Friday, May 16th, 2025 Today, the Supreme Court hears arguments on birthright citizenship and whether district judges can issue nationwide injunctions; turns out Kristi Noem wants her own plane too; Walmart announced it will start raising prices because of tariffs; Colorado air traffic controllers lost contact with planes for six minutes Monday; Missouri Republicans have repealed sick leave and wage law that voters approved just months before; RFK Jr wants to reverse Covid vaccine recommendations for kids; Tulsi Gabbard fires two top intelligence officials; the Trump administration is considering bans on abortion drugs after dropping their lawsuit; DOGE fixes some of its math by removing resurrected contracts from it’s list of cancellations; and Pam Bondi sold a million in Trump stocks right before the tariffs were announced; and Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.
Friday, May 16th, 2025
Today, the Supreme Court hears arguments on birthright citizenship and whether district judges can issue nationwide injunctions; turns out Kristi Noem wants her own plane too; Walmart announced it will start raising prices because of tariffs; Colorado air traffic controllers lost contact with planes for six minutes Monday; Missouri Republicans have repealed sick leave and wage law that voters approved just months before; RFK Jr wants to reverse Covid vaccine recommendations for kids; Tulsi Gabbard fires two top intelligence officials; the Trump administration is considering bans on abortion drugs after dropping their lawsuit; DOGE fixes some of its math by removing resurrected contracts from it’s list of cancellations; and Pam Bondi sold a million in Trump stocks right before the tariffs were announced; and Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.
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Stories:
Supreme Court justices appear divided in birthright citizenship arguments | NPR
RFK Jr orders mifepristone review as anti-abortion groups push for ban | US news | The Guardian
Fed chief Jerome Powell warns that U.S. could face "supply shocks" | CBS News
Trump wants a new plane. Now, so does Homeland Security Secretary Noem. | The Washington Post
Pam Bondi Sold Trump Media Stock the Day Trump Announced Tariffs | ProPublica
Colorado Air Traffic Control Facility Lost Contact With Some Pilots | The New York Times
Gabbard fires leaders of intelligence group that wrote Venezuela assessment | The Washington Post
DOGE Removes Dozens of Resurrected Contracts From Its List of Savings | The New York Times
Good Trouble: RFK Jr. eyes reversing CDC's Covid-19 vaccine recommendation for children - POLITICO - There is one week left to submit comments on RFK Jr trying to pull the covid vaccines from the list of recommended vaccines for children.
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Um, MSW Media Media. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Friday, May 16, 2025. Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments on birthright citizenship, and district judges can issue nationwide injunctions. Turns, uh, out Kristi Noem wants her own plane, too. Walmart announced it will start raising prices because of tariffs. Colorado air traffic controllers lost contact with planes for six minutes on Monday. Missouri Republicans have repealed sick leave and wage laws that voters approved just months before. RFK Jr wants to reverse COVID vaccine recommendations for kids. Tulsi Gabbard has fired two top intelligence officials. The Trump administration is considering bans on abortion drugs after dropping their lawsuit. Doge fixes some of its math by removing resurrected contracts from its wall of receipts. And PAM Bondi sold $1 million in Trump stocks right before the tariffs were announced. I'm Allison Gill.
And I'm Dana Goldberg.
Surprise. Surprise. Stock market manipulation.
Shocking. And I cannot say this loud enough. And clapping. They are also fucking corrupt, all of them. They're all so fucking corrupt. I, uh, just unbelievable.
It's a corruption chorus over there.
My God. And they're all out of tune.
Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that the White House would be the seat of criminality if. If they gave the president immunity. Here we are. This is cool. Later in the show, I'm going to be talking to one of my. Like, I've been a fan of Shannon since I was like, four, and I get to talk to John Bowser Bauman. He, he's also the president of Social Security Works PAC and the vice chair of the DNC Seniors Council. He's done so much good work in his career besides being in Greece and Sha Na Na. We're going to talk to him and also we will speak to John Fugal sang a little bit later because it's. Fugal sang Fridays on the Beans. Also, big shout out and, uh, a Giant thank you to they Might Be Giants, who I got to see last night. Nice, wonderful, amazing concert. Just some of the most talented people you'll ever meet. And, uh, you know, as you know, I may or may not know, they Might Be Giants does the theme to this particular. So thank you very much, they Might Be Giants for inviting, uh, us and putting on such a wonderful show. I had a really good time.
I love that you went to the concert. I love them. Birdhouse used to be one of my favorite songs of all time.
It's so good. They're just so good.
Um, not to put too fine a point on it, say I'm m the only bee in your bonnet Little Birdhouse in your soul.
They played that and Particle man.
Yes, Particle man.
This damn particle man.
Doing things that particles can.
Yep. And here, here's the kind of a cool thing. I got an email from Flansburg, who was like, which album should we open with? Should it be.
That's awesome.
Minkar. Should it be Apollo 18? I'm like, oh, Apollo 18. And they totally did. The whole first set was.
Allison's got.
Pulled a bunch of stuff from Apollo 18. So I was, like, very excited. Um, especially fingertips. Anyway, that's getting a little bit into the weeds. Unless, uh, you're a huge. They might be giants fan like me. But, uh, anyway, thanks to them. All right, my friend, we have a lot of news to get to today, so let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. First up from NPR. @ the supreme court Thursday, the justices heard a case that challenges the constitutional provision guaranteeing automatic citizenship to all babies born in the United States. But the argument's focused on a separate question. The one I'm worried about. Can federal district court judges rule against the administration on a nationwide basis? The justices appeared divided on the issue. Several seem skeptical of the Trump administration's argument that lower courts should not have the right to issue nationwide injunctions. I, Dana, personally don't see the supreme court overturning birthright citizenship, But I'm having a hard time finding five votes to protect nationwide injunctions at the district court level. But we'll keep you posted.
All right, thanks a gene. You remember, y' all when we were talking about that mifepressone case and we were like, why would they drop it? Well, man, it didn't take long.
We were like, it had to. There's got to be some other nefarious reason, right?
And dun, dun, dun. It only took a few days to find out. This is from the guardian. Seems the u. S. Health Secretary, RFK Jr, who We're not supposed to take medical advice from, said on Wednesday that he had directed the FDA to review the regulations around the abortion pill mifopressone, which I would like to remind people, is safer than advil.
Hmm.
The review, he said, was necessary due to, quote, new data, data that emerged from a flawed analysis that top US Anti abortion groups, by the way, are now using to pressure the Trump administration to reimpose restrictions on the abortion pill, if not pull it from the market entirely. Now, the reason they did this and pulled the case and AG And I were texting about this, they knew they were going to fucking lose. And this is the workaround. There was a Very good chance, I should say, of them losing.
Mhm.
And here's the quote. It's alarming. This is what Kennedy told the Missouri senator, Josh Hawley. I need to remind you that Josh Hawley's wife is the one that was involved in this case.
As a lawyer.
Yeah, as a lawyer. So Kennedy said it's alarming to let to Josh Hawley during a congressional hearing. Quote, clearly it indicates that at very least the label should be changed.
To say what? It's safer than Advil.
I know. What are you going to do? The analysis, which of course has not been peer reviewed or published in any medical journal, came after the FDA commissioner said it was open to reviewing new safety data on the pills, which are used in nearly two thirds of abortions nationwide. So this is why they dropped it. We talked about this before. They don't want the court to tell them no before they can actually ban it. Via. Yeah, this is it.
Yeah. And, and, and we've seen this before, Right. We've seen him not announce his Alien Enemies act proclamation before he got a bunch of people on a plane and put them in the air to El Salvador.
Yep.
And then like, oops. Oh, we know it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
They did this with J6. Go back to J6 and you got Pence. They did the same thing.
Yeah. So it was, I think, Eastman who, uh, maybe. Maybe Powell, who filed a lawsuit to get the. Asking the Supreme Court to say that Mike Pence can unilaterally change the votes. Right. On, um, January 6th.
No.
Yeah. And Rudy Giuliani, even Rudy Giuliani was like, this is a bad idea because the Supreme Court will tell us no, and so we need to not sue them. And so that's why. That's why the administration was like, backing away from Sidney Powell. They're like, no, she's not with us. So, you know, they didn't want the Supreme Court to say no before they pulled off their insurrection.
Yeah.
It's the same type of thing, so. Oh, uh, man, there it is. There's the ulterior motive that we found.
It didn't take long.
Right. I thought maybe it would be at least a month before we figured it out.
My God.
Next up from CBS, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is cautioning that the U.S. could face increase. An increase in supply shocks.
No.
