On today’s BradCast, Republicans have returned to form, via government by hostage taking. Vote our way or the kids get it it! [Audio link to show follows below.]
The chaos in Congress, as Republicans race to come up with a plan to avoid a Government shutdown this weekend, echoes what happened just last week as they they tried to pass a reauthorization and extension of the FISA Amendment Act in the U.S. House. Though GOP leadership and the White House had long lobbied for the reauthorization, Donald Trump unleashed chaos when he tweeted against his own bill. That legislation, which allows for warrantless surveillance of emails and phone calls by all Americans, ultimately passed after Paul Ryan called the President to explain it, and enough Democrats came on board to help them in the House. (It passed today, again with the help of Democrats in the Senate, and now heads to Trump’s desk to be signed.)
On Thursday, as Congressional Republicans attempted to pass a short-term spending bill to keep the government open — after a long-term deal was plunged into chaos when Trump refused a deal that included immigrants from “shithole countries” — Trump did it again. He tweeted against a GOP stopgap plan which includes reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The reauthorization, which both helps sick kids and saves the government billions of dollars, was included by Republicans in hopes of enticing Democrats to help them avoid a full government shutdown as of midnight Friday. Most Dems don’t seem to be buying it — despite Ryan, once again, calling the White House to get Trump back on board — as they appear unwilling to help Republicans out of this jam without the inclusion of a fix to the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Republicans refuse to include a fix to DACA, the Obama-era protection against deportation of some 800,000 children of immigrants, which Trump reversed, in their short-term measure. Dems say they won’t support such a bill unless DACA is included. In other words, the children helped by both CHIP and DACA are now being held as hostages by the Republican Party. The measure squeaked by tonight in the U.S. House, but passage in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster, is far from certain.
Then, after Donald Trump’s fake “Fake News” awards face plant on Wednesday night, we have a few real “Fake News” awards to offer, based on actual facts, as we reach the end of Trump’s agonizingly long first year in office this weekend.
Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with bad news out of China, good news out of the Detroit Auto Show (and even from McDonald’s), and some late breaking news from NOAA and NASA on the record heat of 2017, as man-made global warming continues apace in the new year…
re: Congress voting to legalize illegal NSA, et al spying:
“our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society”
— Jim Garrison, District Attorney in New Orleans, 1967
Are there ANY examples of Congress, the President or the Courts exercising meaningful, verifiable control over the “intelligence” agencies?
NSA whistleblower Russ Tice said several years ago that these officials were among the top surveillance targets, so any politicians with mistresses, financial wrong doing or other scandals would be especially unable to vote against the spies.
The Republican version of Washington is making America ungreat again:
(First Shots Fired In The Currency Wars – 3).
This is a longer version of the email I sent to you a few days back.
No problem as I understand the catching up stuff: I get your show online and at present I am couple of shows behind. Only your email alerted me to your having read my spewings on the air on your 1/9/2018 Bradcast. I hope you haven’t cut your audience in half because of it! Thanks for the shout out and for using my words as part of your intro to the interview with the Iowa farmer John Gilbert. It is good to know — and to be reminded — the not everyone in so-called Trumpstan is a Trumpist.
I read Mr. Gilbert’s essay at The Practical Blog. People like Beverly and John Gilbert who want to humanity to live and thrive in a healthy and sustainable world greatly outnumber those who would seek to bleed it dry for the almighty ducat. If only the corporate press — because of its massive reach and its capacity to shape audiences’ perspectives on the world — saw fit to routinely seek out people like them in their Trump pastorals if for no other reason than to avoid the stereotyping of Rural America as backward, uninformed, and opposed to its own interests. My thanks to you and Desi for providing to your listeners a chance to hear his voice.
Hearing someone I agree with is not the point (it never is). The point is to have a perspective on the world that is based in reality.
But let’s face it: reality has a liberal bias.
Check this out from Digby’s blog site: https://digbysblog.blogspot.com...inking-by.html. It appears the New York Times has handed its online OP-Ed pages over to defenders of Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01...upporters.html. I read somewhere (here: https://splinternews.com/the-ne...ens-1822178237) that on the next day the Times will turn its pages over to Trumpers who supposedly regret their decision to vote for him.
And then there is this from this morning’s NPR Morning Edition, in a segment titled Trump Visits Pa. County That Has A Special Election In March: https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition. Check out the host interviewing Don Gonyea at 3:53 into the 4:48 minute segment, where the question is raised regarding NPR’s seeming obsession with Trumpers. The question is framed as if liberals are obsessed with this question, betraying a certain tendentiousness in liberals rather than that of the mainstream corporate media (which includes NPR). Gonyea claims that they talk to voters of all kinds (untrue) and that it is good to talk Trumpers to see if they are still with him. Is there a reason why WE should know this? I don’t recall NPR asking that of Obama voters, or of the voters of any losing candidate who made a good showing in the 2016 presidential election.
That Trump got into the White House is not (enough) of a reason for perpetuating the Trump Pastoral genre. What is the news value here? Something else is going on, and we should be concerned about it. I fear that we are(unwittingly, it so far seems…) being set up for something dark and dire, talk of a “Blue Wave” (of which I am not convinced) entirely notwithstanding. Why does not NPR visit people who are unhappy that Trump is President? Don’t they got something to say? Grrrrr…
All this goes to show the proof that what you and Desi do at Bradblog is both rare and desperately needed indeed.
Keep up the excellent work.