‘A World of Tyrants, Bribes, and Influence’: ‘BradCast’ 5/22/2025

Well, it’s our last BradCast for a week or so, as we prepare for a muuuch-needed stand-down next week after Memorial Day. But we make up for it by packing a lot into today’s program, with two of our favorite (and your favorite) guests. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

We’re joined today again for one of our semi-regular (irregular?) round tables with our old-school, right-about-everything-for-20-years blogger pals, HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, award-winning columnist at Salon and her own Digby’s Hullabaloo blog; and the notorious ‘DRIFTGLASS’, blogger and co-host of the weekly Professional Left Podcast from Flyover Country, Illinois.

As noted, we cover a whole lot of ground today, including both important and incredibly dumb news alike! Among the important news…

• DoJ Team Trump attorneys are upbraided in court by a U.S. District judge in New Jersey for indicting Newark’s Democratic Mayor Ras Baraka on ridiculous trespassing charges, vowing last week to bring him to trial, only to drop all charges this week. At the same time, they then went on to indict Democratic Congresswoman LaMonica McIver on ridiculous charges stemming from the same incident two weeks ago at an ICE detention facility in Newark. Those charges will also likely be dropped eventually, and Trump’s former loser defense attorney, now interim U.S. Attorney in NJ, Alina Habba, will likely find herself upbraided again.

• After Trump spent years campaigning on promises to not touch Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, House Republicans earlier today barely passed Trump’s budget bill that — you guessed — will slash both Medicare and Medicaid by more than a trillion dollars, taking away health care from as many as 14 million Americans. That, in order to help pay for tax cuts to wealthy people while ballooning deficit spending by about 4 trillion dollars. (Digby: “It’s a complete travesty, and I think everybody knows it.”)

• The Trump Regime’s ongoing horrors and errors and blatant, thuggish, authoritarian violations of court orders regarding his clownish yet cruel and unlawful mass deportation efforts. (Driftglass: “This is a mass weapon attack, like raining missiles down on an enemy target. Some of it is going to get through. And they’ll get most of what they want.”)

• Qatar‘s $400 million bribe to Trump in the shape of a Boeing 747 “flying palace” that may never be used as Air Force One, but that he hopes to keep for his own personal use after his Presidency. “Emoluments,” like “groceries,” is such an old-fashioned word. (Driftglass: “He’s just a giant greed hole of need and narcissism.” Digby: “It sure sounds like ‘I’d like you to do us a favor though…'”)

• And, oh, yeah, Republicans on Thursday also nuked the filibuster in the U.S. Senate by ignoring the Senate Parliamentarian to pass a law with a bare majority that, according to Senate rules, requires 60 votes for passage. And they did so in order to ban California‘s clean air laws. So much for states’ rights. That, despite the fear by many Democrats of nuking the filibuster to protect Voting and Reproductive Rights for all Americans when they last controlled the Senate. (Digby: “Senate rules are dead. So get ready. We are in such untrod territory.”)

As you might imagine, both Digby and Driftglass have quite a few thoughts on all of the above, as well as on the Dumb News we cover today as well (apologies in advance)…

• Trump’s Director of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, doesn’t know what “habeas corpus” means.

• Republicans are pretending to be horrified by former FBI Director James Comey posting a photo of someone spelling out “86 47” in seashells on a beach. (Ya know, just like those “86 46” t-shirts rightwingers used to pimp. Says Digby: “This is a Republican thing, and they’ve been doing it forever.” See her “Art of the Hissy Fit” from 2007 for more.)

• Trump is attacking and threatening Bruce Springsteen. Bruce Springsteen!

• And the dumbest news of all this week: Jake Tapper has a book about Joe Biden and a super-duper, totally important right now, conspiracy cover-up of his physical — and, allegedly, cognitive — decline while in office.

Don’t worry. I didn’t give away the best lines or hottest takes on either the important or dumb news, so tune on in!

And finally, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report with nothing but really good — okay, really bad — news to kick off Summer!…

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