On today’s BradCast, let’s join the President and pretend that he’s been victorious once again! Or, let’s discuss the reality of the havoc being wrought by both him and the party that supports him as they go even farther off the deep-end and hope to take everybody else with them. [Audio link to show is posted below.]
Among the stories covered on today’s broadcast, as we continue to counter the madness with actual, independently verifiable facts…
- Trump wreaks absolute havoc at the NATO summit in Brussels, makes ridiculous demands that lead to an emergency meeting of our allies, and then declares he’s fixed it all. He hasn’t. But, let’s pretend, as he claimed, that NATO is now a “fine-tuned machine”. (Does that claim ring a bell?) We offer a fact-check on Trump’s actual ridiculous claims and the realities behind them;
- Back at home, Trump-fueled chaos similarly breaks out at a joint hearing of the U.S. House Oversight and Judiciary Committees during public testimony by longtime top FBI counter-intelligence official Peter Strzok, whose private text messages to his girlfriend, another FBI agent, have been cause for Trump, the GOP and rightwing media to pretend that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation was somehow part of a long “deep state” plot by the FBI to prevent Trump from being elected. Except he was elected. (Some plot!) And Mueller’s probe has since resulted in dozens of indictments and guilty pleas from many top Trump campaign and White House officials. But we can keep pretending; In some remarkable audio from the insane hearing in the House today today, Strzok strikes back and helps reveal the Republican House witch-hunt against the Special Counsel for much of what it really is.
- Speaking of reality, new data out from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and elsewhere reveals that not only have the Trump/GOP tax cuts from last December not resulted in increased pay for the “forgotten men and women” of the middle-class, as they’d promised, but workers are now actually making less than they did before the massive, deficit-blowing cuts which have resulted only in record profits for corporations and the already-wealthy;
- Listeners offer response to our recent coverage of Trump’s SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Democrats’, so far, tepid plan to block his confirmation. (Constitutional quorum call, anyone?);
- And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with more on the existential threat Kavanaugh’s seating poses to the environment, how a major oil company CEO is calling for a speed-up of the transition to electric vehicles, and how a world full of poo just might save itself…
The BradCast
with Brad Friedman
7/12/2018
Trump’s ‘Fine-Tuned Machine’ Wreaks Havoc at NATO, in Congress and for U.S. Workers: ‘BradCast’ 7/12/2018 | Also: Listeners respond to Dem plan to block Kavanaugh at SCOTUS... · · · · · Trump’s ‘Fine-Tuned Machine’ Wreaks Havoc at NATO, in Congress and for U.S. Workers: ‘BradCast’ 7/12/2018 | Also: Listeners respond to Dem plan to block Kavanaugh at SCOTUS...
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Is it me or does the banjo kid in Deliverance look like a much younger Trey Gowdy?
Send in the clowns (The Shapeshifters of Bullshitistan – 15).
Desi notes that a Dem quorum-stopping walk-out “would create the kind of media spectacle to highlight the Republican’s theft of the Supreme Court”.
It would certainly create a media spectacle, and one that would captivate the world (given that so much of it is at the receiving end of retrograde policies) and not just Americans.
The only fly in the ointment would be the media itself: it still has not characterized the Republican Senators’ denial of a hearing to Barack Obama’s Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, as what it was, an out-and-out theft of a seat on the high Court. Would this same media correctly characterize the reasons for a Democratic quorum-denying walk-out? Probably not. Rather, the American corporate media (and here I include NPR in that designation, since they take corporate money and run commercial ads disguised as “enhanced sponsorships”) would first ponder what the reason for such a walk-out could possible be. And for answers they would go to (*(*wait for it*) TRUMP SUPPORTERS! They would not send journalists to interview Democratic officeholders or THEIR supporters and voters.
Nope.
They would turn only to White, overweight (sorry to be unkind) be-MAGA-capped, past-middle-aged reactionaries, grousing in diners in heartland-rustbelt-agribusiness-istan. And when the media is not doing that look for a lot of “concern trolling”-style punditry that questions the wisdom of alienating conservatives with that kind of action. Cue the “civility police” to ask if the Democrats really care about “democracy” or are just trying to prove a point to… who, exactly? Because we all know that America does not have progressives and other decent people who could be the intended audience.
In short, while decent people cheer on the Dems the media would still be trying to tell the Dems (and us) that there is no audience for that sort of thing. The Dems would be accused of playing into Trump’s or (with zero sense of irony) into Putin’s hands.
The remedial actions taken by the Dems would not be characterized accurately by the corporate media, leaving the public un-provided with an explanation for those actions. Despite that, however, the public (that is, the decent part of the public) would still “get it”.
And if they pulled it off and avoided the possible result (as chillingly described by Brad’s dad) of turning the congress over to un-resisted Republican control they would go down in history in delivering the first blow that could literally (not metaphorically) save this nation. I mean PHYSICALLY save this nation, as a political formation in its current iteration covering geographic space on the North American continent. The corporate press would still refuse to recognize the nature of such events, even as a likely result of Dem’s action would be the preservation of their very profession. If the Dems take the Senate with a solid two votes in their favor (someone correct me if I am wrong) their quorum-denying majority is the force-field that could block the end of the nation. That, and masses in the streets backing them up.
There is a scene in HULU’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” in which June/Offred is in hiding in an industrial building in Boston. While inside of it she goes looking around and makes an awful discovery. That is all that I will disclose for those who have not seen it. To those who have seen it, the likely reason for my referencing it here will not seem wholly without purpose.
If Trump gets as far as a third Supreme Court pick don’t think that a blue-state secession, dimly considering a view towards a possible unification with Canada, will remain only a fringe-y consideration. If Trump gets his third pick it may be too late for any effective redress that could take hold in the short term that could stop the slide to something unthinkably dark.
Brad is right: this is a national emergency. This is not a f*cking drill! It never was.
It did not ever occur to me that I could live to see the true end of this country, that it could break up like the former Soviet Union did.
Ronald Reagan responded to a question regarding the economic threat that the arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States posed domestically by saying, “They’ll bust first.” He took pride in that.
And now it appears that due to the United States’ own internal contradictions, and all of which are of its own making, post-Soviet Russia, by merely adding its own small contribution, may well return the favor.