On today's BradCast: With Justice Anthony Kennedy retiring from the U.S. Supreme Court, is all hope lost for overturning partisan (and racial) gerrymanders that have helped to keep Democrats and their voters from enjoying appropriate and Constitutional representation at both the state and federal level?

But, before that today: What appears to be good news from a U.S. District Court striking down the Trump Administration's approval of Kentucky's cruel new work requirement for Medicaid recipients as "arbitrary and capricious", may not end up being quite as good news as it sounds. We explain why.

Next: Trump's tariffs and trade wars are beginning to cost jobs in the U.S., and the first jobs losses are to Trump supporters in Missouri. The next victims could be those who work in the U.S. automobile industry. Of course, all of this could be stopped in its tracks but, apparently, the Republicans who control both houses of Congress have no interest in putting the brakes on this out of control and dangerous Presidency.

Then: The final two weeks of the U.S. Supreme Court's term have been disappointing ones for many, including opponents of both partisan and racial gerrymandering. Federal courts in multiple states had determined that Republican-controlled states (and one Democratic one) had unlawfully and unconstitutionally created U.S. House and state legislative maps that impermissibly prevented voters from being appropriately represented in Congress and state legislatures.

Over the past two weeks, however, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling that had struck down several racial gerrymanders in Texas, and they also punted three different partisan gerrymandering cases, in Wisconsin, Maryland and North Carolina, back to the lower courts for rehearing. Perhaps the most disappointing such case was Common Cause v. Rucho in the closely divided swing-state of North Carolina, where a federal appeals court found a clear case of partisan gerrymandering and ordered the entire U.S. House map to be redrawn in time for the 2018 midterms.

In that case, the Republicans who drew the map admitted they did so in order to give the GOP a 10 to 3 partisan advantage in U.S. House seats, despite state voters narrowly supporting Obama in 2008, Trump in 2016, and with Democrats winning statewide elections for Governor and Attorney General that same year.

And all of those SCOTUS punts came just before Justice Anthony Kennedy, who gerrymandering opponents had hoped would finally be the swing vote to end the practice of partisan redistricting once and for all, announced his retirement instead.

We're joined today by Common Cause's National Redistricting Manager DAN VICUNA to explain the outcomes and current status of those cases in TX, WI, MD and NC, and how opponents of gerrymandering plan to move ahead now that Kennedy --- their greatest hope for ending the practice nationally, once and for all --- will no longer be on the Court when those cases ultimately return.

"Mind you," Vicuna points out, regarding the thumbs up, for now, that SCOTUS gave to NC to continue using their current partisan gerrymanders in 2018, "the reason why they redrew these maps in 2016, late in a Census redistricting cycle, is because their original map was struck down as an illegal racial gerrymander."

Finally, speaking of the extremist Republican legislature in NC, lawmakers there on Friday approved a statewide initiative for the 2018 ballot, on a partyline vote, that would, if supported voters, amend the state constitution to require Photo ID voting restrictions at the polling place. That, after a law they had passed to do the same thing was struck down in 2016 by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals because it was found to have targeted African-American voters "with almost surgical precision"...

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On today's BradCast we take a precious few minutes to duck out of the horrific breaking news cycle this week --- sort of --- for some words of wisdom and perspective from a number of very smart folks in response to the news that Justice Anthony Kennedy is resigning, and all of the fear, panic and depression that is going with it for many progressives. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Among the smart folks we turn to for sage thoughts today: longtime newsman Dan Rather, civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis & Daily Kos' "Meteor Blades", blogger and activist Zawn Villines and journalist David Dayen. Each offer helpful, non-pollyannaish advice on keeping our current moment in the appropriate perspective. That, while the struggle for justice and to somehow save the U.S. Supreme Court from an onslaught of GOP/Trump hypocrisy, extremism, lies, cynicism, and far-right schemes to roll back decades of hard-fought civil, voting, human and reproductive rights, will demand persistence and steady, determined courage in the days ahead.

Nonetheless, both pessimism and despair are counterproductive to progress. So I hope today's program helps us all (including me!) to stay a bit more hopeful, optimistic and healthy, during these seemingly ever-darkening hours.