This comes a week after the central bank announced it would hold interest rates steady amid a period of economic uncertainty. Quote, we may be entering a period of more frequent and potentially more persistent supply shocks. A uh, difficult challenge for the economy and for central banks. That's what Powell said Thursday at a research conference in Washington D.C. where U.S. bankers are meeting to discuss monetary policy. Analysts have also warned that US companies could face inventory shortfalls as a result of tariff induced supply chain issues. Container bookings from China to the US dropped about 60% following the pre tariff spike in imports according to Flexport, which is a supply chain management company. And by the way, Dana, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Walmart on Thursday said it plans to raise prices this month and early this summer when tariff affected merchandise hits its store shelves. Some prices have already been increased. Quote, the magnitude and speed at which these prices are coming to us is somewhat unprecedented in history. That's what Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said in an interview. Probably a Republican. Walmart, which counts 90% of Americans as customers, is the biggest company so far to signal the tariff related price increases on everyday goods. Signaling that they're coming, those prices increases are coming. And every single company should separate out the tariff price that you have to pay.
Make it clear, put it on the um, whatever it's called, the price tag. Yep. Put the cost, then put tariffs. I almost want to say, due to the Trump administration. And then you can find out exactly what this is doing to people. Maybe they'll start waking up.
Every retailer should do this.
Oh, it'd be beautiful. All right. This is from kcur. This is Missouri NPR affiliate. By the way, Missouri Senate Republicans, they voted Wednesday to repeal portions of a vot voter approved law. A voter approved law that allowed employees to earn paid sick leave and a higher minimum wage. Members of The Senate voted 22 to 11 to pass legislation that repeals parts of Proposition A which Missouri voters approved in November by 57.6% of the vote. Way to ignore the voters. Yeah, yeah. Only one Republican by the way, that is Senator Lincoln.
Hugh.
Um, or maybe Huff. Maybe Lincoln. Huff. Let's go with, he's a Republican in Springfield. Send in a correction if you're in Springfield. And that's incorrect. He actually joined the 10 Democrats in voting no. And I quote, what we saw today was the Republican super majority. Whether they did it because of corporate greed or their corporate overlords telling them what to do. They took away sick pay for millions of workers in the state of Missouri. That's Senate Minority Leader Doug Beck. He is a Democrat from Afton. And I'm glad that they are making this clear. They need to spread the message far and wide. Currently through Proposition A, workers can earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours they worked. Okay. Proposition A also raised the minimum wage at an eventual $15 an hour by 2026, and tied minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index. What that means is minimum wage increases would be tied to the CPI beginning in 2027. However, the new legislation repeals the entire thing, the paid sick leave portion, all of it, as well as the tie into the cpi. So the minimum wage, it would not increase at all after 2026. And this is a quote. Moving forward, we're going to operate with an assumption that the Republicans don't respect their fellow senators. They don't respect the voters, they don't respect the process, they don't respect the institution. And we didn't pick this fight, but we're not scared of it. That's Senator Stephen Weber. He's a Democrat in Columbia. So I am glad that you're making these public statements, but it has to be coordinated effort. Single one of them should be putting this out and make sure as many constituents as possible are seeing this.
Yeah. And all due respect to Senator Stephen Weber, moving forward, you're going to operate on the assumption that the Republicans don't respect you. Should be. You should have been operating on that assumption since forever.
Yeah.
But, hey, they're bringing it up, they're raising it. Yeah. These were, again, propositions voted on by the people, and they're just throwing it out the window, huh? Uh-huh. Yeah. Look, what the fuck do you have propositions for?
I tell you what, in Ohio, they tried to do that with Prop 1 with the right for abortion, and they were like, meh. Well, I'm sorry, you said that. You want to put that in a law. We're going to try and block it. It's just ridiculous. It's so disgusting and hypocritical to be like, yeah, we're going to put this up for a vote, but then we're going to ignore your vote.
Yep. And I imagine a group of workers and some folks representing them will sue, and we'll let you know how that goes.
Absolutely.
Next up from the post, President Trump isn't the only one who wants a brand new plane. Plane. The Department of Homeland Security is planning on a new Gulf Stream 5. Uh, an agency official confirmed this Wednesday after the anticipated acquisition spilled into the public view during a congressional oversight hearing. Whoopsie. Rep. Lauren Underwood, I love her. Democrat from Illinois questioned the spending plan during a House Appropriations Committee hearing on the US Coast Guard and in a social media post, contending that the Aircraft would be primarily used by Homeland Security. Secretary Kristi Noem. Underwood said the funding, which she placed at about $50 million, would be taken from the budget of the Coast Guard, which is overseen by DHS. Quote, she already has a Gulf Stream 5, by the way. She wants a new one, paid for with your taxpayer dollars. That's what Underwood wrote on Twitter. Referring to the Coast Guard, Underwood added, we should be investing in our national security and improving the lives of our coasties, not wasting taxpayer dollars on luxury travel and political.
Yeah, and this is also what I see. When you have a president that is corrupt and that is compromised, wouldn't it be so easy for anyone to walk into the office and go, you know what, Donald? I have all this shit on you. If I get a new plane, maybe I won't say anything. Mhm.
It's just.
It's so dangerous. And we're just talking about domestic blackmail.
Yeah.
Think about what's happening globally.
I know. And, hey, why can't you just zhuzh up your current Gulf Stream? There you go. Just maybe a little new carpeting, some upholstery, you know, couple grand. I got a guy.
I got a guy who knows.
Give me a call. Uh. It's just disgusting.
Pimp your ride. We'll call mtv. Jesus Christ. Do you really need a new plane?
Yo, mtv planes. We can have a whole new show.
Pimp your flight. I mean, come on.
We got government planes.
Oh, my God. We got to find some humor in some of this because it is just so corrupt. This is some amazing reporting, by the way. Next, from ProPublica.
We could do this old plane.
There you go.
On the home. Anyway. Sorry.
That's okay. We could keep going. There's. Thank God. To some of the journalists out there that are still doing their jobs, and some of them are at ProPublica. Attorney General Pam Bondi found out she sold a bill. A million. Excuse me, a million with an m m. And $5 million worth of shares of Trump Media the same day that Donald unveiled bruising new tariffs that caused the stock market to plummet. That's according to records that have been obtained Wednesday by ProPublica. Trump's, quote, liberation Day press conference from the White House Rose Garden unveiling the tariffs. It came after the market closed on April 2. It came after the market closed. So Bondi's disclosure forms showing her Trump Media sales say the transactions were made on April 2, but they do not disclose whether they occurred before or after the market close. So definitely check out this entire expose at, uh, propublica.org and support their journalism because they really are still trying to do the Lord's work. And there's some good reporting coming out of there. Just so much corruption by this person. My God.
Yeah. And remember, I just, uh. Gosh, I think it was last week we had representative Mike Levin on the show, and he's like, um, looking between May 8, 9th and May 15th and 20th to September. See when these financial disclosures come out about stock sales, y. After the. April 8th. April 9th, now is a great time to buy. Now's a great time to sell. Whatever. Yep, thanks. So that's what we're saying. But that was actually April 2nd, because April 8th and 9th, he said, now. You should buy now. Uh, that press conference was on the second. Yeah, exactly. All right, next up from the Times, a second air traffic control facility in the United states experienced a 90 second communications blackout this week after a series of disruptions raised safety fears and caused long flight delays at Newark Liberty. Now, the outage was reported earlier by ABC, an affiliate called Denver [Riggleman 7. Citing unnamed sources, the station reported that almost two dozen pilots headed to Denver [Riggleman International Airport were unable to contact air traffic control for six minutes on Monday afternoon. Six minutes.
My God, that's just. It's terrifying, especially for those of us who fly so much. I hate these stories. Over and over.
I know. And of course, Sean Duffy, real world underwear dancing guy, told Fox he's. By the way, our transportation secretary, told Fox that Biden is to blame because he. Why didn't Biden just fix all this during COVID when people weren't flying, uh, in 2020, when Trump was president.
Biden wasn't fucking president in 2020. I'm so tired of this narrative.
Gross.
Ugh. Okay. Man, this news really pisses me off.
I know.
Okay, this one is from the Times. The Director of National Intelligence, uh, Russian spy. Alleged Russian spy Tulsi Cabbard has fired the top two officials at the National Intelligence Council. That should make everyone feel really safe. And this was done weeks after the Council wrote an assessment that contradicted President Donald Trump's rationale for invoking the Alien Enemies act and disappearing alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process. Andy McKay, by the way, is going to cover that with Allison in detail on this weekend's Unjustified podcast. So make sure you check it out.
Yeah. When, first of all, that February 26th memo dropped from the intelligence community assessment, saying trend Naragua is not associated with the Maduro regime or the Venezuelan government. And then Trump was like, I don't like that. Look at it again. And another one was released on April 6th or 7th that said, yeah, no, still, not only is there no tie, and the only reason the FBI was moderate instead of high confidence on this was, you know, because of, uh, some bullshit that doesn't count. So, I mean, I'm paraphrasing, obviously, yeah, but Andy McCabe and I, I was like, oh, so this was that memo, that second memo came out with a FOIA request. And I was like, well, Trump's gutted the FOIA offices. He's fired all the inspectors general, he's tried to get rid of this oversight as much as he can. And I was like, but who? Somebody let this go. Somebody let this out of the administration, this, this intelligence, uh, briefing. And I was like, somebody's going to get fired. Somebody's in trouble. Sure enough, here we are.
