On today's BradCast, your faithful guest host decided to end the year on a positive note.

It's actually a year-end tradition that I'm joined by John Nichols of The Nation to discuss their annual Progressive Honor Roll. With so much to be negative about, it's important that we celebrate our progressive heroes.

And with that, it's a wrap. I wish you a happy, healthy, prosperous and democratic new year. And now, I'm going to get married. See you next year.

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On today's penultimate BradCast of 2015, guest host Nicole Sandler of Radio or Not is joined by Cultural HERstorian Amy Simon of She's History for a look at women’s issues this year, including the ever-present war on women. Comedian Julianna Forlano brings the fun and some of the more absurd news stories of the year, and joins in for a game of 2015 Notable Quotables.
But first, a bit of news during the slowest news cycle of the year-- a shocker out of PA, where charges have been filed against Bill Cosby, and another one drops out of the GOP primary race!

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On today's BradCast, guest host Nicole Sandler continues her year-end look back at the year almost ended.

Today, Nicole is joined by Cliff Schecter who discussed the insanity that is this nation's obsession with guns. He also painted an optimistic picture of the possibility of beginning to change our gun culture in 2016. We'll see.

Also today: Brad and Desi return to bring us the Green News Report's year in review, and Nicole has a quick correction about something she got wrong yesterday. (It doesn't happen often, but when it does, she likes to correct the record quickly.)

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 'Green News Report' Special Coverage 2015 Year In Review: Before 2015 and its landmark events slip into the history books, a quick review of just some of the most important environment and energy stories from a watershed year for the planet... And all in just six minutes!...In today's year-ending 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): Year of Clout: 10 Stories of Indigenous Environmental Influence in 2015; Greener choice, bar soap or body wash?; Storms snarl travel, threaten rare Winter tornadoes in U.S.; Nuke plant contractors faked 10 years of inspection records; Obama signs microbead pollution ban; Superbug bacteria resistant to all antibiotics found in UK... PLUS: Shale Oil running out of survival tricks as OPEC ramps up pressure ... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, guest host Nicole Sandler begins her year-end review of the year almost gone by.

Nicole's guest is media & messaging trainer and strategist Joel Silberman who helped Nicole recap the big Media stories of the year. For Joel, the biggest one was the "death of facts".

Enjoy!...

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Yes, it's time once again to toss a log on the fire, call in the kids, and curl up to the radio hearth for some good old-fashioned, old-tyme radio fun (with a very BradCast twist!)

Return with us to yesteryear in our Very Special (And Somewhat Subversive) BradCast Holiday Special!! Featuring The BradCast Radio Theatre Players in some of our earliest broadcasts from the 1930s and 40s! Featuring The Mighty Adventures of Buzz Edsel, a few giant Jupiterians, some dastardly Canadians, and even a visit from a jolly old fellow in a red suit with a whole bag of life-saving coal!

It's fun for the whole family and a swell reminder of what it was like back in the days when The BradCast was still a corporate-sponsored radio program relying on the goodwill of Henry Ford and the fine folks at the Ford Motor Company (of Dearborn, Michigan)!

Don't miss our award-wanting holiday tradition in the making!...And Merry Christmas, world!

• COMPLETE SPECIAL...

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• Or, if you prefer to listen to just one segment at a time...

PART 1: Intro & "Buzz Edsel versus the Giant Jupiterians!"
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PART 2: "Buzz Edsel versus the Sun-Stealers!"
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PART 3: "Buzz Edsel and the Santa Surprise!"
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Since we are no longer sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, we must rely on you dear readers and listeners, to help us continue doing all that we do here at The BRAD BLOG and The BradCast! If you can toss in a year-end donation for our stocking, it would be greatly appreciated!...

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On today's BradCast, we've got both good news and bad at year's end.

First up, Kentucky's new 'Tea Party' Republican Governor Matt Bevin revokes the restoration of voting rights for 140,000 former felons as instituted by the former Democratic Governor. That, after the dubious and completely unverified results of the state's November gubernatorial contest. Yes, as we've noted for well over a decade now, elections matter! Bevin also did away with the previous governor's increase to the minimum wage for state workers, while he was at it.

Also today, quick news on the Trump supporter (a middle-aged white guy) arrested with a bomb after threatening to kill Muslims at a mosque in California more than two weeks ago. Also, a quick word on the record number of sign-ups this year at Healthcare.gov for new and renewed health insurance policies thanks to the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare").

Then, I'm joined by Dr. Joe Romm, editor of Climate Progress and former Asst. Sec. of Energy in the Bill Clinton Administration, after his return from Paris where the UN struck its historic agreement just over one week ago to curb greenhouse gasses that cause global warming.

As usual, Romm offers extremely informed and helpful insight, including his explanation for how the UN talks began earlier this month with the challenging goal of an agreement that would keep global temps from rising any higher than 2 degrees Centigrade, but surprisingly ended with an landmark pact that included the aspirational goal of 1.5C.

