On today's BradCast we finally get the chance to catch up on at least one of the big items we missed last week while Baltimore was on fire: the landmark oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, the case which is likely to result (finally!) in the whole big enchilada decision on marriage equality for all 50 states.

Constitutional law expert and reporter Ian Millhiser of Think Progress joins me to discuss the hearing, the history, the likely outcomes, who to watch, and what could happen thereafter.

Also, Huckabee joins the 2016 GOP nomination circus; Chris Christie begs for a subpoena in 'BridgeGate'; more on the Garland, TX 'anti-muslim' group shootings; and Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with the climate positions of the three new candidates tossing their hats into the 2016 race...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The race for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination just doubled in size: Fox 'News' darling Ben Carson jumps in; former CEO Carly Fiorina jumps in; former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee jumps in --- climate change deniers all; PLUS: The Pope's moral message on 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): Elon Musk unveils fancy new Tesla battery — ’cause existing batteries “suck”; Scientists call for limits on non-stick and stain-resistant chemicals that can leach into foods; CA crops raised with oil-field water; Ominous signs for endangered Great Lakes blue butterfly; Heartland Institute's president denies they are deniers; GOP lawmakers slash NASA budget... PLUS: Climate change drives 'new era' in Arctic, say Norwegian scientists... and much, MUCH more! ...

I've been having sort of a running conversation/debate with author, comedian, friend and KPFK/Pacifica Radio colleague Jimmy Dore ever since the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. He heard my take on the shootings, as discussed on KPFK at the time, and picked it up (a less generous person might say, misinterpreted it) on his own show.

We then had it out on his show and, finally, with the weekend shootings in Garland, TX at a rightwing group's event offering $10,000 for the most offensive cartoon featuring the prophet Mohammed, it seemed like a good time to pick up that conversation to see if either his or my views have changed.

So, Jimmy was my guest on today's BradCast and I think you'll enjoy the discussion!

Also, Bernie Sanders' refreshing words on a Sunday network news show; Carly and Carson both jumped into the 2016 GOP nomination clown car; one encouraging moment in Nepal amongst unspeakable tragedy following their recent devastating earthquake; the FEC continues to be dysfunctional, with one of their chairs now out-and-out noting that campaign finance regulations are unlikely to be enforced during the 2016 Presidential elections, despite record "dark money" set to be spent on them.

All of that and more on today's show! Please enjoy and spread the word!

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While we'll be posting The BradCast here everyday, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Senator Bernie Sanders, climate hawk, enters the 2016 Presidential race; Thanks to fossil fuels, California still has the nation's dirtiest air; Study finds most extremely hot days caused by global warming; PLUS: Pope Francis wants to protect God's Creation, and the rightwing, fossil fuel-funded Heartland Institute wants him to knock it off... 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): Break-up of the century: U.S. emissions and economic growth are really, finally separating; New Survey Shows TV Weathercasters Increasingly Accept Climate Change (but not Fox News); Duke Energy to hand out bottled water in North Carolina after wells polluted; Bees Love Nicotine, Even Though It's Killing Them; Forest fire threatens Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear zone... PLUS: Exposure to widespread diabetes drug feminizes male fish... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Devastation and rescue in Nepal after massive earthquake; March 2015 the hottest March on record; Sardines crash in the Pacific; PLUS: Fighting climate change with the power of poo... 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): VIDEO: Obama Finally Gets Angry At Climate Science Deniers And It’s Hilarious; California goes nuts: the hedge-fund-fueled race to plant thirsty trees in a catastrophic drought; 7.4 Million Acres of Ecosystem Lost to Oil and Gas Boom; Will The Chilean Volcano Be Big Enough to Cool 2015?; FL legislature diverts funds from voter-approved conservation fund; NV's Lake Mead headed to new historic low... PLUS: A solar future isn't just likely — it's inevitable... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: After years of denial, Oklahoma finally admits fracking causes earthquakes; Fines and accountability for oil spills, coal waste spills, and deadly natural gas explosions; PLUS: Environmentalists push back at new Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal... 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): Oklahoma Lawmakers Vote To Outlaw Fracking Bans As Earthquakes In The State Spike; Video: "Dear Future Generations: Sorry"; Common pesticides hurting health of wild bees; Congress passes bipartisan energy efficiency bill; TV meteorologists increasingly accept climate science; Bad news in lionfish invasion; After 30 years, EPA tightens air pollution standards; CEOs to world leaders: Get off your asses and fix climate change... PLUS: 'Pipelines Blow Up And People Die... and much, MUCH more! ...