Like clockwork.
Unbelievable, but totally believable at the same time. And Elon Musk, Department of Government Efficiency. So, is no longer claiming credit for killing dozens of federal contracts after the New York Times reported last week they'd already been reinstated. The Times identified 44 revived contracts. And by the way, this isn't hard to look up. There are public websites upon which you can find what contracts have been reinstated and which ones are canceled. Like anyone can do this. Uh, but the, the Times put it out there. Hey, 44. We looked at your 44 that you're claiming that you, you, you doged. And 43 of them were still on the wall of receipts after, uh, as of last week. But then late Sunday, Musk's group deleted those claims for, well, 31 of them because, you know, taking them off the wall of receipts website, which eliminated 122 million of the savings it claimed to have achieved by cutting federal contracts. So. God, um, math is hard.
They're a mess.
Yeah, that's, um, you'd think, you know, with the, the buddy, buddy relationship with Muhammad Bonesaw and his little retreat through the UAE and Saudi Arabia and the Qatari plane that he's getting that he wouldn't be so afraid of Arabic numbers. But math is hard. Ah, for this administration. All right, everybody, we've got a couple of interviews, but first we've got some good trouble. What are you guys doing?
Okay, everyone's strap in. Here's your mission, if you choose to accept it. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Well, he's weighing, pulling the COVID 19 vaccine from the government's list of recommended immunizations for children. This is two people that are familiar with the discussions this is what they told Politico. The directive under consideration would remove the COVID shot from the childhood vaccine schedule maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and widely used, by the way, by physicians to guide vaccine distribution. There's one week left, one week to submit comments to RFK Jr trying to pull the COVID vaccines from the list of recommended vaccines for children. You can make your voices heard about keeping the vaccine if you should choose to believe in it on the list by clicking on the link in the show notes we will provide and submitting your thoughts. I know a lot of you will do this. You have very strong opinions about this and I think your voice should be heard.
Yes, Comments are open for another week. Again, that link is in the Show Notes. Thank you very much for that good trouble. Next up, John Fugelsang, followed by John Bowser Bauman and of course, listener submitted Good news. Stick around. We'll be right back after these messages. We'll be right back. Hey everybody, it's ag. I used to toss and turn every night. I had a hard time getting asleep, but I also had a hard time staying asleep. I would stare at the ceiling, watch the clock tick past, have that song from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels going over and over again in my head until I could figure it out. This would happen past midnight. 2am Um, 3am um, stress, racing thoughts. You name it, I've dealt with it. And that's when I found CB Distillery. It changed the way I sleep. Their CBD sleep gummies are the real deal. I take one about 30 minutes before I go to bed to unwind. It helps me settle without feeling groggy or drowsy. It's not a sedative. It's a gentle nudge to restfulness. And I'm not waking up multiple times a night anymore. And my mornings are actually productive. Now. What I love most is how clean their ingredients are. No artificial fillers, no weird additives, just premium CBD that actually works. And with over 2 million happy customers and a, uh, 100% money back guarantee, it's a brand I feel great supporting. I've been, I've been using this brand for a really long time and I want to thank CB Distillery for sponsoring this episode. You can get 25% off your entire purchase at CBDistillery.com using promo code Daily Beans, all one word. CB Distillery doesn't stop at sleep either. They have targeted formulas for pain, stress, focus, and even CBD treats for pets. Their quality and transparency makes them a top pick for Trusted relief. So if you've been lying awake wondering what might help, take it from someone who's been there. CB distillery is the answer. Millions are already sleeping better, and I'm one of them. And for a limited time, you can save 25% on your entire purchase. Visit CBDistillery.com and use promo code DailyBeans one last time. CBDistillery.com specific product availability depends on individual state regulations. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Excited today to be joined by my good friend John Fugelsang. Because it's Fuglsang Fridays on the Daily Beast. You can catch him on Sirius XM progress channel 127 every weeknight at 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific for the Tell Me Everything show. And if you don't have serious, you can always listen to the John Fugelsang show podcast. Hello, John Fugelsang. How are you?
Hello, Dr. Gill. It's great to be here with you. Thank you so much. I've got a free, uh, a free 400 million Boeing airplane made, uh, in America to give to Americans because what a win. Wow. Not pathetic at all.
I mean, how could you say no?
Oh, the grift that flew too close to the sun. I'm sure we'll get to that. But what a week.
We will. Let's talk about grift. I mean, that's going to be the, I think, the key, uh, phrase for our discussion today, because I wanted to open up talking about. Because, you know, later in the show, I'm going to be talking to John Bauman, who is like the head of Social Security pack and does all this work for seniors and for a lot of the, the programs, the social programs that we rely on. Oh, yes, and we're going to talk to him in a minute. But I wanted to talk to you also about this budget reconciliation, the big beautiful bill.
Oh, I'd love to talk about the big beautiful bill, which again, um, I.
Mean, everything they do is to take away money for us to give to their rich donors so that they can continue to pour money into this rich donor oligarch machine and just keep perpetuating minority rule. It seems so obvious to me. I don't understand how other people aren't picking up on that.
Well, because it hasn't worked for the last 40 years, so why tinker with it now? I mean, this is this. They really have figured out the secret in 2025 to Christian charity. Step one, you kick 13 million people off Medicaid. Step two, you give billionaires a massive tax Cut they don't need. And step three, you blame immigrants, Joe Biden, and transgender children for budget constraints. I mean, they swore they wouldn't touch Medicaid. They promised, like, a televangelist promising that your grandmother's Social Security check will heal her gout if you send it to me. And then they gutted it. Even Fox News, Allison, had to admit this. And you know it's bad when Fox is like, yeah, we're evil. And their whole argument is. And this, this, this Mike Johnson line, this will streamline Medicaid. You know, like. Like streamlining a fire department by letting the city burn and calling it urban renewal. Like, who's getting the real help here? Yachts, hedge funds, private jets from Qatar, not your diabetic aunt. And the work requirements, I mean, it's insanely cruel. It's not about work. These work requirements are about red tape. Strangling people until they voluntarily disappear from the system. And that's all it's about. And as you well know, what happens when these 13 million Americans lose coverage? They don't magically get healthy. They don't suddenly get a six figure job with good benefits in dental. They get sick, they go into deeper debt, and they die. And that's why the CBO said the bill would save 625 billion, because we are going to kick millions of people off insurance and kill them. That is not a policy. That's a purge. But they're also keeping taxes on your tips, your overtime, and Social Security benefits. So if you're rich, your taxes took a spa day. I mean, but this is what they do. It's like the estate tax, Allison, where they tried to demonize it by calling it the death tax. And the Democrats let themselves get pummeled for this, when the reality was the Republicans don't want to tax rich people who inherit and don't work for their money, but they do want to tax working people who work for their money. And on top of this, adding 4 trillion to the debt ceiling, all to pay for tax cuts for people who use summer as a verb. And I'm like, why is it so hard to convince our Republican brothers and sisters this has happened? And then the cherry on top of the. The $400 million plane from these terrorist bankrollers who hate Jews, while this White House is telling you they care about national security and they care about Jews. I mean, we got people in wheelchairs getting arrested in the halls of Congress for this. And, ah, uh, the Republicans are just calculating how many poor people they need to Deny health care to so Jeff Bezos can get another yacht. And one last thing. I'm sorry to rant about this, but did you know there is not one single voting district in all of America where more than 15% of the voters want Medicaid cuts? Not one district has more than 15% of America. Even the deepest red district. So who the hell are they working for? This is about punishing the poor to reward the rich and wrapping it in a Bible verse so they can sleep at night.
Yeah, well, it's the culture of no is what we called it forever at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
That's it.
When a veteran comes in and says, hey, I think I have ptsd, because I was in combat a couple of times and I saw this, and the VA says, nope, um, we need pictures and six affidavits and 14 forms signed in triplicate.
Denied.
Uh, and so then you get the forms and you sign them in triplicate and you give the documentation and you apply again. And they go, well, we don't really see any other markers that this actually happened.
That's right.
Um, so, no. And so they. What they hope is that because you're suffering from PTSD or you have a disability, uh, you are going to give up and stop asking for the money that is rightfully yours and the benefits that are rightfully yours. They do it with Social Security.
That's why they call it entitlements. That's why they call it entitlements, so you won't call it earned benefits. You're nailing it.
Yeah.
And, you know, this, uh, is the reason at the VA why they're dragging everybody, or at any government agency, why they're dragging everybody back into the office. So it forces them to pay for parking and get shuttling and share a bullpen office with 14 other people. You know, putting privacy at risk for people who are actually doing telehealth or whatever over the phone. It's so that the people who work in the federal government hate their jobs enough that they voluntarily quit.
That's it. Drive them out. My God, it's times like this I'm so comfortable and so reassured that Todd Blanche is going to be our national librarian. I gotta say, uh, anywhere I can hang on to any good news. I'll take it.
Yeah. Marco Rubio, in charge of the National Archives. What could go on?
