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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Brett Kavanaugh on the U.S. Supreme Court spells big trouble for environmental standards and climate action; PLUS: Extreme weather slams into Japan, and the Gulf Coast, and Wisconsin... 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): 8 states fight Trump’s attempt to declaw Migratory Bird Treaty; Farm bill proposal could wipe out communities’ power to ban pesticides; ACLU: Government plotted to surveil, disrupt Keystone XL protesters; 8 bird species are rirst confirmed avian extinctions this decade; Dozens of elephants killed near Botswana wildlife sanctuary; Zinke hires critic of Endangered Species Act for senior post; Dire climate change warnings cut from Trump power-plant proposal... PLUS: A global shift to sustainability would save us $26 trillion... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Extreme weather brings a hot and deadly July to most of the planet; Wildfires force evacuations in the U.S. West, while extreme storms and floods pummel the East Coast; PLUS: Trump and the GOP expand their war on the environment, public lands, and endangered species... 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): Earth Overshoot Day is arriving faster every year; The corporate media's failure to connect the dots on climate change; Media reaction: The 2018 summer heatwaves and climate change; US unprepared for the health challenges of climate change; Trump's farmer bailout exposes broken US food system; NYC climate liability lawsuit dismissed by judge; Russian hackers infiltrated utility control rooms, DHS says; Why would Trump and Putin collude? Keywords: oil, gas, Arctic, climate ... PLUS: Waves of garbage hit Dominican Republic ... and much, MUCH more! ...

It's remarkable that Democrats --- and the mainstream corporate media --- have allowed Republicans to get away with claiming to be "conservatives" who support states rights, small government and local control for so many years. As it turns out, the exact opposite is usually true. That becomes abundantly clear whenever and wherever the GOP takes the reins of government power. We've got several examples of that, once again, on today's BradCast. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

As global climate change continues to shatter heat records across the country and planet, the death toll continues to rise along with temperatures and more intense, unexpected (if long-predicted) extreme weather. On Tuesday, at least 74 were killed in sudden wildfires in Greece. That toll, which is expected to rise, comes on the heels of hundreds killed by recent record rain, flooding and accompanying landslides in Japan, and at least 77 dead amid all-time record heat there over the past week alone.

Heat records are being shattered every day of late here in the U.S. as well, including in Phoenix where it topped out at a record 115 degrees on Monday, and where airplanes were grounded for several days last summer thanks to record warmth. This year, however, with the help of Trump's FAA, American Airlines has come up with a way to avoid being grounded despite new record temps. They've just raised the maximum temps under which their planes are allowed to take off! What could go wrong?

At the same time, the Trump Administration is now challenging the state of California's right to set their own fuel efficiency standards for cars, despite an agreement with the Obama Administration that had, with the approval of automakers, established a uniform nationwide standard. The state's right to set its own environmental standards at all --- as established over nearly 50 years under the federal Clean Air Act --- will now, reportedly, be revoked by Trump's EPA who, apparently, have no use for states rights (at least when that's inconvenient to GOP corporate funders.) Let the law suits begin continue.

Similarly, so-called "conservatives" in Texas are attempting to use Big Government state law to preempt efforts by local governments and voters in Austin, San Antonio and Dallas, who hope to establish their own rules for paid sick-leave. Some 40% of Texas workers, according to a recent study, are currently prevented from taking a paid day off when either they or their children get sick. The state's Big Government-loving Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton (facing his own securities fraud indictments) oppose the city measures, just as they have in the past when voters in local jurisdictions have attempted to ban fracking, raise minimum wage requirements or even ban plastic bags.

There is, however, a solution. We can all try --- try, at least --- to vote the liars and hypocrites out of office this November. In Nevada, for example, voters are now said to be on the verge of potentially electing the first female majority state legislature in our nation's history. To pull it off, however, and to flip local, state and Congressional seats from "red" to "blue" this year, voters will have to turn out and actually be allowed to cast a vote.

