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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump suggests solar panels on his border wall with Mexico; Energy Secretary Rick Perry goes full science denial; Trump Administration seeks to reactivate Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository; Plastic pollution has reached Antarctica; Renewable energy actually helps electric grid stability; PLUS: British government to invest a billion dollars in shift to electric cars... 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): Tropical Storm Cindy drenches Gulf Coast; Worldwide coal bleaching event may finally be ending; Methane leaks spike in natural gas production in NM; Publishers defend Greenpeace in dispute with logging company; Zinke screws up 3 denier talking points in Senate hearing; Volcanoes 'triggered dawn of dinosaurs'; Miami-Dade signs on to Paris Agreement... PLUS: Solar paint makes hydrogen fuel from solar energy and water vapor... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: How Donald Trump continues to be his own worst enemy (and, arguably, the world's) and the case for why Democrats should declare themselves "the accountability party" and immediately begin the effort to impeach the President of the United States. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First, the fallout from Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement continues as, CNN reports today that the Acting U.S. Ambassador to China, a 27-year career foreign service officer, has resigned over the decision. But he's not the only American diplomat Trump seems to have upset of late, as the acting U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. was also forced to publicly take sides against Trump following the weekend terror attacks in London.

At the same time, Trump seems determined to make certain he loses his own Department of Justice's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to restore his second Executive Order "travel ban" which has been put on hold, repeatedly, by federal courts from Maryland to Hawaii. In a weekend long Twitter tirade, continuing through Monday, the President offered one incriminating statement after another, blasting both the courts and his own DoJ, in a series of statements that will almostly certainly be held against him and his own Solicitor General's case to lift the current injunction on his ban.

Trump also thought it wise, for reasons few can figure out, to disparage (now, at least twice!) the Mayor of London following the attacks in Britain on Saturday. And while Trump had plenty to say about London, it should be noted he had far less to say last week after two American men were killed defending Muslim women from an anti-Muslim tirade by a self-proclaimed "patriot" on a train in Portland, Oregon.

Moreover, Trump has, so far, had absolutely nothing to say following a mass shooting rampage on Monday morning in Orlando, Florida. That attack, with a semi-automatic pistol, allegedly carried out by a white, non-Muslim American, killed five of the shooter's former co-workers, all said to have been shot in the head multiple times by the assailant who then killed himself. Some suicide attacks, it seems, are worse than others to this President and his party which continue to insist on making firearms easier to obtain, even by the mentally ill.

Then, as Trump's approval ratings continue to fall, and a plurality of Americans, according to at least one poll, support his impeachment, we're joined by progressive author and journalist John Nichols of The Nation who argues that the time to begin the effort to impeach Donald Trump is now. Nichols details his case for impeachment, from both a Constitutional and historical point of perspective, and offers just some of what he believes should be investigated during impeachment proceedings in the U.S. House of Representatives.

"Congress doesn't have to wait" for the DoJ Special Counsel to complete its own criminal investigation, Nichols tells me. "In fact, it shouldn't wait...to allow the office of the Presidency to be polluted, to be undermined, to be warped in a way that might harm the country."

"Virtually half --- and I suspect after recent events it may get higher --- of Americans now say that the President should be impeached," he argues. "I know that a lot of people would like to begin with the list of particulars of what Trump did. But the fact that there is mass popular support for impeachment, [that's] the place at which we ought to begin. A representative branch of government should respond to that. It should recognize that there are tremendous numbers, tens of millions of Americans, who believe that this guy is governing in a way so atrocious, so damaging, that action should be taken to remove him from his position."

"We ought to stop fetishizing the impeachment power and start recognizing that it is a tool of governance that was established to make government work better. Not to create a Constitutional crisis, but to address the potential of a Constitutional crisis," Nichols says.

"If Democrats are serious about politics, they have to be about accountability," he tells me. "I think when you take [impeachment] off the table, as so many Democratic leaders have suggested we should, you really disarm. You put yourself in a position where holding a President to account is left to chance, left to long term processes that lack the urgency that the American people would like to see."

