It’s a jam-packed show today, as we try to fit as much in as we can for our last BradCast until after the Thanksgiving holiday. Yes, we’re taking a much-needed week off next week. But we’ve got some advice for all of us on today’s program on how to (try and) survive the holidays with MAGA friends and family members and, perhaps, pave the way for a better tomorrow. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]
Among our coverage today…
- Minutes after the Gaza Health Ministry announced that 44,000, mostly women and children, have been killed during Israel’s 13-month long war following the October 2023 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 in Israel, news broke from the International Criminal Court. Warrants have been issued by the ICC for the arrest of Israel’s far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau, his former Defense Minister and Hamas’ military chief on charges of crimes against humanity and other war crimes. We explain what that means and doesn’t.
- Police in Monterey, California on Wednesday night released a 22-page report [PDF] on the 2017 sexual assault allegations filed by the organizer of a Republican women’s event against Pete Hegseth, a featured speaker at the forum, Fox “News” weekend host and Donald Trump‘s nominee to be the next U.S. Defense Secretary. The police report includes disturbing and seemingly damning details, as well as corroborative statements and texts from a number of witnesses and medical personnel. Police had recommended the case to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office for review at the time. Hegseth, who says the tryst was “consensual” and denies allegations of drugging the victim and preventing her from leaving a hotel room, paid a cash settlement to her last year to avoid a lawsuit. Somehow, the Trump Transition team claims to have known nothing about these charges and, in the meantime, Hegseth remains Trump’s pick to head the U.S. Dept. of Defense.
- Fellow accused sexual miscreant, Matt Gaetz, however, is no longer Trump’s nominee to be the nation’s top law enforcement official. He withdrew from consideration to be the next U.S. Attorney General on Thursday morning, following daily revelations of new evidence supporting claims that the former Florida Congressman paid thousands of dollars for sex with 17-year old girls, trafficked the underage minors across state lines, used illicit drugs and other activities which would be disqualifying for the job of the nation’s top cop in every Administration but Trump’s. Gaetz resigned from Congress last week, on the same day he was tapped by Trump, just one day before the House Ethics Committee was to consider releasing their report on all of these allegations. His resignation letter reportedly stated that he did “not intend to” take the oath of office in the new Congress following his re-election on November 5. Don’t be surprised, however, if he shows up anyway to take the oath of office on January 3rd, when the new Congress is sworn in. Telling the truth about anything has never been Gaetz’ strong suit. (Moments after we got off air, former Florida A.G. Pam Bondi — who declined to investigate allegations against Trump after he made a donation to her campaign — was tapped as Trump’s new nominee to lead the U.S. Justice Dept.)
- We’ve got still more evidence today about the polluted “information environment” that many, including myself, have blamed for the re-election of Trump over Kamala Harris on November 5. In this case, a new survey finding that some 74% of voters had heard about Harris’ non-existent “plan” to “protect the rights of transgender people,” thanks to $37 million in ads citing the false claims about the Democratic nominee, and a failed media environment — corporate, social and independent — simply unable (or uninterested) in accurately informing the electorate to the contrary. (In related news, both Desi and myself are now on Bluesky! Please follow us there! She is @GreenNewsReport.bsky.social. I am @TheBradBlog.bsky.social.)
- Then, we’re happy to once again be joined today by RICH LOGIS, Founder and Executive Director of Leaving MAGA, a non-profit formed to help others, like himself, escape what he describes as the “Cult of MAGA”. Logis spent years as a Republican pundit turned dyed-in-the-wool Trumper, having voted for the disgraced former and future President in both 2016 and 2020, before finally coming to the difficult realization that he’d been taken in by a dangerous cult leader.
Logis contributed to the Democratic National Convention this year with video testimonials from fellow former MAGA members and worked on behalf of the Republicans for Harris campaign.
Today he joins us to discuss, among other things, what he’s learned over the past year from his series of podcast interviews with fellow former MAGA cultists; what he attributes Trump’s victory to (hint: he agrees me with about the polluted “information environment” in which Trump supporters are no longer able to distinguish truth from lies); and how he recommends non-MAGA Americans deal with their MAGA family members and friends over the upcoming holidays.
“Donald Trump’s toxic superpower is lying,” Logis tells me today. “The rightwing in the Republican Party lie about everything. So I succumbed to mis- and disinformation. When I realized that I had, by diversifying my news and information sources, it set me on the pathway to leaving MAGA.”
Logis believes, as I do, that there will be more — not fewer — people looking to leave MAGA in the months and years ahead, as the reality of Trump’s next clown show takes shape. The time to start helping them to do so is now, he argues.
While conceding that it might sound “very naive”, he advises progressives and other non-MAGA folks to try and “make some dinners politics-free this year.” But, if that can’t be done, he recommends attempting to “extend the olive branch and say, ‘I would like to have more of the kind of relationship that we may have had before 2015 and 2016.'”
