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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Rising tide of ethics scandals continue to engulf EPA chief Scott Pruitt; Canadian Trans Mountain pipeline's future in doubt amid relentless opposition; November's Keystone pipeline spill was twice the size of previous estimates; PLUS: Michigan gives Nestle the greenlight to pump groundwater, while it ends bottled water deliveries to Flint... 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): Scott Pruitt’s civilization-threatening lie; How “effective” is Scott Pruitt, really?; VA Gov. Northam vetoes bill opposing cap-and-trade plan; Hog waste in NC has been an untapped fuel resource, until now; Shell knew fossil fuels created climate changer risks back in the 1980s; California could back some emissions rule changes, with pre-conditions; Energy Sec. Perry declines to declare 'grid emergency' to save coal, nuclear plants --- for now; Interior Sec. Zinke sees 'little' demand for new U.S. offshore drilling; Indonesia seizes illegal fishing boat with 18 mile-long nets; Good news and bad news for 2018 hurricane season... PLUS: The US is winning the climate fight in electricity — and losing it just about everywhere else... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: While everything still sucks, there are, nonetheless, a growing number of encouraging signs that Americans --- even those in so-called "red" states --- have had just about enough of the rightwing Republican corporate takeover and ravaging of this country and so much that we hold dear. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Among the stories covered towards that end on today's program...

• A record-breaking number of women are now running for Congress, and the filing deadlines haven't even passed in half of the states;

• Sinclair Broadcasting Group's insidious misuse of our public airwaves for rightwing pro-Trump propaganda purposes finally begins to catch the attention of Democrats in Congress, as company executives mouth off with pathetic excuses, former employees speak out, some staffers resign in protest, and others, while embarrassed by being forced to read on-air nonsense from their owners, find reasonable excuses for not quitting (such as outrageously onerous contract terms) at once-respected TV news outlets now controlled by the nation's largest owner of television stations;

• Teachers in so-called "red" states like Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona and West Virginia continue walkouts to push back against state education budgets that have been slashed in recent years to pay for huge tax cuts to wealthy corporations in failed experiments with supposedly "pro-growth" Reaganomics;

• And while Republican officials in those states have made clear they were only pretending to give a damn about kids, their pretend love for coal miners has also been exposed as a lie in Kentucky, where lawmakers just made it much more difficult for miners to receive compensation amid an epidemic surge of deadly black lung disease cases;

• The jaw-dropping corruption scandals of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt continue to be revealed on a daily basis. So, will Donald Trump finally find the courage to fire him?;

• And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, in which Mobil Oil joins Exxon in being revealed as having been fully aware, decades ago, that the burning of fossil fuels is causing civilization-threatening climate change, and Americans tell Ryan Zinke and his Interior Department to take a hike over huge proposed increases to entry fees at our national parks...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Buried NOAA study predicts dramatic increase in high-tide flooding; Trump's trade war to hit U.S. automakers, farmers, and yes, drillers; Mississippi River floods worse now than at any time in past 500 years; Americans tell Interior Department to 'take a hike' over national park fee increases; PLUS: Major oil CEO admits fossil fuels cause climate change --- 20 years ago... 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): Shell Oil knew fossil fuels created climate change risks back in 1980s, internal documents show; 6 tricks Scott Pruitt uses to manipulate the media; The War on Science is over. The Republicans won; Limiting global warming to 1.5C would have ‘significant economic benefits; America’s freshwater mussels are going extinct; Limiting global warming to 1.5C would have ‘significant economic benefits; Judge: fracking gas from neighbor's property is trespassing; Rising seas: the slow-motion catastrophe threatening 350-year-old farms in MA... PLUS: Dr. King said segregation harms us all: Both minorities and whites who live in racially divided communities are exposed to higher levels of pollution than those who live in more integrated areas... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Good news for voters in two separate federal court cases concerning the National Voter Registration Act, and bad news for democracy, as a rightwing media outlet is using trusted local television anchors --- and our public airwaves --- to deceptively promote the Trump Agenda. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up, some breaking news as we go to air today on yet another mass shooting. This time, it was at the YouTube headquarters building in San Bruno, California, with few details known as of airtime, other than the news that four were known to have been wounded and the shooter appears to have been a women who killed herself after her spree.

Then, some happier breaking news out of Texas, where a federal court found in favor of the Texas Civil Rights Project on Tuesday, in their lawsuit against the state on behalf of plaintiffs who were denied voter registration via the online Department of Public Safety (DPS) website system when they obtained or changed their drivers' licenses. Under the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA or "motor voter" law), the judge ruled the state is required to process changes to drivers' licenses as voter registration applications when users click a box to confirm they wish to register to vote. Some 1.5 million Texans annually, according to the complaint [PDF], have attempted to do so, only to find out they were not actually registered to vote via the system when they showed up to the polls.