So, should Dems go so far as to promise impeachment to voters if they are elected to the majority in Congress in 2018? Or does such a promise risk political blow-back making it harder for them to take majorities in the House and Senate in the first place? And, frankly, should that even matter? We discuss all of that and much more along those lines today, and also the national Democratic party's failure to adequately support their own candidates in special U.S. House elections in recent weeks, in both Kansas and Montana, and whether they've learned any lessons on that in advance of still more U.S. House special elections set for both Georgia and South Carolina later this month...

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On today's BradCast: Making history and breaking history. From historic worldwide climate pacts to nuclear arms treaties, from Trump and Russia to Nixon and the Soviet Union and back again. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First, in an historic Rose Garden speech on Thursday, President Donald Trump --- against the advice of world leaders, major American companies, and even many in his own Administration --- announced his intention of pulling the U.S. out of the historic Paris Climate Agreement. The landmark 2015 pact is signed by nearly 200 nations and was crafted as part of a 20-year U.N. effort to decrease greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, in hopes of avoiding the worst effects of man-made climate change.

Trump's announcement has largely been met with worldwide derision from China to India to Russia to the EU and back here at home. And his announced intention of "renegotiating" a different deal was quickly nixed today by France, Germany and Italy. We offer extended experts from Trump's remarks announcing his intention to withdraw, some much-needed fact-checking, and a look at where the tortured decision --- which will take four years and another Presidential election --- leaves the U.S.

But, as that unfortunate history was being made today, we also take a look back at historic parallels for the recently reported, and seemingly bizarre, attempt by Trump's son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner to create a secret back-channel line of communications with Russia during last year's Presidential transition.

Princeton University political history professor and author Julian E. Zelizer, joins us to describe two different similar back-channels created with two different countries (including one to Russia --- actually, then, the Soviet Union) by Richard Nixon, both during his campaign and his transition.

One such line of secret diplomacy, Zelizer explains, turned out to be hugely successful for both the U.S. and USSR alike. The other...well, it didn't turn out so well, even as we've only learned details about both in recent years. Zelizer also describes the recent history of diplomatic back-channel diplomacy by Presidents other than Nixon and Trump, offers a few other uncomfortable parallels for the current President, and explains why Kushner's purported scheme to use Russian facilities to speak with the Kremlin is so bizarre, even, apparently, to the Russians themselves.

"Part of the idea that both Richard Nixon believed in, and his top National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, was that there needed to be a new approach to handling U.S. relations with the Soviet Union," Zelizer tells me. "The key to doing this was simply opening up the lines of dialogue. [Kissinger] sets up a back-channel, as it was called, to the Soviet ambassador, which is top secret. He believed this had to be done around the existing government bureaucracy. They were worried about leaks, they were worried about political push-back."

"Nixon was totally paranoid and frightened about the existing bureaucracy in the State Department, and to some extent in the Defense Department, and was really determined to try to do things --- which would ultimately lead to his downfall --- on his own. And to have these kinds of communications without the official government knowing what he was doing, and subverting him."

Sound familiar? In that case, as Zelizer writes at CNN, it was actually a huge success that eventually resulted in the SALT I Agreement to limit nuclear weapons in both nations. The other Nixon back-channel was far more nefarious, dealing with his campaign's attempt to scuttle peace talks by Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam before his election.

In both Nixon cases, it took years before we even learned about any of it. In the more recent case of Kushner and Russia, Zelizer notes, "There's a lot of uncertainty, both about context and the substance of this effort, which is why it is something that's raised a lot of suspicion and is the focus of an investigation. It's not the back-channel, it's what this back-channel was meant to do and why it was being put into place --- if it's true."

