{"id":15366,"date":"2025-04-21T17:57:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T00:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15366"},"modified":"2025-04-21T18:01:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T01:01:30","slug":"pope-francis-dies-trump-still-alive-and-criming-bradcast-4212025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15366","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis Dies, Trump Still Alive and Criming: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 4\/21\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_PopeFrancis_TrumpBunnyEars_042125.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">Well, we&#8217;re back live on today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>, like it or not. With so much going on we&#8217;ve got no choice but to run right into the middle of the freeway and pray for the best. The result? Not a bad show, if I say so myself. [<i>Audio link to full show follows this tweet.<\/i>]\n<p>After a quick round-up, needed for context today, of just <i>some<\/i> of last week&#8217;s madness while we were otherwise off for a much-needed break, we pick up with&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.ca4.178400\/gov.uscourts.ca4.178400.8.0.pdf\">opinion [PDF]<\/a> of the very conservative Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge <b>J. Harvie Wilkinson III<\/b>, who, last week in the case of the mistakenly-deported <b>Kilmar Abrego Garcia<\/b> warned that the Trump Administration&#8217;s refusal to bring the man home to <b>Maryland<\/b> from a gulag in <b>El Salvador<\/b> &#8220;should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.&#8221; Judge Wilkinson goes on to warn, among other things, that &#8220;The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,&#8221; and that &#8220;If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>But <b>Donald Trump<\/b>&#8216;s tyranny is now here, <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/edblog\/for-doge-and-all-criminal-actors-there-must-be-consequences-and-accountability#more-1517391\">in full flower<\/a>, which one Republican U.S. Senator <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:aunpu65mdrhwfie7ynymlzeh\/post\/3lmzbga6j2k2d\">admitted<\/a> recently has all of her colleagues &#8220;afraid&#8221;, even if most are still too afraid to say as much out loud.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>SCOTUS<\/b> was literally <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/scotus-freezes-alien-enemy-removals-in-rare-urgent-late-night-order\">forced to awaken from bed<\/a> over the weekend to issue an extraordinary, 7 to 2, middle-of-the-night <a href=\"https:\/\/s3.documentcloud.org\/documents\/25902119\/24a1007-order-41925.pdf\">order PDF<\/a> to the Trump Administration, clarifying that no <b>Venezuelan<\/b> migrants being held in <b>Texas<\/b> may be deported under the <b>Alien Enemies Act<\/b> of 1798 &#8220;until further order of this court.&#8221; (If you&#8217;re wondering who were the two Justices in <i>favor<\/i> of sending migrants to foreign gulags without benefit of any Constitutional due process, that would be <b>Sam Alito<\/b> and <b>Clarence Thomas<\/b>, of course.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>And, by the way, <a href=\"https:\/\/wapo.st\/3YG1FPg\"><i>Washington Post<\/i> reported<\/a> over the weekend that the 18 intelligence agencies comprising Trump&#8217;s own <b>National Intelligence Council<\/b> concluded in an assessment earlier this month that the Venezuelan government is <i>not<\/i> directing an invasion of the U.S., as Trump has lied about in unlawfully invoking the <b>Alien Enemies Act<\/b> to deport migrants without due process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Trump&#8217;s fiscal policies continue to be disastrous as well. The U.S. stock market <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/04\/20\/stock-market-today-live-updates.html\">plummeted<\/a> <i>yet again<\/i> on Monday in response to Trump&#8217;s tariff and trade war <i>and<\/i> his <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/114376239725335883\">new threats<\/a> of firing his own Federal Reserve Chair <b>Jerome Powell<\/b>, who Trump is now blaming for the fact that <i>he<\/i> crashed the U.S. economy with his own dumb trade war that few if any countries are apparently willing to negotiate with Trump about.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Pope Francis<\/b>, the world&#8217;s first Latin American pontiff and a great champion of progressive causes including <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/7278986\/pope-francis-environment-climate-legacy\/\">the fight against climate change<\/a> and for environmental justice &#8212; as Desi Doyen details today &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/vatican-pope-francis-dead-01ca7d73c3c48d25fd1504ba076e2e2a\">died on Monday<\/a> at the age of 88 after a months-long illness and a brief meeting with Vice President <b>J.D. Vance<\/b> on Easter Sunday. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>That&#8217;s not all we cover today, but it gives you an idea before we open up the phones to <b>callers, callers, callers<\/b>. Lot of them, including some with some very interesting thoughts and questions! Please tune in!&#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-LastWeek-ImmigrationCases-PopeFrancisRIP_Callers_042125.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:\/\/www.iheart.com\/podcast\/256-the-bradcast-w-brad-friedm-30973643\/\">iHeart<\/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>Well, we&#8217;re back live on today&#8217;s BradCast, like it or not. With so much going on we&#8217;ve got no choice but to run right into the middle of the freeway and pray for the best. The result? Not a bad show, if I say so myself. [Audio link to full show follows this tweet.] After [&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":[192,708,89,675,667,543,223,479,390,883,261,1738,477,458,506,762,712,300,313,1312],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-barbara-lee","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-chris-van-hollen","category-climate-change","category-dept-of-justice","category-donald-trump","category-economy","category-fascism","category-immigration","category-jd-vance","category-kpfk","category-lisa-murkowski","category-oakland","category-pope-francis","category-religion","category-republicans","category-us-supreme-court","category-wall-street"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15366","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=15366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15366"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=15366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}