In further encouraging court news for voters, a federal judge in Florida on Friday found against a group of long-time Republican "voter fraud" fraudsters who sued, under a different provision of the NVRA, claiming that Broward County wasn't purging their voting rolls aggressively enough. That case was the first to come to trial among several similar cases filed by the rightwing groups calling themselves Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) and the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU). The judge's ruling seriously undercuts at least one of the major claims made by longtime GOP "voter fraud" fraudsters asserting evidence of massive "voter fraud" supposedly being carried out by Democrats.

Then, after a remarkable video mashup of dozens and dozens of local TV news anchors all robotically reading the same corporate-supplied script decrying "fake news" went viral over the weekend, there has been intense scrutiny of the rightwing Sinclair Broadcast Group, the company which forced the local stations it owns to produce the promos. Sinclair currently owns nearly 200 local TV stations and, despite already being the largest owner of stations nationwide, is in the process of purchasing at least 40 more that are owned by Tribune Media.

Media Matters' researcher PAM VOGEL, who has been reporting on Sinclair's misuse of our public airwaves via their local stations for several years, joins us to detail the concerns behind otherwise longtime trusted local media outlets becoming little more than propaganda outlets for the Trump Administration.

"Sinclair has been so successful for so long, because they kind of fly under the radar with smaller-scale local news," Vogel explains. The company uses it's stations --- affiliates of various networks, like ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox --- to "exploit the inherent trust that people have for their local news. You aren't necessarily aware of who is pulling the strings behind the scenes. There's no Sinclair logo on the screen."

Beyond forcing stations to run promos like the "hostage video" that went viral over the weekend, Sinclair also forces them to use regular "must-run" commentaries like those from former Trump Campaign official Boris Epshteyn.

Vogel also details what is known about the FCC Inspector General's reported investigation into whether Trump Administration officials and his FCC Chairman Ajit Pai improperly colluded with Sinclair executives to change long-standing FCC media ownership rules in order to accommodate Sinclair's attempted takeover of Tribune Media.

"They are already the largest owner of local television stations in the country, but this deal is completely unprecedented," she tells me. "And it wouldn't have actually been possible unless Trump's FCC --- now that it was under Republican-majority control, with Trump in office --- made some special moves to make that deal possible in the first place."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, in which the EPA has reversed fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks enacted by the Obama Administration; EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt finds himself under renewed scrutiny in several corruption scandals; DoJ sues the state of California over federal lands; and ExxonMobil's attempt to block climate change lawsuits against them gets tossed by a federal judge...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Bad news for consumers: Trump's EPA rolls back fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks; Department of Justice sues California for blocking sale of federally-owned lands in California; Exxon's lawsuit to prevent states from investigating its climate change denial is thrown out of court; PLUS: Environmental groups launch campaign to 'Boot Pruitt'... 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): CA mountain snowpack will be 64% smaller by the end of this century. We need to prepare now; Americans tell Interior to take a hike over proposed national park fee increase; DOE - sort of - kills 'SunShot Initiative'; Human role in climate change removed from federal science report; 'Extreme' changes underway in major Antarctic glaciers; Trump's pick to head Superfund spent decades fighting cleanups for polluters; Foe Of Endangered Species Act lands gig overseeing wildlife; Fact Check: Science contradicts EPA global warming memo; Renewable energy battle brewing in Arizona, with confusion as a weapon... PLUS: Trump endorses states' rights - but only when he agrees with the state... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Plastic within the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is 'increasing exponentially'; Cutting greenhouse gas emissions could save 150 million lives around the world; Americans have grown increasingly polarized in their views on global warming; PLUS: Pipeline protesters found not guilty in landmark new 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): 'Boot Pruitt': There’s Now a National Campaign to Oust EPA Head Scott Pruitt; High-tide flooding could happen 'every other day' by late this century; Ice cores show Greenland’s melting is unprecedented in at least 400 years; ‘Extreme’ Fossil-Fuel Lending Fell in 2017 --- Except in Canada; EPA plan to bar studies without public data could disrupt clean air regulations; Efficiency, DERs saving California $2.6B in avoided transmission costs; After 3 Decades, Washington State Bans Atlantic Salmon Farms; Half of All U.S. Coal Plants Would Lose Money Without Regulation... PLUS: Empty half the Earth of its humans. It's the only way to save the planet... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Harvey's toxic legacy much worse than publicly revealed; EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt gives another gift to the U.S. auto industry; PLUS: Massive omnibus bill has surprisingly good news for national parks, firefighting, and a tiny village in Alaska... 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): 'Dead zone' in Gulf of Mexico will take decades to recover from farm pollution; These Climate Pollutants Don't Last Long, But They’re Wreaking Havoc on the Arctic; New Study Finds Children's Blood Lead Levels In Flint Are Declining; Interior Department Denies Ryan Zinke Told Staff ‘Diversity Isn’t Important; U.S. Asks China Not To Implement Ban On Foreign Garbage; Why Climate Change Skeptics Are Backing Geoengineering; 5 electric cars tested in cold Norwegian winter... PLUS: Scott Pruitt’s Dirty Politics: How the Environmental Protection Agency became the fossil-fuel industry’s best friend... and much, MUCH more! ...

