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Trump Backs Putin, Attacks U.S. Intel Community, Law Enforcement, Dems at Helsinki Summit: 'BradCast' 7/16/2018
On today's BradCast: Our 'WTF?!' coverage of the remarkable joint press conference following President Donald Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. [Audio link follows below.]
It was not 72 hours following US Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indictment on Friday of 12 top Russian Military Intelligence officers on 11 felony indictments related to hacking into and stealing DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign emails and releasing them to the world, in an alleged attempt to manipulate the 2016 Presidential election, when Trump tweeted: "Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!"
Hours later he held his one-on-one summit with Putin in Helsinki before going on to hold a remarkable press conference in which, essentially, the President of the United States took Russia's side in the matter on virtually every point. In the bargain, he also attacked the FBI, the DNC and other Americans, as he stood next to the Russian President, taking his side against his own intelligence agencies.
On one point, however, they differed. Trump asserted Putin had told him he was not involved in interference in the 2016 Presidential election and he didn't "see any reason why" he would have been. But, when asked directly by a reporter if he "direct[ed] any...officials" to help Trump, who he says he supported over Clinton, Putin admitted, "Yes, I did."
Nonetheless, Trump failed to demand an explanation for any of the exceedingly detailed allegations contained in Mueller's Friday indictments when directly asked by media, choosing instead to return to strange, and largely disproven assertions regarding Democrats, the DNC server, Hillary Clinton's emails, his claims of "no collusion" with Russia and his great electoral college victory (which he also lied about.) Neither did he condemn Russia or its President in any way. We have clips from several of those answers during today's presser and reaction to it --- much of it gobsmacked --- from media, Democrats, former top intelligence officials, and even a number of Republicans, including at least one Fox "News" host who, on air, just after the news conference, condemned Trump's behavior as "disgusting".
Then, we open up the phone lines to callers --- who have a number of diverse opinions --- on all of the above, even as most of the same U.S. electoral vulnerabilities said to have been exploited by Russia in 2016, remain equally as vulnerable just months before our crucial 2018 midterm elections...
Article Categories: Election Irregularities, Election Reform, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, National Security, DNC, Impeachment, Accountability, Dept. of Justice, Hillary Clinton, FBI, John McCain, Democrats, Republicans, Dan Rather, Lindsey Graham, KPFK, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Russia, Election 2016, Vladimir Putin, Ron Wyden, BradCast, Chris Murphy, Jeff Flake, Mark Warner, Robert Mueller, Ben Sasse, Neil Cavuto, Joe Walsch
'Let the Games Begin': Trouble Ahead in Trump's Desperate Gambit for a 'Deal' With North Korea: 'BradCast' 5/15/2018
Guest: Former Deputy Asst. Sec. of State Michael Fuchs; Also: Torturer Haspel on verge of confirmation as CIA chief; U.S. and Israel isolated at U.N. after Gaza killings, embassy move...
On today's BradCast, a top State Department official under President Obama joins us to detail the "high stakes" and major pitfalls that await Donald Trump's negotiations with Kim Jong Un, if next month's historic scheduled summit actually happens, and the already-contradictory positions offered over the weekend by the Administration. [Audio link to show follows below.]
But, first up today, CIA Director-nominee Gina Haspel finally concedes in a letter to Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) that the U.S. torture program --- which she still describes as "enhanced interrogation" --- instituted after 9/11 was a mistake. She refused to admit as much during her public confirmation testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, nor has she ever been held accountable for overseeing torture at a secret CIA prison she ran in Thailand, nor for her part in destroying video tapes of the waterboarding and other torture of prisoners there. Nonetheless, her confirmation now appears to be all but assured as Warner and other Democrats have committed to voting for her.
Also today, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley defended Israel's killing of more than 60 Palestinian protesters (and a baby) and the wounding of thousands in Gaza on Monday, as well as the controversial move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. During an emergency session at the U.N. on Tuesday, called in response to the escalating violence on Israel's border, Haley lauded the "restraint" used by Israel, as they and the U.S. were all but isolated in their support for the embassy move and for Israel opening fire on protesters. Adversaries and allies alike condemned both actions, and the U.N.'s human rights chief has called for an investigation of the attacks on mostly unarmed Palestinian protesters in recent weeks.
Then, with a landmark summit scheduled for next month in Singapore between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, we speak with President Obama's former Deputy Asst. Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs, MICHAEL FUCHS, who is now a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. The historic meeting may now be imperiled, however, by the North's objections to ongoing joint U.S./South Korean military exercises on the peninsula, according to news breaking just before airtime today. Nonetheless, Fuchs details the many complications that lie ahead in negotiations, should the meeting actually come about.
"We need to wait and see what kind of information this really is and whether it can be confirmed," he tells me, regarding late reports that the North may wish to pull out of the summit. "I will say, true or not --- let the games begin. We are now in the midst of high stakes, high pressure diplomacy at the highest levels, of an unprecedented nature between the United States and North Korea. So the games that we've seen played by North Korea, and by the United States and others in the region, is just going to intensify now."
