There is big news out of Pennsylvania again on today's BradCast, concerning the upcoming 2018 mid-term elections. And it appears to be very good news indeed for Democrats. [Audio link to show is posted at bottom of article.]

But first up, Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he is directing the Dept. of Justice to propose new regulations that, if adopted, would ban the sale of so-called bump stock devices that turn semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic machine guns. That, nearly four months after such devices were used in the massacre that killed 58 concert-goers and wounded some 500 others on the Las Vegas Strip in a matter of minutes in October, and less than one week since a 19-year old gunman killed 17 at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, without using a bump-stock, on his legally purchased AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle. The process Trump called for will take months and likely face legal challenges, if it ever results in any such devices being banned for sale. Congress could ban them today, if they wished to. Republicans supported by the NRA however, do not.

At the same time, as we discuss today, it is easier in many states to purchase an AR-15 or similar weapon than it is to cast a vote, including in Florida. While an ID is needed to both register and then to cast a ballot at the polls on Election Day in the Sunshine State, an unlimited number of semi-automatic rifles can be purchased there without any ID or background check at all. And, unlike voter registration in FL, gun sales can be carried out online, completely anonymously, even as GOP lawmakers in the state have made it harder and harder to both register and vote in the state in recent years.

Next, following up on a story we covered in detail on Friday's show, regarding fake news sites (actual fake news sites!) set up to look like real ones by Republican officials across the country to support Republican candidates and attack Democrats. The Executive Director of the Maine Republican Party has now admitted that he is behind the anonymously-run Maine Examiner site which, last December, falsely claimed leaked emails of the Democratic candidate for mayor in Maine's second largest city called voters a "bunch of racists". Days later, after the fake news story took off, that candidate, Ben Chin, is said to have lost his election by just 145 votes to the Republican. While many are worried about Russians posing as Americans to post attacks on social media in support of Republicans and attacking Democrats --- using fake claims about "voter fraud" taken directly from GOP outlets like Fox 'News' and Breitbart --- this new scheme by GOP officials (from coast to coast) to create fake news websites in support of Republican candidates should be very troubling for Dems in advance of the 2018 mid-terms.

But, there is some better news today for Democrats in Pennsylvania where, after the Republican-controlled state legislature failed to draw "fair and equal" U.S. House maps, as ordered by the State Supreme Court, the Court itself released its own map to be used in the 2018 election. The commonwealth's primaries are set for May, with candidates beginning their signature gathering process in days.

The new map follows a finding by the state's high court in January that the map drawn by the GOP-controlled legislature in 2011 was an unlawful partisan gerrymander under the state constitution. The previous map resulted in Democrats holding just 5 of the state's 18 U.S. House seats election after election, in what is otherwise a largely 50/50 state (with nearly half a million more registered Democrats than Republicans.)

We're joined today to discuss the new map, and what it is likely to mean for Democrats, Republicans and the rest of the country where many other partisan gerrymanders will still remain in effect this year, by redistricting expert BRIAN AMOS of the University of Florida. Amos, a PH.D. candidate specializing in the intersection of geography and politics, served as an analyst for the Florida team that was the first in the nation to successfully challenge a Republican drawn district plan in state court on partisan gerrymandering grounds.

Amos details the expected effect of the new PA map, drawn up by the court and released on Monday, which is expected to result in at least 3 or 4 more Democrats in the U.S. House, even though Trump won in 10 of the new districts in 2016, while Hillary Clinton won only 8 of them.

We also discuss the geographical and political challenges (and opportunities) of drawing maps that are fair to voters of all parties, when those maps are drawn up by partisan legislatures. That's become even more of a problem, not just after the GOP's REDMAP Project to take over state legislatures before the 2010 Census so they could draw the new maps in 2011, but also because of the geological self-sorting that is taking place, as Dems tend huddle in more urban areas, while Republicans spread out in rural districts.

"Democrats tend to live in densely Democratic areas --- cities --- whereas Republicans tend to live in areas that are a bit more balanced, like 60% Republican, 40% Democrat," Amos explains. "So the arguments tends to be that, if we have to draw geographic districts, it's harder to spread out those Democrats across districts in order to make an even balance. In a lot of cases I think you'll see something like what we saw from the court's map, where it's as fair as you can get, but it's still 10-8 [in favor of Republicans.]"

