{"id":14381,"date":"2022-08-22T18:24:05","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T01:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14381"},"modified":"2022-08-22T18:38:16","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T01:38:16","slug":"democracy-this-fall-or-the-fall-of-democracy-bradcast-8222022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14381","title":{"rendered":"Democracy This Fall? Or the Fall of Democracy?: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 8\/22\/2022"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_DemandDemocracy_082222.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">Longtime listeners of <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>The BradCast<\/i><\/a> know that we see democracy as pretty much the number one issue that makes pretty much everything else possible. Even the climate crisis comes second for that reason. Congressional Democrats, on the other hand, have yet to make the threat that democracy itself now faces in America, thanks to Donald Trump and his GOP, much of a campaign issue. That&#8217;s both curious and troubling, particularly following a new poll out today <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/3610753-threats-to-democracy-top-list-of-issues-facing-us-poll\/\">finding<\/a> that democracy is &#8220;the most important issue facing the country for a plurality of registered voters.&#8221; [<i>Audio link to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>Among the many stories covered on today&#8217;s show &#8212; followed by some great callers in the second half today&#8230; <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>On Sunday, a federal appeals court gave Sen. <b>Lindsey Graham<\/b> (R-SC) a <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/appeals-court-delay-graham-testimony-fulton-county-grand-jury\">short reprieve<\/a> from his scheduled testimony before the special grand jury in <b>Georgia<\/b> investigating the Trump-led criminal conspiracy to try and steal Georgia&#8217;s 2020 election. Graham, who reportedly called the GA Sec. of State to see if it might be possible to toss thousands of lawfully cast votes, claims he was just doing his job as a Senator&#8230;from South Carolina&#8230;and has absolute immunity under the Constitution&#8217;s &#8220;speech and debate&#8221; clause. His <a href=\"https:\/\/s3.documentcloud.org\/documents\/22156179\/grahamca11ord082122.pdf\">reprieve [PDF]<\/a> from Fulton County District Attorney <b>Fani Willis<\/b>&#8216; probe is unlikely to last for long.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A different federal appeals court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2022\/08\/19\/appeals-court-backs-ruling-to-release-doj-memo-on-trump-prosecution-00052880?cid=apn\">ruled on Friday<\/a> that the <b>Justice Department<\/b> must release a memo written by its Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) during the Trump Administration, regarding then-Attorney General <b>Bill Barr<\/b>&#8216;s decision to not charge the former President for some ten instances of obstruction of <b>Robert Mueller<\/b>&#8216;s Special Counsel investigation into <b>Russia<\/b>&#8216;s interference in the 2016 election. The DoJ claimed the memo, sought by a good government watchdog group under FOIA laws, was exempt from disclosure because it was part of the deliberative process in deciding whether or not to charge Trump. In fact, as a lower court previously determined, the memo was written <i>after<\/i> the DoJ had <i>already<\/i> determined they would not charge Trump.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Then, we move from the 2016 and 2020 elections back to the current one, now just 78 days away, when political pundits had long been telling us that Democrats would take a shellacking in Congress this November. But, as we&#8217;ve long noted, that Conventional Wisdom is by no means a certainty during these decidedly UNconventional times. Among the latest examples from 2022&#8217;s UNconventional Times files, <a href=\"https:\/\/m.dailykos.com\/stories\/2022\/8\/18\/2117172\/-SC-lawmaker-chokes-up-after-sharing-teen-nearly-lost-uterus-due-to-anti-abortion-law-he-voted-for\">emotional remarks last week<\/a> from a <b>Republican South Carolina lawmaker<\/b> who regrets his vote &#8212; just weeks after casting it &#8212; to restrict abortion in the state. He relates a disturbing story of a pregnant 19-year old woman whose water broke at 15 weeks, making the pregnancy unviable. But thanks to the state&#8217;s new &#8220;fetal heartbeat&#8221; law, attorneys advised her doctors they could not extract the fetus until its heart stopped beating&#8230;two weeks later. She could have lost her uterus or even died during the interim. We share some of the state Rep&#8217;s emotional response and his reasons for refusing to vote in favor of an even more draconian restriction on reproductive freedom now moving through the SC state legislature.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Still more today from the UNconventional Times file: Signs that <b>inflation<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2022\/08\/19\/inflation-slowdown-signs-supply-chain\">appears to be coming down<\/a> on tons of products whose prices had surged last year. And signs, along with it, that pandemic <b>supply chain<\/b> snarls appear to finally be easing up as well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Of course, all of that good news for American consumers is bad news for <b>Republicans<\/b> who have been hoping for a terrible economy to help them win back majorities in Congress this November.  A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/fox-news-power-rankings-gop-house-majority-shrinks-democrats-score-key-victories\">new forecast from Fox &#8220;News&#8221;<\/a> out today, however, finds that to be less and less likely as polling and other conditions continue to trend back in favor of <b>Democrats<\/b>.  It&#8217;s still an uphill climb for them in the gerrymandered House, but the GOP is clearly getting nervous. We discuss.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>At the same time, in a lengthy deep-dive, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2022\/08\/21\/democrats-democracy-danger-midterms-00052748\">Politico Magazine reported<\/a> over the weekend that a number of old school Dems from the Carter Administration are concerned that Congressional Democrats are not making enough of a campaign issue out of the threat that Republicans now pose to <b>American democracy<\/b> itself. That, following Trump&#8217;s January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection and the boatload of bat-crap insane, Trump-endorsed 2020 election deniers who have been nominated for key positions to help decide the 2024 election in swing-states and non-swing-states alike this year. While Congressional Dems offer a reasonable argument for why they have been sticking with other issues this year &#8212; &#8220;from energy and the environment to education, roads and infrastructure, abortion, health care, Trump and guns&#8221; &#8212;  rather than the threat posed by Republicans to democracy itself&#8230;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8230;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/22156173-220455-nbc-news-august-poll-82122-release\">new polling<\/a> out today from NBC News finds the <b>GOP threat to democracy<\/b> is now the <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/3610753-threats-to-democracy-top-list-of-issues-facing-us-poll\/\"><i>top<\/i> concern among registered voters<\/a>, followed by the cost of living and other economy-related issues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>So, what do <i>our<\/i> listeners care most about this November? What issues are leading <i>them<\/i> to vote (or <i>not<\/i> vote)? We open the phones to find out and get some very good <b>callers<\/b> in response including a fun one from a confused Republican&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\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-GrahamGA-BarrMuellerDOJ-AbortionSC-HouseDemsRising2022-DemocracyPolling_Callers_082222.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p><\/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>Longtime listeners of The BradCast know that we see democracy as pretty much the number one issue that makes pretty much everything else possible. Even the climate crisis comes second for that reason. Congressional Democrats, on the other hand, have yet to make the threat that democracy itself now faces in America, thanks to Donald [&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":[192,89,675,299,223,479,390,594,969,1630,1611,1629,883,72,477,417,300,126,977,534,248,198,313,1284],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-14381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-democrats","category-dept-of-justice","category-donald-trump","category-economy","category-election-2016","category-election-2020","category-election-2022","category-election-2024","category-fani-willis","category-fascism","category-georgia","category-kpfk","category-lindsey-graham","category-republicans","category-rights-and-freedoms","category-robert-mueller","category-russia","category-south-carolina","category-us-house","category-us-supreme-court","category-william-barr","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14381","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=14381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14381"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=14381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}