A new study from the Brennan Center for Justice suggests that may be more difficult than many currently appreciate. Their analysis finds that voters are being purged from the rolls at a record pace, particularly in jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination, where such procedures previously required federal preclearance under the Voting Rights Act (until the GOP majority on the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the landmark 1965 law in 2013.)

So, with just over 100 days remaining until this year's crucial midterm elections, please CHECK YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION to make sure you are still properly registered! Don't wait until its too late!

But, we close today with at least a bit of encouraging news. Despite the stolen GOP majority on the U.S. Supreme Court recently blocking lower federal court rulings finding U.S. House and state legislative seats had been unlawfully gerrymandered by partisans in several states, a number of statewide measures to end partisan gerrymandering will most likely be on the ballot this November. Unless, that is, so-called "conservative" Republicans block the so-far wildly successful, bi-partisan grassroots initiatives in states like Michigan, Missouri, Colorado and Utah...

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On today's BradCast: Donald Trump tries to walk back Helsinki, and Robert Mueller has more shoes to drop, according to a former federal prosecutor's analysis of recent indictments. [Audio link to show follows below.]

The fallout from President Trump's stunning comments in Helsinki on Monday continued on Tuesday, in response to the President of the United States taking sides against his own intelligence agencies and in favor of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who stood beside him at a joint press conference following their one-on-one summit. After more than 24 hours of unrelenting backlash from media, Democrats, former intelligence officials --- and even a number of largely gentle public critiques from some Republicans --- Trump attempted to clean up his overseas comments.

Working from written remarks at the White House today, he now claims he "accepts" the U.S. Intelligence Community assessments of various alleged Russian cyber-attacks on the 2016 election, and that he simply misspoke --- just one word --- when claiming during Monday's joint presser with Putin that he saw "no reason why it would be Russia" behind the 2016 attacks. He meant to say "wouldn't", rather than "would", he now says. Trump is hoping to dig out from under his denial just days after Special Counsel Robert Mueller filed new felony charges against 11 Russian military intelligence officials said to have been working on behalf of Putin, according to the indictment, when they infiltrated DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign computers to steal emails, release them to the public before the election, plant malware on state and local election official computers and steal voter registration data in 2016.

Mueller's Friday indictment preceded yet another one announced on Monday by the Dept. of Justice, concerning the Sunday arrest of a Russian national who allegedly infiltrated the National Rifle Association along with a Putin-connected oligarch.

We're joined today by former federal prosecutor MICHAEL J. STERN who explains how Mueller's Friday indictment of Russian military operatives was filed and written in a way that suggests there are more such indictments to come, particularly of Americans. Stern describes, from a prosecutorial perspective, how and why investigators working on sprawling conspiracy cases tend to work their way up from lower-level aspects of the case, toward their main targets, while trying not to prematurely tip their hand or reveal evidence they hope to keep under wraps before the later indictments.

He details how Mueller's Friday charges of the Russian military officials (and a number of Russian social-media scam artists earlier this year), serve to buy time for the Special Counsel probe, while establishing an understanding among the public for the larger crimes being investigated --- before other "shoes" are ultimately dropped.

"He was essentially allowed to have his cake and eat it, too. He was able to set forth the indictment and charge the Russian members of the conspiracy. But, because they're not in the United States and the likelihood of them being extradited at all is slim, he's able to continue his investigation without the pressure of having to deal with those defendants making appearances in court, etc," Stern tells me. "It's my sense of things that there was a calculation, a strategy on his part in doing that."

"There's a process, I think, that Mueller is going through to get, not only members of Congress, but more importantly, the public, to understand that what has been alleged --- the Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election --- has actually occurred," he argues. "Mueller knows exactly where he is going, and that what he's doing is dropping bread crumbs until he gets to the loaf of bread, which, I believe, will include Americans."

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, as summer heat, exacerbated by global warming, continues to take its toll in several different ways that folks don't often consider. That, at the same time as many who have been longtime science deniers now seem to be coming around in several different interesting ways as well...