Also providing a bit of hope and inspiration today, some more news from Tuesday's primary elections, in which an extraordinary progressive 28-year old Latina from The Bronx unseated a 10-term Democratic member of the U.S. House Leadership establishment in New York's Democratic primary, despite being outspent 15 to 1; A record third LGBT person this year has now won a Democratic nomination for Governor, this time in Colorado; And Oklahoma voters unseated a host of Republicans in the state House and Senate who voted against recent tax increases to fund education following a two-week long teacher walk-out and years of slashed funding to pay for massive corporate tax cuts; And, as if that's not enough good news from supposedly "conservative" Oklahoma, voters also approved a citizen-sponsored statewide ballot initiative for medical marijuana, in defiance of GOP elected officials and a well-funded campaign against it. We join Steven Colbert's celebration on that today.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with more on Kennedy's climate legacy at SCOTUS, environmental concerns in the wake of his retirement, and a few other encouraging results from this past Tuesday's primaries in seven states...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement is bad news for the climate; New wildfires hit California and five other states; Federal judge dismisses San Francisco's climate liability lawsuit; Natural gas industry leaking far more methane than previously estimated; PLUS: Bright spots in the primaries as progressive climate hawks win upset victories... 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): 2 city lawsuits against Big Oil dismissed, but that's not the end of it; Tropical forests suffered near-record tree losses in 2017; Huge stretch of Arctic Ocean is rapidly turning into the Atlantic Ocean; Federal court becoming impatient with EPA over Clean Power Plan; Coral reefs prevent $4.3 billion in flood damage annually; TX Supreme Court strikes down plastic bag bans; 11 states sue Trump Administration over climate super-pollutants used in cooling; Pruitt acts to surrender some EPA veto power over mining, development; Young will pick up climate change bill, advisers warn; Justices give Florida another chance to prevail in water war... PLUS: Kennedy is gone. Now vote... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Political earthquakes. Several of them. All shaking up the political world just within the past 12 to 24 hours. As if we needed still more chaos. [Audio link to show follows below.]

We do our best to navigate through as many of those temblors --- one or two of them quite encouraging, the rest, not so much --- as possible, with the help of our guest today, JOHN NICHOLS, longtime progressive champion and Washington Correspondent for The Nation.

Among the several earthquakes covered today: Antonia Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year old Latina and political novice unseated Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley, the fourth most powerful Democrat in the U.S. House, by a huge margin (some 15 points) during Tuesday's midterm primaries in New York's 14th Congressional District. The defeat of a 10-term incumbent, previously thought to have been a potential future Speaker of the House, by a self-described Democratic socialist who raised and spent millions less than Crowley, has sent shockwaves through the Democratic establishment.

"When we vote, this is what happens," Ocasio-Cortez declared today after her stunning upset victory, following on the heels of her viral campaign video in which she declared the race "about people versus money. We've got people, they've got money." In the strongly Democratic district in Queens and The Bronx, she is almost certain to win this November.

In Maryland, meanwhile, another proudly progressive Bernie Sanders acolyte, former NAACP Chair Ben Jealous bested several other Dems to win the nomination to run on his bold populist agenda against popular GOP Gov. Larry Hogan this November.

Also on Tuesday night, a federal judge in San Diego --- a George W. Bush appointee --- issued a ruling requiring the Trump Administration to reunite families separated at the border within 30 days or less. (Within 14 days, if children younger than 5 are included.)

On Wednesday, however, things to several turns for the worst. First, the stolen 5 to 4 majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, in yet another far-right ruling overturning decades of established law, struck down so-called agency fees that public sector unions had been allowed to charge non-union members in exchange for representing them in collective bargaining negotiations. Though federal law still requires that non-union members receive the same pay and benefits as union members, the Court's final ruling issued before Summer recess means public sector unions are likely to lose millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of members. The decision is seen as a huge blow to labor and a long-sought victory for Republicans. In her dissent to Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion finding the 40-year old violated First Amendment free speech rights of non-union members, Justice Elena Kagan charged her GOP colleagues with "weaponizing the First Amendment" for political purposes. "At every stop," she charged in her opinion, read from the bench, "there are block-robed rulers overriding citizens' choices. The First Amendment was meant for better things."

