On today's BradCast, the "fun" from this week's United Nations General Assembly continues today, with the leaders of both Iran and North Korea pushing back against incendiary comments by the U.S. President. And the "fun" in the U.S. Senate continues as well, as the GOP frantically attempts (again) to repeal 'ObamaCare' at the very last minute. [Audio link to show follows below...]

First up, in response to Donald Trump's threat earlier in the week at the U.N. to "completely destroy" his country, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called Trump "deranged" and said he would "pay dearly" for those threats and, undoubtedly, for new financial sanctions Trump announced today via executive order. (We also discuss questions about Trump's claims regarding China with those new sanctions.)

For his part, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani lashed back at Trump's characterization of Iran as a "murderous regime" and a "corrupt dictatorship", calling the remarks "ignorant, absurd and hateful" and coming from "rogue newcomers to the world of politics." And, at the same time, Trump surprised his own top cabinet officials this week by claiming he'd made a "decision" regarding the anti-nuclear arms agreement struck in 2015 with Iran (and China, Russia, France, UK and Germany), even as the US, the other nations in the deal, and the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) all agreed that Iran had fully upheld its side of the bargain to date.

If Trump is seen as willing to break that multilateral international deal --- on the heels of withdrawing from the landmark global Paris Climate Agreement --- should any nation in the world, much less North Korea, even consider making a deal with the U.S. and Donald Trump? We discuss.

Then, Republicans in the U.S. Senate are frantically hoping to pass a bill to finally repeal the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare") before the end of next week, when Senate rules will make it much harder, if not impossible, to do so. The latest attempt, the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson bill, would take billions of dollars from so-called "blue states" that expanded Medicaid and radically increased the number of insured citizens under ObamaCare, and give those dollars to "red states" instead --- before tossing Medicaid recipients in all states over a cliff in 2027.

Financial journalist and author DAVID DAYEN of The Nation and The Intercept (and everywhere else) joins us today to detail what he describes as the "shocking dishonesty" of the particularly hypocritical sales pitch Republican sponsors of the legislation are deploying in hopes of boondoggling lawmakers and the public in a desperate bid to justify passage of the unpopular scheme. We also discuss/debate why the Senate GOP is so eager to pass legislation that will result in the loss of health care for millions, including many of their own voters, and whether Republicans in the U.S. House will be willing to go along with it.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report' following the record Hurricane Maria's devastating landfall on Puerto Rico, the latest catastrophic earthquake in Mexico, and more fallout from world leaders following Trump's address at the U.N...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: At G-20 summit, the world moves forward on climate change as Trump retreats alone; Trump Administration announces 'red team' effort to question mainstream climate science; Court rejects EPA bid to roll back methane emissions rule; Volvo to make every car model electric; PLUS: California's green governor trumps Trump with global climate summit... 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 Power and Peril of “Climate Disaster Porn”; The Uninhabitable Earth: When will climate change make earth too hot for humans?; Obama Rues Loss of ‘American Leadership’ on Climate Change; Tribal, environmental groups sue over methane rule delay; Nuns protest Atlantic Sunrise pipeline by building chapel on route; Environmental groups slam Senate energy bill; Deep industry ties in Trump's deregulation team; Coal no longer fuels America, but the myth remains; Ganges River in India "dying", succumbing to pollution; Trump analysis of WOTUS omits economic benefits of clean water... PLUS: Franken and Letterman take on climate change in hilarious web series.... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: I'm back! With huge thanks to Angie Coiro for filling in for us over the past week! But, if you thought the June 20th U.S. House Special Election in Georgia's 6th District was over, well, it's not quite yet, as our guest today, one of the plaintiffs in the Election Contest filed last week in state court, seeking to overturn the results, makes clear. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

But first, the G-20 Summit which wrapped up over the weekend in Hamburg, Germany made very clear that it is now the U.S. (or, more accurately, the Trump Administration) against the world. Old allies like Germany, France and Great Britain are forming new alliances with nations like China, to move ahead without the U.S. in the wake of the Trump Administration's plan to pull out of the landmark Paris Climate Agreement to curb the man-made release of greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Meanwhile, back here at home, Democrats continue to wring their hands about what they believe to be a hacked or otherwise manipulated Presidential election in 2016, even while failing to do anything about voting systems that are easily hacked, manipulated and otherwise 100% unverifiable.