Oh, boy. I just. This is going to be. This is going to be a truth and reconciliation committee to stay alive for folks.
But, John, we still have to figure out whether or not Biden was old.
Oh, yes, thank you, Tapper. Huh?
Huh?
Oh, thank you, Jake Tapper.
If we don't do that and apologize to the centrist Republicans for not recognizing that Biden was old, we'd have to apologize now.
I couldn't believe it.
I mean, if we don't do that, we're just going to keep losing.
I'm so glad you want, you want to go here because I'm thrilled about it because, uh, you know, Jake Tapper, we really like to say, oh, you're just, uh, you're just a prompter monkey. You know, you just, you're just a newsreader, not a real journalist. And it's really just amazing to know that CNN still employs actual journalists who can find out at great personal risk that Joe Biden is an 82 year old man with a stutter. I gotta say, it's, uh, thank God for him.
We would have not, we wouldn't have never known if. I mean, their staff did such a good job at tricking us all to thinking that Biden was 56 years old for so long. I mean, I'm so glad they're taking, uh, you know, the pulling back the veil and showing us, uh, you know, the reality of the situation about m. The man who wasn't even the candidate for president, saying he couldn't, you hear.
He, he, he couldn't recognize. He didn't recognize George Clooney backstage at a show. And that's all the proof I need. Of course, Donald Trump saw a picture of the woman he raped and thought it was the woman he dumped his first wife for. But Joe Biden couldn't recognize Jake Tapper backstage. And again, this is. Oh my God. So the Biden's ages eights allegedly talked about him using a wheelchair during a hypothetical second term. Right? Not that he did, not that he planned to, but some people discussed it. Like, doesn't every office have that meeting about contingency planning if the finance VP drinks too much at the holiday party? The point is Joe Biden is still riding a bike. And the same day this story broke, Donald Trump fell asleep at a Saudi murderer's palace on live tv. And by the way, FDR just called. He says hi from history, Jake Tapper. And he wants you to know he ran a country for in a wheelchair for 12 years while defeating fascism, you clowns. By Jake Tapper's logic, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was cognitively unfit too, because he sat down an awful lot. And by the way, again, the media really got this right that Donald Trump can't finish a sentence without talking about electric boats and Hannibal Lecter and whatever Fox News crappy mainline that morning. So Tapper's focus is on whether Biden might have used a wheelchair in an alternate timeline. We're on fire and Jake Tapper is writing fanfic about orthopedics. And again, uh, not to rant here, but the Biden decline. The man had his lifelong stutter. He beat Trump, he led the west in supporting Ukraine, made NATO stronger than ever, rebuilt our alliances, passed historic legislation. The most legislatively effective president of my lifetime grew the economy post Covid the best inflation of every capitalist country in the world and outperformed expectations in every state of the union. Did he look tired sometimes? Yes, he looked old and tired cuz he was saving democracy while Donald Trump was talking about windmills causing cancer. I will be the first to say the second half of his term does not measure up to the first two years of his term. But I mean, and there'll be a lot of books written about his health and why we couldn't have any power to stop tens of thousands of Palestinians from being slaughtered. But can I just say, I watched that debate. I watched that debate that Jake Tapper moderated with this old feeble Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And I've always believed Joe Biden had long Covid. Okay, I have no medical background, but it makes the most sense to understand it because I watched Biden run the NATO press conference. And yeah, he was old and off his game, but cognitively he was there. And Trump could have never given a press conference like that.
No.
But Jake Tapper moderated a presidential debate, Alison, where he let Donald Trump just machine gun lie, lie after lie with no fact checking. He and Dana, Dana Bash and I have nothing against them, but that night they invited us onto CNN's airwaves. They welcomed Trump into their house and they sat there as Trump lied continually to their audience. Would you let a guest on your show lie to your audience hundreds of times without ever interjecting? Dick Capper's moderation was so useless, it should be studied in journalism school. And now he wants a do over by rewriting history. I mean, I'm worried. Was Jake Tapper okay? He was really off his game. Maybe he has dementia as well. Who's this book for, Alison? Democrats who hate Joe Biden. It's not for Republicans. This book is for the attention starved media class desperately trying to chase a Fox News viewing audience that will never love them. Jake Tapper could. Could, could Personally water Stephen Miller's pit vipers for a year and they would still call him a Marxist cuckoo. Uh, like, like this book is for the people who click on Biden dementia when they're not watching my pillow discount codes. Like, he was old. Yes, he was old. But the real news is that the current president is a criminal authoritarian tearing up the Constitution, and Jake Tapper is pearl clutching about a wheelchair that never happened. So if you buy Jake Tapper's book, people, may your chicken always be undercooked, may your coffee always be lukewarm. May your wi fi always be one bar.
Well, there's this.
I just can't. I just, I can't. And I don't hate Jake Tapper. A lot of people that have a problem with the guy, I'm down with it. But this, this is thirsty, Ms. Gill. This is him just trying to chase those right wing viewers that are never gonna come to cnn.
Well, there's this secondary underlying issue that kind of underpins this entire thing, and that is the idea of a unitary executive. Please. But somehow, because, uh, Joe Biden and his staff were considering a wheelchair at some point, that the entire country would fall apart because the person in charge, the President of the United States, needs to sit down a little bit more or whatever it is, even if it's a legitimate thing. But, uh, the problem here is that when you buy into that narrative, you're also buying into the subtext that we have a unitary executive king, head of head, king of kings and lord of lords, who, uh, the responsibility of which the world lands directly on his shoulders for everything, as though he doesn't have a cabinet and a team and 2 million people in the government working for him.
And m a whole lot of obedient winged monkeys in Congress as well. Let's not forget. There's a lot of blame to pass around.
But you know what I'm getting at here? To say that the president is the only person that runs the country, is giving in to the authoritarian idea that the president is the only person that runs the country.
Yes, but, but that's what they're doing. That's what Jake Tapper is feeding. And again, it is a team.
You know, even if we had, you know, we had Pete Buttigieg running transportation, and now we have Sean Duffy. Okay? So, yeah, whatever you want to talk about, Biden's health or whether he should have dropped out sooner or whatever you're talking about, people need to start grasping the concept and understanding the concept that in our constitutional republic, in this form of government that we are still trying to keep alive here, uh, that might be on life support, is about a group, a team of people that are representing the. The constituents of the United States. That is the government. We are the government. The president, the figurehead. That is not the government, of course.
But simple people view it that way. And let's be honest, we have have seen demonstrated in the last two months when, when you're trying to kidnap and rendition people for free speech, when you are admitting the people you are kidnapping and renditioning, uh, have not broken any laws, when you are openly disobeying nine nothing Supreme Court decisions and admitting in court that you're wrong and doing nothing anyway, we have the evidence in. Our Republican friends do not want the rule of law. They want the rule of one man. That's what they want. They don't want to be governed by a constitution. They want to be governed by a racist reality show clown.
Yeah, I know.
That's it. That's what.
And that whole concept, the one, by the way, that was aided and abetted by John Roberts and his court when they crowned him king. Yeah. Uh, in 2024, is that this unitary executive is the end all, be all of American government. And we keep moving toward that eventuality, and it's wrong. And I wish people didn't have that concept of how our government works, that we are the government that, uh, you know, it's not just Joe Biden or Obama or Trump. There's a whole. In the. Trump. In Trump's case, there's a whole slew of fucking fascists that are helping him out.
Of course, he's denying he even knows them. Who, why. Why did you pick this unqualified crazy lady to be your surgeon general? Oh, uh, that's El Bobby. You know, like, he's not even pretending to run the ship. Uh, Grandpa, close your robe again. But you're right. The unitary executive is a myth, but we all still believe it anyway. We look for a figurehead. That's the president. But Joe Biden in a wheelchair, drooling, in a coma with an alien popping out of his chest is still more presidential than Donald Trump on his best day. Like. Like none of this. Look at. Just look at their records.
True. But if you put the white man.
And the one old white man. Go ahead.
If you put the alien in the chest, though, this particular Supreme Court will say that that does violate Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
So, no, you're right, actually. That alien in the chest constitutes a full invasion. So we can have the Aliens and enemies act of 1798. You're right. Look at that. It's an invasion by an army. Can I just remind. Look, we are hanging on. This country is just hanging on like an 87 year old democrat clinging to their ranking chair committee seat. But, but uh, you know what, uh, Democrats have outperformed in 19 of 21 special elections. They've already flipped two deep red seats. We got liberals defending the Wisconsin Supreme Court with a double digit victory. Democrats won the Omaha's mayor Office for the first time in 16 years. Please, double digit, not let the mainstream media convince you it's this bad. Yes, the Democrats are in disarray. When are they not? You're trying to corral everybody who's not like, you know, a right wing person. You're trying to corral everybody. So you go to a protest for liberals, you got the hemp guy and the abortion person, you got the refugee. We're all over the place. We're a mess. But again, on policy after policy, the majority of Americans support the Democratic point of view. Paid family leave, decriminalizing weed, abortion rights, taxing the rich, Medicaid covering Medicare, covering vision, hearing and dental issue after issue. The overwhelming majority of Americans sides with Democrats. So who cares about the names and the politicians. Get out there and talk about what you're fighting for versus what these people are fighting for, which is keeping out all the Afghans who saved our troops lives in World War II. So we could bring in some racist South Africaners like just, just show what they're fighting for. Because Democrats are inherently more popular.
