We kick off today’s BradCast with a story that makes all the ones that follow seem not nearly as bad….right? [Audio to full show follows below.]
FIRST UP… In most Ebola outbreaks, fewer than 500 people are infected by the grotesquely deadly disease before it is finally contained. But the worst Ebola outbreak in history, in 2014, eventually included some 28,600 cases across Western Africa.
It might have been even worse, but for the leadership of the U.S., its Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). A subsequent outbreak, the second deadliest in history, in 2018 was held to just 3,740 infections with both the U.S. and World Health Organization (WHO) taking the lead. But last year, shortly after taking office, Donald Trump, Elon Musk and their DOGE Bros slashed the CDC and all but shuttered USAID. Trump subsequently pulled the U.S. out of WHO.
Right now, an ongoing Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda has been declared a “public health emergency of international concern” by WHO, made worse by a rare version of the virus that causes it, which has no approved vaccines or treatments.
There were more than 569 confirmed cases as of the start of this week, nearly two months earlier than the record 2014 outbreak hit the same milestone, leading experts to warn of what could now become the worst outbreak in history.
THEN… With that in mind, Florida Republicans rigging this year’s elections doesn’t seem nearly as bad, does it? On Wednesday, the state’s corrupted Supreme Court, packed with appointees of Gov. Ron DeSantis, gave a thumbs up to a newly gerrymandered U.S. House map for this year’s election, as signed into law just last month. Republicans hope the new partisan gerrymander will allow them to pick up four more seats in Congress this November, as they currently hold 20 of the state’s 28 seats.
But in 2010, with the approval of more than 63% of Florida voters, the state adopted a Fair Districts amendment in the state constitution that explicitly prohibits partisan gerrymanders. Tune in to hear how DeSantis, his sleazy attorneys, and his corrupted court blatantly gave the finger to Sunshine State voters in coming up with a “legal” justification for declaring the 2010 state constitutional Amendment to now be wholly “void”.
NEXT… We are joined today by NANCY ALTMAN, co-founder and President of the non-profit Social Security Works to discuss this week’s annual report by the Social Security retirement fund trustees warning that the fund will face a partial funding shortfall by 2032, a year earlier than last year’s projection, if action isn’t taken to shore it up.
In a statement from her group, Altman charged that Donald Trump‘s “damaging policies” are threatening the beloved program’s solvency. “This is the first Social Security trustees report that begins to take Donald Trump’s second term policies into account,” she wrote. “A tax bill that largely benefited the wealthy, economy-wrecking tariffs, a needless war with Iran, and hostility to immigrants. All of these have reduced the amount of money going into Social Security, weakening the system’s finances.”
Earlier this week, in response to the report, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said during an interview that “entitlement programs” like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security must be “adjusted and fixed” and that his party has “a plan to do that next year”. He didn’t detail the plan, but described it as necessary given the “40 trillion-plus” national debt — a debt made far larger by the Trump “One Big Beautiful” tax cut bill. Passage of the measure through Congress was engineered last year by Johnson, increasing the national debt by as much as $5.5 trillion.
As Altman makes clear, Social Security “adds not a single penny” to the national debt. The funding for its benefits “come from dedicated revenue, they don’t come from general taxpayer dollars.”
So what does Johnson mean by a GOP plan to “adjust and fix” the program? “Everybody should hold on to their wallets,” warns Altman, “because it’s Washington insider-speak for stealing our earned benefits. At the best, it’s cutting benefits. At the worst, it’s really dismantling these programs.”
“As divided as our country is, we are not divided over Social Security,” she argues. “You talk to MAGA Republicans — not the ones who were elected, but the voters — they agree with progressive Democrats that Social Security should not be cut, it’s more important than ever, and in fact its benefits should be increased.”
We step through some of the false claims and so-called “fixes” that the Administration and folks like Sen. Ted Cruz have been forwarding in response to this week’s report, including privatization and means testing for Social Security. Altman details today how both of those tired ideas are little more than schemes by today’s Republican Party to dismantle the entire program, which hasn’t missed a payments since it’s inception in 1937.
There are just two ways to counter Trump’s “damaging polices,” the co-author of Social Security Works For Everyone! Protecting and Expanding the Insurance Americans Love and Count On, argues. You can either “bring more money into Social Security, or cut benefits.”
Obviously, Altman supports the former. “It should be restored to solvency by requiring Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump and the other billionaires to start paying their fair share, which they are not doing.”
Currently, she tells me, thanks to a statutory cap, anyone who makes $185,000 pays as much into Social Security as Musk, who became the world’s first trillionaire today (at least on paper). In fact, Altman observes, someone who makes $185k would also pay more than Jeff Bezos, the world’s second richest man, who “only claims a salary of $80,000. So he wouldn’t pay a penny more” under current law, even if the cap is raised to fully fund Social Security.
But Altman argues “we should go much further. We should require the very wealthy to pay on all of their income, because they have all of these ways to avoid income subject to FICA contributions. Minimum wage workers pay on all of their income, so why doesn’t Jeff Bezos have to pay on all of his?”
Beyond Trump’s policies, she blames the faltering state of Social Security solvency on income equality. Prior to 1983 and Ronald Reagan‘s massive tax cuts for the wealthy, she says Social Security would have been fully funded through 2057. “Why are we now talking about 2032? Because what the actuaries did not project was all of the income and wealth inequality that started with the Reagan Revolution. Just that alone, the income inequality, has cost Social Security $1.4 trillion since 1983.”
Tune in for much more, including how you can hold candidates — both Democratic and Republican — to account this year as they are out stumping for your votes.
FINALLY… Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with some grim news as usual, though nothing nearly as bad as Ebola, right? In fact, she even has some very good news today about how, despite Trump’s best efforts, cheap, clean, renewable solar power has now overtaken deadly, dirty, expensive coal in the U.S. electricity mix!…
Some are saying that the those invading screw worms LOVE to eat Ebola viruses, so it looks like we’ll be ok in that area.
But some are also saying that those remarkable little screw worms also add a delicious nut-like flavor to beef, that resembles cashew, or perhaps a macadamia nut aroma.
In fact, some folks may actually PREFER their beef to be flavor-enhanced with screw worms, and be willing to pay EXTRA for their “screwed beef”.
And the possibilities for Wagyu!!?
Think what this will mean to Texas!!
oops!
Sorry. I mean’t, Te-Has.