With major security concerns about last month's U.S. House Special Election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District --- where Democrat Jon Ossoff reportedly lost to Republican Karen Handel by 4 points after leading in virtually all of the pre-election polls --- you'd think Dems would be raising holy hell about the fact that Georgia still uses 100% unverifiable voting systems. That is particularly alarming in Georgia, since the state was recently discovered to have kept the passwords for those easily-manipulated 100% unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting systems (along with the state Voter Registration databases and much more) on a completely unprotected web server for at least 7 months between August of last year and March of this year. The revelation regarding the massive security breach reported just days before the June 20 election at Kennesaw State University --- which has long been contracted to program all of the state's voting, tabulation and voter registration systems. That breach, we have since learned, only became known after the data was found and downloaded by at least two different cybersecurity researchers in those seven months.

But while the DNC seems to be "moving on" despite the unverifiable reported results of the the most expensive U.S. House race in history (in which the only verifiable votes in the race, the paper absentee ballots, reported Ossoff defeating Handel by a nearly 2 to 1 margin), a multi-partisan group of voters in the state of Georgia has now filed an election contest [PDF] in court, seeking to void the results and hold a new election on verifiable paper ballots.

I'm joined today by one of the plaintiffs in the suit, MARILYN MARKS, a former Republican candidate for office, longtime election integrity advocate, and Executive Director of the Coalition for Good Governance. We discuss the group's legal complaint, why they are filing it, what they hope to achieve, and if the GOP-majority House of Representatives will move to have her case tossed out of court on Constitutional jurisdictional grounds (as has been the case in similar Election Contests in recent history.)

The state's unverifiable equipment should lead the court to void the results of election, she argues, since it "absolutely cannot meet Georgia's statutes right now and it cannot be used going forward, not even in the municipal elections coming up in November."

Moreover, Marks explains, "we are asking that the court order Sec. of State [Brian] Kemp to re-examine the equipment, just as citizens [and more than two dozen world class computer scientists and e-voting experts] had asked back in May, before the June election...He refused."

She adds that "we want to see these paperless, unverifiable, anybody's-guess-who-won equipment gone from Georgia," and by "we" she means a coalition of Democrats, Republicans and the head of the far-right Constitution Party, who are plaintiffs in the suit. "We have members of our Coalition for Good Governance who literally also campaigned for Karen Handel, who very much support this lawsuit. So, it wasn't just about winning. They believe we're doing the right thing, even though it may very well overturn their candidate's victory. "

"Georgia is the poster child for unbelievably lax security and inviting in, with a welcome mat, any bad actors who want to walk in. Our experts have said...one after the other after the other, 'Look, the security is so lax in Georgia that you must presume the system has been compromised, you cannot rely on the votes coming out of these machines,'" Marks tells me.

But will Congress intercede to block the suit, as they have in the past after the declared winner has already been seated? (See their letter from 2006 here [PDF] that resulted in a contested U.S. House election in CA being dismissed by the court.) And why, by the way, are Democrats (and Republicans, for that matter) so resistant to stand up and demand elections and results that are overseeable by the public? I discuss all of that and much more with Marks today...

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On today's BradCast, Trump is back from his "incredible, historic" overseas trip, where everything was wildly successful, according to the White House. Longtime U.S. allies, however, do not appear to agree. Also, both he and fellow Republicans are facing a number of setbacks in court on both immigration and election-related matters. [Audio link to show posted below.]

The President returned from his 9-day overseas trip over the weekend amid still-growing investigations into Team Trump's secretive dealings with Russia and after, apparently, ticking off a number of very close U.S. allies. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in particular, appeared disturbed about several issues, including Trump's failure to commit to keeping the US in the landmark UN Paris Climate agreement. Also, both before and during the trip, Trump managed to repeatedly lie about NATO members' commitments to the alliance. We've got some much-needed fact checking on that.

In the meantime, over the past week, there have been a number of landmark court rulings, both at the Appellate Court level (regarding Trump's second attempt at an Executive Order banning travel from six Muslim-majority nations and indefinitely barring refugees from war-torn Syria) and at the U.S. Supreme Court in two separate election-related cases (one on campaign finance and one on partisan and racial gerrymandering that could have far-reaching consequences.) Both cases also reveal interesting --- and somewhat surprising --- positions from Justice Clarence Thomas and the stolen Supreme Court's newest Justice Neal Gorsuch.

