We cover a lot of ground, yet again, on today's BradCast.

First: More climate change dots connected out here in California, as another freeway is shut down (the third in the last couple of months) thanks to yet another extreme weather disaster.

Next: As Donald Trump correctly notes that George W. Bush did not "keep us safe" either before or after 9/11, Jeb tries again to come to his brother's defense and fails almost as much as his own campaign is now floundering.

Then: With federal sentencing reform for non-violent drug offenders about to result in freedom for 6,000 federal inmates (and another 40,000 likely in the near future), we are joined today by artist and author Anthony Papa of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Papa (self-portrait seen above in today's BradCast logo) shares his amazing story about how he was sentenced to "15 years to life" for a first-time, non-violent, drug-related crime under New York's "tough on crime", "war on drugs" policies of the 80s. He served 12 years of hard time --- for delivering 4 ounces of cocaine in exchange for $500 --- before he was finally granted clemency by the Governor.

He follows his first book, 15 to Life: How I Painted My Way to Freedom up with his latest, An Open Letter to Men and Women Returning Home in the Age of Reform, just released on Kindle today.

Papa was lucky enough to earn three degrees while serving 12 years in prison, where he also discovered he knows how to paint. He now serves as Artist in Residence at Drug Policy Alliance and has had his work exhibited at the Whitney Museum. On today's show, in addition to his personal story, he shared his optimistic thoughts on criminal justice reform ("mandatory minimum sentencing became the poison that literally broke the system"), some words of advice to those about to be released ("these men and women coming home into a society that is not ready for them, can be a problem"), and his opinions on the outrage of restrictions on voting placed on both current and former felons.

"The greatest thing for me being in prison, was my discovery for me of my political awareness," he tells me. But, after his release, he learned he would still not be able to vote for another five years, even though he had served his time under laws passed by officials he should have been able to vote against. "Before I went to prison, I didn't even bother to vote. I was a regular Joe. When I came out, discovering I couldn't vote was very painful for me. So it took five years, but when the time came, I cast that vote. I felt like I was whole again. It was a wonderful feeling."

Finally today: Wayne Simmons, the "former CIA operative" regularly featured on Fox "News" for more than a decade, where he has been cited by wingnuts time and again on everything from Benghazi to torture to ISIS and their "19 paramilitary Muslim training facilities in the United States" (which don't exist), turns out to have never worked for the CIA at all and has now been arrested on federal fraud charges.

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We were forced to reschedule our planned guest for today's BradCast at the last minute --- (you'll have to listen to the show to find out who it was to be, but I'm still very much looking forward to that conversation!) --- but that worked out just fine, as we had to much to cover on today's show as is!

Among the stories and issues we were, therefore, able to cover today...

• New insider whistleblower releases documents revealing the inner-workings of the United States' disastrous drone assassination program.
• Democratic debate suggests a new day for progressivism, if not for the still-failing corporate U.S. media.
• Finally, climate change takes the spotlight in a Presidential debate, as Rightwing deniers and fraudsters like Jeb and Rush freak out about it.

All of that a much (much) more on today's BradCast!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Green News Report Special Coverage: Finally --- Climate change takes the spotlight, at least for a few minutes, in a Presidential Debate.... All that special coverage 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): Mississippi River Basin Gets A Grade Of D; From March to a Movement: Climate Events Stretch From Sea to Rising Sea; Chesapeake Waters Warming, Study Says, Posing Challenges To Healing Bay; Alpha Natural Discloses Payments to Climate Change Skeptic Chris Horner; Lawsuit Alleges Illegal Water Use by Nestlé in Drought-Stricken Calif.; Massachusetts: With Expenses Rising, Pilgrim Nuclear Plant Will Close... PLUS: State, Feds Won't Pursue $92M More in '89 Exxon Valdez Spill... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast we dissect Tuesday night's pleasantly substantive (for the most part) Democratic Presidential Debate in Las Vegas.

