w/ Brad & Desi
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  w/ Brad & Desi
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  w/ Brad & Desi
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BARCODED BALLOTS AND BALLOT MARKING DEVICES
BMDs pose a new threat to democracy in all 50 states...
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VIDEO: 'Rise of the Tea Bags'
Brad interviews American patriots...
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'Democracy's Gold Standard'
Hand-marked, hand-counted ballots...
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GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...
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MORE BRAD BLOG 'SPECIAL COVERAGE' PAGES... |
It's become very clear of late, as discussed on today's BradCast, that, whether the corporate media or rightwingers like to admit it or not, it is now progressive political policies that are popular among Americans. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
With progressive policies in place from the Biden-Harris Administration, for example, the U.S. economy continues to be the envy of the industrialized world. New, falling unemployment numbers and growing retail sales announced on Thursday, combined with recent data finding the annualized inflation rate has now fallen below 3%, sent the stock market soaring again on Thursday. Well, except for Donald Trump's failing media company (DJT), which fell to its lowest price since going public in January. Since then, the loser stock has shed more than 50% of its market value and a full two-thirds since its high-water mark in March. (We tried to warn MAGA investors. Oh, well.)
Just one of the progressive economic policies of this Administration is the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, signed by President Biden in 2022 after being adopted by Democrats in Congress without a single Republican vote. Among many other things, the IRA allows Medicare, for the first time in history, to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. On Thursday, the Biden-Administration announced they have completed their first round of price negotiations on ten popular drugs which will save tax payers at least $6 billion a year and $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs to beneficiaries.
"Under the law I signed," Biden explained today in Maryland at a rally with Vice President Kamala Harris, "Medicare can negotiate lower prices for another 15 drugs next year, 15 the following, and 20 after that until every drug is covered. That's the law. Now!" As the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office determined before passage of the bill in 2022, the measure will save the federal government nearly $100 billion over a decade --- something that Republicans used to pretend to care about, at least until every single one of them voted against it.
That's just one example of popular progressive policies at work, of course. Harris' running-mate, Gov. Tim Walz, has signed a boatload of them into law in Minnesota, including the protecting abortion rights; legalizing recreational marijuana; implementing popular gun safety reforms; providing legal refuge for trans youths; enacting laws that expand paid family and medical leave; banning noncompete agreements; providing universal public school meals; free public college education for households with income less than $80,000/year; and capping the price of insulin in Minnesota (years before Biden was able to do so nationally.)
That alone is a virtual laundry list of both top progressive aims and popular policies that could be implemented at a national level. So, will a Harris-Walz administration be able to move such policies forward if elected in November? And what else do progressive activists hope to see from a new, Democratic administration?
We're joined today by ALAN MINSKY, Executive Director at Progressive Democrats of America, in advance of the group's 20th Anniversary Progressive Central gathering in Chicago this week ahead of the Democratic National Convention. Sen. Bernie Sanders will be keynoting the two-day gathering, co-hosted by a number of other progressive organizations and publications, with a speakers list featuring a huge list of progressive members of Congress, activists, and journalists.
So, how do progressives feel heading into next week's DNC after nearly four years of the most progressive Presidential administration in decades; an historic, month-long political whirlwind; and a brutal year of protests against Israel's horrific response in Gaza to last year's attack in Israel by Hamas? Minsky and I discuss the "turbulence" and "high stakes" of the moment, and the revelation, for much of the nation, that progressive policies are the popular ones.
"Progressive policies directly address the interests of the average household," Minksy explains, citing "four massive ticket items that just block people from achieving the American dream" so they "don't have to work three jobs to make ends meet."
Those four blocks, he explains, start with childcare. "It's almost prohibitively expensive to have a child in this society". And then the cost of higher education. "You get out with a degree, and you face housing costs, either rents or mortgages, both prohibitive for building anything like the kind of financial security that you want to have. And then, finally, of course, healthcare costs overwhelmingly shredding the finances of people and families late in life."