The outcome could have been better for Republicans in PA, Amos explains, they could have put their own map forward that was more fair. But, he says, "they got too greedy." State Republicans are still vowing to challenge the new map in some federal court or another, but experts suggest that may be very difficult, given that this was a state court ruling.

For his part, Amos, though not an attorney, tells me that "when the state fails to pass a map, then somebody has to step in and that's always been the courts. So maybe they'll find some friendly federal court somewhere, but it seems like a stretch." Meanwhile, as recent federal court rulings finding unlawful partisan gerrymandering carried out in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Texas, Maryland and elsewhere are currently on hold at the U.S. Supreme Court, "we're all waiting on Justice Kennedy," says Amos. But that ruling --- sadly, for those of us who believe in fairer elections --- is not expected until June, likely too late to effect the 2018 mid-terms.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our 9th Anniversary Green News Report, as the Trump Administration's EPA and Dept. of Energy face new trouble from the courts and the Inspector General. And we reminisce about the vastly difficult political landscape that existed 9 years ago, when we began the GNR, and when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, but were unable to pass cap and trade legislation to put a price on the release of carbon pollution, in hopes of mitigating our current and worsening climate crisis.

Thank you, from Desi and myself, to those of you who have stopped by BradBlog.com/Donate to help us continue the GNR into our 10th year! For some reason, ExxonMobil will still not cough up any sponsorship funds for us, even though we talk about them all the time!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt under scrutiny for first-class air travel; EPA enforcement against polluters is down --- way down; Judge rules against Trump's Dept. of Energy; PLUS: Surprise --- deodorants, perfumes, paints and pesticides are all contributing to air pollution... All that and more in today's 9th Anniversary episode of the Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): We’re witnessing the fastest decline in Arctic sea ice in at least 1,500 years; In win for greens, court nixes parts of Obama-era ozone rule; Seismic surveys off U.S. coast harm marine life; Monsanto loses bid to stop Arkansas ban; Ashland, OR finds solution to controlling wildfire; Storms deepen Florida's beach sand problem; Minnesota lawsuit against 3M for water pollution finally headed to trial; Interior Dept. plans to fund national parks repairs with drilling on public lands; Senate bill would allow EPA to move forward on HFC climate treaty; No-till farmers ignites a movement in the Great Plans ... PLUS: How $225,000 can help secure a pollution loophole at Trump’s E.P.A.... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. intelligence agencies contradict the Trump Administration on climate risks; ExxonMobil counter-sues against climate change lawsuits; Trump repeals Obama-era methane rule; Broadcast news failing to inform the public about the real-life impacts of climate change; PLUS: The Queen of England has had it with single-use plastic waste... 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): U.N. climate report sees ‘very high risk’ the planet will warm beyond key limit; Shell's pivot to renewables sharpens in CA; Federal grants for 'clean coal' misspent on liquor, lobbying; Interior Secretary pushing reorganization despite objections from states; Kentucky lawmaker borrows Koch-speak to gain support for anti-solar bill; EPA doesn’t have enough money to keep investigating Pruitt’s scandals; California regulators first to allow multiple revenue streams for energy storage; Germany to fight pollution with free public transportation; DuPont knew cancer-causing solvents could vaporize into New Jersey homes... PLUS: Democrats deal Dominion a blow in debate over Virginia utility scheme... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: As Congress struggles to pass a spending bill and avoid another government shutdown, the White House was busy on Thursday fending off much-deserved criticism for allowing an alleged wife abuser to serve as a top Oval Office official for the past year, despite failing background and security checks over that time. [Audio link to show posted below.]

White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter finally resigned on Wednesday, but not before Donald Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly fought hard to keep him on board and wildly sang his praises, even after reportedly being told long ago that Porter's two former wives had both accused him of physical and emotional abuse, which they had notified the FBI about as early as January of 2017.

It wasn't until a graphic photo of one of the women with a black eye --- which she says she told the FBI that Porter had caused when he punched her while on a vacation --- was published, that the White House finally got around to backing off the praises they had been singing for him. That, even while Porter had been handling the nation's most classified information along with Kelly, despite being unable to obtain a full security clearance, thanks to his violent and abusive background.

We cover many of the developing details in that grotesque story, including some of the remarkable (and shameful) reaction to it today.

Then, the 2018 Affordable Care Act enrollment numbers are finally in and suggest that Americans, even in states won by Trump in 2016, sure do like ObamaCare!