"It became clear from just looking at the science that there's nothing safe about 2 degrees Centigrade," he explains. "What we've learned in the last 18 months, with the instability in the West Antarctic ice sheet, and all the extreme weather events that we're already seeing, and the brutal droughts we're seeing in this country and elsewhere, that we're already at dangerous impacts, and we're only at 1 degree Centigrade of warming. So, I think that reality did set in." He adds: "If you want to limit to 2 degrees Centigrade total warming, the planet's net emissions have to go to zero by the end of the century. So, pretty much every country is going to have to go to zero."

Romm details exactly what that means and echoes remarks from my interview with Dr. Michael Mann last week, where Mann declared that the Paris Agreement signals the "end of the age of fossil fuels."

"We are talking about the end of the fossil-fuel driven Industrial Revolution that began 250 or so years ago," Romm tells me. "And that's why, in some senses, this is such a big deal. Because you literally had every single significant country in the world, large and small, rich and poor, all sign on to this agreement, which recognizes, yeah, the age of fossil fuels is coming to an end."

We cover a number of the steps ahead ("I was describing this as Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope. We have a lot more battles before us.") during our wide-ranging conversation that also includes his complaints about Bill Gates' big new clean tech fund, and his response to the charge by NASA's former chief scientist Dr. James Hansen that the Paris Agreement is a "fraud".

"I think we're certainly at an inflection point," says Romm. "You know, change happens slowly, until it happens quickly. I tend to think we have now entered the phase of much more rapid changed than people expected."

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On today's very busy BradCast...

• A top-ranking lottery official was recently convicted of gaming the main lottery computer's random number generator for years and the investigation is now expanding to several other states. But, of course, while the Lottery Association's top security official got away with it for some six years, you needn't be worried at all about election insiders gaming computer results tabulators, right?

• Speaking of which...Half the country's voters would be embarrassed to have Donald Trump as President, though not many Republicans, according to a new Quinnipiac poll. That same poll also finds Bernie Sanders walloping Trump in a head-to-head match-up by nearly twice the margin that Hillary Clinton would beat the embarrassing GOP front-runner.

• A ruling by the WTO just succeeded in forcing the U.S. to scrap its extremely popular Country of Origin Labeling [COOL] requirements for beef and pork, even though President Obama recently told us that "no trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws." We're joined by Lori Wallach, Director and Founder of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch for details on that and on how the incident should serve as a chilling warning about the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. That pact has yet to be approved by Congress, where it faces opposition from both Democrats and Republicans.

Wallach explains how the U.S. was slammed with a $1 billion/year sanction from the WTO, based on complaints about COOL from Canada and Mexico. "Within a week of the sanctions being authorized, Congress slipped into that huge omnibus bill the revocation of the Country of Origin meat labels --- including ground beef, which is particularly horrifying. So the WTO has gotten rid of one of our most popular consumer labeling policies," Wallach tells me. But, she goes on to explain, the mechanisms for forcing the U.S. to change our own consumer trade and safety laws are even more disturbing in the TPP, which she describes as "considerably worse."

"The TPP is privately enforceable by individual foreign companies and investors, through the very controversial Investor to State Dispute Settlement system," she describes. "And that lets any individual company drag a sovereign nation that signed that agreement --- away from its own courts, outside of its own laws --- in front of a foreign tribunal of three private sector lawyers, who the TPP would empower to order the signatory government to pay unlimited sumsof taxpayer money for any policy, government action, or inaction that the investor believes violated its new privileges as a foreign investor and would undermine its expected future profits."

• Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us as temperatures rise to record levels in parts of the country --- in the 70s in some places in Pennsylvania, for example --- on Christmas Eve! But why worry? That and much much more in our latest, chocked-full-o'-news Green News Report today.

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: ABC News hosts a presidential debate, but climate change and energy aren't invited; President Obama warns Republicans the world is moving forward on climate; Officials knew Flint, MI's water contaminated with lead; Massive natural gas leak continues in Southern CA; PLUS: British court rejects Donald Trump's wind farm objection... 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): Internet has revelation that climate change action won't kill the economy after all; Obama says climate deal with outlast GOP denial; U.S. power grid hacked multiple times; Oil industry lobbyists succeed in opening Alaskan refuge to drilling; U.S. issues biggest energy efficiency rules ever; Oil prices slump to 11-year lows; Opposition builds to offshore drilling...PLUS: 'Intersex' male bass fish found throughout protected U.S. waters... and much, MUCH more! ...

The DNC seems to have wanted their Democratic Presidential Debate in New Hampshire over the weekend to remain a secret. Otherwise, why would have they have scheduled it on the Saturday before Christmas?!

On today's BradCast, we spoil the secret by talking about that and everything else that actually went on during Saturday's debate on ABC between Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley.

