The myth of the self-reliant, salt-of-the-earth American

Last Thursday Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had instituted a policy that any departmental expense greater than $100,000 required her approval. That meant FEMA could not do its usual pre-positioning of its Search and Rescue crews ahead of the central Texas floods. The floods happened on a Friday and Noem didn’t give her approval until the following Monday. A DHS tweet bragged that by Tuesday FEMA had deployed 311 staffers to help with state-led rescue efforts. On Thursday Noem was on “Fox & Friends” and declared CNN’s reporting of the delay was fake news. Abrahm Lustgarten, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, discussed the flooding and said things will get worse. The effects of global warming are just getting started. Each small increase in average temperature means a large increase in the amount of water the atmosphere can hold, leading to a large increase in the destructiveness of the storms when that water is released. Lustgarten wrote that President Lyndon Johnson was briefed about the coming climate crisis way back in 1965. Here we are ten presidents later still discussing the problem and doing very little about it. And the current guy in the Oval Office has revoked funding for data collection and research into what the climate is doing. Kos of Kos wrote another article on a topic I’ve written about a few times.

One of the most enduring conservative myths is that of the self-reliant, salt-of-the-earth, rural-dwelling American who pulls himself up by his bootstraps, wrestles a steer before breakfast, and builds his own house out of patriotism and chewing tobacco because, by god, they sure do love America! If that were ever true, it hasn’t been for a while. These days, rural America is largely dependent on the federal government it claims to hate. In fact, far from self-reliant, rural America is subsidized by blue states. And it’s not even close.

Kos discussed several of the government programs rural areas depend on because so many young people have fled to the cities over the decades. The big ones are, of course, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Government benefits are a good thing, so none of this is inherently bad, per se. But it does mean those rural areas are dependent on the very social safety net that Republicans are gleefully hacking apart with their cuts on Medicaid, food assistance, and the like. They’re also poorer than expensive urban regions, so they rely more on federal food assistance to eat. But hey, that’s what these voters asked for. Rural areas lean heavily Republican, and farming-dependent counties voted for Trump at an eye-popping average of 78%.

George B. Sánchez-Tello, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos, reported on ICE and Border Patrol agents at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. The park is in an area where a lot of people from Central and South America live and it has a lively scene. The agents thought the could sweep through the park and easily make their quota for the day. But the park was nearly silent.

The previous day, warnings appeared — single sheets of paper taped to light poles, trees and fences around the park — warning locals to stay away. They cited rumors of possible ICE raids at MacArthur Park. Word also spread on Instagram, as well as other social media apps such as Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp.

The park wasn’t completely empty. Local Spanish-language television crews were ready to film. Photographers from various newspapers were there. Dozens of organizers from anti-ICE rapid response teams and legal observers there there too, some using megaphones to warn people to stay away and to tell people their rights. By the time the agents had completed their sweep across the park they were surrounded by hundreds of people. Some yelled, “ICE out of L.A!” Many recorded the confrontation on their phone, livestreaming straight to social media. The agents retreated without making any arrests. Normal life in the park resumed. Signs had been taped to poles in the park:

Military Members Is this what you signed up for? Will you feel proud about what you’re being ordered to do when you look back on it? If you have concerns about mobilizing against civilians, you’re not alone. You have options. You have rights.

Lisa Needhan of Kos discussed the legal challenge to the nasty guy’s executive order banning birthright citizenship when parents are undocumented. The Supreme Court had ruled that lower courts (I think there were three of them) could not place a nationwide injunction against the EO without a class action suit. The previous injunctions were not based on class action cases. So the ACLU filed a class action case, covering the nation. And Federal District Judge Joseph Laplante quickly certified the case as one for a class of plaintiffs and issued a nationwide injunction. Isn’t that what the Supremes told him to do? Well, certifying a case as covering a nationwide class has rules that must be scrupulously followed. These rules take time. And Laplante couldn’t possibly have followed all the rules so scrupulously in so little time. Of course, it was Justice Alito that wagged that finger.

Getting nationwide relief this way is complicated, but it’s necessary. The plaintiffs are fighting the Trump administration, but lower court judges have also found themselves locked in a battle with a lawless Supreme Court, which essentially decided that lower courts are enemies who must be stopped from thwarting Trump. But the lower courts are the ones that are following the rule of law. Someone’s got to.

