On today's BradCast: 75 years ago this past weekend, FDR issued Executive Order 9066, sending 120,000 Japanese-Americans to concentration camps in one of the most shameful moments in American history. Today, we fight to keep history from repeating itself as Trump offers big lies about terrorism, voter fraud and the media, among other things --- for a reason. [Audio link to full show posted below.]

While Trump's Executive Order attempting to ban Muslims and refugees from seven different countries has been blocked by the federal courts, another one is promised to take its place soon. And in order to do so, the Administration continues to offer lies about terror attacks to justify its actions, this time with the President citing a non-existent terror incident in Sweden --- fake news that he heard about (and misreported) from Fox "News" the night before his campaign rally in Florida on Saturday.

That dangerous lie comes on the heels of a week of another big lie from Trump and his top advisers concerning false claims of "thousands" of cases of "voter fraud" in New Hampshire and elsewhere --- and as Trump declares the media to be "the enemy of the American People."

While the lies are now non-stop, ridiculous and, at times, hilarious, the insidious reason behind them is chilling, dangerous, shameful and about as un-American as possible. Why all of it matters, and more, on today's BradCast...

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On today's BradCast: If those friendly to America are rising up against Donald Trump's disastrous Presidency, imagine what our actual enemies think! Well, we don't have to imagine quite as much as of today, even as Republicans in Congress continue their work to undermine American democracy. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Donald Trump's Yemen raid last week --- the first special ops mission he approved after becoming President --- was an unmitigated disaster during which a U.S. Navy SEAL was killed along with a number civilians, including an 8-year old American girl. The target was reportedly meant to be the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who is still alive and well and mocking Trump this week, even as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer ridiculously declared the failed mission "a successful operation by all standards."

Also mocking Trump today is the Supreme Leader of Iran, who thanked the new President for "showing the real face of America" after Trump banned Iranian travelers and put the country "on notice" in a Tweet last week, threatening military action and emboldening Iran's hardliners in the process of an increasing alarming drumbeat toward war. (Corporate media chasing all of Trump's idiotic statements may want to start paying much closer attention to this. Please?)

Back at home, the President's wildly controversial and wholly unqualified nominee for Education Secretary, billionaire Betsy DeVos, became the first cabinet nominee in history to be approved by the U.S. Senate after a tie vote in which the Vice President had to cast the decisive vote. At least this time the Democrats finally stood unified in voting against DeVos, along with two Republican Senators who joined them.

In the meantime, while The Netherlands announces that, due to hacking fears, they will do away with computer tabulation machines in favor of hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots ("Democracy's Gold Standard") for their upcoming election, Republicans in the U.S. House moved to abolish the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the only federal agency tasked with setting standards for our nation's oft-failed, easily-hacked electronic voting and tabulation systems.

As explained in detail on today program, the EAC has been a disaster on several levels since its creation following the 2000 Presidential election debacle in Florida. Among countless BradBlog.com stories highlighting their failures over the years, was our 2006 exclusive on the un-aired network interview with the EAC's first Chair, the Bush-appointed Rev. DeForest Soaries. He described the agency in the interview as a "charade" and warned that our computerized voting and tabulation system is "ripe for stealing elections and for fraud." (Also, as mentioned today, see the chapter I contributed with Michael Richardson and John Gideon to Mark Crispin Miller's Loser Take All, revealing how, in 2004, Nevada's then Sec. of State, now U.S. Senator Dean Heller illegally certified and lied about his state's touch-screen voting systems, which are still in use today, with an assist from the corrupt EAC.)

Nonetheless, despite its many failures, the answer to the EAC's problems is not to abolish the agency, but to fund it properly and make it work. That the GOP is prepared to eliminate it entirely --- even amidst Trump's false claims of millions of fraudulent votes cast in the 2016 election --- is quite telling.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, along with today's late breaking news that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced in court papers that it plans to grant the final permit needed to complete the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, despite former President Obama's order to conduct a full environmental impact study before construction is completed on the $3.8 billion pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota...

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On today's BradCast, guest hosted by Angie Coiro, a roundup of Trump-generated violence around the country; a Holocaust scholar suspended from high school teaching for daring to mention the obvious; the Democratic Coalition Against Trump's compendium of Trump/Putin connections; and finally: futurist Alex Steffen says it's not "game over" for the climate.