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On today's BradCast: The U.S. Supreme Court seat stolen by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Senate Republicans --- who carried out the unprecedented blockade of President Obama's SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland for almost a year following the death of Antonin Scalia --- paid off in spades today in two separate 5 to 4 decisions which should forever have an asterisk next to them in the history books. [Audio link to today's show is posted below.]

First up today, however, primary elections are being held in seven states on Tuesday in New York, Maryland, Utah, Colorado and Oklahoma, with primary runoffs in Mississippi and South Carolina. We'll have noteworthy results and problem reports on tomorrow's BradCast, though we already know of one huge problem in Baltimore. (No, it's not a mere "glitch" or "snafu", Baltimore Sun. It is a failure...at the very least!) On Monday night, it was revealed that Maryland failed to include updated voter registration information for some 80,0000 voters who made changes to their party affiliation or residential addresses since April of 2017. The announcement was made by the state late on the evening before Tuesday's elections, in which those voters were forced to vote on provisional ballots at the polls. Those ballots will be included in the results, but won't be tallied until next week.

Then, we're joined again today by Slate's great legal reporter MARK JOSEPH STERN to discuss both of the U.S. Supreme Court's grim rulings today on Trump's Muslim travel ban and on so-called "crisis pregnancy centers", as well as several decisions from Monday --- all of which, Stern correctly points out, would almost certainly have seen the opposite outcome under Garland instead of Justice Neil Gorsuch who has been the "decisive 5th vote" in each of the cases. "Every single one of the decision that we're talking about right now would have come out differently if Justice Merrick Garland were sitting on the Supreme Court right now instead of Justice Neil Gorsuch. We would have an end to partisan gerrymandering, an end to racial gerrymandering, an end to voter suppression, an end to crisis pregnancy centers' efforts to be lawless and not have to comply with basic medical licensing. The travel ban would be struck down. It's almost brutal to think about how all of these cases would turn out if the man who should be on the Court were on the Court."

Stern details Chief Justice John Roberts' 5 to 4 majority opinion in the travel ban case, in which the Court overturned multiple lower courts to uphold Trump's third attempt at banning immigrants and travelers from several majority Muslim countries. As dissenter Justice Sonia Sotomayor also does, Stern compares the ruling to the notoriously shameful 1944 Supreme Court decision in Korematsu v. U.S., which allowed Japanese-Americans to be forced into internment camps during WWII. Today's ruling is being described as "shameful", “hateful" and "racist" by immigration advocates and religious groups alike. Stern calls the decision --- in which Roberts largely dismisses Trump's oft-repeated statements revealing his personal animus towards Muslims --- as "Korematsu 2.0"

"This Court is not as disturbed and disgusted by Trump's approach to immigration as I think a majority of Americans are," he tells me. "This is a Court that's eager to bless the President's moves in the realm of national security, and to basically believe his pretext, even when it's flagrantly B.S"

Sotomayor argues in her dissent: "By blindly accepting the Government's misguided invitation to sanction a discriminatory policy motivated by animosity toward a disfavored group, all in the name of a superficial claim of national security, the Court redeploys the same dangerous logic underlying Korematsu and merely replaces one gravely wrong decision with another."

Stern also details Justice Clarence Thomas' 5 to 4 majority opinion which, under a pretext of First Amendment free speech rights, strikes down California's restrictions on anti-abortionist scam artists posing as phony medical clinics to hoax pregnant women into not receiving abortions. Thomas, charges Stern, "wrote an astonishingly broad decision that effectively says the government has no power to regulate professional speech, no power to regulate medical speech, or doctors' speech, except when they are telling abortion patients not to get abortions." In all, he says, describing how the Court is also targeting voting rights by reversing multiple lower courts in recent rulings, they are "on a kind of tear right now, overturning court after court" and/or using any "flimsy reason to send a case back down" for rehearing.

Yes, elections matter, if you haven't noticed. In the case of the 2016 election, the result will now haunt the U.S. for generations.