Oliver Willis of Kos wrote the nasty guy ranted on Truth Social that his base should not be criticizing AG Pam Bondi about the Jeffrey Epstein case. One reason is, contrary to claims the files don’t exist, the nasty guy claimed they were “written” by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. So his base should not waste their time on Epstein, “somebody that nobody cares about.” That Truth Social post brought out something quite rare – many more negative responses than positive. The base was not pleased. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Heather Digby Parton of Salon:

The appointment of Patel and Bongino — as well as Bondi, who jumped into pursuing the scandal with both feet, promising far-right influencers that she was personally overseeing the investigation — made MAGA true believers believe they were about to get their hands on what Glenn Beck called “the Rosetta Stone of public trust.” These new appointees were the very ones who had been chasing this scandal for years, and they were now in a position to blow the lid off the whole thing. All those who had mocked the MAGA movement as kooks would soon be proven fools. The Justice Department’s memo was a slap in the face to the MAGA faithful. They were stunned. And when Trump rudely dismissed their concerns in a cabinet meeting and then admonished them on Truth Social in a long rant blaming former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, demanding that his followers focus on the scandals he wants them to focus on, the crushing betrayal was personal. Never before has a Trump post received such a massive negative response on his own platform. Even his most loyal influencers, including popular MAGA commentator Benny Johnson and Fox News, were hostile. Trump’s loyal base has taken all that heat for so long, defending Trump through everything, and now it appears their Dear Leader is just another deep state operative covering up the crimes of his accomplices — and possibly his own. They are confused and angry and inconsolable. Have they had a mass epiphany and collectively awakened to the fundamental dishonesty and corruption of the man they worshipped for the past ten years? It’s hard to believe.

bear83 of the Kos community reported the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim was destroyed by wildfire on Sunday. It was built in 1937. Dozens of other structures, including individual cabins, were also destroyed. The fire was started by lightning on July 4. It was initially managed as a controlled burn to clear away what could fuel a larger fire. But nine days later low humidity and strong winds and the fire was no longer under control. bear83 wrote that DOGE and the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, terminated a lot of jobs, including people who would have helped prevent and fight wildfires. The nasty guy had said the Los Angeles fires wouldn’t have been so bad if communities would clear the combustible undergrowth. Which the crew at the North Rim were trying to do with perhaps not enough staff to do it safely. The North Rim website has a photo gallery of before. I was at the North Rim as part of a family vacation decades ago. We stayed at the campground near the lodge, though I’m sure we went past it to peer down into the canyon. On the long drive from the main road a large deer jumped onto the road and paused. We had to brake quickly and did not hit it. I’ve been to the South Rim a couple times, much more recently, though still decades ago. The Grand Canyon is a beautiful and impressive place. In Wednesday’s pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos quoted a tweet by Matthew Cappucci, commenting on a tweet by Marjorie Taylor Greene. First Greene:

I am introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity. It will be a felony offense. I have been researching weather.

She’s the one claiming that Democrats can control the weather and she’s referring to jet contrails that Robert Kennedy Jr. is calling chemtrails, the release of chemicals into the atmosphere to do dastardly things. Cappucci’s response:

It’s not a political statement for me as a Harvard-degreed atmospheric scientist to say that elected representative Marjorie Taylor Green doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about. She’d be equally qualified to fly a Boeing-737, practice nuclear medicine or train zebras.

Dworkin quoted Jack Jenkins and Smietana of Religion News Service discussing the recent IRS announcement that churches can endorse political candidates from the pulpit. This is in response to a lawsuit brought by two Texas churches and religious broadcasters.

Americans — including religious Americans — generally take a dim view of political endorsements in the pulpit. According to an analysis of 2023 polling provided to RNS by the Public Religion Research Institute, majorities of all major religious groups oppose or strongly oppose allowing churches and places of worship to endorse political candidates while retaining their tax-exempt status. That includes white evangelicals (62%) as well as Black Protestants (59%), white mainline or nonevangelical Protestants (77%), white Catholics (79%), Hispanic Catholics (78%), Hispanic Protestants (72%) and Jewish Americans (77%). Researchers noted opposition to the idea among white evangelicals remains virtually unchanged since 2017, when they last polled on the topic. There was one outlier, however: People labeled by PRRI as “adherents” to Christian nationalism — people who agree with statements such as “the U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation” — were statistically more likely (45%) to support endorsements from the pulpit, with only a narrow majority (51%) opposed.

