On today’s BradCast: The monster isn’t quite dead yet, but it’s getting close. His zombie minions, however, pose an entirely different concern. [Audio link to full show is posted beneath summary below.]
Late on Thursday night, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito announced a schedule for the Court to examine a late challenge to Pennsylvania‘s election results, as filed by a top Trump ally in Congress and a number of state lawmakers. If successful, the challenge would result in the disqualification of hundreds of thousands of lawfully cast ballots in the Keystone State, handing its electors to the loser, Donald Trump. But Alito’s delayed schedule to review the case — until after the statutory so-called “safe harbor date” to conclude state Electoral College result challenges — appears to all but preclude the possibility of SCOTUS overturning results in the state showing that Joe Biden defeated Trump by more than 80,000 votes.
That case, just like all of those filed (and rejected) by the Trump Campaign to date, does notinclude any evidence or allegation of fraud, widespread or otherwise.
So, is Trump’s narrow path to overturning the will of the people now completely shut? Almost…though it’s not quite foreclosed just yet, as we explain.
Then, following a week of death threats against Republican officials across the country by Republican supporters of Trump, as encouraged by the President of the United States himself, an expert in terrorism and insurgencies joins us to explain why he believes Trump is now actively laying the groundwork for a violent insurgency during Joe Biden’s presidency.
COLIN P. CLARKE, is a senior research fellow at The Soufan Center, where he studies terrorism, insurgency and political violence. This week, in an Los Angeles Times op-ed, he argued that “President Trump’s post-election antics are dangerous.” Clarke, who has studied every political insurgency between WWII and 2009 writes: “I firmly believe that the president of the United States is laying the groundwork for violence and disruption to unfold regularly over the next four years. As a national security researcher, I never imagined I’d write that sentence.”
Clarke, who also teaches Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy (IPS) and is author of a number of books on international terrorism, joins us today to explain his concerns, the evidence for them and why he believes it’s important for Americans to understand the very real threat posed to U.S. national security by Donald J. Trump.
“Beyond just embarrassing himself, his administration and his band of sycophants, he’s endangering the country,” Clarke tells me. “As a counter-terrorism analyst, I find it my duty to be a sober assessor, to err on the side of caution, not to think that the sky is falling at all times. But I genuinely believe that what the President is doing right now is actively and deliberately attempting to undermine the legitimacy of the elections, of our democracy, and of the incoming Biden Administration.”
Amid what Clarke describes as a political “tinderbox” created in the U.S. over the past four years, he charges that “Trump has always thrived on instability. He doesn’t care if it happens to be in his own country. I don’t consider him a patriot. I don’t think he has the best interests of the United States in mind, and I don’t think he ever has.”
Following last week’s assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist (as discussed on a BradCast earlier this week with former National Security Council member William Tobey), Clarke also offers his assessment of whether it is the Islamic Republic or Trump himself who poses a greater threat to national security as Biden begins his Presidency next month.
Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report as the U.N. issues another dire warning on humanity “waging war against nature,”; the world’s formerly most profitable corporation, Exxon Mobil, sees its value quickly disappearing as the world continues to move away from disastrously climate changing fossil fuels; and New Zealand’s government declares a climate emergency and vows to reach net-zero carbon neutrality by 2025.
P.S. If you’re wondering about that pretty hilarious clip we opened today’s show with from the Lincoln Project, the full uncensored version is posted here.
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