Nonetheless, the White House and Republican states are still doing all they can to take health coverage away from Americans, particularly those that need it most. Several GOP states have now applied for waivers to allow them to put lifetime limits on the use of Medicaid for the first time in the history of the crucial social safety net program.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, in which Trump's EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt uses your public airwaves to double-down on lies about climate change, Dunkin' Donuts finally ditches foam cups (well, eventually, anyway), and California fends off the Trump Administration's hopes of expanding offshore drilling off the Golden State coast...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt lies about climate science over your public airwaves; Invest one dollar in building disaster resilience, save six dollars in economic losses; Dunkin' Donuts ditches polystyrene foam cups; PLUS: California tosses a wrench into Trump's plans to expand offshore drilling... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): It looked as if Earth’s ozone layer was healing nicely — until now; Saudi Arabia plots shift to solar; CA taxpayers could foot the bill to decommission old oil rigs; XCel Energy expects to save millions in shift to renewables; Tesla to outfit 50K Australian homes with solar + storage for 250 MW virtual power plant; Climate change pushes LG&E's parent company to slash coal-burning in Kentucky; Toxic coal ash from power plants seeping into groundwater; State attorneys general sue Trump Admin. over Clean Water Rule delay; Trump's State Dept. misses UN Paris Agreement climate reporting deadline... PLUS: Degrowth - is it time for a new kind of economics?... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: While most of the corporate media are abuzz with the salacious news and political food fights between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon (and everyone else) stemming from the publication of Michael Wolff's new Fire & Fury book, the Administration continues to gut regulations, undermine the rule of law, and endanger the nation and planet in countless under-reported ways. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

We continue today to try to focus on a number of important issues that aren't receiving the coverage they deserve, but that voters need to know about as we head toward the crucial 2018 mid-term elections. Among those issues is the strange matter of the wildly unpopular GOP tax bill which, oddly enough, most Republicans members of Congress don't seem overly concerned about. Why would that be?

One reason, as cited by GOP leadership in Congress, is that they believe Americans will come to love the new scheme once they begin to see more money in their paychecks this year. But how much more money will average middle-class Americans actually see, if any? That may be up to one man who now heads the IRS, with an "Acting" title, even as he works for the Trump Administration's Treasury Department at the same time in what seems a blatant conflict of interest.

Remember the phony "IRS Scandal" that Republicans and Fox "News" and Donald Trump all still pretend was an actual scandal involving Barrack Obama using the IRS for political purposes (which the IRS Inspector General has since completely debunked with far less fanfare)? Well, now the President of the United States actually does have a ringer at the IRS, his unconfirmed Acting IRS Chief David Kautter [pictured above]. Could he be the "Ace in the Hole" for Republicans on their tax bill?

Investigative financial journalist DAVID DAYEN, who recently wrote about this for The Nation, joins us today to explain how Trump's ringer at the Internal Revenue Service may be able to game the nation's paycheck tax withholding scheme, beginning in February, in order to try and turn the tide in favor of the GOP tax scam in advance of the 2018 mid-terms.

"Instead of putting someone up for a vote in the Senate and going through the confirmation process, they just made this guy, Kautter, the IRS Commissioner, and there is nobody on the horizon who is set to replace him," Dayen explains. "So, this guy is doing two separate jobs, essentially. He is the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy --- which is a position where he was working with members of Congress to put the tax bill forward --- and he's supposed to be the non-partisan official who is implementing that same policy."

Since most of the changes to the tax law won't be seen by average Americans until 2019, when they file their 2018 taxes, paycheck withholding is "the only way that people are really going to experience this tax bill between now and the midterm elections," says Dayen. "And they'll see that difference in their paychecks, allegedly, by the beginning of February."

But the way the federal government determines the formulas for withholding is "more art than science," Dayen tells me. The question is now whether Kautter, who previously worked at financial giant Ernst & Young assisting huge corporations avoid taxes, will "move resources toward making sure that the assumptions that are made in withholding work to the benefit of ordinary people, so that they get more money now that they might have to give back in April of 2019? But [that] will create the feeling that there is this boost from the tax cut that is illusory, and that might help Republicans in the midterms?"

Republicans, he argues, seem to be "really relying on this. They're saying, 'Just you wait and see, America. Wait until February and all of your questions about the tax bill will be answered by your huge gain in your paycheck.' There's tons of pressure, from both the White House and from Congress, to get this done."