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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! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump doesn't want you to know his own report shows that benefits of environmental regulations far outweigh the costs; Colorado Republicans kill bill prioritizing public health in oil and gas development; Interior Secretary Zinke pulls lands in his own home state from oil and gas auction; PLUS: 3rd major storm in 10 days pummels the Northeast, underscoring need to invest in electric grid resilience... 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): Mike Pompeo may be the first climate-denying secretary of state; Schwarzenegger to sue Big Oil for ‘first degree murder’; EPA is openly promoting a climate denial think tank; Federal court orders EPA to implement smog rules; Trump Administration eliminates animal welfare rule; Where does all the leaking coal waste go?; WI wants break from ozone rules in advance of Foxconn; Dakota Access Pipeline leak technology can't detect all spills; Almost all sea turtles born in Florida are female... PLUS: Supreme Court asked to open public lands near the Grand Canyon to uranium mining... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, so many great cons to debunk, so little time. But we've actually got some good news for voters today as well. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

First up today, Trump unleashes his massive and wildly unpopular --- and, yes, job-killing --- new taxes on imported steel and aluminum.

Then, some voting news, most of it good. The state of Washington is the ninth state in the union to adopt automatic voter registration, and a federal court has ruled that California must inform Vote-by-Mail voters before their ballots are tossed out when election officials decide that the signature on the ballot doesn't match the one on the voter's registration form. According to the ACLU's lawsuit, as many as 45,000 voters in the state were disenfranchised, without their knowledge, thanks to California's horrible practice, carried out by the whim of officials who are anything but handwriting experts.

Meanwhile, two Democratic U.S. senators have sent a letter to the nation's top three election vendors, ES&S, Dominion, and Hart Intercivic, asking if they have shared the source code from their computerized voting and tabulation systems with Russia. We discuss what this actually means and doesn't. (For example: No, it's not necessary for Russia or anybody else, including elections officials, to have access or familiarity with proprietary source code from voting and tabulating systems in order to manipulate computer-tallied elections!) We also call out Reuters for continuing to spread the evidence-free claim in their report on this that "voting machines were not directly affected" by meddling during the 2016 election.

Next, we're joined by Vox.com's environment and politics writer DAVID ROBERTS to discuss a new report [PDF] released by the Trump Administration's own Office of Management and Budget(!) which, as he writes, "demolishes the GOP’s deregulatory claims." In short, it finds that benefits to the public of federal regulations far outstrip their costs in pretty much every imaginable way.

The aggregate costs of major federal regulations (those with an impact of $100 million or more) between 2006 and 2016, according to the annually mandated report released late on a Friday night for some reason, "were somewhere between $59 and $88 billion. And the aggregate benefits were somewhere between $219 and $695 billion," says Roberts. "So, even if you take the highest possible estimate of costs, and the lowest possible estimate of benefits, the benefits are still well over double what the costs were, in the most conservative analysis."

While Donald Trump has attempted to cut hundreds of rules and regulations across federal agencies --- repeatedly boasting about doing away with a record number of "job-killing regulations" and bureaucratic red-tape --- the fact is, as his own OMB (headed up by the far-right, Tea Party, regulation-hating Mick Mulvaney!) detailed in their report, those regulations do not "kill jobs" or cost the government money. In fact, killing those rules costs the government far more, particularly the environmental rules being radically gutted by this Administration.

But, as Roberts argues, the "job-killing" mantra has been so often repeated by Republicans since the days of Ronald Reagan --- and gone largely unchallenged by corporate media --- much of the public now simply accepts those false assertions as reality.

