partisan federal lawsuit is filed in South Carolina in hopes of finally terminating the state's easily-hacked, repeatedly-failed, 100% unverifiable voting system. [Audio link to show follows at end of article.]

The Russian military officials cited in today's indictment [PDF] relates to hacking into and stealing documents from the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign, and releasing them to the public in hopes of manipulating the election. The charges also relate to attacks against state and county election officials and a voter registration company where email spearphishing schemes are said to have implanted malware onto the computer networks in question.

The new indictment does not allege any Americans knew of the hacking scheme detailed by Mueller, though it notes that Trump's public July 2016 call for Russia to find and release "missing" personal Hillary Clinton emails was followed by attacks, "for the first time", on an Internet domain used by her personal office.

While the filing details at least one state voter registration system where some 500,000 private records were accessed, it does not allege that voting results were manipulated (although the DHS admitted last year they never examined either ballots or voting systems.) During Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's announcement of the new charges, he also excoriated partisan and media speculation regarding the probe, as well as attacks (presumably by Congressional GOPers and Trump) on the FBI itself.

Meanwhile, much media coverage was given on Thursday to the insanely chaotic ten-hour long U.S. House hearing featuring testimony by Peter Strzok, the top FBI counter-intelligence specialist who initially led the investigation into Russian interference back in 2016. At the same time, a hearing in the U.S. Senate this week on safeguarding our election infrastructure received little or not coverage. Today, we try to correct that a bit, with some of the testimony offered by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), sponsor of a new election reform bill in the Senate --- the Protecting American Votes and Elections (PAVE) Act --- which is the only one that would require a HAND-MARKED paper ballot for every voter in the U.S. His testimony calls out ES&S, the nation's largest computer voting system vendor, for failing to show up for the hearing or answer any of his basic cyber-security questions he's sent to the company over the past year.

Then, after more than a decade of failed elections on the 100% unverifiable ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting systems used across the state of South Carolina --- including the still-remarkable and still-unexplained story of Alvin Greene, the completely unknown, unemployed man who somehow managed to win the state's 2010 Democratic U.S. Senate primary without campaigning at all, against a longtime, well-known state legislator and circuit court judge --- a lawsuit was filed this week in federal court to force the state to offer a secure system to voters.

The complaint [PDF] was filed on behalf of two plaintiffs. One, a former eight-term Democratic state legislator, the other a longtime Republican Freedom of Information Act champion and election critic in the Palmetto State. The Republican plaintiff, FRANK HEINDEL, and attorney LARRY SCHWARTZTOL, of the non-partisan, non-profit ProtectDemocracy.org, join me to explain the lawsuit, Heindel's years of work attempting to oversee state elections (and their accompanying disasters), and whether the new complaint might make any difference in the state before this year's crucial 2018 midterms.

"I've just always been skeptical of the 'black box' mentality where you go in and you just trust the machine, and there's no way to verify the results," Heindel explains. "I've just never really trusted that system. I've tried to push us towards a more paper-based way to vote, and it's taken many years here, but I'm starting to get a little optimistic that the worm has turned and we're going to make some progress."

"You need a system where the winner knows that he won, the loser knows that he lost, and everybody knows that their votes were cast and counted directly. We don't have that today," he tells me. The longtime businessman has spent the last decade or more filing some 47 FOIA requests attempting to personally investigate election results and related problems in the state. (We've been following Heindel's efforts for years. You can watch part of Dan Rather's 2010 report on Heindel, right here.)

The longtime litigator Schwartztol, for his part, explains: "What we're arguing for in the lawsuit is to replace that system with one that meets basic, common-sense principles. Secure in its basic architecture against cyber-attacks. The main way to do that, most people agree, is a pretty simple one. And that's building a system around paper ballots, that can be verified, that can be audited, that can be the subject of a recount if that's necessary."

"What we describe in the lawsuit is a voting system that contains unnecessary vulnerabilities and that is not sufficiently reliable to do the work," he adds. "The work of ensuring that votes are accurately recorded and counted."