Finally, Desi Doyen re-joins us for special, breaking Green News Report coverage of, well...see if you can guess...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 'GNR' Special Coverage: President Trump announces he will withdraw the U.S. from the landmark United Nations Paris Agreement, sending shockwaves around the world... 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): Larsen C ice shelf on verge of breaking off; Wind power rising but falling under political cloud; Commercial plant starts removing CO2 from the air; California Senate sends package of climate bills to offset Trump; Trump would face legal battle to withdraw from 1992 treaty; Extreme warmth has dominated U.S. weather records since 2010; EPA reportedly helped Paris agreement opponents place op-eds in newspapers; Financial firms lead shareholder rebellion against ExxonMobil climate change policies... PLUS: Judge blocks Montana mine, in victory for grassroots groups... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, the Trump Administration leaks the suggestion that they, are indeed, planning to drop out of the historic 2015 world pact to limit the dangerous global rise of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent, or at least stall, the worst effects of climate change. [Audio link to show follows below.]

The comments from unnamed White House sources today that President Donald Trump plans to withdraw from the landmark U.N. Paris Climate Agreement are ricocheting across the globe. But will he really drop out? If so, what do leaders from the rest of the world --- friend and foe --- have to say about it? What do leaders here in the U.S. think? What do senior members of his own administration think? What will Trump's own voters think?

And how can it be that Republicans have been so wrong, for so long, even now, on the issue, including over the past decade when they insisted over and again that China and India would never be willing to cut emissions? (Both countries are willing and have each reaffirmed their commitment to the pact, despite Trump's threats to get out.)

How would the decision effect both the global climate itself and the United States' standing in the world? What are the costs financially of ceding leadership on issues of energy and climate, particularly at a moment when the costs of renewable energy like wind and solar are absolutely plummeting and even many fossil fuel companies (and even some coal companies!) are both recognizing the dangers of global warming and encouraging Trump to stay in the agreement with nearly 200 other nations?

What are Trump's legal options for getting out of the pact, and what the hell explains his grievance and bizarre affection for the dying and dirty coal industry, anyway? Oh, and what do ExxonMobil shareholders think about it all?

Those are just some of the many questions asked and answered on today's show, featuring Desi Doyen of The Green News Report, at this perilous moment in world history...

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On today's BradCast, one of the most amazing candidate meltdowns ever seen (or, in this case, heard) and how the Speaker of the House hopes to look the other way in the event that he wins anyway. But that's just the tip of today's news iceberg(s). [Audio link to show posted below.]

In one of the most remarkable Election Eve unravelings ever by a U.S. candidate for...pretty much anything, Republican U.S. House candidate Greg Gianforte melted down on the eve of what should have been an easy victory in his statewide Special Election for Montana's only U.S. House seat against Democratic candidate Rob Quist. Instead, in an incident caught on stunning audio tape and witnessed by Fox "News" reporters, Gianforte "body slammed" a Guardian reporter, has been charged with assault, and saw his newspaper endorsements rescinded on the night before voters went to the polls on Thursday.

But many voters already cast their vote by absentee ballot by time of the Wednesday incident, and House Speaker Paul Ryan suggests he'll accept whatever results are reported from the election. That, as I explain today, conveniently ignores Congress's Article 1, Section 5 Constitutional right (and duty) to determine who is actually seated in the House of Representatives. It's a right they have exercised on a number of other controversial elections in the past, so surely Ryan is familiar with that. But, of course, we'll soon see (hopefully) who voters in Montana have decided they want for their only Representative in the U.S. House.

At the same time, it was another enormous news day in which Donald Trump's second attempted travel ban Executive Order was blocked, yet again, this time by the full U.S. 4th Circuit of Appeals. His Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced he will appeal the case to the GOP's stolen U.S. Supreme Court.

Also today, yet another embarrassment for the Trump Administration, which was publicly taken to task by British Prime Minister Theresa May for leaking British intelligence to media regarding the UK's Manchester Bombing investigation. The leaks not only invoked the wrath of (and temporarily stopped intelligence sharing from) the United States' closest ally, but it was hardly the only highly sensitive information recently and inappropriately disclosed to friend and foe alike by Trump and/or his Administration in recent days.