Gov. Jerry Brown's decision to mandate a 25% reduction of urban water use in California was absolutely necessary and woefully inadequate.

The unprecedented mandatory restriction is necessary because the state faces an historically acute and potentially catastrophic shortage of freshwater. Newly released NASA data suggests the state could run out of surface water reserves completely within the next year.

The severe water shortage, however, is not merely acute. It is chronic. The Golden State is now in its fourth year of an extreme, global climate change-linked drought that scientists predict could continue for decades.

There are a multitude of reasons why Brown's overly simplistic 25% urban water use reduction --- a meager 6.25% of water consumption by all sectors of the California economy --- is woefully inadequate when measured against both acute and chronic extreme drought conditions...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Ontario, Canada joins cap and trade system to fight global warming; Students push Harvard to divest billions from fossil fuels; New poll finds majority of Americans support a tax on carbon emissions; PLUS: Last male white rhino on Earth is now under 24-hour armed guard... 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): Dutch government taken to court over climate change; Fort McMurray's wastelands: Premature expropriations plague communities across Canada; Sardine population collapses, prompting ban on commercial fishing; Coal is dying all by itself; Nuclear Waste Reprocessing: Poised for growth, or on death's door?... PLUS: Judges Hear Challenge to Proposed E.P.A. Rule to Curb Climate Change... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Climate change-denier Sen. Rand Paul is running for President (and Brad is delighted about it!); Climate denial a looming problem for the GOP; Thawing permafrost a looming problem for the planet; PLUS: Greening the City of Angels: Mayor Garcetti's ambitious sustainability plan for L.A.....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): The Arctic has melted so much that now people want to race yachts through it; Tea Party hires actors to feign indignation over plan to save Everglades; Plummeting sardine numbers could prompt U.S. West coast fishing ban; New York just quietly raided its climate program for cash; Michael Bloomberg puts up $30m to kill coal; Utility sales may drop by half as homes make their own power... PLUS: VIDEO: Is "Game of Thrones" Cli-Fi... and much, MUCH more! ...

On this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio (and many other fine affiliate stations), we talk to physicist, former Clinton Administration official and founding editor of ClimateProgress.org Joe Romm about Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell's "immoral" attempt to undermine the U.S. in international climate talk negotiations as the big U.N. treaty summit is set for Paris later this year.

Romm, who served as Chief Science Adviser for last year's Emmy-award winning Years of Living Dangerously series on Showtime, also breaks a bit of news on The BradCast by confirming that there will be a season two for the groundbreaking environmental documentary series. He promises that "it will be on a cable network that has a far greater reach" than Showtime, though he can't let us know which one yet.

PLUS: Rand Paul jumps into the 2016 GOP Presidential circus; Ohio's Republican Gov. John Kasich does the right thing (sort of) in vetoing a new GOP voter-suppression scheme in the state; Jeb Bush appears to have committed a felony in Florida; California's Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom does the right thing before everybody else (again) in announcing support for full legalization of marijuana in the Golden State; and much more, including Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report.

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Auto racing, which has long served as both a testing ground and source of commercial development of automotive technology, is going green.

The formally sanctioned racing organization, FIA Formula E Championship, was formed for the express purpose of promoting sustainable automotive technology. In 2013, it commissioned a study that was designed to measure "the global value of Formula E to the EV [electric vehicle] market over the next 25 years (2015-2040) and its wider economic, environmental and social impact." The authors of the study concluded that an all electric vehicle racing circuit would "help sell an additional 77 million EVs worldwide, save 4 billion barrels of oil and help make savings of 2 billion euros [$2.179 billion] in healthcare."

Study in hand, in September 2014 the group kicked-off its inaugural Formula E race season in Beijing --- the first stop on an international 10-race calendar. Appearing at Long Beach State University in advance of the 6th race, the Long Beach ePrix over this past weekend, Formula E Series CEO Alejandro Agag told students that the goal was to "fundamentally change how the public sees electric vehicles" and that "Formula E is the future."

