We were live at the KPFK/Pacifica Radio studios in Los Angeles for today's BradCast and had the opportunity to open up the phones for a lot of great listener calls.

But, first, we covered today's disturbing, near-simultaneous collapse of computer systems at the New York Stock Exchange, the Wall Street Journal and United Airlines, and what we might (but won't) learn from it.

Then, it's onto the nation's dumbest Governor (perhaps in U.S. history) and the unbelievably dumb thing he's finally done now...

Come and listen to a story 'bout a Governor named LePage,
A total dumbass (and sometimes filled with rage).
They said the state of Maine is the state he oughta run,
But wait until you hear what their Guv has gone and done...

But while LePage may be indescribably stupid, at least he's not running for President (yet) --- unlike Wisconsin's Gov. Scott Walker who is not only running, but currently has a very good chance of winning the Republican nomination. And he's as insidiously sneaky and dangerous as Governors get.

All of that and more on today's lively BradCast!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Gov. Bobby Jindal jumps into the 2016 race --- So, what's his position on climate change?; Deadly heat wave in Pakistan; Two new studies find climate change potentially 'catastrophic' for human health; PLUS: Court orders Dutch government to cut carbon emissions in landmark ruling... 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): Genetically Modified Salmon: Coming To A River Near You?; Pacific Trade Authority Bill Wins Final Approval in Senate; House Passes Bill To Undermine Obama's Climate Rules; House Approves Bill To Overhaul Chemical Regulation; Oil and Gas Industry Fuels Up Advocacy Arm for 2016... PLUS: Lake Mead Sinks To Record Low, Risking Water Shortage... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Oil spill clean up continues in Santa Barbara; Major media steps up, challenges Presidential candidate Rick Santorum on climate science denial; World's largest economies put an expiration date on fossil fuels; Wanna see how climate change will affect your grandkids? NASA has just the thing; PLUS: Secret donors gave $125 million to climate denial front groups in just 3 years... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): EPA’S Proposed Carbon Regulations Will Create Tens Of Thousands Of Jobs; Offshore Oil Drilling Banned Along New Stretch of California Coast; Court Gives Obama a Climate Change Win; Studies link childhood lead exposure, violent crime; EPA: Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Airplanes Are Dangerous To Human Life; Republican Pours Money Into U.S. Climate, Clean Energy Foundation; Obama Administration Readies Big Push on Climate Change... PLUS: Ontario Restricts Pesticides Blamed for Decline of Bee Populations... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Republican Rick Perry and Democrat Lincoln Chafee enter the 2016 race; Maryland bans fracking; Texas and Oklahoma ban fracking bans; PLUS: Big Oil CEOs call for a price on carbon (but there's a catch)... 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): EPA study: No evidence fracking has caused “widespread” impacts on drinking water; California Oil Spill Pipeline Had Been Left To Rust Paper-Thin; How to Thrive in the Age of Megadrought?; How Europe’s Climate Policies Led To More U.S. Trees Being Cut Down; 49 States Making Plans for EPA Carbon Rule—Even the Ones That Hate It; Minnesota Tribes Press Concerns Over Pipeline Plan, Wild Rice; Killing the Colorado River: Las Vegas' 'water witch' policy-maker promotes unlimited growth amid drought... PLUS: Adapting to climate change is going to be a lot messier than we think... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Three more Republicans enter crowded 2016 race - we'll tell you their positions on climate change (even if they won't); Also, another Democrat jumps in; PLUS: May 2015 breaks new records for extreme weather... 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): Big Oil companies want a price on carbon. Here’s why; VIDEO: Big Oil certainly wasn't expecting activists to do THIS; OPEC seen favoring market share over prices; 10 Billion tons of coal could erase Obama's progress on climate change; Bonn U.N. talks seek to trim unwieldy climate change plan; E.P.A. proposal will put bigger trucks on a fuel diet... PLUS: Holding Your Breath in India: millions of Indian children have permanent lung damage from air pollution... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hours after Amtrak crash, Republicans vote to cut Amtrak's budget; FBI violated its own rules to spy on Keystone XL pipeline protesters; Hawaii votes to be first in the nation to reach 100% renewable energy; PLUS: It's our 600th episode! ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The arguments that convinced a libertarian to support aggressive action on climate; US taxpayers subsidizing world's biggest fossil fuel companies; Vampire power costs Americans $19 billion in electricity every year; French nuclear model falters; Depleted uranium in Utah Desert? What could possibly go wrong? ... PLUS: Could climate change help you go gluten free?... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Explosion, fire and oil spill at nuclear plant just outside New York City; Here we go again: Shell gets approval to drill in the Arctic this summer; More water restrictions amid California drought; GOP votes to slash funding for NASA Earth research; PLUS: Solar-powered plane embarks on its most dangerous journey yet ... 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): Florida most vulnerable state to sea level rise, but has no statewide plan; Apple pledges to run its China facilities using mainly renewable energy; Track where oil train derailed was inspected day before accident; Proposed rule could mean free coal for mining companies on public lands; CA may add warnings for BPA ... PLUS: Fracking most likely cause of TX earthquakes, USGS says... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The race for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination just doubled in size: Fox 'News' darling Ben Carson jumps in; former CEO Carly Fiorina jumps in; former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee jumps in --- climate change deniers all; PLUS: The Pope's moral message on climate change... 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): Elon Musk unveils fancy new Tesla battery — ’cause existing batteries “suck”; Scientists call for limits on non-stick and stain-resistant chemicals that can leach into foods; CA crops raised with oil-field water; Ominous signs for endangered Great Lakes blue butterfly; Heartland Institute's president denies they are deniers; GOP lawmakers slash NASA budget... PLUS: Climate change drives 'new era' in Arctic, say Norwegian scientists... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Another GOP climate science denier enters the 2016 race; And a non-denier jumps in on the Democratic side; Bad news for Big Coal in China; PLUS: Florida's denier disease is spreading --- now officials in Wisconsin barred from work on climate change... 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 censorship gains steam in red states; Rapid global warming may be coming sooner than you think; The last time oceans went acidic this fast, 96% of marine life went extinct; Why new study on Arctic permafrost is so scary - it's the microbes; L.A. mayor envision greener city where people walk and use mass transit; 5 years after BP Oil Spill, Obama Admin proposes new safety rules... PLUS: Republican Wins Award For Believing In Climate Change... and much, MUCH more! ...

