Today on The BradCast: Some very good news about Democrats. Specifically, for the President and the post-pandemic economic recovery. And a bunch of good news about Republicans. At least for those who enjoy watching the fish rot from the head down.

As detailed on today's program...

• Yet more excellent economic numbers were released on Thursday by the Commerce Department, easily beating professional expectations on GDP growth, leading one of those experts to describe the newly released 2023 fourth-quarter numbers as "stunning and spectacular." They are, in fact, just one of the economic indicators that are now better even than the pre-pandemic years, as GDP continues to rise, unemployment remains very low, wages are growing faster than inflation, which is now down below targets set by the Federal Reserve, and the recession that experts predicted for last year is still nowhere in sight. They are the kind of numbers that the former President would have declared as "the greatest economy in U.S. history" and about which TIME Magazine would have put his face on the cover with the headline: "The Man Who Saved the American Economy!" Will any of that happen now that Joe Biden --- who received a rousing endorsement for his 2024 campaign from the half-a-million-strong United Autoworkers Union yesterday --- is the President, rather than Trump? Will anybody in America even hear about these "stunning" numbers and "spectacular" economic growth?

• As to the good news about Republicans, we start with Trump's former Trade Advisor, Peter Navarro. Today he was sentenced by a federal judge in D.C. to four months in prison for two counts of Contempt of Congress after refusing to respond to two 2022 subpoenas from the bipartisan U.S. House Select Committee that had been investigating the Trump-incited January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Poor Peter. Perhaps he'll be cell mates with Steve Bannon who received a similar sentence in 2022 for the same crimes.

• A wildly obnoxious member of the far-right extremist Proud Boys group attacked the D.C. Circuit Court's Chief Judge during sentencing on Wednesday as a "clown" and a "fraud". He received 6 years in prison in return for his part in the deadly January 6 insurrection and for attempting to organize a subsequent attack on the government in Portland, Oregon described as "January 6 2.0".

• But, as the fish rots from the head down, it's rotting GOP state parties outside of Washington as well. There is an ongoing, vicious --- and, at times, even violent --- legal dispute --- between the now-ousted Michigan GOP Chair, election denier and failed 2022 Sec. of State nominee Kristina Karamo, and the bulk of the state party that ousted her --- over who now actually controls the state party apparatus in the critical battleground state. In Florida, the recently ousted state party Chair Christian Ziegler -- hand-picked by Ron DeSantis --- is being investigated by state law enforcement on charges of "video voyeurism", after being accused of rape by a woman with whom he and his wife, Bridget Ziegler, the hypocritical anti-LGBTQ co-founder of "Moms for Liberty", had thrupled with --- and secretly videotaped during sex.

  And this week, on Wednesday, Jeff DeWit, Chair of Arizona's Republican Party, abruptly resigned after audio tapes were released by election denier and failed Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in which he appears to be begging her to accept a bribe for not running for the U.S. Senate in the state this year.

  So, that's three GOP state Chairs (the "Party of Law and Order") in three critical swing-states, all being hilariously ousted after allegations of incompetency, sexual battery or bribery within a matter of weeks, in the middle of, arguably, the most important Presidential election year in American history. Keep up the great work, state Republicans!

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as astonishing climate change-fueled extreme weather continues to batter the infrastructure across U.S. cities; ExxonMobil sues its own shareholders so they can try to keep polluting as long as possible; and the U.S. Postal Service finally begins rolling out its new fleet of clean electric delivery vehicles, thanks to demands from climate advocates and funding from Joe Biden and the Democrats...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Astonishing record rain and flash flooding cause widespread damage in San Diego; Despite recent cold, Winter overall is getting warmer in the U.S.; Oil giant ExxonMobil sues its own shareholders to block climate initiatives; PLUS: USPS unveils new EV charging stations and delivery vehicles... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Plastic bag bans have already prevented billions of bags from being used, report finds; Biden vetoes GOP measure to block EV charging stations; Biden pauses LNG approval process; Scientific breakthrough may save northern white rhino through surrogacy; Why the war in Ukraine is bad for climate science... PLUS: Atomic scientists keep 'Doomsday Clock' as close to midnight as ever... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast, it's both "Code Red for humanity", according to the authors of the new report released today by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, synthesizing some 14,000 climate studies from the past 8 years. And it's also "code red" for American elections, most immediately, here in California. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

