We’re becoming too used to it by now, but it was another jarring start to an already busy week on The BradCast today, as we lurch once again between domestic politics and the hope for peace to somehow emerge in Ukraine. Callers ring in today on both topics. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]
Among the stories covered on our program today…
- 73-year old judicial activist and corrupt dark money champion Justice Clarence Thomas was hospitalized on Friday with an “infection” and “flu-like symptoms”. The Supreme Court waited two days before announcing his hospitalization on Sunday night, claiming that his antibiotic treatment was working and that Thomas should be out of the hospital in a few days. They also report he plans to participate in this week’s cases, even though he’ll not be present for oral argument. But, since when did hearing the facts of a case ever have any sway on the opinions of the wildly corrupt Thomas? (Or his equally corrupt wife?)
- After four hours of opening statements and opining by the 22 members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s nominee to fill the seat on the U.S. Supreme Court being vacated by Justice Stephen Breyer this summer, offered her own brief opening remarks. Jackson, vowing to carry out her new role on SCOTUS with transparency and “without fear or favor”, would be the first African-American woman on the Court, as well as the first one to have served as a public defender. Unlike Justice Thomas — and the rest of the Republican appointees on the GOP’s packed and stolen majority — her nomination is, happily, not the culmination of years of dark money spent by activist political hustlers. We share Jackson’s opening statement today, just in case you missed it.
- Next, it’s an update on the latest in Russia’s horrific war on Ukraine, which is really devolving into two separate wars. One, a ground war which is grinding down to a stalemate for both sides, with Ukraine even winning back a bit of ground in recent days. The other, an aerial bombardment campaign which Russia is brutally winning with long-range missiles launched from within their own borders and an increasing number of criminal attacks by their air force on Ukraine’s battered and besieged — but still determined — civilian population. There are also new concerns about radiation levels in the 1,000 square mile Exclusion Zone surrounding the cite of the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, some 60 miles from the Ukrainian capital. We discuss.
- Then, new polling finds that Biden’s actions in response to Ukraine — rallying sanctions against Russia by the West, defensive armaments given to Ukraine, otherwise keeping U.S. military troops out of the fighting — are wildly popular among huge majorities of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans alike. So, why are Biden’s approval ratings still so low? So far, there is no indication of a rally-around-the-flag effect that would normally be expected during wars and disasters (and this is both). Why is that? We discuss and open up the phones to listeners on that topic and related matters today…
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Couldn’t find a transcript of senator Whitehouse’s important speech on C-Span, so I did one of my own. Glad to see somebody reporting on this. The “PBS News Hour” had nothing, but found time for Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley.
From senator Whitehouse;
“Mr. Chairman, judge Jackson will be an exemplary Justice both because of the qualities that she possesses and because she did not undergo a secret pre-selection process to get here. She is before us on the basis of her own merit; not on the recommendation of a secretive right donor operation, hiding behind anonymous multi million dollar donations and aimed at capturing the United States supreme court as if it were some 19th century railroad commission.
The unpleasant fact is that the present court is the court that dark money built. Anonymous donations funded the federalist society while it housed the selection turnstile run by the dark money donors.
Anonymous money funded the dark money group down the same hallway as the Federalist Society that ran the dark money political campaigns for the selected justices, and because of all that secrecy Americans are denied any real understanding of the overlap of all of that dark money with the political dark money funding the Republican party which could well explain the wreckage of senator norms, rules and procedures that accompanied the confirmation process of recent nominees.
Judge Jackson’s nomination and the process by which she was selected stand in sharp contrast. President Biden undertook a thorough and independent review of her record and she will proceed through a thorough and fair process here in the senate. We will abide by the new precedent set by republicans in recent years, but we will not be fabricating new ones. We’ve already seen dark money groups use dark money to run ads charging that dark money swayed this selection. We are hearing that again today… Ironic, when hundreds of millions of dollars in right wing dark money built the current court majority and still signals it’s wishes through flotillas of dark money front groups posing as amicus curiae.
I welcome the debate on these points.â€