Angie's first guest is Scott Dworkin from The Democratic Coalition Against Trump. DCAT is giving the FBI a little help, since it's having so much trouble finding connections between Donald Trump, his team, his family, and Vladimir Putin. The kicker: all of this stuff is public record.

Also today: Angie covers the story of a Holocaust scholar who tried to show high schoolers the parallels between the rise of Hitler and the rise of Trump. One parent complained; boom, he's suspended. There's a petition to get him back in the classroom.

Finally, futurist Alex Steffen, founder of The Heroic Future makes a pitch for the tech world to unify against the evil Trump is sure to wreak. And he explains why this is no time to shrug your shoulders and declare the battle for the planet lost.

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On today's BradCast: Will Hillary Clinton's apparent lead in national polling and turnout to date translate into a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate? Poll watchers and analysts, at least Democratic leaning ones, seem to think so. For now. But just barely. [Audio link for show posted below.]

More early voting numbers in several states continue to suggest a potentially banner year for Democrats. In addition to those new indicators today, Hillary Clinton's poll numbers continue to rise, even as Donald Trump argued over the weekend that all the polls are "phony", not to be believed, and are meant to do little more than suppress the vote. (Though someone may want to let his own campaign manager know about that.)

But, will the hints of success for the Clinton campaign translate into Democrats taking back control of the U.S. Senate? David Jarman, editor of Daily Kos Elections, joins me to explain what the polls currently suggest about the likelihood of a Senate majority for Dems, the races in 9 states that he believes will determine that balance and, specifically, the 3 states he believes will ultimately be the tipping points for control of the upper chamber of Congress over the next two years.

While Daily Kos is a website meant to support Democrats, Jarman explains the roll of the analysts at Daily Kos Elections: "We're sort of the quantitative side of Daily Kos, but we also do more qualitative analysis of where we feel the chances are in the Senate and the House, looking at it race by race, doing the sort of old-fashioned scouting approach of 'this is a toss-up, this is lean-Democratic', that kind of thing. We also compile a lot of the data that eludes other people, about where the ad dollars are going, what the topics of ads are, every poll, we collect those in our daily digest."

Jarman and I also discuss, among other things, how and if things like voter suppression are included in his predictions; how large a majority Democrats would need in order to be able to bypass some of the more conservative/corporatist members of its caucus; whether Democrats could also retake a majority in the U.S. House, and some serious havoc that may occur for House Speaker Ryan even in the likelihood that they don't; and, also, some of the gubernatorial races that may end up going "blue" this year as well.

Finally, Bernie Sanders responds to Wikileaks' release of emails from Clinton staffers painting him in a less than favorable light, and Donald Trump says that he has plans to rethink freedom of the press, as defined by the Constitution's First Amendment, should he become the next President.

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On today's BradCast, WikiLeaks releases transcripts from Hillary Clinton's paid speeches to Wall Street bankers (and more) as America's long national nightmare known as Election 2016 grinds towards the finish line. [Audio link to show posted below.]

But first, some encouraging breaking news at the top of the show: A federal judge today has ordered swing-state Florida's voter registration deadline to be extended by one week (until Oct 18th), after Republican Gov. Rick Scott refused to issue any extension, even as he ordered the evacuation of 1.5 million residents last week, over what had been planned as the big final weekend for voter registration drives, as Hurricane Matthew bore down on the Sunshine State. (We discussed why that was a huge problem on yesterday's BradCast with FL election expert Daniel Smith.) Also, as we went to air today, embattled Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf finally announced he was stepping down.

Then...WikiLeaks has been releasing thousands of hacked, private emails to and from Hillary Clinton campaign chief John Podesta. Included among them are partial transcripts of Clinton's paid speeches given to groups like Goldman Sachs and other bankers and Wall Streeters before she became a candidate. One of those transcripts was cited by Donald Trump during the 2nd Presidential debate. But did he tell the truth about it? Did she? She has refused to release the speeches during both the primary with Bernie Sanders and the general campaign with Trump. So, would they have helped or hurt her had she done so? They do reveal her, after all, lauding single payer health care and opposing both the TPP and KeystoneXL long before she did so publicly. But what else do tell us that we hadn't known previously?