Joining me on today's show are two of our favorite guests, both long time journalists/bloggers and both of whom have been pretty much right about pretty much everything for the past decade and more.

Heather Digby Parton --- Salon contributor, Hillman Foundation opinion journalism award winner, and proprietor of Digby's Hullabaloo blog --- joins us for the hour along with Eric Boehlert --- Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America and author of Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press.

Last night's debate drew in a record number of viewers and offered a striking contrast from the debates we've seen so far this year from Republicans. But, did it change either the trajectory or the conventional Beltway "wisdom" for any of the candidates? Has the Democratic Party finally broken away from the shackles of corporate wingnuttery?

Was Hillary Clinton able to overcome the absurd attacks over pretend scandals from corporate media and the GOP? Was Bernie Sanders able to demonstrate his viability as a general election candidate? And what of those other guys on stage with them --- and even one who was not on stage with them? Why did this debate draw even more viewers than the Clinton/Obama matchups in 2008? And was the DNC right in their decision to limit the number of debates for the Democratic candidates this cycle?

We discuss all of that and much more on today's BradCast, with really smart observations from two really smart journalists who are decidedly not "inside the Beltway" pundits...

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I'm back after a few days off for today's BradCast! My huge thanks to Radio Or Not's Nicole Sandler for guest-hosting over the past several days and affording Desi and me a bit of much-needed down time.

Of course, as soon as we stood down, everything blew up in Congress and everywhere else. So, I touch on a few of those points --- particularly the Republican Party coming apart at the seams, as we now see in their inability to find a House Speaker or even a Presidential candidate for that matter --- on today's program.

Then, it's on to the continuing fight for the right to vote across the country. We've got some troubling news out of Kansas, where their Sec. of State Kris Kobach (R) is attempting to justify his voter suppression with new prosecutions. And then we've got some very good news out of California, where voter registration will now be automatic and could lead to as many as 6.6 million new voters in the Golden State.

At the same time, Fox "News" is now offering a huge lie about the state's new law, as advanced on air today by Judge Andrew Napolitano.

After offering his (rather remarkable) opinion that the U.S. Supreme Court "wrongly" found voting to be "a fundamental right," Napolitano asserted the lie that "once it said that, states like California decided to allow people to vote who aren't qualified by law to vote because of the fundamental aspect." The former Judge then added to his lie by claiming that "an illegal alien in California...can vote in local, state, and federal elections in California and those votes count," simply by obtaining a drivers license under the new Motor Voter Law signed over the weekend by Gov. Jerry Brown (D).

In response to Napolitano, we obtained a statement via email from Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County Register-Recorder/County Clerk, describing the outrageous assertion as categorically "false". "The new Motor Voter law only applies to those identified by DMV records as meeting the eligibility requirements to be registered to vote --- including citizenship," Logan says in his statement this afternoon, as read on air. "The law specifically mandates that distinction and the adoption of regulations to ensure against registration of non-eligible persons. The contention that the law automatically places non-citizens on the voter rolls is false."

Since airtime, the office of CA Sec. of State Alex Padilla (D) has also responded to our query and confirms that the new law "expressly prohibits" voter registration for non-citizens. Of course, Fox couldn't be bothered to find out and accurately inform their viewers.

Next, we are joined by Michael Collins of the Drug Policy Alliance to discuss the federal Bureau of Prisons' long overdue reform to sentencing guidelines that will result in some 6,000 inmates being freed within days, and perhaps a total of 46,000 thereafter. Collins explains how the changes came about and notes: "The Sentencing Commission definitely deserves to be applauded for what it's doing. But, at the same time, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the overall prison population."

"Drug offenses and the hysteria around drugs in the 80s and 90s, where laws were introduced, mandatory minimum sentencing was introduced, and we saw the prison population grow through the roof," requires reform that only Congress can provide. But, as dysfunctional as Collins acknowledges Congress to be, he says, on this issue, there is actually very real, bipartisan momentum in favor of reform in both chambers.