Dworkin added that pastors are wary of splitting their congregations so tend to avoid blatant politics. In the comments is a cartoon by Bill Bramhall. It shows a job interview and behind the boss is a sign saying, “Disclosure: The content of this interview will be used to build a chatbot we will hire instead of you.” In Thursday’s roundup Kev quoted John Timmer of Ars Technica:

From a distance, the gathering looked like a standard poster session at an academic conference, with researchers standing next to large displays of the work they were doing. Except in this case, it was taking place in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, and the researchers were describing work that they weren’t doing. Called "The things we’ll never know," the event was meant to highlight the work of researchers whose grants had been canceled by the Trump administration. ... Many of the grants were focused on STEM education, and it's extremely difficult to imagine that people will be better off without the work happening.

In Friday’s roundup Dworkin included a tweet from Echelon Insights:

Where do most American voters fall on the political compass? Using nine questions on cultural issues and nine questions on economic issues, we mapped voters onto a political compass.

This is the start of a thread on X I don’t have access to. However, here’s the summary of the results:

Liberals, both economic and social: 43% Populist, economically liberal and socially conservative: 22% Conservative, both economic and socially conservative: 31% Libertarian, economically conservative and socially liberal: 5%

Dworkin added:

This is why Democrats on occasion (and warily) try to recruit populists. Conservatives won’t play and libertarians are too few. But the name of the game is a majority.

Aaron Astor tweeted:

Ever wonder why the CDC is based in Atlanta? The reason: its forerunner was the WWII-era Office of Malaria Control, based in Atlanta to fight malaria around rapidly growing US military communities in the South.

In the comments Zoli Osaze posted a cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz showing an ICE agent confronting a farm worker holding a box of produce on his head.

Agent: Keep your hands up! Worker: Don’t worry, they’re busy holding up your economy.

Something tells me you hated seeing the villains lose

Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported Netanyahu, the guy some believe is waging genocide in Gaza, has nominated the nasty guy for the Nobel Peace Prize. The reason for the nomination is the work on the Abraham Accords, to get Arab countries to recognize Israel. Singer included a cartoon by Clay Bennett showing the Prize Selection Committee seeing this nomination and breaking into laughter. Singer noted the nasty guy rants in his speeches about not getting this prize. Then she listed many reasons why he should not get it. The mass deportations and Alligator Alcatraz are only one reason.

Safe to say, Netanyahu’s nomination was pure theater—an effort by the Israeli leader to make Trump happy so that he allows Netanyahu to continue his war against Hamas.

I have a few posts about the big cuts in Medicaid and the requirement that able-bodied people need to work to qualify. Alix Breeden of Kos reported that Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Secretary of Labor was on Fox News to say that American citizens are willing to do all available jobs, including the ones that illegal immigrants currently do. Breeden noted that many of those immigrant jobs “have a long history of low pay and abusive work conditions.”

Forty-two percent of crop farmworkers are foreign born and not authorized to work in the U.S., according to the Department of Agriculture. Undocumented immigrants have been known to live in bug-infested shacks as they work long hours on farms for little pay. This push to put Americans in the fields comes amid the Trump administration’s brutal push to expel undocumented—and even some documented—immigrants from the U.S. And with the administration telling Americans to turn to the fields if they want to keep their Medicaid coverage, it seems as if Trump and his crew are aware of their dire need to fill the labor shortage they’re fomenting.

Ayesha Rascoe of NPR played a clip of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins saying mass deportations will continue as the agricultural workforce moves towards more automation and, an important point, “a 100% American workforce.” Rollins added, “There are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America.” Rascoe doesn’t say but I suspect that a good number of those able-bodied adults already have jobs that don’t pay a living wage yet are considerably easier than farm work. Manual Cunha Jr., president of the Nisei Farmers League, knows Rollins proposal will not work. It has been tried before. Americans don’t want those jobs. As for ICE raids, they create a labor crisis. The raided farm is not the only one affected. All the area farms are harmed. The entire San Joaquin Valley will be hit hard. Rascoe spoke to Robin Rudowitz, vice president at KFF, a health policy research and news organization. She reported that 60% of Medicaid recipients are already working and many of them who aren’t have an illness, a disability, have caretaking responsibilities, or have a job. In general Rudowitz says keeping track of who is working and who isn’t will not be easy. States are not set up for it. Gig workers have a hard time reporting their work. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the new requirements will save the government money because people will lose coverage. When the work requirements were in effect in Arkansas they did not contribute to an increase in employment. In last Friday’s Cheers and Jeers column for Kos Bill in Portland, Maine quoted late night commentary. Here’s one:

“The problem in our country isn’t the sliver of able-bodied people who are somehow coasting on the medical coverage they may or may not use, but the millions and millions of people in this country who work f*cking hard at full-time jobs and still need food and medical assistance. That’s the system that’s broken." —Jon Stewart, on the Republican "Screw the poor" law

Last Friday Singer reported on the fallout of the Epstein files scandal. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino strongly disagreed with AG Pam Bondi’s actions and may have quit. FBI Director Kash Patel had harsh things to say about Bondi. All this ire is because last February Bondi said the Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review,” then saying a week ago no such list exists. She was either lying then or lying now.