He lauds the state's election commission chair, Marci Andino (one of the suits defendants), for stating her desire to move to a new system, but is critical of the claim that it would require $50 million to do so. A paper ballot system he says, citing a recent report from NYU's Brennan Center for Justice, would cost much less. He also tells me that one of the solutions they hope to pursue in the case, potentially before November, is the use of the state's absentee paper ballot system that could be used for all voters this year.

"You saw today where Rosenstein was saying that the Russians had sent phishing emails to various state and county folks," notes Heindel. "Our county election people, they're hard-working and they mean well, but I can get tricked on a phishing email. The idea that we have state and county election people that are trying to fend off sophisticated attacks from foreign adversaries, it's crucial that we get our arms around this thing, and get to paper sooner rather than later."

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On today's BradCast, let's join the President and pretend that he's been victorious once again! Or, let's discuss the reality of the havoc being wrought by both him and the party that supports him as they go even farther off the deep-end and hope to take everybody else with them. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Among the stories covered on today's broadcast, as we continue to counter the madness with actual, independently verifiable facts...

• Trump wreaks absolute havoc at the NATO summit in Brussels, makes ridiculous demands that lead to an emergency meeting of our allies, and then declares he's fixed it all. He hasn't. But, let's pretend, as he claimed, that NATO is now a "fine-tuned machine". (Does that claim ring a bell?) We offer a fact-check on Trump's actual ridiculous claims and the realities behind them;

• Back at home, Trump-fueled chaos similarly breaks out at a joint hearing of the U.S. House Oversight and Judiciary Committees during public testimony by longtime top FBI counter-intelligence official Peter Strzok, whose private text messages to his girlfriend, another FBI agent, have been cause for Trump, the GOP and rightwing media to pretend that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation was somehow part of a long "deep state" plot by the FBI to prevent Trump from being elected. Except he was elected. (Some plot!) And Mueller's probe has since resulted in dozens of indictments and guilty pleas from many top Trump campaign and White House officials. But we can keep pretending; In some remarkable audio from the insane hearing in the House today today, Strzok strikes back and helps reveal the Republican House witch-hunt against the Special Counsel for much of what it really is.

• Speaking of reality, new data out from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and elsewhere reveals that not only have the Trump/GOP tax cuts from last December not resulted in increased pay for the "forgotten men and women" of the middle-class, as they'd promised, but workers are now actually making less than they did before the massive, deficit-blowing cuts which have resulted only in record profits for corporations and the already-wealthy;

• Listeners offer response to our recent coverage of Trump's SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Democrats', so far, tepid plan to block his confirmation. (Constitutional quorum call, anyone?);

• And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with more on the existential threat Kavanaugh's seating poses to the environment, how a major oil company CEO is calling for a speed-up of the transition to electric vehicles, and how a world full of poo just might save itself...

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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: After turning on our closest allies at the G7 summit over the weekend, Donald Trump made history on Tuesday by shaking hands, meeting with, and praising brutal North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un at a much-anticipated, on-again off-again, made for Reality TV summit in Singapore. [Audio link to show follows below.]

The two signed and released a thin, one-page joint statement at the meeting's end, calling for the vaguely referenced "denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula", with the U.S. offering security guarantees to the isolated nation for what appears to be precious little in return. Trump also announced, to the apparent surprise and dismay of both our allies in South Korea and even the U.S. military, that he intends to end joint military exercises with the South, which he described (just as the North does), as "provocative".

Trump later went on to dismiss the long-documented history of murderous and brutal human rights violations in NK, which our guest today, former Deputy Asst. Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs MICHAEL FUCHS, describes as "the most brutal dictatorship on the face of the planet." Trump's response today, when asked about the country's horrifying human rights abuses: "It doesn't matter. We're starting from scratch. We're starting right now."

Indeed, as Fuchs notes, the joint document signed by the pair does not speak to Kim's atrocities in any way, nor does it reference his ballistic missile program. Trump has repeatedly cited the failure to deal with Iran's missile program as central to his reason for pulling out and violating the comprehensive, seven-nation pact struck during the Obama Administration with Iran, which ended that country's ability to even build nuclear weapons.