And, in a (related) news item we didn't get to yesterday, after disclosing the whereabouts of two U.S. nuclear submarines, it appears Trump actually praised Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte during a recent phone call for the "unbelievable...great job" he has done on that nation's drug epidemic --- in which thousands of people have been murdered in a brutal extrajudicial campaign carried out by Duterte's police force.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us with a jam-packed Green News Report, before still more news breaks at the buzzer, reportedly finding Trump's top adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner 'under FBI scrutiny' in the Bureau's ongoing Trump/Russia probe...

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So who is the "nut job" here? On today's BradCast, Trump appears to have dug himself even deeper into the Obstruction of Justice mire and, speaking of "justice", Attorney General Jeff Sessions rolls back bi-partisan gains on criminal justice reform made during the Obama Era. [Audio link for show follows below.]

A new report today from the New York Times alleges that, during his Oval Office meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador last week, the day after he'd fired James Comey, President Trump described the former FBI Director as "crazy" and a "real nut job". He reportedly explained that he'd been under "great pressure because of Russia," but that pressure had been lifted due to his firing. If accurate, the new report, said to have been based on documentation of the meeting from the White House itself, could serve as more evidence of Obstruction of Justice by the President, who has now departed for a nine day overseas trip.

Foreign diplomats are reportedly making special preparations to deal with Trump in the Middle East and Europe, including plans to compliment him on his Electoral College win, and by keeping presentations short enough for his, um, limited attention span.

But lost among the sturm und drang over the Comey firing and related dramas over the past week or more is the fact that Trump's executive agencies, such as the EPA, the Department of Interior and Department of Justice, are all moving ahead with some pretty troubling policies. Among them, Attorney General Jeff Sessions' harsh new guidelines requiring federal prosecutors to charge defendants with the "most serious" crimes possible in order to, among other things, force judges to impose mandatory minimum sentencing. This comes even while the U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population, but nearly one quarter of its prisoners.

The new Trump Administration policies, rolling back progressive Obama Era reforms, are being enacted despite decades of plummeting crime rates and broad bi-partisan efforts for criminal justice reform, both at the state and federal levels, according to my guest today, former New York Asst. District Attorney Ames Grawert, now counsel at the Justice Program for NYU's Brennan Center.

Grawert, co-author of the new report, A Federal Agenda to Reduce Mass Incarceration, speaks to the Trump/Sessions claims that crime is rampant and ravaging the nation, despite all evidence to the contrary. "Fear sells," he tells me. "He [Trump] and Sessions need something to convince people that there's a need to embrace these draconian blast-from-the-past policies on mandatory minimums."

About those policies, Grawert laments, "Whether you come to it as a conservative from a moral angle, a religious angle, or simply a budgetary common sense angle, there's a lot of Republicans who are willing to say that criminal justice reform is an imperative for the country. It's shocking that Sessions [when he served as U.S. Senator, blocking a bi-partisan reform bill] was not one of them."

Obama's Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates (yes, that Sally Yates), had issued a memorandum last year instructing federal prisons to end contracts with private prison corporations for a number of reasons supported by both Republicans and Democrats. "Sessions rescinded that very early in his tenure," Grawert notes, "with an ominous declaration that it was needed to meet the quote 'future needs of the federal correctional system.'"

"The problem is that when you have mandatory minimums like these, and when you have an order like the one Sessions just put out last week preventing prosecutors from deciding how they are going to charge a case, it takes a lot of the discretion out of the hands of prosecutors. So, rather than making sure that they, who know the case best of all, are able to help the judge fit the punishment to the crime, you have prosecutors with their hands tied, required to seek a draconian sentence that they, themselves, and that judges also may not feel is actually called for."

"The one thing we learned from the last thirty years or so, is that the federal government's power of the purse, and the tone set in Washington, they carry a lot of weight at the state level," he tells me. "So if you have an attorney general saying, look, we need to send more people to jail for longer, you shouldn't think for a minute that people in states, people running for D.A., people running for governor's house, won't listen to that and take their cues from that."

Please listen to the full show with much more on all of the above right here...

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On today's BradCast, we do our best to surf today's news tsunami, with a focus on a few troubling and under-appreciated stories amid the political flood pouring out of Washington and around the world in the wake of the DoJ's appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Among the huge number of quickly moving and/or under-covered stories pieced together on today's show...

