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Encore Interview: Buzz Burbank -- Today, I thought we'd have an encore presentation of my interview with my friend and radio mentor, the great Buzz Burbank, also known as Mike Elston. This is especially for those of you who are just now discovering our podcast and want to know who's that guy with the Dad Jokes on your Tuesday podcasts? So on today's show, we'll talk with Buzz about his career, covering the news every day for the last several decades, how he got started and how he eventually ended up on the Don & Mike Show and soon after that in the brand new universe of podcasting. Meanwhile if you like what you hear today, don't forget to subscribe to our bonus content at patreon.com/bobcescashow.

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Sliders And A Pfizer -- [Explicit Language] Correction on the Rudy FBI story; That pathetic Trump video in Mar-a-lago; Lin Wood thinks Trump is still in the Oval Office; The GOP vs Liz Cheney; Republicans are trying to steal credit for the American Rescue Plan; Pelosi strikes back; There's apparently a second Steele Dossier; Josh Duggar pleads not guilty to child pornography charges; The possibility of herd immunity; Vaccine shedding; Facebook likely to reinstate Trump; With TV's Buzz Burbank; Music by Blame It On Rebekkah and Elijah Bone; and more!

Buy the music featured on today's show:
Blame It On Rebekkah - “Psycho Stalker”
Elijah Bone - “The Place I Love”

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Also available everywhere you get your podcasts -- search for "The Bob Cesca Show!"

Support the musicians featured on the countdown:
18) Logan Piercey – “Next To Me” (1:01)
17) Lizanne Knott – “Like I Love My Dog” from Bones & Gravity (4:16)
16) Seth Adam – “Whose America” from East Rock (7:05)
15) Pride Fails – “Case In Point” from Our Own Battle (11:25)
14) State To State – “Kings” from Motives EP (16:58)
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2) After The Fight – “You Might Be Wrong” from At The End Of It All (1:04.56)
1) Bob Malone -- "The River Gives (Live on the Bob Cesca Show) from Good People (1:08.45)

In other news, lawmakers in North Carolina say they've changed their mind about passing an anti-transgender sports ban because they could not actually find a single complaint about the issue.

House Speaker Tim Moore confirmed to The News & Observer Thursday that House Bill 358, also known as the Save Women’s Sports Act, is dead after legislative staff found that there had been no complaints in North Carolina on this topic.

“A wise legislature does not go out looking for social issues to tap,” Moore said.

No shit?

Meanwhile, India recorded a new global record of over 401,000 coronavirus infections yesterday, but health officials believe that's an underestimate. They're burning bodies on pyres in parking lots.

Finally, national security officials are reportedly investigating unexplained attacks near the White House that closely resemble the attacks on diplomats in Cuba.

WASHINGTON — Federal agencies are investigating at least two mysterious incidents on U.S. soil with some hallmarks of the “Havana syndrome,” invisible attacks reported by American diplomats based in Cuba.

Lawmakers on the House and Senate Armed Services Committee confirmed to NBC News on Thursday that they were briefed in April on the investigation. One of the unexplained attacks, reported by CNN, occurred in November near the Ellipse, the oval lawn south of the White House. The person who was sickened by the attack is a National Security Council official, people told CNN.

This phenomenon keeps popping up and I continue to follow it because I am genuinely curious. The general perception is that Russia has been behind it all along, but we haven't seen the proof or an explicit allegation.

Programming note... As I briefly mentioned last week, I am taking a much-needed mental health break. I'm scheduled to receive my second dose of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday, May 4th and I'm prepared to be wiped out by that in any case, but I also need some time away from the daily news cycle that has included a new anti-transgender bill almost every day for months at this point.

I'm tentatively planning to be back here on Tuesday the 11th. But why the 11th and not the 10th? Because the 10th is my first birthday; it's my one-year anniversary of starting hormone replacement therapy (HRT). I'm getting my hair done on the 10th and spending time with friends that night. I'm going to try very hard not to be hungover the next day, but I can't make any bold promises. If my return slips by one day, don't say I didn't warn you!

Thank you all for supporting me and I'll see you again soon.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said Republicans could never vote for a spending package that raise taxes, but the strongest counterargument in favor of raising taxes is the mounting fortune of the rich.

According to Bloomberg, the richest people in the world added almost $200 billion to their fortunes in just the last three months.

In the president’s first 100 days in office, against a drumbeat of calls for the rich to pay more in taxes, the 100 wealthiest Americans added a combined $195 billion to their fortunes, according to a Bloomberg analysis. [...]