Fuchs, now a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, offers key insight and analysis as a former diplomat who worked closely on these issues with the previous administration, including the history of similar (if much more comprehensive) agreements during several previous administrations, all of which were ultimately violated by Kim's father, the previous leader. "This is a repeat of what we've seen before," he tells me. "We have had numerous agreements, numerous joint statements, dating back more than 25 years. This statement resembles, to be fair, the least-detailed statements that North Korea and the United States have ever put out."

He argues that the current turn to diplomacy, while welcome, is only due to a "false choice between war, which [Trump] was advocating for, or diplomacy. We should be engaged in diplomacy with North Korea, but we should be engaged in it at the right level, with the experts negotiating things, to see if we can get North Korea to commit to verifiable steps to reduce the threat to the United States. Instead of, frankly and unfortunately, the sort of 'pomp and circumstance' show that we got."

Noting that the agreement doesn't even define what is meant by "denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," for which NK has a wildly different definition than that of the U.S., Fuchs explains: "This is the crux of the entire matter. What do both sides mean by 'denuclearization' and what is North Korea willing to do? And it's clear to me that the vague language in this statement is the result of not getting agreement from the two parties on what they mean."

"We didn't get any specifics, any agreements for [North Korea] to do anything when it comes to stopping or halting their nuclear or missile programs right now. They didn't even reiterate in the agreement that North Korea would continue what has been a months-long freeze on its testing of nuclear weapons and missiles," Fuchs charges, describing what he characterized at the Guardian today as "the latest episode in the TV series starring the US president, Donald Trump, North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and a stockpile of nuclear weapons" in "one of the world’s most intractable and dangerous conflicts."

(And, yes, the summit even included a schlocky fake movie trailer that Trump played for Kim on an iPad at the beginning of their conversation.)

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with details on how climate change was at the center of Trump's turn against the United State's closes allies at this past weekend's G7 summit in Canada, and much more...

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On today's BradCast, a top State Department official under President Obama joins us to detail the "high stakes" and major pitfalls that await Donald Trump's negotiations with Kim Jong Un, if next month's historic scheduled summit actually happens, and the already-contradictory positions offered over the weekend by the Administration. [Audio link to show follows below.]

But, first up today, CIA Director-nominee Gina Haspel finally concedes in a letter to Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) that the U.S. torture program --- which she still describes as "enhanced interrogation" --- instituted after 9/11 was a mistake. She refused to admit as much during her public confirmation testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, nor has she ever been held accountable for overseeing torture at a secret CIA prison she ran in Thailand, nor for her part in destroying video tapes of the waterboarding and other torture of prisoners there. Nonetheless, her confirmation now appears to be all but assured as Warner and other Democrats have committed to voting for her.

Also today, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley defended Israel's killing of more than 60 Palestinian protesters (and a baby) and the wounding of thousands in Gaza on Monday, as well as the controversial move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. During an emergency session at the U.N. on Tuesday, called in response to the escalating violence on Israel's border, Haley lauded the "restraint" used by Israel, as they and the U.S. were all but isolated in their support for the embassy move and for Israel opening fire on protesters. Adversaries and allies alike condemned both actions, and the U.N.'s human rights chief has called for an investigation of the attacks on mostly unarmed Palestinian protesters in recent weeks.

Then, with a landmark summit scheduled for next month in Singapore between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, we speak with President Obama's former Deputy Asst. Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs, MICHAEL FUCHS, who is now a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. The historic meeting may now be imperiled, however, by the North's objections to ongoing joint U.S./South Korean military exercises on the peninsula, according to news breaking just before airtime today. Nonetheless, Fuchs details the many complications that lie ahead in negotiations, should the meeting actually come about.

"We need to wait and see what kind of information this really is and whether it can be confirmed," he tells me, regarding late reports that the North may wish to pull out of the summit. "I will say, true or not --- let the games begin. We are now in the midst of high stakes, high pressure diplomacy at the highest levels, of an unprecedented nature between the United States and North Korea. So the games that we've seen played by North Korea, and by the United States and others in the region, is just going to intensify now."

