We were live at the KPFK/Pacifica Radio studios in Los Angeles for today's BradCast and had the opportunity to open up the phones for a lot of great listener calls.

But, first, we covered today's disturbing, near-simultaneous collapse of computer systems at the New York Stock Exchange, the Wall Street Journal and United Airlines, and what we might (but won't) learn from it.

Then, it's onto the nation's dumbest Governor (perhaps in U.S. history) and the unbelievably dumb thing he's finally done now...

Come and listen to a story 'bout a Governor named LePage,
A total dumbass (and sometimes filled with rage).
They said the state of Maine is the state he oughta run,
But wait until you hear what their Guv has gone and done...

But while LePage may be indescribably stupid, at least he's not running for President (yet) --- unlike Wisconsin's Gov. Scott Walker who is not only running, but currently has a very good chance of winning the Republican nomination. And he's as insidiously sneaky and dangerous as Governors get.

All of that and more on today's lively BradCast!

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I'm back on The BradCast today after a much-need July 4 weekend respite! My huge thanks to Nicole Sandler of RadioOrNot.com for filling in for me yesterday!

While Nicole covered some important items that might have otherwise disappeared into the holiday weekend news hole, there was at least one notable story that she missed, which a few folks in Wisconsin --- specifically, Gov. Scott Walker (R) and his allies in the state legislature --- had hoped nobody would notice: their blatant attempt to completely gut the state's beloved Open Records law.

"This was an effort by Walker and some Republicans in the legislature to undermine open government in the dead of night," my guest today, Brendan Fischer, general counsel at the Center for Media and Democracy tells me. And it was done, he suggests, in hopes of keeping piles of fresh baggage from making its way into the mainstream media as Walker --- whose entire career now seems to be predicated on secrecy and lack of transparency --- prepares to announce his candidacy for the GOP Presidential nomination in a week or so.

What the Badger State's Republican-dominated legislature tried to pull off over the weekend was extraordinary. "There was no public statement whatsoever," Fischer explains. "This was introduced, through this last minute budget amendment that was passed on the evening of the holiday weekend. There was no public debate. This was something they tried to do in the dead of night."

Fischer also catches us up on the status of several other cases now pending against Walker and/or his closest allies, including one that is set to face a crucial ruling shortly by the state's Supreme Court. That challenge in that case, known as "John Doe 2", is being brought by the largest financial supporters of both Walker's and several of the court's elected(!) Republican Justices!

Also today: We catch up after the holiday weekend on the latest developments in Greece and with Trump, marriage, the Confederate flag and more!...

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On today's BradCast, guest hosted by me, Nicole Sandler of radioornot.com...

Last week we saw two major news dumps! The first was Tuesday night at 9pm (!), the time the State Department thought was optimal for them to release the first batch of Hillary Clinton emails from her private mail server. Jason Leopold, "FOIA Terrorist" from Vice News, filed the FOIA requests that led to this release. He spent the Fourth of July weekend reading the damned things so we wouldn't have to, and he joined in for the last few minutes of the show.

The other big dump came Thursday night, on the eve of the Independence Day holiday, as the U.S. DoJ and five Gulf states announced a deal with BP representing a final settlement on the world's largest offshore oil spill in history in 2010. Oil industry expert/journalist Antonia Juhasz, who covered the deal at Rolling Stone, arguing that, though it's the largest such settlement in history, BP still "got off cheaply", gives us all the details.

Also, if you ever wondered why Brad uses the theme song he does, I've got the "exclusive" on that. Plus, South Carolina legislator really embarrasses himself over marriage equality, and we're happy to help him...

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Sigh...

[Hat-tip The New Civil Rights Movement...]

It's our last BradCast before the long holiday weekend, so, after an amazingly encouraging week or two of news, we head into the July 4th weekend today with a whole bunch of stories that we've been trying to clear off our desk for the past week or two, along with a bunch of breaking news as well today.

From Trump and Bernie-mentum to Jim Webb entering the 2016 race to the dead-enders in Kentucky still fighting the Supreme Court ruling on marriage to more green news than we can even fit into a single Green News Report with Desi Doyen.

Oh, and real-life killer robots on the rise --- no, it's not product placement for the new Terminator movie, but it sure sounds like it --- before we finally end today's show with an encouraging bang (courtesy of our friend D.R. Tucker at Washington Monthly)!

