BradCast 3/8/2021 (Guest: Sarah Repucci of Freedom House on 'democracy under siege')
b"On today's 'BradCast':\\xa0 The U.S. Senate finally passed Joe Biden's massive $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan without a single Republican vote. While not perfect, the bill provides critical relief across a broad range of sectors, and Democrats largely managed to avoid the fool's errand of chasing Republican votes.\\xa0 Donald Trump lost Wisconsin yet again, as the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his final remaining attempting to overturn the 2020 election. GOP state legislatures are imposing severe new restrictions on voting in many states -- Georgia Republicans just voted to eliminate no-excuse absentee voting that they themselves had implemented.\\xa0 President Joe Biden commemorated Sunday's anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Alabama by issuing an executive order leveraging federal resources\\xa0 'to promote voting access to all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.'\\xa0 SARAH REPUCCI, Vice President of Research and Analysis at the non-profit research organization Freedom House, explains their disturbing new report, 'Freedom in the World 2021: Democracy under Siege,' which has found that democracy is in decline around the world for the 15th straight year - 'a democratic recession' that continues to deepen.\\xa0 Repucci explains the factors that have helped drive the grim decline in freedoms and democracy in the U.S. and other areas of the world in recent years, which countries are most at risk, why the United States has dropped in the rankings, and offers key recommendations for how to turn things around in this country. Also: the CDC has issued new guidance issued new guidance for those who are now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus."