The Social Security Administration Leans Into Full-On Propaganda; Did Weather Service Cuts Lead to Texas Flooding Deaths? Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: July 8, 2025

Indy Digest: July 8, 2025

Let’s take a closer look at two big news items today.

First up: Social Security recipients last week received an email that illustrates just how partisan and, well, dishonest the federal government is getting.

My friend Jeff C. forwarded the email to me. It has the subject line “Social Security Applauds Passage of Legislation Providing Historic Tax Relief for Seniors.” Some of the text:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is celebrating the passage of the One Big, Beautiful Bill, a landmark piece of legislation that delivers long-awaited tax relief to millions of older Americans.

The bill ensures that nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits, providing meaningful and immediate relief to seniors who have spent a lifetime contributing to our nation’s economy.

“This is a historic step forward for America’s seniors,” said Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano. “For nearly 90 years, Social Security has been a cornerstone of economic security for older Americans. By significantly reducing the tax burden on benefits, this legislation reaffirms President Trump’s promise to protect Social Security and helps ensure that seniors can better enjoy the retirement they’ve earned.”

The new law includes a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries, providing relief to individuals and couples. Additionally, it provides an enhanced deduction for taxpayers aged 65 and older, ensuring that retirees can keep more of what they have earned.

Not only is this email full of, as Jeff C. perfectly put it, “authoritarian-style pablum”; it’s also deeply misleading.

Regarding the email, The New York Times reports:

“The SSA statement implies there is a direct tax cut on Social Security benefits,” said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank, “which there is not.”

Instead, older single filers will get the extra $6,000 deduction ($12,000 for couples), as long as their income falls under a certain ceiling (below $75,000 for single filers or $150,000 for married joint filers). Above those income levels, the deduction begins to decrease, and it goes away once single taxpayers’ income reaches $175,000 ($250,000 for couples).

Nor will the extra deduction benefit all Social Security recipients.  Retirees who are 62 through 64 are ineligible.

And since the income of more than half of Social Security recipients is too low to be taxed anyway, lower income people won’t be helped much. The new break is expected to benefit middle- and upper-middle-class households, tax policy experts said.

There’s a word for this: propaganda.

• Next up: You’ve almost certainly heard about the devastating floods that have killed more than 100 people in Texas—including at least 30 children, some of whom were at a summer camp.

The deadly floods came at a time when the National Weather Service is not what it used to be—due to deep and baffling staffing cuts made by the Trump administration. The New York Times notes:

Crucial positions at the local offices of the National Weather Service were unfilled as severe rainfall inundated parts of Central Texas on Friday morning, prompting some experts to question whether staffing shortages made it harder for the forecasting agency to coordinate with local emergency managers as floodwaters rose.

Texas officials appeared to blame the Weather Service for issuing forecasts on Wednesday that underestimated how much rain was coming. But former Weather Service officials said the forecasts were as good as could be expected, given the enormous levels of rainfall and the storm’s unusually abrupt escalation.

The staffing shortages suggested a separate problem, those former officials said—the loss of experienced people who would typically have helped communicate with local authorities in the hours after flash flood warnings were issued overnight.

Wired magazine—which, as noted previously in this space, has been doing some of the best reporting, period, on the damage being wrought by the Trump administration and the “Department of Government Efficiency”—talked to knowledgeable meteorologists who said the NWS did what it was supposed to do, despite the budget cuts:

Flash floods in this part of Texas are nothing new. Eight inches of rainfall in the state “could be on a day that ends in Y,” says Matt Lanza, a certified digital meteorologist based in Houston. It’s a challenge, he says, to balance forecasts that often show extreme amounts of rainfall with how to adequately prepare the public for these rare but serious storms.

“It’s so hard to warn on this—to get public officials who don’t know meteorology and aren’t looking at this every day to understand just how quickly this stuff can change,” Lanza says. “Really the biggest takeaway is that whenever there’s a risk for heavy rain in Texas, you have to be on guard.”

And meteorologists say that the NWS did send out adequate warnings as it got updated information. By Thursday afternoon, it had issued a flood watch for the area, and a flash flood warning was in effect by 1 a.m. Friday. The agency had issued a flash flood emergency alert by 4:30 a.m.

“The Weather Service was on the ball,” (meteorologist Chris) Vagasky says. “They were getting the message out.”

But as local outlet KXAN first reported, it appears that the first flood warnings posted from safety officials to the public were sent out on Facebook at 5 a.m., hours after the NWS issued its warning.

“Clearly there was a breakdown between when the warning was issued and how people got it, and I think that’s really what has to be talked about,” Lanza says.

Maybe the indiscriminate National Weather Service cuts led to a loss of life in Texas; it’s very possible they didn’t—but if they didn’t, it’s only a matter of time before they do.

—Jimmy Boegle

Schedule Note

Just a reminder that this is the only scheduled Indy Digest this week. I am in Madison, Wis., for the AAN Publishers annual conference.

