On today’s BradCast…
First up: New polling shows Bernie Sanders surging in NH among Democrats and Gov. John Kasich — yes, John Kasich — surging to second place among Republicans in the state…if you believe those sorts of things. At the same time, during the GOP establishment’s half-hearted search for an alternative to Cruz/Trump, the Republican Party appears to be plummeting in popularity during the course of the 2016 Primary cycle, even as actual Republican voters seem to be warming up to the idea of Trump as their party’s nominee.
Then, a remarkable new study from Oxfam finds that the world’s richest “62 people own the same wealth as half the world” (the planet’s 3.5 billion poorest!) And, some of those 62 richest-people-on-the-planet — like the Koch Brothers and the Walmart heirs — are amongst the biggest spenders when it comes to attempts to buy our political system.
So, what can be done about that last part? Jon Schwarz, Senior Editor at The Intercept, joins me to discuss how, despite “eloquent” comments suggesting otherwise during his State of the Union address last week, President Obama could take executive action immediately, on his own, to help radically reduce the “dark money” in our electoral and political system.
“One thing that Obama absolutely can do, by himself, this afternoon, if he wants to, is sign an executive order placing requirements on federal contractors,” Schwarz explains, describing other similar actions that the President has taken in the recent past concerning federal contracting. “He can do it and he’s done it in the past. What he could do about money in politics now is issue an executive order saying that federal contractors have to disclose any dark money contributions that they’re making.”
“If he did that, that would cover about 70 percent of the biggest corporations,” Schwarz tells me. “So, it would not force the disclosure of any and all dark money, but it would force disclosure of a great deal of that. And, as I say, he could do that this afternoon.”
We discuss some of the reasons Obama has failed to do this, to date, despite his calls for campaign finance reform throughout his career and as recently as last week’s SOTU — even with so many calls from so many quarters to take this action. “Obama likes to say really great-sounding stuff about money in politics — he’s said it his whole Senate career, his whole Presidency — but he’s never done anything. It’s really extraordinary.”
Finally on today’s show, a few words on last night’s passing of The Eagle’s Glenn Frey and the latest on the outrageous lead poisoning crisis in Flint, MI, caused by the tyranny (literally) of Gov. Rick Snyder (R)…
Download MP3 or listen to complete show online below…
[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_JonSchwarzSOTUCampaignFinance_NHSurges_SnyderTyranny_011916.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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I don’t know…
I saw a picture of Bernie Sanders filling up a stadium with 7000 in South Carolina with an overflow audience of around 1500, and I’ve only seen one picture of Hillary bringing out 5000 in New York at her announcement, but they tell us this is the usual neck n’ neck race.
Maybe Hillary’s supporters are just too lazy to show up in person, but are going to “rock the vote” at the precinct.
I don’t know.
I don’t know…
But Bernie Sanders strongly supported Jesse Jackson for president in 1984 and marched with Martin Luther King Jr.
Hillary supposedly has much stronger support from blacks, despite the fact that she was a Goldwater Girl at the time.
I don’t know.
The formatting of the Intercept’s site has changed for me (others?) so that most of each article and all comments are behind the graphic plain left side column which is now not a column but most of the page. Was it something I said and The Intercept has a form of censorship, or is it another entity making The Intercept unavailable for viewing and The Intercept is unaware of the problem?