"Hannity ate up that story so hard, Bundy should have charged him grazing fees," observed Stephen Colbert by way of introducing his brilliant Ballad of Cliven Bundy. "Like every folk hero," Colbert continued, "he deserves a folk song"...

While that tune and that segment couldn't be more brilliant, the Bundy situation on the range is now just getting plain sad. Here's a clip of his fairly pathetic appearance on CNN this morning...

As I snarked last night on Twitter...

The time at the #BundyRanch is now 14:59.

— Brad Friedman (@TheBradBlog) April 25, 2014

I was proud to have the 2014 Green Party candidate for CA Sec. of State David Curtis (in photo on the left, not smiling), as my first guest this week on the KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast. While he and I disagree on a few important things (like Internet Voting, which he still hopes for, despite our Twitter conversation last month), there's one thing we certainly agree on: It was outrageous that he was excluded from today's SoS candidates debate held by the Sacramento Press Club. That, despite the fact that he recently polled higher than two of the candidates who were invited to participate.

[CORRECTION: On air I said that the CA statewide primary was June 2 this year. In fact, it's on Tuesday, June 3. The deadline for voter registration by mail for the primary is May 19th. You can register online here. Apologies for the error!]

As my second guest this week, I was also proud to welcome back investigative journalist Jason Leopold on the heels of his Guardian interview with Dr. James Elmer Mitchell (in photo on the right, smiling), one of the central architects of the Bush/Cheney-era CIA torture program. The interview was Mitchell's first since turning the skills he acquired as the chief psychologist at a U.S. Air Force survival school --- where U.S. troops were trained in how to avoid false confessions and propaganda under enemy torture --- into a program to use torture techniques to extract...the truth(?)...from Al Qaeda prisoners after 9/11. While we aired a few never-before-aired clips from Leopold's interview with Mitchell, there are more now available right here.

Finally, as always, Desi Doyen joined us, this week for our 500th episode of the Green News Report. Buckle up!

Download MP3 or listen online below...

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

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: It's our 500th episode of the Green News Report ...coincidentally on Earth Day! So, since every day is Earth Day for us, we thought we'd take a look back at the GNR's beginning and where it and climate coverage have gone since then. For better or worse. All that and more in today's very special 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): Apple will now recycle your old products; Cowboys and Indians descend on Washington to Protest Keystone XL Pipeline; First Nations see no compromise on BC tar sands pipeline; Scientists discover way to generate solar power in the dark; Polluted Superfund site now home to solar panel farm; Environmental activist missing in Ecuador; Lead poisoning nightmare in Nigeria may be easing ... PLUS: BP Oil Spill Anniversary: 4 years later, the legacy of disaster in the Gulf ... and much, MUCH more! ...

-- Leftist, tree-hugging, Big Government environmentalist whacko...and 1964 conservative Republican Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, from 1971's The Conscience of a Majority.

[Hat-tip to too-occassional BRAD BLOG contributor D.R. Tucker...]

Given that every Sunday network news show decided to completely ignore it, I thought it my duty to read the entirety of the leaked findings from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA Torture and Detention on the air during this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio.

You're welcome, war criminals!

Also on this week's show, the continually growing evidence of the success of "Obamacare" (and a caller who self-identifies as "full on Left. I'm not even liberal, I'm further Left than that", who takes me to task for citing the facts) --- and why it's time for Dems to grow a pair and start running to not just retain the Senate but also take the U.S. House.

A word or two on home-grown Rightwing extremist terrorism and the fecklessness of the Dept. of Homeland Security which, thanks to bullying from Republicanists and Fox "News", cowered from and retracted their report on same back in 2009 despite the mounting death toll ever since.

Also, a bunch of good callers and more that you'll just have to tune in to hear about, including a visit by Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report and some other stuff. Enjoy!

Download MP3 or listen online below...

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

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Green News Report Special Coverage: The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report on Mitigation: the costs, the risks, and the opportunities. Is it too late avoid climate catastrophe?... 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): China's pollution may be causing America's extreme weather conditions; 900+ environmental activists killed around the world; March 2014 was 4th warmest on record; Kitimat, BC votes against tar sands pipeline; Solar-powered plane can 'fly forever'; OR: investigation finds aerial pesticides sprayed on residences; EPA underestimated fracking methane leaks ... PLUS: Innovation: Scientists discover how to generate solar power in the dark ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Republicanist attorney John Hinderaker of the silly, hyper-partisan, rightwing PowerLine blog has always been more than happy to offer "legal" arguments to support whatever Rightwing nonsense his tribe would like to hear. When he's unable to come up with an actual legal argument, he's also happy to just type words to let the tribe know he's still on their side...even when the law isn't.

Commenting Monday night on the weekend's Bundy Ranch idiocy --- in which a scofflaw Nevada rancher who says he doesn't "recognize [the] United States government as even existing", has refused for the last twenty years to pay grazing fees for the use of public lands, as all other ranchers do --- Hinderaker admits that, "legally, Bundy doesn't have a leg to stand on."

Nonetheless, the Republican lawyer/blogger twists and turns to argue, "you should be sympathetic toward" ranch owner Cliven Bundy anyway. The reason for that sympathy takes some explaining, and some pretty impressive gymnastics to result in Hinderaker's final, rather laughable, argument for it.

Hinderaker must be desperate to get himself onto the non-RINO right flank of the Rightwing "FakeTriots" who rode in to southern NV last week with big manly guns a-blazin', but who, notably, did not ride in to the rescue when actual Big Government tyranny was actually cracking down on the public's right to occupy public spaces --- when the government actually used extraordinary violence to crush peaceful First Amendment-protected protests all around the country.

Neither does he, nor they, seem to give a damn when Big Government intrudes on the Constitutionally protected rights of women to privately take care of their own bodies; nor for the rights of millions of legal voters to freely cast their votes; nor for the rights of homeowners who've gone bankrupt and/or lost their homes thanks to Big Government-abetted crimes of gigantic, lawless, Wall Street corporations.

But what's most amusing about Hinderaker's article, in which he desperately (and transparently) attempts to get on the right side of folks he knows are wrong, but who are on his own political team, is that by the end of his article, he's finally figured out how to blame Big Bad Barack Obama and Harry Reid and, I guess, Liberalism or something for all the woes that Bundy is facing brought on himself. That, instead of calling out the rancher for his lack of personal responsibility in disobeying long-settled law, all while enjoying the Big Government welfare of "free" cattle grazing lands.

To do this, Hinderaker offers a pretend argument that the federal government isn't necessarily against development on public lands --- only certain types of development...