{"id":14554,"date":"2023-02-06T17:55:18","date_gmt":"2023-02-07T01:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14554"},"modified":"2023-02-06T18:13:23","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T02:13:23","slug":"of-biden-balloons-and-bad-media-coverage-bradcast-262023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14554","title":{"rendered":"Of Biden, Balloons and Bad Media Coverage: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 2\/6\/2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_BidenChineseSpyBaloon_020623.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">Breaking news today and a weekend full of otherwise dumb news resulted in a bit of a hodge-podge on today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>. I hope you&#8217;ll enjoy it anyway! [<i>Audio link to full show follows below this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>Among the many stories covered on today&#8217;s program&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/earthquake-shakes-turkey-b927808f6a5c54bdb669120faa40b7bc?utm_source=homepage&#038;utm_medium=TopNews&#038;utm_campaign=position_01\">Rescue efforts continue<\/a> in the aftermath of Sunday&#8217;s horrific, pre-dawn, 7.8 magnitude earthquake &#8212; and several huge aftershocks &#8212; in Southern <b>Turkey<\/b> and Northern <b>Syria<\/b>.  As we went to air, the death toll from both countries was more than 3,400. That tragic number is likely to continue to rise.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>American Republicans are, no doubt, breathing easier today following the great <b>Chinese Spy Balloon Crisis<\/b> that gripped them with fear and threatened their very lives and those of their families for several days since last week. On Saturday, the U.S. military shot down the high altitude balloon off the coast of South Carolina and have been collecting its remnants for study. Thankfully, nobody was hurt throughout this days long national nightmare, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defense.gov\/News\/News-Stories\/Article\/Article\/3288543\/f-22-safely-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon-off-south-carolina-coast\/\">Dept. of Defense suggests<\/a> the U.S. gained more from the exercise, on balance, than China did. The DoD claims our borders were similarly breached by Chinese spy balloons three times during the Trump Administration. Despite <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/repjoewilson\/status\/1622014974703853572?s=61&#038;t=KHle0-iuGMVYa394Egqkag\">fevered demands<\/a> from some on the Right, neither President Biden nor Vice President Harris resigned in shame amid &#8220;the catastrophic Chinese Spy Balloon spectacle [that] clearly threatened American families&#8221; from coast to coast. <Insert eye-roll emoji here><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/news\/2023\/02\/federal-election-commission-hikes-fec-contribution-limits-ahead-of-2024-election-cycle\/\">Great news for the wealthy<\/a>! Thanks to campaign finance legislation adopted during the <b>George W. Bush<\/b> era in 2002, and huge inflation numbers in 2022, the amount of money that can now be donated to a single candidate for a single election <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fec.gov\/help-candidates-and-committees\/candidate-taking-receipts\/contribution-limits\/\">has been increased<\/a> from $2,900 to $3,300. The amount that can be given to national party committees, according to the <b>Federal Elections Commission<\/b> (FEC) has increased from $36,500 to $41,300 per year. And the amount allowed for payoffs to special national party committees, such as for national party conventions, has spiked from $109,500 to $123,900. Of course, those limits also apply to poor and working-class people instead. So, it&#8217;s all totally fair and just some good ol&#8217; American &#8220;free speech&#8221; at work!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>After declining to support Donald Trump&#8217;s two Presidential runs in 2016 and 2020, the <b>Koch Network<\/b> is getting back in the game, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/02\/05\/politics\/koch-network-republican-primary-2024\/index.html\">vowing to oppose Trump<\/a> this year by declaring their support for one non-Trump Republican by summer&#8217;s end. We&#8217;ll see if they have any better luck this year than their similar losing strategy back in 2016.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Despite conceding that Trump lost the 2020 election in <b>Wisconsin<\/b>, according to an audio recording <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/biden-politics-2022-midterm-elections-donald-trump-madison-166e3f52e42cc45cff8f28b75dd23cfc\">obtained by AP<\/a>, his campaign team in the Badger State vowed to help &#8220;fan the flame&#8221; of phony fraud as early as two days after Biden&#8217;s win there.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Love him (or his policies) or hate him (or his policies), <b>Joe Biden<\/b> has accomplished more in the first two years of his Presidency than perhaps any other American President in history going back to at least FDR. Nonetheless, just one day before his second official State of the Union address on Tuesday, <a href=\"https:\/\/wapo.st\/3RGrYQL\">new polling out today<\/a> from <i>Washington Post<\/i> and ABC News finds that 62% of Americans believe Biden has accomplished &#8220;not very much&#8221; or &#8220;little or nothing&#8221; in the first two years of his term. That may be an  extraordinary failure by Democrats and the White House to get the word out about their own accomplishments. But the greatest indictment here should be for the corporate mainstream media whose only actual (Constitutionally-protected) job is to <i>inform the public<\/i> and <i>educate the American electorate<\/i>! Clearly, they have failed. Again. We discuss.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally, <b>callers ring in<\/b> today mostly on the topic of Biden&#8217;s accomplishments or &#8212; as several incorrectly see it &#8212; lack thereof&#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-TurkeyQuake-ChinaBalloon-KochTrump24-BidenSOTUCallers_020623.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>Breaking news today and a weekend full of otherwise dumb news resulted in a bit of a hodge-podge on today&#8217;s BradCast. I hope you&#8217;ll enjoy it anyway! [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.] Among the many stories covered on today&#8217;s program&#8230; Rescue efforts continue in the aftermath of Sunday&#8217;s horrific, pre-dawn, 7.8 [&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":[89,675,598,299,272,969,1611,28,315,320,490,477,188,107,300,611,431,143],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-14554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-china","category-democrats","category-dept-of-defense","category-election-2020","category-election-2024","category-election-reform","category-fec","category-joe-biden","category-koch-industries","category-kpfk","category-mainstream-media-failure","category-national-security","category-republicans","category-syria","category-turkey","category-wisconsin","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14554","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=14554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14554"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=14554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}