New polling out last week finds that the otherwise ridiculous Republican attempt to recall Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is now supported by some 46% of those polled. In short, the effort to remove the Governor (for reasons nobody can quite explain, other than Republicans can no longer win regular statewide elections in the state) is now a dead heat. Who would replace Newsom if he's recalled? That is also unknown, as scores of Republicans are vying for the position, should voters choose "Yes" to recall the Governor on Question 1 of the ballot on September 14th. If a majority of voters do vote "Yes", then whoever wins on Question 2 on the ballot becomes the next Governor of the most populous state in the nation.

So, the stakes are pretty high. Which is just one of the reasons that it is so troubling that some of the largest counties in the state, including Los Angeles, San Diego and Riverside, all offer voters 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems when they vote in person at the polling place.

The good news is that, due to the pandemic, the Secretary of State is sending all registered voters a hand-marked paper Vote-by-Mail ballot for the Recall. The bad news is that many voters, for various reasons, will use those unverifiable touchscreen Ballot Marking Device voting systems at the polling place instead. If enough of them do, it will be strictly impossible after the election to know if any of the computer-marked ballots printed by them actually reflect the intent of any voter.

The further bad news is that an ongoing federal lawsuit in Georgia, where plaintiffs hope a federal judge will permanently ban the state's brand new touchscreen computer Ballot Marking Device (BMD) voting systems made by Dominion, has recently produced some disturbing news. One of the nation's top voting systems and cybersecurity experts, J. Alex Halderman of University of Michigan, hired by plaintiffs Coalition for Good Governance, has been given access to the Dominion ImageCastX systems used across the state, and his findings are reportedly so troubling, that the federal judge in the case has sealed his report, even from the plaintiffs themselves!

Last week, in a public declaration [PDF] in the case, Halderman warned his testing of those very systems "has shown that the BMDs used in Georgia suffer from specific, highly exploitable vulnerabilities that allow attackers to change votes," in a way that the state's mitigation techniques will not prevent. He says that his findings must be "urgently" reviewed by both the Sec. of State in Georgia as well as Dominion. But neither is allowed to see his report under the judge's seal, and neither has filed a motion to ask the Court to unseal it for them.

As my guest notes today, apparently they'd rather not learn about the vulnerabilities in their own systems. "If the report has anything approaching the level of vulnerability that Alex describes in his summary report, they would have to do something about it. So not knowing anything about it, gives them some breathing room" to try and figure out what they should do next, he tells me.

Why is this a problem for California? Because it is one of several states where some counties use the exact same system made by Dominion. Both San Diego and Riverside use the Dominon ImageCastX system at the polling place, where voters could end up removing the Governor in just over a month. Next door, in Los Angeles County, a similarly unverifiable touchscreen Ballot Marking Device is now used at the polls.

Moreover, a study that Georgia's Sec. of State carried out last November, to determine if voters actually bother to review their computer-marked ballots printed out by the touchscreen systems before casting them, found that almost none of them did. The results of that study were kept secret by GA's Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger, and only released last week, after the Atlanta Journal Constitution obtained the results via GA's Open Records Act.

So what could all of this mean for California? Should anyone be surprised by either the results of the GA Sec. of State's study or the troubling findings by Halderman? Should these unverifiable and vulnerable BMD voting systems ever be used by any voter in an American election (other than disabled voters who may choose to use an assistive device)? And, by the way, is there any evidence that these systems may have somehow stolen the very close election for Joe Biden over Donald Trump last year in Georgia?

We're joined today by longtime cybersecurity and voting systems expert RICHARD DEMILLO, founder of Georgia Tech's new School of Cybersecurity and Privacy. He offers some cold, hard, well-informed thoughts on these systems and why Halderman's report may have been sealed by the federal judge in Atlanta. He also offers advice on whether voters in California, Georgia or any other state should ever choose to vote on one of these systems when the option of using a hand-marked paper ballot is available to them.

"The more machines you use, the more likely it is that they're going to be hacked. It's just a matter of numbers. The machines are vulnerable. There are people that are adversarial that want access to the machines. The more you make it available to them, the more likely it is that they'll be used that way," states DeMillo. "You're opening yourself up to a lot of risk that seems to be unnecessary."