But the day's largest earthquake, by far, came shortly thereafter, as 81-year old Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative Ronald Reagan appointee, who was often the swing-vote on issues such as abortion, gay rights and other progressive causes, announced he would be retiring at the end of July.

Nichols, author of The Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse, helps us navigate all of the above today, with analysis and insight on all of today's political earthquakes, as well as my argument that Senate Democrats must now follow the so-called "McConnell Rule" --- which Senate Republicans used to prevent a vote on Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee to fill a vacant SCOTUS seat, for nearly a year in 2016 before it was ultimately filled by Trump's nominee Neil Gorsuch in 2017.

Not only must Dems insist on no voting on any Trump nominee to SCOTUS until after the November Election and the seating of the next Senate, just as McConnell and the Republicans did in 2016, but since Repubs unilaterally changed the Senate filibuster rule in order to force Gorsuch's confirmation through with a bare majority, Dems should consider walking out entirely --- for months, if necessary --- if the absence of a Senate quorum might prevent a vote on whoever Trump nominates to fill Kennedy's seat.

Yes, shut it all down, if necessary. As I argue today, the stakes are now that high. In order to prevent the further erosion of enumerable long-held American rights and values, Democrats now need to put it all on the line in advance of the 2018 midterm primary, which could flip the balance of the upper chamber to the Democrats. Nichols responds with his own thoughts in response to my assertion, and much more --- including on some of the otherwise very good news for progressives from Tuesday's primaries...

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On today's BradCast: The U.S. Supreme Court seat stolen by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Senate Republicans --- who carried out the unprecedented blockade of President Obama's SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland for almost a year following the death of Antonin Scalia --- paid off in spades today in two separate 5 to 4 decisions which should forever have an asterisk next to them in the history books. [Audio link to today's show is posted below.]

First up today, however, primary elections are being held in seven states on Tuesday in New York, Maryland, Utah, Colorado and Oklahoma, with primary runoffs in Mississippi and South Carolina. We'll have noteworthy results and problem reports on tomorrow's BradCast, though we already know of one huge problem in Baltimore. (No, it's not a mere "glitch" or "snafu", Baltimore Sun. It is a failure...at the very least!) On Monday night, it was revealed that Maryland failed to include updated voter registration information for some 80,0000 voters who made changes to their party affiliation or residential addresses since April of 2017. The announcement was made by the state late on the evening before Tuesday's elections, in which those voters were forced to vote on provisional ballots at the polls. Those ballots will be included in the results, but won't be tallied until next week.

Then, we're joined again today by Slate's great legal reporter MARK JOSEPH STERN to discuss both of the U.S. Supreme Court's grim rulings today on Trump's Muslim travel ban and on so-called "crisis pregnancy centers", as well as several decisions from Monday --- all of which, Stern correctly points out, would almost certainly have seen the opposite outcome under Garland instead of Justice Neil Gorsuch who has been the "decisive 5th vote" in each of the cases. "Every single one of the decision that we're talking about right now would have come out differently if Justice Merrick Garland were sitting on the Supreme Court right now instead of Justice Neil Gorsuch. We would have an end to partisan gerrymandering, an end to racial gerrymandering, an end to voter suppression, an end to crisis pregnancy centers' efforts to be lawless and not have to comply with basic medical licensing. The travel ban would be struck down. It's almost brutal to think about how all of these cases would turn out if the man who should be on the Court were on the Court."

Stern details Chief Justice John Roberts' 5 to 4 majority opinion in the travel ban case, in which the Court overturned multiple lower courts to uphold Trump's third attempt at banning immigrants and travelers from several majority Muslim countries. As dissenter Justice Sonia Sotomayor also does, Stern compares the ruling to the notoriously shameful 1944 Supreme Court decision in Korematsu v. U.S., which allowed Japanese-Americans to be forced into internment camps during WWII. Today's ruling is being described as "shameful", “hateful" and "racist" by immigration advocates and religious groups alike. Stern calls the decision --- in which Roberts largely dismisses Trump's oft-repeated statements revealing his personal animus towards Muslims --- as "Korematsu 2.0"

"This Court is not as disturbed and disgusted by Trump's approach to immigration as I think a majority of Americans are," he tells me. "This is a Court that's eager to bless the President's moves in the realm of national security, and to basically believe his pretext, even when it's flagrantly B.S"

Sotomayor argues in her dissent: "By blindly accepting the Government's misguided invitation to sanction a discriminatory policy motivated by animosity toward a disfavored group, all in the name of a superficial claim of national security, the Court redeploys the same dangerous logic underlying Korematsu and merely replaces one gravely wrong decision with another."