• CA Assembly bill calls for Donald Trump's impeachment;
• U.S. launches new airstrike on Syrian forces (despite Congressional failure to authorize attacks on a sovereign nation, which could result in war with Russia);
• Michael Flynn blocked President Obama's planned offensive against ISIS, which was opposed by Flynn's secret client Turkey;
• Trump Team was told of FBI investigation of Flynn long before inauguration;
• VP Mike Pence, head of Trump Transition, still claims he knew nothing about Flynn's ties to foreign nations;
• Suspicion grows over Team Trump attorney, White House counsel Don McGahn;
• Senate Intel Chair offers two different stories on Flynn subpoenas;
• House Oversight Chair announces he's quitting Congress next month;
• Mueller's appointment receives mostly bipartisan support, as....;
• ...White House turns 'chaotically dark', cancels Kellyanne Conway appearance on Fox 'News', before...
• Trump turns against appointment of Mueller to describe it as 'unprecedented witch hunt', which 'divides the country', even as he begins to separate himself from 'Russia collusion' and prepares to throw campaign team under the bus;
• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with, among other things, a citizen call to action to save National Monuments set for possible repeal by the Trump Administration...

I wish our countries had "scandals" like this one instead...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Virginia's Governor sets up statewide carbon cap-and-trade system; Bears Ears National Monument targeted for repeal on behalf of oil and gas industry; EPA gets an earful on which pollution regulations to repeal --- or not; PLUS: See it while you still can --- Glacier National Park's glaciers are going, going... 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): 5 reasons why the Regulatory Accountability Act is bad for science; Vulnerable communities lash out as companies sway climate talks; Nearly half of CA salmon species face extinction; Loggers hope to fire up chain saws in Trump era; Iowa senator slams Rick Perry for undermining wind energy; Pesticide sickens workers one month after Trump EPA refuses to ban it; Scientists identify another coral reef devastated by warming; Is the era of nuclear power coming to an end?... PLUS: Blood tests significantly underestimate blood levels, CDC warns... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: Will war be avoided on the Korean Peninsula amid Donald Trump's continued saber rattling? Will Bill O'Reilly ever return from his "vacation" amid newly revealed sexual harassment allegations? And will the U.S. corporate media ever stop rooting for war? [Audio link to show posted below.]

Donald Trump continues to rattle U.S. sabers against North Korea which, in turn, is rattling back, as tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula, with fears that either country could launch a "pre-emptive" attack. China, in the meantime, is hoping to settle nerves and find a way to peace through diplomatic, rather than military means.

All the while, the U.S. Congress remains on its 18-day holiday break, and apparently still unwilling to carry out their Constitutional duties as the (supposedly) sole arbiters of whether the U.S. goes to war with a sovereign nation whether in North Korea or Syria.

And, speaking of vacations, questions and investigations continue into multiple sexual harassment allegations against Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, currently on a much longer than usual vacation for some reason. Dozens of major corporations have pulled their ads from Fox's highest rated show, and the company has re-hired the same independent investigators whose previous probe last year into similar allegations against former Fox chief Roger Ailes finallly led to his golden-parachuted ouster. But why were O'Reilly and top executive enablers at FNC allowed to remain, even though they were aware of millions of dollars in secret settlements paid to O'Reilly's accusers?

Media Matters' Eric Boehlert joins me today to discuss the latest charges and revelations against O'Reilly, Ailes, Fox "News" co-president Bill Shine and FNC's long "culture of predatory harassment".

"That excellent New York Times report that detailed five lawsuits that had been settled totaling $13 million over the years, they pointed out that O'Reilly's contract was just renewed and Fox News knew about these lawsuits. On what planet does someone on your staff file five sexual harassment lawsuits, and then you re-up and give him another contract, in this case apparently for $18 million?," Boehlert asks.

"The Murdoch sons in particular could have cleaned up the culture at Fox News when they just went through this exact same thing last summer with Roger Ailes," he charges. "They completely covered it over. They paid off Roger Ailes to go away quietly. They promoted people who enabled him. And now where are they? They thought they were free, and now they're right back where they started."

