On today's BradCast, U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Donald Trump's top Administration nominees are officially underway. They began today with Day 1 of hearings for controversial U.S. Attorney General nominee Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions of Alabama. [Audio link to show posted below.]

In the days leading up to today's Sessions session, Democrats have blasted Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for reversing course on demands he had made for Obama nominees back in 2009, requiring that all background checks and vetting by the Office of Government Ethics be completed before hearings begin. Also, before today's hearing commenced, members of the Congressional Black Caucus requested time to give testimony on Sessions' extremely controversial civil rights record. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA), however, while agreeing to allow the member testimony, broke with Senate tradition by only allowing it only after all of the other witness testimony has completed.

We cover all of that today and more details on the former Alabama state AG and U.S. Attorney's https://www.thenation.co...e-to-the-jim-crow-era/\">troubling record on civil rights along with his failure to tell the truth about it. We offer extended excerpts of Sessions' testimony today, including exchanges with Senators Franken (D-MN), Klobuchar (D-MN) and Whitehouse (D-RI), who pressed the A.G. nominee on voting rights, civil rights, and climate science, among other issues, in what was, in my opinion --- and, in particular, given the moment --- an all-too friendly hearing among Senate colleagues.

Nonetheless, hooks were baited and traps were set for what could lead to trouble for Sessions on several of these key issues in the days (and years) ahead, if his nomination is confirmed as expected...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Unresolved questions and conflicts of interest for Trump's nominee for Secretary of State; Outgoing Sec. of State John Kerry warns MIT students time is running out to act on climate change; China to invest nearly half a trillion dollars in renewable energy; PLUS: President Obama says global transition away from fossil fuels in now irreversible... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Exxon Continued Paying Millions To Climate Deniers Under Tillerson; Without Action On Climate Change, Say Goodbye To Polar Bears; America's First 'Clean Coal' Plant Is Now Operational; GOP To Revive 'Secret Science' Bill — And Now It Could Pass; Nuke Site Reopens But Work Remains; Wisconsin Tribe Votes Against Renewing Enbridge Pipeline Agreements... PLUS: Coal Country Bought Trump's Promise, but the 19th Century is Not Coming Back... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of State, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, has filed papers to "divest" from the oil giant. But a closer look at his filings suggests he may not actually have cut all ties and interests in the profits of the only company he has ever worked for until now. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

First today, apparently it's still not "terrorism" when a non-ISIS American carries out a mass shooting, as was the case last Friday at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport. The alleged shooter, a veteran of the Iraq War and former National Guardsman, killed five and wounded six others, even as Republican Florida lawmakers press for more guns in airports and elsewhere.

Then, as many as eight of Trump nominee's are all set to come before U.S. Senate committees this week for confirmation hearings, pretty much all at the same time, and even before the U.S. Office of Government Ethics has even completed the background checks for many of them for the first time since the OGE was created. That, despite unprecedented corporate conflicts of interests for virtually all of the cabinet-level and top advisory positions being filled --- not to mention the first press conference in six months scheduled by Trump at the same time, along with the Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's plan plan to hold a budget "vote-a-rama" concurrently with all of the above.

One of the nominees set for truncated confirmation hearings this week is Exxon's Tillerson, who last week filed papers with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) explaining how he plans to divest from some $180 million in Exxon stock. While Tillerson's attorneys describe the scheme as a way to sever ties with the oil giant, Public Citizen's David Arkush finds a discrepancy in the legal filings that suggest Tillerson may still have reason for allegiance to Exxon, rather than the well-being of U.S foreign policy.

"In the agreement between Exxon and the trustee [set to keep Tillerson's holdings while he serves as Sec. of State]," Arkush finds wording "that would leave him with a clear incentive to still favor Exxon as Secretary of State."

"He has viewed the entire world through the lens of what's good for Exxon," Arkush explains after detailing the concerns with the SEC declarations. "A lot of people look at that record and are critical of the fact that he has no government experience and, technically, I guess, in a certain sense, no foreign policy experience. I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is he does have experience...He has spent 41 years working at a single company that has a single motive, which is to make money by finding oil around the world, digging it up, and burning it." He goes on to optimistically warn: "We are headed toward utter disaster."

Finally today: Hollywood takes a stand against Trump and in favor of press freedoms...

