Today on The BradCast, the transition officially begins and the prospect of years of progressive policies begin to roll back. [Audio link to show posted below.]
Donald Trump met with President Obama at the White House today for a chilly, if cordial transition meeting, as the world continues to try and make sense of it all. Joining us to help in that task today is award-winning opinion journalist and our old friend Heather Digby Parton of Salon and the Hullabaloo blog, back by popular demand. She was with us to warn, on the day Trump entered the race in June of 2015, that he would be a force to be reckoned with, while so many others scoffed.
Today we examine, among many other things, the media’s role in helping to normalize Trump while demonizing Hillary Clinton, and we begin to process just some of the dangers that the ‘President-elect’ now presents to not only Obama’s eight years of progress, but to the world and the planet. For example, see Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) minimizing waterboarding again, and suggesting that torture will once again be back on the table — just as Trump had promised during the campaign.
“What I saw [on Election Night] was the [media’s] shift to suddenly seeing Donald Trump as a normal politician,” Parton explains. “The campaign has been disappeared. That odious campaign that we just watched him run. The one where he promised to lock up his rival, torture terror suspects, put guns in schools, the most horrifying agenda we’ve ever seen from a major party candidate, and delivered in the most cretinous fashion that it’s ever been delivered — that is gone. There is no remnant of it in the media. What we’re seeing now is a nice, mainstream Republican candidate who appealed to ‘Real Americans’ and spoke to their needs, and we need to welcome him. A lot of the commentary is that Democrats really need to reach out to him and to his followers and make up for the fact that they were so rude to him.”
We try to un-disappear some of Trump’s “disappeared” campaign promises a bit today, while noting that there is now little, if anything, to stop the very worst of those them — from torture to massive tax cuts to gutting any and all financial and environmental regulations — from being adopted by the new Administration and a compliant Congress and Supreme Court. We also discuss the role that Obama and the Democrats have in Republicans’ ability to revive the very worst of the George W. Bush Administration war crimes and more, since they refused to bring accountability previously. And, speaking of accountability, Parton offers her thoughts on progressives who voted for third parties this year.
Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for a our first Green News Report since the election, for a look at what President Trump will mean for the environment, energy and the UN climate agreement….
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_Digby_TrumpTransition_111016.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Sen. Cotton is talking about this:
http://nbcwashington.com/news/archive/Mancow-Takes-on-Waterboarding-and-Loses.html
The headline is “Mancow Waterboarded, Admit’s It’s Torture.”
So he is either completely missing the point of the historical event, or else deliberately misleading people.
oh and this website is still really hard to deal with
maybe you could put the stuff on the right side on a separate page?
all that extra material doesn’t do us any good if it uses so much memory that my browser freezes up 🙁
That must have been awkward.
My stepdad once tried to shake hands with Trump. Sensed he was afraid of germs.
“Put the stuff on the right side on a separate page”
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“That odious campaign”
This is poor language of Trump, like myself, I find myself lacking descriptive words, and I say things that are then taken way out of context. The only thing thats going on here is the restoration of the Rule of Law.
Guns in schools why you ask? I will tell you why because right now if someone goes into a school with a firearm, and I am disarmed, I consider myself DEAD Right then and there.
I might as well RUSH the person, if I stand around I will be dead, if I rush I will be dead, but at least I have a chance of stopping it. Now with a gun in the school, there’s no waiting to stop it.
Much of disappearing campaign promises are because a potus doesn’t have such powers granted to him in the first place, but nobody in media ever BOTHERED to question it. What legal authority have you for X, Y, Z in your mandate mr trump. such questions were not asked, you know very well what played on your screens following it all. A big media disconnect with no real content, just perception management. Also these are corrupt deep state based deceptions.
There is a TIMING thing going on here. My “spidey
senses” are saying, it’s so that OBAMA can’t pardon criminals. But then we are talking intuition here you could call it tin.
Please put a cork in it BROKENSPELL/whoever. You couldn’t flummox a potato bug with your bad writing.
Must see.
You said that the DNC didn’t try to tip the scales to favor HRC against Bernie? Brad, you have blinders on. Don’t blame people ranting on the DNC. I think it is time for another party. And do you think with a Republican majority, the American people can try to do election reform? Just kidding.
RE: Electoral College
(Electoral College History).
Trump is not qualified because of his advocacy for unconstitutional behavior (torture, racism, etc).
Is this Digby of blog fame?
Must see on exit polls vs reported in the crtical four states–
http://tdmsresearch.com/2016/11/10/2016-presidential-election-table/
Even Democrats can be dead brains. I was a Bernie supporter from day one; but I knew the GOP is too corrupt to take over our government. The GOP is more scary than Trump.
You nee to have your crack IT staf make this site secure. Sending these comments is a risk.
Brad–I just sent you the exit poll data from comment #9 above. What’s your take?
Larry Taylor said @7:
When the hell did I say that?! Pretty sure you either misheard me (or, I suppose, it’s possible that I mispoke, but I don’t recall having done so.) I wouldn’t have said it, because they definitely did try to tip the scales in favor of HRC — as I’ve reported many times, going back to very early in the primaries.
I don’t “blame people” for that at all.
Columbus @9 asked:
Yes.
Columbus @ #10
Even Democrats can be dead brains. I was a Bernie supporter from day one; but I knew the GOP is too corrupt to take over our government. The GOP is more scary than Trump.
Columbus, We’re getting the whole package, the deluxe edition. The GOP will take over in January. They will have all three branches of government and the corporate media as their stenographers.
Trump, someone who can’t even run a business without cheating people, has no clue about being a politician, let alone president of the United State. Who do you think he’s going to put in his cabinet? Who will be his advisers? Who do think he’s going to nominate for the Supreme Court? And don’t forget Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, who wants to turn our country into a real life version of The Handmaid’s Tale.
The most we can hope for now is a huge midterm backlash in the house–a serious uphill battle. If you’re not already an active member of Brand New Congress and/or Our Revolution I urge you to pitch in and help make a change.
NEMO–COMMENT NO. 1
Senator Cotton and some of his colleagues make me shake my head and ask, “What Constitution are they upholding?” For they mock the oath and engage in flagrant falsehood. His letter regarding the Iran Nuclear Agreement was a perfect example.
http://www.marvinjones.blogspot.com/2015/06/forty-seven-shades-of-nay.html