"Just to be clear, we've known this about federal regulations for a long time," Roberts notes. "These things have been subjected to cost-benefit analysis out the wazoo for years and years. Not only by the federal government, but by outside analysts. They all more or less converge on this same answer, which is that the public health and social and employment benefits of these things wildly outweigh the costs, and have for years."

"The reason Republicans hate this is because, when you see it in aggregate like this, it's almost enough to convince you that government can be an agent of good, that it can improve public health and welfare while still maintaining economic growth."

"It's revealing, I think, that this is treated as a revelation," he tells me. "It ought to be commonplace by now. It's the consensus of the experts. We just don't accept it, because Republicans, just through the sheer weight of repetition, have been saying 'job-killing regulations', 'burdensome regulations', etc., etc., for so long, that that's just sort of baked into the cake as one side of the debate, even though there's no support for it. There's no analysis that supports that."

We discuss why that is and who actually benefits from the GOP's great con. (Hint: It isn't the bulk of the folks who voted for Donald Trump!) Robert's also goes on to argue why he believes that Democrats are at least partly to blame for this con having taken such a death grip on the American conscience as self-defeating "conventional wisdom" over the past several decades.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report for yet another demonstration of how the decades-long scam to gut regulations continues to threaten the nation and the world...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Stark contrast on climate between U.S. and Europe at energy industry conference; Bad news for elephants; Good news for a U.S. electric grid powered by clean solar and wind; Appeals court rules youth climate lawsuit can move forward; PLUS: The Arctic just had its warmest winter on record, and polar scientists are kind of freaking out... 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): Democrats release infrastructure plan with $80 billion in electric grid upgrades; Spring is running 20 days early, but it’s not good; EPA is letting key staffers keep their political consulting side gigs; Climate change tightens grip on US west coast despite progressive aspirations; Forests that protect against climate impacts are increasingly threatened; Zinke backs off some oil drilling expansion due to GOP resistance; Subsidence will worsen sea level rise in coming decades; Trump official slams USGS for documenting glacier shrinkage; Tepco's 'ice wall' failing to contain radioactive water runoff... PLUS: As Arctic ice melts, territorial disputes are heating up, too... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Oil and gas industry slams Donald Trump's proposed steel tariffs; Boston hit with historic flooding for second time in a month, with more on the way; Toxic coal ash waste is contaminating groundwater supplies near coal plants; PLUS: Plastic pollution has reached all the way up to the Arctic... 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): Ban Ki-moon: US has caused serious damage to Paris climate efforts; Emails show oil was central to decision to shrink Bears Ears National Monument; Zinke withdraws land near his home from oil lease sale; US flood insurance chief warns all Floridians, 'you're at risk'; Environmental racism: EPA rejects AL town's claim on toxic landfills; SUV sales surge globally, and that's bad for the climate; CA is rebuilding in fire country because you're paying for it; GOP pushes 80 anti-environment riders in new spending bill; Trump nominates Dow Chemical official to lead emergency response to toxic spills; South Australia leads the world in clean solar generation... PLUS: Trump reverses promise to ban imports of dead elephant 'trophies'... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: As the White House implosion continues at the end of one of its most chaotic weeks to date, Trump declares a trade war! [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Well, huge tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, anyway, (those are taxes on the American people, Mr. President), which will almost certainly lead to international trade wars with friend and foes alike, raise the cost of many consumer goods and, yes, kill American jobs.

The proposed tariff scheme has already led to an internal White House war with Trump's lead economic advisor threatening to resign if they are implemented, Congressional Republicans furious about the plan, close allies such as Canada and the EU threatening to retaliate against the U.S., the entirety of the fossil fuel industry (from oil to natural gas to coal) declaring that jobs will be lost and prices will rise, and even Trump's own Defense Secretary advising that the measure, which President Chaos is hoping to pull off on "national security" grounds, will have a "negative impact on our key allies". Other than that, the idea is going over very well.

At the same time, there was another school shooting by a 19-year old on Friday, this time at Central Michigan University; Texas sees huge early voting turnout in advance of Tuesday's 2018 mid-term primary elections (even beating turnout for the 2016 Presidential primaries!); New polling finds the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and Medicaid with record high approval ratings; and the state of Georgia is finally moving away from their 14-year old 100% unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting systems...to new, similarly unverifiable computer-printed "paper ballot" systems.

(The GA legislature is moving a measure forward to fund new "Ballot Marking Devices" or "BMDs", which are, essentially, very expensive computerized "electronic pencils" that allow voters to use a touch-screen to print out a non-human readable barcode on a piece of paper, which is then tallied by a computer scanner. Or, the computer may print human-readable vote selections on paper which may or may not actually be verified by the voter to reflect their intent before being tallied by a computer. After an election, it'll be impossible to know if any of those so-called ballot cards actually reflect voter intent. That's why election integrity advocates oppose the new "bad to worse" scheme quickly moving forward in GA!)