Legal journalist Mark Joseph Stern of Slate.com joins us to unpack all of those encouraging rulings, to explain why each is important, and to discuss what happens moving forward in all of them. He also offers a much-needed reminder of how the Trump Administration is still working below the mainstream media radar to deport thousands of undocumented immigrants --- on the thinnest of grounds, such as a traffic ticket --- despite many of them having lived in the U.S. since childhood or otherwise having children and family here. Those disturbing deportations continue, even as so many in the media (including us!) get too easily distracted by, as Stern notes, "Trump's latest tweets".

As to the election-related cases at SCOTUS, one of them, upholding campaign finance restrictions on the amount that individuals are allowed to donate to candidates and parties, may reveal what many have argued about Gorsuch --- whose seat was stolen for him by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Senate Republicans. Namely, that he is at least as far to the Right as Clarence Thomas, and perhaps even more so.

The other finding by the Supremes last week, agreeing with a lower court ruling that two North Carolina Congressional Districts were unlawfully drawn on a racial basis, is likely to have far reaching consequences as applied to a number of other recent, similar cases (in Texas, Virginia, Alabama, etc.) in which Republicans were found to have unconstitutionally drawn districts based on race. But, and here's where last week's ruling may set an important precedent, the majority opinion written by Justice Elena Kagan also finds that using race as a proxy for partisan gerrymandering is also in violation of the Constitution. In recent years, Republicans have argued that certain voting restrictions and gerrymandered districts were not done on a racial basis, but on a partisan one. The latter, they argue, is perfectly legal and Constitutional. Incredibly enough, that may be true --- at least for the moment --- but it was rejected in the NC case.

The state had argued that black voters were packed into just a couple of districts because they tend to vote Democratic, not because they were black. "The problem for the Court with that was that even though North Carolina purported to be using race as a mere proxy for partisanship,it was still using race," Stern explains. "And the five Justices in the majority said, 'Look, we get that you think this was just about partisanship. We get that you weren't trying to discriminate against black people. You were trying to discriminate against Democrats. But you still used race, you used black people, to accomplish your goals. And that, in itself, is a violation of the Equal Protection clause.'"

In other words, he says, the Court found: "You are no longer allowed to use the excuse that you weren't discriminating against blacks, you were discriminating against Democrats. It doesn't matter who you were trying to discriminate against --- what matters is that you used race as a proxy. That is the constitutional tripwire."

As to whether discriminating against Democrats on a partisan basis, that argument is now being tested in courts, says Stern. For now, though, it appears to have failed, at least in this North Carolina case and, in a seemingly shocking turn, didn't even win over Clarence Thomas, of all people. He joined the Court's liberal justices to give them the 5 to 3 majority in the case!...

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On today's BradCast: Voting and killing. Voting and killing. The world sure seems to be doing a lot of each these days, especially the U.S. (particularly when it comes to the killing part, anyway.) [Audio link to complete show follows below.]

First up today, an obnoxiously arrogant (and hypocritical) comment about the U.S. and North Korea by Vice President Mike Pence. Then, voters head to the polls today in Georgia's 6th Congressional District for a U.S. House special election in which the Democratic candidate has been polling far ahead of a split Republican field. But Jon Ossoff will have to win more than 50% of the reported vote to avoid a one-on-one run-off election with the top Republican vote-getter, in a very Republican district, as still more concerns arise about the reliability of reported results from the state's 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems. Among the concerns (in addition to the unverifiable results): a "massive data breach" last month at the facility which programs both the voting machines and the state's electronic pollbook systems and, over the weekend, the theft of a number of those e-pollbooks from a poll workers car. (Widely mis-reported as a theft of "voting machines", but still concerning nonetheless. We discuss why.)

Also today, Britain's Prime Minister makes a surprise announcement calling for snap elections to be held in June, in advance of final Brexit negotiations and, also over the weekend, a Turkish referendum to grant sweeping powers to the nation's President appears to have narrowly passed. But the opposition and international election observers (if not Donald Trump) are crying foul. That apparent "victory" has resulted in the Turkish President calling for restoration of the death penalty, which, the European Union warns, would prevent Turkey from finally joining the beleaguered EU.

None of that, however, has prevented the state of Arkansas from attempting to move ahead with an unprecedented eight executions over the next 10 days, as the state's supply of one of the controversial drugs --- of dubious effectiveness and purchased under false pretenses by the state --- used for lethal injections there, is set to expire on May 1.