Stern also details Justice Clarence Thomas' 5 to 4 majority opinion which, under a pretext of First Amendment free speech rights, strikes down California's restrictions on anti-abortionist scam artists posing as phony medical clinics to hoax pregnant women into not receiving abortions. Thomas, charges Stern, "wrote an astonishingly broad decision that effectively says the government has no power to regulate professional speech, no power to regulate medical speech, or doctors' speech, except when they are telling abortion patients not to get abortions." In all, he says, describing how the Court is also targeting voting rights by reversing multiple lower courts in recent rulings, they are "on a kind of tear right now, overturning court after court" and/or using any "flimsy reason to send a case back down" for rehearing.

Yes, elections matter, if you haven't noticed. In the case of the 2016 election, the result will now haunt the U.S. for generations.

Finally today, we're joined by Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report on the climate changed-fueled flooding in Iowa that resulted in an oil train derailment and hundreds of thousands of gallons of dirty tar sands crude spilled into the drinking water supplies, and other such cheerful news to close out today's program...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Double whammy - extreme rain and floods delay cleanup of massive tar sands oil spill in Iowa; CDC says diseases caused by ticks and mosquitoes have tripled in the U.S., thanks to global warming; If it seems like we're getting more torrential downpours and floods, it's because we are; PLUS: A new ad on Fox News, aimed at one person, hopes to stop a new bridge for Detroit... 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): Federal judge dismisses cities' climate liability lawsuit seeking over costs of climate change; U.S. natural gas industry has a major leak problem; Big oil and Bush-era lobbyists are teaming up to ... support a carbon tax; Trump Admin tightens media access for federal scientists; Banned pesticide killed 13 bald eagles at Maryland farm; How the land conservation fund helped sink Trump's budget-trimming efforts; NY agencies ask FERC to cut pipeline risks near nuclear plant; Warming drives spread of toxic algae in the U.S.; China may be mystery source of growth in illegal CFCs ... PLUS: Rising seas could lead to a population boom for Arizona... and much, MUCH more! ...

As the GOP's stolen U.S. Supreme Court further undermined American democracy today...and as climate change-fueled extreme weather resulted in a tar sands oil train derailing and leaking hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude into the drinking water supply for Iowa (and perhaps even Nebraska)....and as the President of the United States lied about immigration facts again while calling for the violation of both U.S. and international law by ending all Constitutional Due Process rights for those seeking asylum in the U.S....many of the always-reliable hand-wringers in the corporate mainstream media and the same Rightwingers who went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to support a bigoted baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple, are just beside themselves that some Administration officials are facing public protests for their abhorrent complicity in undermining so much that the U.S. supposedly stands for.

We detail all of that on today's BradCast, and open up the phones to listeners on all of it, including calls on whether it's appropriate (and/or long overdue) to protest/shun public officials in their private lives (at restaurants, etc.); what really needs to be done regarding immigration (lots of fact-checking today to Trump's continuing lies about it), and whether, as student protester Mario Savio said, when kicking off the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964, this is a "a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels...upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"...

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On today's BradCast, Brad and Desi are off breathing deeply. I’m sitting in – Angie Coiro, host of the syndicated In Deep with Angie Coiro.

First up, I spend time with ZIVA BRANSTETTER, Senior Editor with Reveal. She and the Reveal investigative team broke a number of key stories involving the child detainees this week: the drugging of the kids, violence, sexual misconduct, and petty theft at the camps and facilities; who’s making money off the detentions; and what agencies are charged with cleaning up the mess. And yes, she confirms: this has been going on for a good many years. The blatant wholesale grabbing of toddlers from parents is an ugly Trump twist, but Barack Obama has a lot to answer for, too.