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On today's BradCast: Will there be some form of an Electoral College mutiny when they gather to cast their votes for President of the United States next week? My guest today, one of those electors, suggests we may all be in "for a big surprise". [Audio link to show posted at end of article.]

The 538 members of the Electoral College are finally set to cast their votes for President on Monday, December 19th. So far, just one GOP elector has publicly announced his intention to vote for someone other than Donald Trump (who, in 2012, railed that the U.S. Electoral College system was "a total sham", calling for "revolution" in response to a candidate winning the Electoral College while losing the national popular vote...as he did this year, by nearly 3 million votes, a record in U.S. history.)

But according to Harvard's Constitutional law professor Lawrence Lessig, who has offered free legal support to electors considering voting for a candidate other than the one their state voted for, "there are now at least 20 GOP electors considering a vote of conscience." Lessig argues electors have a Constitutional right under federal law to vote for whomever they please, despite some state laws that apply fines or other penalties against so-called "faithless electors". (University of Chicago law prof Geoffrey Stone explained this week why he believes they are "faithful not faithless".)

Colorado Presidential Elector Micheal Baca, a former U.S. Marine, joins me today to discuss how he and other electors are planning to vote on Monday. Baca is part of a group calling themselves the Hamilton Electors, citing founder Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Papers explanation of the Electoral College as a device meant to prevent popular demagogues or otherwise unfit or unqualified candidates from becoming President.

Baca explains his own plan, as a Democratic elector, to vote for a compromise Republican candidate, such as Ohio Gov. John Kasich, rather than Hillary Clinton, in order to encourage GOP electors to do the same, in hopes of stopping Trump from winning the requisite 270 vote Electoral College majority. Baca explains why he believes information made available since the election reveals Trump to be unfit for office.

"On December 19th," Baca explains, "538 individual people --- not numbers on the map, not computer generated, not Wolf Blitzer numbers --- 538 people will be casting a ballot for the President of the United States of America. I believe that by reaching across party lines, I am putting my country above my party. And I may not agree ideologically on what the Republicans stand for, but Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to our republic. And I believe that it's imperative in this election that we do exercise our conscience and our moral judgment."

Baca also tells me during our interview how he became an elector in the first place, the rather stunning way in which he is told the vote is set to occur on Monday in Colorado (with "pre-printed ballots"!), how his experience as a Marine has informed his position, and what he has learned from speaking to other electors, both Democratic and Republican, about how they plan to vote. He suggests a surprise could be ahead, even as I (and he, as well) remain skeptical.

"I try to operate my life with a healthy dose of skepticism," he tells me. "And until things are out in public, the only thing that I will confirm is that we have one public Republican elector. Are there others out there? I do believe so. Are they not public? I do believe so...I'm not Professor Lawrence Lessig [but] I don't think he would just speak without having any factual evidence."

Baca adds: "I think we were all in for a big surprise. Surprises happen. This is the year 2016. If there's a time in history, I believe this is the time."

Okay, then. Could be a big week ahead. Or not. It's a fascinating conversation that you may wish to listen to in full.

Also today: The Trump Transition team says a questionnaire sent to the Dept. of Energy seeking the names and backgrounds of climate scientists was "not authorized", and the Massachusetts Attorney General says it's time for ExxonMobil to "come clean" about their efforts to fund climate change denial, now that their CEO Rex Tillerson has been nominated by Trump as Secretary of State.

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On today's BradCast, Green Party candidate Jill Stein speaks to lessons learned during her wildly obstructed attempt at citizen oversight of election results in three states, and a former U.S. Dept. of Energy official joins us with warnings about Donald Trump's disturbing choices to head the State Department, the EPA and the DoE, where a chilling Transition Team memo was recently sent in apparent hopes of ferreting out climate scientists in a witch-hunt reminiscent of the McCarthy era. [Audio link to show posted at bottom of article.]

First up, Stein held a press conference call today to wrap up her attempted "recount" of Presidential election results in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Despite her willingness to pay millions of dollars, only one of those states, WI, allowed a statewide count at all. And, even there, it was done mostly by computer, so the results remain unverified by actual human beings. Still, she and her attorney on the call vowed to press on with a lawsuit in Pennsylvania and other actions meant to try and amend the horrific election practices, processes and laws exposed, once again, during the wildly obstructed and unprecedented attempt at counts and forensic analyses in all three states.