"Again, only progressives on all four fronts have clear policy solutions to each of those prohibitive costs that American families meet," he tells me, adding, "And these are practiced around the world in other countries, available for us to pursue. They're not radical ideas. They're commonsense ideas."
"The other thing progressive are willing to address that the other groups are not, because they just accept that it's there, part of the wallpaper of American society, and that's the clear spaces in our society where there is deep, endemic poverty. The urban core, small town and rural America, deep poverty in indigenous communities, and still in the Southeast --- the former Confederate states --- most of that region is still tremendously poor. Only progressives address this."
There is more, much more to chew on in our conversation, including the way disparate elements of the left can come together to achieve solutions to these issues, and how to "persuade a Harris-Walz Administration and their economic advisors that the way forward is to go further on those four big ticket items."
"Only the United States has a latent group of about 100 million people who can be lifted up, by very well understood mechanisms, into the middle class," observes Minsky. "When that happens, that is an economic boom."
As to the vibes on the ground in Chicago, where some progressive organizations are planning to protest the Biden-Harris position on Israel? "Free speech society, open society, that's where I want to live," says Minksy, before adding, in reference to the violence at protests at the DNC in the Windy City almost 60 years ago: "Chicago doesn't feel like it's 1968. It just doesn't. There will be notable actions. But, as much passion as there is out there, I don't think it's quite broadly at the level of what was going on in the country during the Vietnam War in 1968." We'll see if he turns out to be right about that.
Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as another storm, Hurricane Ernesto, spins up virtually overnight in record warm Atlantic waters and the U.S. Forest Service finally tells the freeloading Arrowhead Springs bottled water company to get lost and stop its near-century long theft of California's water for profit...
(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)
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Was the Trump Campaign really hacked as they've recently claimed? If so, was it actually by Iran, as they also claim? And, If so, isn't that a far greater threat to national security than the corporate media reporting on it seem to understand, so far? Those are just some of the questions asked and answered on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
BUT FIRST... before we get to our guest today with answers to those questions, another tropical storm has spun up very quickly this week in the record hot Atlantic Ocean. Desi Doyen has the latest today on the climate change-fueled Hurricane Ernesto as it blows by Puerto Rico, which is still rebuilding its crippled power grid from previous storms, and heads toward Bermuda.
NEXT... it was primary Election Day on Tuesday in Connecticut, Vermont, Minnesota and Wisconsin with Congressional and state primaries and even some ballot initiatives for good measure. We've got several noteworthy reported results from all four states after what appears to have been a smooth Election Day in all of them, along with a look ahead and what a number of the contests may portend for November.
THEN... You probably saw the headlines over the weekend about someone calling themselves "Robert" approaching Politico, New York Times and Washington Post with what they claimed to be internal Trump Campaign documents, such as vetting documents for GOP Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance. You probably also heard that the Trump Campaign is claiming they were hacked by Iran, and that Microsoft, just one day earlier, had issued a security bulletin [PDF] stating that a hacking outfit tied to Iran had "sent a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor." (That "former senior advisor" appears to be federal convict, Republican dirty trickster and longtime Trump buddy, Roger Stone.)
So, are all of those things actually connected, as the Trump Camp is claiming? And, after Donald Trump repeatedly lauded the publication of internal campaign email documents hacked from the Clinton Campaign by Russia in 2016, how hard should we now be laughing at his own 2024 Campaign spokesperson warning: "Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America's enemies"?
It's difficult not to chuckle at how the worm has turned, but for our guest today, national security journalist MARCY WHEELER of Emptywheel, joining us to explain what is seemingly being missed by the mainstream coverage of the events --- accurate or not --- as noted above.
First, we try and sort out with Wheeler what is actually known versus still speculative, and how much of it could amount to Team Trump conflating events in hopes of playing the victim and/or protecting themselves from the publication of documents said by "Robert" to be marked as "privileged & confidential". It's certainly interesting to compare how the media have treated these internal campaign documents versus Hillary's in 2016.