Then onto the latest SCOTUS decision. The 5-4 verdict supports privacy protections from government trying to follow personal movements through cell site data. CYRUS FARIVAR of Ars Technica and author of the new book Habeas Data breaks the decision down – including its historic footing, and its peculiarly arbitrary “six day” rule.

Advertising brings up its own privacy issues. Long-time media critic KEN AULETTA has a new book, Frenemies. He probes here into exactly how tense the battle has become between advertisers, their agencies, and individual consumers trying to keep bits of their lives to themselves.

Finally: exactly how crazy the battle for Silicon Valley primacy and the consumer dollar can get: JOHN CARREYROU talks about the Theranos scandal. If you think you’re already cynical enough about what companies will risk to get your dollar – well, maybe you’re wrong. His deservedly bestselling book is Bad Blood: Secrets and Lives in a Silicon Valley Startup.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

On today's BradCast, we have not one, but two important and separate warnings for Donald Trump and the Republican Party, as pulled from the deep audio archives of 1988. Both of which --- on two separate topics from two separate people --- they seem to be completely ignoring, even as one of those warnings comes from their supposed idol Ronald Reagan. [Audio link to show posted below.]

First up today, the Trump-caused child immigration crisis continues to unfold with several disturbing new reports of unspeakable abuse at two separate federally-contracted facilities, based on filings in new federal court cases. One from Associated Press on beatings and more at a youth facility in Virginia and the other from the Center for Investigative Reporting on the forced injection of psychotropic drugs at a facility near Houston. That, as an Executive Order signed by the President on Wednesday, reversing part of his Administration's policy, fails to speak to family reunification for more than 2,300 children separated from their parents in recent weeks under Trump's "zero tolerance" border policy, and an Administration request to the Pentagon for space to house some 20,000 migrant children.

While all of those American nightmares have been unfolding over the past week, the effects of Trump's growing trade war have been quietly playing out in the background, as the Dow has dropped some 600 points over the past four days, with China and friendly allies like Canada, Mexico and the EU vowing massive and swift retaliation for ill-considered tariff's on foreign imports instituted by Trump. Among the hardest-hit victims of his new trade wars: farmers who were among some of biggest supporters of Trump's candidacy in 2016.

Perhaps that explains why, as share in an audio clip from 1988 today, Ronald Reagan warned: "We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war...all while cynically waving the American flag."

Next, we're joined by MARK JOSEPH STERN, legal reporter at Slate, and our "Supreme Correspondent" this month, as the U.S. Supreme Court slowly releases a bevy of decisions in advance of their planned Summer recess, on a number of major cases heard at the high court over the past term. Among the cases we discuss today:

• On Thursday, SCOTUS released a 5 to 4 decision allowing states to impose sales taxes on all online purchases. The ruling found some very strange bedfellows in both its majority and minority opinions, but both Stern and I agree, the decision makes sense, and will be good for local retailers, jobs, the economy and state budgets where, particularly in "red" states, tax cuts in recent years have lead to the gutting of education, infrastructure and other important social services. The 1967 SCOTUS ruling struck down today, was "a totally capricious standard that the Court created itself," Stern argues. "This was the Court fixing a problem that it made."

• Stern also details an exceedingly troubling --- if little reported --- case out of South Dakota, where a man was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, according to jury members themselves, they feared, as a gay man, he might enjoy life in prison too much. Seriously. Perhaps the most disturbing part of this matter: the Court declined to hear the case at all. Even the liberal Justices failed to offer a written dissent to the Court's decision.

• We also discuss the SCOTUS' regrettable punts this week on two partisan gerrymandering cases in Wisconsin and Maryland. (More on those cases earlier this week, with author David Daley on Monday's BradCast.)

• And the seemingly unprecedented federal court smack down of Kris Kobach, notorious GOP "voter fraud" fraudster and Kansas Secretary of State. His "Proof of Citizenship" voter registration law was struck down by a George W. Bush-appointed federal judge, and he was slapped for his contemptible performance in the courtroom --- where he represented both himself and the state of KS --- with more humiliating sanctions that include an order to attend six hours of legal classes. Moreover, as Stern reports, Kobach appears to be in still more violation of court orders, as he has yet to remove the requirement for citizenship documentation for voter registration from the KS Sec. of State website, as the judge ordered him to do "immediately" in her ruling on Monday.

