{"id":12667,"date":"2018-08-06T18:30:21","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T01:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12667"},"modified":"2018-08-06T18:35:48","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T01:35:48","slug":"trump-targets-media-after-shooter-opens-fire-at-progressive-radio-outlet-bradcast-862018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12667","title":{"rendered":"Trump Targets Media After Shooter Opens Fire at Progressive Radio Outlet: ‘BradCast’ 8\/6\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

On today’s BradCast<\/i><\/a>, as the President of the United States continues his tweets and rally cries targeting the free press as “the Enemy of the People”, we offer another stark reminder of the danger of those attacks. Then, another reminder of the inevitable move toward “Medicare-for-All” in the U.S. and the mighty forces pushing back against it. [Audio link to today’s show is posted below.<\/i>]\n

First up, early Sunday morning, just hours before another one of Donald Trump’s tweets<\/a> targeting the media as “purposely caus[ing] division and distrust”, characterizing them as “dangerous and sick” and, yes, “the Enemy of the People”, a masked gunman opened fired<\/a> inside of WORT-FM 89.9FM<\/a>, a long-time progressive radio station (and Pacifica Radio Network<\/a> affiliate) in Madison, WI. Luckily, among the three hosts in the studio at the time, there was just one, non-life-threatening injury. But the gunman is still on the loose and the volunteers who work at the station are lucky to be alive today.<\/p>\n

Of course, progressive radio outlets have long been targets of violence by right-wingers<\/a> — long before Trump — and we don’t yet know what the motive was for the attacker at WORT in Madison. But with more and more folks in the mainstream corporate media receiving death threats<\/a> now as well, as CNN’s Brian Stelter noted over the weekend, citing a right-wing columnist at the New York Times<\/i><\/a>, “we are approaching a day when blood on the newsroom floor will be blood on the President’s hands”. That could already be the case in Madison, WI.<\/p>\n

In any event, please consider this a reminder to support the progressive media outlets — many of them community stations run by volunteers — who enable you to hear The BradCast<\/i> every day, in any way that you can!<\/p>\n

Next up, a lawsuit was filed<\/a> against the Trump Administration late last week, alleging that it has failed to honor the Constitution’s “Take Care” clause, requiring the President “faithfully execute” the laws of the land”. The complaint, filed by the cities of Columbus and Cincinnati, OH, along with Baltimore, MD and Chicago, IL, charges that the Administration is unlawfully undermining and attempting to “sabotage” the Affordable Care Act (or, ObamaCare).<\/p>\n

That suit was filed by the four cities, even as many progressives continue to push for a single-payer, universal, “Medicare-for-All” style healthcare system like the one Sen. Bernie Sanders has long called for. With such a plan growing in popularity<\/a> among both voters and leading Democrats<\/a> alike, a Koch Brothers-funded think-tank last week came out with a report that they’d hoped would undermine the prospect of a government-run, single-payer insurance program available to all Americans. <\/p>\n

The report, misleadingly headlined “‘Medicare for All’ Plan Would Cost Federal Government $32 Trillion”<\/a>, was picked up by many media outlets who failed to highlight<\/a> the more salient fact that the $32 trillion cited is actually $2 trillion LESS<\/i> than Americans already<\/i> spend on healthcare, even as millions are still without insurance and tens of millions more — even if<\/i> they are covered — are still without access to important items like vision and dental care.<\/p>\n

We’re joined today by former insurance industry executive turned progressive blogger, columnist and broadcaster RICHARD “R.J.” ESKOW<\/b> to discuss his Los Angeles Times<\/i> op-ed<\/a> last week rebutting the misinformation that Charles Blahuas of the right-wing, Koch-funded Mercatus Center attempted to hoax American with.<\/p>\n

Eskow, who hosts The Zero Hour<\/i><\/a> podcast and also worked on Sanders’ 2016 Presidential campaign, explains how the type of system that the Vermont Senator and, now, many leading 2020 Democratic Presidential contenders are endorsing, would both save Americans money and<\/i> provide better and more complete care to tens and perhaps hundreds of millions.<\/p>\n

“What the Koch Brothers and people who work for them are trying to get us to do is to only<\/i> think about what the government spends,” he tells me, explaining the sleight-of-hand the report uses to make families think<\/i> such a plan would cost them more money than they are paying already. In fact, he explains, the average family of four would actually save<\/i> $13,000 a year in healthcare costs.<\/p>\n

“This guy who wrote this report unintentionally shot himself in the foot,” Eskow argues, “Because even though I believe he stacked the deck against Medicare-For-All by under<\/i>-estimating the savings and over-estimating the costs, he still couldn’t avoid the conclusion that it would save $2 trillion over 10 years. I think it could save more than that, while giving people much better coverage. But even by his standards, the conservative standards, the right-wingers’ standards, he has to admit it saves money!”<\/p>\n

“We’ve been brainwashed into thinking that paying a nickel in taxes is worse than paying a dollar to some exploitative health insurance company. I don’t think you make that sale anymore. I think people are getting wise to the truth.”<\/p>\n

Eskow also offers his insight into the fear that some “centrist” establishment Democrats have about such a system, and whether progressive voters should continue to push the party to be more in step with its own voters, or whether those voters need to look elsewhere…<\/p>\n

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!…<\/a><\/i><\/b>
\n[audio:http:\/\/bradblog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman_TrumpMediaTargets_WORTShooting_RichardEskow_KochM4AStudy_080618.mp3]<\/blockquote>\n

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On today’s BradCast, as the President of the United States continues his tweets and rally cries targeting the free press as “the Enemy of the People”, we offer another stark reminder of the danger of those attacks. Then, another reminder of the inevitable move toward “Medicare-for-All” in the U.S. and the mighty forces pushing back […]<\/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":[192,239,494,89,675,1053,1205,840,19,479,930,130,288,176,490,477,46,188,23,127,143],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-12667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-barack-obama","category-bernie-sanders","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-bret-stephens","category-brian-stelter","category-c-span","category-cnn","category-donald-trump","category-election-2018","category-freedom-of-the-press","category-health-care","category-journalist-intimidation","category-koch-industries","category-kpfk","category-mainstream-corporate-media","category-mainstream-media-failure","category-nbc","category-the-constitution","category-wisconsin","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12667","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=12667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12667"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=12667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}