Does anything in the transcripts released to date live up to the 'outrage' that corporate media and Clinton opponents have suggested? David Atkins of the generally-Clinton-supporting Washington Monthly described the hacked and leaked partial transcripts over the weekend as "problematic" and joins me today to explain why he thinks so.

Also today: Trump misinforms his own supporters about the date of the election (it's November 8th, not 28th) and GOP Veep nominee Mike Pence does something not horrible for a brief moment and we laud him for it, even though he can't help but lie to his supporters about "voter fraud" at the same time.

Finally, has Election 2016 hit 'rock bottom' yet? Evidence suggests we may not yet even be close...

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On today's BradCast: Hurricane Matthew has already wrought death and destruction in the Caribbean, is already breaking records as it bears down on the U.S. Southeastern seaboard, and is "not your grandfather's weather" thanks to global warming, according to my guest, a 40-year veteran broadcast meteorologist. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

With states of emergency declared in Florida and several other states, and millions of Americans scrambling to get out of harms way, I'm joined today by longtime weather forecaster, Star-Tribune blogger and self-identified "Ronald Reagan conservative" Paul Douglas, to discuss the deadly and extraordinarily dangerous Hurricane Matthew as it aims for the East Coast of Florida. (That's not a Halloween decoration, it's an actual infrared satellite photo of the storm in the logo above, as the eye passed over Cuba earlier this week.)

Douglas explains what makes this currently Category 4/5 storm and its path so unusual and how it could actually end up hitting some of the same places twice if it stays on its currently projected bizarre U-turn trajectory.

"Matthew is going to grind up the coast. There's going to be a long stretch of coastline that's impacted by this storm surge. Because much of the circulation is going to remain out over water, it isn't going to fizzle like a normal hurricane," he tells me, adding that it "went from a tropical storm to a Category 5 in 36 hours [because] water temperatures in the Caribbean are running several degrees above average. It's the old 'weather on steroids' analogy. We are super-sizing a lot of these storms."

Because of that, he says, the storm surge could be as much as 9 feet above normal tides. "This is what kills people. It's not the winds. It's not even as much the inland rain. It's the storm surge that can cut off escape routes." And, as to that currently projected U-turn for the storm after it's moved up the coast? "I don't want to overstate it, but this could be unprecedented in terms of the track, the intensity, the amount of real estate that's impacted by this storm surge, and the fact that it's taking this bizarre loop potentially."

I ask Douglas, who has just co-authored the new book Caring for Creation: The Evangelicals Guide to Climate Change and a Healthy Environment with minister and coal miner's son Rev. Mitch Hescox (also a previous guest on The BradCast), to respond to Rush Limbaugh's latest hurricane conspiracy theory, which Douglas dispatches with actual facts and science, explaining: "The atmosphere doesn't care what you believe. The atmosphere responds to physics and chemistry. We've been fiddling with the chemistry of the atmosphere. We've been poking at the climate system with a long, sharp carbon-tipped spike, and then acting surprised when the weather bites back."

I also ask the self-described "Ronald Reagan-Teddy Roosevelt conservative who believes that conservatives should actually conserve," about why he believes corporate media fail to connect climate change dots and, at least so far, to raise the issue of global warming in Presidential and Vice Presidential debates. We discuss that, and much more. I'd suggest that this is another must-listen conversation, no matter what comes of Matthew in the next several days.

Also today (and not unrelated): Donald Trump, who has a record of politicizing election-year hurricanes, has named a Koch Industries climate denying lobbyist to head up his Energy Transition Team. And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on Matthew, the VP debate, the Paris Agreement, and Canada's surprising announcement of a national carbon tax...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Matthew churns towards U.S.; Climate change shut out - again! - at the Vice Presidential debate; Canada to establish a national carbon tax; New study warns the world is rapidly using up its 'carbon budget'; PLUS: Global Paris Agreement surges over the finish line before the U.S. Presidential election... 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): No country on Earth is taking the 2 degree climate target seriously; How the Earth will pay us back for our carbon emissions with … more carbon emissions; Hurricane Matthew is super strong — because of climate change; Activists Warn That Toxic PCBs Contaminate Thousands Of U.S. Schools; Dakota Access: Judges Appear Skeptical Of Freezing Pipeline; Invasive Insects Cause Tens Of Billions In Damage: Study... PLUS: China's $450 billion farm plan could determine our fate... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, coverage and analysis of this year's one and only (thank God!) Vice Presidential Debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia on Tuesday night between Hillary Clinton's centrist Democratic running mate Sen. Tim Kaine of VA and Donald Trump's religious right Republican running mate Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana. [Audio link is posted below.]