Then, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report as Trump's EPA chief Scott Pruitt cites the bible as his excuse for polluting the planet and killing children with fossil fuel exploitation and dangerous chemicals. (Hope Pope Francis doesn't find out!)

And we close today with some listener mail and some very good news from the American Cancer Society that they are finally recommending electronic cigarettes and vaping devices for smoking cessation. (Hope the supposedly anti-tobacco Democrats who are helping to kill people by making it more difficult to vape don't find out!)

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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: Yes, the kids are alright. And, if this past week has been any indication --- along with the results of a fascinating social experiment by my guest today --- they may well save us all. I hope they hurry. [Audio link to today's show follows below.]

First up, however, a boatload of news broke shortly before air today, and we scramble to cover as much of it as we can. Among those stories...

• New indictments are filed by Robert Mueller's Special Counsel probe against two former Donald Trump campaign officials. His former campaign chair Paul Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates, who also served on the Trump transition team saw 32 counts added to the 17 felony counts leveled against them in October. The new charges relate to some $30 million in money laundering and tax fraud, based on funds said to have been received while Manafort worked for a Russian-backed Ukrainian President prior to joining the Trump campaign;
• U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan and the White House have reportedly pushed out, Matthew Masterson, the Republican Chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) for reasons that remain unknown The EAC, formed by Congress after the 2000 election debacle to help state election officials with e-voting system standards, has failed in many ways over the years, as we discuss (and as we've reported at The BRAD BLOG for many years.) Still, they remain the only federal agency tasked with that role, even while Republicans have been attempting, for years, to shutter the Commission entirely. Masterson, said to be highly regarded by state election officials, was overseeing cyber-security standards for new voting systems before the 2018 mid-terms, in light of concerns of foreign manipulation of U.S. voting, registration and tabulation systems;
• And, also breaking just before air, Missouri's new "family values" Republican Governor Eric Greitens was indicted late Thursday on a felony charge related to allegations that threatened to blackmail a woman he had tied up and photographed nude in his basement during an affair in 2015, prior to his 2016 election.

Then, with the incredibly impressive students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida speaking up, marching, organizing and protesting unapologetically to demand new legislation on guns after a former student killed 17 at their school last week with a legally-purchased semi-automatic AR-15 rifle, President Trump unleashed a Twitter rant on Thursday morning calling for teachers across the country to be armed in response. That call has not gone over well with the Stoneman Douglas students, though many Republican officials and their paymasters at the National Rifle Association (NRA) support the measure to place even more guns into our nations schools.

But, as my guest today, Philadelphia area high school teacher and writer DINA LEYGERMAN argues, the current generation of high schoolers across the country are fierce, a force to be reckoned with and not to be underestimated.

In her recent article headlined "The Teens Will Save Us", Leygerman documents a fascinating social experiment that she has run for a number of years while teaching George Orwell's 1984 to her English class. After similar results of the experiment year after year --- in which, without informing the students, she basically turns her classroom into an Orwellian totalitarian regime over a matter of days, with her as the dictator turning students against each other --- she says that this year, for reasons she discusses, the response by the students was completely different from previous years. The students, she explains, were having none of it, and actually stood up, organized with their classmates and other students in rebellion against her. As she wrote, "For the first time since I've done this experiment, the students 'won.'"

Leygerman joins us for what turns out to be a very hopeful segment, as she explains what happened, why, and how this generation may be very different from the slacker image many have painted them with. "They are participating in marches. They are participating in their student government. They are listening to the news. They're reading the news more, everyday. They are involved. And I think in our current political climate, where everything is so hostile and divisive, they are learning. I walk around and, even in the cafeteria, I'll listen to them talk about DACA, they'll talk about issues that I don't ever remember discussing when I was a kid," she tells me.

It's a fascinating conversation that I hope you'll tune in for. I also get her thoughts on Trump and the NRA's proposal for arming teachers, which she describes as "insane and dangerous" and a "diversion and deflection" from the actual conversation of what should be done about our nation's gun epidemic. Leygerman, who also writes for parenting website Romper, wonders: "Where's the funding coming from? And if it's coming from the government or from the state, why can't we have basic supplies instead?"

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, as a chemical giant settles a decades-long water contamination lawsuit, global temperatures continue to sky-rocket, sea levels rise at an ever-quickening pace, and another western state becomes the latest to block Donald Trump's scheme to expand off-shore oil drilling...

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