Then, my guest today is Dr. Joe Romm, physicist and former Deputy Asst. Secretary of Energy at the U.S. Dept. of Energy. He is now a Climate Progress blogger and author and he joins me to discuss, among other things, Donald Trump's nominations of former TX Gov. Rick Perry to head up the DoE (which, when he could remember its name while a Presidential candidate, he vowed to shut down entirely); Climate science denier and Oklahoma A.G. Scott Pruitt as DPA chief; and ExxonMobil's enormously interest-conflicted CEO Rex Tillerson as Sec. of State.

As Romm notes, "the Department of Energy is a very poorly understood agency" which most Americans, including Trump and Perry, likely know little about. It's a sprawling federal agency that carries out nuclear energy research as well as oversight and disaster clean-up. "So you have the weapons labs, you have all the national labs, which do energy and all sorts of work, including the nation's physics labs," he explains. "The Department of Energy has the highest ratio of PhDs per employee of any of the agencies, because it's doing all of this physics and energy research, and weapons research. So it's a good thing that Rick Perry got those glasses that make him smart."

On Trump's nomination of Tillerson to head up the State Department, Romm describes the conflicts of interest with the ExxonMobile CEO's pending $500 billion deal with Russia, observing: "If we didn't live in this topsy-turvy world where Donald Trump is President and naming people to run agencies who are anti-everything the agencies stand for, it would be ridiculous. Secretary of State is one of the most important, maybe the most important cabinet positions there is. Historically, it goes to someone who really understands diplomacy and many aspects of international policy." But Tillerson, he argues, has "literally no qualifications other than the fact that he has negotiated oil deals around the world."

As disturbing as Trump's nominations may be, however, even more chilling may be the story told by the McCarthy-esque survey recently sent by someone at the Trump Transition team to the Dept. of Energy, asking them to identify scientists and other career civil service employees who have worked on climate change and renewable energy issues at the federal agency, or even those who may have simply attended a U.N. climate conference. Romm speaks to all of the above, which he describes as "unprecedented" and details why there are newly disturbing reasons to be concerned about, "literally, the fate of the next thousand years."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with more on the above and, believe it or not, some arguably good news she was able to find from the U.S. Congress, of all places!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Donald Trump taps Exxon Mobil CEO for Secretary of State; Potential Interior Department chief wants to sell off public lands; Trump transition team's chilling request for names of Dept. of Energy scientists working on climate policy; PLUS: Federal aid for Flint, Michigan lead pipes and coal miners, finally clears the U.S. Senate... 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): Investment Funds Worth Trillions Are Dropping Fossil Fuel Stocks; After Years Of Drama, Farmers Score A Big Win In California Water Battle; Pipeline Spills 176,000 Gallons Of Crude Into North Dakota Creek; Offshore Wind, Which Trump Fought In Scotland, Now Online In U.S.; Donald Trump’s Climate Denial Is A Problem, And These News Headlines Are Making It Worse... PLUS: Santa In Trouble? Reindeer Shrink In Arctic As Climate Changes... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, the latest breaking news on how broken optical-scan tabulation computers may have undermined the ability to count tens of thousands of ballots in Michigan --- specifically in or near Detroit --- and much more "recount" 2016 related news, even from Vermont! [Audio link to show is posted below.]

With a reported margin of just over 10,000 votes for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in MI --- out of some 5 million votes tallied in the state --- the ability to hand-count tens of thousands of votes in Green Party candidate Jill Stein's federal court-ordered [PDF] "recount" may be at risk of "chaos" under state law, thanks to the failure of computerized paper-ballot optical-scanners which may have mistallied ballots in some fashion on Election Day.

Hopefully, hand-counts can reconcile mismatches between poll book signatures and computer printouts from "610 of 1,680" precincts in Wayne County, which includes heavily Democratic-leaning Detroit, where "392 of 662" or 59% of precincts may now be uncountable. That's a major concern, obviously, not just due to the state's razor thin margin, but also, as Stein points out today, since some 75,000 ballots --- until now, completely unexamined by human beings --- were reported by the computers to have no vote at all for President. That's a 70% increase from 2012 in the number of ballots reported to have Presidential undervotes, a number that is more than seven-fold the margin of votes that could flip the state from Trump to Clinton.