Finally today, we're joined by Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report on the climate changed-fueled flooding in Iowa that resulted in an oil train derailment and hundreds of thousands of gallons of dirty tar sands crude spilled into the drinking water supplies, and other such cheerful news to close out today's program...

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On today's BradCast: GOP dirty tricks in Montana; why an alleged torturer should be imprisoned rather than promoted to CIA chief; and, abolishing the 2nd Amendment all together. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell admitted this week that stealing a Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court was his crowning achievement after three decades in Congress. But he's not done packing the federal courts just yet for another generation, which underscores his urgency in trying to hang on to the GOP's thin majority in the U.S. Senate this November.

That may also help to explain the bizarre situation in Montana's U.S. Senate race, where the GOP appears to have ginned up a fake Green Party candidate who was previously on the state Republican Party's payroll, in hopes of siphoning votes away from Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in an otherwise very Trumpy state. (But did the Dems do something similar in supporting a Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate back in 2012, the last time Tester was on the ballot?)

Meanwhile, the Senate returns from their recess next week, and will soon begin confirmation hearings for a number of recent high-level Trump cabinet and executive agency nominees. Among them is Gina Haspel, the CIA's Deputy Director who has been tapped to take Mike Pompeo's spot as CIA chief (after Pompeo was nominated to become the new Sec. of State following Trump's firing of Rex Tillerson.)

Haspel, however, was the CIA's chief of a secret U.S. prison in Thailand following the 9/11 attacks, where a number of terror suspects were tortured in 2002, in violation of long-held international treaties, to which the U.S. has been a party, at least, since the days of Ronald Reagan. She also reportedly signed off on the destruction of the video-taped evidence that documented the horrific torture by the U.S. at that prison.

We're joined today by ERNEST A. CANNING, attorney and longtime BRAD BLOG legal analyst, for whom the matter of someone alleged to have overseen torture becoming the next CIA director is very personal.

Canning's father, as he detailed in a recent article, was imprisoned and waterboarded by the Japanese during WWII, before testifying against his torturers during the war crimes trials held by the Allies after the war. We discuss what happened to his father at the hands of the Japanese command of the notorious Bridge House prison, why the U.S. has long held torture to be a violation of international law, and how the Democrats' failure to demand accountability of Bush-era torturers has resulted in Haspel's nomination, rather than imprisonment.

He explains that while the Japanese general in charge of the notorious Shanghai prison "did not personally take part in my father's torture, he was sentenced to a life sentence under a principle called 'command responsibility'. He had command responsibility over the people who were carrying out torture in an agency that he was responsible for. And if you use that same principle of 'command responsibility', which remains viable under intentional law today, Gina Haspel should be in prison. She should not be coming before the Senate to be confirmed as the CIA's next director. And, I think it's a slap in the face of everybody who has ever undergone such horrific treatment that Donald Trump would nominate her."

(Also, just to lighten things up a bit, I also get Ernie's take on Trump's asinine and evidence-free reiteration in West Virginia on Thursday, that millions of fraudulent votes accounted for his 3 million vote loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 popular vote count.)

Finally, a federal judge in Massachusetts on Friday upheld the state's ban on military-style assault weapons. And we share some listener mail in response to retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' op-ed last week, wherein he suggested that it's time to repeal the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution...

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On today's BradCast: Why in the world did 16 U.S. Senate Democrats vote in favor of gutting central provisions of the Dodd-Frank banking reform bill, as originally put in place by Congress after the 2008 global financial meltdown to avoid another such catastrophe? That and many other disasters covered on today's show. [Audio link is posted at end of article.]

Ironically enough, the new bank deregulation bill was passed on Wednesday with the votes of those Democrats and all of the Senate Republicans on the tenth anniversary of the 2008 collapse. We're joined today by the U.S. Senate Banking Committee's former chief investigator, BARTLETT NAYLOR, who is now Financial Policy Advocate for Public Citizen's Congress Watch division. He explains what this bill will do and how it allows for the same type of dangerous speculation by big Wall Street banks that led to the Great Recession ten years ago.