Longtime capital punishment litigator Robert Dunham, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, joins us to explain Governor Asa Hutchinson's extraordinary planned killing spree and the blizzard of protests, legal measures and court rulings at both the state and federal level, which have already resulted in a last minute U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Monday night, and stays on the state's killing of the first two men set to die in the first of four nights of scheduled double-executions over this week and next.

"This is completely unprecedented. No state in the modern history of the U.S. death penalty has ever attempted to carry out this many executions in a short period of time," Dunham explains, describing the "artificial 'Kill By' date" set by the Governor. "This is something we have never seen before. And [Arkansas is] trying to use a very, very controversial and inappropriate drug in circumstances in which the execution schedule only makes things worse."

We discuss the "psychological trauma for the prison personnel" tasked with carrying out the killings, the pharmaceutical companies trying to keep their medicines from being used to kill prisoners "against their corporate mission, which is to save lives, and not take lives"; questions about the innocence, guilt, legal representation and mental acuity of some of those set to be killed; and the multiple state and federal cases furiously moving through the courts over all of this, including the "irony" of the state of Arkansas' "states rights" Governor and Attorney General challenging a ruling on state law by their own state Supreme Court at the U.S. Supreme court.

Finally today, in hopes of cheering us all up a bit, it appears that folks in Texas have finally gotten something right about politics --- and Donald Trump will not like it one bit...

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On today's BradCast, Maine's Republican Governor Paul LePage is melting down. [Audio link posted below.]

We've been reporting on the two-term, 'Tea Party' dimwit for years, describing him variously as both the nation's dumbest Governor and the worst in history. But now, at the seeming climax of a months-long saga concerning racist comments by LePage, a threatening and obscene voicemail he recently left for a Democratic state lawmaker, comments about shooting that lawmaker in the head and, this week, an apparent emergency intervention by GOP state legislators, the possibility of resignation --- or, perhaps, mental breakdown --- is seeming likelier by the minute.

We cover that insane story today, how this loon became a two-term Governor in the first place in an otherwise not-insane state (hint: you can thank third party challengers), and how, even after all of the years of LePage's various embarrassments, Donald Trump has said this month that he'd be delighted to consider the Maine Governor for a role in his White House cabinet!

Then, Apple owes $14.5B in back taxes in Europe, but it could cost the U.S.; One county official in Colorado is standing up to a major coal company in bankruptcy to force them to pay what they owe in taxes; Desi Doyen joins us for an unusually uplifting Green News Report; and, finally, closing the circle on today's show, how some residents of an impoverished area of Maine (LePage voters, no doubt) tried to block a land grant and millions of dollars to the local community in order to prevent President Obama from establishing a new national monument in that portion of the Maine North Woods...

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On today's BradCast, important lessons after the Dallas mass shooting and Dems end up coming together on a whole bunch of more progressive stuff for their party's official platform. [Audio link to today's show is posted below.]

First, my thanks to In Deep Radio's Angie Coiro for filling in for us, and producing a stellar and very enlightening show last Friday under impossible circumstances in the hours after the tragedy in Dallas! (If you weren't able to listen, it's here.)

So what can we learn today from that horrific shooting of 12 cops in Dallas last week at a Black Lives Matter protest following two more tragic killings of African-Americans in Louisiana and Minnesota? For one, we learn that the citizens of Dallas are incredibly lucky to have a Police Department led by Chief David Brown, whose community policing model of 'guardian', rather than 'warrior' cops, has succeeded in drastically lowering the city's crime rate, resulted in the number of excessive force complaints plummeting, and otherwise served to reassure a terrified city (and nation) at the height of last week's massacre and ever since.

But don't tell Texas' despicable Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who chose to blame peaceful protesters for the deranged murderer with a high-capacity, military-style assault weapon. That, of course, is the very type of weapon that folks like Patrick and the National Rifle Association (NRA) have fought to ensure remain on our streets and available to killers (even cop killers) for years, despite law enforcement officials begging them otherwise.

Meanwhile, as the same Rightwing Republican and NRA hypocrites pretend to support cops, they spam the world with myths and pretend facts about guns, protesters and President Obama. Real facts, however, reveal that the killing of police officers is worse wherever legal gun ownership is highest and officer deaths are at a 40-year low, since Obama has been in office.