Among other things, Fuchs explains how Trump and Kim appear to have very different definition of the concept of "denuclearization"; how Trump's violation of the anti-nuclear pact with Iran last week is likely to increase leverage for Kim, as Trump appears increasingly desperate to make a deal --- any deal --- with the North; and how the Administration's current negotiating position appears to be all over the map, as based on conflicting remarks on last Sunday's news shows by Sec. of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton.

"I think the Iran deal withdrawal definitely adds fuel to the fire here. And the potential danger here --- I think there are lots of different dangers with this summit --- but I definitely think that one of them is that Trump wants a deal, he wants to bring home victory, if you will, and so he's going to want to spin this summit as a success," argues Fuchs, adding: "I don't think Trump is a very good negotiator. I don't think he understands the details of these issues. Nor do I think he has the interests of our US allies at heart. I think there's a very good possibility that he will throw allies under the bus in exchange for what looks like a good deal." In fact, Pompeo suggested on Sunday that a deal in which North Korea does away with its long-range missiles that could reach the U.S. might be enough to satisfy Trump, even if both nukes and short range missiles are allowed to remain on the peninsula, threatening our allies there. Bolton suggested the opposite.

The former Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for Strategic Dialogues under then Sec. of State Hillary Clinton also details how the hollowing out of the State Dept. since Trump entered office may affect negotiations ("The question is not so much about whether or not we have the right personnel in place, it's whether or not the political leadership in the White House is actually listening to them and allowing them to do their jobs"). Fuchs explains how Kim is hoping to drive a wedge between the U.S. and the South (and may succeed at it), and also offers insight into Trump's apparent complete reversal over the weekend regarding sanctions against Chinese electronics giant ZTE.

Don't miss this very enlightening conversation. It would really be useful if Trump tuned in as well, frankly!

Finally, we're joined by Desi Doyen for the latest Green News Report, as the Trump Administration is blocking the release of a damning report on widespread water contamination across the U.S., a major energy company is revealed to have paid actors to pretend to be supporters of a new power plant project during a public hearing in Louisiana, and California adopts a landmark solar power mandate for new residential building construction...

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On today's BradCast, Desi and I are back! But you should tune in anyway! [Audio link to show follows below.]

My great thanks to Angie Coiro of In Deep Radio for filling in for us last week!

Among the stories covered on today's program, as we try to get back up to speed...

• More than 2,000 were reportedly wounded and over 50 killed as Israel opened fire on protesters in Gaza today during the "festive" opening ceremony for the controversial U.S. embassy Donald Trump moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Much of the Muslim and Arab world condemned the attacks on the unarmed Palestinian protesters, but so so did the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and many others.

• Back in the U.S., a new analysis from Washington Post finds that an administrative error led to at least 26 Democratic leaning voters being assigned to the wrong legislative district during last November's House of Delegates election in Virginia. The race in Newport News between Democrat Shelly Simonds and Republican David Yancey in HD-94, was judged to be a tie after a "recount", which was subsequently broken by a random drawing giving the seat to Yancey and allowing the GOP to retain control of the House. That failure, and similarly mis-assigned voters in yet another highly gerrymandered district in Fredericksburg, prevented what should, in retrospect, have been a Democratic takeover of the state's House in 2017 amidst a "Blue Wave" that otherwise managed to flip 15 seats from R to D.

• Also today, a new report on what was reportedly a foreign-sourced cyberattack on Election Night two weeks ago in Knox County, Tennessee is troubling on a number of levels, though not necessary the one being reported by some media outlets citing a Ukrainian IP address used in the denial of service attack which was also sourced to countries on every continent except for Antarctica. We discuss what is known and still isn't, following the attack which took down the web-based election night results page for an hour after the close of polls two weeks ago, including one race said to have been decided by just 17 votes on the county's 100% unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic voting systems...

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On today's BradCast, I'm sitting in for Brad again on a very, very busy news day. Strap in!

Top of the hour we swing right into a conversation about Gina Haspel's Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing. Her best qualification to head the CIA might be her complete refusal to share any real information with anyone - including something as simple as whether she's met alone with Donald Trump. Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel is back on the BradCast, with her impressions from watching the hearing, and a lot of questions that didn't get asked - at least, in the short window between the first question and the doors closing for private interrogation.