In its pre-event coverage of the April 4 race in Long Beach, California, the L.A.Times reported that fans would be spared the noise of ordinary racing and that, instead of refueling, pit stops would involve the changing out of batteries. Formula E Series cars have plenty of horsepower, however, accelerating from 0 to 62 mph in 3 seconds, with maximum speeds topping out near 150 mph.

FIA Formula E is not the first racing organization to raise environmental concerns. In 2013, the Indy 500 addressed emission concerns via race cars that utilized "ethanol blends."

However, as observed by the Colombia Water Center, a number of "scientists argue that when the life cycle of ethanol production is compared to that of conventional gasoline, there may be no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at all." Citing an Argonne National Laboratory study, they note that corn ethanol is water intensive, consuming between "20 to 324 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol."

Of course, if FIA Formula E really wishes to advance sustainable technology, it should rely upon photovoltaic solar to recharge the batteries used in its race cars. As noted by the Sierra Club, electric vehicles that rely upon coal power plants "may emit more CO2 and SO2 pollution than hybrid electric vehicles."

The violent, "shock and awe" process that so-called "conservatives" cheered when L.A. police officials suddenly cleared the eight-week old Occupy encampment off the grounds of City Hall in 2011, will now cost the city some $2.5 million in settlement payments to the disrupted demonstrators.

The L.A. City Council, which had passed a resolution in support of the protesters in October of 2011, agreed to settle the lawsuit filed by a number demonstrators who said they were mistreated by police officials after then Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) ordered LAPD Chief Charlie Beck to clear the tents and peaceful demonstrators from the City Hall grounds.

As we reported at the time, after the space was cleared in a late night law enforcement offensive, hundreds of demonstrators were detained in poor conditions for hours on end, many handcuffed in buses without access to food, water or medicine. The excessive force and deplorable conditions were often brutal and, yes, bordered on torture. Some were forced to urinate and defecate in their seats during the hours of detention and faced other brutal and humiliating treatment at the hands of both L.A. City and County police officials.

As Patrick Meighan, a writer for Fox' animated sitcom Family Guy and one of the non-violent protesters arrested on the night of the crackdown, detailed at the time: "They forced us to kneel on the hard pavement of that parking garage for seven straight hours with our hands still tightly zipcuffed behind our backs. Some began to pass out. One man rolled to the ground and vomited for a long, long time before falling unconscious. The LAPD officers watched and did nothing."

Finally, however, it appears there will at least be some accountability...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Historic, first-ever mandatory water restrictions for drought-stricken California...but no cuts for the state's agriculture industry; Another offshore oil drilling tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico; PLUS: 35 years ago this week, even Walter Cronkite warned us about global warming....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): The most common mistake that news stories make about energy; Kansas links earthquakes to oil and gas; Direct evidence global warming causes more global warming; Judge: Feds illegally allowed Navy activities harming marine mammals; Portland bans insecticide to protect declining honey bees; McConnell warns countries against Obama's UN climate plan... PLUS: The Arctic climate threat that nobody’s even talking about yet... and much, MUCH more! ...

We covered a lot of ground on this week's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio.

From today's breaking news on Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ); to today's breaking news on mandatory water restrictions in CA; to a shockingly good act of MSM journalism helping to force Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN) to do the right thing; to our latest exclusive on U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller's "wife-beating" case; to callers' opinions (lots of 'em!) on the one condition I'd agree to in exchange for mandatory voting (a very popular condition, it seems!)

PLUS, one caller surprises me with a song that seems to be about me (it actually has my name in it!) and Desi Doyen joins us for a very amusing Green News Report!...

Told ya we covered a lot of ground. Please enjoy it! I know I did!

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: All-time record high temp in Antarctica; Record low snowpack spells trouble for California summer; Biblical rain and flooding in Chile; Gulf Stream slowdown could spell trouble for Europe; PLUS: US unveils targets for big, upcoming UN climate treaty in Paris....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): 72% of voters support US signing on to UN climate treaty; Ominous finding on ocean heat; College-educated Republicans less likely to accept science of climate change; "There are no jobs on a dead planet"; BP oil spill caused lasting damage; Shell to return to drilling in the Arctic... PLUS: Lobbyist fails his own pesticide challenge... and much, MUCH more! ...