It was, in my opinion, as I noted on The Twitters last night, the worst Presidential or Vice Presidential debate in modern U.S. history, thanks in no small part to the disastrously horrible moderator, CBS News' Elaine Quijano. Her questions seem to come straight off of Fox "News" (where CBS News chief David Rhodes previously worked, coincidentally), failed to follow up any answers, failed to either keep decorum between the two candidates or at least get out of their way, and failed to raise real issues of note --- such as gun violence, race issues, health care, global warming, LGBT issues, campaign finance or voting rights, to name just a few --- effecting the actual everyday lives of Americans.

Mike Pence is a man who has argued smoking doesn't cause cancer, denies climate change, couldn't run for President himself in 2016 because he screwed up so badly on the anti-LGBT bill he signed in Indiana, in December of just last year tweeted "Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional" in response to Trump's call for same --- and, yet, Quijano couldn't muster up a single question on any of those incredibly disturbing things from Pence's career.

But it was also the remarkable avalanche of lies, as offered by the very impressive if astonishingly dishonest GOP Veep nominee, which made the evening simply jaw-dropping at times. Some of those lies were rebutted by a struggling, over-eager Kaine. Others have since been left to those in the media who care to sort such things out.

That's where we come in, I guess. I'm joined today to try and make sense of all of the above by Heather Digby Parton of Salon and the Hullabaloo blog, John Amato, founder of the Crooks and Liars blog and, of course, our own Desi Doyen.

Buckle up and tune in as we "whip out that Mexican thing again"...

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On today's BradCast, a witness to Wednesday night's shooting during protests in Charlotte, North Carolina. [Audio link posted at end of article.]

On the second night of demonstrations following the police killing of an African-American man, Keith Lamont Scott, in Charlotte, one of the peaceful demonstrators was gunned down in cold blood. The City of Charlotte quickly announced that he was killed by "civilian on civilian" gunfire. As it turns out, the man wasn't killed, he was in critical condition on life support at air time (AP has now since reported he has died), and several ministers who were witnesses to the shooting, including the Charlotte Clergy Coalition for Justice, believe that it may have been carried out by police, not by a civilian.

"I saw the man go down on the pavement," said Minister Steve Knight of Missiongathering Christian Church in Charlotte, according to a statement released last night by the Coalition. "It was an ambush. The victim was shot while he stood between two ministers, and we believe he was shot by police. We would like to see surveillance video from the surrounding area that may have captured the shooting to determine who was responsible for the deadly shooting."

As the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Dept. --- which currently refuse to release video from the first shooting --- say they are reviewing tapes of the Wednesday night shooting, one of the witnesses, Linda Flynn, Executive Director of the Charlotte Spirituality Center, joins us to explain what she saw from just "feet away" from where victim was gunned down.

"I was about ten feet away from the gentleman who was shot. We heard a loud bang, it sounded like a gun shot, nobody knew where it was coming from, and we saw the man go down...Of course there was a pool of blood there. People who were directly next to the gentleman started vomiting because they had such a graphic view of everything."

Flynn goes on to say it's "unclear" whether or not he was shot by police or not, but adds: "I think at this point even the police have understood that it is completely unclear as to how the shooting happened. There are questions there. It would be very normal for all of us to have some suspicion because we're not receiving transparency. That's what we're calling for. But I do firmly believe, as a person of faith in this community, that it was a peaceful protest until police decided not to make it not so. And that is our concern."

She argues that it was the ramped-up militarized police presence that sparked violence during Wednesday night's demonstrations and explains her concerns about the history of race relations with the police in Charlotte, where she says it now looks like a "war zone", and we also discuss her concerns about "seeing shooting after shooting after shooting" nationwide.

Also today: Even Donald Trump says he is "very troubled" by video of the police shooting of Terrence Crutcher, an unarmed African-American man seen with his hands up in in Tulsa, OK, as he was gunned down, but his Veep candidate Mike Pence thinks there's just too much talk of "institutional racism". A Trump campaign official from Ohio insists she doesn't believe racism existed at all, until Barack Obama was elected President. (Seriously.)