Also discussed on today's show: Speaking of the new Gilded Age for corporations and the wealthy, Dayen's latest cover story for American Prospect on "Big Tech's New Predatory Capitalism"; HUD's just-announced postponement of a major new Obama-era rule meant to decrease racial segregation in public housing; EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt takes credit for the Obama EPA's work on Superfund site cleanup...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump EPA holds climate hearings in Coal Country; Winter heat wave hits Greenland and breaks records in the U.S. West; New federal contracting scandal exposed in Puerto Rico's very slow recovery; PLUS: Good news for breathers in Wisconsin and Missouri... 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): NOAA nominee contradicts Trump administration talking points on cause of climate change; Atlantic hurricane season from hell is finally over; EPA curb on PFOA may have reduced number of low birth weight babies; Ex-convict coal baron Blankenship to seek WV Senate seat; Environmentalists assail plan for endangered wolf; Trump Admin may share nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia; Climate scientists watch their words for grant funding; Trump to visit UT to announce national monument cuts; MI wants to replace all lead pipes within 20 years; San Diego sues Monsanto over water pollution; Rising seas will destroy historic East Coast sites; Missouri DNR causes a stink after shutting down attempt to rein in hog farm odors... PLUS: NYT Video series: How to fix global warming... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, it's a grim day in the U.S.A. And while that's been happening quite a bit lately, today seems particularly dark. [Audio link to show follows below.]

As the GOP's devastating tax cuts increases for millions of low- and middle-income Americans and seniors move forward in the U.S. Senate, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, tweeted out three different anti-Muslim propaganda videos initially posted by a member of a far-right extremist nationalist party in the UK called Britain First. The disturbing postings by the President of what are being described as "ISIS snuff films", drew worldwide statements of condemnation from conservative British Prime Minister Theresa May and many other members of Parliament, as well as Muslim and Jewish groups in the US, academics and more. But, at least one person, in addition to Britain First, thanked Trump for the postings: David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK. We discuss this rather embarrassing and dispiriting moment in American history.

Then, we take a much-needed shower before heading to Charleston, West Virginia, where the (now, ironically named) Environmental Protection Agency is holding its one and only hearing on EPA Chief Scott Pruitt's plan to kill Obama's Clean Power Plan, a landmark measure meant to curb dangerous greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Environment reporter EMILY ATKIN of New Republic joins us from WV, after spending the past two days at the forum which she describes as a "tragedy" and a "farce", featuring testimony from coal barons like Robert Murray, CEO of the nation's largest private coal company --- who brought his employees in full mining regalia, hard hats and all, to the hearing room --- as well as from environmentalists who were allowed to testify, but were largely relegated to separate rooms entirely.

Atkin discusses what the hearings suggest about the current EPA, which is now doing the bidding of the fossil fuel industry itself, as well as how industry leaders and Republican officials admit that coal has a bleak future --- thanks to cleaner, cheaper natural gas and renewable energy --- even while lying about it to those directly suffering in Coal Country, like miners and their families.

The miners, she tells me, "completely buy into" the industry's "War on Coal" propaganda. "And that was what I think is the tragedy of the whole thing. They accept that there has been decline in the industry. The miners that I spoke to --- and just the average coal supporting people in West Virginia that I spoke to --- completely attribute it to Obama-era regulations, and completely believe what they're being told by coal executives and Republican politicians, that once [the Clean Power Plan] is gone, everything's going to be okay. And their industry is going to thrive again in the way that it used to. ... It's the hypocrisy of these executives and these politicians who go in front of the miners and tell them everything's going to be okay when, in other settings, they well admit that the decline of coal is happening no matter what."

Atkin describes her brief conversation at the hearing with Murray, and how his own employees there contradicted one of his claims. And she explains how, though Pruitt chose to hold the forum in Charleston in order "to hear from those most impacted" by the Clean Power Plan, there are many others, in non-coal states, that are "equally affected", including those "communities that surround emitting coal plants [and] communities that surround coal ash pits that hold coal's toxic waste that can seep into groundwater and into water systems."

"The fence-line communities that live near producing plants, which often are disproportionately low-income and minority communities, those aren't based in West Virginia. And I would argue that they are just as impacted by the Clean Power Plan as a coal miner. And yet, the EPA doesn't have any scheduled public hearings in any of those areas."

Finally, we're joined by Desi Doyen for the latest Green News Report, with some of the most encouraging news of the day, before a bit of breaking news out of the U.N. on Trump's continuing threats of war against North Korea...