But the larger concern, as Wheeler reports this week, is that since Trump doesn't seem to firewall his Campaign documents from the legal documents related to the many criminal cases against him, there are very serious concerns that whoever hacked his campaign emails --- if, in fact, they did --- may also have gained access to highly classified information related to those cases, such as the felony charges he is facing in Florida for having stolen highly classified national security information when leaving office in 2021.
"Donald Trump has not firewalled his campaign from his crimes," Wheeler tells me today. "If you were to hack their computer, it would be a gold mine. It would be a gold mine that would make all of us less secure."
"Remember, we know one of the documents charged against Donald Trump [in the stolen documents case] summarizes the 2019 plans against Iran if they attacked us," she warns. Also, there were documents pertaining to what we know about Iran's nuclear program. She says that, if in fact you have hacked email accounts from the law firm that was vetting J.D. Vance, "then you're getting a lot closer to things that go to Trump's stolen documents case. That's one of several reasons where, if the Iranians were successful, as Russia was [in 2016], you could have a snowballing effect on the national security implications here."
"Most normal humans beings firewall these things," Wheeler asserts, while detailing the way Trump's campaign business is known to have been co-mingled with his legal defense funding and more. "Donald Trump has never kept those separate. We know he hasn't kept them separate. Those are the reasons why the fact that Donald Trump may have been hacked raise additional concerns."
And, oh yeah, there is the newly revealed evidence, via the Dept. of Justice, that someone linked to Iran was recently working on an assassination plot against the former President. That, too, as she details today, plays into this initially hilarious and, on second thought, potentially horrifying turn of events...
(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)
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It was another not good day on The BradCast for entitled rightwingers working hard to undermine our American democracy. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
Among our coverage today...
BACKSTORY: Peters' breach in CO, which set off alarm bells at the time among voting system experts across the country, was one of several similar schemes apparently organized, in part, by former Trump attorney Sidney Powell in a futile effort to prove the 2020 election was stolen from him. Similar breaches were carried out in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where some of the breachers are also facing state criminal charges. Deadbeat fellow election denier and reportedly nearly bankrupt MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who is being sued for defamation by several voting machine companies, aided and abetted Peters' crimes in various ways after the Mesa County voting software was released while she was on stage at Lindell's silly "cyber-symposium" in South Dakota.
BACKSTORY: Back in 2011, we reported on then Utah U.S. Senate candidate Mitt Romney having done damn near the same thing. He had owned mansions in both New Hampshire and California, but, in 2010, he fraudulently registered to vote for a U.S. Senate Special Election in Massachusetts, where he had previously served as Governor, using his son's unfinished basement as his voting address. Nonetheless, despite their pretend opposition to election fraud, the Republican Party would later go on to nominate the fraudster Romney as their Presidential nominee in 2012.
BACKSTORY: The UAW, and almost every other major labor union, has endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. UAW President Shawn Fain appeared at a rally with Harris and her running-mate Tim Walz in Detroit last week (the one with 15,000 attendees who Trump claims were not there, but were all A.I.) and described Trump as "a scab" who "doesn't know shit about the auto industry and doesn't give a damn about the working class in this country."
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On today's BradCast: After the recent Republican National Convention, LULAC has decided they've had enough. They are coming off the sidelines for the first time in their nearly century-long history to endorse a Presidential ticket. [Audio link to full show follows below.]
Over the past week, Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris, with her "joyful warrior" running mate, MN Gov. Tim Walz, have been barnstorming battleground states with rallies attracting 10,000 or 15,000 people at every stop. Her poll numbers are soaring (the NYT/Sienna poll, which has been very friendly to Donald Trump in recent months, now puts the Harris up by 4 points in each of the Democrats' key, must-win "Blue Wall" states (Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) and both major labor unions and civil rights groups are jumping on board the train to endorse the Democratic Presidential ticket.
But, on Friday, the political arm of one such civil rights group, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the nation's largest and oldest Latino advocacy group, did something they haven't done in their nearly 100 year history: they endorsed a Presidential ticket. In this case, they are tossing in for the Harris/Walz ticket.