We're running out of people who haven't given money to Michael Cohen. Add to previous lists AT&T, Novartis, and one of Vladimir Putin's close (and apparently quite dangerous) buddies. AT&T says it paid not for access, but to "learn how Trump's mind works" (note the "how" - "whether" didn't come up, apparently). Legal scholar Jed Shugerman, who blogs at Shugerblog, puts these new revelations into the long Russia/Trump timeline and says - while that elusive smoking gun isn't flashing on the horizon yet - collusion charges seem a little bit closer.

Digital strategist Beth Becker reads the tea leaves from this week's elections, to see what we can glean for the next go-round. She has a dismaying but all too likely prediction: some very good, highly qualified liberal candidate will have to go down in flames before the center-to-Left Americans will finally see the value in unifying. In other words, the Bernie Bros and Crooked Hillary contingents need to stand down and deal. She has a great albeit tentative prediction for Hillary, though. Beth conducts digital strategy bootcamps around the country. You can check out the next dates here.

Finally, something a bit bigger picture: whither ethics in the morass of politicians for sale, corporate lies, candidate lies, voter interference - where do we learn honesty? How? Who gets it and who doesn't? The show wraps up with excerpts from discussion all about honesty in America, featuring Stanford's Deborah Rhode. You can hear the whole one hour panel at website for my show, In Deep with Angie Coiro.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Whistleblower says EPA chief Pruitt lied to Congress; Trump Administration's launches new effort to roll back fuel economy standards; Australia pledges of millions of dollars in bid to rescue Great Barrier Reef; PLUS: The U.S. now has its first-ever climate science denying Secretary of State... 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): Climate change will leave many Pacific islands uninhabitable by mid-century; House panel to interview EPA chief Scott Pruitt's former head of security in conduct probe; Pruitt's EPA is on the verge of 'regulatory capture', study says; Electric buses are coming, and they’re going to help fix 4 big urban problems; New York to electrify complete bus fleet; EPA grants ‘financial hardship’ waiver to oil refinery owned by billionaire, Trump confidant; The world’s bleak climate situation, in 3 charts; n the fate of the California Delta smelt, warnings of conservation gone wrong; In Cities v. Fossil Fuels, Exxon’s allies want the accusers investigated; U.S. Supreme Court rejects Constitution Pipeline over New York permit; Russia launches floating nuclear power plant, now headed to the Arctic... PLUS: It’s time to think seriously about cutting off the supply of fossil fuels... and much, MUCH more! ...

At long last, we're beginning to see shades, shadows, clouds of accountability rolling in across D.C. and even elsewhere in the country. Many of those clouds seemed to roll in all at once today for some reason, but we cover as many as we can on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

Among the stories on today's busy program...

• Huge explosions, a raging fire, and 10-mile evacuations at another oil refinery today, this time in Wisconsin;

• Bill Cosby is found guilty on three felony counts of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman and now faces the rest of his life in prison;

• Tens of thousands of teachers walked out in Arizona and Colorado on Thursday, demanding increased funding for education after years of slashed state budgets to help pay for tax cuts to the rich and corporations;

• A spate of new polling suggest Senate Republicans may face a storm of accountability this November, with encouraging numbers for Democratic candidates in at least three different states --- Arizona, Tennessee and Nevada --- where they hope to flip "red" seats to "blue" to regain majority control of the upper chamber of Congress this fall. (And also in a fourth state, if you include Texas, where Sen. Ted Cruz' challenger Rep. Beto O'Rourke is now within "too close to call" striking distance, according to new polling, even as the Democrat is refusing corporate and super PAC funding, even from billionaire Tom Steyer);

• No accountability to date, however, for the anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-environment, pro-war CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who was narrowly confirmed in the U.S. Senate today as Donald Trump's new Secretary of State;

• The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve a bi-partisan bill to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller from being fired by Trump, though obstructionism from GOP leadership in the full Senate and U.S. House will likely prevent the legislation from going any further;

• Admiral Ronny Jackson, Trump's personal White House physician and his nominee to head the Dept. of Veterans Affairs finally withdrew his name from consideration following a host of damning allegations from current and former White House and military co-workers unearthed by Sen. Jon Tester (MT), the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee;