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The fallout --- and disturbing mysteries --- following a lawsuit filed in Georgia after its U.S. House Special Election last June get curiouser and curiouser, as we learned late last night that the state Attorney General's office has now quit its defense of the Secretary of State and the state's other top election official defendants in the case. We discuss all of those bombshells and still-dropping shoes with one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit on today's BradCast. [Audio link to today's must-listen show follows below.]

We've been covering this entire mess for months now (years, really), but particularly since the lawsuit [PDF] was filed in July, after the somewhat surprising results from June's U.S. House Special Election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District, where GA's former Republican Sec. of State Karen Handel reportedly defeated Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff, but only on the state's 100% unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting systems. (He defeated her nearly 2 to 1 on the only verifiable ballots in the race, the mail-in paper votes. Everything else regarding the results is unverifiable speculation.)

Late last week, we learned via Frank Bajak at the Associated Press, that technicians at Kennesaw State University's Center for Elections, which has been contracted to program all of Georgia's computer voting and tabulation systems systems for some 15 years, "wiped clean" the election server that was used to program the elections, ballots and tabulators, just days after the suit was filed in July. Its two backup servers were also subsequently wiped and "degaussed three times" in August, the day after the suit was moved from state to federal court.

GA's chief election official, Republican Sec. of State Brian Kemp, claims he knew nothing of the server deletions until AP's report last week. Previously, a huge fan of the Center for Elections at Kennesaw, Kemp cited the "gross incompetence" and "undeniable ineptitude" of the folks at KSU for whatever happened. Nobody has yet to take credit, however, for giving the instructions to delete the servers which held critical evidence that plaintiffs had hoped to have forensically investigated as part of the lawsuit. And then yesterday, in another flip-flop, Kemp called the entire matter "#fakenews".

All of that is disturbing on its own, but even more so in light of revelations earlier this year that the election server in question --- which stored personal data for all of GA's 6.7 million voters and the electronic ballot programming and administrative passwords for the state's voting and tabulation systems --- was left completely accessible online, no password necessary, for at least 6 months. Kennesaw was notified about the vulnerability by a data security researcher in August of 2016 (months before last year's Presidential election), but they failed to secure the server until after Politico's Kim Zetter revealed the vulnerability just prior to the GA-06 U.S. House race this year. (Samantha Bee's Full Frontal covered much of the story up to this point on her show last night, posted here.)

Then, on Wednesday evening, AP's Bajak offered another bombshell in reporting that the Republican state Attorney General's office, which had been defending Kemp, Kennesaw and the state Elections Board in the matter, has now pulled out from defending them. The reasons offered by the state AG and Kemp's campaign for Governor (he's running in 2018) have conflicted with each other or with known evidence obtained during the multi-partisan lawsuit, which a Kemp campaign spokesperson describes to AP yesterday as "a tasteless nothingburger cooked up by liberal activists who know their lawsuit is nothing short of stupid."

One of those "liberal activist" plaintiffs, Republican MARILYN MARKS, a longtime Election Integrity advocate and Executive Director of the Coalition for Good Governance, joins me today to try and help us all figure out just what the hell is actually going on in this increasingly disturbing case.

Marks confirms that nobody still knows who ordered the server deletion, nor why the state AG has dropped out of the case. "It's an enormous mystery, and the mysteries continue to increase every day," she says.

"I think that Brian Kemp is --- and rightfully so --- getting a black eye here," Marks tells me. "What he has done is shameful. There's no way to explain it. So I'm sure his defenders and campaign managers are doing everything they can to go on the offensive and try to make other people look like they are to blame, and that their candidate is innocent. But I think when people step back and say, wait a minute, if they erased the servers --- and they did it twice --- they did it for some reason. And it wasn't because our lawsuit was stupid."

She goes on to explain the "number of conflicting stories that Brian Kemp's people are telling" about when and why the compromised servers were deleted and why the AG's office is no longer willing to defend the case. She also details whether any of the information plaintiffs had hoped to examine from the servers might still be available in what is believed to be a partial copy of the servers obtained by the FBI when they came in to examine the reported data breach that occurred earlier this year, when the servers were discovered to have been left vulnerable online.