In the meantime, should voters and election officials in California --- including in Riverside and San Diego, where the same unverifiable and vulnerable Dominion systems are used, as well as those in Los Angeles, where a very similar touchscreen system is now forced on all voters at the polling place --- be concerned about the new, court-sealed findings in Georgia?

DeMillo offers several, unequivocal answers. But, in short, yes, we should all be alarmed.

DeMillo also offers his thoughts on the MAGA argument that Georgia was stolen last year, and says that after requested by CNN to review MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell's "absolute proof" that the election was stolen from Trump (in what turned to be a brutal takedown for Lindell) he finds the only "absolute proof" Lindell offered is that he has absolutely no idea how elections actually work. "Literally, every word that comes out of his mouth about elections and whether or not they were hacked and how they were conducted, is simply contradicted by facts," DeMillo tells me. "There are other things to think about in election security, but that's not one of them."

Finally, we close with a few words (more to come later this week!) on the climate disaster now unfolding in places like Evia, Greece, where thousands were evacuated by passenger ferry overnight this weekend, hoping to outrun massive wildfires amid record heat that has now reportedly destroyed thousands of structures. That, on the same day that the IPCC warns our man-made climate crisis is now "unprecedented" and unfolding even quicker than scientists had predicted only a few short years ago...

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We kick off today's BradCast on a somber, if hopefully inspiring note, on the passing of civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis who died on Friday after a battle with cancer. His decades-long fight for voting rights --- and the call to cause "good trouble, necessary trouble" --- has been an inspiration to this show and our work at BradBlog.com for many years. The best tribute we can offer to Rep. Lewis, of course, is to continue his fight as best we can. And so we do once again today. [Audio link to full show follows below.]

More than 100k absentee/Vote-by-Mail (VBM) ballots were rejected by election officials in the state of California after its March 3rd Super Tuesday primary, according to a new AP analysis. Many of the rejections were due to voter error, though not all. Some were also due perceived mismatched or missing signatures and a to a too-short statutory deadline (3 days) for VBM ballots to arrive after Election Day. The state has now increased that time to 17 days for ballots postmarked by Election Day to be included in the final tally.

But, of course, various problems with VBM is why in-person polling places remain very necessary in CA and all states this year, even with expanded mail-in voting during the COVID crisis. That is true even in the Golden State, which will be sending VBM ballots directly to all active registered voters this year because of the pandemic. Here in Los Angeles County, however --- the nation's most populous voting jurisdiction --- the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan has said that, for in-person voting, he will stick with the County's new, horribly failed $300 million unverifiable touchscreen voting and electronic pollbook system this November, despite the disasters that resulted in 3, 4, and 5 hour lines to vote and an untold number of disenfranchised voters during the system's first county-wide use on March 3rd.

I discussed the decision by Logan to use L.A. voters, once again, as guinea pig beta testers this November, during the most critical election of our lifetimes, in a segment late last month on CBS2-LA News with investigative reporter David Goldstein. Incredibly, CA's Democratic Sec. of State Alex Padilla and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors have all apparently agreed to allow the failed system --- called "Voting Solutions For All People" or VSAP --- another try on November 3rd. What could possibly go wrong?

An L.A. County Civil Grand Jury --- which has also been investigating the VSAP failure --- thinks a lot could go wrong. The group's report on the VSAP failures [PDF] by both Logan and Padilla, entitled "Maybe I Voted?", demands answers from Registrar Logan as well as the state. Goldstein, who has been closely following the VSAP mess since a few weeks before the March 3rd election, followed up by covering the "scathing" L.A. Grand Jury report and called me once again to appear in that follow-up report on CBS2-LA as well.

Meanwhile, a group of Election Integrity advocates in the state sent an open letter [PDF] late last week to Gov. Gavin Newsom (and Sec. of State Padilla), seeking an Executive Order for important improvements to the state's 1% post-election audit process. We're joined today by RAY LUTZ, longtime Election Integrity advocate and the founder and Executive Director of CitizensOversight.org. His organization won a ruling in a lawsuit several years ago that would have required all Vote-by-Mail ballots to be included as part of the pool from which the random sample of ballots are drawn when determining which of them will be hand-counted after an election to assure the accuracy of the state's computerized optical-scan ballot tabulators.