All of that as Team Trump ups their efforts in both state and federal court to stop the counting in MI entirely and as Stein pushes back in both court cases, including a move to force the recusal of two state Supreme Court judges named by Trump as potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees.

Also, while a recent change to state law by Republicans in WI has resulted in many of the largest counties simply running paper ballots through the same computer scanners that tallied them (either correctly or incorrectly, who knows?) the first time in that state's "recount", it's not just Republicans who prefer unverified computer tallies over hand-counts. In Vermont, the will of the voters may never been known in two exceedingly close state legislative races, thanks to a 2014 state law supported Democrats, requiring that computers, not people, tally ballots during ongoing "recounts" there. Two incumbent Democratic lawmakers who supported the new law may now be undone by it, as one is set to lose a "recounted" race by just six votes, and the other is facing a tie, depending on whether two questionably marked paper ballots were tallied by the scanner or not. (I wonder how they could figure out if they were?)

All of that may be good news to the Washington Post, however, which published an op-ed yesterday explaining why the authors believe, in contravention of computer scientists and voting systems experts, that "computers are better than humans at counting ballots." Of course, to know that for certain, the authors suggest...um...counting ballots by hand.

Also on today's BradCast: Al Gore meets with Donald Trump to discuss Climate Change and Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on the weekend's victory for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, on Trump reportedly eying Native American lands for energy development and Exxon Mobile's CEO for Sec. of State, and a bit of good renewable energy news out of Texas (of all places)...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Victory and temporary reprieve for the Standing Rock Sioux in long fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline; Trump advisors suggest privatizing oil-rich Native American lands; Exxon Mobil CEO could be next U.S. Secretary of State; Extreme rainfall events projected to increase five-fold across the U.S.; PLUS: Enormous cost of cleaning up Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster has doubled... 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): Al Gore: climate change threat leaves 'no time to despair' over Trump victory; Canada's ruling Liberals count on math, time to survive pipeline uproar; Why Trump will struggle to save the coal industry; For Flint Residents, A Fog of Unanswerable Questions; Trump Can't Kill Solyndra Loan Office That Outperforms Banks; Texan who could lead Trump's EPA wants to end renewable energy subsidies... PLUS: Pope urges world leaders not to hobble climate change pact... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issues eviction notice to Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp; U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigating third oil refinery fire in two days; Extreme water shortages caused by drought trigger state of emergency in Bolivia; Major coral die-off along northern Great Barrier Reef; Developing nations pledge to switch to 100% renewable energy by 2050; PLUS: Federal judge rules a stable climate is a constitutional right... 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): I Told The New York Times: "It's time for a whole new approach to climate journalism!"; Tennessee: Drought and high winds fuel 'apocalyptic' wildfire; Bloomberg: Cities will fight climate change, with or without Trump; Chilling climate revelations from the last ice age; White House Releases Wishful Climate Change Plan Before Trump Takes Office; Antarctica: Rift in Pine Island Glacier points to a coming, broader collapse... PLUS: A Portrait of a Man Who Knows Nothing About Climate Change... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, the scam behind Florida's anti-solar Amendment 1 initiative is revealed and widespread voter suppression tactics are reported during early voting in Texas. [Audio link to show posted below.]

Florida's Amendment 1, a statewide constitutional ballot measure, is purposely deceptive, according to an anti-solar lobbyist revealed to be working closely with the state fossil fuel utility companies that spent millions to place the measure on the Sunshine State ballot this year. According to comments caught on tape during a recent conference of corporate groups funded by, among others, the Koch Brothers, the think-tank shill is heard admitting that "political jujitsu" and the deceptive use of "language promoting solar" --- even as the measure would actually restrict the use of rooftop solar --- is how the utility company sponsored measure was able to qualify for the state ballot in the first place. The effort also helped to keep an actual pro-solar Amendment from qualifying and may end up scamming enough Florida voters into approving the confusing, if decidedly anti-solar constitutional measure.

David Pomerantz, Executive Director of the Energy and Policy Institute, one of the groups which initially obtained and published the audio admissions by Sal Nuzzo of the James Madison Institute, joins us to explain those admissions and the facts behind the fossil fueled scam that the monopoly utility company opponents of rooftop solar hope to use to confuse voters in Florida, as well as other states around the nation.