Marks' appearance on today's show comes just days before Georgia voters head to the polls for municipal elections being held next Tuesday, which will also be overseen by Kemp, programmed by Kennesaw, and run on the same wildly-hackable, 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting and tabulation systems that lead to this entire mess in the first place. She recently wrote [PDF] to Kemp and other election officials to ask them to make paper ballots available to voters since, as she tells me today, if the system was contaminated during the months it had been left vulnerable on the Internet, "They wouldn't have had time, even within the last year, to have cleaned up everything. Because, as you know, that malware can travel down to the memory cards, the voting machines, the optical scanners, and the jump servers down in the counties. Things could have traveled there in the last six months, year, two years --- and there's been no effort to try to disinfect all of the various components. I mean, there are 27,000 of these touch-screen voting machines in Georgia. There's no way that they should be in use when we know that this system was subject to a high degree of risk."

There is much more today in my conversation with Marks than I can adequately summarize here. So please give today's show a listen for the full story --- or, as much as we know about it to date --- along with many other mind-blowing details.

Also on today's show, a few other items, including Trump's non-scientist nominee for the USDA's chief scientist post, rightwing talk radio host Sam Clovis, withdrawing his nomination after becoming entangled in the Special Counsel's investigation of Team Trump (as you might have been able to predict, had you listened to Tuesday's BradCast with guest Marcy Wheeler); Clovis' fellow climate science denier Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chair of the U.S. House Science Committee announcing he will not run for re-election; and, in the latest Green News Report, Desi Doyen reports on, among many other things, EPA chief Scott Pruitt removing all of the scientists from the EPA's scientific advisory panels...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: EPA Chief Scott Pruitt purges scientists from EPA science boards; Winters in the U.S. are getting shorter; Exxon Mobil fined for Gulf Coast air pollution; Hurricane Maria has officially caused the longest blackout in U.S. history; PLUS: Trump Administration proposes doubling entrance fees to your national parks... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Non-scientist Sam Clovis withdraws his nomination for USDA’s top scientist post after being linked to Russia probe; Coastal town bans tar sands, gets in big fight with tar sands industry; Coal miners reject retraining awaiting Trump's coal comeback; Alaska reviews all North Slope wells after spill linked to melting permafrost; Senate Democrats tear into Trump's NASA nominee, a climate science denier; U.S. to halt controversial 'nuisance animal' killing methods in CA; New data analysis suggests emissions have already ‘peaked’ in 49 countries... PLUS: Top Trump environmental pick said goal of UN 'climate crusade' is 'all-powerful' government... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Tiny Montana company's mysterious $300 million contract to repair Puerto Rico's electric grid; Non-partisan GAO reports climate disasters have already cost US taxpayers $350 billion; Trump's US Ambassador to Canada invents new form of climate denial; PLUS: On the 5th anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, new study warns no US city is prepared for climate change impacts... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): GOP Senate advances Trump industry nominees to key regulatory positions; Tesla installs solar + storage battery system at Puerto Rico children's hospital; Interior Dept. scrubs climate change from its strategic plan; Trump to auction off vast swath of Gulf of Mexico to oil companies; Plan to drill in US marine sanctuaries sent to Trump, not to public; Electric buses are coming and they're going to help fix 4 problems; EPA to review impact of efficiency rules, environmental rule on fossil fuel jobs; 17 national parks could see huge fee hike... PLUS: Donald Trump: Bird Killer.... and much, MUCH more! ...

Among the demonstrably real, not fake, news stories covered on today's BradCast [Audio link to show posted below]...

• A brief word about the mercilessly toxic and sad "debate" Donald Trump injected into the American body politic this week to divert from his failure to recognize U.S. special forces killed by ISIS during a still-mysterious ambush in Niger, the shameful lie told by his Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, in service of Trump's failure, and the White House doubling down on that lie despite video evidence to the contrary;
• Speaking of wishing reality away, the EPA removes more facts about climate change from its website, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt charges peer-reviewed climate science is biased due to grants from the EPA (and hints at a purge of scientists), while his highly-paid corporate cronies are appointed to top agency posts and begin their work in defiance of the U.S. Senate (and the Rule of Law);
• A federal judge rules the guilty verdict against federal criminal and former Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio will not be vacated despite Trump's Presidential pardon and a plea from his Dept. of Justice to ignore the Rule of Law;
• More apparent violations of the Rule of Law and lies about the income of Alabama's GOP U.S. Senate nominee Roy Moore (twice removed as state Supreme Court Justice for defying federal court orders) are unearthed in advance of the state's Special Election in December;
• And, so-called "conservatives" in the U.S. Senate pass a budget resolution to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion dollars, while cutting nearly $500 billion from Medicare and $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade, in order to fund massive tax cuts for rich people...