  "I think that there is a decent chance that we could see even more sanctions for Kobach after this," Stern tells me. "Kobach is such a clown that this judge is going to finally have to bring down the hammer and I think it's going to be a glorious sight." (More on that case, with Sophia Lakin, one of the ACLU trial attorneys on the case, from Tuesday's BradCast.)

• Previewing the cases still to come before the end of the month, Sterns warns: "I think the Supreme Court is going to hobble public sector unions by preventing them from collecting dues from no-union members. I worry the Supreme Court is going to uphold the [Muslim] travel ban. I do think the Court may put real limits on the government's ability to collect information about where your cell phone has been from your provider. That's going to be a bright spot, I hope. But I also think the court's going to end up striking down California's disclosure requirements for crisis pregnancy centers. So, this is s not going to be a good term for progressives. I think everyone needs to just buckle in and focus on November."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on a number of important issues that the Trump Administration did quietly this week as the rest of the nation and media were consumed with the child immigration story, and the 30th anniversary of Dr. James Hansen's first dire warning to Congress --- also in 1988 --- about the then-looming menace of global warming due to the unprecedented release of greenhouse gasses, such as carbon dioxide from the manmade burning of fossil fuels, into the atmosphere...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Blocked water study finally released by Trump Administration, reveals widespread chemical contamination; Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reduces the nutritional value of food crops; Trump rescinds Obama's protections for oceans and Great Lakes; PLUS: It's been thirty years since Dr. James Hansen first warned Congress about climate change... 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): Looking for signs of global warming? They’re all around you; Climate scientists have been remarkably accurate on global warming; GOP senators challenge funding for global warming education program for local TV meteorologists; "Obama sided with Canada": A 'new' image for owners of Detroit toll bridge; HFCs: A climate policy even Trump can support?; New York sues 3M, five others over toxic chemical contamination; Battery Boom: World to get half of electricity from wind, solar by 2050; Colorado to adopt California’s stricter car pollution rules; Microsoft has big power needs and wants to harness the ocean to satisfy them... PLUS: A giant wave of plastic garbage could flood the U.S., a study says... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Trump gets even uglier as he's forced to back down on his lies about his immigration policies. A few election results out of D.C. and Arkansas. And some thoughts for progressive voters as we barrel towards this November's crucial midterms. [Audio link to show posted below.]

First up: A quick round-up of results and problem reports following primary elections on Tuesday in Washington D.C. (where voters adopted a $15 minimum wage measure for those in the service industry, despite a cynically and wildly misleading "Save Our Tips" campaign funded by the restaurant industry in opposition to Initiative 77) and in Arkansas (where runoffs were held following primaries and a computer tabulation "fiasco" late last month on 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems made by ES&S.)

Next: After repeatedly claiming he didn't have the legally authority to keep parents and children together after they were arrested crossing the border, Donald Trump buckled under growing political pressure and signed an executive order on Wednesday to allow parents and children to stay together after being arrested crossing the border.

Many questions (and legal challenges) lie ahead regarding the new policy and what will now happen to those 2,300 children ripped from their parents over the past month following the Administration's chaotic and ill-considered "zero tolerance" policy at the southern border.

We cover a number of related stories to all of that today, as well as some response to our coverage of the issue over the past week. That response includes a bit of a rant in return, regarding the necessity of voting for Democrats this November --- good ones or bad ones --- in service of putting some brakes on the disastrous cruelty and incompetence of Trump/GOP rule in D.C. (Or, for those who prefer the chaos and cruelty of the Trump Administration, and there are many who do, the option to vote for Republicans or stay home entirely in support of still more of it.)

I've got a bit of a rant today (and so does Desi) on the incredibly lazy argument, still heard from some progressives --- even after all that we've seen in the Trump Era --- that "both sides are the same". We've got a few words for those who forward arguments which support that notion, which serves only to perpetuate the worst of the Trump/GOP's inhumane and horrifically destructive policies.