When Lutz filed suit in San Diego after the 2016 election, that County's Registrar, Michael Vu, was drawing only from votes cast at the precinct or absentee ballots that were counted early for inclusion in the 1% post-election spot check. As the groups notes in their press release [PDF] announcing the letter to Newsom, that resulted in some 285,000 ballots that were automatically excluded from the mandatory "audit" in 2016. Lutz' win in the courts, however, was short-lived after Padilla (with support from L.A. County's Logan) lobbied the CA state legislator to specifically allow Registrar's to ignore late mail-in ballots all together during post-election audits. Leaving those ballots out of the audit, Lutz argues, means that nefarious actors "can just move ballots --- ten thousand, twenty thousand at a time --- from one candidate to another and no one would be the wiser because they wouldn't have that check." That, he says, is a virtual roadmap for election theft.

His group's letter asks the Governor to declare that all ballots should be included in the potential audit sample pool in this November's elections, particularly now that some 90% of votes are likely to be cast as mail-in ballots for the first time this year, due to the Governor's previous Executive Order to send VBM ballots to all this year.

Moreover, Lutz echoes frequent BradCast guest Marilyn Marks of the Coalition for Good Governance (which is suing Georgia to force hand-marked paper ballots for all) in her important tweeted concerns last night observing that both major political parties are utterly failing to ensure proper public oversight of absentee ballot handling and tabulation. Marks complained that Elections officials across the country (and definitely in Georgia!) are "working overtime to block transparency, block access, block observation, work[ing] behind closed doors, etc. This, of course, plays into Trump's hands in that if he wants to claim 'rigging,' the Dems will have little evidence documented to rebut the claim."

Lutz agrees with her thinking. California is "not a battleground state," he says, "but remember, the popular vote is always a big issue in the Presidential election. And as you remember last time, Trump made a big deal about 'illegal voter fraud' and all these 'million illegals are voting'. So we have to have our act together for this election to defend against those claims. If we do what we're doing now, we're going to have up to six million ballots that are completely unaudited and can be flipped. Six million votes is a lot. So we need to have this change."

The issue, he goes on to explain, is not only important in California. "Any state that expands their vote-by-mail or absentee voting right now probably is not auditing those ballots." Lutz points listeners to the letter to Newsom, suggesting others push for similar improvements to post-election audits in other states as well, given that, as bad as CA's processes are, they are still better than many states where no computer-tallied votes are ever examined by any human beings at all before election results are certified. "We can't rely upon the election officials, or really anyone, to do this job for us," he argues. "The public has to do its own oversight of its elections. No one can be trusted. We have to do it ourselves. This is where we really call on the citizenry to stand up and really take a look at this. Because the most important thing we can do is to make sure these elections are sound."

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Saturday's Passover shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California, just north of San Diego, was only the latest in a rising spate of Rightwing extremist hate crimes --- rising even over the past week alone! --- as discussed on today's BradCast. [Audio link to show follows below.]

We're joined today by NBC 7 San Diego reporter RAMON GALINDO, who spent the weekend covering the shooting at Chabad of Poway, which took the life of 60-year old Lori Gilbert-Kay and injured three others, including the congregation's Rabbi, after a 19-year old armed with a military-style assault rifle opened fire during Shabbat services. The alleged shooter, who was arrested while fleeing, is said to have been inspired by both the recent attack on two Muslim mosques in New Zealand, where 50 were killed, and the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh which killed 11 worshipers exactly 6 months ago.

The shooter at Chabad, who posted a "manifesto" just prior to the attempted massacre, is also said to have been responsible for an incident of arson at a nearby Muslim mosque in late March, according to Galindo who broke the story of that fire for NBC San Diego last month. In addition to bringing us up to the latest, including charges that have now been filed, Galindo offers insight on a number of the heroes in the story who he spoke with over the weekend, including both Gilbert-Kay and Oscar Stewart, an Iraq vet and congregant who reportedly ran toward the shooter to stop him as others were fleeing. It was, in fact, a good guy WITHOUT a gun who appears to have prevented far more carnage, though an armed Border Patrol officer at the service reportedly fired shots at the shooter's car as he was speeding away.

