On today’s BradCast: Some encouraging news for democracy (at least in Georgia), some predictable lies from the Senate Majority leader, a gentle rebuke for Trump from both parties, and a call for intervention from the Senate Minority Leader, among other things.
Just some of the many stories covered on today’s program…
- Georgia Democrat and potential U.S. Senate candidate Stacey Abrams, who will be giving the Democratic response to the State of the Union Address on Tuesday, is set to run a television ad during Sunday’s Super Bowl in Atlanta with a north Georgia Republican County Commissioner calling for HAND-MARKED paper ballots in the state!
The ad is sponsored by Abrams’ non-partisan voting rights organization Fair Fight, formed after Abrams is said to have very narrowly lost her contest to become the nation’s first African-American female governor last November to Republican Secretary of State and champion vote suppressor Brian Kemp. Both he and his GOP successor are now calling for the state’s 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems to be replaced with new, very expensive and also 100% unverifiable touchscreen systems that produce computer-marked, human-unreadable barcoded ballot summary cards, rather than hand-marked paper ballots which computer science and voting systems experts all agree [PDF] to be the most secure, auditable and overseeable way to carry out elections;
- In the U.S. Senate, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell offered a huge lie about the Democrats’ “For the People Act” (HR-1), recently introduced in the U.S. House to call for a series of major election reforms. Among the many provisions in the measure — such as universal automatic voter registration, expanded early voting, ending partisan gerrymandering and yes, ensuring a HAND-MARKED paper ballot for every voter — it also seeks to declare Election Day as a federal holiday. Naturally, McConnell lied about what the bill calls for on that point, and absurdly describes the measure as a “Democrat power-grab”. We respond;
- Also in the U.S. Senate, Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats calling for him and the other Administration Intelligence Chiefs to “stage an intervention” with the Commander-in-Chief, after Donald Trump described his own top intel officials on Wednesday as “wrong”, “naive” and needing to “go back to school!” on a host of foreign policy issues. Trump’s remarks came in response to the Intelligence Community’s new annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment” PDF. The report, and Senate testimony from the chiefs about it on Tuesday, argues that Trump is essentially wrong on everything from North Korea, to Iran, to ISIS to Syria and Afghanistan, and on his claims about an imagined “national emergency” at the U.S. -Mexico board.
- But if Schumer really wants to “stage an intervention” with this President, his Democrats in the Senate and House could be calling for an immediate Impeachment inquiry. As detailed by Ernest Canning at BradBlog.com this week, the Nixon impeachment process reveals that it is both unnecessary and, arguably, unwise for Dems to wait for a report from the Special Counsel investigation before exercising their Constitutional duty;
- Also today, Republicans and about half of Senate Democrats passed an amendment that (gently) rebukes the President by calling for U.S. troops to remain in both Syria and Afghanistan, in contrast to Trump’s recent military directives;
- An upside to the recent federal government shutdown? A beach in Northern California that had been closed will remain closed, because elephant seals have taken it over;
- And, finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with updates on the record bone-chilling — and deadly — Polar Vortex cold snap in the Midwest and Northeast, evidence that Trump’s intervention in Venezuela is, of course, all about oil, and some good news out of Germany which is now on its way to quitting coal entirely…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_Brad Friedman_AbramsHandMarkedBallots_McConnellHR1Lies_SchumerTrumpIntervention_013119.mp3]
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A different perspective on the Germany story: coal peaked in Germany during World War II so it is unlikely they will have much left by 2038. Source: Energy Watch Group (German organization tracking energy use).
Meanwhile, they use lots of Russian “natural” gas to heat their cities in the winter. It’s good they have lots of solar panels and wind farms but indoor heating may be a significant challenge on the downslope.
Georgia Democrat and potential U.S. Senate candidate Stacey Abrams, who will be giving the Democratic response to the State of the Union Address on Tuesday, is set to run a television ad during Sunday’s Super Bowl in Atlanta with a north Georgia Republican County Commissioner calling for HAND-MARKED paper ballots in the state!
Hear! Hear!
Just to be clear (since I was searching high and low for Stacey’s Superbowl ad on youtube), I think this ad only aired in Georgia — is that correct? Is the ad anywhere online for viewing?
Allin @3:
You are correct, it aired only in GA during the SuperBowl, though many others (for example BradCast and, sorta, MSNBC — as I’ll discuss on today’s show) aired it as well.
The link to the ad online was included in the article above, but here it is again for ya.
Aha, thank you for the link, Brad! I know I’m being greedy here, but I wish the ad had also stated that the hand-marked paper ballots should be hand-counted at the precincts with public witnesses. Oh well, maybe at next yr’s superbowl.