But the latest Epstein files debacle is sending MAGA into a tailspin as they try to come to terms with the fact that the Trump administration is telling them that the conspiracy theories they’ve pushed for years are false.

Google searches for Epstein are up 1,200% last week, more than those who searched for tariffs. CNN’s Harry Enten said this is “a massive unforced error” by the administration. I don’t keep track of the MAGA conspiracy theories, so I have an obvious question: Why did the news send MAGA into a tailspin? In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted several people who might answer that question. Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer

Despite the thousands of trees that were chopped down in 2024 to inform voters that the presidential election hinged on egg prices, the reality is that millions of voters were motivated by their belief that a Trump restoration would confirm all their wildest, bitter beliefs about cosmopolitan elite Democrats and their immorality and disdain for “the real America.”

A tweet from Mike Nellis:

Multiple MAGA influencers are openly arguing they can't release the Epstein list because it'll help Democrats win the midterms, which is... quite the admission of what's happening here.

When Epstein was found dead in his prison cell back in 2019 the conspiracy was that the names on his client list were not released because it was full of Democrats. Refusing to release the list and denying it doesn’t exist after all these years implies the list is full of Republicans with the nasty guy as one of the frequent customers. Jeffrey Epstein was in prison because he was accused of sex trafficking, providing sex workers (some underage) to a wide clientele, including Prince Andrew of Britain. Dan Pfeiffer of The Message Box

My initial reaction was pure schadenfreude — an enjoyable distraction from democracy circling the drain. I assumed the Epstein furor would be just another passing summer storm for Trump. Before long, his flunkies would fall back in line because that’s what flunkies do. Trump has survived criminal convictions, impeachments, and countless scandals that would have ended other political careers. Surely, he’d survive this one without much damage. Now, I’m not so sure. The Epstein scandal is unlike any Trump scandal before. It looks like the kind of scandal that has undone second-term presidents. I’m not saying MAGA is dead, but if he can’t quell the furor over the Epstein files, Trump could end up very damaged in ways that affect the midterms, the 2028 presidential election, and the long-term future of the movement.

A tweet from Sarah Longwell:

The “why didn’t the Biden administration release the Epstein files” dodge ignores the fact that Biden and his cabinet didn’t run on releasing the Epstein files. But Trump’s family members and cabinet members (Kash, JD, Bondi, Noem, et al) made it a central campaign promise.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme showing, I think, Tobey Maguire playing Peter Parker talking to one of Peter’s friends (sheesh, those movies were 20 years ago!) explaining the reach Epstein had.

Peter: The Epstein list needs to be released. Friend: But Peter, it would literally destabilize the world. 2/3rds of Congress & a large portion of the world’s most powerful people would be imprisoned. ...society would at least partially collapse. Peter: I already said I’m for it, you don’t have to sell it to me.

In Saturday’s roundup Dworkin quoted Brian Beutler of *Off Message* discussing the Epstein scandal:

Do many of them take genuine interest in getting an answer to that question: Are Trump’s minions covering it up, or did they just exploit the sexual abuse of children to help get their guy elected? Or do they mostly think the whole issue is sordid and beneath them… To square their objectives, Democrats will have to stop wishing away distractions from their best issues, and start asking whether and how those issues slot into existing online fixations.

To change the subject, from the Washington Post:

For months, President Donald Trump and his homeland security secretary have said the Federal Emergency Management Agency could be eliminated. But as the president visited Texas to view the impact of last week’s deadly floods, administration officials say abolishing the agency outright is not on the agenda. A senior White House official told The Washington Post that no official action is being taken to wind down FEMA, and that changes in the agency will probably amount to a “rebranding” that will emphasize state leaders’ roles in disaster response.