Naylor says the bill is "going to take the guardrails down" for banks that have less than $250 billion in assets. "This is a class of banks that collectively took some $50 billion of bailout money. A dozen of them have engaged in misconduct and have been sanctioned by regulators int he last three or four years. This class would have included Countrywide, [which] made so many bad loans that it toxified the entire industry. By taking their eyes off this class, it invites another financial calamity."

He also offers his thoughts as to why it is that those 16 Democrats appear so willing to do the bidding of the Big Bank lobby, even as many other Democrats, led by Senators Elizabeth Warren of MA and Sherrod Brown of OH, strongly opposed the measure. "I suspect it's about campaign contributions, but I don't know why any Senator who is up for re-election wants to tell his or her constituents that they're trying to help the banks," Naylor tells me. "They're not trying to help consumers, they're trying to help the banks."

"Labor unions, faith groups, civil rights groups, consumer advocacy groups such as ours," all oppose the bill. "The only people that are supporting this bill are bankers," he argues. Naylor says it could still be stopped before final passage while it is being reconciled with an even more draconian U.S. House version. Donald Trump campaigned on gutting the protections of the Dodd-Frank law, whose provisions remain very popular among voters, adding still more questions as to why those Dems are going along with it, even in an election year.

All of that comes as Trump confirms his appointment of rightwing TV economist Larry Kudlow as his new top economic adviser, despite the fact that Kudlow had insisted the economy was booming under George W. Bush --- ("There's no recession coming," Kudlow wrote at the time. "It's not going to happen.") --- during the very same month in which economists have since concluded the Great Recession actually began.

But, all of those stories, sadly, are not the only disasters to report on today's show. We also cover the horrific pedestrian bridge collapse in Miami and a deadly explosion at yet another chemical plant in Texas today.

And all of that came after the White House announced new sanctions today against Russia, related to allegations of interference in the 2016 election and also for what the Administration describes as a concerted hacking operation targeting critical U.S. infrastructure like the energy grid, water and aviation systems and other key elements of the U.S. economy.

The Kremlin quickly vowed retaliation today in response to the new sanctions. And, while the move suggests somewhat of an about-face for this Administration, there still remains no explanation for why the Dept. of Homeland Security --- as concerned about hacks to our infrastructure as they claim to --- have yet to forensically examine any of the nation's extremely vulnerable computerized voting and tabulation systems (or even count any of the ballots!) for evidence of manipulation during the 2016 Presidential election.

Finally today, after late breaking news that Donald Trump, Jr.'s wife Vanessa is reportedly filing for divorce, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report on, among other things, the nomination of Trump's CIA Director Mike Pompeo to become the nation's first climate science denying Secretary of State. Because everything is awesome!...

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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, our fight against fake news --- and helping the electorate to understand which news is real and which news is fake --- continues! [Audio link to today's real show is posted below.]

Alabama's Republican U.S. Senate nominee Roy Moore continues to deny Thursday's explosive and detailed investigative report from the Washington Post, charging that when the controversial far rightwing religious zealot was a 32-year old Assistant District Attorney he sexually molested a 14-year old girl. She, like three other teens he also is said to have pursued around the same time, have all gone on record, by name, with their claims.

Despite those blockbuster charges detailed by some 30 sources in WaPo's coverage, and (somewhat cowardly) calls from Republican U.S. Senators for Moore to drop out of the upcoming U.S. Senate Special Election against Democratic candidate and former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones on December 12, most GOP officials in the state of Alabama still appear, embarrassingly enough, to support Moore. Some refuse to believe the allegations at all and others don't seem to care, even if the charges are true and amount to a sex crime against a minor. One statewide elected official (AL State Auditor Jim Ziegler) went so far as to cite the bible in support of the alleged pedophilia, and another elected official (AL State Rep. Ed Henry) actually called (twice) for charges to be brought against the victims themselves.