We're joined today by former LULAC President and current Chair of the LULAC Adelante PAC, DOMINGO GARCIA, to explain why the group finally decided, through a unanimous vote, they had to get off the sidelines and get into this fight against the menace posed to the nation --- and specifically to Latinos --- by Donald Trump.
"We saw the rhetoric coming from ex-President Trump saying that he was going to deport 15 million people; he was going to build these mass concentration-deportation camps; he was going to have the Army go door to door and ask people for their papers. These are just bizarro, weirdo ideas," Garcia tells me. "Then we saw the visions of the Republican National Convention, of people [holding signs] saying 'mass deportations'. We were saying, 'Whoa, these guys have gone to the extreme far-right, with almost neo-Nazi Klan mindsets that need to be stopped."
Garcia explains why the group, which was founded after WWI, and considered one of the more conservative civil rights groups, finally learned to believe Trump after his campaigns in 2016 and 2020.
"We take Trump at his word now," says Garcia, noting they didn't believe Trump in 2016 that he was going to separate children from their parents. "And he did! We did not believe him. We did not think there was anybody capable of that kind of cruelty," he explains, recoiling from the sight of two and three-year olds in prison buses. "It was so shocking that that was happening to America. To have a repeat this cycle --- we support securing the border; we support opening up legal immigration and cracking down on illegal immigration --- but doing it in this sort of evil, cruel way, using immigrants for fear-mongering, scapegoating, and as his political pinatas, we said we have to put a stop to that."
Garcia believes that LULAC has the reach to stop Trump, particularly in battleground states like Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the Latino populations easily overcome the margins in the Presidential races over the last two cycles.
Among the other points Garcia speaks to on today's program...
FINALLY, as Harris/Walz continue to climb in the polls with their hopeful, positive campaign --- in contrast to Trump's dark, dystopian message --- listeners ring in on the addition of Walz to the ticket, and the madness of Trump, who now says that the tens of thousands turning out for Harris/Walz rallies is actually fake and being done by Artificial Intelligence. Yes, he is really claiming that the numbers that the Democratic ticket is drawing for rallies --- and caught on video by thousands of people --- is actually somewhere between zero and 1,000 or so, but for the use of A.I. to hoax the public into believing tens of thousands were there instead. Seriously. That's what he now says...
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Our initial plans for today's BradCast were somewhat sullied by the disgraced former President's last minute announcement of what he called a "press conference" down at his resort home this afternoon. But he's also somewhat sullied the last 10 years or so of life in America, so we should be used to it by now. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
Among our coverage today...
(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)
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"Thank you, Madame Vice President, for the trust you put in me," he said as he began his remarks during their first public appearance together as running mates on the 2024 Democratic ticket. "But, maybe more so, thank you for bringing back the joy." We send our thanks in return on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]
But, very quickly before we get there today, we've got a few of the noteworthy reported results from Tuesday's largely problem-free (so far) Congressional and state primary elections in Michigan, Missouri, Kansas and Washington state. And a few thoughts on Donald Trump's latest pathetic attempt to remain relevant by endorsing more than one --- sometimes all of the top contenders --- in the same Republican primary race. What a loser.
THEN... it's on to our roundtable guests today, who seem to be in a very good mood for some reason, after the Democrats' now official 2024 Presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, tapped Minnesota's progressive Governor Tim Walz as her VP candidate on Tuesday.
Walz, as we discuss, has a life and political biography that, if he was a fictional character in a political miniseries, you'd think the writers had laid it on a little thick. But, sure enough, Walz' extraordinary career and accomplishments --- born in rural Nebraska; 24 years of decorated service in the Army National Guard; 20 years as a high school teacher and state champion football coach; 12 years in the U.S. House; and two wildly effective terms as MN Governor, including the passage of a slew of popular progressive priorities --- all seem quite real. AND, it has all been carried out, it seems, with much of the same "joy" he thanked Harris for "bringing back" during their first joint appearance on Tuesday in Philadelphia.