"There is a strong, bi-partisan movement for criminal justice reform and for sentencing reform," he tells me. "Republicans, Democrats, liberals, Tea Partiers, hard-core conservatives, old-school law and orders --- you name it --- there's this broad bi-partisan momentum to do something on criminal justice reform."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with an opportunity to call out Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for his remarkable display of hypocrisy in the wake of historic flooding in his home state.

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On today's BradCast, Guest Host Nicole Sandler talks with author, pundit, PR maven and gun control advocate Cliff Schecter about the possibility that Congress will NOW, finally do something about our gun violence epidemic.

Plus CAF's Robert Borosage tells us which of the Democratic presidential candidates most closely aligns with the Populism 2015 platform according to the newly-released Candidate Scorecard

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On today's BradCast, guest host Nicole Sandler speaks with Huffington Post Washington Bureau Chief Ryan Grim about the week's big news including the soap operatic goings on in the House GOP caucus, the US bombing of a Doctors without Borders field hospital in Afghanistan, and our shooting epidemic.

With two more shootings just today on or near college campuses, Nicole noticed an Australian Tweeting about how they changed their gun laws there, so she invited him on for a conversation. And she shared her 2013 interview with former Australian Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer, who was in office during the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre and helped usher tough new gun laws that have prevented another mass shooting there since.

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It is rather remarkable what one can learn when the presumed private remarks uttered by Republicans and their oligarchic benefactors are captured on secretly recorded audio and videotapes.

Four years ago, Brad Friedman revealed the secretly recorded audiotapes from a Koch Brothers Summer Seminar that captured Charles Koch's "mother of all wars" remark and David Koch's introduction in which he described keynote speaker, Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) as his "kind of guy." This was followed by a bombshell in the form of a secretly recorded video that captured Mitt Romney's "46%" remark that the GOP Presidential nominee erroneously believed would be heard only by a group of well-heeled donors.

Now comes a new, secretly recorded audiotape, published by Politico and, subsequently included as part of an in-depth analysis provided by News One. The audio captures Florida Republican state Rep. Janet Adkins at a meeting with the North Florida GOP, plotting to dilute minority representation at the polls by deliberately redrawing Florida's 5th Congressional District so as to include some 18 prisons, disproportionately populated by African-Americans who are ineligible to vote.

Adkins, who is white, described the scheme as the "perfect storm." She explained that if the district was redrawn in this way it would enable Florida Republicans to oust the 12-term, African-American incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown. "You draw [the district] in such a fashion so perhaps, a majority, or maybe not a majority, but a number of them will live in the prisons, thereby not being able to vote," Adkins is heard explaining on the recording, after making sure that all the reporters had left the room. (When interviewed by News One, Brown noted that, in addition to the prison populations, there are approximately 6,000 felons living in the newly proposed district whose voting rights have not been restored by the state.)

The secretly recorded audio arrives at a very propitious moment...

On today's BradCast, guest hosted by Nicole Sandler, we discuss the Kevin McCarthy saga and the US bombing of a medic hospital in Afghanistan.

As House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was poised to take the first step toward becoming Speaker of the House today, he did an 11th hour about face. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), who filed an ethics complaint against McCarthy just yesterday, joins us to explain why he did it, and how he might have been the cause of today's turmoil.

Guest host Nicole Sandler of radioornot.com speculates that a Speaker who can’t adequately speak probably wouldn't have worked out too well anyway.

And Emptywheel's Marcy Wheeler helps us understand the inconceivable bombing of a Doctors without Borders hospital in Afghanistan over the weekend.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Sen. Lindsey Graham wants federal aid for South Carolina flooding --- but voted against it for Hurricane Sandy; Environmental groups slam TPP agreement; New rules to protect farmworkers from pesticides; Fracking companies wasting taxpayers' money; PLUS: Obama creates two new marine sanctuaries in the U.S.... 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): D.C. Water begins harnessing electricity from every flush; GOP grills Energy secretary on oil exports; Why Europeans are better at forecasting storms than the US; Will VW now turn to EVs?; BP record settlement in Gulf oil spill made official, larger than thought; DuPont to pay $1.6m in Teflon water contamination suit; Monsanto mobilized academics to write articles supporting GMOs; PLUS: What will a global agreement on climate change look like? The U.N. just gave us a clue ... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Examining yet another enduring NRA myth in the wake of the Oregon massacre at Umpqua Community College; the GOP race for U.S. House Speaker could get very interesting; and more.