Nonetheless, despite ongoing "conventional wisdom" that a Democrat couldn't possibly win an Alabama U.S. Senate seat, new polling taken the day the story broke shows the race between Moore and Jones is now in a dead heat. And that's data from before, as the pollster notes, the news about Moore "had a chance to fully sink in."

Then, Donald Trump's so-called "Election Integrity" Commission headed up by top GOP "voter fraud" fraudster and KS Sec. of State Kris Kobach continues to face huge problems. After eight lawsuits have previously been filed against the sham commission, on Thursday, a ninth was filed. That one by one of the Democratic Commissioners on the panel itself!

Finally today, a number of totally fake news stories (about Tuesday's election and Hillary Clinton among other things) became popular via social media this week. We debunk several of them with the help of the Associated Press fact-checkers, included several items of fake news about the American economy and trade with Japan that the President of the United States himself spread during his ongoing Asian tour.

Enjoy! (And my huge thanks to those of you who stop by our donation page to help us continue to do our work over your public airwaves every day! Please consider helping us to continue to do so, if you haven't already!)

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On today's BradCast, it was yet another tragic and bloody weekend in the U.S., after yet another horrific gun massacre. And, now on his Asian tour, President Trump appears to know little about how missile defense systems actually work (or don't.) [Audio link to show follows below.]

As you've heard by now, at least 26 were killed, with another 20 injured, in minutes, in yet another semi-automatic gun massacre. This time, it was another white American guy who shot up a church during Sunday services in the tiny Texas town of Sutherland Springs. Once again, Republican lawmakers fell over themselves to Tweet "thoughts and prayers" while, again, offering no other solutions, suggesting nothing more could possibly be done to help curb the obscene, ongoing gun epidemic in the country.

That, even though the shooter in this case, formerly in the U.S. Air Force, appears to have previously been charged with assaulting his wife and child and spent a year in military confinement, before receiving a "bad conduct" discharge. He was later charged with animal cruelty and reportedly had a protective order issued against him by a court. Despite all of that, he was nonetheless able to purchase semi-automatic weapons in Texas without a problem.

The state's Republican Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton (who is still facing felony securities fraud charges himself) indicated on Sunday and Monday that nothing can really be done other than hoping "the forces of God overcome this evil" since "killing is already illegal" in the state of Texas. Paxton's called for more people to carry guns, even in Church.

For his part, Donald Trump, reacting to the shootings from his two-week Asia trip, also agrees that there is no reason to change any laws, because "this isn't a guns situation...it's a mental health problem." Without citing any evidence, the President argued that only mental health issues are to blame --- in stark contrast to when he offered very specific immigration policy proposals within hours of last week's truck terror attack in New York City. Trump offered no policy or legislative prescriptions whatsoever in his comments yesterday and today in response to the Texas bloodbath. Perhaps the tens of millions of dollars he and Republican lawmakers have received from the arms lobbyists at the terrorist-enabling NRA might explain that?

We discuss all of that, the latest breaking news on the case, as well as some of the Democratic responses (Former Rep. Gabby Giffords here. Sen. Chris Murphy here.)

Then, with Trump now in Asia, he is continuing to play tough guy in Japan after reportedly expressing frustration that the "country of samurai warriors" failed to shoot down North Korean missile tests that recently flew over their northern-most main island. It seems the U.S. President has some troubling misconceptions both about what Japan's post-WWII Constitution allows them to do (and not do) and, more disturbingly, has apparently been given some very misleading information about the capabilities (and lack thereof) of U.S. defensive missile interceptor systems. As he recently told Fox "News" propagandist Sean Hannity: "We have missiles that can knock out a missile in the air 97 percent of the time, and if you send two of them, it's going to get knocked down." He's wrong.

Despite those misconceptions, it hasn't prevented Trump from announcing plans to sell millions, if not billions of dollars worth of those missile systems to Japan today. And, so, once again, the vaunted U.S. Military Industrial Complex wins again --- from Sutherland Springs, Texas all the way to Tokyo...

