{"id":14899,"date":"2024-01-16T16:40:53","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T00:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14899"},"modified":"2024-01-16T17:06:39","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T01:06:39","slug":"trump-underwhelms-in-iowa-abbott-fuels-gop-civil-war-dreams-at-border-bradcast-1162024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14899","title":{"rendered":"Trump Underwhelms in Iowa; Abbott Fuels GOP Civil War Dreams at Border: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 1\/16\/2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_TrumpSignSnowIA-ShoeRazorWireRioGrandeTX_011624.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">Lucky me. <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14897\">I now have a rebound case of COVID<\/a>. But with the first votes cast in the critical 2024 Presidential race in frozen Iowa on Monday night, I mustered as well as I could to bring you a fresh <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a> today. (No promises for tomorrow, however!) [<i>Audio link to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>With that in mind, I need to keep this short and get back to bed. Among our stories covered today&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Iowa<\/b>&#8216;s far-right GOP caucus-goers have a habit of backing losers. On Monday, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/2024-election\/results\/iowa\/\">bare majority<\/a> of them (51%) voted for <b>Donald Trump<\/b> in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmoinesregister.com\/story\/news\/weather\/2024\/01\/15\/subzero-temps-to-make-coldest-caucus-on-record-tonight-downright-dangerous\/72228056007\/\">far below zero<\/a> temps. Almost half of IA&#8217;s GOP caucus-goers voted against him. But that was still more than enough to defeat the disgraced former President&#8217;s splintered and <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/edblog\/lets-face-it-trumps-iowa-result-was-pretty-weak\/sharetoken\/5IWtZNWmn013\">woeful challengers<\/a>. After burning about $150 million in his all or nothing quest to win Iowa, <b>Ron DeSantis<\/b> lost it. He came out with just 21.2% of the vote, narrowly edging out third-placer <b>Nikki Haley<\/b>, who still has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&#038;rct=j&#038;q=&#038;esrc=s&#038;source=web&#038;cd=&#038;cad=rja&#038;uact=8&#038;ved=2ahUKEwjD1Yjkk-ODAxXeOUQIHWm4AO0QvOMEKAB6BAgUEAE&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2024%2F01%2F16%2F1224878048%2Fas-nikki-haley-polls-well-theres-talk-she-could-upset-trump-in\">not-impossible-chance<\/a> of defeating or, at least, challenging Trump in next week&#8217;s first-in-the-nation <b>New Hampshire<\/b> primary. She finished just behind DeSantis with 19.1% on Monday night in IA. Both challengers have vowed to move on to NH. <b>Vivek Ramaswamy<\/b>, however, who finished in a distance fourth in IA, quickly <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/vivek-ramaswamy-ends-2024-presidential-campaign-4b794ed3fbb41cc7f2a6a95d20458843\">bowed out<\/a> and endorsed Trump. That&#8217;s about all you need to know about Monday night when it comes to the horse race. Beneath that, however, there is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/columnists\/attytood\/iowa-caucus-trump-authoritarianism-eagles-sirianni-20240116.html?sfmc_id=0031U00001jrOGQQA2&#038;sub_source=will_bunch_newsletter&#038;list_name=DE15_Newsletter_Will_Bunch&#038;int_promo=newsletter&#038;et_rid=257237694\">much more<\/a>, underscoring this unprecedented moment for the nation and the need for an overwhelming majority of voters to step up and save American Democracy this year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Meanwhile, down in <b>Texas<\/b> in recent days, 20<i>28<\/i> Presidential hopeful, far-right Republican Governor <b>Greg Abbott<\/b> appears hoping to touch off a new civil war between his state&#8217;s military and the federal government. In a multi-prong effort to goose his political fortunes by ensuring that immigration concerns will <a href=\"https:\/\/prospect.org\/politics\/2024-01-05-republicans-immigration-policy-fight\/\"><i>not<\/i> be dealt with<\/a> until a Republican President is in the White House (to get credit for it), and to further fuel his party&#8217;s latest grift that, without a return to power for the GOP, a new &#8220;civil war&#8221; is looming, Abbott has deployed the <b>Texas Military Dept.<\/b> to the nation&#8217;s Southern border. In doing so &#8212; despite migration numbers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/us\/us-mexico-border-texas-military?cid=ios_app\">recently plummeting<\/a> thanks to high-level talks between the <b>U.S.<\/b> and <b>Mexico<\/b> &#8212; Abbott has erected razor wire on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande and new steel fencing and gates to physically lock out <b>U.S. Border Patrol<\/b> from protecting miles of our national border. He has done so without permission of either the feds <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/texas-border-eagle-pass-98a0ea1c1b7c1713df9b76b5759a63ff\">or local city governments<\/a>. As the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/justice-department-sues-texas-border-security-law\/\">Biden Administration challenges<\/a> Abbott&#8217;s extra-Constitutional tin-pot authoritarianism at <b>SCOTUS<\/b>, a mother and her two young children <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/woman-2-children-die-crossing-rio-grande-border-patrol-says-was-preven-rcna133842\">died while attempting to cross the river<\/a> over the weekend. TX troopers reportedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2024\/jan\/14\/texas-three-migrants-drown-us-border-patrol\">blocked federal officials<\/a> from responding to a distress call from the Mexican government. As discussed, Republicans don&#8217;t <i>fear<\/i> a new civil war. They <i>want<\/i> one. Or pretend to. And they certainly <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/edblog\/nota-bene-7\">don&#8217;t want to actually solve<\/a> <i>any<\/i> issues at the border, else they&#8217;d have nothing to run on this November.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14898\">our latest <i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a> with new numbers from 2023&#8217;s <b>record heat<\/b> and climate disasters; as Republican climate crisis <b>denial<\/b> continues on the campaign trail on behalf of fossil fuel industry funders (with increasingly deadly results); and as the <b>Biden Administration<\/b> moves ahead with rules to force polluting oil and gas companies to finally pay their fair share in return&#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-ResultsIA-NewCivilWarAbbottBorderTX_011624.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>Lucky me. I now have a rebound case of COVID. But with the first votes cast in the critical 2024 Presidential race in frozen Iowa on Monday night, I mustered as well as I could to bring you a fresh BradCast today. (No promises for tomorrow, however!) [Audio link to full show follows this summary.] [&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":[89,675,1300,543,1456,479,1611,451,548,883,650,261,74,477,109,498,170,774,1365,300,1238,47,1900],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-14899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-cbp","category-climate-change","category-coronavirus","category-donald-trump","category-election-2024","category-epa","category-extreme-weather","category-fascism","category-greg-abbott","category-immigration","category-iowa","category-kpfk","category-mexico","category-natural-gas","category-new-hampshire","category-nikki-haley","category-pollution","category-republicans","category-ron-desantis","category-texas","category-vivek-ramaswamy","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14899","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=14899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14899"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=14899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}