We've got a lot to unpack on all of this today, with both Galindo and listeners who call in with their own thoughts and reactions to the shooting (including one woman who lives in the neighborhood), the White House response (denying Donald Trump's obvious responsibility in helping to hasten the rise of white supremacists and other rightwing extremists) and even some thoughts on the Obama Administration's willingness to fold to reactionaries on Fox 'News' and in the Republican Party by withdrawing his own Dept. of Homeland Security's dire draft report [PDF] on the dangerous rise of lone wolf rightwing domestic terrorism in April of 2009.

That (shamefully) withdrawn report stated: "DHS has concluded that white supremacist lone wolves pose the most significant domestic terrorist threat because of their low profile and autonomy --- separate from any formalized group.” (No such fury was issued by the right after a similar report on the dangers of leftwing extremism was issued before it. Both reports were begun during the George W. Bush Administration. Moreover, as Daily Beast reported earlier this month, the Trump Administration has been disbanding DHS efforts to work with state and local officials on issues of white supremacy and domestic terrorism.)

We also talk with Galindo about the editorial decision by some in the media to not share --- or, at least, over use --- the suspects name and why neither of us did so today. As noted, there is much to discuss on today's program...

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On today's BradCast: Our coverage continues of Wednesday's bloodbath at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 were killed and 13 remain hospitalized today, following the nation's most deadly school shooting since Newton, Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

We have many more new details today about the alleged shooter, a 19-year old former student who is said to have legally purchased the semi-automatic AR-15 military-style assault weapon and arsenal of ammo and magazines to go with it. (A photo of his collection, reportedly from one of his Instagram pages, is above.) State law enforcement officials reportedly say, late today, that the previously expelled and recently orphaned student, Nikolas Cruz, has now confessed to the mass shooting.

The predictable fight between gun safety proponents and those opposed to any such measures got underway in full today, as Republicans from President Donald Trump to Florida Gov. Rick Scott to U.S. Senator Marco Rubio went out of their way to avoid discussion of guns and deflect from the need to take action on the nation's continuing gun violence epidemic. They chose instead to declare the need for mental health reform as the only way to prevent the "true evil" behind such massacres, while spreading some of the blame to victims who, they claim, failed to alert authorities to earlier concerns about the shooter.

That charge, as we discuss, appears disingenuous at best, even as news breaks today that Cruz appears to have been associated with and/or trained by a white supremacist organization in the Sunshine State. (Over the past year, Trump has both signed legislation to make it easier for the mentally ill to purchase weapons like the one used in Parkland, Florida, and has cut funding to research and combat of domestic white supremacist violence.)

By way of contrast to the uniform GOP denial and misdirection, Broward County School District Superintendent Robert Runcie offered a plea on behalf of Stoneman Douglas High School students who are demanding real action in response to gun violence in the wake of their Valentine's Day nightmare. "I hope we can get it done in this generation," he said at a news conference today, flanked by two of the National Rifle Association's top benefactors in Florida, Gov. Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi. "But if we don't, they will," he vowed.

We're joined to discuss all of the above, including the stranglehold that the terror-enabling NRA continues to have over Republicans from D.C. all the way to state and local governments, by WENDY WHEATCROFT, Group Leader of the San Diego Chapter of Moms Demand Action on Gun Sense. Wheatcroft, a former elementary school teacher, explains that she has lived through active shooter lockdowns herself, and charges that "the NRA has been infiltrating local government for years. Not just local government offices, but school boards, water boards, every lower level of government. They have been infiltrating and pushing out these talking points."

She details her own group's efforts to enact common sense gun reform, such as "red flag" laws that were adopted in California, to enable "family members or police to remove weapons from someone they deem to be a threat to themselves or others."

"There is no such thing as 'too soon' to talk about gun violence," Wheatcroft argues. "These shootings are compounding, one upon the other upon the other, so when is the time? It's too late for those families --- it's too late for those moms whose kids did not come home from school on Valentine's Day. Can you imagine?," she asks tearfully.