Finally: As a reminder what can happen in a mostly normal, progressive country, Canada, on Tuesday night, ended 90 years of failed prohibition policy, by approving the sale and use of recreational marijuana across the entire country...

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On today's BradCast: GOPers in D.C. try to overcome Trump's wildly unpopular new border policy and Kansas' Secretary of State loses again in court and faces what may be his most humiliating moment to date. But that's very good news for voters! [Audio link to program is posted below.]

First up, the panic for Republicans on Capitol Hill continued to mount on Tuesday as GOP lawmakers scrambled to find a legislative way out of the family separation crisis created by Donald Trump at the southern border, where more than 2,300 children have now been separated from their parents since his "zero tolerance" policy was first implemented just two months ago. Also today, the Administration announced their intention to pull the U.S. out of the U.N. Human Rights Council the day after its outgoing head blasted the United State's new border policy as "unconscionable" for "inflicting such abuse on children". We discuss the latest on all of the above.

Then, after a quick recap of the 8-year ignominious history of Kansas Sec. of State Kris Kobach's inglorious tenure as the nation's top elected GOP "voter fraud" fraudster, we're joined by attorney SOPHIA LIN LAKIN of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, to discuss Kobach's latest brutal humiliation. In a victory for the state's voters on Monday, U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson (a George W. Bush appointee), struck down Kobach's extreme "Proof of Citizenship" voter registration law, finding it in violation of the National Voter Registration Act and the Constitution.

The KS Sec. of State has repeatedly defended the law in court, and has been defeated in virtually every battle over it for years, since persuading the state legislature to adopt the measure. But Robinson's ruling on Monday permanently enjoins the law, which had kept tens of thousands of legitimate state registrants in various forms of electoral limbo as Kobach continued to insist their was a massive (if, apparently invisible) epidemic of non-citizen voters jeopardizing the integrity of KS elections.

Kobach, who originally ran for office in 2010 almost solely on the false and misleading promise to "STOP VOTER FRAUD" in Kansas, has failed to find virtually any such fraud during his eight years in office. As Lakin, a member of the ACLU's trial team explains today, during the trial earlier this year, wherein Kobach chose to represented himself and his state, he was unable to show evidence of almost any non-citizen registrations or votes cast in Kansas, despite millions of legal ballots cast during the same period.

"From 1999 to 2013," she tells me, "Kobach was able to present just 39 confirmed non-citizens who were able to successfully get on the rolls, and of those 39, only 11 voted." Most of the registrations, she explains --- as did the judge in her 118-page ruling [PDF] --- were due to administrative errors.

"The judge pretty much agreed that Kris Kobach has been peddling a xenophobic lie that non-citizens are engaging in rampant election fraud. And this was his chance. This court battle that we just had was his chance to put on the record his evidence that this is what was happening. The judge saw that evidence, and she agreed that there was very little evidence of non-citizen voting in Kansas --- certainly not enough to justify the tens of thousands of individuals that have been disenfranchised by that requirement."

"The judge very much wanted Kris Kobach to have his day in court, to put his evidence of non-citizen voting to the test, to see what he was able to actually muster," Lakin tells me. "We even re-opened discovery for the very purpose of him doing that. So, the proof is in the pudding here. He utterly failed."

Of course, Kobach has vowed to appeal the ruling, as he does. But, aside from the verdict's very good news for voters, there was another extraordinary aspect to Robinson's ruling on Monday. In what amounted to a third set of judicial sanctions against him during the long course of the 2016 case and this year's full bench trial, Judge Robinson admonished Kobach in a newly humiliating way. After previously sanctioning him to pay some $50,000 in ACLU legal bills, due to his contempt in having misled the court, Robinson ordered Kobach to attend 6 hours of law school to study up on federal and state courtroom procedures!

Lakin details how, during the trial, the judge repeatedly --- and embarrassingly --- was forced to explain basic rules of evidence and other standard courtroom procedures to Kobach.

"Judge Robinson essentially ordered Kobach to go back to school" in her ruling, she says, explaining that Kobach's performance in the courtroom and repeated reprimands from the judge were likely even worse than the clownshow that the media reported them as, at the time. When I asked how unusual these type of sanctions are against a trial lawyer, she says: "To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen so many sanction rulings against an attorney at all," much less one where they were ordered to attend legal classes.