More News

• Related to the above: The Supreme Court today OK’d Trump’s plans to get rid of numerous federal workers. The Associated Press says: “The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s plans to downsize the federal workforce despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs. The justices overrode lower court orders that temporarily froze the cuts, which have been led by the Department of Government Efficiency. The court said in an unsigned order that no specific cuts were in front of the justices, only an executive order issued by Trump and an administration directive for agencies to undertake job reductions. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only dissenting vote, accusing her colleagues of a ‘demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.’”

• The state just made a change that should lead to much-needed new housing. However, the change has environmentalists displeased. The Los Angeles Times reports: “The Golden State’s tug-of-war between environmental advocacy and a worsening housing crisis came to a head … when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law two bills that will overhaul the landmark California Environmental Quality Act in an effort to ease new construction in the state. … Together they will exempt a broad array of housing development and infrastructure projects from CEQA—a law dating back to 1970 that requires government agencies to identify and mitigate the environmental impacts of their actions. Newsom said the bills will break down long-standing barriers to development, speeding up production, cutting costs and allowing the state to address its housing scarcity. ‘Today’s bill is a game changer, which will be felt for generations to come,’ the governor said in a statement. Development experts agreed, saying it is among the most significant reforms to CEQA in its 55-year history. But its passage sparked fierce backlash from environmental groups who say it marks a sweeping reversal of essential protections for the state’s most vulnerable landscapes, wildlife and communities. ‘This bill is the worst anti-environmental bill in California in recent memory,’ a coalition of more than 100 organizations wrote in a letter to the governor.”

• Also from the Los Angeles Times: The “Big, Beautiful Bill” will likely result in hundreds of thousands of people losing insurance via Covered California: “The federal safety-net healthcare system for low-income and disabled Americans, Medicaid, won’t be the only medical coverage devastated by the package of spending cuts and tax breaks signed into law by President Trump on the Fourth of July. Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace, estimates that as many as 660,000 of the roughly 2 million people in the program will either be stripped of coverage or drop out due to increased cost and the onerous new mandates to stay enrolled. Those who do stay could be hit with an average monthly premium increase of up to 66%.”

• The Washington Post looks at L.A. Taco, an excellent online publication that’s partially changed its focus due to the current state of affairs: “It all happened so quickly. On June 6, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents descended upon Los Angeles, raiding businesses and arresting more than 40 people. Once word got out on social media, protests began and L.A. Taco’s six-person news team headed out to the streets. … L.A. Taco was once a small website ‘celebrating the taco lifestyle,’ and a year ago faced the possibility of shutting down. But it’s become an impactful and (for now) financially viable L.A. newsroom, going deep in the trenches as more than 1,600 people were arrested or detained by ICE in Southern California in June, according to CalMatters. ‘The journalism gets better year after year,’ said Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano. ‘And now in this moment when L.A. needs as many eyes on the streets as possible, L.A. Taco has become indispensable.‘”

• LGBTQ+ media sources are apparently being targeted by scammers attempting to delete their social-media presence. QSaltLake Magazine reports: “LGBTQ+ media outlets and organizations are being urged to stay vigilant following a sophisticated scam that recently compromised Gay Parent Magazine’s Facebook page and attempted to infiltrate the Washington Blade. The scam, which appears politically motivated, involves right-wing actors posing as progressive podcast hosts to gain admin access to Facebook pages, then locking out owners and deleting their accounts. Gay Parent Magazine, a long-standing publication serving LGBTQ families, announced that its Facebook page with more than 30,000 followers and a five-star review rating was hacked and ultimately shut down in late June. Publisher and editor Angeline Acain believes the attack was targeted and deliberate. … According to Acain, the impersonators claimed to be hosts of a liberal, LGBTQ-friendly podcast and asked her to join a live-streamed Facebook interview. Once she agreed, they manipulated her into providing access, then swiftly deleted the page’s followers before removing the page entirely. This attack follows a wave of coordinated trolling that began earlier in the year.”

• The IRS is now saying it’s a-OK for churches to endorse political candidates without jeopardizing their nonprofit status. CNBC explains: “The move upends a 70-year-old interpretation of the U.S. tax code, whose Johnson Amendment has barred certain nonprofit groups, including churches, from endorsing political candidates without putting their tax-exempt status in jeopardy. President Donald Trump has long called for Johnson Amendment to be repealed. ‘Communications from a house of worship to its congregation in connection with religious services through its usual channels of communication on matters of faith do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment as properly interpreted,’ the IRS said in the joint filing Monday with the National Religious Broadcasters group in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … a bunch of Costco products! USA Today has the list: “Costco shoppers may want to check their purchases for recalls. The popular retailer has flagged nearly a dozen recalled items in recent months, from various manufacturers. The products range from power banks to window air conditioners, some of which consumers are advised to stop using immediately. Several items were sold through Costco Next, a program that lets shoppers purchase items directly from brands at Costco prices. Others were sold through Costco.” Other recalled items include tires, Topo Chico and a cooler.

Support the Independent!

Real journalism—with reporting, research, interviews, fact-checking, editing, etc.—takes a lot of work. And time. And money. Please, help us during these slower, money-losing months by clicking the button below and becoming a Supporter of the Independent. Whether it’s $1 or $1,000, we can use all the support we can get. Thanks, again, for reading!