Also today, a brief plea to stop by BradBlog.com/Donate to help Desi and me continue to bring you independent news from the Land of Reality (and the Rule of Law) over your public airwaves as long as we can! My continuing thanks to those who have already done so! To everyone else: Now is great time to help us out! (Pretty please?)

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Deadly, historic firestorms in California's Wine Country continue to rage out of control; Risk of water-borne diseases rise in battered Puerto Rico; PLUS: Trump's EPA greases the way for massive, controversial Pebble Mine in the world's most valuable salmon fishery... 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 people of Puerto Rico have become political opponents for Trump; 10 Hurricanes in 10 Weeks: With Ophelia, a 124-year-old record is matched; Key changes needed to prevent fiery rail crashes; Most US oil executives see prices below $60 per barrel through 2018; EPA reveals sharply lower cost of climate change to justify repealing Clean Power Plan; Homebuyers not warned reservoirs would flood their homes; Trump nominates privatization advocate AccuWeather CEO to head NOAA; Texas EPA allows coal plants to pollute even more; Coal ash dam failures would impact hundreds, maps show... PLUS: Study shows North Atlantic wind farms could power the whole world.... and much, MUCH more! ...

Donald Trump appears to have either never read the U.S. Constitution that he is sworn to protect and defend, or he just doesn't understand it, or he just doesn't care about it, as his new attack on the press being "able to write whatever they want to write" reveals again today. But that may be the least of our problems at the moment --- and on today's BradCast. [Link to full audio posted below.]

After quick updates today on still rising death tolls in the continuing unspeakable disasters following Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the massive, ongoing and deadly wildfires in California, it's back to North Korea, where the U.S. military continues to flex its muscle and threaten the nation in a way that we would neverallow another nation to do off our own shores. With B-1 bombers and F-15 fighters now conducting missile launch drills off both costs of the Korean Peninsula (even North of the Demilitarized zone that divides North and South Korea) and the USS Ronald Reagan steaming its way there, we continue to provide reason and cover for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to increase his own military arsenal. In the bargain, as a new poll reveals, two-thirds of Americans now feel Trump's rhetoric threatening to "completely destroy" the isolated nation is making the situation worse, not better, between the two countries.

Then, we're joined by progressive Alaska Dispatch News columnist SHANNYN MOORE to explain the gob-smacking scheme --- approved just one hour after Trump's EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt met with a lobbyist from a Canadian mining company, as recently revealed by internal emails --- to re-kindle the possibility of federal approval for Pebble Mine on Alaska's pristine Bristol Bay watershed.

The move toward allowing the mammoth copper and gold mine comes after years of protest by Alaskan natives (like Moore), three years of study by the Obama Administration's EPA (which found the mine could "result in complete loss of fish habitat" in the sensitive spawning ground of more than half of the world's sockeye salmon), risks the loss of some 14,000 jobs, and runs directly counter to last November's statewide ballot initiative in which voters sought overwhelmingly to protect the area from mining interests and irreversible destruction. (You may leave public comment for the EPA here on this, before October 17th.)

We also talk with Moore, who, like many Alaskans, is a hunter and gun-owner, about her most recent column on the terrorist-enabling NRA/GOP's indefensible block of any and all legislative gun safety measures, despite wildly overwhelming support from Americans --- of all parties --- for a wide variety of such reforms in the wake of last week's massacre in Las Vegas...

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Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Fast-moving, deadly wildfires explode across Northern California wine country; 2017 on pace to shatter U.S. billion-dollar weather disaster record; 2017 also breaks a record for Atlantic hurricanes --- and it ain't over yet; PLUS: Trump's EPA moves to repeal Obama's Clean Power Plan... 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): 52 environmental rules on the way out under Trump; Congress ponders future of federal flood insurance program; Are electric vehicles pushing demand over a cliff?; Complaints surge about dicamba pesticide drift killing oak trees; Farm profits at heart of debate over new fertilizer rules; Industry lawsuits try to paint activists as criminals; Transcanada scraps another pipeline; Jury convicts activist in DAPL protests; 19 species won't receive federal endangered species protections; Nestle pays just $200 a year to bottle water near Flint, MI... PLUS: U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fall, led by utility industry... and much, MUCH more! ...