On today's BradCast, one climate change bullet dodged on the Gulf Coast, even as another explodes on the West Coast, and Donald Trump, despite his distracting buffoonery, continues to move his far-right agenda forward as my guest today details in no uncertain terms. [Audio link to show follows below.]

New Orleans and the Gulf Coast appear to have averted another catastrophe with Hurricane Nate, the fourth hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. in the past six weeks, bringing heavy rains, but less damage than feared to the region. (Reminder: there are still two more months left in the official hurricane season!) But, millions are still struggling to rebuild from the recent storms Harvey, Irma and Maria, especially in Puerto Rico, where most of the power remains out over two weeks since Maria made landfall, despite Trump's rosy scenarios and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offering a disturbing remark over the weekend.

Even as Nate dissipates, however, the U.S. received yet another troubling reminder of the deadly perils of climate change over night Sunday and into Monday. As of air time, at least 1,500 homes and commercial building have been completely destroyed by wildfires that broke out late Sunday night across eight counties in Northern California wine country, sending tens of thousands of residents fleeing for their lives, many of them dodging flames and wildly gusting winds in the middle of the night. 10 have now been pronounced dead, in a toll that is expected to rise.

Another massive blaze erupted and is threatening homes and businesses in Southern California on Monday as well. All signs of a warming planet, not only being ignored but actively exacerbated by the Trump Administration which announced plans on Monday --- even as all of this was going on --- to reverse Barack Obama's 'Clean Power Plan', instituted to meet U.S. commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement between some 200 nations. Trump announced the Administration's intention to drop out of the Paris accord to curb man-made greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, earlier this year.

So, even as the media, Congress, and the public remain continuously obsessed and distracted by Donald Trump's obnoxious Twitter feed, his radical hard-right Republican agenda stays on target on issues both foreign and domestic. We're joined to discuss that issue and more today by journalist JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation, author of the newly published Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in America and his new report for the non-profit Rosa Luxemburg foundation titled "Donald Trump's Dangerously Coherent Agenda".

"The greatest strength that Donald Trump has in American politics --- his number one strength --- is that he is not taken seriously. And, for so long as he is not taken seriously, he is able to continue to entertain, to control the discourse, because people are just looking for what more cute, adorable, horrifying, freakish thing that he does," Nichols tells me, explaining why, despite his low approval ratings, "he knows how to survive. And his survival instinct is locking in a very coherent agenda, which is the agenda of the hard, hard social right."

"I'll be blunt with ya," he adds, "I see very little evidence of Democrats figuring out the play, either."

Among topics of our conversation, in addition to his new book and disturbing new report, are the chilling recent comments from Trump regarding "the calm before the storm"; underwhelming responses to his Twitter attacks on members of his own party (and own Administration) in recent days; the temptation (and accompanying dangers) for Democrats in making deals with Trump as his approval ratings falls; and efforts by Bernie Sanders supporters in Texas toward flipping some of the most reportedly "conservative" Congressional districts in the state from "red" to "blue". Nichols checks in today from the Lone Star State, where he is currently reporting for his upcoming cover story at The Nation on what he describes as impressive organizational work in advance of 2018, now being carried out there by members of Sanders' Our Revolution group...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
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!)

On today's BradCast: More corruption by top Trump Administration (and other) officials than we can barely squeeze into a single show. And most of it largely revealed over just the past week or so! [Audio link to full show follows below.]

As we go to air, staunch anti-choice "conservative" Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) announces he will resign from the U.S. House following the revelation of text messages with his mistress in which he is said to have advised her to have an abortion. Murphy, the only clinical psychiatrist serving in Congress, is the author of the GOP's mental health care reform legislation passed last year, supposedly in response to a number of mass shootings. Mental health reform is still the GOP's only legislative answer to our gun epidemic and public health crisis in the U.S.

However, today the NRA gave permission to Republicans to "politicize" Sunday's massacre in Las Vegas by calling on the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to review its regulations regarding "bump stock" devices that can turn semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic weapons. The shooter in Vegas who shot nearly 600 people, killing 58 of them in a matter of minutes from his 32nd floor hotel room, reportedly used a number of those devices to carry out his bloodbath. It should be noted (as we do), that such a change in regulation would still not necessarily require the NRA-owned Republican members of Congress to vote on any new gun safety legislation.

