{"id":15400,"date":"2025-05-22T17:44:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T00:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15400"},"modified":"2025-05-22T17:56:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T00:56:00","slug":"a-world-of-tyrants-bribes-and-influence-bradcast-5222025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15400","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;A World of Tyrants, Bribes, and Influence&#8217;: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 5\/22\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_MikeJohnsonPoint-TrumpMad_052225.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">Well, it&#8217;s our last <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a> for a week or so, as we prepare for a <em>muuuch<\/em>-needed stand-down next week after Memorial Day. But we make up for it by packing a <i>lot<\/i> into today&#8217;s program, with two of our favorite (and your favorite) guests. [<i>Audio link to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>We&#8217;re joined today again for one of our semi-regular (irregular?) round tables with our old-school, right-about-everything-for-20-years blogger pals, <b>HEATHER DIGBY PARTON<\/b>, award-winning columnist at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/writer\/heather_digby_parton\">Salon <\/a>and her own <a href=\"https:\/\/digbysblog.net\/\">Digby&#8217;s Hullabaloo<\/a> blog; and the notorious <b>&#8216;DRIFTGLASS&#8217;<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/driftglass.blogspot.com\/\">blogger<\/a> and co-host of the weekly <a href=\"http:\/\/professionalleft.blogspot.com\/\"><i>Professional Left Podcas<\/i>t<\/a> from Flyover Country, Illinois. <\/p>\n<p>As noted, we cover a <i>whole<\/i> lot of ground today, including both important and incredibly dumb news alike! Among the important news&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>DoJ Team Trump attorneys are <a href=\"https:\/\/wapo.st\/43peEXk\">upbraided in court<\/a> by a U.S. District judge in <b>New Jersey<\/b> for indicting Newark&#8217;s Democratic Mayor <b>Ras Baraka<\/b> on ridiculous trespassing charges, vowing last week to bring him to trial, only to drop all charges this week. At the same time, they then went on to indict Democratic Congresswoman <b>LaMonica McIver<\/b> on ridiculous charges stemming from the same incident two weeks ago at an ICE detention facility in Newark. Those charges will also likely be dropped eventually, and Trump&#8217;s former loser defense attorney, now interim U.S. Attorney in NJ, <b>Alina Habba<\/b>, will likely find herself upbraided again.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>After Trump spent years campaigning on promises to not touch Social Security, <b>Medicare<\/b> or <b>Medicaid<\/b>, House Republicans earlier today <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/house-passes-trumps-reconciliation-bill-after-shoving-in-larger-medicaid-cuts-at-last-minute\">barely passed<\/a> Trump&#8217;s budget bill that &#8212; you guessed &#8212; will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hcinnovationgroup.com\/policy-value-based-care\/article\/55292192\/house-passes-budget-bill-with-huge-medicaid-cuts-and-potential-medicare-fallout\">slash both Medicare <i>and<\/i> Medicaid<\/a> by more than a <i>trillion<\/i> dollars, <a href=\"https:\/\/wapo.st\/43nJIqo\">taking away health care<\/a> from as many as 14 million Americans. That, in order to help <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/congress-tax-cuts-trump-f2c60ae5c7c1313de69446f9ac7176e6\">pay for tax cuts to wealthy people<\/a> while ballooning deficit spending by about 4 trillion dollars. (Digby: &#8220;It&#8217;s  a complete travesty, and I think everybody knows it.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The Trump Regime&#8217;s ongoing horrors and errors and blatant, thuggish, authoritarian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/immigration\/trump-deportations-south-sudan-rcna208318\">violations of court orders<\/a> regarding his clownish yet cruel and unlawful <b>mass deportation<\/b> efforts. (Driftglass: &#8220;This is a mass weapon attack, like raining missiles down on an enemy target. Some of it is going to get through. And they&#8217;ll get most of what they want.