"It's confusing by design," Pomerantz says about the language of the initiative which sounds as if it's pro-solar. "That's really what these big electric power utilities in Florida were aiming for. They wanted to confuse and deceive voters. They knew if they had to fight this battle over solar power and its future in Florida on the merits, they would probably lose. So they've gone for a strategy of trying to trick people."

Indeed, a competing pro-solar measure, which even Nuzzo admitted was wildly popular and supported by environmentalists and conservatives from the so-called Green Tea coalition, failed to make the ballot this year, in no small part due to the tens of millions of dollars that Florida Power and Light, Gulf Power, Duke Energy and ExxonMobil poured into their shady campaign called "Consumers for Smart Solar".

"They have nothing to do with consumers and they are not for solar. This is a utility-backed group. Out of the 22 million they've received to run this ballot initiative, the total amount that they've received from actual consumers is ten bucks. The other 22 million came from utilities," Pomeranz explains, adding this warning: "These kinds of deceptive tactics, of trying to convince people that the utilities are pro-solar when in fact they are attacking it, that's something that's happening not just in Florida. For your listeners who are not in Florida, this type of battle is coming to them soon if it's not already there."

There's lots to make sense of in today's conversation with Pomerantz, especially for voters right now in Florida!

Also on today's BradCast: Voting rights advocates report widespread violations of the court-ordered agreement to soften Texas' discriminatory Photo ID voting law; New polling shows Trump taking back the lead from Clinton in battleground Florida; and Tom Hanks assures an anxious nation that we'll all be okay...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Two new hurricanes breaking records in the Atlantic and Pacific; U.S. House Science Committee chair now investigating the SEC for investigating Exxon; India signs on to the Paris Agreement; PLUS: City of Angels gets on path to 100 per cent renewable electricity... 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 Paris climate agreement is entering into force. Now comes the hard part; Trudeau Unveils Carbon Price as Canada Acts on Paris Pledge; Only 1 in 5 people hear people talk about climate change at least once a month; Exxon faces a first-of-its-kind lawsuit over climate deception; Peak salt: is the desalination dream over for the Gulf states?; The planet hasn't been this hot for thousands of years; A Curious Plan to Fight Climate Change: Buy Mines, Sell Coal; Timber Company Tells California Town, Go Find Your Own Water... PLUS: Yes - Donald Trump Is a Threat to the Planet... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, the corporate media fall for yet another Trump Trap, while we focus on crucial court rulings on voting rights in both Kansas and Ohio that could determine who ultimately wins the White House. [Audio link to the show posted below.]

First, the MSM beclowned itself yet again today, This time, giving free live coverage to the opening of Donald Trump's new hotel and endorsements from some military members, as the Republican nominee eventually offered lies about his 'birther' claims, in which he has spent years attempting to de-legitimize President Obama as an American and all other African-Americans along with him.

That same de-legitimization effort is at work from Republicans around the country attempting to make it harder and often impossible for certain voters (Democratic-leaning ones, disproportionately African-American) to cast a vote in the upcoming election.

This week we saw court rulings, both good and bad, on that front in both Kansas and the crucial battleground state of Ohio under their voter-restricting Republican Secretaries of State Kris Kobach and Jon Husted, respectively. On today's program we review those court decisions and their effect on the electorate as national polling now reflects a virtual tie between Trump and Hillary Clinton nationally, with the Republican nominee having taken a narrow lead in the Buckeye State, and 538.com giving Hillary Clinton just a 57% chance of winning if the election were held today.

Also today: Bernie Sanders urges potential third-party voters to vote for Hillary Clinton instead; Stephen Colbert offers a "polite reminder"; the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein will not be invited to join the first debate; And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us to try and cheer everybody up with the latest Green News Report. (We wish her luck!)