Now, as the Dem ticket's poll numbers continue to surge, the pair is off and running with joint appearances in at least five battleground states this week, while Trump is set to appear in, well, just Montana for some reason.
We're joined again today for another one of our weekly roundtables with two very smart and fellow old school bloggers, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Hullabaloo, and 'DRIFTGLASS' of The Pro Left Podcast. They were last on the show together just three weeks ago. But, boy howdy, was that a different world, as Dems were still trying to figure out how to survive with Joe Biden at the top of their ticket following his disastrous late-June debate performance. What a difference three weeks makes.
Today, we are focused on the selection of Walz as VP and what all of that means for both the electrified Dem and seemingly stultified GOP tickets. By way of just a quick sample from our conversation today, from both guests in response to Harris' selection of Walz...
There is much more where all of that comes from today, on how the progressive AOC and rightwing Joe Manchin are actually in agreement that Walz is an "excellent decision" and "the real deal"; on Team Trump's hilariously flatfooted response; on the one option the GOP could (but won't) deploy to turn things around; on "mind[ing] your own damn business"; on Minnesota/San Francisco/American values; on whether Trump could ever dump Vance; on whether the Dem momentum can continue for another 90 days; on Trump's bizarre post-Walz meltdown; and much more...
(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)
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Today on The BradCast: Well, the past 24 hours have turned out to be rather historic. At least I hope. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]
After having become the nation's first female Vice President, Kamala Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Asian immigrants, was officially selected on Monday night by Democratic National Party delegates via an online roll call vote to become the first woman of color to lead a major party's Presidential ticket.
But the California Democrat stepped on her own history-making moment by Tuesday morning when announcing her selection for Vice President: 24-year Army National Guardsman, former high school teacher and football coach, 12-year Congressman and two-term Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
In the hours since, the affable, blessedly normal, very progressive 60-year old, union-supporting Nebraska native --- who flipped a rural Minnesota Congressional seat from red to blue in 2006 --- became a bit of a national sensation, it seems to me. He was, after all, the one who appears to have cracked the code of how to attack the Republicans' standard-bearer Donald Trump and his Vice-Presidential candidate J.D. Vance with a simple, and even "Minnesota Nice" dismissal by referring to them as just plain "weird".
But, as our guest today, The Nation's progressive journalist, author, longtime Walz fan and native son of MN's neighboring rust belt state of Wisconsin, JOHN NICHOLS, makes clear, Walz didn't just come from nowhere. He has a history that Nichols has been sharing for days --- well before today's announcement --- on his Twitter feed, with links to some great Walz moments over the years. His incredibly moving radio ad when first introducing himself to run for Congress in 2006; his sweeping video ad announcing his gubernatorial run in 2018; an impassioned, ass-kicking speech at the MN Legislature as Governor in 2023, as the 2nd Amendment supporter and 24-year veteran, deployed both domestically and overseas, promised (and then delivered) long-overdue gun safety laws to finally help stop the massacre of school children; being hugged by school children after signing a bill to ensure free public school breakfast and lunches for all; a telling moment when the Governor, in well-worn blue jeans, bends over to tie the shoe of a little girl.
"He is kind of an outsider on the national political scene," Nichols tells me today, when explaining why he's been posting Tweet after Tweet in support of Walz in recent days. "As of a couple of weeks ago, it's safe to say that 99 out of 100 Americans couldn't have identified him out of a lineup. So in a very short amount of time, this guy has come not from the mainstream, inner circle of the elite Washington Democratic Party, but from way outside, up on the border with Canada."
"So I think there was a lot that people needed to understand quickly about the guy, and that's one of the reasons why I posted a lot of those old campaign ads and videos --- so people could understand that he didn't just appear out of nowhere. This is kind of an amazing political figure."