Oh yeah. And I mean, you know, the Republicans don't have to corral because they corral money. They corral dark money and give tax breaks.
Well, they don't want 32%. They're right there waiting. They're right there waiting for instruction, those white folks.
So when the rest of us, the, the, you know, the, the effective majority have to put everybody under the same tent, of course we're going to have a spectrum of beliefs because we actually have beliefs and we listen to people, whereas the Republicans don't give a shit what you have to say or who. They don't have to corral anyone. They are minority rule. They've redrawn all the lines. They've packed their Supreme Court to help them gut voting rights, um, and help them crown their leader king. So they don't have to get everybody on one page. The only page they have to get everybody on is hate.
But that's what this is all about. You Know, you look at the South Africaners they're bringing in, and, oh, they're so victimized. You know, these are the people where, uh, These folks control 72% of the farmland while being only 7% of the population. And they're the oppressed refugees that we're bringing in. But of course, because that's exactly what this is all about. It's all about the year.
Well, I look, uh, forward to them starting farms here in the United States and not being able to sell their soybeans to China.
But in 2045, wheat, pasty face, white bread, hunky Caucasians become a minority population. So this is a coming attraction. What they're trying to do is how do you guarantee minority white rule long after you become a minority? You know, once. Once we're not the dominant race anymore. They have, let's. What's the word? Uh, systemically set up a system where white culture will still control the US for decades after we have stopped being the majority population. So this is how they do it. This is what most of this immigration is about. They're not trying to deport Russian gangs, are they? Um, but they're importing more and more white. And again, when Donald Trump's first day in office, he signed, uh, this executive order banning people from countries where they're really fleeing active war zones like Congo and Sudan. The Afghan interpreters who saved American lives, but they didn't qualify for the whiteness express lane. So they're still just pushing the white genocide lie. And even the Episcopal Church has washed their hands of it. The Episcopal Church? Trump asked them. He tried to strong arm them into resettling. These Africanas, the Episcopals, who stood with Desmond Tutu against apartheid, they're like, uh, no, thanks. We don't do clan cosplay in church, pal. So, you know, this is the European colonizer starter pack. I mean, and God bless the Episcopals for not playing along, because these white people are not victims. 12 farm murders in all of South Africa in late 2024. Only one was a farmer. The majority of the victims were black farm workers. Okay? The. These victimized Africana whites, it's like. It's like the shark victims in Kansas society. They don't exist. There are no shark victims in Kansas. This is affirmative action for racists.
Yeah. Which is what we have going on in our institutions now. Uh, so, you know, by saying, taking over the entire DOJ Civil rights division to protect the civil rights of white people. All right, well, thank you, my friend. Um, uh, that was a good note.
Uh, that's okay. Talk about the, uh, ride plane next week. But look, at this point, this whole presidency is basically just sponsored content at this point. So as sad as it is, don't forget to stop and smell the train wreck. It's more important than ever to laugh at this stuff because after the China capitulation, the rest of the world's not taking this guy seriously anymore. We can take a Zebel seriously, but we have to mock him and make him smaller. We have to.
Agreed.
Uh, all right, my friend. Thank you so much, everybody. You have to check out John Felsang's Tell Me Everything on Sirius XM progress channel 127. Week nights, 9pm Eastern, 6 Pacific, or the John Fugalang show podcast. It's always a treat to see you, so I hope you have a wonderful week.
You're the best.
Thank you everybody. Stick around. We'll be right back with John Bowser from Shaanana in Greece, but also, uh, one of the coolest public servants, spent his life in public service and we're going to talk to him right after this break. Stick around, we'll be right back. Hey everybody. If you're tired of bringing home plants that wither and die after just a few weeks, listen up because that used to be me. I thought it was m my problem. I thought I had a brown thumb until I found fast growing trees. As the top rated online nursery in the country. They deliver beautiful thriving plants to over 2 million satisfied customers. I'm one of them. What makes the difference? Their plants are shipped directly from their nursery, skipping the retail chain so they arrive faster, fresher and stronger. Each one is hand selected and checked through a 14 point quality process. Plus, their team and their experts are always ready to help with tips tailored to your climate and your space. I used to dread trips to the garden center, fighting crowds. I wouldn't didn't know what I was looking at or if it would grow in my zone finding limited tired inventory. And now I explore more than 6,000 plant varieties from the comfort of my couch, including flowering trees, edible plants and fast growing privacy screens, which are great. I was hesitant at first, but my guacamole garden arrived looking incredible. I got a Meyer lemon tree, a lime tree and an avocado tree. And recently I added a second avocado tree because they grow better with buddies. But. But it was already growing so fast and wonderful. Now he has a friend. They're boxed with easy to follow care instructions. In just a few months, I had flowers blooming and I had fruit by the end of the season, lemons, limes, and we're starting to get a little bit of avocados. Those take a little bit longer, but it's just so wonderful. And now we can have the fresh homemade guacamole that we love. It looked better than anything I'd seen at a local nursery, and it cost a fraction of what a landscaper quoted. With fast growing trees, alive and thrive guaranteed and their expert support, you don't need a green thumb at all. So skip the guesswork. Let them help you grow something great. Whether you want privacy, color, fresh fruit, they make it simple to bring your yard to life. And this spring, they have the best deals for your yard, up to half off on selected plants and other deals. And listeners to this show get 15% off their first purchase when using the code DAILYBEANS at checkout. That's an additional 15% off at fast growingtrees.com use the code DAILYBEANS at checkout. Again fastgrowingtrees.com code DAILYBEANS. Now is the perfect time to plant. Use DAILYBEANS to save today. The offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. All right, so this interview coming up, super lifelong dream for me. I'm fangirling out, so you're gonna have to forgive me a little bit if I trip over my words, but we're gonna be talking to the president of Social Security Works Pack and the vice chair of the DNC Seniors Council. You may also know him as Bowser from Sha Na Na in Greece. Please welcome John Bauman. Hi. Hi.
Uh, it's great to be here with you.
It's so great to meet you. This is, like, incredible for me. But what is also incredible for me is all the work, because I was a huge fan of Shananag Greece when I was a kid, but I'm also a huge fan of everything that you've been doing in public service. So I would love it if you would talk a little bit about Social Security Works PAC and the DNC Seniors Council and some of this work that you've been involved with.
Yeah, well, you know, Starting in about 2004, um, I started doing volunteer work, which has mushroomed into a lot of volunteer work. I still don't get paid on senior issues because as my audience was aging and I was still doing shows, I only stopped doing shows in February. And it's just because I'm not getting around as well anymore. I'm 77. So, uh, you were a little kid, so, you know what has happened to this time anyway? Uh, working on senior issues has become my passion and I got involved with Social Security Works as senior advisor and president of the PAC. I would say about, must be eight to 10 years ago now, before they had something called senior Votes count. And the pac. The purpose of the PAC is to get, get better people elected. Uh, you know, that is what I, what I do. At its highest, at its highest point, which I probably will never duplicate. I got to 57 different campaigns in 2018 on the ground doing endorsement events with candidates that we liked and endorsed on senior issues. Senior issues are probably the best crossover issues that there are because they affect everybody equally. They affect Democrats, they affect independents, they affect Republicans, and, uh, they're kitchen table issues for everybody. So that's really what's been going on. I'm also senior advisor to Social Security Works, the policy organization. So today we're going to be talking about a lot of policy stuff as we're in between election cycles. But Project 2026 is to flip the House, Allison. You know that. And, and Right.
Three to win.
Yeah. Must, must be done, uh, to stop the bleeding. You know, the executive orders will continue, we're sure. But you, uh, know, the courts will have to deal with them as they have been and not, not that badly so far. Let's, let's see, you know, how this plays itself out. But we, we have to stop bad legislation. Right now we're in the middle of a piece of really horrible legislation being on the table. And, uh, the good news relative to that is that we are hopeful that it's the only piece of legislation that they're even going to try for, and then we'll be able to flip the House and that'll be over.
Over. Yeah, over, over. Uh, but let's talk about the core of why these issues are so important and I think why the Democratic Party, for the most part, are continually the ones who fight for these programs for seniors. And the reason we have to fight at all in the first place is because there are people on the other side who keep wanting to take these things away. This big, beautiful budget bill is a perfect example. And I have to say, and, uh, you bring up a really good point, that these issues impact everyone, regardless of party or political affiliation, but they also impact everyone, regardless of age. Senior issues don't just impact seniors, they impact seniors, children and their grandchildren. We had in a candidate in Kamala Harris, someone that was going to help us with home care, and now we have a whole generation or two of people Stranded, having to do this themselves and take care of their aging parents themselves, or we have aging members of our community who are taking care of special needs adult children or grandchildren. And so it's not just cross party, it's cross generational. And I feel like a lot of people are about to learn that lesson in the wake of, of what just happened in November. So let's talk a little bit about the issues impacting seniors, therefore impacting all of us that are in this budget reconciliation. Keeping in mind that budget reconciliation isn't subject to the filibuster. They only need a simple majority to pass it in the Senate.
