Happy Spring! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, flowers are in bloom and things couldn’t be better! Right? (If you believe that, you may not want to listen to today’s BradCast.) [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]
Among our roller-coaster coverage today…
- Finland, not Disneyland, is, once again, the happiest place on Earth, for the eighth year in a row, according to 2025’s World Happiness Report from the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford. The United States, despite this being its “golden age”, according to one guy, has now fallen to its lowest-ever position on the annual happiness study. Tune in to hear why people in Finland, Iceland, Sweden and, apparently, our new enemy Denmark, are so happy…and we are not. (Even Mexico cracked the survey’s top 10 this year! The U.S. didn’t even crack the top 20.)
- In grimmer news, Israel has broken its ceasefire with Gaza this week, reigniting its brutal massacre of Palestinians amid one of the bloodiest weeks since the conflict began after Hamas’ 2023 attack on Israel. To date, more than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7th of that year, according to local health authorities. Israel claims to have begun their assault again because Gaza refused to agree to a change in the terms of the ceasefire agreement that has otherwise largely held since January. The new wave of brutal military assaults is with the full approval of Donald Trump, according to the White House.
- Meanwhile, in Russia‘s brutal assault on Ukraine, we do not seem to be any closer to a ceasefire either, though not for lack of Donald Trump knowingly and repeatedly spreading Russian propaganda regarding the situation on the ground in the Ukrainian held Kursk region of Russia. Trump is apparently working hard to help improve Vladimir Putin‘s negotiating position in peace talks. All of that according to an exclusive report today from Reuters today, which details how the U.S. intelligence community has informed Trump that he is spreading false Russian propaganda. But he keeps doing it anyway, for some reason. Ukraine has agreed to a full 30-day pause in fighting in recent days. Russia has not.
- Had the Voice of America and its affiliated global sister networks like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty not been removed from the airwaves beginning last weekend, by order of the President of the United States, it might have been pretty embarrassing for him. After all, VOA is mandated, by Congressional legislation, to be an “authoritative source of news” that is “accurate, objective, and comprehensive.” The last thing Trump likely wants right now is a U.S.-funded media outlet, with “America” in its name, calling out his pro-Russia lies regarding Ukraine. That, of course, is just one of the reasons why VOA and its partner networks have been so critical around the world over the past 83 years, particularly to listeners and readers in autocratic nations — at least until being silenced by our new autocratic President.
The reason given by the White House for shutting down the service last week — which couldn’t be shut down by German Nazis or Soviet Communists over all of these decades — is that VOA and its sister networks, under management of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), was broadcasting “radical propaganda” from the Left. As discussed on this show with VOA’s Chief National Correspondent, Steve Herman, earlier this week, it was doing nothing of the kind. (If you missed that must-listen interview, it is right here.) Washington Post‘s fact-checker Glenn Kessler took at a look at the White House’s ten examples in support of their absurd claims, finding them to be “remarkably flimsy”, to say the least.
Today, Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins tells the story of how tennis superstar Marina Navratilova grew up on — and dreamed of freedom one day thanks to — Voice of America broadcasts that she and her family were able to pick up each night on a red plastic transistor radio in their small country village in Czechoslovakia during the darkest days of the communist Soviet regime. We share some of that moving — and inspiring — story today.
We also share the harrowing reflections on the shutdown by Ukrainian philosopher and journalist Stanislav Aseyev, who was jailed for 962 days and tortured for reporting on the ground at the time for VOA’s partner network, Radio Liberty following Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
So, yes, reminder: We are all Voice of America now.
- And finally, speaking of attacks on free speech in tyrannical times, Desi Doyen is here with our latest Green News Report with news on the environmental nonprofit Greenpeace being ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to a fossil fuel company for its part in protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline; a new report from the World Meteorological Organization documenting our spiraling climate crisis; and a reported breakthrough from Chinese automaker BYD, supposedly allowing their new EV batteries charge in about 5 minutes time. Don’t look for those cars here, however. Though they are the world’s #1 best-selling EV, they aren’t allowed for sale in the U.S. With the CEO of their main competitor, Tesla, now seemingly co-running the nation, that is unlikely to change anytime soon…
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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DOGE Musk is going to the Pentagon. Is he taking his paper cutters with him (Paper Tiger Phenomenon)?
Elon Musk threatens Pentagon leakers after NYT report on secret China war briefing
New slang “speak” eh?
Hamas was rearming and preparing to launch new attacks on Israel. Hamas had also stopped releasing hostages. I’m sure some of the blame for the broken ceasefire can be directed at the murderous theocracy that started the war by going on a bloodthirsty rampage.
Jay @#4:
A US attorney was questioning a convict in prep for sentencing.
She asked the bank robber “why do you rob banks”?
The convict replied “because that’s where the money is”.
Elon Musk was asked why he is robbing Social Security.
His reply was “because that’s where the money is”.
Note: “Asset reserves grew from about $69 billion at the end of December 1987 to about $2,908 billion ($2.9 trillion) by the end of December 2020. Since the end of December 2020, asset reserves have declined slightly to about $2,721 billion ($2.7 trillion) by the end of December 2024.” (Soc.Sec. Admin).