{"id":13302,"date":"2020-02-11T18:00:38","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T02:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=13302"},"modified":"2020-02-12T10:33:44","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T18:33:44","slug":"the-socialist-smear-gops-eleventy-dimensional-chess-or-tic-tac-toe-bradcast-2112020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=13302","title":{"rendered":"The &#8216;Socialist&#8217; Smear: GOP&#8217;s &#8216;Eleventy-Dimensional Chess or Tic-Tac-Toe&#8217;?: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 2\/11\/2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_BernieSanders_EricaDSmith_021120.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">As usual, we cover far too much on today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>, as New Hampshire voters head to the polls for their first-in-the-nation primary today. Full reported results from NH tomorrow, of course. [<i>Audio link for today&#8217;s show is posted below.<\/i>] <\/p>\n<p>Among those too many things covered today&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We start with some common sense news out of <b>Nevada<\/b>, where state Democrats, after the Iowa Caucus disaster, have <a href=\"https:\/\/thenevadaindependent.com\/article\/nevada-democrats-to-use-scannable-ballot-for-early-voting-ipad-with-google-forms-for-check-in\">decided to use hand-marked paper ballots<\/a> for early voting in the state&#8217;s upcoming February 22nd caucuses. However, they will still be relying on a vulnerable, online iPad tool to record sign-ins (albeit with paper backup, so there&#8217;s that);<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>On Monday night, the eve of the <b>New Hampshire<\/b> primary, Donald Trump rallied in the Granite State by <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/trump-baselessly-claims-he-lost-new-hampshire-in-2016-due-to-hundreds-of-buses-from-massachusetts\">lying to supporters about voter fraud<\/a> there, and by taking a small page from the disgraced Chris Christie&#8217;s New Jersey &#8220;BridgeGate&#8221; scandal. Trump&#8217;s Secret Service detail, <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/trump-rally-manchester-new-hampshire-primary\">according to campaign officials<\/a>, made it difficult for Democratic candidates and their supporters to get around the state&#8217;s largest city. Given that Republican Senators recently gave a thumbs up for Trump to cheat in the 2020 election with their &#8220;not guilty&#8221; votes at the end of last week&#8217;s Impeachment Trial, nobody should be surprised he is now doing so;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>But there was some very good news for Bernie Sanders from a <a href=\"https:\/\/poll.qu.edu\/national\/release-detail?ReleaseID=3655\">national Quinnipiac poll<\/a> on Monday night, revealing the Vermont Senator vaulting into first place ahead of Joe Biden for the first time. We also review a number of other interesting findings for the survey suggesting good news for Sanders, along with a warning that those are <i>national<\/i> numbers, in a nation that runs state-by-state elections instead. Just ask Hillary Clinton;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>As he gains momentum, Sanders is also being <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/new-hampshire-democratic-presidential-primary-tv-appearances\">forced to defend<\/a> his identity as a &#8220;democratic socialist&#8221; and his support for programs such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. Republicans (and even some Democrats) are hoping to disparage Sanders with those charges, from which he does not shy away;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>At the same time, Trump and friends and family are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2020-election\/trump-advisers-say-their-ideal-democratic-primary-scenario-taking-shape-n1133276\">attempting to sow discord among Democrats<\/a> by claiming that the DNC is rigging the election against Sanders, hoping they&#8217;ll convince Sanders&#8217; supporters to sit out 2020 if he is not the nominee;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>At the same time, Republicans in <b>South Carolina<\/b> are reportedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postandcourier.com\/politics\/upstate-gop-leaders-plotting-to-meddle-in-sc-democratic-primary\/article_f1e7abd2-4788-11ea-aa9f-33a1d262994c.html\">urging their own supporters<\/a> to vote for Sanders in the state&#8217;s upcoming February 29 primary, since the state GOP cancelled their own primary there as a gift to Donald Trump. The theory, also floated publicly by Trump himself, is that they&#8217;d love to run against Sanders this November because, they&#8217;d like you to believe he will be easy to beat;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>And, just to the north, a mysterious group calling themselves the &#8220;Faith and Power PAC&#8221; is playing a similar game, by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.charlotteobserver.com\/news\/politics-government\/election\/article240001683.html?utm_source=pushly&#038;intcid=pushly_480277\">spending nearly $2.5 million<\/a> to support a progressive state Senator for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in <b>North Carolina<\/b>&#8216;s March 3rd Super Tuesday primary. The new group appears to be tied to Republicans and the candidate they are running ads for, state Senator <a href=\"https:\/\/ericaforus.org\/\">Erica D. Smith<\/a> [<i>pictured above right<\/i>], is currently running behind the centrist D.C. Dem-supported <a href=\"https:\/\/www.calfornc.com\/\">Cal Cunningham<\/a> in the contest to win the Dem Senate nomination to run against vulnerable Republican incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis this fall. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8y6tT6ktQGw\">TV spot<\/a> purporting to be on behalf of Smith, highlights her support for Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and other progressive policies making her &#8220;one of us&#8221;, as the ad claims. (We <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=13237\">interviewed Smith on <i>The BradCast<\/i><\/a> late last year, as she was demanding hand-marked paper ballots for North Carolina);<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>We&#8217;re joined today by North Carolina&#8217;s <b>DR. WILLIAM BUSA<\/b> of the progressive political data consulting firm <a href=\"https:\/\/eqvanalytics.com\/\">EQV Analytics<\/a> to discuss all of the dirty tricks in the Carolinas. Busa, who previously worked for state Senator Smith and writes as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/user\/DocDawg\">&#8220;DocDawg&#8221; at DailyKos<\/a>, suggests this mysterious group of Republicans may have made a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EricaforUSSen20\/status\/1225619832214900737?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1225619832214900737&#038;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.charlotteobserver.com%2Fnews%2Fpolitics-government%2Felection%2Farticle240001683.html\">miscalculation<\/a> in their attempt to monkey-wrench the Democratic Senate primary race in his state. He also explains how they may have committed fraud in their FEC filing. He shares <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2020\/2\/12\/1918529\/-Who-s-behind-the-mystery-GOP-PAC-meddling-in-NC-Dems-Senate-primary-Better-ask-Sal\">his insight on the curious NC ad buy<\/a> and the question of whether Republicans are <i>really<\/i> interested in running against progressives like Sanders and Smith because they believe they will be easy to beat this November, or because they want Democratic voters to <i>BELIEVE<\/i> progressives will be easy to beat. &#8220;Is this eleventy-dimensional chess or is this Tic-Tac-Toe that they&#8217;re playing?,&#8221; Busa asks. &#8220;I&#8217;m not entirely sure which it is, but I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s eleventy-dimensional chess.&#8221; We&#8217;ve got a <i>lot<\/i> to unpack in <i>that<\/i> conversation today!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=13301\">our latest <i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a>, with good news and bad Down Under, unquestionably bad news for bumblebees and Antarctica (and, by extension, for all of us) and the interesting way that Democrats raised the issue of climate change during last Friday&#8217;s Presidential Debate in New Hampshire&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>See? Told you we covered too much! Enjoy!&#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-NVPaper-TrumpNHFraudLie-SandersSurgeSocialism_BillBusa-NCEricaSmithScheme_021120.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><br \/>\n[audio:http:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman-NVPaper-TrumpNHFraudLie-SandersSurgeSocialism_BillBusa-NCEricaSmithScheme_021120.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=\"https:\/\/www.pandora.com\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/PC:1000025838\">Pandora<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9icmFkYmxvZy5jb20vcG9kY2FzdGdlbi9icmFkY2FzdC9mZWVkLnhtbA\">Google<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-BradCast-w-Brad-Friedman\/dp\/B08JJRN86R\/ref=sr_1_1\">Amazon<\/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>As usual, we cover far too much on today&#8217;s BradCast, as New Hampshire voters head to the polls for their first-in-the-nation primary today. Full reported results from NH tomorrow, of course. [Audio link for today&#8217;s show is posted below.] Among those too many things covered today&#8230; We start with some common sense news out 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":[980,620,494,89,675,543,299,3,169,479,969,106,28,1296,288,320,477,359,356,170,43,147,300,248],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-13302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-antarctica","category-australia","category-bernie-sanders","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-climate-change","category-democrats","category-dieboldpremier","category-dirty-tricks","category-donald-trump","category-election-2020","category-election-fraud","category-election-reform","category-green-new-deal","category-health-care","category-joe-biden","category-kpfk","category-michael-bloomberg","category-nevada","category-new-hampshire","category-north-carolina","category-lava","category-republicans","category-south-carolina","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13302","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=13302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13302"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=13302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}