We also discuss the corporate media's return to cheerleading for U.S. Presidents who start new wars and a disturbingly ridiculous new rightwing hire for the New York Times' op-ed page.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us with the latest Green News Report as Florida's climate change denying Governor declares a statewide state of emergency for a global warming related issue, and I share the results of my recent Twitter poll asking whether or not Donald Trump is actually insane...

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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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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Rising tide of opposition against Trump's latest executive order; Trump's climate denial puts China first in the global clean energy race; Texas judge kicks ExxonMobil case back to New York; PLUS: Mobilizing the Power of the People with the upcoming March for Science and the March for Climate... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): "Trump Is a Chinese Agent"; Trump’s Interior Secretary says ‘clean energy’ is a hoax; Unbalanced Climate-Change Hearing Proves Pointless; Lamar Smith, unbound, lays out political strategy at climate doubters’ conference; While Ohio Coal Employment Falls, Solar Jobs Double In Cleveland Area; Trump’s Executive Order is Out of Step With Americans; Energy Department Climate Office Bans Use Of Phrase ‘Climate Change’; Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power... PLUS: If you liked buying your oil from Saudi Arabia, you’ll love buying your electric cars, solar panels, efficiency software and batteries from China.... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump promises to bring back coal jobs by dismantling Obama's climate policies; The world is moving swiftly away from coal, report finds; Flame retardant chemicals found in the Great Lakes; Wind energy blows past another milestone in Europe; PLUS: Across the entire country, wildfire season off to a ferocious early start... 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): Farm Policy in Age of Climate Change Creating Another Dust Bowl, Critics Say; The Arctic Just Set Another Grim Record For Low Levels Of Sea Ice; California May Face 'Significant Risk' From Dam; Trump's Environmental Spending Cuts Could Cost Republican Districts Billions; Judge Orders Exxon to Turn Over Tillerson's 'Wayne Tracker' Climate Emails; Senate Votes To Lift Limits On Hunting Alaska Grizzlies, Wolves On Fed Land; Brazil Activist Shot Dead By Gunmen While Recovering In Hospital... PLUS: Driverless Future?: If they ever get the bugs out, autonomous cars will put a lot of human drivers out of work... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, trouble continues to brew for Congress, the White House, the nation, the world and, yes, for Donald Trump. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Among the stories covered on today's program:

• The Treasury Secretary warns that the U.S. will soon hit its statutory debt ceiling and will default on loan payments unless Congress takes action. Will Republicans be more likely to do so now than they were under Obama? Or is a government shutdown and/or defaulting on our loan payments for the first time in history in store?
• A new study finds that some 15 million Americans are likely to lose their health care coverage under the GOP plan to "repeal and replace" ObamaCare. And, while Medicaid recipients are sure to be hard hit under the Republican scheme, experts are warning that the tax cuts in the GOP's scheme will also serve to gut the Medicare Trust Fund;
• Over the past week alone, with little media attention, the Trump Administration has dropped more bombs on Yemen than the Obama Administration had in any single full year of his presidency;
• More new concerns arise about Trump's conflicts of interest and apparent violations of the foreign 'Emoluments Clause' of the U.S. Constitution (this time concerning China);
• But as the specter of impeachment continues to loom over this Presidency, attorney and BRAD BLOG legal analyst Ernest A. Canning, our guest today, explains how the provisions of the 25th Amendment could become a more viable path for the removal of this President from office, particularly if his disturbing and unpredictable rage and mood swings continue to spiral. We discuss the potential triggers, likelihood, downsides, history and more.
• As a very early and deadly wildfire seasons breaks out in a number of states, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report;
• She also has a few thoughts on the incredibly stupid (and (and absolutely incorrect) comments this week by the new EPA chief Scott Pruitt (and the stooge Joe Kernen interviewing him on CNBC) regarding the affects of CO2 on climate change;
• And, finally, we finish up with a bit of good news on voting, for a happy change...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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