It’s our last BradCast today before our Thanksgiving break. And, frankly, it was a very different show than the one I went to bed last night pondering for today. Blame the pathetic, desperate, criminal coward in the White House. Again. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
Today, in several posts to his failing social media site, an increasingly unhinged Donald Trump, the President of the United States, called for six Democratic members of Congress — four House members and two Senators, all distinguished veterans of the U.S. armed forces or intelligence services — to be killed.
Their “crime”? Advising U.S. service members, in a 90-second video on Tuesday, that they may — indeed, they must — “refuse illegal orders.”
It’s not particularly controversial. But today, Trump, who is floundering in virtually every aspect of his job, pretended to be outraged, repeatedly describing the comments from those Democrats as “SEDITIOUS”, describing them as “TRAITORS” and calling for them to be put to “DEATH!” (That, even though he pardoned actual seditionists that he incited to try and overthrow the U.S. Government on January 6, 2021.)
In addition to his own words, Trump also elevated another wingnut loon on his social media site who declared: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!”
Just two months ago, Republicans pretended to be furious about political violence and words that might lead to it following the murder of a far-right Republican activist. But, since Trump is now calling for the deaths of Democratic members of Congress, his lackeys and quislings at both the White House and in Congress are joining Dear Leader. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, pretending to be furious today, for example, falsely charged that those six elected officials and distinguished veterans “encourage[d] young troops to disobey orders”. He forgot to mention that the orders in question are unlawful ones, as the Dems repeated over and again while reminding those “young troops” of their oath to defend and follow both the Constitution and rule of law, and encouraging them: “Don’t give up the ship.”
I had a word or two to say about all of this on today’s program. So did a lot of other folks both in and out of Congress, some of which we share as well.
In not unrelated news on today’s show…
- NBC News reports that the senior military attorney for the U.S. Southern Command, which has, so far, killed more than 80 people in boats off the Caribbean and Pacific coasts near Venezuela, determined that U.S. strikes on small boats said to be carrying supposed “narco-terrorists” (as the Administration describes them) were unlawful. His opinion, however, was overruled by Trump’s political appointees in D.C. The service members who participated in those extrajudicial killings could, as the lawyer reportedly warned, eventually face accountability under U.S. and/or international law.
- TPM’s Josh Kovensky reports that federal prosecutors in Chicago have dropped a whole bunch of supposed “domestic terrorism” cases against people who protested against Customs and ICE agents in Chicago in recent months. Among those who saw their charges dropped: A woman who was shot five times by a CBP officer who bragged to colleagues about it afterwards, and who falsely claimed the woman participated in a convoy of cars that “rammed” and “boxed” the federal agents in. And a 70-year old Air Force vet initially charged with felony assault, which was later downgraded to a misdemeanor and finally dropped all together by Trump prosecutors on Thursday.
- Last week, we told you about the Trump Administration’s draft plan, reported by Washington Post, to open up off-shore oil drilling along the entire coast of California, off the West Coast of Florida (in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, not on the Atlantic side near Mar-a-Lago, of course), and off of Alaska in the pristine High Arctic region, where responding to a spill or a Deepwater Horizon-like disaster would be all but impossible. Today, the Administration officially unveiled the proposal and elected officials — including both Democrats in California and Republicans in Florida — vow to fight the effort.
- Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as this year’s U.N. climate summit wraps up in Brazil; as Iran faces an historic drought in Tehran that could result in the evacuation of some 10 million people; and as the developing world is now turning to China for billions of dollars of investment and development in clean, cheap, renewable energy, since the Trump Administration has taken the U.S. out of that increasingly lucrative industry.
As noted, we’ll be taking some much-needed downtime in the week ahead. But, while we’re “gone”, please have a happy and safe Thanksgiving — and remember the advice from those six Dems in their video yesterday: Don’t give up the ship!
“refuse illegal orders” … “It’s not particularly controversial”
Legal experts disagree on most any question of whether something is legal or not (The Pillars of Knowledge: Faith and Trust?).
For example, US Supreme Court disagreements among the judges there concerning what is illegal and what is not is but one example
To require privates, sergeants, lieutenant, etc. in the military to decide the law would likely devolve into a similar chaos.
But to punish the lowly for what the high ups get away with is common.
The ship has given up the sailors..
As for no offshore drilling on the Atlantic coast of Florida, there isn’t oil there to drill, so no President is going to focus there. The Gulf of Mexico side probably has more nat. gas than oil, at least the part close to Florida. GOM gas elsewhere has probably long past peak, as conventional gas everywhere has. Three fourths of US gas now is fracked (conventional gas peaked in 1973 and is less than 30% of that peak in its flow). Nat. gas is the largest energy source for electric generation for the West, East and Texas electric grids. Nat. gas through the Haber Bosch process, invented when we had 2 billion people, is also the basis of modern industrial agriculture (fertilizer production). Entropy is not a good idea, it’s the law.