{"id":15111,"date":"2024-07-25T18:43:38","date_gmt":"2024-07-26T01:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15111"},"modified":"2024-07-25T19:07:07","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T02:07:07","slug":"in-defense-of-democracy-bradcast-7252024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15111","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;In Defense of Democracy&#8217;: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 7\/25\/2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_BidenOvalOffice072424_072524.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">On today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>, we take up the President&#8217;s charge to stand &#8220;in defense of democracy&#8221;. [<i>Audio link to full show follows below this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>Among our coverage today&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>During <b>President Biden<\/b>&#8216;s solemn, somber and historic prime time Oval Office address to the nation on Wednesday evening (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/speeches-remarks\/2024\/07\/24\/remarks-by-president-biden-in-statement-to-the-american-people\/\"><i>transcript here<\/i><\/a>), to explain his Sunday decision to drop out of the 2024 Presidential race and endorse Vice President <b>Kamala Harris<\/b> for the top of the ticket, he focused in no small part on the need to defend democracy against wannabe &#8220;kings and dictators,&#8221; while he charged that &#8220;the cause of American democracy itself&#8221; is now at stake. &#8220;We must unite to protect it,&#8221; he implored. We discuss and continue to join that fight.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Meanwhile, as the <b>U.S. House<\/b> on Wednesday <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-shooting-congress-task-force-cd084a29e3a26da7eead4425e4064118\">voted 417 to 0<\/a> to create a special task force to probe what happened during the July 13 assassination attempt on <b>Donald Trump<\/b> in <b>Pennsylvania<\/b>, FBI Director <b>Christopher Wray<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/joshtpm\/status\/1816262316507205766\">testified<\/a> on Wednesday that, in fact, nearly two weeks since the shooting, we have no idea &#8220;whether or not it&#8217;s a bullet or shrapnel&#8221; that wounded Trump&#8217;s ear. In fact, to date, no medical expert or law enforcement official has ever offered an official public accounting of what <i>actually<\/i> happened to the former President that day, even as mainstream corporate media have simply taken the social media claim by Trump, an inveterate liar, that a &#8220;bullet&#8230;pierced the upper part of my right ear&#8221; as fact. Ever since, Trump has exploited the event to claim at his convention, in rally speeches and on social media, that he &#8220;took a bullet for democracy.&#8221;\n<p>As we detail today, however, all available evidence suggests that is simply a lie. The man who, <i>himself<\/i>, has become the greatest threat to American democracy in modern history is now using the near miss for stolen valor to pretend to be a <i>defender<\/i> of democracy. <\/p>\n<p>As <b>Ernie Canning<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15094\">explains at The BRAD BLOG<\/a> this week, whether Trump &#8220;took a bullet&#8221; or not, it was not &#8220;for democracy,&#8221; as investigators have reportedly found no evidence to suggest the shooting was politically motivated.  And, as TPM&#8217;s <b>Josh Marshall<\/b> has been <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/edblog\/finally-word-from-the-fbi-about-the-trump-story-the-press-has-refused-to-question\/sharetoken\/e0d6fedc-a046-4898-ac93-9dc7a0f0327b\">reporting for some time<\/a>, evidence suggests it was more likely some sort of flying shrapnel that grazed Trump&#8217;s ear, along with causing similar minor injuries to several local cops who were near the stage that day. In any event, the media&#8217;s failure to even <i>ask<\/i> the Trump Campaign about these details &#8212; as one rally goer was actually killed and two others critically wounded that day &#8212; for apparent fear of angering the former President, is &#8220;bizarre&#8221; and &#8220;a total journalistic failure&#8221; to the American people and to history. It also, as we note, underscores tyranny expert and author <b>Timothy Snyder<\/b>&#8216;s repeated warnings about giving up power to would-be autocrats by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9tocssf3w80\">&#8220;obeying in advance.&#8221;<\/a> Much more on all of this on today&#8217;s show.