• Trump's wildly corrupt and scandal-plagued EPA chief Scott Pruitt finally faced a bit of accountability, at least from Dems, as he testified before two separate House Committees on Thursday and refused to answer many direct questions, threw much of his staff under the bus, and denied responsibility for the mountain of personal corruption scandals he continues to face --- even as bi-partisan calls for his resignation continue;

• And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with more on Pruitt's anti-climate perfidy, French President Emmanuel Macron's blistering swipes at President Trump's environmental record during a joint session of Congress, and much more.

Yes, it was another insanely busy news day, but we gotcha covered, in one fast moving hour today. Buckle up!...

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P.S. We will be off tomorrow, but don't panic! We're back on Monday, as usual!

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On today's BradCast: The Fox "News"-ification of Donald Trump's U.S. Government ramps way up with the terrifying late Thursday appointment of far-right neo-con, controversial former George W. Bush Administration official, and longtime Fox "News" contributor John Bolton as the President's third National Security Advisor. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Last week, national security journalist MARCY WHEELER of Emptywheel joined us to discuss the sudden firing of Sec. of State Rex Tillerson, and the move of wingnut CIA Director Mike Pompeo into Tillerson's role, with Pompeo's Deputy Director, Gina Haspel's nomination to become the next CIA Director. Haspel oversaw torture and the destruction of evidence of it while in charge of a secret overseas U.S. prison in 2002. But, unlike those positions, which require U.S. Senate confirmation, the President's National Security Advisor is a direct appointment, as Wheeler noted at the very end of the show last week, explaining that there would be nothing to prevent Bolton's appointment. If Trump wants Bolton as NSA, she chillingly warned, "he's in charge of nuking North Korea."

Well, sure enough, on Thursday, H.R. McMaster was pushed out as NSA and Bolton was named to replace him. So, Wheeler returns today discuss the many concerns --- from right, left and center --- about the dangerous new appointment of a man who strongly supported the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, arguing at the time that the role of the U.S. there, after removing Saddam's (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction, would be "fairly minimal". He is also long and loudly on record calling for similar first-strike U.S. aggression against both Iran and nuclear-armed North Korea.

As Iraq War veteran and chair of VoteVets Jon Solz warned in a statement upon the news: "Let there be no mistake – there is no war for regime change, anywhere, that John Bolton wasn’t for. He sees troops not as human beings, with families, but as expendable resources, in his real-life game of Risk." He added: "To the Trump voters out there we say: You were suckered. John Bolton and Mike Pompeo represent the neocon foreign policy that Donald Trump falsely said he was against."

Bolton, according to one former senior Bush Administration official "was by far the most dangerous man we had," adding that his hiring is "an invitation to war, perhaps nuclear war." Senior Bush Administration diplomat Richard Haass cautions: "This is the most perilous moment in modern American history." They aren't the only ones very panicked about the appointment, charging Bolton's appointment puts us "on the path to war."

Wheeler offers her own additional concerns about Bolton, citing the very curious, potentially "casus belli" timing on Friday morning of Justice Department indictments of nine Iranians said to have been sponsored by their government to hack and steal academic papers (not U.S. Government secrets!) from thousands of university professors around the world.

She also cites the observation of former Bush Administration attorney Matthew Waxman at Lawfare, as "the most frightening thing I've read" about Bolton's appointment.

Waxman, she explains, "worked with Bolton, and he basically says, unlike everybody else who has worked with Trump, Bolton is very, very, very bureaucratically competent, like Dick Cheney. We've been blessed so far --- if we can use that term --- in the Trump Administration, in that he keeps hiring incompetents. Or, even if they're competent, people who don't understand how government bureaucracy works. John Bolton was trained by the master, Dick Cheney. He knows how government bureaucracy works. He's a vindictive man, and he knows how to get the bureaucracy to do what he wants it to do. And that is, I think, the most terrifying part of John Bolton being named National Security Advisor."