She also speaks to how gun safety proponents can take on the NRA (who "will say and do anything possible to sell their guns and make money"), and cites removing NRA-supported elected officials from office as the most effective weapon for doing that. "It's just so important for us, in every city, to buckle down locally and to make sure that we are supporting candidates who do not share this narrative and this message."

"Right now, our House is dominated by legislators who have been bought by the NRA," Wheatcroft says. "Gun Sense candidates aren't just Dems. It's not enough to just be a Dem anymore. We need people who are champions for gun violence prevention, and who will outspoken and unafraid to speak out and stand up to the NRA."

"We are not trying to take anyone's guns away. We are not here to ban the 2nd Amendment. We are here to help put in place gun safety measures that enable gun owners to maintain their rights, and to keep their guns, while also keeping people safe from guns."

Finally, we close today with a look back at how U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell led the successful 2013 GOP effort to block majority-supported passage of any and all bi-partisan gun safety legislation brought to the Senate floor for a vote, just months after the nation's deadliest school shooting in Newtown, CT...

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Among the stories covered on today's BradCast...with no small amount of gusto and an occasional comedic turn in an otherwise dark (and smokey) world...

• Devastating wildfires spread down the Southern California coast toward San Diego, in a record wildfire season that has lasted all the way into winter, as predicted by scientists at least a decade ago. Alas, few heeded their warnings;
• Clearly not heeding such warnings is Donald Trump who, according to a new AP analysis, is failing to appoint actual scientists to scores of Senate-confirmable, top scientific positions at multiple important federal agencies, from the EPA to the Energy Dept. to the White House itself;
• The former Chair of the CO Republican Party turned rightwing radio host, Steve Curtis, had claimed before last year's election that "virtually every case of voter fraud I can remember in my lifetime was committed by Democrats." Well, he was proven wrong in court this week as he, himself, is found guilty of....you guessed it. (His failed excuse for it is equally astonishing.)
• And, speaking of...on the eve of Tuesday's much-watched U.S. Senate special election in Alabama, multi-partisan Election Integrity advocates file suit to force the state to retain "ballot images" from the state's paper ballot digital-scanners. New York Daily News' Editorial Board joins them in that call...for very good reason. (My interview several days ago with the longtime election integrity champ, John Brakey, who helped organize the lawsuit and effort, is right here.)
• After a spate of mass shootings, Congress finally moves some gun legislation forward, as Republicans in the U.S. House do the bidding of their terrorist-enabling NRA masters in passing a bill to expand the right to carry concealed deadly weapons into states whose laws prohibit it;

And, finally today, we end with some listener e-mail on a few of the topics we've covered on recent shows from guns to the Democratic Party to Trump/Russia...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. Coast Guard planning for six feet of sea level rise by 2100; U.S. House Science Committee chairman pushes myth that climate change will be "beneficial"; Rome may go to water rationing amid serious drought; Oil companies sued over climate change; Hundreds of new panda-shaped Chinese solar farms; South Miami law mandates solar; PLUS: Environmental factors linked to serious decline in North American men's sperm counts... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump threatens to protect the environment if Alaska senators don’t back health care bill; Unusual weather phenomenon explains simultaneous eastern and western India flooding; AEP plans the largest onshore wind farm in the U.S in OK; CA's marine sanctuaries face new offshore drilling threat from Trump Admin; New massive plastic garbage patch found in Pacific Ocean; EPA to seek public comment on water rule repeal; Bundy follower gets 68 years in prison for role in armed NV standoff; New database shows myriad pollutants in U.S. water systems... PLUS: New diesel and petrol cars and vans will be banned in the UK from 2040... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Republicans continue to pretend we don't face a gun violence epidemic in the U.S., that human-caused climate change isn't happening and that massive tax cuts help, rather harm, the economy and the middle class. They may need to pretend harder. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

First up today, a number of multiple victim shootings that played out across America --- from San Diego to Topeka to Dallas --- in the past 24 hours, but received very little media coverage, for some strange reason. At the same time, on Saturday, hundreds of thousands turned out across the country for the People's Climate March --- nearly 200,000 of them in sweltering 90 degree heat (in late April!) in Washington D.C. alone. The latest mass demonstration against the Trump Administration's attempts to deny science and cut funding to climate-related programs came just hours after Trump's EPA began the removal of climate change-related facts and scientific data from its website.