Well, I've been messaging this as the big ugly bill. It's one big ugly bill. And you're welcome, you're welcome to use that. Uh, it is about as ugly as it can get. And you know, uh, the rest of the reconciliation explanation is that they're really. Let's parse this down to what it really is. When this party, which should be on the right side of senior issues, but hasn't been now for a long time, when the Republican Party gets power, it's patently obvious that there's only one thing that they can really all agree on, and that one thing is tax cuts for their richest donors. That's it. This is as simple as it can be. They really only care about, uh, uh, tax cuts for the wealthy, for the richest donors to keep the donors happy, to keep the money coming in and keep the CEO jobs flowing for them when, if they want to get out of elected office. You know, this is what it's about now. Reconciliation. Joe, kind of hangs them up a little bit because they have to actually figure out how to pay for the thing, you know, at least theoretically.
Theoretically, if they're a budget hawk. Right, which is why we see some Republicans saying, this doesn't go far enough. We're going to be increasing the budget. But most of them are on the side of keep the tax cuts for me and my wealthy donors and get rid of more programs that help working families and Americans.
Absolutely. And in the end result, look, what could come out of this, you know, I wouldn't bet against it is them just bulldozing the Senate parliamentarian and saying, no, we're not going to pay for any of this. We'll just explode the deficit. You know, that thing that we've been yapping every time we're out of power, we yap about continually and yeah, you know, we don't care what you, what, what, what you have to say. Senate Parliamentarian, we're going to do it anyway because I think they're going to have trouble agreeing on stuff. I mean, that was a little bit in the weeds, but you know, it's important. Um, they are really fractured on what they are going to be able, what they want to do and what they're going to be able to do. They want those tax cuts, but they're putting their so called moderates, you know, who are the ones that, whose seats were going to flip in 2026 in a horrible position by making them agree to horrible cuts to programs that people need and even, look, you saw Josh Hawley, one of the most cantankerous senators, Republican senators that there is, come out with an op ed two days ago, um, that was fiercely against these Medicaid cuts. And you know, we had nothing to say about that. But hey, thanks, that's, you know, you're realizing the problem.
I mean, what, 40% of his constituents rely on Medicare. And we've long said on this show that that's going to come to loggerheads where these Republican members of Congress who have to get reelected to maintain their power are going to have to face their constituents rather than kowtowing to the Trump administration. But let's stay in the weeds a little bit and talk about ending taxes on Social Security when the opposite should be happening. We should be removing the tax cap for the wealthy on Social Security to be able to fund it appropriately if we like. I don't understand why anyone thinks that. The, you know, I mean, the math just isn't mathing. If we stop taxing Social Security, we'll have less money to put into it in a faster period of time when, you know, I pay the same out of Social Security that Elon Musk does to Social Security because of that cap. So I, I don't, uh, again, this is a tax loophole. I see it as a tax, uh, loophole for the wealthy who are again, not having to pay their fair share into a public program. And that's the easy solution to Social Security solvency. To me, not getting rid of Social Security tax.
Well, that, okay, that's the heart of the problem. You identified the heart of the problem. And let's just go over this, uh, for your listeners. The cap is $176,100. What that means is that no one pays in on income $0.01 on income above 176100. So we always mark something called Millionaires Day at Social Security Works. That is the day on which somebody making a million dollars A year stops paying into Social Security. And that day this year was March 6th. After March 6th, if you're making a million bucks this year, you didn't pay one more cent. Right? So reality is that everybody, the average person making $176,100 or less pays in 6.2% of their income to Social Security. Elon Musk, who probably made $176,100 on January 1st and stopped paying on January 1st, does not pay 6.2%. He pays 0.000000000000. Um, is that fair? I can hear you all saying no out there now with regard to what you said, Alison, about, um, this, the proposal to end Social Security taxes. We're not against that. We're for it, um, at Social Security Works, but we're for it as part of a comprehensive bill like John Larson's Social Security 2100 that has been on the table for a while. He was the chair of the Social Security, um, Committee on Ways and Means. And Social Security 2100 is a great bill. It expands the program, it extends the life of the program, does a lot of great things, changes the way your cost of living is calculated and that needs to be improved. But yes, it also adjusts the cap in a way that in Larsonville, um, people making 400k a year or more start paying in again at that number. And this is critically important. And it also allows, you know, the Larson bill deals with Social Security taxes and yes, ultimately removes them, um, because it's actually dealing with the revenue that needs to come in in order to do what Social Security needs to do to be solvent past fully solvent past 2035. We should also note that there's a lot of stuff out there like it's going bankrupt. You know, the Republican Party is always yelling that it's going bankruptcy. It's not going bankrupt. If nobody lifted a finger between now and 2035, Social Security would still pay out 80% of its benefit. It's just that that's not good enough. It's got to pay out 100% of its benefit like it always has. And it hasn't missed a payment in 89 years.
Mhm. Yeah, but if they can usher in, uh, or help along the insolvency of Social Security, then they can, uh, then they can call it a terrible idea and privatize it it and keep all the money for themselves.
Yes, that's what's really going on.
Yeah, of course, of course it is. Now how can we. This seems like the easiest message. How do we message across the aisle? I remember, gosh, what was it, 15, 10, 15 years ago, during a political, uh, campaign rally for Democrats or Republicans, I can't remember who, but somebody shouted from the audience, keep your government, hands off my Social Security. And I don't know if someone went up and explained to that person what Social Security is after that, but regardless of where you think Social Security comes from, I think we can all agree that everyone should keep their hands off of it. And I think that that might be the core message. Right?
It is.
And clearly we have to. I mean, for us, it's obvious who's trying to take these things away, these programs away from us to continue to line their pockets and make their donors richer. But how do we. Do we even bother to get into the details about that? Or do we just say, join us against this particular group of this Congress, these Republicans in Congress who want to take this away and tell them, hands off my Social Security. What's the best way to message this?
Yes.
Or Medicaid or any other, uh, program we're talking about.
And hands off is the moment that we're in. We believe, of course, that Social Security and Medicare actually need to be a. Expand it, but with this administration and this Congress, we're never going to get there until we change all that. So, you know, number one, the thing that I emphasize, of course, to candidates as president of the pac, is that these are the best crossover issues that you, that you have. There are none better to message to independents and to Republicans, which in swing districts, you often need those voters to come over to your side. The best message is hands off. I am in favor of hands off Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and I'm in favor of fighting to lower your drug prices, which, by the way, you know, the Biden administration did a really good job of that. They were the best administration for over half a century, um, especially in dealing with drug prices. It's kind of funny because the guy in the White House now, uh, did a drug price gambit last week just to make it sound good. But of course, what he said amounts to absolutely nothing. This has to be done legislatively like the Biden administration did. Uh, Medicare is, now, is negotiating with drug companies for the first time in history to lower the price of drugs, because Joe Biden got that done with a lousy Congress. You know, with, with Kyrsten Sinema and, and Joe Manchin in his way. It still got done. There's a $2,000 cap for seniors on Medicare now beginning that began in January, where you can't pay more than $2,000 in a year for your drugs stuff, that's really a big deal that I fear to say you didn't get that much credit for. But boy, we were surprised in a way at how progressive that administration was on drug prices and really pleased at what they managed to get done. So what you're saying is absolutely correct. The messaging, the messaging goes on. Now these are the best issues to message on, um, podcasts like yours to reach people who aren't necessarily hardcore Democrats. Hardcore Democrats on this stuff are pretty easy. They've gotten it all along and they shouldn't be partisan issues. They didn't used to be.
No, hey, hands off my veterans benefits.
Right. They were always somewhat partisan issues and not for good reasons. I mean, the reason the cap exists is because FDR and Frances Perkins, his amazing labor secretary, one of the most important women in American governmental history, got Social Security through in 1935 and they had to make compromises even then with, um, the opposite side in Congress. So it got done. Um, but the cap is still there, you know, much like with Medicare.
Oh, yeah. Or even the Affordable Care Act. We had to make concessions with the Affordable Care act in order to get.
Everything ends up compromising.
