On today’s BradCast, as the nation awaits Trump Attorney General William Barr’s release of some redacted version or another of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Thursday morning, Barr was busy announcing new immigration policies to add to the Administration’s ongoing success in creating havoc and a humanitarian crisis on our southern border. [Audio link to show is posted below.]
But first today, a few other news items of note and another reminder of how neither the media nor the Democrats in Congress are prepared to adequately respond to the “creeping authoritarianism”, as media analyst Eric Boehlert too-generously describes it, that has turned outrageous, impeachable actions by a sitting President into little more than another “wacky Trump story of the day” over the past two years of his chaotic and criminal Presidency.
On Tuesday night, the war-mongering Trump vetoed a bicameral, bipartisan War Powers Resolution adopted by Congress — for the first time since the 1973 War Powers Act largely delegated Congress’ Constitutional war-making power to the White House — demanding an end to U.S. military aid for Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen, where thousands of civilians have been killed and millions are facing famine. That, despite the murder last year of Washington Post’s Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi at the alleged command of Saudi crown prince and Trump ally Mohammad bin Salman.
Meanwhile, as federal prosecutors seek up to 10 months in prison for actress Felicity Huffman in the college admissions scandal after her recent guilty plea (please note my “Full Disclosure” during the program regarding my personal history with Huffman and her husband William H. Macy), the actions taken by Trump last week alone, as highlighted by Boehlert, are a veritable litany of impeachable offenses.
Nonetheless, while the actress may face jail time for a foolish and illegal offense on behalf of her daughter, our lawless President runs free — and few, if any, in the media or Congress appear capable of taking on his Constitution-endangering lawlessness with the gravity warranted. Even several of the outspoken progressive freshman Democrats in the House, while supporting calls for impeachment in general, appear to be pulling punches in deference to fearful party leadership. As I argue today (yet again), there is more than enough — even without whatever findings may come from Mueller — to, as columnist Dan Savage has long argued, “ITMFA”.
Next, we’re joined by immigration attorney SARAH PIERCE, Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute to discuss Barr’s newly-announced immigration policy changes revealed Tuesday evening. The new measures would bar asylum seekers who have already demonstrated a “credible fear” of return to their home countries to immigration officials from being allowed to seek bond for release until their asylum case can be heard. The process would, she explains, keep such individual in detention for months and even years, despite an already-existing lack of space in ICE detention facilities which has led to their current so-called “catch and release” policies.
The new measures, Pierce explains, would not apply to families seeking asylum or children traveling alone (even as thousands of asylum seeking children remain separated from their parents in the wake of Trump’s previous AG Jeff Sessions’ so-called “zero tolerance” policies.)
Pierce details what Barr’s new policy measures will and won’t do; why Barr has the authority to enact them; how they differ from Executive Actions undertaken by the Obama Administration (which Republicans used to object to as “unconstitutional unilateral actions”); why the new policy is likely to be challenged in federal court; how almost all of Trump’s border policies are exacerbating the very problems he claims to want to solve; and why he continues to take such extreme and often unlawful and/or unconstitutional measures.
“This Administration just doesn’t seem that interested in resolving this systemic problem. Instead, they just want to deter asylum seekers from arriving at the southern border. They want to limit how many ultimately apply for asylum, and then limit how many ultimately receive it,” she tells me. “There is a political incentive for this President to look like he’s active on immigration, to show that he’s engaged in the fight, and fighting for the policies that his base is interested in — and maybe less of a political interest in actually having results on the ground.” Pierce surmises that Trump wishes to “keep hammering in these harsh policies, whether or not they’re actually going to stand up in court or be effective.”
Finally today, some listener comment in response to my rant yesterday regarding the $700 million raised overnight (now up to nearly $1 billion), from a handful of billionaire families and corporations, to restore the fire-ravaged, 850-year old Notre Dame Cathedral in the heart of Paris…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_TrumpSaudiYemenVeto-Authoritariansm_SarahPierce-BarrBorderMeasure_041719.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Not only do the Democrats fail this nation by not investigating Trump’s administration and their crimes, they continue to fund the war machine which commits so many of these crimes.
Matt @1:
But the Dems are doing nothing but investigate Trump! What they are not doing is introducing Articles of Impeachment (yet. Though some Dems have done so.) Please make them.
As to the war machine, well, yeah, that’s what they do. I hope you’ll push to stop them.