And, as if that wasn't enough, the ACLU launched yet another lawsuit today against Kris Kobach, this time over his so-called "Crosscheck" system to help (inaccurately) purge voting rolls in some 26 states.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, as Trump's tariffs against China blow back on the U.S. energy industry, his EPA's gutting of regulations threatens tens of thousands of lives, global warming is making hurricane damage far worse and housing prices fall, and as McDonald's finally plans to do away with single-use plastic straws...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricanes are moving slower thanks to global warming; EPA's weakening of clean air rules could kill 80,000 Americans over the next decade; China's retaliatory tariffs hit US energy companies and Alaska's seafood industry; McDonald's to phase out plastic straws --- in the U.K.; PLUS: Climate change is already eroding home values across the country... 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): Dr. James Hansen: Global warming cooks up “a different world” since 1988 Congressional testimony; Guyana faces 'resource curse' after discovery it owns enough oil to "solve all its problems"; EPA Pruitt's data restrictions may block use of major Harvard public health study; How Georgia became a Top 10 solar state in spite of state lawmakers; Enbridge offers new Line 3 concessions to MN regulators; Records show Trump Tower Chicago fails to protect downstream fish, fisherman; UN aims to eradicate inefficient incandescent light bulbs; EPA gives coal industry a victory in oklahoma... PLUS: How the billionaire Koch Brothers are killing public transit projects across the country... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: More disappointing (if not deadly) rulings on voting rights were released on Monday from the U.S. Supreme Court, and callers ring in on the growing outrage of the last few days, thanks to the parent/child separation of Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" policy at the border.

First up today, two long-awaited rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court on partisan gerrymandering were finally handed down on Monday. In both cases, as our guest today, FairVote's DAVID DALEY details, the Court decided to essentially punt the cases back down to lower courts.

Daley, author of RATF**KED: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy, which details the GOP scheme to implement extreme partisan redistricting following the 2010 census, explains that Wisconsin Republicans will be allowed to keep their wildly unfair state assembly districts for yet another election, and that, in Maryland, where Democrats admit to having gerrymandered a U.S. House district to their own advantage, that gerrymandered district will also stay in place, almost a full decade after being implemented. That, despite lower courts finding those districts to be unlawful and unconstitutional, and other pending cases --- such as the federal court which found all of the U.S. House districts in North Carolina to have been unlawfully gerrymandered by Republicans --- still on hold and awaiting a hearing at SCOTUS.

"That's what's so frustrating and sad about today," Daley tells me. "They had a buffet of statistical standards and evidence that all pointed in the same direction and that revealed exactly what had happened here, and, instead, they ducked." He explains the basis on which the Court punted in both cases and how "Republicans have essentially been able to run out the clock to steal, in some ways, the entire decade of power, especially in state legislatures around the country."

While the "silver lining" on this today is that the Court did not declare, as some had feared, that it was up to legislatures, not courts, to fix the problem that legislatures themselves created, Daley argues that this was a missed opportunity. The Court's swing-vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, has long suggested he'd be open to finding partisan gerrymandering unconstitutional once and for all. But, once again, in both of today's cases, he ducked. That means --- should the 81-year old Justice (or any of the others) leave the Court before another case comes up to offer a definitive ruling --- things could become much worse, for generations, if Trump is allowed to appoint a replacement.

Then, as even some Republicans (a precious few) begin to finally turn against the Trump Administration's grotesque and inhumane new policy which separates children from their parents after they are detained crossing the southern border with Mexico --- resulting in thousands of kids being locked away in detention centers in just the past few weeks --- how long can Trump continue to falsely blame the Democrats for his own Dept. of Justice's new "zero tolerance" policy?

Trump and his department chiefs continue to double down on his false claim, despite the growing outrage from Americans after disturbing stories, pictures, and sounds of abuse continue to be reported out of these detention centers around the country, with media finally gaining very limited access to them.

We open the phone lines today to callers on all of those issues, as the chilling rise of Trump's GOP-approved authoritarianism in the U.S. continues to stun the nation and the world...

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