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On today's BradCast, the years of ignored warnings in Houston, as the devastation continues, and what Trump did as the storm came ashore, threatened millions of Americans. [Audio link to show follows below.]

As unprecedented rains from Hurricane Harvey continue to overwhelm Houston, Texas and surrounding areas with as much as 50 inches of catastrophic flooding, the storm is now moving slowly back into the Gulf of Mexico, where it may regain strength for a second landfall on the Texas/Louisiana border. Rainfall is likely to double between now and the end of the week.

My producer and Green News Report co-host, Desi Doyen, a Texas native, joins me to discuss why evacuation orders weren't issued for Houston, before we go on to review the years of warnings about this very type of event amid the recent population boom in Harris County (Houston), the nation's 3rd most populous county.

As it turns out --- as revealed in an excellent and detailed investigative report published by The Texas Tribune and Pro Publica late last year --- the County's 18-year flood manager aggressively dismissed those warnings for years and marginalized the scientists repeatedly offering them. All, while denying the threat of over-development and destruction of flood-mitigating wetlands, poor (and poorly enforced) flood mitigation regulations, and the ever-increasing devastation of such storms due to climate change.

Also today: the "uncharted territory" of the President of the United States issuing a pardon to notorious Maricopa County (Phoenix) Sheriff Joe Arpaio --- even as the Category 4 hurricane was bearing down on Houston late Friday night --- after Arpaio was convicted for contempt of federal court orders. Arpaio had, for years, unlawfully and unconstitutionally profiled Latino-looking residents in defiance of the Court. But much of what else he did during his reign of terror as Sheriff was far worse than that, as the Phoenix New Times had long reported, and as we also detail today. Even more troubling, however, is the intended message of Trump's pardon to both law enforcement officials, the federal judiciary and the Constitution itself.

And, as if all of that isn't enough, as we took to the air today, North Korea reportedly fired a missile that passed over northern Japan. It's another harrowing show today as the wheels continue to come off the world...

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It's a serious question. Is Donald Trump insane? You can offer your opinion on my Twitter poll, if it's still open. But, on today's BradCast, we examine just some of the evidence, as our unstable U.S. President threatens war against the unstable leader of North Korea, with potentially unspeakable consequences now hanging dangerously in the balance. [Audio to today's show follows below.]

Among the stories on today's program:

• U.S. drops the largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed, for the first time, in the 15th year of our war in Afghanistan;
• Coalition forces "misdirected" air strike in Syria, killing 18 allied fighters;
• Japan's Prime Minister warns that nuclear armed North Korea could deploy chemical weapons in response to U.S. provocation, as Trump sends U.S. Navy battle group to Korean Peninsula in advance of an anticipated NK nuclear test;
• Russian Asia expert warns a conventional weapons attack by North Korea against South Korea's nuclear power plants could result in "five-six Chernobyl-type disasters";
• Over the past 48 hours, Trump completely reverses long-held positions on NATO, U.S. military strength, China currency manipulation, and more, and reveals that he learned, after speaking with China's President "for 10 minutes" recently that China's relationship with North Korea is "not so easy" (before threatening to "go it alone" in a strike against North Korea, which, he says, "means going it with lots of other nations");
• EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt goes on Fox "News" today to blatantly lie about U.S., China, and India's obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the UN's landmark Paris Climate Agreement;
• Proposed cuts to specific EPA programs are draconian, dangerous and ridiculous;
• And, to help us forget about all of the above, Canada's Prime Minister introduces legislation to legalize recreational marijuana across their entire country...

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On today's BradCast, rising tensions and ratcheted up concerns about Donald Trump's escalating saber rattling against North Korea, even as Americans head to the polls in disapproval of the Administration for the first federal elections of the Trump Era.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said something incredibly stupid today. And while that's hardly a news flash, our guest today, Steve Herman, Voice of America's White House Bureau Chief, was there and explains what happened.