Logis makes the case that, even while recognizing that many MAGA opponents will not feel like it’s their duty to take that step. “It’s a way to reopen opportunity, reopen that door,” he asserts, so when those folks are finally ready to leave MAGA, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, they will know there is space and an exit ramp for them to do so.
Anyway, as usual lots more in my conversation with Logis today. And he does have some cred here, as he once again felt it necessary to apologize for his part in “helping Donald Trump divide our country, pitting complete strangers against each other, tearing asunder friendships, families, communities and places of worship.” He explains that his work in creating Leaving MAGA “is a way for me to make amends.”
- Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report and last before our Thanksgiving break, with news on the back-to-back, climate change-fueled monster storms that slammed the Pacific Northwest over the past several days; a new report on how the climate crisis intensified every U.S. hurricane in 2024; the discovery of a huge cache of “rare earth” elements in a surprising location in the U.S.; and New York‘s Governor changing her mind, yet again, about congestion pricing in NYC to help reign in both traffic and air pollution while bringing in a ton of much-needed dollars to the city…
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Rich Logis expressed his complete satisfaction with the Harris campaign. Why? Her campaign backed away from the more progressive policies of the Biden Administration, ( those done at the begining months). Harris never showed concern for those near or in poverty. It showed disdain for those who were outraged at the horrors being perpetrated by Israel in its slaughter of Palestinians. Not allowing any Palestinian concern to be spoken at her rallies.
I believe her campaign was both deaf and dumb as it turned off some real big concerns of so many people.
It also did that thing that the Democratic establishment always does in recent decades; she hugged too many republicans. Harris appeared with the very conservative Lynn Cheney much too often. Even welcoming the endorsement of her war criminal father Dick.
Her’s was not a brilliant Democratic campaign. In fact, while her energy was great, those things she highlited were dull and misguided.
I hope you acknowledged that the “Gaza Ministry of Health,†as a branch of the Gazan government, is part of Hamas. The Ministry of Health’s claims have received no outside verification, and while their raw numbers have been roughly accurate in past conflicts, their militant to civilian casualty breakdowns have not—and unlike previous bouts of fighting, Hamas’s survival as an organization is under existential threat. Honestly, I’d say Gaza Ministry of Health claims are as reliable as elections conducted on electronic voting systems.
Who’s on firstWho’s counting? “Is it newsworthy that Donald Trump’s share of the 2024 presidential vote has fallen below 50 percent?“
Re:
(Link)
It’s almost 2025:
(The Cuckoo’s Egg Hatched Again – 4)
One serious event (MAGA’s anti-NATO schtick) that is missing on some radar screens appeared on this one (A Very Peculiar Triumph).
I’m going to point out how Dems torpedoed themselves tying themselves to the Zionist boat anchor. The margins were already razor thin and it turns out complicity in genocide was a bridge too far for a lot of people. Lack of enthusiasm for Israeli war crimes depressed turnout, and Biden’s idiotic 30-day redline stunt o er food aid couldn’t have been more transparent, demonstrated by the fact it came and went with no action or consequences.
Additionally, the endorsement of the Cheneys wasn’t the flex they thought it was. The mythical moderate Rethuglicans didn’t deliver as usual. They tend to regularly go with GOP Classic vs the Dem offering of lukewarm and flat GOP-Lite.
Will the DNC learn anything from their crushing defeat?
Doubtful.
YMMV
COMMENT #3 [Permalink]
… Dredd said on 11/23/2024 @ 1:14 am
:—–:
Israel won’t even allow western reporters in and murders local journalists trying to cover the genocide being committed. Israel has lied about Oct 7 from the start in an attempt to whip up an international fervor for their revenge rampage. They blamed all the deaths on Hamas though the Hannibal directive was in effect. Joe Biden lied about seeing 40 beheaded babies with his own eyes. His press office had to walk that back. The family of a victim had to correct the NYT on their cover story that she was raped. The Grayzone reporters (Max Blumenthal and Aaron Meté) showed that the NYT did zero investigation.
Israel continues to lie about their war crimes and the US doesn’t even bother to enforce its own Leahy Law.
The death toll is far greater than the official tally as many are still not recovered from under the rubble. Entire families have been wiped out.
Israel has shown themselves too irrational to be in charge. The least they could do would be the learn to murder on their own dime. It’s probably the only thing that could get them to stop.
LanceThruster You Are Here
Dredd – still ignores the the fact that Hamas are freedom fighters and Bibi and his IDF buddy have arrest warrants for the crimes they’re being accused of.
Hopefully, at some point “You are here” for them will be shackled in the dock at the Hague.
LanceThruster,
Peace would be acceptable …