{"id":14935,"date":"2024-02-13T18:03:06","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T02:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14935"},"modified":"2024-02-14T18:30:59","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T02:30:59","slug":"jon-stewart-returns-to-the-daily-show-not-a-moment-too-soon-bradcast-2132024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14935","title":{"rendered":"Jon Stewart Returns to &#8216;The Daily Show&#8217; Not a Moment Too Soon!: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 2\/13\/2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_JonStewartReturns-Indecision2024_021324.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">Once again today, we try to stuff a 10-pound show into a 5-pound <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>.  Wish us luck! [<i>Audio link to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>Among our many stories for your listening pleasure, amusement and outrage today&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Jon Stewart<\/b> is back on <i>The Daily Show<\/i>! At least on Monday nights. At least for this year. And, boy howdy, was he missed. Other than looking about 20 years older, he literally hasn&#8217;t missed a step over the 9 years since he&#8217;s been away from the show, both comically and, more importantly, politically. His first night back included an <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/NpBPm0b9deQ?si=43HbVnTkx5Fl6Pbb\">epic opening monologue<\/a> that framed the various concerns among <strong>Democrats<\/strong> about <b>Joe Biden<\/b>&#8216;s age in a way that nobody else has or could. Hopefully, it helps to kick off the serious conversation that Democrats need to start having amongst <i>themselves<\/i> to begin coming to terms with the fact that one of the most effective and, yes, oldest Presidents of our lifetimes (or ever) <i>will<\/i> be running for re-election this November. We&#8217;ve got lots to say here. But, much more importantly, so did <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/NpBPm0b9deQ?si=43HbVnTkx5Fl6Pbb\">Stewart last night<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Battling a <a href=\"https:\/\/weather.com\/storms\/winter\/news\/2024-02-12-new-york-boston-schools-closed-snow-noreaster\">massive Nor&#8217;easter<\/a> and racing the clock against whatever may happen in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2024-special-elections\/new-york-house-results#district-breakdown\">Special Election for U.S. House<\/a> in <b>New York<\/b>&#8216;s 3rd Congressional District tonight, in the contest to fill the expelled Rep. <b>George Santos<\/b>&#8216; seat, House Republicans take a <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/house-mayorkas-impeachment-vote-border-security-80cbd5bbb8f512c6814f155f825a1214\">do-over on Tuesday<\/a> after their embarrassing <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/mayorkas-border-impeachment-immigration-d5f6a7d91ea725768e27b9b2bc5391a4\">failed effort last week<\/a> to Revenge Impeach the Secretary of Homeland Security <b>Alejandro Mayorkas<\/b>. The first impeachment ever of a sitting cabinet members is not for any actual &#8220;High Crimes and Misdemeanors&#8221; as required by the Constitution, but  for&#8230;something something &#8230;border policy&#8230;something something. (And because they haven&#8217;t been able to figure out yet how to Revenge Impeach Joe Biden.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>After insisting that any new aid package for <b>Ukraine<\/b> <i>must<\/i> include a massive new package for the U.S. Border Security. And then after striking a bipartisan deal with Democrats for that Border Security bill they insisted on. And then after insisting that any new aid for Ukraine <i>not<\/i> include a massive new package for the U.S. Border because <b>Donald Trump<\/b> told them to kill the Border provisions, because he needed an issue to run on in November&#8230;.Senate Republicans (some of them anyway) joined Democrats after an all-night filibuster to <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/senate-foreign-aid-mike-johnson-ukraine\">pass a foreign aid bill<\/a> for Ukraine, <b>Israel<\/b> and <b>Taiwan<\/b>.  House Speaker <b>Mike Johnson<\/b>, however, has already said he&#8217;ll do everything he can to keep this National Security measure from ever being allowed up for a vote on the House floor. Because Donald Trump told him to.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In the greatest tradition of Banana Republic strongmen, <b>Donald Trump<\/b> is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2024\/02\/12\/trump-republican-national-committee-chair-whatley-00141061\">reportedly<\/a> planning to install his own daughter-in-law <b>Lara Trump<\/b> as co-Chair of the <b>Republican National Committee<\/b> and the Chair of his own Campaign as the RNC&#8217;s Chief Operations Officer. The GOP takeover by a twice-impeached, four-time criminally indicted, one-term failed President is now all but officially complete.