'BradCast' 8/13/2019 (From Epstein to USDA: The Under-Reported Price of Gutting the U.S. Government)
On today's 'BradCast':\xa0 At a recent GOP fundraiser, Donald's Trump's (acting) White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, said, "You're heard about 'draining the swamp. What you haven't heard is what we're actually doing." Today, we focus on what the Trump Administration is actually doing -- and the far-reaching consequences -- by under-funding, under-staffing, and deeply gutting the federal government. Lack of funding and a hiring freeze in the federal prison system resulted in a severe shortage of correctional officers at facilities like the one in Manhattan where accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was found dead on Saturday morning. Mulvaney's speech exposed the Trump Administration's lies in justifying its forcible relocation of two key USDA science departments that assist American farmers, the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture \u2013 giving career scientists and officials just 30 days to decide whether to uproot their families or leave their jobs, without being told exactly to which state they were moving. A similar forced relocation is also underway at the Bureau of Land Management. There will be more to come if the USDA move isn't blocked, as Trump is actively and purposely killing your government for the benefit of industry. Some good news:\xa0 In Montana, a federal judge has blocked a scheme by Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin to allow 'dark money' non-profit groups to keep their donors secret, even from the IRS, which could have allowed foreign donors to illegally fund US political campaigns. In Texas, citizens are suing to force the state to notify voters when their absentee vote-by-mail ballots are rejected because untrained county elections officials deem their signature does not sufficiently match. Plus, Desi Doyen has our latest 'Green News Report', on the Trump Interior Department gutting the Endangered Species Act, and much more...