Then, we're joined by BRENDAN FISCHER of the Campaign Legal Center to discuss a tidal wave of corruption issues recently revealed about top Trump Administration officials. Among those issues: Jared Kushner is fined again for filing late financial disclosure forms, after revising them dozens of times, while giving different numbers on his forms than his own wife, Ivanka Trump, did regarding joint assets. (She was also forced to amend her own forms several times); Kushner and Ivanka and half a dozen other top Admin officials used private email addresses (and lied to Congress about them) for public business in the White House. Lock them up!); The heads of the EPA (Pruitt), Interior (Zinke) and Treasury (Mnuchin) all have issues regarding tens of thousands of dollars of tax-payer funded travel on private and military chartered jets, after Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was finally forced to resign for spending nearly $1 million on same last week; and the Secret Service now claims they kept no visitor logs at Mar-a-Lago during Trump's many weekends there over the past eight months.

Fischer explains why all of those issues of "trickle down corruption" actually matter --- even in the Trump Era beset by otherwise distracting daily crises. He also discusses Republican U.S. Senate nominee and former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore's failure to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars of both own income and liabilities on his U.S. Senate ethics filings and why the partisan gerrymandering case, Gill v. Whitford, as heard earlier this week at the U.S. Supreme Court (much more on this from yesterday's show), is so important to overcoming all of the nightmares discussed on today's show.

"It's really like drinking from a fire-hose when it come to trying to track some of these ethics violations," Fischer, Associate Counsel at CLC, tells me. "And this comes from the top. This comes from President Trump entirely disregarding ethics laws, rules and norms that past Presidents have followed voluntarily. This entire disregard for the laws that are on the books --- that are designed to guarantee that public officials are working for the public rather than private interests --- has permeated the entire administration and is now trickling its way down to down-ballot races, like this Senate race in Alabama."

Plus: Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with updates on Puerto Rico's ongoing Hurricane Maria disaster, as well as the billions of tax-payer dollars spent due to global warming and subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

And, finally today, a bit of breaking news on Trump's reported plans to try and "decertify" the 2015 anti-nuclear agreement with Iran, despite his own Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, and Chairman of his Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon all recently agreeing that Iran is in compliance with the hard-won 7-nation treaty...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
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!)

On today's BradCast, there's at least one place in the country where time seems to have stopped and Donald Trump remains wildly popular. But that place isn't Washington D.C. right now. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

Some Republicans in the U.S. Senate are finally beginning to separate themselves from the historically unpopular President Trump and his similarly unpopular agenda. They've even taken steps to try and keep Trump from removing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and hiring someone willing to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller over the August Senate recess and thereafter.

With Trump's approval ratings plummeting, even in Rightwing polls that Trump used to favorably cite (as recently as June), GOPers like Arizona's Senator Jeff Flake, whose own approval rating is now even lower than Trump's, are now hoping to distance themselves from the President, in Flake's case, even after recently voting with him to take health care away from tens of million of Americans.

But not everyone is cutting ties with Trump. In fact, West Virginia's wealthiest man --- and, not coincidentally, its newly-elected Governor and longtime coal baron --- Jim Justice, changed his party affiliation this week from Democratic to Republican. And he announced it at a Donald Trump campaign rally on Thursday night.

We're joined today by 9th generation West Virginian BOB KINCAID, host of Head-On Radio and President of Coal River Mountain Watch, to explain Justice's flip and why so many in the state still believe in Trump.

"Jim Justice earned his money the old fashioned way --- he inherited it," quips the always-colorful Kincaid, noting many more of the Governor's very Trump-like characteristics. Kincaid warned Democrats long ago about Justice, whose flip, he tells me, is "almost a killing stroke for the now-moribund West Virgina Democratic Party."

"Trump's approval ratings may be in the toilet in the rest of the country, but they're not in the toilet here --- this is still the Trumpiest place in the world."

We also discuss the surprising votes by both of WV's U.S. Senators (Republican Shelly Moore-Capito and Democrat Joe Manchin) during the Senate's recent attempt to repeal ObamaCare. ("Joe Manchin getting something right can be filed under 'even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then,'" the progressive Kincaid says. As to unseating him next year in a primary, he handicaps the odds, and details what would occur if it did, beginning with the phrase: "If pigs grew wings, and sheep were perched in trees, and leprechauns rode across the open plain on three-legged unicorns, and a progressive actually beat Joe Manchin in the primary...")

Tune in for the always-delightful visit from our old friend and longtime Coal Country hero on all of that, and more, including an update from the front lines now that the pretend "War on Coal" is finally over and, as Trump will tell you lie to you, tens of thousands of coal jobs have finally returned!

Lastly today, Desi Doyen joins us for a shocking amount of encouraging news in our 799th(!) Green News Report, including several setbacks for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, and a major oil company CEO who's now buying an electric car as he sees the world moving to renewable energy and the end quickly nearing for Big Oil...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
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: DHS waives environmental laws, prepares to bulldoze wildlife refuge for Trump's border wall; Court of Appeals orders EPA to enforce methane regulations; Now Great Britain to phase out all diesel and gasoline cars; PLUS: Shell Oil CEO says his next car will be electric!... 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): EPA Chief Backtracks On Delaying Rules Reducing Emissions; The Gulf Of Mexico's Dead Zone Is The Biggest Ever Seen; Dangerous Pollutants in Military’s Open Burns Greater Than Thought; Scott Pruitt's Crimes Against Nature; The long and winding road of electric car adoption; The Miami area endured an absurd flooding event Tuesday afternoon... PLUS: Al Gore says fight for Paris accord, climate will continue despite Trump's policies.... and much, MUCH more! ...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

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

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: It's been 29 years since NASA's chief scientist, Dr. James Hansen, offered landmark testimony to the U.S. Senate in June of 1988, explaining that scientists had determined with 99% certainty, as the New York Times reported it at the time, that record atmospheric warming since the 1950s "was not a natural variation but was caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide and other artificial gases in the atmosphere." [Audio link to show follows below.]

Of note in the Times coverage at the time --- headlined "Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate" --- there was nobody quoted from the fossil fuel industry offering denial to the basic scientific facts about which Hansen and others testified that day, based on temperature records going back (at the time) 130 years, and finding that the first five months of that year had been the hottest on record. (The record temperatures that year don't even rate among the top 20 anymore.)

"It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here," Hansen told the paper after his 1988 testimony. "Global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming,'' he testified to the Senators. ''It is already happening now.''

The panel of scientists warned that "If the current pace of the buildup of these gases continues, the effect is likely to be a warming of 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit from the year 2025 to 2050." They were pretty much exactly on target, so far, with those projections. Then Senator Timothy E. Wirth (D-CO), chair of the Committee, responded: "'As I read it, the scientific evidence is compelling: the global climate is changing as the earth's atmosphere gets warmer. Now, the Congress must begin to consider how we are going to slow or halt that warming trend and how we are going to cope with the changes that may already be inevitable."

In the 29 years since --- particularly in the seven years since the Supreme Court's Citizen United opinion unleashed unlimited fossil fuel industry funds into our electoral process --- Republicans (and some Democrats) have instead figured out how to "cope with the changes" by denying they exist at all, or pretending there is uncertainty about who is responsible for it.

But the science is very clear, even more now than than. (And it was even clear some 30 years prior to Hansen's 1988 testimony, as a clip from a 1958 television program, dug up by Desi Doyen and played in part on today's show, makes evident.) And yet, the President of the United States and his top lieutenants --- among them EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Energy Secretary Rick Perry --- have been taking to the airwaves of late to confuse the public with blatant misinformation to distract from the point that man is responsible for all of Earth's warming recorded since the 1950s.

Marking the 29th anniversary of Hansen's testimony, naturalist and author Tony Russell penned a very simple, very clear explanation --- "Global Warming in a Nutshell" --- of the very simple science and math behind global warming, how we know that man is responsible for the 48% increase of heat-trapping CO2 over the past 60 years (CO2 emitted by the burning of fossil fuels lacks a specific carbon isotope, so we can actually measure it!), and what we must do about it...and quickly. He joins us today to discuss that article, and the reasons he wrote it. "I have 9 grandchildren," he tells me, "so they are very much on my mind."

"In some ways, I'm starting to see our situation as desperate," he warns, explaining how it is that we know that disinformation from folks like Pruitt and Perry is simply, and demonstrably, wrong. "When you have warming in the pipeline, with CO2 hanging in the atmosphere that's going to continue to re-radiate heat for tens of thousands of years, and we keep adding new carbon dioxide to the mix, there's no way to stop it. We're loosing a runaway train."

Noting that natural sources, such as oceans and forests, have been able (at least up until recently) to absorb some 50% of the carbon we release, Russell explains: "If you want to stop adding to the CO2 in the atmosphere, then humans have to cut their emissions by 50% from current levels. The figures you see are usually on the order of cutting emissions by 20% by, say, the year 2025. Every year that you hold it at 20%, then 30% will go into the atmosphere. CO2 levels will keep on climbing, more long term warming will be locked in. It really is that simple."

We've covered climate quite a bit over the years on The BradCast and, of course, on our Green News Report. But sometimes it's important to go back to the basics on how stark the science and the reality of our dire situation now is.

On the same topic, speaking of U.S. Senate testimony that's been too-much overlooked, as Dr. Joe Romm at Climate Progress notes this week, Sen. Al Franken (D) recently "set climate deniers' last strawman on fire" during an exchange last week with Sec. Perry, when the Minnesota Senator pointed out that even the Koch Brothers own climate scientist Richard Muller recently conceded that all of the recent warming in the atmosphere was due to our burning of fossil fuels. We play the remarkable exchange today in full.

Also today: Wildfires break out across the West (for some reason); Senate Republicans are having a difficult time getting to 50 votes on their legislation to repeal ObamaCare (at least without Democrats helping); And our small, bitter President unleashes an ugly, bitter, embarrassing and mostly just sad assault against journalist Mika Brzezinski, from atop his bully pulpit (pun intended)...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
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!)

On today's BradCast: The political price of becoming the world's pariah, and new documents finally released by the Trump Administration prove yet again that they are doing anything but "draining the swamp" as promised.

The brutal fallout, including both nationwide and worldwide condemnation for President Trump's regrettable decision to pull the US out of the historic Paris Climate Agreement, continues as the Administration tries and lies to explain the wildly irresponsible and seemingly senseless move, while also working hard to avoid answering whether or not the President of the United States still believes that climate change is a "hoax", as he's previously asserted.

As that story unfolded this week, the Administration was finally forced to release the ethics waivers they say were granted to dozens of White House and executive agency officials allowing them to avoid ethics requirements set out in Trump's Executive Order issued, purportedly, to keep corporate lobbyists out of the government and ensure those working for the Administration did not work with companies whose employ they had just left.

But getting the waivers released at all was "like pulling teeth," according to my guest today, Craig Holman, the long time Government Affairs lobbyist, specializing in campaign finance and government ethics at Public Citizen. He joins us to discuss what is revealed by the waivers released by the White House so far, and why Trump's approach to ethics guidelines cannot even be compared to previous Administrations. "There is a sea-change of difference between the Obama system and the Trump system," he says, describing how even though Obama issued some waivers himself, he did so only in line with "a very tough legal standard" and only after it was "demonstrated that no one else could do the appointee's job."

Trump, on the other hand, "eliminated any criteria for issuing waivers" and even went a step further by failing to disclose them until group's like Holman's and the aggressive current head of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), Walter Shaub, required White House Counsel Don McGahn (who also apparently waivered himself!) to do so.

In addition to top White House officials like Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway and Reince Priebus receiving waivers, Holman explains, "We saw people like Shahira Knight, who was a lobbyist for Fidelity on retirement issues, stepping in to the White House and being the special adviser for retirement issues, which would appear to be a violation of the ethics Executive Order. But was she issued a waiver? We didn't know. So we're banging at the door of the White House wondering what was going on." (As it turns out, yes, she got one too.)

Holman is more troubled still by the fact that almost all of the waivers seem only to have been created this past Wednesday, in order to meet a disclosure deadline on Thursday. "I've gone through each and every waiver, and almost all of them are undated, and unsigned," he says. If it's true that they were issued retroactively, Walter Shaub, the Director of the OGE told the New York Times, "There is no such thing as a retroactive waiver...You have violated a rule." Richard Painter, George W. Bush's White House ethics lawyer told the Times,"The only retroactive waiver I have ever heard of is called a pardon."

But what punishment exists for violating Executive Orders and ethics rules, even though both supposedly carry "the force of law"? And who, exactly, would enforce such violations, anyway? White House Counsel Don McGahn? Attorney General Jeff Sessions? Can groups like Public Citizen sue for enforcement? We discuss all of that and much more with Holman today.

Finally today, an iceberg the size of Delaware is on the brink of falling off of an Antarctic ice shelf; the Special Counsel's investigation of the Trump Administration may reportedly be widening to include a probe of AG Jeff Sessions himself; and what is likely the real (and disturbing) reason that Trump ultimately decided to pull out of the Paris Accord? All of that and much more on today's BradCast!...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
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: 'GNR' Special Coverage: President Trump announces he will withdraw the U.S. from the landmark United Nations Paris Agreement, sending shockwaves around the world... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Larsen C ice shelf on verge of breaking off; Wind power rising but falling under political cloud; Commercial plant starts removing CO2 from the air; California Senate sends package of climate bills to offset Trump; Trump would face legal battle to withdraw from 1992 treaty; Extreme warmth has dominated U.S. weather records since 2010; EPA reportedly helped Paris agreement opponents place op-eds in newspapers; Financial firms lead shareholder rebellion against ExxonMobil climate change policies... PLUS: Judge blocks Montana mine, in victory for grassroots groups... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
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!)

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

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

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

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

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
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: Virginia's Governor sets up statewide carbon cap-and-trade system; Bears Ears National Monument targeted for repeal on behalf of oil and gas industry; EPA gets an earful on which pollution regulations to repeal --- or not; PLUS: See it while you still can --- Glacier National Park's glaciers are going, going... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 5 reasons why the Regulatory Accountability Act is bad for science; Vulnerable communities lash out as companies sway climate talks; Nearly half of CA salmon species face extinction; Loggers hope to fire up chain saws in Trump era; Iowa senator slams Rick Perry for undermining wind energy; Pesticide sickens workers one month after Trump EPA refuses to ban it; Scientists identify another coral reef devastated by warming; Is the era of nuclear power coming to an end?... PLUS: Blood tests significantly underestimate blood levels, CDC warns... and much, MUCH more! ...

Follow @GreenNewsReport...

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

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: France votes for climate action in Presidential election; Wildfires force evacuations in Florida and Georgia; Extreme storms and flooding kill 13 in the Midwest; Time is running out to speak up for EPA regulations you'd like to keep; PLUS: Conservative climate group trolls Trump on climate change denial... 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): GOP senator says ‘the Indians’ should ‘just take my word for it’ on sacred tribal lands; Carbon pollution is suffocating ocean life and speeding up the next mass extinction; Thawing Alaska permafrost causes state's CO2 emissions to surge; Climate change raises fears of dam failures in CA; Trump to soon decide fate of US participation in Paris Agreement; Trump appoints Clean Power Plan critic to serve on crucial federal energy regulator board... PLUS: Bannon is pulling one over on Trump. There is zero reason to exit the Paris climate accord... and much, MUCH more! ...

It's a serious question. Is Donald Trump insane? You can offer your opinion on my Twitter poll, if it's still open. But, on today's BradCast, we examine just some of the evidence, as our unstable U.S. President threatens war against the unstable leader of North Korea, with potentially unspeakable consequences now hanging dangerously in the balance. [Audio to today's show follows below.]

Among the stories on today's program:

• U.S. drops the largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed, for the first time, in the 15th year of our war in Afghanistan;
• Coalition forces "misdirected" air strike in Syria, killing 18 allied fighters;
• Japan's Prime Minister warns that nuclear armed North Korea could deploy chemical weapons in response to U.S. provocation, as Trump sends U.S. Navy battle group to Korean Peninsula in advance of an anticipated NK nuclear test;
• Russian Asia expert warns a conventional weapons attack by North Korea against South Korea's nuclear power plants could result in "five-six Chernobyl-type disasters";
• Over the past 48 hours, Trump completely reverses long-held positions on NATO, U.S. military strength, China currency manipulation, and more, and reveals that he learned, after speaking with China's President "for 10 minutes" recently that China's relationship with North Korea is "not so easy" (before threatening to "go it alone" in a strike against North Korea, which, he says, "means going it with lots of other nations");
• EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt goes on Fox "News" today to blatantly lie about U.S., China, and India's obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the UN's landmark Paris Climate Agreement;
• Proposed cuts to specific EPA programs are draconian, dangerous and ridiculous;
• And, to help us forget about all of the above, Canada's Prime Minister introduces legislation to legalize recreational marijuana across their entire country...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
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: Corporate media failed to inform the public on climate change right when we needed it most; Even Fox News pushing back on Trump Administration's climate denial; EPA sued for refusing to ban toxic pesticide that harms children and farm workers; PLUS: Scientific integrity on trial and under attack in the U.S. House of Representatives... 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): National Geographic Articles in the Year 2030; Trump EPA Moves To Dismantle Programs That Protect Kids From Lead Paint; Trump Boosts Coal As China Takes The Lead On Climate Change; New York, Other States Challenge Trump Over Climate Change Regulation; Australia Could Be Set To Receive New Wave Of Climate Refugees; India's Ganges Clean-Up In A Shambles, Modi Intervenes; U.S. Would Slash EPA Vehicle Testing Budget Under Trump Plan; Lead Exposure Alters Course Of Children's Lives Decades Later: Study... PLUS: Just four years left of the 1.5C carbon budget.... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, Donald Trump has finally signed his long-promised Executive Order in hopes of gutting Barack Obama's climate policies and legacy, while pretending that it's about "ending the theft of American prosperity" by delusionally declaring an end to the imaginary "War on Coal". [Audio link to show follows below.]

Surrounded by coal miners and fossil fuel industry titans, Trump went to the Environmental Protection Agency today to sign what he is nonsensically calling his "Energy Independence" Executive Order. In his remarks before signing --- remarks which did not include the words "climate change" or "global warming" or even just "climate" or "wind" or "solar" or "renewable energy" --- Trump claimed the effort is meant to focus on "job creation" and "bringing back the coal jobs", even though experts agree those jobs are highly unlikely to return. That's thanks to the lower cost of cleaner burning natural gas, the automation of coal mining, and, most importantly, the renewable energy revolution which is creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in both wind and solar.

Mother Jones' climate and energy reporter Rebecca Leber joins us on today's show to explain the details of Trump's order and the difficulties he is likely to encounter trying to implement much of it, including rolling back Obama-era (and earlier) environmental regulations that took years to enact, not to mention the long-standing court rulings and legislation they are meant to enforce.

Trump's orders, if enacted, would begin to roll back Obama's landmark Clean Power Plan (which allows states to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to help meet the U.S. commitment to the U.N. Paris Climate Agreement); gut emissions standards for new coal-fired power plants (if anyone ever decides to build another one); reconsider regulations on methane; revisit the previous Administration's "social cost of carbon" metric (Leber explains that important issue on today's show); and lift the moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands, among other things that Fox "News" and the fossil fuel industry have hoaxed Trump into supporting.

But, as we've seen in Trump's travel ban and attempt to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act (ACA or "ObamaCare"), simply signing an order is not the same as actually implementing complex legislation or even reversing previous policy and regulations. We discuss all of that, the opposition that is promised from environmental groups and Democrats, some amazing comments from the White House on a press call last night, and how the rest of the world is likely to respond to all of this, with Leber and our own Desi Doyen on today's show.

Also today: Speaking of ObamaCare, now that the GOP's scheme to repeal and replace it has, at least for now, gone down in such spectacular flames, both chambers of the Kansas state legislature have voted, by large numbers to expand Medicaid under the ACA. But, will the state's far-right, wildly unpopular Governor Sam Brownback sign the bill meant to help some 180,000 Kansans obtain access to health care --- even with the federal legislation footing the bill for almost all of it?

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
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!)