How little do the Koch Brothers' "local" apparatchiks actually care, or even know, about the denizens of the various localities they are hoping to scam, with millions of dollars of misleading propaganda (lies), into voting against their own interests?

This little:

The videos were good for a barrel of laughs. The Director of Florida's Div. of Emergency Management, Brian Koon was forced to engage in verbal gymnastics so as to avoid violating a state ban on using the words "climate change."

In another clip, replayed by Comedy Central's John Stewart, former FL EPA employee Kristina Trotta uses the words, "nuisance flooding," to evade the ban on mentioning "sea level rise." That drew an amusing Stewart suggestion that, in order to evade mentioning that a global warming-connected rise in sea level could eventually lead to an underwater Miami, state employees could refer to "moisture inconvenience!"

The exchanges were hilarious. But there is nothing funny about the attempt to erect thought control regimes, first in Florida and now in Wisconsin. In both states, the practice is verging on that deployed by Oceania's Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's 1984. In that classic but ominous work of fiction, written accounts of inconvenient truths were incinerated inside "memory holes."

While ominous, the clumsy efforts at "thought control" are quite useful. They underscore the warnings we offered nearly five years ago that the real future offered by the so-called "Tea Party" and the Koch Brothers' brand of "libertarianism" includes "Fascism [and] Feudalism --- an authoritarian reality that has already come to fruition in states like Florida and Wisconsin where Charles and David Koch, along with other rightwing billionaires, have already tightened the reigns of oligarchic control over ostensibly "public" institutions...

After another (too-long) fund drive break at Pacifica Radio's KPFK, we were finally back today with a live and fresh BradCast!

And, if you've been following The BRAD BLOG lately, you'll know that I think so much of what's going on, in the media, in Congress, and just about everywhere else of late, is just insanely dumb.

So, on those topics today, I was delighted to be joined by our friend Eric Boehlert of Media Matters to discuss the media hypocrisy over Hillary Clinton's email "scandal" (while ignoring other, almost identical matters that actually are or were scandals) and the massive lies of Bill O'Reilly that somehow nobody seems to care about.

I also had a few words to say about the GOP's latest, embarrassing Iran idiocy, and their, um, unconvential methods of governing for the next two years, as well as the media's failure to say the words "global warming" and/or "climate change".

Yes, all of that and much more in a very lively hour! And Desi Doyen even joins us at the end for an uplifting Green News Report (sort of).

Download MP3 or listen online below...

Lots of deserved criticism of late for Arkansas' freshman U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-Neocon Tea Party) for the ridiculously condescending (and, ironically, Constitutionally inaccurate) letter he authored to Iran in hopes of undermining sensitive negotiations concerning their nuclear program.