More importantly, the veteran 26-year journalist who, until recently, had been based in Asia, joins us to offer key background and perspective on the Trump's provocative, arguably aggressive and certainly cryptic new position on nuclear armed North Korea, on the heels of his cruise missile strike last week on Syria, a U.S. Navy strike group now reportedly heading towards the Korean Peninsula in a "show of force", and North Korea warning of a nuclear strike if provoked.

The always-remarkably level-headed Herman offers important insight on what could be yet another new American military confrontation with a nation that has long charged the U.S. is preparing to attack them. Is Trump offering evidence to prove Kim Jong Un correct? Is this all little more than a continuation of decades-old U.S. policy following the Korean War which has never officially been declared over? Should Americans be confident that Trump's military advisers are fully explaining the potential fall-out from an attack on the politically isolated nation? Will he even listen to them if so? And what about China, Japan, South Korea and others in the region? Are they on board with Trump's new show of force?

Herman speaks to all of those questions and many others, while both succeeding, in part, and failing, in part to talk me fully off the ledge regarding my concerns about a potential new provocation and military confrontation with another, even less stable, nuclear power. Just one example: "One thing I've observed about them [North Korea] over many, many decades --- they seem to have this amazing ability to do something provocative without it leading to an actual military retaliation by the South Koreans and the U.S.," Herman reassures, before cautioning: "But, again, we may be in a different era here with President Trump. He may not want to have the same sort of restraint that we saw through both Republican and Democratic administrations over several decades."

I'd suggest today's conversation is a must-listen.

Also today: Voting is underway today in a special election for what is being seen by both Republicans and Democrats to be a remarkably tight race to fill an open Republican U.S. House seat in a deeply Republican district in Kansas. Today's results could be a bellwether for not only 2018, but for another special election next Tuesday for the U.S. House in another GOP district, in Georgia, which is now being regarded by political analysts, incredibly enough, as a "toss-up". Can democracy really save U.S. democracy? And, finally today, in hopes of lightening things up a bit on the way out, some happily ironic news about the Kentucky Coal Museum in a nearly forgotten tiny coal town...

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(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump orders EPA to roll back fuel economy standards...and plans to slash EPA's budget by even more than previously known; Large sections of the Great Barrier Reef have now died, thanks to global warming; PLUS: Six years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, radioactive wild boars complicate residents' return... 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): To Protect Climate Money, Obama Stashed It Where It’s Hard to Find; Lawmakers ask Trump to stop nuke waste storage plan near Lake Huron; White House Proposes Reviving Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site; NV plant closes after half-century of producing coal-fired pollution; Interior Department To Withdraw Obama-Era Fracking Rule, Filings Reveal; National Academies Praise Obama Climate Report Pending Under Trump; 17 Republicans Back Resolution Urging Action On Warming; WV Senate Bill Eliminates Mine Safety Enforcement... PLUS: Unsealed Documents Raise New Safety Doubts on Monsanto Weedkiller Roundup... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: 75 years ago this past weekend, FDR issued Executive Order 9066, sending 120,000 Japanese-Americans to concentration camps in one of the most shameful moments in American history. Today, we fight to keep history from repeating itself as Trump offers big lies about terrorism, voter fraud and the media, among other things --- for a reason. [Audio link to full show posted below.]

While Trump's Executive Order attempting to ban Muslims and refugees from seven different countries has been blocked by the federal courts, another one is promised to take its place soon. And in order to do so, the Administration continues to offer lies about terror attacks to justify its actions, this time with the President citing a non-existent terror incident in Sweden --- fake news that he heard about (and misreported) from Fox "News" the night before his campaign rally in Florida on Saturday.

That dangerous lie comes on the heels of a week of another big lie from Trump and his top advisers concerning false claims of "thousands" of cases of "voter fraud" in New Hampshire and elsewhere --- and as Trump declares the media to be "the enemy of the American People."

While the lies are now non-stop, ridiculous and, at times, hilarious, the insidious reason behind them is chilling, dangerous, shameful and about as un-American as possible. Why all of it matters, and more, on today's BradCast...

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