We discuss why Defense Secretary James Mattis may now suddenly be the most important man in the world. And, in related Trump Foxification news, Wheeler also offers reason to be dubious about the reports that Fox "News" wingnut contributor Joe diGenova and his Fox "News" wingnut contributor wife, Victoria Toensing, will actually be joining Trump's personal legal team dealing with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

Other related stuff covered today: Trump signs the massive $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress to keep the government open as of midnight Friday, after pretending to threaten to veto the 2,200-page bill just hours before signing it as is --- and then lying about it. (He also seems unaware that a Presidential line-item veto he called for today was long ago found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.); A former Fox "News" anchor with no government or foreign policy experience has been quietly promoted to become the 4th highest ranking diplomat at the U.S. State Department; One longtime Fox "News" military analyst finally quits after ten years, charging that Trump's favorite "news" outlet is now "a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration."; And, in case you needed more proof for that charge, we've got an hilarious disturbing compilation of video clips comparing the way the outlet's anchors and contributors (including Bolton!)blasted the nation of Barack Obama meeting Kim Jong Un face-to-face some years ago, versus Trump's plans to actually do so in May...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The U.S. may soon have its first-ever climate science denying Secretary of State; World leaders sound alarm over global water scarcity crisis; Black lung disease surges back in Coal Country; Toymaker LEGO goes greener with plant-based plastics; PLUS: Seven years after the meltdown, Japan struggles to contain Fukushima's radioactive wastewater... 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): Oil giant Statoil begins transition to renewables, scrubs ‘oil’ from its name; Fast-melting Arctic is already messing with the ocean’s circulation; Bottled water contaminated with microplastics; Floods flushed 43 billion plastic pieces out to sea in UK; Climate science goes to court next week; Judge rules U.S. Army Corp liable for floods linked to habitat projects; FEMA flood maps underestimate real risks; Pruitt warns ‘California is not the arbiter’ of U.S. emissions standards; Zinke pretends to worry that wind turbines kill birds, but his agency just made it easier.... PLUS: Stephen Hawking’s dire warning about what Trump’s policies will do to the Earth... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Trump's unending White House chaos appears to have morphed into Trump's White House purge of not-insane top officials, beginning with his Tuesday firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, via Tweet. [Audio link follow below.]

At the same time, Trump named rightwing former Congressman and Fox "News" Tea Party flunky turned CIA Director Mike Pompeo as his nominee to take over the role of the nation's top diplomat and Deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel, who oversaw torture at so-called "black site" prisons during the George W. Bush presidency, to take over Pompeo's role as CIA chief.

We're joined today by national security and civil rights journalist MARCY WHEELER of emptywheel.net to discuss all of today's alarming developments. At the center of our conversation, after discussion of why Trump off-loaded Tillerson, is whether Pompeo and Haspel will even be able to make it through the confirmation process in the U.S. Senate at all at this point, and how the entire mess, once again, highlights the shameful failure by Congressional Democrats and former President Barack Obama to demand real accountability for the war criminals at the center of Bush's torture regime.

"When people talk about how we ended up with Donald Trump, this is the problem," Wheeler argues. "We have excused things like torture for so long that it's just created the opportunity for Donald Trump. Yes, those precedents really created the way for him."

Remarkably, as discussed today, even Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein --- who spent years heroically fighting the U.S. Intelligence agencies to expose their horrific torture practices --- seems prepared to approve Haspel, for some reason, as do the former heads of those agencies --- the very same folks who claim to oppose Trump and object to his response to allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

On Haspel, Wheeler warns: "She's terrible for two reasons. One is that she's a torturer, and not just a torturer but a particularly sadistic one. But the second one is that she orchestrated both a personal and agency cover-up. And so we should expect, with her as CIA Director, to have the CIA even less in control than it is now." Yes, Haspel also oversaw the CIA's destruction of their videotapes of torture sessions.

Hard to figure out who's more furious about it all, me or Wheeler, after years of warning about precisely this day.

On Pompeo, Wheeler says: "He is much closer to Trump's views on [Russia, North Korea and Iran]. Very importantly, especially on Iran. So I think if Pompeo is confirmed, I think the chances of us going to war with Iran are significantly higher."