Please enjoy and have a happy (and safe) 4th of July!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Alaska and the Pacific Northwest are on fire; Warming oceans linked to more shark attacks in North Carolina; China and Brazil formally commit to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions; PLUS: Fracking companies can now be sued for causing earthquakes... 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): BP Agrees To Pay ‘The Largest Environmental Settlement In History’ Over Its 2010 Oil Spill; California Oil Train Risks Worse in Minority Areas; The Heat Is On: Climate change will make deadly heat waves like Pakistan’s and Europe’s worse than ever; Calif. May Allow Expanded Production as Oil Spill Cleanup Continues; 5 Things to Know About 2,4-D, the 'Possibly' Cancer-Causing Herbicide; Midwest flood risks could be underestimated by five feet... PLUS: Judge: Maui Ban On GMO Crops Is Invalid... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've spent no small amount of time over the years here at The BRAD BLOG calling out the duplicity, hypocrisy, cruelty and even felony crimes of Ann Coulter.

We've personally run her off the radio waves, helped discourage otherwise legitimate news outlets from giving her airtime, lest they damage their own credibility, helped her become persona non-grata at CPAC (where she was previously queen), and helped to document, in no uncertain terms, her own, personal, multiple cases of voter fraud in at least two different states.

People used to ask why we even bothered with her. She was and is, after all, clearly a horrible person with grotesquely ugly, hateful and violent views, and a years-long proclivity for propping herself and her career up at the unapologetically cruel expense of others.

But Ann Coulter mattered. As a GOP Superstar, she helped set the agenda for a huge segment of the nation (whether the chumps, rubes and suckers she helped to influence even knew it, much less were willing to admit it.) And few were able to respond to her bullshit effectively to set the record straight.

The good news, as Heather Digby Parton explains in a detailed column at Salon this week, Coulter, officially, no longer matters. Her books no longer sell, she is no longer the darling of the news networks and, as even she admits, she now has a very difficult time getting booked anywhere, much less being able to sell her once-popular, book-shaped screeds.

"They're ignoring me now!," Coulter whined last month to New York's Annie Lowrey in an article headlined "Ann Coulter Wants to Know Why She Doesn't Make You Mad Anymore".

"Coulter has found herself struggling to annoy, enrage, and otherwise provoke the mainstream media or the left," Lowrey reports. "Bloggers have left her alone. Twitter has left her alone. The networks have left her alone. 'Nobody will debate me!' she said. 'There's been no ABC, NBC, CBS for me on this book!'"

Parton's brief, if detailed history of the once-very relevant rightwing polemicist is actually quite fair (far more than we would have been), as is her conclusion in Salon analysis, explaining why it is --- particular at the dawn of this new Progressive Age --- that Ann Coulter, simply, no longer matters...

Greece is the word! On today's BradCast, financial journalist David Dayen joins us to explain the latest news in the Greek fiscal crisis and how austerity measures being forced on them continue to harm the nation even as the Eurozone and IMF move to make things worse, citizens head to the polls to help decide what to do about it and the "vultures" continue to make out like bandits.

"The problem is that these European institutions want Syriza [Greek's currently ruling leftist party] to suffer because they want to snuff this out," Dayen explains. "If an anti-austerity party is successful in one country in the Eurozone, that's going to tell the rest of the Eurozone that they don't have to live under these conditions anymore."

Dayen also tips us off to a similar fiscal mess now unfolding in Puerto Rico and how, even though "FastTrack" authority for the TPP (and other trade agreements for the next six years) has now been passed by Congress and signed by Obama, the controversial secret trade agreement could still be blocked in the U.S. House.

Then, I explain the Supreme Court decision you probably didn't hear about this week, which --- though good in that it tells Republican "voter fraud" fraudster and KS Sec. of State Kris Kobach to go to hell --- still leaves more than 30,000 otherwise perfectly legal voters in Kansas (and many in Arizona as well) unable to cast a vote in their own state.

Finally, Trump-mania continues as The Donald is fired by one group after another yet still manages to vault into 2nd place in Iowa polling. Donald Trump is the modern Republican Party id, whether they'll admit it or not, and they've got a real problem on their hands. On the other hand, I couldn't be enjoying it more!

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