America is certainly learning that as of today, after what Nichols reported at The Nation this afternoon as the Paul Wellstone disciple who rose to the top during "a two-week 'virtual campaign' in which [Harris' Veep contenders] would present themselves to the party and to the candidate and to the nation. ... And, in so doing, she freed herself up to the prospect that the final pick might not be a predictable insider, or, to be more precise, the predictable choice of the predictable insiders."
"There's nothing radical about Tim Walz," Nichols tweeted today, "except for his faith in the American people. He believes in an America where we treat one another as neighbors, lift one another up and build a future where no one is left behind. Walz is the opposite of JD Vance."
Nichols has a lot to share about Walz' background, Harris' courageous selection, and how he believes that Trump has been "destabilized" by all that has happened over the past two weeks following Joe Biden stepping aside to make way for Harris. "Trump really does believe in a cult of personality. So, he couldn't possibly imagine that Biden would ever give up the leadership of the party, never give up the candidacy. Well, Biden isn't a cult of personality guy. He did give it up. That threw Trump off. I think Trump is still destabilized simply by that reality."
"And then comes this good-humored guy out of the Midwest. Somebody who really does speak to a lot of the people Trump has tried to speak to, but instead of Trumpish-language --- 'I'm a billionaire from New York who knows things you don't know.' Tim Walz comes along and says, 'I'm a teacher from Mankato. I know a lot of things you know. I get you. I get what you need. And I'm telling you, you're not getting it from a weirdo.' Suddenly, it's like the whole conversation has changed. ... And the Republicans are frankly going crazy."
Nichols also explains how Walz on the ticket from neighboring MN, will "absolutely" have an effect on voters in the "Blue Wall" state of WI and beyond, and why the Trump Campaign's laughable attack on Walz as a "West Coast wannabe...obsessed with spreading California's dangerously liberal agenda far and wide" is probably going to miss by a California mile.
FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the climate change-enhanced Hurricane Debby wreaks havoc across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina; as climate change changed the Paris Summer Games; as victims of the climate change-exacerbated wild fires in Maui get a small measure of justice; and as oil major BP is now all but conceding that fossil fuels will soon be on their way out...
(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)
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We've got a flood of news on today's BradCast. Unfortunately, some of that reference is also literal. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
Among our many stories today...
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Lots of good news and/or bad news on today's BradCast depending on how you may choose to see any of it. [Audio link to full program follows this summary.]
FIRST UP... The mid-level appeals court in New York (just below its highest court) rejected Donald Trump's attempt to lift whatever remains of the gag order against him in his hush-money case on Thursday. That's the case where he's been convicted of 34 felony counts for falsifying business records to hide a sexual tryst with a porn star in order to help him win the 2016 Presidential election. The gag order --- preventing him from attacking family members of the judge, etc. --- is likely to be lifted once Trump is sentenced on September 18, if in fact he sentenced at that time. The judge on the case, Justice Juan Merchan will decide on September 6th whether the case must be tossed entirely, given the corrupt U.S. Supreme Court's ridiculous, but still binding, recent ruling that Presidents are immune from prosecution for almost any and all crimes committed while serving in office.
THEN... Big news today from the White House as President Biden announced a multinational prisoner swap with Russia, that includes prisoners released from six different countries. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Marine vet Paul Whelan are among those Americans released by Russia today, along with a number of other journalists and political dissidents wrongly held by Russia, according to the U.S. Some of the prisoners, in fact, have been held for years, including Whelan who had been imprisoned since being arrested while attending a wedding in Russia in 2018.
Some critics, however, have charged that such deals --- often including the release of serious criminals --- merely incentive the taking of "hostages". The lead U.S. hostage negotiator, however, responds that, despite 70 Americans whose releases were won by the Biden Administration, the number of those taken captive has fallen. When asked by a reporter at the White House today about Trump's repeated comments that he could have brought these people whom without "paying" anything, Biden responded: "Why didn't he do it when he was President?"