Then, new polling from Fox finds Trump's lead over Hillary Clinton growing in three key swing states (along with disturbing Democratic denial). And, finally, a huge gasoline pipeline is reopened in Alabama, following a massive spill. We take a look at the Colonial Pipeline company's dreadful history of both spills and cleanups across the country...

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On today's BradCast [audio link posted below], the historic nomination of Hillary Clinton for President of the United States on Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, as Dems continue to seek unity in a still-fractured party, Republican nominee Donald Trump calls for Russia to hack and publicly release emails from Clinton's time as Sec. of State, and the latest data-based prediction from FiveThirtyEight.com finds Trump with a 55% likelihood of winning the Presidency, compared to Clinton's 45%, if the election were held today.

With all of that history and madness in mind, we turn to calls from listeners on all of the above. Many (though not all) say they still refuse to vote Clinton, despite Bernie Sanders' plea for them to do so. Others argue why Clinton (and even Trump) should be elected. Our friend and historian Jon Wiener, of The Nation and Pacifica Radio's KPFK also calls in to (somewhat) refute FiveThirtyEight's prediction, and I do my best to challenge everyone to support their positions.

Suffice to say, it was a very lively caller segment today.

We then finish up with Desi Doyen and the Green News Report's wrap up of last week's Republican convention in Cleveland (including a fact-check on Trump's promise to burn much more coal), and new data on more record heat across the globe...

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On today's BradCast: Once again, as we go to air today, breaking news, this time concerning Fox "News", where its founder, CEO and evil rightwing propaganda mastermind Roger Ailes is officially pushed out after 20 years, on the heels of sexual harassment allegations from at least two Fox stars, and as many as 20 women over all. [Audio link to full show posted below.]

Then, as the GOP continues to step on itself all week during its national nominating convention in Cleveland, second place 2016 GOP Presidential candidate Ted Cruz is booed off stage, during his primetime speaking slot, for failing to endorse Donald Trump. As it turns out, the Trump camp knew that Cruz wouldn't endorse days ago, but gave him the high-profile time slot at the convention anyway. All of which served to obscure the official acceptance speech of Vice Presidential nominee Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana. Idiocy or genius?

We discuss all of that and much more related on today's show with longtime Republican consultant and 2012 GOP Presidential candidate (the first openly gay one from either major party) Fred Karger, who tells me from Cleveland that he was one of the folks on the floor booing last night --- though not necessarily for the same reason as others. "Any chance I get to boo Ted Cruz, I will do it," he explains.

Karger, who says he's attending his 11th RNC, after having served as a senior campaign adviser to Presidents Ford and Reagan, discusses his broken party and what he believes broke it. He tells me he won't be supporting Trump this year --- (tune in to find out who he will support) --- but warns of the likelihood of a "Trump victory."

"He's a master promoter and look what he's done in 13 months," he says. "He's not only the nominee, but he's taken over the Republican Party. And he's neck-and-neck with Hillary." Yup. And, as Karger notes, the Republican delegates in Cleveland have actually warmed up to Trump over the past several days, despite the apparent chaos to those of us non-wingnuts watching from afar.

Finally, if you're not concerned enough yet, the Republican nominee has not only sown chaos at his own convention but, now, also amongst U.S. allies around the world, with remarkably cavalier comments to the New York Times about the future of NATO and other foreign policy issues under a Trump Presidency.

All of that and more (including more breaking news mid-show, as the NBA exercises it's free market rights to pull their 2017 all-star game from Charlotte, NC, in response to that state GOP's anti-LGBT law) on today's BradCast...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Surprise! Donald Trump's running mate is also a climate science denier; UK's new conservative prime minister abolishes climate department on her first day; Heat wave breaks records in Alaska; PLUS: India breaks record for most number of trees planted in a single day (you'll never guess how many!)... 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): June marks 14 consecutive months of record heat for the globe; Inside the diabolical Ukrainian hack that put the U.S. grid on high alert; France decrees new rooftops must be covered in plants or solar panels; Canada to Introduce National Carbon Price in 2016; You'll never believe how cheap solar is now; China's $22 billion flood now the 5th costliest non-U.S. disaster in history; Crowd harasses Alaskan mountain goat to death... PLUS: Oil refiners agrees to pay $425 million to settle air pollution violations... and much, MUCH more! ...