Joining me are financial journalist David Dayen of The Fiscal Times, Salon, The Intercept and everywhere else and health care reform advocate and journalist Jacki Schechner, formerly of CNN and CurrentTV.

Among the issues covered in today's post-debate coverage and analysis:

• Do voters actually care about last Friday's database breach by the Sanders campaign?
• Is the DNC 'in the bag' for Hillary Clinton?
• Do Democrats play into GOP/corporate media narratives by spending so much time discussing ISIS and terrorism?
• Is there any real daylight between Clinton and Bernie Sanders' positions on gun safety reform?
• Does Martin O'Malley bring anything to the contest that Clinton and Sanders don't already have covered?
• Why did ABC News spend so much time on Republicans during Saturday's Democratic debate?
• Does the math really work for Sanders' plan to provide free college tuition to all public colleges and universities by instituting a tax on Wall Street transactions?
• Does the math really work for Sanders' call for a single payer health care system?
• Did ABC's Martha Raddatz completely misinform America in her question to Clinton concerning Obamacare?

All of that and much more on today's BradCast, as expertly answered by Dayen and Schechner! Especially helpful to those of you who might have had something else to do on a Saturday night before Christmas...like, I dunno, go see Star Wars!

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On today's BradCast, Congress and the President leave D.C. for the holidays, but not before coming together to pass a huge, bi-partisan(!) spending and tax bill.

Peace on Earth? Not quite, but its a start, as Obama noted in his year end press conference today.

In the meantime, another massive reporting failure from the New York Times (once again) creates confusion for the nation following the recent terror attack in San Bernardino, prompting its Public Editor to call for "systematic change" in the way stories are reported at the nation's so-called "paper of record".

The Bernie Sanders campaign files suit against the DNC after being shut out from their own voter database following charges that his campaign inappropriately accessed Hillary Clinton's voter data after a firewall went down on the DNC's server. Sanders' supporters are crying foul against the Democratic Party, just one day before the next 2016 Democratic Presidential Debate (which is, again, being hidden on a Saturday --- this one, just before Christmas --- and on the same weekend the new Star Wars movie opens.)

And finally, the nation continues to cower in fear --- making GOP Presidential candidates very happy, no doubt --- as another entire school district gets shuts down on Friday over something even more absurd than what led to the shutdown of the L.A. school system earlier this week. Are we becoming South Park Nation? That news (and much more) at week's end may suggest as much.

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On today's BradCast, ownership of our nation's media gets more and more rightwing in advance of the 2016 Presidential elections.

First up, in Ohio, a newspaper owner/publisher fires the paper's editor, a 31-year employee, for daring to talk with staffers about an editorial critical of the NRA that the owner/publisher had spiked.

Meanwhile, in Nevada, the state's largest newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is secretly purchased by casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the GOP's largest single funder during the 2012 Presidential election cycle. After a week of mystery and lies from Adelson --- and investigative reporting by the journalists who actually work at the paper, who had no idea who they now work for --- the billionaire admits that, yes, it was his family that bought the paper...and a hugely inflated price.

Media Matters' Salvatore Colleluori joins us to explain why Adelson's mysterious purchase of the R-J is so disturbing on a whole bunch of levels. Among them: While the paper was already a right-leaning news outlet, the purchase could result in still more of Adelson's far rightwing political views making it into print in the key swing-state of Nevada in a Presidential election year. Moreover, as we discuss on today's program, the takeover could also serve to help keep coverage of Adelson's own highly suspect business dealings --- from China to The Vegas Strip --- out of the pages of the biggest paper in the state's biggest city all together.

"The other newspapers that he owns have very, very distinct stances that are very much in line with him," Colleluori tells me on today's program. "Owning the biggest newspaper in the state gives him a major mouthpiece going into, not only the 2016 election, but with a big Senate election coming in Nevada, there are going to be a lot of opportunities for him to throw his weight around in the state."

"As the old adage goes," he notes, "If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em."

Also today: Some thoughts on the rightwing talk radio outlet which CNN partnered with for this week's GOP debate, where, as we note in our latest Green News Report, CNN also completely avoided discussion of climate change and the largest world agreement ever struck just days earlier, and how a record warm December in the Midwest and North-East is ending what is now almost certainly going to be the warmest year ever recorded on Planet Earth...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Republicans hold another Presidential primary debate on national security, but host CNN skips right over energy and climate change; House Republicans lift crude oil export ban; 90 percent of disasters caused by extreme weather; PLUS:: November 2015 was the hottest November on record... 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): Toxic firefighting foam has contaminated U.S. drinking water; San Diego vows to go 100 per cent renewable in 20 years; Lakes are warming at an alarming rate; UK PM Cameron urged to rethink solar subsidy cuts; Denied: UK court rejects Trump's wind farm block; Cheap gas spurs SUV sales... PLUS: 2016 set to be hottest year on record ... and much, MUCH more! ...