NEXT... Earlier this week, President Biden detailed his three-part proposal for long-overdue reform of our corrupted, packed, stolen and activist U.S. Supreme Court. His proposed reforms include 18-year term limits for Justices, allowing every President to name a new Justice every two years; an enforceable, binding code of conduct, to prevent Justices from accepting undisclosed gifts and requiring them to recuse themselves from cases in which they have conflicts of interest; and a call for a Constitutional Amendment to roll back the Court's recent, absurd ruling that Presidents --- like kings --- enjoy near absolute immunity for all crimes committed while in office.
Biden has referred to his proposed Constitutional amendment as the "No One is Above the Law" Amendment. And on Thursday, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and 34 other Democratic Senators, released their own proposal for legislation they are calling the "No Kings Act". It is similar to the Constitutional Amendment sought by Biden, but, according to Schumer today, "would be the fastest and most efficient method to correcting the grave precedent the Trump [immunity] ruling presented." Schumer describes that ruling as a "dangerous and devastating" one, adopted by "the MAGA Supreme Court".
We're joined today by attorney JAY WILLIS, editor-in-chief of the Balls and Strikes website, which focuses on the Courts and court reform. Willis recently described Biden's proposal as "a nice first step", while explaining why doesn't go far enough. "The only way to solve the problem of a Court controlled by a conservative supermajority is to add justices to it," he wrote, charging that the benefits of Biden (and Schumer's) current proposals are swell, and broadly popular, but won't be truly felt for generations. "Backing term limits without also backing Court expansion is like explaining the concept of a life preserver to a person who is actively drowning," he quipped.
Today, Willis tells me: "My attitude towards Court reform is basically that it's difficult to go far enough to repair an institution this broken." He cites the broad bipartisan support for both term-limits and a binding ethics code, calling them "not particularly controversial policy ideas." But without expansion of the Court, he argues --- which is also popular, if not quite as much so for the time being --- the Constitutional damage that these current rightwing activist Justices will be able sow is virtually limitless.
We also discuss the difference between Biden's call for a Constitutional Amendment to overturn SCOTUS' immunity ruling and Schumer's push for legislation instead, and why some believe that any attempt by Congress to impose term-limits on Justices would be found to be unconstitutional. Ironically, it would be the Justices themselves, in theory, who would be the ones to make that ultimate finding. (Though shouldn't they all recuse themselves from such a case? If so, then what?)
"As long as John Roberts is in charge of this Court," Willis says that he expects any ruling on these matters would contain "a lot of, 'Thanks for playing Congress. Thanks for your opinion on what the Constitution means. But this is really our job, not yours.'"
In a follow-up piece, Willis detailed where Vice President --- and the Democrats' presumptive 2024 Presidential nominee --- Kamala Harris stands on the various elements of Court reform as sought by Biden, as well as for expansion of the Court to help UNpack it after the damage done during the Trump years.
FINALLY... Desi Doyen joins us for today's particular grim Green News Report today, though one that ends on a high note, at least!...
(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)
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Ain't democracy grand? Messy, unpredictable, maddening, sure. But also grand. And we've got a lot of it to talk about on today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
ARIZONA PRIMARY RESULTS
Republicans were turning on fellow Republicans during Congressional and local primaries in the Grand Canyon State on Tuesday. We know, however, there was absolutely no fraud or tabulation error anywhere in the state, because perennial election denier and loser, Kari Lake, actually won her primary for U.S. Senate. She'll run against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in November for the seat vacated by rightwing former Dem Kyrsten Sinema.
In Maricopa County, where 60% of AZ votes are cast, far-right Republicans sadly took down a bunch of not-crazy Republican officials, including the County's very good elections chief, County Recorder Stephen Richer, along with several other not-insane Republicans on the Maricopa Board of Supervisors. Their crime: telling the truth about the fact that Trump lost the County in 2020. All of that, on the other hand, may give Democrats, many of whom ran uncontested on Tuesday, a chance to turn the County even bluer this November.