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>And then we finally get to the Hur Report today and the corporate mainstream media&#8217;s epically failed coverage of it&#8217;s release by Special Prosecutor <b>Robert Hur<\/b>, who was appointed by Trump to the DoJ. Last week, the Dept. unsealed the full, unredacted, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/storage\/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf\">nearly 400-page report [PDF]<\/a>. Hur was tapped by Attorney General <b>Merrick Garland<\/b> to probe the small number of classified documents that <b>Joe Biden<\/b>&#8216;s attorneys discovered at one of his old office spaces and in his home.\n<p>The headline for the report&#8217;s release should have been &#8220;Special Prosecutor Fails to Find Evidence of Crimes in Biden Classified Docs Probe&#8221;, at least if one bothers to read what Hur actually detailed in the bulk of his report.<\/p>\n<p>That, as Hur himself points out, by way of contrast to the many reasons that 40 criminal felony counts were brought against Trump under the Espionage Act after he stole tens of thousands of pages of highly classified documents upon leaving office and then refused to return them to the Government.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Most notably, after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite,&#8221; writes Hur on page 11. &#8220;According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it. In contrast, Mr. Biden turned in classified documents to the National Archives and the Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview. and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The report went on for hundreds of pages, laying out exculpatory evidence after exculpatory evidence, as former DoJ prosecutors <b>Andrew Weissman<\/b> and <b>Ryan Goodman<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/92090\/the-real-robert-hur-report-versus-what-you-read-in-the-news\/\">detail<\/a>. That, even as Hur rifled through Biden&#8217;s personal diaries searching for evidence of a crime, as brilliantly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.emptywheel.net\/2024\/02\/11\/robert-hur-complained-about-biden-notes-that-trump-almost-certainly-already-declassified\/\">highlighted<\/a> by national security journalist <b>Marcy Wheeler<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>But the screaming HEADLINE NEWS!!! that our corporate media took away from all of it in <a href=\"https:\/\/popular.info\/p\/manufacturing-a-political-crisis\">dozens and dozens of stories<\/a> was that the Trump-appointed Hur included remarks in the report having nothing to do with whether Biden should be charged with a crime or not, but that Hur, not a medical professional, describes as the President having a &#8220;poor memory&#8221; and &#8220;diminished faculties&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>And you wonder why our country is going to hell in a handbasket?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14934\">our latest <i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a> with coverage of a new type of <b>Super Bowl<\/b> EV ad; The big investment into the Trump campaign by <b>Big Oil and Gas<\/b> this year; and a jury award of $1 million to Pulitzer Prize-winning climate scientist Dr. <b>Michael Mann<\/b> in his defamation case against two far-right climate science liars and harassers&#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-StewartReturns-MayorkasImpeachDoOver-HurReport_021324.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>Once again today, we try to stuff a 10-pound show into a 5-pound BradCast. Wish us luck! [Audio link to full show follows this summary.] Among our many stories for your listening pleasure, amusement and outrage today&#8230; Jon Stewart is back on The Daily Show! At least on Monday nights. At least for this year. [&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":[192,1631,89,675,543,299,479,1611,753,548,261,178,320,308,477,1946,188,1922,107,300,295,1842,1947,198,233,698],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-14935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-alejandro-mayorkas","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-climate-change","category-democrats","category-donald-trump","category-election-2024","category-electric-vehicles","category-extreme-weather","category-immigration","category-impeachment","category-joe-biden","category-jon-stewart","category-kpfk","category-lara-trump","category-mainstream-media-failure","category-mike-johnson","category-national-security","category-republicans","category-rnc","category-robert-hur","category-tom-suozzi","category-us-house","category-us-senate","category-ukraine","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14935","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=14935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14935"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=14935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}