{"id":12161,"date":"2017-05-25T17:40:40","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T00:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12161"},"modified":"2017-05-25T18:18:56","modified_gmt":"2017-05-26T01:18:56","slug":"gianfortes-monumental-montana-meltdown-and-ryans-cowardly-constitutional-dodge-bradcast-5252017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12161","title":{"rendered":"Gianforte&#8217;s Monumental Montana Meltdown (And Ryan&#8217;s Cowardly Constitutional Dodge): &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 5\/25\/2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_GregGianforte_DonaldTrumpJr_052517.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">On today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>, one of the most amazing candidate meltdowns ever seen (or, in this case, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2017\/may\/24\/greg-gianforte-bodyslams-reporter-ben-jacobs-montana\">heard<\/a>) and how the Speaker of the House hopes to look the other way in the event that he wins anyway. But that&#8217;s just the tip of today&#8217;s news iceberg(s). [<i>Audio link to show posted below.<\/i>]\n<p>In one of the most remarkable Election Eve unravelings ever by a U.S. candidate for&#8230;pretty much anything, Republican U.S. House candidate Greg Gianforte <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bozemandailychronicle.com\/news\/politics\/gianforte-accused-of-election-eve-assault\/article_9df533bb-9919-51aa-8d0d-5d5cb4e48923.html\">melted down<\/a> on the eve of what should have been an easy victory in his statewide Special Election for Montana&#8217;s only U.S. House seat against Democratic candidate Rob Quist. Instead, in an incident caught on stunning audio tape and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2017\/05\/24\/greg-gianforte-fox-news-team-witnesses-gop-house-candidate-body-slam-reporter.html\">witnessed<\/a> by Fox &#8220;News&#8221; reporters, Gianforte <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/alexis_levinson\/status\/867522985086910464\">&#8220;body slammed&#8221;<\/a> a <i>Guardian<\/i> reporter, has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/05\/24\/us\/politics\/greg-gianforte-montana-republican-body-slams-reporter.html\">charged<\/a> with assault, and saw his newspaper endorsements <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2017\/05\/25\/greg-gianforte-montana-newspapers-rescind-endorsements-238811\">rescinded<\/a> on the night before voters went to the polls on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>But many voters already cast their vote by absentee ballot by time of the Wednesday incident, and House Speaker Paul Ryan <a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/livewire\/paul-ryan-greg-gianforte-alleged-assault-wrong\">suggests<\/a> he&#8217;ll accept whatever results are reported from the election. That, as I explain today, conveniently ignores Congress&#8217;s Article 1, Section 5 Constitutional right (and duty) to determine who is actually seated in the House of Representatives. It&#8217;s a right they have <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=3353\">exercised<\/a> on a number of other controversial elections in the past, so surely Ryan is familiar with that. But, of course, we&#8217;ll soon see (hopefully) who voters in Montana have decided they want for their only Representative in the U.S. House.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, it was another enormous news day in which Donald Trump&#8217;s second attempted travel ban Executive Order was blocked, <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/block-trump-travel-ban-upheld-4th-circuit\/story?id=47643364\">yet again<\/a>, this time by the full U.S. 4th Circuit of Appeals. His Attorney General Jeff Sessions has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/attorney-general-sessions-to-appeal-trump-travel-ban-case-to-supreme-court-2017-05-25\">announced<\/a> he will appeal the case to the GOP&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12097\">stolen<\/a> U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>Also today, yet another <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2017\/5\/24\/1665496\/-UK-Slams-Trump-Administration-For-Leaking-Name-of-Manchester-Bomber\">embarrassment<\/a> for the Trump Administration, which was publicly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.news.com.au\/world\/donald-trump-to-be-confronted-by-theresa-may-over-intelligence-leaks\/news-story\/868b7973fec84583ae60ca34603ec897\">taken to task<\/a> by British Prime Minister Theresa May for leaking British intelligence to media regarding the UK&#8217;s Manchester Bombing investigation. The leaks not only invoked the wrath of (and temporarily stopped intelligence sharing from) the United States&#8217; closest ally, but it was hardly the only highly sensitive information recently and inappropriately disclosed to friend and foe alike by Trump and\/or his Administration in recent days.<\/p>\n<p>And, in a (related) news item we didn&#8217;t get to yesterday, after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/trump-calls-kim-jong-un-a-madman-with-nuclear-weapons-according-to-transcript-of-duterte-call\/2017\/05\/23\/211d1474-3fe8-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html\">disclosing<\/a> the whereabouts of two U.S. nuclear submarines, it appears Trump actually <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/05\/23\/us\/politics\/trump-duterte-phone-transcript-philippine-drug-crackdown.html?_r=0\">praised<\/a> Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte during a recent phone call for the &#8220;unbelievable&#8230;great job&#8221; he has done on that nation&#8217;s drug epidemic &#8212; in which thousands of people have been murdered in a brutal extrajudicial campaign carried out by Duterte&#8217;s police force.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, Desi Doyen joins us with a jam-packed <a href=\"https:\/\/GreenNews.BradBlog.com\"><i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a>, before still more news breaks at the buzzer, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/jared-kushner-now-under-fbi-scrutiny-russia-probe-say-officials-n764826\">reportedly<\/a> finding Trump&#8217;s top adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner &#8216;under FBI scrutiny&#8217; in the Bureau&#8217;s ongoing Trump\/Russia probe&#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_GianforteMontanaMeltdown_MuslimTravelBanRuling_TrumpLeaks_052517.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><br \/>\n[audio:http:\/\/bradblog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman_GianforteMontanaMeltdown_MuslimTravelBanRuling_TrumpLeaks_052517.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, one of the most amazing candidate meltdowns ever seen (or, in this case, heard) and how the Speaker of the House hopes to look the other way in the event that he wins anyway. But that&#8217;s just the tip of today&#8217;s news iceberg(s). [Audio link to show posted below.] In one of [&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":[192,89,675,21,598,479,954,200,451,227,985,428,961,427,477,183,107,932,157,147,558,897,762,712,300,126,964,984,534,923,854,549,127,198,313,348,533,100,541],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-12161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-california","category-china","category-donald-trump","category-election-2017","category-environment","category-epa","category-fbi","category-greg-gianforte","category-israel","category-jared-kushner","category-jeff-sessions","category-kpfk","category-montana","category-national-security","category-neil-gorsuch","category-north-korea","category-lava","category-paul-ryan","category-philippines","category-pope-francis","category-religion","category-republicans","category-rights-and-freedoms","category-rob-quist","category-rodrigo-duterte","category-russia","category-ryan-zinke","category-theresa-may","category-uk","category-the-constitution","category-us-house","category-us-supreme-court","category-vote-by-mail","category-war-on-drugs","category-war-on-terror","category-wind"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12161","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=12161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12161"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=12161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}