Today, on our last new BradCast of 2024: It’s beginning to look a lot like failure, everywhere you look in D.C. It’s already getting pathetic before either the new majorities are sworn in to Congress or the new Administration officially takes over the White House. But we’re all here for the GOP fiascos today! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
FIRST UP… A state appeals court panel in Georgia ruled 2 to 1 on Thursday that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis must be disqualified from the racketeering indictment she filed against Donald Trump and 18-conspirators for their failed attempt to steal the state from Joe Biden in 2020. The case itself, however, may continue. The court cited an “appearance of impropriety” related to Willis’ romantic relationship with a former Special Prosecutor assigned to the same case. She quickly filed an appeal to the ruling today, but it could be the end to this criminal case against the convicted felon who will be sworn in as President, even though today’s ruling could still be overturned by the state Supreme Court or Georgia’s Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council could reassign the case to another prosecution team.
THEN… If you’re looking for an idea of what next year may be like in Congress, when Republicans in the U.S. House will have an even slimmer majority than they do now, and when Donald Trump will be “running the ship” in the White House, look no farther than the clusterf__k that has unfolded over the past 24 hours in the House. A bipartisan, bicameral deal to avoid a Government shutdown on Friday, just before Christmas, was effectively nixed by… Elon Musk, the unelected South African who appears to have purchased not just the Presidency, but the entirety of the U.S. Government with his $277 million investment on Trump’s behalf in the 2024 Presidential election.
After a few of Musk’s tweets against it yesterday — despite clearly never even having read a single page of the three-month Continuing Resolution meant largely to keep the government operating until a full budget deal could be reached in March — the bill was pronounced dead. Then Trump jumped in, late in the game, to say that he too — just like Elon! — was against the bill! Even though he could have rung in to kill it or change it any time long before yesterday. Musk, the richest man in the world, and perhaps the most clueless (at least when it comes to how government and legislation works) now seems to be running the GOP ship in D.C., despite having no clue how to run a D.C. ship.
Trump then began demanding an end to the very idea of a Debt Ceiling despite the Debt Ceiling having nothing to do with this week’s must-pass legislation. (His newfound objection to it is apparently because he doesn’t want to have the raise the Debt Ceiling on his watch, so he’ll be free when he does to blow up the national debt with new, enormous tax cuts for his wealthy pals…like Elon!) This afternoon a new bill was cobbled together that Trump claimed to support. But, minutes after we got off air, that measure failed, as Democrats were no longer interested in helping Speaker Mike Johnson — or Trump or President Musk — out of their own mess.
Of course, that’s not all that’s happening at years-end. And we’ve got two of our good friends and fan faves here to try and make sense (or not) of much of it. We’re joined once again today by fellow old-school bloggers, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON of Salon and Digby’s Hullabaloo blog, and DRIFTGLASS, author of his own eponymously-named blog and co-host of the weekly Professional Left Podcast, for an end-of-year roundtable, of sorts.
As usual, they’ve both got keen insight on the idiocy unfurling in D.C. today and much more, including such topics as…
- DRONES over New Jersey!!! (Also: Who cares?)
- Elon’s buffoonery and Trump’s diminishment.
- Mike Johnson’s likely brief future as House Speaker.
- Consequences and dangers (for voters, for January 6th, for Inauguration Day) of a GOP holiday government shutdown and a GOP failure to elect a House Speaker.
- Corporate CEOs kissing Trump’s ass, for some reason.
- Will we be targeted by the new Administration?
- Should Joe Biden offer preemptive pardons to people like Liz Cheney?
- Do Dems really need to reinvent themselves, as some claim, after narrowly losing the Presidency and picking up a seat in the House in November?
- Did the Dems blow an opportunity by not elevating superstar Rep. AOC to Ranking Member of the Oversight Committee?
…And what are Digby and Driftglass most worried about — and most hopeful for — in the new year, as a new Republican majority takes over Congress and either Trump or Musk take over the White House?
FINALLY… Desi Doyen is here for our last Green News Report of 2024, as the Biden EPA grants California‘s waiver to phase out sales of new, all-gasoline cars by 2035; A disturbing new study on microplastics and cancer; And Biden’s Dept. of Energy finds that GOP plans to expand natural gas exports will hike up prices for Americans…
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