Also sadly, Republican former Sec. of State and (real) election reform champion Ken Bennett was unseated in the state Senate by Trump loyalist, election denier loon and 2022's failed GOP Sec. of State nominee Mark Finchem in a rather red district. (See my interview with Bennett on his very good, bipartisan, election transparency bill last year on this program right here.) Nonetheless, Dems now have a very real chance of flipping both chambers of the AZ State Legislature this fall.
VENEZUELA ELECTION STANDOFF
President Nicolas Maduro's National Election Council is still claiming that Maduro won Sunday's Presidential election. The broadly supported opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez is still claiming that Maduro lost --- in a landslide. But Maduro has so far refused to release actual election results from tens of thousands of polling places, so it's impossible to know who actually won.
We don't have a political dog in this hunt, other than in favor of democracy and the notion that the candidate who received the most votes should be declared the winner of the election. Now, the Carter Center, which was allowed to observe the election, the U.S. Government (longtime Maduro opponents) and Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Gustavo Petro of Colombia (both allies of the Venezuelan President) are all demanding that Maduro transparently release all polling place election results. They are all correct to do so.
KAMALA V. TRUMP
Finally, as Democratic Party delegates prepare to officially certify their new nominee without any challengers this weekend, and as more new polling finds Kamala Harris surging against Donald Trump both nationally and in swing states, we take some time once again today to try and make sense of the state of this extraordinary race.
We're joined today by two longtime old school bloggers and podcasters, our friends 'DRIFTGLASS' of his eponymously named blog, and his wife FRANCES LANGUM, also known as BlueGal, who serves as Associate Editor at the Crooks & Liars blog. They both produce and co-host The Professional Left Podcast each week from their home in "Flyover Country, Illinois."
And they've both got lots of smart insight today, as we discuss....
All of that and much more --- including words from Drifty's "Crazy Uncle Liberty" and Fran's insistence that the Trump Campaign is now desperate because they are all but broke --- on today's BradCast!...
(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)
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If you haven't begun already, as detailed on today's BradCast (along with much else), now is a good time to start keeping your eyes on the many ways that Republicans are planning to "legally" steal the November election in the event that, once again, they can't win it the old fashioned way by receiving more votes and an electoral Electoral College victory with them. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
Recently, Kevin Roberts (pictured above), the President of the far-right Heritage Foundation, creators of "Project 2025" --- an extremist 900-page manifesto designed to repeal the 20th century the next time a Republican wins the White House --- told supporters: "We are winning. There are a lot of victories that have been secured. Some of them are partial. Some of them in ways that the other side doesn't yet know, are foundations for what's coming. And that's just the beginning. And we're not gonna tell ya everything that's coming."
Today, after weeks of focus on that Project 2025 by Democrats and media, it's nominal operational director, Paul Dans, stepped down to assuage Donald Trump, who both doesn't like the fact that Project 2025 makes him look like the puppet of more than a hundred far-right organizations and his own former Administration officials (which he is), and because the document is so extremist that he'd prefer to keep all of its atrocities under wraps until he's safely back in office. But those plans to gut the government as we know it and place a Republican President in direct autocratic control of every government agency, aren't going away, even if Heritage and friends have now been ordered to tone it down for a while until Trump can be installed back into the Oval Office.
As corporate media outlets are finally reporting on Project 2025, Roberts' plans for "victories...that the other side doesn't yet know...and [he's] not gonna tell" us about for now, are becoming clearer by the day, nonetheless. Largely, they are about stealing the election in advance by voter suppression assisted by corrupt friends now seated on the courts; stealing it during the tabulation by the many Trump-supporting election denialist who now serve as county election officials in battleground states, where they plan to prevent certification of a Trump loss; and, in doing so, create enough havoc after the election to toss the Electoral College certification on January 6 to the U.S. House, where Republicans hope to control a majority of state delegations in order to name Trump the "winner", even if he loses again, as he did in 2020.
We detail just some of those plots and plans, along with much more, on today's program. Among our many stories today...
(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)
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The fight for election integrity and for democracy over autocracy continues on today's BradCast, from Venezuela to the United States. [Audio link to full show follows below.]
Among today's topics...
(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)
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