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>We&#8217;ve got more details today on the <b>DNC<\/b>&#8216;s plan to begin <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/harris-democratic-convention-nominee-virtual-voting-78991bcc443e06c000d1d800e0d94cc5\">a virtual roll-call vote<\/a> on August 1st next week &#8212; well in advance of their August 19 convention in <b>Chicago<\/b> &#8212; in order to finalize the party&#8217;s Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominees no later than August 7th. Why are they doing this? No, it&#8217;s not to ensure there are no challengers to presumptive nominee <b>Kamala Harris<\/b>. Rather, it is thanks to a story we&#8217;ve been covering since the beginning of the year about the failure by Republican state lawmakers to change the statutory deadline for submitting certified party nominees for the Buckeye State ballot by August 7th, as they&#8217;ve done for many years, as needed, when Republicans hold their national conventions late in the summer. Yes, state lawmakers, in a late special session, <i>finally<\/i> changed the statutory deadline. But the new law doesn&#8217;t take effect until September 1, opening opening up Democrats to a potential legal challenge by Republicans as to whether their nominee can lawfully be on the state&#8217;s ballot at all this November. Tune in for more details.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>More news &#8220;in defense of democracy&#8221; out of <b>Ohio<\/b> this week. A ballot measure for a state constitutional amendment that would create an independent redistricting committee has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cincinnati.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2024\/07\/23\/its-official-ohioans-will-vote-on-whether-to-remove-politicians-from-congressional-and-statehouse-re\/74336416007\/\">qualified for the November ballot<\/a>! If adopted by voters, it could end the state GOP&#8217;s wildly gerrymandered Congressional and state legislative maps for 2026. Otherwise, Republican Buckeye State politicians will continue to be allowed to choose their own voters, rather than vice versa, until at least 2030.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>And still <i>more<\/i> good news &#8220;in defense of democracy&#8221; from the Buckeye State today! A federal judge has <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/voting-ruling-ohio-disabilities-absentee-90e633c73a69eeab183d668bbedb288a?\">struck down<\/a> part of a sweeping election reform package adopted by <b>Ohio<\/b> Republicans last year that makes it a felony for disabled voters to allow caregivers, roommates, in-laws or even grandchildren to help them cast their absentee ballot by mail or drop box. The voter suppression law threatened to charge anyone but immediate family members (which apparently doesn&#8217;t include grandchildren!) with felonies for helping those voters in need to cast their ballot. That, as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/ncbddd\/disabilityandhealth\/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html#:~:text=Percentage%20of%20adults%20with%20functional,concentrating%2C%20remembering%20or%20making%20decisions.\">CDC finds<\/a> that people with disabilities make up more than a quarter of the U.S. adult population.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15109\">our latest <i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a>, with news on explosive wildfires in the <b>U.S.<\/b> and <b>Canadian<\/b> west; the two hottest days ever recorded on <b>Planet Earth<\/b> (this past Sunday and Monday); and a focus on the Republicans&#8217; shocking <b>Project 2025<\/b> plans to gut federal science agencies &#8212; such as the <b>EPA<\/b> and <b>National Weather Service<\/b> &#8212; along with climate science and many if not most environmental protections and climate change initiatives&#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-BidenOvalOffice-TrumpEarShot-RedistrictingVoteSupressionOH_072524.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>On today&#8217;s BradCast, we take up the President&#8217;s charge to stand &#8220;in defense of democracy&#8221;. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.] Among our coverage today&#8230; During President Biden&#8216;s solemn, somber and historic prime time Oval Office address to the nation on Wednesday evening (transcript here), to explain his Sunday decision to drop [&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":[89,675,500,1018,543,299,123,479,1611,200,451,548,1110,320,924,477,188,947,15,48,1901,300,126,198,280,348],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-canada","category-christopher-wray","category-climate-change","category-democrats","category-dnc","category-donald-trump","category-election-2024","category-environment","category-epa","category-extreme-weather","category-gerrymandering","category-joe-biden","category-kamala-harris","category-kpfk","category-mainstream-media-failure","category-noaa","category-ohio","category-pennsylvania","category-project-2025","category-republicans","category-rights-and-freedoms","category-us-house","category-vote-caging","category-vote-by-mail","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15111","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=15111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15111"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=15111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}