But while Cotton richly deserves all the criticism he is now roundly receiving, even from some in his own party, let's please not forget about the other 46 U.S. Senators, all Republican, who also signed onto that letter.

This was not a hundreds-of-pages-long bill or something. It was five simple paragraphs long and each Senator appears to have signed onto it by hand. They have no excuse.

You've probably heard about it, but may not have actually read it in full. Until I did, I figured it was likely another bit of obnoxiousness from the GOP, akin to inviting Netanhayu to speak to Congress without White House approval, but the outrage around it was largely a partisan attack from Democrats against Republicans who'd written the letter for the usual, silly partisan reasons.

But it's way worse than that. It's unprecedentedly obnoxious, embarrassing and just childishly condescending. And it doesn't take any particular allegiance to the Democratic Party or the White House to see that. It just jumps off the page.

Again, it's just five grafs long and rather astonishing. Read it, if you haven't. It's posted in full below or read the PDF. And remember: 47, theoretically grown-up U.S. Senators actually signed onto this thing. On purpose. Including the entire GOP leadership in the U.S. Senate, none of whom had the adult sense to stop them!...

The courageous 'Tea Party' leader and former County Sheriff who hid behind the women on the 'front lines of freedom' at the Bundy Ranch last year, is now asking the public to pay for much needed health care for both himself and his wife. Via TPM...

Well, huh. If only the tens of millions of Americans who were unable to receive health care prior to enactment of the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), had just made a public name for themselves and then created GoFundMe sites to convince others to give them money to help pay for their care.

Others paying money to help their fellow countrymen receive health care. Now where have we heard that before? Oh, yeah. Too bad Mack appears to have been too much of a dumbass to sign up for Obamacare following his heart attack in January and prior to the close of this year's open enrollment period. We suspect he would have received great care at an affordable rate.

In case you don't recognize the name, Mack is the guy who, during the wingnut uprising in support of scofflaw Nevada rancher/bigot Cliven Bundy last year, discussed the Tea Partiers' courageous plan to use their wives as human shields. "We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front," Mack told Fox "News". "If they are going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers."

Here's hoping both he and his wife receive the important medical care they deserve, even if other people are paying for it --- just as they would have, without begging, had Mack bothered to sign himself and his wife up for that federal tyranny known as Obamacare.

"I am not a victim," Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of the Rightwing voter suppression group calling themselves "True the Vote" told members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning. It was an odd turn of phrase given all that came before it in her testimony, both written and oral, at the confirmation hearings for U.S. Attorney General-nominee Loretta Lynch.

"I'm here today because I was targeted by the government for daring to speak out," the non-victim informed the Senators and those watching via C-Span at the very top of her remarks, much of which followed her written testimony [PDF] submitted in advance, and much of which did not. She is, she explained, just "one of thousands of Americans who have become living examples of a kind of trickle down tyranny that is actively endorsed by the current Administration and rigorously enforced by the Department of Justice."

"Over the years it has become clear to me that they don't just want True the Vote shut down, they want me broken," Engelbrecht wrote dramatically, but, for some reason, didn't say during her spoken testimony [video posted at the end of this article].

But, remember, she is "not a victim" at all. She is, on the other hand, the head of a wingnut Tea Party grifter organization which has, as we described in detail earlier this week, stepped on one rake after another since its ignominious appearance on the "voting rights" scene in 2010 when, in their introductory video, the group included a Photoshopped photo of an African-American woman holding a sign at a protest reading: "I ONLY GOT TO VOTE ONCE!" Another faked sign behind her head read "I'M WITH STUPID." (In actuality, as the original photos from a protest during the Presidential election theft in Florida in 2000 show, the woman's sign read: "DON'T MESS WITH OUR VOTES." The sign behind her had read "Gore/Lieberman 2000.")

During her testimony, Engelbrecht, after years of faking voter fraud statistics to try and help the GOP case for polling place Photo ID restrictions, even had the temerity to describe her organization as "a national non-profit initiative to protect voters' rights and promote election integrity."

Faking the truth seems to come easy to Engelbrecht and her group, as they've spent years attempting to intimidate voters at the polls under the guise of protecting against pretend Democratic "voter fraud". At the Senate hearing on Thursday, however, it was often what she didn't say during her oral testimony, as contrasted with her written testimony submitted beforehand, that may have been most revealing.

For some reason, for example, she --- or, perhaps a staffer on the new Republican-majority Senate committee --- must have thought it better not to discuss "pigment of skin" in polite company at the confirmation hearings for the first African-American woman to be nominated as the nation's chief law enforcement official. That part didn't make it into to Engelbrecht's spoken outrage...