Among other things, Fuchs explains how Trump and Kim appear to have very different definition of the concept of "denuclearization"; how Trump's violation of the anti-nuclear pact with Iran last week is likely to increase leverage for Kim, as Trump appears increasingly desperate to make a deal --- any deal --- with the North; and how the Administration's current negotiating position appears to be all over the map, as based on conflicting remarks on last Sunday's news shows by Sec. of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton.
"I think the Iran deal withdrawal definitely adds fuel to the fire here. And the potential danger here --- I think there are lots of different dangers with this summit --- but I definitely think that one of them is that Trump wants a deal, he wants to bring home victory, if you will, and so he's going to want to spin this summit as a success," argues Fuchs, adding: "I don't think Trump is a very good negotiator. I don't think he understands the details of these issues. Nor do I think he has the interests of our US allies at heart. I think there's a very good possibility that he will throw allies under the bus in exchange for what looks like a good deal." In fact, Pompeo suggested on Sunday that a deal in which North Korea does away with its long-range missiles that could reach the U.S. might be enough to satisfy Trump, even if both nukes and short range missiles are allowed to remain on the peninsula, threatening our allies there. Bolton suggested the opposite.
The former Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for Strategic Dialogues under then Sec. of State Hillary Clinton also details how the hollowing out of the State Dept. since Trump entered office may affect negotiations ("The question is not so much about whether or not we have the right personnel in place, it's whether or not the political leadership in the White House is actually listening to them and allowing them to do their jobs"). Fuchs explains how Kim is hoping to drive a wedge between the U.S. and the South (and may succeed at it), and also offers insight into Trump's apparent complete reversal over the weekend regarding sanctions against Chinese electronics giant ZTE.
Don't miss this very enlightening conversation. It would really be useful if Trump tuned in as well, frankly!
Finally, we're joined by Desi Doyen for the latest Green News Report, as the Trump Administration is blocking the release of a damning report on widespread water contamination across the U.S., a major energy company is revealed to have paid actors to pretend to be supporters of a new power plant project during a public hearing in Louisiana, and California adopts a landmark solar power mandate for new residential building construction...
Article Categories: California, CIA, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Rights And Freedoms, Iran, North Korea, John Bolton, United Nations, Accountability, Louisiana, U.S. Senate, State Department, Torture, Bush Legacy, Israel, KPFK, Donald Trump, Solar, Climate change, China, BradCast, Water, Nikki Haley, Scott Pruitt, Mark Warner, Mike Pompeo, Gina Haspel, Palestine
A 'Paper Ballot' is Not Enough (But It's a Start): 'BradCast' 2/13/2018
Guest: David Daley on the battle to overcome partisan gerrymandering; Also: Many now calling for 'paper ballots' still missing larger concerns...
On today's BradCast: Never mind Russia. Is it even possible for Democrats to overcome the systemic structural disadvantages Republicans have put in place in virtually every aspect of U.S. elections? We've got both encouraging and not-so-encouraging news in that regard on today's show. [Audio link to show posted below.]
Now that both the U.S. intelligence community and Democrats --- and even a few Republicans --- have finally begun to figure out that Election Integrity requires, at a bare minimum, a paper ballot for every vote cast, how long will it take them to figure out that those ballots need to be hand-marked (not computer-marked) and, preferably hand-counted, so that the American public can truly begin to restore confidence in election results and know that their votes actually matter? There is some --- precious little, but some --- encouraging news out of Pennsylvania today on that front, and even from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee.
The Governor in PA, a state which still hates its voters so much that it forces the vast majority of them to vote on 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems, has decreed that any new voting systems purchased to replace the old ones, must have some form of "paper trail" or "paper record" or "paper backup". That's a very low bar, but better --- for the most part --- than the current 100% unverifiable touch-screen systems used across the state. Yet, the Democratic Governor, Tom Wolf, has yet to propose any new funding to purchase those new systems. So, like PA votes, they remain vapor ware for the moment.
At the same time, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, Ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, seems to have noticed the cost of trying to secure elections (like "the Dutch elections, where they hand-counted all the ballots") versus the price of one single F-35. Hand-counts, like those carried out by the Dutch, is, in truth, a pretty inexpensive deterrent against foreign manipulation of our computer tabulation systems, if our elected officials were truly concerned about it. (It would also help to deter the much greater threat of domestic manipulation, by the way!)
But, even if we had a hand-marked paper ballot for every vote cast and even if we counted them all by hand, publicly at the precincts, before ballots were moved anywhere (as per Democracy's Gold Standard), Democrats would still have a mountain to overcome this year in the shape of the GOP's systemic partisan gerrymandering of state legislative districts and U.S. House seats.
