We begin today’s BradCast with a somewhat harrowing and breathtaking round-up of what has been an exceptionally bad news week, even for this particular White House. But all of that got considerably worse on Friday. [Audio link to show is posted below.]
New grand jury indictments [PDF] were filed against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities, by Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel probe, for alleged interference in the 2016 Presidential election. We detail what the indictment says and doesn’t say, and how Donald Trump and his White House are lying about both.
Then, before it disappears into the ether, more coverage of the shameful dodging, denial and misdirection from Senate Republicans — of particularly shameful note were Senators Chuck Grassley (IA) and Marco Rubio (FL) on Thursday — following Wednesday’s horrific mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Despite some twisted misdirection from Grassley on “mental health” issues (he sponsored the bill passed last year to make it easier for the mentally ill to purchase weapons) and desperate remarks from Rubio on the purported futility of any and all laws regarding guns (or anything else, apparently), we detail the reason why the U.S. has so many mass shootings, according to dozens of peer-reviewed studies from around the nation and the world: the obscene number and easy availability of guns in the U.S., which is unparalleled among developed nations. Period.
Next, Friday’s grand jury indictments from Mueller detail a disturbing and well-organized Russian-based scheme to try and undermine the U.S. Presidential election by using social media to spread “derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”
But the methods and material they used for doing so came directly out of the well-worn GOP and rightwing media playbook. Fake news said to have been spread by Russian social media accounts declaring, for example, “voter fraud” in Florida just days before the election, as cited in the Mueller indictments, was, quite literally, taken straight off of Fox “News” and other rightwing media outlets, where fake news of the type said to have been spread by Russian agents has been used for years to manipulate the U.S. electorate.
Worse still, it appears that Republican officials and candidates for office are now creating their own fake news sites with legitimate sounding names — from the “Arizona Monitor” to the “Maine Examiner” to “The Free Telegraph” (that one is run by the Republican Governors Association!) — in order to scam voters with wildly fake and/or slanted “news”, meant to appear legitimate.
So, yes, foreign interference in our elections is of concern, but, as we explain today, the far greater threat to American democracy is still “coming from inside the house.”
Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, as U.S. intelligence agencies contradict the Trump Administration on climate risks, ExxonMobil fights back against climate lawsuits, the corporate media continue to fail on climate change coverage, and a bit of good news, happily, from the Queen of England…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_RussiaIndictments_USGunShame_GOPFakeNews_021618.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Hey brad,
Paper ballots counted by the public at the precinct anyone? And a measurable dose of anything can happen!
🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mmF8zOlh_g
On top of all that, to the matter of the latest american murder… i feel the president for his signing of his first legislation to stop mentally compromised people to obtain guns is at fault!
FUCK U and the NRA.
Our culture is genetically “flowering” (The “Genes” of Culture In Civilizations – 2).