We will not be hijacked by fear and terror, as many hope, on today's or any other BradCast, even after the horrific attack in Nice, France. A few words on that, before the rest of today's show [audio link below] including...

• 'Tea Party' wingnut Indiana Gov. Mike Pence gets the nod to become the GOP's Veep nominee, despite differing with Donald Trump on a number of issues central to the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee's campaign, and (perhaps because of?) Pence's denial of crazy "liberal" ideas like global warming and that cigarettes are deadly.
• Failed Presidential nominee and rejected VP candidate Newt Gingrich calls for the violation of both religious freedom and the U.S. Constitution;
• GOP blocks last(?) "Never Trump" effort to derail Trump's nomination and begs billionaire Sheldon Adelson for millions to help pay for their convention next week in Cleveland after some corporate sponsors bail out;
• A major new poll now finds Trump leading Hillary Clinton nationally (though within the margin of error) as Senate Democrats reportedly "freak out" about the presumptive Democratic nominee's plunging numbers --- even after outspending Trump 40 to 1 in swing states;
• California set to finally certify results from its June 7 Presidential primary;
• And remarks from the UK's new Prime Minister serve as a reminder of what 'center-right' actually means.

All of that and much more on today's BradCast, at the end of yet another disturbing week.

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Nobody really knows what the GOP convention in Cleveland next week will look like, or even if the delegates there will vote for Donald Trump as expected. Joining us today on The BradCast to offer perspective on all of it is Doug Wead, Presidential historian, author, advisor to two Republican Presidents and a number of campaigns, and an expert on GOP political conventions and rules. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

But first, briefly, corporate media are reporting today that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence will be Trump's Veep nominee and that the list of star-studded speakers Trump had promised for the convention may not be studded with quite so many stars after all. But, BENGHAZI! Also, following on the heels of yesterday's disturbing polls for Hillary Clinton, both nationally and in several key swing-states, another new poll out today, this one showing her tied with Trump nationally, confirms her falling support in the wake of the recent closure of the FBI investigation (and often-misleading reporting on it) into her use of a private email server as Secretary of State.

Next, Wead joins us to answer a lot of my questions of what can and can't happen under Republican rules in Cleveland next week, and to offer his thoughts on whether the "Never Trump" movement still has a chance in hell --- legally or otherwise --- at blocking Trump's nomination.

"They say, 'release these delegates to vote their conscience!' It's not like these are people who have a conscience!," he tells me with a hearty laugh. "It's insider-establishment people who want to be free to use the power they have as a vote, to get money and to get things in exchange." Wead also confirms that, yes, it is perfectly legal for the various campaigns to offer gifts, even cash if done carefully, to delegates in exchange for their vote at the convention.

He goes on to lament what he believes has come of his party: "I was astonished when I went into the White House to have some of these conservatives come into my office and say, 'Now you gotta get us federal dollars for this and for that, and all these companies', and I said, 'Hey, wait a minute, I thought we're the conservatives, I thought the liberal Democrats did that?' They said, 'Well, we gotta to do it when we're in power, just like they do it when they're in power. That's the way it works.' So you've got all of these people feeding at the pig trough, that are part of the Republican establishment."

Wead offers an historical perspective on all of this (the 1880 election may have been as insane); reports what both the Bush and Paul families (he has worked for both) currently think of Trump's rise to become the standard bearer of the Republican Party; what effect, if any, Vice Presidential nominees have on Presidential races; and how, he believes, establishment power brokers (in control of both the Republican and Democratic parties, he says) will come out of the election as the winner, one way or another.

As to Trump's chances of becoming the next President of the United States, the historian offers a chilling warning for Democrats: "Yeah, he could win. It could happen, very much so. Don't underestimate this guy. Ronald Reagan was seen as a warmonger and a racist and no way he could get elected. But he defied the prognosticators and won."

Finally today: Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, including coverage of the one ridiculous word added to the Republican Party platform this week to undermine the environment and for what may be the funniest 'snarky comment' ever on a GNR (this one, courtesy of Sen. Al Franken)...

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