To that end, we've got some similarly-qualified encouraging news out of Pennsylvania as well today, where the state Supreme Court recently ordered new U.S. House maps to be drawn in time for the upcoming May primary elections in the commonwealth, after finding the ones drawn by Republicans following the 2010 census were in violation of the state constitution's right to a fair vote. The battle over those new maps --- which have given the GOP a 13 to 5 advantage in U.S. House seats in the largely 50/50 state over the last three elections, where Dems outnumber Republicans --- is now moving forward on a very tight court-ordered deadline.
Meanwhile, similarly partisan gerrymandering by the GOP in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and many other swing-states continues, thanks in no small part to the U.S. Supreme Court delaying lower federal rulings that determined Republicans had unconstitutionally given themselves a steep enough advantage on district maps that they were able to retain huge majorities in state legislatures and the U.S. House, despite being consistently out-voted by Democrats.
We're joined today by FairVote gerrymandering expert DAVID DALEY, former Editor-in-Chief at Salon and author of RATF**KED: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy. We discuss the gerrymandered state of play as the 2018 primaries are now just weeks away in many states, and as the dam seems to be bursting in both state and federal courts --- finally! --- against partisan gerrymandering.
"The courts have been consistently outraged by what the Republicans pulled off in 2010, 2011," Daley says. "The problem is, here we are in 2018, we've been using these unconstitutional maps now this entire decade. There is no sense we're going to have new maps in most of these states, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania, in time for the 2018 election. We may well have the fourth of five elections in all of these states held on unconstitutional maps."
By way of one example, Daley notes: "In 2012, 52% of Pennsylvanian voters vote for Barack Obama, 51% of them vote for Democratic members of the U.S House. Republicans however, take 13 of the18 seats that year --- 71% of them! Democrats get 28% of the seats, even with more votes."
We also discuss the new documents he recently uncovered, published in a new Salon exclusive, detailing the fascinating story of how the Republicans' so-called REDMAP scheme to take over state legislatures and redistrict the nation with a wildly partisan advantage, first came about prior to the 2010 election and U.S. Census.
Among the questions we discuss: Is it even possible for Democrats to overcome that structural disadvantage in the 2018 mid-terms without the U.S. Supreme Court finding partisan gerrymandering to be unlawful? Are state court cases, like the one in PA, the answer instead? And can any of this be done in time for the 2020 elections, after which district maps will be redrawn once again by partisan majorities in state houses for another 10 years?
"There may be a blue wave [in 2018], but there is also a red firewall that stands ready to knock it down," Daley warns. "Democrats are probably going to need two seismic, historic waves in order to have a shot at fair maps in 2021. And it they can't pull that off, and if the courts don't come in and do something in the meantime, the maps that are drawn in 2021 are the ones we are going to live with until 2031."
Also today, in other related news: A second federal court, this time in New York, blocks Trump's attempt to reverse DACA, and one Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate must be a very bad choice...at least according to his own parents!...
Article Categories: Election Reform, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, BRAD BLOG Media Appearance, Election Fraud, Wisconsin, Paper Ballots Legislation, FBI, U.S. Senate, Immigration, Democrats, Republicans, Michigan, U.S. Supreme Court, KPFK, Donald Trump, DHS, Russia, Election 2016, BradCast, Election 2018, Mark Warner, Election 2020, DACA, Gerrymandering, Tammy Baldwin
The Perils of 'Public' Congressional Inquiry
By Ernest A. Canning on 4/3/2017 8:35am PT
In August of 1822, James Madison, one of this nation's Founding Fathers, famously argued: "Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
On the other hand, on January 6, 2017, a joint Intelligence Community Report ("IC Report"), entitled "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections" explained: "The Intelligence Community rarely can publicly reveal the full extent of its knowledge or the precise bases for its assessments, as the release of such information would reveal sensitive sources or methods and imperil the ability to collect critical foreign intelligence in the future."
There is a core conflict seen in those two quotes. What we see proclaimed in the IC Report is a direct collision between self-proclaimed national security interests and the public's right to know.
There is no question that Congress has both the Constitutional right and obligation to investigate "Russia-gate". It does so in accordance with its exceedingly broad powers of oversight that include the ability to "provide new statutory controls over the executive," executive accountability and to exercise its exclusive power of impeachment.
It is really not controversial to suggest, as did The Chicago Tribune, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), and Adam Schiff (D-CA), that Congressional hearings be conducted either by an independent or select committee. But even if a reasonable level of investigative objectivity and integrity is achieved, the thorny question remains as to the extent to which such hearings, and testimony from witnesses, should be carried out in public.
It is a difficult issue that pits the public's right to know against (a) avoiding disclosure of classified information, and (b) compromising the ability of federal prosecutors to secure criminal convictions in their own parallel investigations...
Article Categories: Election Irregularities, Mainstream Corporate Media, U.S. Constitution, Accountability, U.S. House, Dept. of Justice, Hillary Clinton, FBI, U.S. Senate, Democrats, Richard Nixon, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Election 2016, RT America, James Comey, Adam Schiff, Richard Burr, Michael Flynn, Election 2018, Mark Warner