Finally, today, after a very long process, and in advance of what will reportedly be a Bernie Sanders endorsement of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire on Tuesday, Democrats adopt a draft of what both the Sanders and Clinton camps are describing as "the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party"...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Toxic algae bloom in South Florida ruins 4th of July for tourism industry; U.S. Senate moves fast to nix Vermont's GMO labeling law; Royalty reform for Big Coal's public lands scam; Oakland City Council bans coal export terminal; PLUS: Solar-powered NASA spacecraft reaches orbit around Jupiter... 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): A Model for ‘Clean Coal’ Runs Off the Tracks; The Alabama Landfill That Brought Noise, Health Woes, and a Lawsuit; TCEQ: Contested Coal Mine Can Release Wastewater Into Drinking Supply; Agency OK With Race Through Nevada Desert; Critics Cry Foul; Canada’s Pipeline Watchdog Secretly Talks Safety With Industry; Bornean Orangutan Declared ‘Critically Endangered’ As Forests Shrink; Floods in China kill almost 130, wipe out crops... PLUS: Modernizing The Grid: A Tugboat 'Trying To Turn A Big Ocean Liner'... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, everything you may have missed from over the Independence Day holiday weekend, a bunch of stories breaking today, and a disturbing reminder that Election Day, most likely between two extraordinarily disliked Presidential candidates, is much sooner than you (or we!) might have thought. [Audio link to show posted below.]

Among the many stories covered on today's show...

• FBI Director James Comey says the Bureau will not recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton concerning her use of a private email server while Secretary of State;
• More negative fallout for the successful supporters of Brexit in the UK;
• More deadly terror attacks in the Middle East, in both Iraq and Saudi Arabia;
• President Obama and Hillary Clinton finally campaign together, as polls continue to suggest a tightening race with Donald Trump;
• Progressive champion and CNN commentator Van Jones argues, during a DFA conference call, that a Trump Presidency is the "likely" outcome of the election, due to the current "complacency and smugness of the Left". (If nothing else, PLEASE listen to this part of today's program!)
• A federal judge nixes Mississippi's anti-LGBT bill at the last possible moment before it was to go into effect;
• As Democrats in the U.S. House fight to get any vote on federal gun legislation, California Governor Jerry Brown (D) signs a number of gun safety bills (and vetoes others) that would, among many other things, ban the ownership of high-capacity magazines larger than 10 rounds in the Golden State.

Everything you may have missed but need to know, in 58 minutes or less! You're welcome! (And thanks to Angie Coiro of In Deep Radio for filling in for us on Friday!)

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On today's BradCast: Climate change continues to ravage Americans and take lives in the east and west, surprisingly good news from the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.K. remains gripped with panic, confusion and uncertainty in the wake of last week's vote 'Brexit' vote to leave the European Union.

We start today with more on the historic deadly flooding and "mass destruction" in West Virginia 'coal country' and the out-of-control wildfires across bone-dry Southern California. Yes, it's everything we've been warning you about for so long on both The BRAD BLOG and The BradCast, even if just the latest example of the enormous (and growing) cost of climate change, as still both under-reported by the corporate media and over-shadowed by other new events across both the U.S. and world.

Then, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down several major decisions on its final day of the session. Surprisingly, a number of those decisions were very good news for progressives, even on an otherwise divided Court with its still-vacant 9th seat. The biggest decision concerned abortion rights in Texas, where the Court dealt a devastating blow to Republican laws meant to shut down women's health clinics under the guise of 'safety'. The Court saw through the Rightwing con, and the 5-3 decision could result in the overturning of similar "TRAP laws" enacted by Republicans in other states. In any event, the decision is a huge setback for rightwing anti-abortion activists and a big victory for those who believe in Constitutionally protected reproductive rights and freedoms. Can we take anything from this decision as to how SCOTUS might eventually rule in the Texas Photo ID voting restrictions case --- another GOP law meant to rob (certain) citizens of their rights for entirely specious reasons?

Also, the right of states to restrict the possession of guns by domestic abusers was upheld in a surprising bi-partisan 7 to 2 opinion, as was a new rule by the U.S. Dept. of Labor concerning overtime pay for home healthcare workers.

In an unusual unanimous decision by the Supremes, Virginia's former Republican Governor Bob McDonnell saw his bribery conviction vacated, despite having accepted some $165,000 in personal gifts and cash loans from a wealthy businessman hoping the Governor would help promote his products. Will that decision have any effect on Alabama's former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman, who is now serving his 6th year in federal prison for having done far less than McDonnell was found guilty of? That, even as the Republican federal judge who sentenced Siegelman has resigned from the bench after having been arrested for beating his wife and the Republican heads of all three branches of government in Alabama face removal of office via impeachment (Governor), ethics charges (Chief Justice of the AL Supreme Court) and multiple felony conviction (AL Speaker of the House) for various crimes, alleged and proven, in their home state.

