{"id":15386,"date":"2025-05-08T18:10:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T01:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15386"},"modified":"2025-05-08T23:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T06:00:11","slug":"blowing-smoke-at-the-vatican-and-white-house-bradcast-582025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15386","title":{"rendered":"Blowing Smoke. At the Vatican and White House: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 5\/8\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_WhiteSmoke-Vatican_050825.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">Gotta keep it short today. (You&#8217;re welcome.) But there&#8217;s <i>plenty<\/i> to make up for it on today&#8217;s <i>very<\/i> lively <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>. [<i>Audio link to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>Among our coverage&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/religion\/vatican-conclave-choses-new-pope-rcna205539\"><i>Habemus Papam<\/i><\/a>! And all <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/ericcolumbus.bsky.social\/post\/3loojl6zp322h\">signs<\/a> are that <b>Pope Leo XIV<\/b> may be a good one&#8230;even if he&#8217;s from <b>Chicago<\/b>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Happily, the new Pope tossed <b>Donald Trump<\/b>&#8216;s dumb, first and only, but <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/us-uk-trump-starmer-trade-deal-79d55b8ade0dd8c9265ada9400d079db\">not-actually-done trade deal<\/a> with <b>U.K.<\/b> right off today&#8217;s front pages. But, suffice to say, it ain&#8217;t much of a deal anyway, done or otherwise. At least not for the U.S.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Speaking of deals from the world&#8217;s greatest (read: worst) negotiator, the one that Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/russia-ukraine-war-putin-trump-peace-ce025ba11929ceff0c90f94c25a47624#\">struck last week<\/a> with <b>Ukraine<\/b>, to share some profits from exploitation of rare earth minerals in the war-torn nation in exchange for our continuing support, actually <i>is<\/i> a <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelmcfaul.substack.com\/p\/the-us-ukraine-minerals-deal-is-win?r=7f9zl&#038;utm_campaign=post&#038;utm_medium=email&#038;triedRedirect=true\">good deal<\/a>! Especially for Ukraine, which seems to have outfoxed Trump. (Which apparently isn&#8217;t all that difficult.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In other dumb Trump trade news, <b>California<\/b> Governor <b>Gavin Newsom<\/b> and U.S. Senator <b>Adam Schiff<\/b> &#8212; not to mention film and TV producers and unions, etc. &#8212; are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/05\/movies\/tariffs-trump-voight.html?unlocked_article_code=1.F08.Wlxa.41u4NqGkjLe_&#038;smid=url-share\">calling Trump&#8217;s weekend bluff<\/a>, when he claimed to want to save the U.S. film industry. He declared an unworkable, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2025\/may\/04\/trump-tariffs-foreign-movies?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-1\">potentially industry-crushing<\/a> 100% tariff on all films &#8220;produced in Foreign Lands&#8221;. The serious people, however, want to see federal tax credits to encourage more production in the U.S. So, does Donny <i>really<\/i> want to keep the industry from &#8220;DYING a very fast death&#8221;, as he claimed? If so, his Democratic friends in California have an actual solution. (Don&#8217;t hold your breath he&#8217;ll take it.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Arizona<\/b>&#8216;s two-time statewide loser and election fraud fraudster <b>Kari Lake<\/b> has a new job with the Trump Administration. She&#8217;s helping him shut down the world-revered <b>Voice of America<\/b> news and culture outlet and its global sister networks, despite the Congressionally-mandated and funded outlets&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usagm.gov\/who-we-are\/oversight\/legislation\/voa-charter\/\">charter<\/a> to produce accurate and unbiased news and cultural programming &#8212; particularly in regions where a free press is restricted. VOA has done exactly that for the past 83-years since WWII, until being silenced by the Trump Administration. As lawsuits filed by VOA journalists, unions and contractors move forward to reopen the networks, Lake <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/05\/07\/nx-s1-5389453\/kari-lake-says-oans-far-right-coverage-will-fuel-voice-of-america\">announced this week<\/a> that she plans to replace the programming with far-right wingnut propaganda produced by the loons at the <b>One America News Network<\/b> (OAN). Which would, of course, be against the law. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally, Desi Doyen is here with some alarming news that came in <i>after<\/i> we&#8217;d already laid down <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15385\">today&#8217;s <i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a>. We close today&#8217;s program with both&#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-PopeLeo-TradeDeals-UK-Ukraine-Hollywood-OANonVOA_050825.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>Gotta keep it short today. (You&#8217;re welcome.) But there&#8217;s plenty to make up for it on today&#8217;s very lively BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.] Among our coverage&#8230; Habemus Papam! And all signs are that Pope Leo XIV may be a good one&#8230;even if he&#8217;s from Chicago. Happily, the new Pope tossed [&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,"footnotes":""},"categories":[802,26,89,675,21,479,750,1791,477,784,1573,712,1124,549,698,1726],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-schiff","category-brad-blog","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-california","category-donald-trump","category-gavin-newsom","category-kari-lake","category-kpfk","category-mining","category-oann","category-religion","category-trade","category-uk","category-ukraine","category-voice-of-america-voa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15386","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=15386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15386"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=15386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}