And, just to make my day, she warns that, should National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster be replaced, as rumored, his replacement won't even have to struggle with Senate confirmation (a road, which she predicts, may be difficult for both Haspel and Pompeo, though more so for the latter.) If McMaster is replaced by John Bolton, as some have suggested, "he gets appointed, because it's not Senate confirmed. So If Trump wants him, he's in charge of nuking North Korea."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for some more thoughts on the removal of Tillerson (ironically enough, even though he previously served as CEO of ExxonMobil, he was decidedly not a climate change denier and actually supported the U.S. staying in the Paris Agreement) and for the latest Green News Report, in which the nation and planet continue to suffer from the perfidy of dishonest Republican climate change denialism...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt uses the Bible to justify exploitation of natural resources; EPA to eliminate office that studies impacts of chemicals on children; New study finds communities of color disproportionately bear the burden of pollution; ExxonMobil withdraws from massive deal with Russia; PLUS: Good news and bad news for the environment in the courts... 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): Solar and wind power alone could provide 80 per cent of U.S. power; California agriculture faces serious threats from climate change; European agency concludes controversial neonicotinoid pesticides threaten bees; North Atlantic Right whales face extinction after no new births recorded; US solar company lays off hundreds of workers due to Trump's solar tariffs; Judge orders CA to stop pesticide use; More than 100 cities around the globe get most of their electricity from renewables; Petcoke plant linked to asthma epidemic at elementary school... PLUS: Congress just got a whole lot of F's on their report card... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Buckle up, and maybe take a few pre-emptive antibiotics just for safety. [Audio link to show follows below.]

We begin with a few responses to the racist President of the United States Donald Trump's reported description of Haiti, El Salvador and Africa nations as "shithole countries". As a measure of just how appalling the comments were, we actually declare George W. Bush no longer the "Worst President Ever", before turning to outraged responses from right-wingers Glenn Beck and Frank Luntz, of all people, to help underscore both how offensive and, frankly, inaccurate Trump's comments were.

But, as several have noted, while Trump's remarks are disturbing, the fact that his racism is embodied within his policies --- on immigration, policing, and much more, including voting and elections --- is far more troubling. That racism and dishonesty was on display in the sham Presidential Commission created by Trump, supposedly to root out the millions of illegal votes he falsely claims were cast against him when he lost the popular vote by millions to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

But his bogus Commission, headed up by disgraced GOP "voter fraud" fraudster and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, was abruptly shut down last week after facing an onslaught of legal challenges and finding none of the supposed voter fraud they had set out to highlight. After the Commission's ignominious closure, Kobach claimed he would be advising the Dept. of Homeland Security who, he said, would be taking the Commission's data and preliminary findings to continue the investigation. While worrying a number of voting rights advocates, those claims too have so far proven to be false, according to statements from DHS and legal documents filed by the DoJ in response to lawsuits.

Meanwhile, Trump's poisonous racism and failed Presidency is having ripple effects across the globe, and not just with those nations he is said to have described as "shitholes". The U.N. and the Vatican have now condemned his remarks, he has been forced to cancel a planned trip to Great Britain (which, naturally, he has lied about) and, following the recent resignation of the U.S. Ambassador to Panama who says he can no longer justify serving under this Administration, Trump's newly appointed Ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, has been mercilessly called out by the Dutch in recent days for multiple lies.

Hoekstra, a former Republican Congressman from Michigan and immigrant from the Netherlands, had recently denied having made wholly discredited racist charges, in 2015, claiming Muslim immigrants were burning Dutch politicians to death and creating so-called "no-go zones" in the Netherlands. After he charged a Dutch journalist with reporting "fake news" for asking him about his fully-documented and video-taped false claims (and then claiming in the same interview he hadn't charged the journalist with reporting "fake news") the new Ambassador's first press conference this week in The Hague did not go well, to say the least. On Friday, Hoekstra was finally forced to admit his 2015 comments were wrong, though his shame appears to not yet be over.

All of which underscores that while Donald Trump may be the highest profile symptom of a very sick Republican Party, he is but a small part of a very widely spread disease that has poisoned his party and has made America anything but "great again" in the eyes of the world...

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