Today was the first day that it really began to feel like things are finally falling completely apart for Donald Trump and his administration. [Audio link to show follows below.]
Among the mountain of stories covered on today’s BradCast amid an astonishing day of news on several fronts…
- The New York state Attorney General entered an agreement with the Trump Foundation to permanently shut down the supposed charitable organization. Her investigation and prosecution of alleged fraud, campaign violations and self-dealing via the organization by Trump, his three adult children and his 2016 campaign will continue, despite the Foundation’s dissolution;
- The Trump Administration blinked on Tuesday, at least a bit, following Trump’s previous televised threats to shut down the federal government this Friday over funding for his border wall with Mexico (which, we were repeatedly told during the campaign, they, not tax-payers, would pay for.) Last week, Trump said on camera he would be “proud” to shut down the federal government before Christmas if Democrats didn’t agree to $5 billion for wall funding in a budget agreement that must pass by this Friday. Today, Trump’s Press Secretary suggested they’d find the money elsewhere, even as Congress remained at a standstill with Republicans not having enough votes to pass a bill that meets Trump’s demands;
- At the same time, in a federal court room in D.C., Trump’s disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators last year, had been expected to walk away from his sentencing hearing a free man today following his cooperation with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team. They had requested no jail time for Flynn after his help in several known and unknown probes. But, thanks to Flynn’s attorneys falsely suggesting in a sentencing memorandum last week that he had been duped, tricked and entrapped by FBI investigators into lying about his contacts with the Russian ambassador, the sentencing was mercifully postponed until March. In a remarkable colloquy with U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Ronald Reagan appointee, Flynn quickly backed off his attorneys claims. In blistering remarks from the bench, Sullivan railed that he could not “hide my disgust, my disdain” for Flynn’s behavior, and upbraided the former top Trump official and retired Lt. General for having “arguably sold out your country”. A reportedly shaken Flynn then asked for his sentencing to be delayed, so that the could further cooperate with the Special Counsel in hopes of being credited to avoid jail time. All of that, after Trump had wished Flynn “good luck” via Twitter prior to today’s hearing;
- In Arizona, the loser of November’s U.S. Senate contest, Republican Rep. Martha McSally, was appointed by the state’s GOP Governor to take the seat of Sen. Jon Kyle, who had temporarily replaced the late Sen. John McCain earlier this year. McSally narrowly lost her Senate bid in November to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, who she had described as a “traitor” during the campaign. McSally also tried to make amends with McCain’s family after insulting the ailing Senator before his death;
- In the North Carolina GOP absentee ballot election fraud scandal, state Republicans reversed their position for a second time regarding the certification of Republican Mark Harris. State Republican leaders demanded that he be certified in the state’s 9th Congressional District House race, despite an ongoing fraud investigation. The current results show that Harris defeated Democrat Dan McCready by just 905 votes in November. The State Board of Elections, however, has refused to certify the race due to the allegations of absentee ballot fraud and has postponed it’s planned evidentiary hearing from December 21 to January 11, thanks to what the Board describes as delayed document production by subpoenaed parties. Harris has now admitted that he hired the GOP contractor accused of altering or withholding perhaps thousands of absentee ballots in the race;
- Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with a surprising amount of actually encouraging news for a change.
Yes, it really is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas…
The BradCast
with Brad Friedman
12/18/2018
It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas: Shutdowns, Reversals, Back-Flips, Accountability: ‘BradCast’ 12/18/2018 | Trump 'charity' shuttered; Admin backs off shutdown threat; Flynn sentencing fiasco; McSally appointed in AZ; NC-9 fraud hearing delayed... · · · · · It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas: Shutdowns, Reversals, Back-Flips, Accountability: ‘BradCast’ 12/18/2018 | Trump 'charity' shuttered; Admin backs off shutdown threat; Flynn sentencing fiasco; McSally appointed in AZ; NC-9 fraud hearing delayed...
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Since youse brought up the Trump shutdown (where Desi correctly predicted that Trump would wimp out on)…
…You know that continuing resolution that the House is working on to avert a shutdown? Well, its got a problem, foisted on it by Senator so-called Democrat Ben Cardin. It appears that he and other congress-critters snuck in a provision that would make boycotting Israel a crime.
Yes, a crime.
Apparently, the US is obligated to protect another nation’s economy from human rights critics who choose to spend their dollars on products NOT made by Israeli corporations that have production facilities in the occupied territories while insisting on calling those products “products of Israel” – I am looking at you, Sabra…)
From “The Hill”: https://thehill.com/homenews/ho...pending-debate
An opinion of the New York Times’ board: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12...srael-bds.html
And for a comprehensive read, see this in The Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2018/1...-anti-bds-law/. It starts with a story about a Palestinian American who had to leave her job in Texas because she would not sign a loyalty oath, one to protect another country from its American critics.