Any Republicans to come over? Yeah, I mean that, that's, that is the Republicans mo because they, their actual platform and the things that they want to do are so terrible. Voters hate all of it, no matter what side of the aisle you're on. So they try to kind of steal the ideas of Democrats by, oh, we're going to do a $35 cap on insulin too, but then only kind of do it half assed and it doesn't really take. Or we're going to lower drug prices too. I've got a great health care plan. We'll see it in two weeks. It's really just a concept. That's why they keep trying to steal the actual ideas that Democrats put into policy is because that's what the voters want. But I really, I'm with you. I really like the hands off message because I think that resonates to anyone, even old school, especially old school Republicans who were. Get the nanny state out of my house. Leave me alone. Big hand of government, you know, and now it's like, wow, um, they are now right in your house. They're in your bank account, they're in your bedroom, They've got your Social Security information, they've got your health records. And why are you not Hands offing it now. So I agree with you that that is the clear message for sure. And I can't wait to have you back on as we go through this budget reconciliation process to see what actually ends up, uh, after markup, what it ends up being. But, uh, again, it's been really an honor to talk to you. I have to tell you a story. When I was a kid, we were living in Akron, Ohio, and I think it was the blizzard of 79. My parents had gotten me tickets to take me to Sea Sha Na Na for my birthday, but the blizzard kept us from going. And I cried and I cried, and I was mad at my parents, and, oh, I get to go see Bowser. And, uh, because I had the record, I used to listen to it every day. I watched the show all the time. I was a huge fan. So I never actually got to see you live. So to get to speak to you face to face today, it's a cool, personal thing for me. So thank you so much. But also thank you for all the public service that you have done in your life after, you know, and during Sha Na Na, because I think it's incredible, all the work that you've done.
I love that, uh. I love that story. Um. Yeah. And I didn't know that about you. I mean, I know we're kind of friends on social, uh, media, but. No, I didn't. I didn't. I'm sorry you missed the show.
Yeah, you were like, I've been following you since 2018. I was like, I've been following you since 19, 1978.
We had a good show and I'm sorry. Yeah, we had a good show, and the TV show was fun, and it was heavily watched by kids, which you were a kid when the TV show was on, you know, in the. In the, uh. Well, I don't want to give it. Give away anything, but I think it was like the late 70s through the early to mid 80s. Ah. I was going to do this anyway, but now this takes on extra meaning and. Oh, what, I better do this. Um, well, because you missed the show and we could do a closing song for the segment. This used to be called. And you're familiar with it from the Shadow. It used to be called Good night, sweetheart. Well, it's time to go but lately we've changed the lyrics. Sing along. Um, Good night, Donald Trump well, it's time Good night, Donald Trump well, it's time to go no, no, no, no Although don't need to leave you but we must say don't have to leave you tonight. Donald Trump, Good night. Good night, Donald Trump. Good night. And take JD V. Good night, Donald Trump. Hands off Social Security. And in 2026 Democrats all end up doing this.
Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much. I got a private shot on, uh, our concert. Oh my gosh. Okay. Thank you. Oh, that was wonderful. I like the new lyrics. I'm into it. Uh, and I appreciate your time. Tell everybody where they can find and follow you.
Oh, um, well, socialsecurityworks.org go to our website and um, also you can find me as John Bowser Bauman on Blue, uh, sky. So John John baserbauman. I think it's bsky social. And you can find me still on X because we're still. I'm still on there fighting it out. Uh, I still use it because they need to know that we're there. The people who are left on there need to know that we're there and we're passionate and we're going to get the right thing done in spite of the difficulty of this climate. So I'm still John Bowserbaum at John Bowserbauman. Um, on what I still call at the Bad Place.
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, thank you so much, my friend and ah, I really appreciate talking to you today. We'll have you back on soon, okay?
Okay, I'd love to. Anytime.
Everybody stick around. I don't know if we the good news can get much better than a personal concert from Shot on odd. But stick around. We'll be right back with the good news.
Good night in Greece for peace.
Everybody, welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news?
Everyone.
Then good news, everyone. And if you have any good news stories, confessions, corrections, especially pronunciation corrections, you want to give a shout out to a loved one or yourself. We love self shout outs. Maybe a small business in your area that could use a boost or some great activism in your community that you're seeing. We'd love to hear about that. And plus shout outs to government programs that have helped you or a loved one. Anything from the Affordable Care act subsidies, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, drug price, prescription prices being lowered through, um, you know, being able to negotiate with Medicare or the $35 cap on insulin. Right now seniors will have a $2,000 cap on their medications. Uh, anything like that that's helped you out. Even stuff like SNAP and WIC and Head Start or, you know, some great child care, uh, that's being provided by the government and of course student debt relief. Send it all to us@dailybeanspod.com CL and all you got to do to get your submission read on the air is pay your POD pet tariff.
Yes, please.
Yes. So that means, uh, you know, show us a photo of your pet. We'll try to guess the breeds if you like. If you don't have a pet, you can send an adoptable pet in your area. We'll see if we can find them a home. You don't have an adoptable pet in your area. You can just send any animal photo. Really, it's fine. I'll take whatever if you don't have that. Oh, and we're also doing bird watching photos, which can be an actual bird or you and your family and friends flipping the bird to Trump and Musk Properties. And of course, baby photos. Just always send your baby photos. You don't even have to say any words. You can just send the baby photo.
Absolutely.
All right, first, uh, oh, by the way, the way, the way that you submit that is DailyBeansPod.com click on Contact. All right, first up from anonymous. No pronouns given my dearest beans. Finally, I have good news that might be of interest to you and your listeners. I learned recently that in 2022, the United States, along with 150 other countries, signed a Declaration for Culture that affirmed culture as a global public good and called that culture be integrated, quote as a specific goal in its own right. In addition, May 21 is UNESCO's World Day of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. It's a day that highlights the richness of world cultures and their essential role in promoting intercultural dialogue that helps achieve peace and sustainable development. You can check out a link we're going to have in the show notes for the World Day of Cultural Diversity so we can all celebrate our diverse, joyous global cultures on May 21, knowing it's been sanctioned by the United States. Hahaha. I love that the world continues to troll Trump and his dumb anti diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. I refuse to reduce these amazing words to the initials dei. In fact, I've decided this is another disservice that the media does. They reduce the positive words diversity, equity, inclusion into single letters, but they spell DOGE out. And of course those letters are lies. DOGE is not a department and the last thing it is is efficient. Yeah, saying all the words in the acronym DOGE helps elevate it. Yuck. Anywho, thanks for every day providing news and some laughs. We certainly need it. And for my PODBET tariff, may I present a real bird a cardinal because I couldn't find the image of the bird I took in front of Trump Tower. Sad face and the toe beans of Mohawk.
Nice cuz.
Look at the kitty.
So sweet. That's a beautiful cardinal.
Oh, it's a great picture too. The whole tree, a couple little flowers left on it.
Yep, that's exactly what I noticed.
Oh, wonderful.
Wonderful indeed. This one's from Anonymous. Pronouns they, them, hello, dear, AG and dg. So I was cleaning out some uh. What is that word?
Detritus, I think.
Detritus. Detritus in my Gmail today and came across a Vox newsletter from September September of 2018 the news of the day Republicans were planning to pay for a giant tax cuts for rich people and corporations by instituting a war on the poor, deeply cutting Medicaid and snap, among other things. As a reminder, this plan was originally Paul Ryan's wet dream. So don't forget that he should just fuck himself forever no matter how reasonable he's trying to appear. Now of course, the Democratic landslide in the midterms put the kibosh on that plan. But like all good horror movie villains, it can't be killed forever. They will never stop shoveling money at rich people and blaming poor people for being poor.
Well put.
My good news, I finally got a bird watching photo. One goodish photo in six tries and fuck musk back to Cape Town. On another note, happy Birthday Katie. Sending you all good wishes for this and all future years and happy birthday to all the Leguminati. Whenever those special days happen, I'm very grateful to be part of this wonderful community. And I love that this bird photo is literally just flipping off one of the cyber trucks.
Every time I see one, I'm like, me too. Audibly make vomit sounds.
It's such an eyesore. They're just. I mean, I guess they were meant to be tanks. I don't know. They're just so ugly. Teslas aren't ugly like the regular Tesla cars. I'm not saying I want to support this company anymore, but back in the day when he we thought he was a good guy. The Teslas are pretty attractive.
Yeah, they're just cars, right? But this thing either. Either it's a noise or I'm just like. Or I just make the exasperated sound like yeah, it's either. Yeah. Thank you for coming to my noise factory. Next up, cat granny pronounced she and her good news, good trouble. My daughter who runs her Instagram catsonacouch. That's Amanda to troll JD Vance. A delightful little space where she encourages people to meow on JD Vance's social media. It all started after Vance made a comment about childless cat ladies. It's hysterical. And she's got quite a following of the nicest people on social media. She has dragged me into this by publishing my videos that I made for her when I was trolling the Trump supporters by placing signs next to their Trump signs that added rapist and fascist pointing at the Trump signs.
Nice.
Amanda has been the president. I'm of the PTO at my granddaughter's school. She's now running for school committee in Falmouth, Massachusetts. As the PTO president. She has been an advocate for all members of her community, ensuring that our immigrant population has a voice in decisions being made in our schools. She has instituted translators at school committee meetings, sending out information in languages our students families speak. And now she wants to advocate for her entire community by being elected on Tuesday, May 20th in Falmouth, Ma. So we'll have a link to, um, her Facebook, ah page in the show notes, because she's also working with 50501 run for something, uh, to impact her community. She protests. I know. I love this. So she protests at the Falmouth Town Green each Saturday with some pretty funny signs.