And, all of that happened as Donald Trump's Presidency hit its first 100 days, a period marked by, among other things, a failure to pass any of the legislative goals announced during his campaign. In hopes of distracting from that failure to date, Trump's Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin (pictured above) released a hastily compiled one-page outline for what the White House describes as "The Biggest Individual And Business Tax Cut In American History."

But, as critics from the right, left and center, including my guest today, Dave Johnson, a Senior Fellow at the progressive Campaign for America's Future notes in response to Trump's proposal, bigger isn't necessarily better. In this case, the proposed cuts would actually hurt poor and middle-class Americans, Johnson explains, while defunding the very things that help boost the economy, serving as a huge gift to the very wealthy, and blowing a massive hole in the federal deficit to boot.

Johnson explains the "smokescreen of bamboozlement [and] propaganda" by Republicans for decades on these issues which, he argues, citing similar cuts and claims from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, have never "paid for themselves" as the Trump Administration is claiming once again. "How many times have they done this and the results have not come through?," Johnson rails, describing how even the Congressional Research Service, when asked by Republicans to create a report in 2012 looking back at tax cut data all the way back to 1945, found that "cutting taxes does not boost the economy."

Moreover, he notes, "corporate profits are at the highest ever right now," making it hard to justify Trump's proposed corporate tax cuts (from 39.5% to 15%) as anything more than an economic boost to a small handful of very wealthy investors. Cutting taxes, he argues, is meant for little more than enriching the already very rich and "forc[ing] cuts in government by forcing a crisis in budgeting."

"Democracy doesn't have an advertising agency, but all of these anti-government people do," Johnson tells me, in response to my questions about how GOPers are still able to continue arguing for something that has proven time and again to be little more than a myth, albeit one that many Americans still seem to fall for. We also discuss whether or not Congressional "Tea Party" Republicans will actually approve such a huge increase in the federal deficit, or if, as with attempts at health care reform, they, not Democrats, will be the real obstacle.

Finally today, more firings and fall-out announced at the Fox 'News' Channel, in response to the myriad and systemic sexual harassment complaints against its now-former creator Roger Ailes and its now-former top star Bill O'Reilly...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: A very bad week for fossil fuels: Obama rejects Keystone XL pipeline; Peabody Coal caught lying to the public about climate change; Exxon Mobil facing investigation for what it knew and when it knew it; PLUS: Second hurricane hits Yemen in one week and Sea World finally responds to critics... 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): What critics of the Keystone campaign misunderstand about climate activism; Exxon, Keystone, and the Turn Against Fossil Fuels; More Oil Companies Could Join Exxon Mobil as Focus of Climate Investigations; A Texas Utility Offers a Nighttime Special: Free Electricity; Poll Finds Global Consensus on a Need to Tackle Climate Change ... PLUS: Commercial Dungeness Crab Season Delayed After Tests Find High Levels of Toxins... and much, MUCH more! ...

If you were looking for a fresh reminder as to why Vote-by-Mail is a terrible idea, why provisional ballots are not the same as actually casting a vote, and why there needs to be more accountability for and oversight of election officials, today's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio should fit the bill.

In short, we cover the election contest now pending in the race for City Council (Seat 1) in the San Diego County city of Chula Vista, CA. The certified results from the November 2014 election show a 2-vote margin between the John McCann (R) and Steve Padilla (D) in a race with some 37,000 ballots cast. McCann has been certified as the "winner".

Trouble is, according to the lawsuit [PDF], at least 15 mail-in and provisional ballots were rejected, even though the signatures on them matched the signatures from the voters' registrations on file. That, argues attorney John S. Moot (my guest this week, and a former Chula Vista City Council Member himself), is in violation of the law.

The other trouble is, those ballots were rejected by San Diego County Registrar Michael Vu, who was the infamous Election Director of Cuyahoga County, Ohio's most populist (and most Democratic) county during the 2004 Presidential election, when two of his immediate subordinates were indicted and found guilty of rigging the Presidential "recount" in Cuyahoga. Yes, if you didn't know or don't remember, there was a partial "recount" of that election, across the entire Buckeye State, as requested by the Green and Libertarian Parties. And, yes, it was found to have been rigged in a court of law.

Vu, who was protected at the time by the Republicans who ran the Cuyahoga Election Board, was never charged and was happily hired not long thereafter by San Diego County, where elections have been little more than a joke for many years, even before Vu got there.

For the full story on this, listen to this week's show and Moot's commentary on the suit he's filed on behalf of his client, a long-time poll worker and voter from Chula Vista.

ALSO on this week's program: Accountability, finally, for an election official elsewhere (in St. Louis County, MO), and the fake "voter fraud" activist set to testify at AG-nominee Loretta Lynch's very real U.S. Senate nomination proceedings. Plus, as usual, much more, including Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report.

Enjoy!...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: CA Governor warns climate change is here, and getting very expensive; Biblical flooding in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia; Insurance Co. sues Chicago for failing to prepare for climate change; PLUS: India's new PM pledges solar across the nation... 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): Drought, hurricanes bigger threat to businesses; Antarctica, Greenland melting faster than thought; US historical sites threatened by rising sea levels; Coal Ash Sludge In The Dan River Is Finally Getting Vacuumed Up; NC GOP wants to make fracking chemical disclures a felony; 'CNN is the Wal-mart of news'; Appeals court rejects BP's request to reduce settlement payments for oil spill ... PLUS: Creationists now losing their minds because Neil deGrasse Tyson explained electricity ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Update on Turkish coal mine tragedy; California wilting and burning; Oil pipeline bursts in L.A.; PLUS: Military leaders warn climate change threatens national security --- so Fox "News" attacks the military... 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): Germany sets new solar energy record: 74% of electricity; CA drought may cause earthquakes, too; End fossil fuel burning, save $71 trillion - and preserve civilization; Funny: conservatives praise Antarctic Ice Sheet melt as beautiful expression of free market; Analysis: Should we cover our roads with solar panels?; Giant poster material literally absorbs pollution; Tropical cyclones shifting toward poles; Risks questioned at closed nuclear power plants ... PLUS: VIDEO: Colbert Embraces Conservative Solution to Climate Change: 'F*ck It' ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Record jump in carbon emissions on track for 5°C increase in world temps; US & China reach major climate agreement; Another court victory for Monsanto; PLUS: As California breaks new solar records, one of the state's old nuclear plant will now shut forever ... 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 ends Gulf cleanup operations; Coal Subsidy: IG says US sold public's coal too cheap; KXL: Transcanada recruited local police against opponents; More pests developing resistant to GMO crops; Egypt warns Ethiopia against Nile mega-dam; Ocean acidification killing baby oysters; Methane leaks from fracking could negate US emissions cuts ... PLUS: What to make of a warming "plateau," and what happens when it ends ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show --- after breaking the news about the newly elected Pope --- I interviewed Eugene Iredale, attorney of the former San Diego ACORN worker Juan Carlos Vera who received a $100,000 settlement from Rightwing con-artist James O'Keefe last week. (Vera also received $50,000 from O'Keefe's former partner Hannah Giles in a separate settlement last summer.)

Vera's California Invasion of Privacy Act lawsuit, filed in 2010, stemmed from O'Keefe and Giles' surreptitious wiretapping of a "confidential" conversation with Vera. The conversation (during which Vera played along to learn about the duo's pretend plot to smuggle underage prostitutes into the country, so he could turn them in to law enforcement) was then deceptively edited for misleading use in the infamous ACORN "pimp" hoax tapes published by Andrew Breitbart and blatantly misreported by New York Times, et al.

Iredale discussed O'Keefe's illegalities at the center of the suit; why other ACORN workers hadn't similarly sued the three con-artists; why Breitbart was not included in Vera's suit; why he didn't also sue for defamation; whether these settlements can be seen as a "victory"; and much more.

In the second part of today's BradCast, I offered my opinion ranted a bit on Justice Antonin Scalia's obnoxious, not-conservative, not-constitutionalist, activist attempt to legislate from the bench on the landmark Voting Rights Act during a recent Supreme Court hearing on the Act's important and ground-breaking Section 5 provision...

Download MP3 or listen online below...

P.S. I invited O'Keefe to join today's show to offer his side of the story (live and not deceptively edited), but last night he seems to have decided he didn't "have the guts" to show up.