The richest 100 made a further $267 billion between the 2020 election and Biden’s inauguration, amounting to a total gain of $461 billion since Nov. 4. From Donald Trump's 2017 inauguration to last fall’s election, those billionaires got about $860 billion richer.

The combined fortunes of the richest 100 Americans have reached $2.9 trillion, greater than the combined $2.5 trillion wealth of the bottom 50% of the U.S. population, according to data from the Federal Reserve.

What makes this especially staggering is that we haven't even reached the peak of a post-pandemic economy yet. Economic growth was extraordinarily high during the previous quarter of the year, but it's expected to be even higher in following quarters and the stock market is already figuratively on fire.

No one should bat an eye at raising taxes on people who are so obscenely rich they won't even notice the money is gone. These same people, who are already the richest people in the world, are going to benefit far more than everyone reading this from our economic recovery. Most of us will be fortunate to just move on with stable lives, but they have the assets and resources to increase their wealthy exponentially.

Most Americans don't have spare money to spend on investments and won't see big returns on the spending bonanza that's coming. That's why we raise taxes on people who are more fortunate. It's not out of spite or jealousy; it's to make sure everyone benefits in some way.

They split Biden's proposal into two parts assuming it would be more digestible to the public and members of Congress but, ironically, congressional Democrats are now saying that passing it as one bill is the most likely path forward.

Congressional leaders are calculating that it will be easier to get Joe Manchin to walk the plank and cast a vote once rather than twice.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), a close Biden ally, has little hope that Democrats will reach an agreement with Republicans on the “big, bold” agenda the party is touting. He predicted the likeliest path forward will be one large package, all done through so-called budget reconciliation to work around a Senate filibuster. [...]

If and when Democrats begin drafting a bill to pass on their own, it would likely resemble a greatest-hits collection from both Biden’s infrastructure and new social spending plans — minus whatever components can’t win support from moderate Democrats like Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).

And while most Democrats aren’t giving up a bipartisan process in public, they said that their party is closer to moving forward without the GOP. Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said he assumed his party would have to use reconciliation and would finish its work by the end of the summer.

I had assumed that congressional Democrats would pass Biden's American Jobs Plan this summer and pass the American Family Plan or something resembling it after the holidays, but that was based on the idea that it would be passed in two parts. Combining the two means this could all happen much sooner than I expected.

The phrase "minus whatever components can’t win support" is obviously doing a lot of work here, but combining the two proposals into one bill may allow Democrats to get more things by Manchin and Sinema, not fewer. The truth is larger bills with more parts are harder to comprehend and that does offer some level of plausible deniability if you're a centrist who doesn't want to explain every detail.

It's anyone's guess what a final bill will look like, but making huge proposals to begin with means the final bill will be substantial even if it's scaled down for passage.

Republicans who control the state legislature have passed a bill that requires businesses to post special signage if their bathrooms are accessible to transgender people.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee lawmakers have passed a bill that requires businesses or government facilities open to the public to post a sign if they let transgender people use multi-person bathrooms, locker rooms or changing rooms associated with their gender identity.

The Human Rights Campaign, which opposes the proposed requirement, says it would be the first of its kind. [...]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee said it is “evaluating our legal options” on the bathroom sign requirement, which is a signature away from becoming law and would kick in July 1.

You know, we don't wear nametags or announce ourselves.

In any case, the obvious intent is here is to intimidate businesses into writing their own policies against transgender bathroom use or to intimidate transgender people from going out in public in the first place. Republicans want to make it as legally difficult and socially uncomfortable as possible to be transgender in America.

Lawmakers in Tennessee are also advancing several other anti-trans bills including a separate bathroom bill for schools.

In addition to this anti-transgender bill, the legislature has advanced SB 1229 (HB 529), an anti-LGBTQ education bill to Gov. Lee’s desk where he has until May 3 to sign/veto/allow it to become law. The “student bathroom bill 2.0”, HB 1233 (SB 1367) advanced on a concurrence vote on the House Floor and will now move to the governor’s desk. The anti-trans medical care ban, HB 1027 (SB 126) is scheduled for a final House Floor vote on Monday, May 3.

This is all Republicans have left.

Most state legislatures only meet once every two years unless a special session is called and they're using their precious time to legislate transgender people out of public life. They don't do health care, education, or infrastructure unless to cut them. They don't do anything positive or constructive.

There is no one more useless in the world than a Republican lawmaker.

In other news, the withdrawal from Afghanistan is now formally underway as about 100 out of 2,500 service members have been sent home with no plan to return. The withdrawal will be completed by September.