Finally today, last week's 'Brexit' vote continues to wreak havoc as world financial markets continue to plunge (though not nearly as low as I incorrectly reported it on today's show, as based on an inaccurate number reported by my iPhone's stock app!); the British government is in complete disarray about how (or, perhaps, even, if) they will officially begin the formal procedure required to leave the EU; voters express 'bregret' over having voted to exit; questions arise about overseas voters failing to correctly receive ballot papers at all; and some call for a second ("do-over") referendum.

All of that and much more on yet another insanely busy BradCast today!

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On today's BradCast, the bombshell passage of Britain's EU 'Brexit' Referendum is shaking both world markets and politics. Is the rise of nationalism and anti-immigration sentiment in the UK a disturbing omen for the U.S. Presidential election this fall? [Audio link to complete show is below.]

Donald Trump certainly hopes so, as he's changed his position on European unity from just three years ago, when he was for it, to today, when he's apparently against it, now that he's running for President. On today's show we discuss a number of things that Americans can and should learn from both the dishonest politics of the Brexit vote and the way the election itself was carried out (on publicly hand-counted, hand-marked paper ballots.)

Meanwhile, back here across the pond, the fight to count votes from the June 7th primary in California continues, and the fight to keep (certain) voters from voting at all continues as well in a federal courtroom in North Carolina (No, Washington Post, Photo ID is not required to board an airplane and you should let your readers know as much), and in the great state of Texas, where so-called 'conservatives' have spent millions of taxpayer dollars attempting to defend their illegal, discriminatory and unconstitutional Photo ID voting restriction year after year in case after case. (Texit, anyone?)

Finally, we look at details from the unlawful purge of voters in Brooklyn, which came to light after the NY state primary in April. Were Sanders voters purged at a higher rate than Clinton voters, as Sanders supporters have been charging? We look at some of the actual evidence now in, which suggests otherwise (and as we've previously argued.) Plus: Death toll rising along with flood waters in West Virginia and in China; And Bluegrass fans lose a legend...

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We do our best on today's BradCast to keep up with an insane amount of breaking news that continues to pour in today, from the Democratic 'sit-in' protest in the U.S. House to two major rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court to the British vote to leave the European Union to extreme weather in China and back to the U.S. again for even more still-breaking news. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

The Dems' unprecedented 'occupation' of the U.S. House to force a vote on gun legislation came to an end --- without the vote Democrats sought --- earlier today after more than 25 hours, as Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan largely gave up by simply declaring the chaotic House in adjournment until after the July 4th holiday. But will it start all over again when Congress reconvenes? And will Democrats come to regret their popular upheaval the next time they are in the majority?

Meanwhile, constitutional law expert Ian Millhiser, author of Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted, joins us to explain the two major U.S. Supreme Court rulings handed down today, one is very bad news for the Obama Administration's immigration policy and, the other, a very surprising decision on affirmative action admissions policy at public university and colleges.

"The good news" on the immigration ruling, he says, "is that because this is an even split, it means that's there's no precedential value to this. It means that when a ninth justice is confirmed [to fill the vacancy left by the late Justice Scalia], it can be re-litigated all over again. But the bad news is that until there's that ninth justice, the program is at the mercy of some lower courts that are very hostile to immigration." As to today's other ruling, Millhiser explains: "People have thought that affirmative action was on its deathbed for a really long time. It had a series of near-death experiences. This case has been kicking around for something like eight years, and they finally get around to deciding it, and surprise, they don't strike down the program. There was a lot of language in the opinion that I think is going to give a lot of heartburn to people who support affirmative action, but the punchline is affirmative action lives to see another day."

But wait! There's much more breaking news on today's program: Yet another oil pipeline ruptures in Southern California; 'Oil Bomb' trains set to begin running again in Oregon just three weeks after fiery derailment; 'Brexit' voting in Great Britain ends amidst flash flooding that could effect turnout, as the 'LEAVE' coalition predicts defeat; Extreme weather, including a rare tornado, kills 78 in China; Volkswagen agrees to pay more than $10 billion to customers amidst emissions cheating scandal; and Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report with still more bad court news for the Obama Administration, this time on fracking rules, but some good news (at least for some of us) about the last remaining nuclear power plant in California.

Buckle up...

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