The Nation's Joshua Holland joins us to discuss his article this week: "Combat Vets Destroy the NRA's Heroic Gunslinger Fantasy", investigating whether there are any facts to back up the NRA and its scam artist Vice President Wayne LaPierre's long contention that "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

You'll be shocked to learn that (unlike the liar LaPierre) folks who actually fire guns --- and have had them fired at them in combat --- have a very different opinion about the best way to stop that "bad guy with a gun."

"Wayne La Pierre has been a lobbyist for his entire career, and has no concept of what it really means when people start shooting at you," Holland tells me. The folks he talked to, he said, "did know that." In fact, as study after study confirm, he explains, guns often serve only to make bad situations much much worse.

I don't want to to share more of the conversation, for now, because I'd prefer you give it a listen in full --- gun fans and foes alike. (Click to listen to the full show below.)

Also on today's program: the Congressman who, in 1996, sponsored legislation that blocked the CDC from collecting statistics on gun deaths and public health now has regrets; How John Boehner could find himself remaining as Speaker of the House, even after the date he plans to resign; Desi Doyen with our latest Green News Report on the historic, global warming-fueled flooding in SC and new EPA regulations to help curb ozone and pesticides...

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On today's BradCast, idiocy in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House and --- much more importantly --- the future of cars and a clean, livable planet!

First up, as the death toll mounts in Guatemala and the waters continue to rise in South Carolina, all thanks to global warming, the state's U.S. Senator and woeful 2016 GOP Presidential candidate Lindsey Graham embarasses himself as he begs for federal relief from the government, while conveniently "forgetting" that he repeatedly voted against similar aid for other states after Hurricane Sandy.

Then, speaking of disasters and climate change, Steve LeVine, author of The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World, joins us to discuss his recent article, "Volkswagen’s best shot at a comeback now has the automaker right where Elon Musk wants it."

LeVine explains how Volkswagen, whose recent emissions test cheating scandal will cost them billions in fines, may be able to help save themselves by helping to power the future of electric cars in a massive way. That future, LeVine tells me, is just about here. "In the coming 3-5 years," he says, we will be hitting "a critical mass."

"All of this has been triggered by [Tesla CEO] Elon Musk. Musk has put the fear into car makers --- they think that he could be a game changer, and they could be left out," LeVine explains. "You've got GM, Audi, Porsche, Jaguar, BMW, Nissan [and] a bunch of others car-makers, all planning to launch their own 200-mile, $35-40K [electric] cars" in the next several years. Even Apple is getting in the game. But, that new generation of clean cars needs to be powered, and VW could help their horrible damaged image by taking a leading role.

Finally, we go back to more idiocy in Congress to finish out today's show, as two incapable jackasses battle it out to win the GOP nomination in hopes of becoming the next Speaker of the U.S. House and, incidentally, third in the line of succession to become the President of the United States. And, speaking of which, is that the "death rattle" of the Jeb Bush campaign that we hear?...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Biblical rain and record flooding in South Carolina --- is this the new normal?; India announces it will cut its carbon emissions; PLUS: EPA announces new ozone rules to cut dangerous air pollution... 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): Warming temperatures to in the West; Q&A: Former Exxon scientist on oil giant’s 1970s climate change research; Environmentalists: TPP a disaster for the environment; California leads a quiet renewable energy revolution; New York's revolutionary plan to remake its power utilities... PLUS: Solar City claims new solar panel efficiency breakthrough... and much, MUCH more! ...