On today’s BradCast: We’re at the point in the ongoing impeachment inquiry of Donald J. Trump when the facts against him have become so damning that he and his supporters in Congress are pretty much just tossing everything they can against the wall to see what, if anything sticks. [Audio link to show is posted below.]
But first today, some long-overdue very good news out of North Carolina, where a three-judge state court panel has determined the state’s Republican-drawn Congressional maps to be an “extreme partisan gerrymander” and has ordered new maps before the 2020 elections. The court went so far as to state that no more Congressional elections may be run on the current maps, and if new ones aren’t drawn in time for next year’s March 3 primary election, the judges — two Democrats and a Republican — will postpone the primaries until they do.
The news is long-overdue, though hardly a surprise. North Carolina is the most divided of swing states, but the GOP-skewed maps have resulted in 3 Democrats and 10 Republicans in the state’s Congressional delegation for the past decade. A federal appeals court already ruled the same map to be an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander and ordered a new one drawn. But that ruling was ultimately over-ruled by the stolen Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, when they declared in a 5 to 4 opinion that federal courts may not hear partisan gerrymandering cases. Only state courts may now do so, and now North Carolina’s state court has done so. The same court ruled last month that the state’s legislative districts were also drawn in violation of the state constitution and ordered new maps there as well.
Meanwhile, speaking of Congress, a White House national security official and decorated Iraq War vet offered startling testimony to House impeachment investigators on Tuesday, regarding Trump’s scheme to withhold nearly $400 million in military assistance to Ukraine unless the nation’s President promised to investigate Joe Biden in advance of the 2020 election. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman serves as the top Ukraine expert on the White House’s National Security Council (NSC) and is the first official to testify in the impeachment matter who actually listened live to Trump’s infamous July 25 “I need a favor though” phone call with Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky.
According to Vindman’s prepared opening statement obtained by the New York Times, the veteran Army officer and longtime civil servant was so alarmed by Trump’s strong-arm tactics and withholding of military aid that, out of a “sense of duty”, he alerted the top lawyer at the NSC — twice — in order to register internal objections about the policy, which he feared would “undermine national security.”
“I am a patriot,” Vindman says in his testimony, “and it is my sacred duty and honor to advance and defend our country irrespective of party or politics.” Since news of his testimony broke on Monday night, rightwing media have been attacking the Purple Heart winner who was wounded by an IED in Iraq, as a traitor who must be working for Joe Biden or George Soros or Ukraine, after he fled the then Soviet-controlled country as a 3-year old with his parents in 1979.
Next, were joined by former Asst. U.S. Attorney turned George Washington University Law School professor RANDALL ELIASON to discuss the Republicans’ continuing, nonsensical whining that the impeachment inquiry lacks “due process” for the President. Though each of their arguments toward that end have been dismantled by both facts and federal courts in recent days, they are still making the case which Eliason describes as “nonsense” in his latest Washington Post op-ed.
He explains why on today’s program, noting the old “saying in Washington, that if you’re arguing about process then you’re losing,” adding: “I think that’s certainly the case here.” Eliason, a longtime expert in white collar crime, government fraud and federal criminal law, responds to a number of different allegations being offered by Trump and his defenders, including the specious claim that there is no crime at the heart of Trump’s quid pro quo pressure campaign against Ukraine.
He also offers his thoughts on the recent news — and “incredibly suspicious” timing behind it — that Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr has elevated the Dept. of Justice’s probe into the origins of the 2016 investigation into Russian election meddling into a criminal investigation of some sort.
Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on California’s wind-drive wildfires, Massachusetts’ new climate fraud lawsuit against Exxon Mobil, and Trump’s new plan to steal Syria’s oil in violation of international law. Also, as we close, late news and a few thoughts on the nation’s largest private coal company, Murray Energy, declaring bankruptcy protection today. So much for Trump’s promise to save the dirty coal industry. Now, what about the company’s long-serving coal miners who may very well lose their pensions and health care under Trump-supporter Robert Murray’s scheme to restructure his dying company?…
I assume Col. Alexander Vindman is entirely trustworthy and dependable.
I’m sure his being **Soviet-born** is simply not a factor here.
😉
DonL @ 1:
Fair. Though I did mention that. That said, is there reason to believe he might have interests that favor Russia?
I am just trying to underline the absurdity of the label, “Soviet-born”, whichever side it is applied to.
It has absolutely no verifiable relevance to today’s issues whatsoever.
It’s just a smear.
I merely hit back at it with sarcasm.
I see its use as a clue to a *pro-new cold war bias* of the writers who use it, and others who may unwittingly have joined in.
Nothing more, IMO.
All smart people should avoid the term, IMO.
We need to leave that term’s current use up to the corporate media, which is where it came from in the 1st place.
DonL said @3:
I disagree. While I share you concerns about the “pro-new cold war bias”, as I hope you know, there is legit, newsworthy reason to note the backgrounds of both Lev and Igor in the first instance, and Vindman in this second one. At least as I have done so. I can’t speak to the motivations of others’ use of the phrase. Neither do I think I should be blamed for their use of it.
I’m happy to take responsibility for my own use of it, however, which I stand by.