Meanwhile, the FDA is planning to ban menthol cigarettes because they're most directly marketed to minorities.

Menthol is the last allowable flavor for cigarettes. According to the FDA, menthol cigarettes have been disproportionately used by youth, people of color and low-income communities. The vast majority of Black smokers favor menthol cigarette brands, and Black men currently have the highest rates of lung cancer in the country.

“With these actions, the FDA will help significantly reduce youth initiation, increase the chances of smoking cessation among current smokers, and address health disparities experienced by communities of color, low-income populations, and LGBTQ+ individuals, all of whom are far more likely to use these tobacco products,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, in a press release.

Finally, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the man behind "papers please" anti-immigration law among other things, is running for office yet again.

Laura Tawater, the person reportedly listed as Kobach’s campaign treasurer in the paperwork, went to ex-president Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6 that led to the Capitol insurrection.

The campaign is Kobach’s third attempt at a comeback after he was defeated in the Kansas GOP primary for Senate in 2020, which came after the former secretary of state lost to Democrat Laura Kelly in the gubernatorial race in 2018.

Kobach’s bid for attorney general also strike a note of irony given how he’d successfully pushed for a law that allowed secretaries of state to bypass the authority of the attorney general to independently open the kind of bogus voter fraud investigations that Kobach pursued relentlessly while in office.

I ran out of my allergy meds yesterday so I felt like dogshit when I got up today and had a lot of trouble focusing to write. But thankfully I have secured more of them!

Sex Blimps -- [Explicit Content] The Joni Ernst 'Sex Blimps' photo is a joke; We recap Joe Biden's joint session address from last; Biden declares an end to trickle down; Biden says white supremacy is terrorism; Tim Scott's weird Republican response; The CBS snap poll; COVID in India, Colombia, and Brazil; Joe Rogan tells his audience that young people don't need vaccinations; The long term side effects of COVID; The FBI raided Rudy Giuliani's home and office; The NY Post was caught publishing a fake story; With Jody Hamilton and TRex David Ferguson; And music by Megan McDuffee and Freekbass; and more!

Buy the music featured on today's show:
Megan McDuffee - “Wicked Thing”
Freekbass - “Why Do I (Keep Falling In Love With You)”

Support our sponsors:
The Bowen Law Group
The New Deal Shop (promo code: VOICES)
Omaha Steaks (promo code: VOICES)
Bubble Genius bath and body products (promo code: BOBC)
Bugger Off Bug Balm (promo code: BOBC)

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR BONUS CONTENT ON PATREON!

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But that could change soon. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh says he believes many contract workers should be legally classified as employees since they basically are in any practical sense of the word. The Labor department is expected to draft new policies to address this in the near future.

From Reuters:

“We are looking at it but in a lot of cases gig workers should be classified as employees... in some cases they are treated respectfully and in some cases they are not and I think it has to be consistent across the board,” Walsh told Reuters in an interview on Thursday, expressing his view on the topic for the first time.

“These companies are making profits and revenue and I’m not (going to) begrudge anyone for that because that’s what we are about in America... but we also want to make sure that success trickles down to the worker,” he said. [...]

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2017 that 55 million people in the United States were gig workers - or 34% of the workforce - and was projected to rise to 43% in 2020.

The gig economy immediately calls to mind companies like Uber, but the practice of hiring workers as contractors with fewer if any benefits is becoming more widespread as reflected by the numbers above. Some of the biggest corporations in the world such as Microsoft have internal walls within the company separating full-time employees from contractors. These hiring practices are less visible to the public because most people will never meet the person who coded their software, but many more people have probably used a ride-hailing service at least once.

The gig-economy is an enormous money-making machine for a tiny number of people in corporate offices. Executives and shareholders see enormous valuations for company stock based on a business model with very little labor costs compared to other companies with fewer contractors. This is contributing to inequality even within the corporate world as tech startups rake in billions overnight playing by a different set of rules than legacy employers do. A company like Uber -- to use as a frequent example -- can be valued in the tens of billions even if they haven't turned a profit yet because the valuation is based on exploitation of a workforce that subsidizes their own employment by accepting a job with no benefits.

That is not to say that every gig or every company with gig workers is bad, but it's a structural hole in labor law that is exacerbating other issues like unemployment and access to health care. The coronavirus pandemic necessitated the creation of an entirely new federal unemployment program to cover gig workers who were never covered by state-based programs.

I doubt the Biden administration can close the entire hole, but they could make a dent.