She's amazing. The picture came up and I don't mean to interrupt you, but you clearly have not scrolled down yet.
Oh, my God.
Okay, keep going. I'm so sorry.
Uh, okay, so she's teaching my granddaughter how to protest and get into good trouble. I share your good trouble with her so she can push it out to more people. And I'm so proud of her pod pet tax. I'm a photographer, and I took this picture of my friend's Maine coon kittens.
I can't.
Last thing, my local TSA team in Kalamazoo saw my phone open to the daily Beans podcast when I was putting my stuff in the gray bins. And we talk about you every time I fly out. Oh, hi, TSA Susan. She's a local advocate at 50501 Movement in Kazoo.
I love that. So have you ever seen a baby that just looks. Looks like an old man?
Yes.
This kitten has a man face.
Oh, my goodness.
And then like, uh, man legs in a man body, but still like a kitten face.
This.
This is the cutest. This is one of the cutest kittens I've ever seen.
Like a silver smoked tabby. And he is beautiful. Yeah, he's going to be huge. Look at his feet, for God.
So big.
His foot is but his. You're right, he has an old man face and it's adorable.
He's cute. Thank you so much for that. That and thanks to the tsa. Like everyone who's working there. I. Every time I go through the tsa, I thank them, especially if it's efficient and they're kind because I know how much pressure they're under right now. And every single time I have thanked them and I literally said, I'm so sorry about all this you guys are dealing with. Every single time their eyes light up and they say, oh, my God, thank you.
Yeah.
No one. Everyone just assumes they're part of this crap. Anyway. Anyway, think a TSA agent if they're nice to you. All right. This is from Nancy S. Pronouns she and her. I recently started watching a live feed of a bald eagle nest.
Yes.
Sponsored by the non profit group Friends of Black Bear Valley. I love these. By the way, there's going to be a link in the show notes to friendsofblackbear valley.org Today they posted this warning on their YouTube community page saying that the feds are proposing changes to strip the Endangered Species act of many of the protections of these magnificent birds and many otherwise wildlife, species and habitats. The public has until Monday. We've got more good trouble for you people. The public has until Monday, May 19th. Okay. To submit comments on these proposed changes. So like it said, like Nancy said, this sounds like good trouble to her. Lincoln, uh, in the show notes to submit your comments. These bald eagles are stunning. Go. Uh, now make your comments. Make sure that they are heard.
That one bald eagle guy in the back, though, looks like he hasn't slept in a minute.
Yeah, he probably hasn't. He's like, I'm a little frazzled.
Bed head or nest head? I don't know. Whatever eagles get.
Nest head.
Yeah. Okay, cool. So May 19th is the deadline. That's Monday. So hit that link in the show notes and send your comments about that too.
You all have a lot of weekend homework.
M. Homework. Next up, L pronoun she and her I love you guys. I appreciate your guidance through all the. That's us. We're guiders. Quick question. How did you pick the show title for May 14, which was awesome, called Donald's Insufficient Log over the equally amazing butthole privilege uttered by AG during the discussion of said log? And may I steal it for the name of my non existent band? Of course you may. Elle apologies. It's been a hell of a week and I couldn't survive without you, you pod Tariff saluting. What's probably the shittiest wine ever. Oh, good, a bird watch.
I'm sorry, there's Trump wine.
Yeah. And it's $41.
It's apparently normally 46. I'm actually surprised he didn't make them say 47 on the price tag.
I know, I know, right? Like you're still. You're so close to Scarlet. 47. Um, why did I pick Donald's Insufficient log over? Butthole privilege. I think. I think it's because, well, like here, let's take a look and see who the guest was that day because that tells me a lot about why I choose show titles. So, uh, Claudia Bracho was on that day and she's an incredible advocate, um, for, for peace and, you know, for community, um, you know, non violent policing and things like that. That. And I think I didn't want to, you know, Taint. Yeah.
The show.
Taint the show with butthole privilege.
With butthole privilege.
So I went with Donald's Insufficient.
So she went forward instead of back up. A title.
That's funny.
Yeah. All right, now we know. Now we know. All right. This is from Emily in Minnesota, pronoun. She and her hi beans queens. What started as a museum exhibit. Yes. Really has blossomed into Menstruation Health Week. A full week of programs and community action in northern Minnesota to fight period poverty and celebrate menstrual equity with pride, humor and a whole lot of heart. From May 26th to the 31st, we're hosting authors Talks, a brunch screening of Period, which is a movie, end of sentence. Oh, my God. That's a period. End of sentence is the movie. And panels featuring Planned Parenthood. The Ellie Coleman Institute. Is it Ellie or Eli? Do you know Eli Coleman? M. Eli Coleman Institute and local Pride leaders. We're distributing quote Period dignity window stickers to businesses, churches, schools and public agencies that pledge to carry free Period products and collecting and redistributing Period products in our region to shelters and food shelves. You can read more and see the full program lineup at. We're going to have a link in the show. Notes. It's Beltram.
Um, Beltram History. Beltran. Beltrami.
That's why I wasn't sure Beltram. There's an I, by the way, right in the middle of this Beltrami history.org period.
Cool.
As a local non profit historical society, we're showing that caring for our history also means caring for our community. So here's my challenge to your listeners. I'm telling you, people you don't rest. You have no rest this weekend.
You.
So much homework and good trust.
Trouble.
Okay, here we go. Bring period dignity to your hometown. Ask your favorite cafe, your library, your school or city office to offer free period products. It's a small act of justice that changes lives. Thanks for fueling our brains, our, uh, fire, and our fight. I'm proud to add this bright red spark of good news to the pod PS I pet tariff Is our beloved Susie, a quote, perfect blend of seven breeds. That's according to Embark Dog DNA. She doesn't fetch or heal and digs holes all over the yard, but she loves like nobody's business. Pictured here with her teddy bear.
Oh, my goodness, this is such a sweet photo.
I feel like we got a pod pet and it, uh, would be all in one because that is adorbs.
I know. I love it. Okay, so this is fantastic. So it's a. It's a menstruation health week.
Love it.
May 26th through 31st. That's incredible. In Minnesota, I encourage everyone to bring your husbands out.
Definitely.
Let's educate some folks. Um, this is fantastic. I'm gonna. I wanna do this. I have a couple friends who work at the library.
Amazing.
Here in Coronado.
Make it happen.
Love to make this happen. I miss mine. So it can be like Memorial in Memoriam, Allison's period, and we could have a whole week about it. Fantastic. What great work. Work, Emily. Thank you so much for shining a light on that. And, uh, thanks to everybody. I can't get over this kitten photo. He's so cute. Um, everybody, send your good news to us daily beanspod.com click on contact. Thanks to Bowser. Thanks to John Fugalang. Do you have any final thoughts before we get out of here today? I know you're going to be traveling for the next couple few days.
Yeah, I'm working. I. It's a very secret. I'm not allowed to tell anyone where I am or what I'm doing, but I can tell you. I'm going to listen to the Incredible Katie Porter and Governor Bashir speak tonight. This will have already happened by the time you hear this, so. But I can't tell anyone where I am or what I'm doing because we want to keep all of the speakers safe.
Awesome. Well, we'll. We'll talk about it when you return.
Yes.
All right. Um, I don't have any final thoughts other than to please, have a good weekend. Take some time for yourself. Um, when you wake up in the morning, before you reach for Social Media, just take 10 breaths, deep breaths in and out, focus, center yourself, then maybe hit the news.
I love that you said that. I watched a social media reel, uh, because that's what I was doing. And it said, put your hand on your heart and count to 10. But every time you say a number, say something you're grateful for, do it. When you first wake up in the morning, before you touch your phone, before you read emails, before anything. I've done it just a couple days now. I tell you what, it feels really nice not to start the day with technology and just gratitude.
Yeah. I tell you what, yesterday I had one of the most fun days of my life. And it started with that, because.
Awesome.
Normally I reach for my phone to say, YouTube, what's happening? But, uh, I was like, nope, I'm just gonna. Because every time I'll get on social media, somebody will say something and I'll just be like, mer. And it'll just put me in a mood for the whole day.
Absolutely.
And so it just, it changed my whole outlook. And I, I just try that. It's very simple. Change two minutes, uh, that you can make. And, uh, I hope everybody gets a little peace, uh, from that. And then write into us, send us your good news, let us know how it goes. Dailybeanspod.com click on Contact. I'll be back in your ears, uh, on Monday. Dana will be back soon. And until then, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health and take care of your family. I've been ag, I've been dg. And them's the beans. The Daily Beans is written in, executive produced by Allison Gill with additional research and reporting by Dana Goldberg. Sound design and editing is by Desiree McFarlane with art and web design by Joelle Reader with Moxie Design Studios. Music for the Daily Beans is written and performed by they Might Be Giants and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Media Network, a collection of creator owned podcasts dedicated to news, politics and justice. For more information, please visit msw media.com um, msw media.