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Qatar<\/b>&#8216;s $400 million bribe to Trump in the shape of a Boeing 747 &#8220;flying palace&#8221; that may never be used as <b>Air Force One<\/b>, but that he hopes to keep for his own personal use after his Presidency. &#8220;Emoluments,&#8221; like &#8220;groceries,&#8221; is such an old-fashioned word. (Driftglass: &#8220;He&#8217;s just a giant greed hole of need and narcissism.&#8221; Digby: &#8220;It sure sounds like &#8216;I&#8217;d like you to do us a favor though&#8230;'&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>And, oh, yeah, <b>Republicans<\/b> on Thursday also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/05\/22\/nx-s1-5387729\/senate-california-ev-air-pollution-waiver-revoked\"><b>nuked the filibuster<\/b><\/a> in the U.S. Senate by ignoring the <b>Senate Parliamentarian<\/b> to pass a law with a bare majority that, according to Senate rules, requires 60 votes for passage. And they did so in order to ban <b>California<\/b>&#8216;s clean air laws. So much for states&#8217; rights. That, despite the fear by many Democrats of nuking the filibuster to protect Voting and Reproductive Rights for all Americans when <i>they<\/i> last controlled the Senate. (Digby: &#8220;Senate rules are dead. So get ready. We are in such untrod territory.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As you might imagine, both Digby and Driftglass have quite a few thoughts on all of the above, as well as on the Dumb News we cover today as well (apologies in advance)&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Trump&#8217;s Director of Homeland Security, <b>Kristi Noem<\/b>, doesn&#8217;t know what <b>&#8220;habeas corpus&#8221;<\/b> means.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Republicans are pretending to be horrified by former FBI Director <b>James Comey<\/b> posting a photo of someone spelling out <b>&#8220;86 47&#8221;<\/b> in seashells on a beach. (Ya know, just like those &#8220;86 46&#8221; t-shirts <a href=\"https:\/\/digbysblog.net\/2012\/12\/23\/holiday-fundraiser-greatest-hits-art-of\/\">rightwingers used to pimp<\/a>. Says Digby: &#8220;This is a Republican thing, and they&#8217;ve been doing it forever.&#8221; See her <a href=\"https:\/\/digbysblog.net\/2012\/12\/23\/holiday-fundraiser-greatest-hits-art-of\/\">&#8220;Art of the Hissy Fit&#8221;<\/a> from <i>2007<\/i>  for more.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Trump is attacking and threatening <b>Bruce Springsteen<\/b>. <i>Bruce Springsteen<\/i>!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>And the dumbest news of all this week: <b>Jake Tapper<\/b> has a book about <b>Joe Biden<\/b> and a super-duper, totally important right now, conspiracy cover-up of his physical &#8212; and, allegedly, cognitive &#8212; decline while in office. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Don&#8217;t worry. I didn&#8217;t give away the best lines or hottest takes on either the important or dumb news, so tune on in! <\/p>\n<p>And finally, Desi Doyen is here with <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15399\">our latest <i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a> with nothing but really good &#8212; okay, really bad &#8212; news to kick off Summer!&#8230;<\/p>\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_HeatherDigbyParton-Driftglass-HealthCareCuts-FilibusterDead-Fascism-Qatar747-JakeTapper_052225.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, it&#8217;s our last BradCast for a week or so, as we prepare for a muuuch-needed stand-down next week after Memorial Day. But we make up for it by packing a lot into today&#8217;s program, with two of our favorite (and your favorite) guests. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.] We&#8217;re joined today [&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":[192,89,675,21,299,223,883,288,261,613,938,635,320,477,2037,2060,2016,1365,2058,2057,300,198,233],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-california","category-democrats","category-dept-of-justice","category-fascism","category-health-care","category-immigration","category-irs","category-jake-tapper","category-james-comey","category-joe-biden","category-kpfk","category-kristi-noem","category-lamonica-mciver","category-medicaremedicaid","category-pollution","category-qatar","category-ras-baraka","category-republicans","category-us-house","category-us-senate"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15400","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=15400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15400"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=15400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}