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New analysis finds Dakota Access pipeline fails Obama's climate test; U.S. House Science Committee chair investigating states who are investigating Exxon Mobil; Lead paint manufacturers got legal immunity in Wisconsin after big campaign donations; PLUS: Louisiana floods now the third costliest disaster in U.S. history... 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): Wind, solar and electric cars are booming. Too bad that’s not enough to stop climate change; Wind, solar and electric cars are booming. Too bad that’s not enough to stop climate change; Bayer and Monsanto to merge in mega-deal that could reshape world's food supply; Reducing runoff pollution by making spray droplets less bouncy; What the sixth extinction will look like in the oceans; Obama designates the first-ever marine monument off the East Coast, in New England; New Research Documents That Sugar Industry’s Playbook Goes Way Back... PLUS: Reducing runoff pollution by making spray droplets less bouncy... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast we'd be delighted to NOT cover Donald Trump. But, frankly, as annoying as it is, that would be journalistic malpractice for a number of reasons. We discuss the journalists' dilemma in covering Election 2016, and try our best to otherwise focus today on substance that both matters and is otherwise being ignored by the corporate media amidst the madness. [Audio link is posted below.]

To that end, the U.S. Dept. of Justice investigation of the Baltimore Police Department in the wake of the 2015 Freddie Gray killing sets off troubling, if all too familiar, alarm bells. Nonetheless, the findings represent yet another success of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Then Carroll Muffett of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) joins us to discuss startling new revelations from their "Smoke & Fumes" investigation detailing a treasure trove of old tobacco industry documents illustrating that Big Oil did not, in fact, model their decades of science denial after Big Tobacco. As it turns out, it was Big Tobacco who lifted their playbook from Big Oil!

Over the past year we've covered the explosive discovery of company documents revealing that Exxon knew of the dangers of man-made climate change from the burning of fossil fuels as early as the 1970s, and began secretly funding climate science denial organizations not long thereafter. But CIEL's new investigation now details how some 100 recently-noticed documents unearthed from among 14 million at the Tobacco Archives (a public University of California website database of industry documents made available via U.S. smoking and health litigation) offer jaw-dropping revelations suggesting Big Oil's anti-science scam actually began as long ago as the late 1940s. That work resulted in collusion with the tobacco industry in the 50s, to seemingly help avoid accountability and legislation --- no matter the cost to the public --- that might cut into profits for both industries.

"The [tobacco industry's] 'Smoke and Fumes Committee' had its genesis in the oil industry's efforts to respond to bad press, bad science, and the risk of regulations resulting from the L.A. smog crisis of the late 1940s and early 1950s," Muffett explains. "So, in late 1946, a group of oil industry executives came together and decided that they needed to create a joint effort to fund pollution science, and then combine that pollution science with an active PR effort that was designed to shape the public's opinion on the science related to environmental issues and air pollution issues."

"The tobacco companies themselves, when they were looking at how to develop their own deception campaigns around smoking, looked again and again and again to the oil industry for people, for models, and even for advice," he tells me, describing what has been found in the documents so far. "The links between the industries were far more extensive than we ever anticipated. What was truly novel in what we found was that it's not that Oil is the new Tobacco but that Tobacco was at one time the new Oil."

We go on to discuss how the recent discoveries are likely to effect ongoing investigation and litigation into ExxonMobil's deceitful practices by more than a dozen state Attorneys General; the "completely unprecedented" nature of U.S. House Republicans on the Science Committee attempting to intimidate those AGs and environmental groups with subpoenas; and the accompanying irony of the fossil fuel industry attempting to hide behind constitutional First Amendment protections for fraudulent practices (a tactic which failed when Big Tobacco used a similar defense during litigation in the 80s and 90s.)

Hope you'll take a few minutes off from your daily (hourly?) Trump fix to listen to today's fascinating and important conversation.

Then --- because we know you still need a fix --- Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, covering energy policies of Trump and Clinton, and a very encouraging climate precedent just established by a federal court...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Porn is dirty, but coal is clean, says the Republican Party platform; Senate Democrats call out the 'web' of professional climate deniers; June 2016 was the hottest on record for the U.S.; PLUS: Another fracking explosion, this time in New Mexico... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Republicans just escalated the war over ExxonMobil and climate change; Once-respected science group has one more chance to reject Exxon Mobil funding; Transportation Dept. proposes new oil train rules; Puget Sound to close another coal plant; State's Delta smelt plan calls for more water flowing to sea; Fake bio-diesel factory made millions; Loneliest natural gas terminal bucks pipeline trend; Number of Americans “alarmed” by climate change rises in latest poll... PLUS: Clean energy investment in 2016 undershoots last year’s record... and much, MUCH more! ...