{"id":11983,"date":"2017-01-03T17:45:23","date_gmt":"2017-01-04T01:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=11983"},"modified":"2017-01-03T17:49:01","modified_gmt":"2017-01-04T01:49:01","slug":"ethics-oversight-and-watching-the-watchdogs-bradcast-132017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=11983","title":{"rendered":"Ethics, Oversight and Watching the Watchdogs: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 1\/3\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_PaulRyan_Gavel_CongressDay1_010317.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">On today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>, Desi and I are back from holiday break, and just in time for the start of the new Congress, where the GOP had hoped to break the U.S. House even further by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2017\/01\/house-republicans-gut-their-own-oversight-233111\">gutting<\/a> the independent Office of Congressional Ethics. [<i>Audio link to show posted below.<\/i>]\n<p>First: A huge thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/NicoleSandler.com\">Nicole Sandler<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/InDeepRadio.com\">Angie Coiro<\/a> for filling in for us while we were gone and allowing us some much-needed time off! Please support them, their work and <i>all<\/i> independent media, wherever you can find it! As today&#8217;s show makes clear, it&#8217;s more important now than ever!<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. House watchdog office was formed by Democrats in 2008 after the massive Jack Abramoff influence-peddling and bribery scandals of the George W. Bush era. After voting last night &#8212; with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/01\/02\/us\/politics\/with-no-warning-house-republicans-vote-to-hobble-independent-ethics-office.html\">no advance notice<\/a> or public debate &#8212; to hobble the OCE, Republicans were forced to <a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/dc\/how-a-hidden-rule-to-weaken-ethics-in-congress-died-in-a-day\">reverse<\/a> their plans thanks to public outrage expressed through phone calls to Congress. Nonetheless, Donald Trump is being <a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/edblog\/cnn-manages-to-blow-the-house-ethics-story\">inappropriately<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/trump-tweets-office-of-congressional-ethics-media-played-252142ff445\">credited<\/a> by the corporate media for the reversal, despite the <a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/livewire\/donald-trump-office-congressional-ethics-mike-simpson\">lack of evidence<\/a> that he actually opposed the move or that his tweets were responsible for the GOP changing course.<\/p>\n<p>The episode suggests that public opinion, outrage and shaming <i>may<\/i> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/house-gop-faceplant-on-ethics-coup-shows-public-shame-still-matters_us_586bfc31e4b0eb58648acae4?link_id=1&#038;can_id=3f5fe83c6f31802f1e9ee2e4d0654ba9&#038;source=email-it-turns-out-public-opinion-still-matters-gop-backs-off-its-\">still matter<\/a> in these United States, even in the Age of Trump, and even if the corporate media fail to notice. But we&#8217;ll see. <\/p>\n<p>At the same time, as NBC News <a href=\"http:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/2016\/12\/when-10-million-followers-isnt-enough-nbc-news-will-shut-down-the-breaking-news-app-on-dec-31\/\">guts<\/a> their own news reporting outlets, they&#8217;ve <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/01\/03\/business\/media\/megyn-kelly-nbc-fox-news.html\">announced<\/a> today they are hiring Fox &#8220;News&#8221; star Megyn Kelly for untold millions. And, in Wisconsin, the agency responsible for environmental protection has solved Climate Change&#8230;by simply <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/2il6UkM\">changing<\/a> their website to pretend it no longer exists.<\/p>\n<p>But, hey, <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@MLiebreich\/its-new-year-and-a-good-time-to-face-some-facts-c610f3aa579e#.pweu7c5o2\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a New Year and Time to Face Reality&#8221;<\/a>. All of that and more on today&#8217;s <i>BradCast<\/i>!&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman_CongOfficeOfEthics_MegynKellyNBC_010317.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><br \/>\n[audio:http:\/\/bradblog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman_CongOfficeOfEthics_MegynKellyNBC_010317.mp3]<\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/stitcher.com\/s\/player.php?fid=25838&#038;src=psl\">Stitcher<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><strong>The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, <em>The BradCast<\/em> and <em>Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On today&#8217;s BradCast, Desi and I are back from holiday break, and just in time for the start of the new Congress, where the GOP had hoped to break the U.S. House even further by gutting the independent Office of Congressional Ethics. [Audio link to show posted below.] First: A huge thanks to Nicole Sandler [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,675,405,543,479,200,14,41,477,188,907,23,43,558,300,198,143],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-11983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-bush-legacy","category-climate-change","category-donald-trump","category-environment","category-fox-news","category-jack-abramoff","category-kpfk","category-mainstream-media-failure","category-megyn-kelly","category-nbc","category-north-carolina","category-paul-ryan","category-republicans","category-us-house","category-wisconsin","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11983"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=11983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}