In the comments are most Epstein cartoons (and more flood cartoons, the nasty guy wanting the Nobel Peace Prize cartoons, and nasty guy as Superman cartoons). There is also a cartoon posted by Toonerman that plays on goodbye phrases I used in my childhood that begin, “See you later, alligator.” I’ll let you find the updated response. NotKennyRogers tweeted, “People who have come out in support of Elon Musk’s new American Party:” He then lists several names, including Mike Pence. “That’s pretty much all I need to know about Elon Musk’s new American Party.” I’ve heard reports that Musk wants this party to be centrist, to capture the “80%” annoyed with both parties. But if Pence and these other guys support it, this new party won’t be centrist. Remember Musk didn’t like the Big Brutal Bill because it didn’t cut social programs enough. Alex Samuels of Kos reported the nasty guy was the one who declared the latest Superman movie to be too “woke” and that he should play the part. He even posted a meme with his head on Superman’s body as shown in advertising posters. It went over about as well as the AI images of himself as pope. In the comments of Sunday’s roundup there are more Epstein cartoons and memes, including one posted by exlrrp with words I think said to a reporter:

Nasty guy: Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? Us: Why not, you’re still talking about the 2020 election.

Victoria Fielding posted a cartoon created, I think, by Nick Henderson. It shows a car with a big “Get big government off my back” bumper sticker. The car is being swamped by the flood and a man is holding on while waving to a FEMA rescuer. Max Espinoza of BabylonBros imagines a conversation between MAGA and Superman, who ends it saying, “Something tells me you hated seeing the villains lose!” This was to be posted yesterday evening. But as I working on it Blogger stopped working, so it had to wait.

Social media algorithms lead to swallowing the red pill

The ten handbell concerts I saw over the last four days were quite wonderful. I’m pleased livestream technology exists so that I could watch them. I got to know Anne Curzan through her weekly That’s What They Say segment on Michigan Public. The series has been going on for 13 years. Through the show I’ve learned a lot about the origin of many words and phrases – this morning’s discussion was about “pet peeves.” Curzan has a PhD in linguistics and has taught at the University of Michigan for at least thirty years. Over the last year the series mentioned Curzan has a new book and I just finished reading it. The book is Say’s Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words. Yeah, the word “funner” is in the title where I would have expected “more fun.” She has a chapter on that. In each of the 33 chapters she discusses some aspect of modern American English. She delves into the rules of grammar, who said they were rules, and why the rule does, doesn’t, or never did apply. Some of the topics are making verbs from nouns, how “literally” has come to also mean “figuratively,” the difference between “less” and “fewer,” whether “data” can be treated as singular, how to use the semicolon, and when the passive voice is appropriate. In the first chapter she introduces two words: Grammando, a combination of “grammar commando” as the voice in one’s head insisting on the correct bit of grammar. And wordie, the voice that marvels at new ways of using the language, even when the example doesn’t fit in the rules. Our language is always changing. These two voices are frequently at odds in our heads and in what we say to others. Curzan’s general take on grammar battles is: Does the meaning come through? Beyond that, keep your grammando quiet. Yes, there are more formal situations where a writer (and editors) need to be more conscious of the rules. But Curzan shows, in chapter after chapter, many of the “rules” have been out of date for a long time. The most important chapter to me is the one on PC language, the attempts to use a more inclusive language. And here I’ll quote the book:

Debates about language are almost always about more than language. In this case, debates about inclusive and sensitive language are about who has the power to call linguistic shots about what language is and isn’t inclusive and sensitive. It’s fundamentally a power struggle between groups that have historically held most of the political, economic, and social power – what I’m going to call having the biggest microphone – and historically marginalized groups whose voices are becoming more and more centered in the broader public discourse. It’s not that some of the language that today is deemed offensive is newly offensive; it’s that people who have been denigrated by this language have gained more power to call the language out as offensive. They have a bigger microphone than they have had in the past.

Curzan then noted the marginalized people have to be conscious of how they speak because there could be dire consequences. A wrong word could cost a job – or a life. The socially powerful “have had to worry less about consequences – making it seem like freedom of speech is the same as freedom from consequences for getting it wrong.” I found all of this fascinating – until about three-quarters of the way through the book. Then the repetitive nature of the arguments – the explanation of what’s really going on, the check of historical sources, the appeal to a quieter grammando – got to be a bit wearying. All of it was still interesting, but I enjoyed it less. I recommend the book if you are one who cares about words. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reviewed all the ways Robert Kennedy Jr. is making the various parts of his Department of Health and Human Services have a more difficult time doing their jobs. I’ll let you read the rest and quote just the conclusion:

Fewer safety inspections, fewer guardrails on drug approvals, and conspiracy-fueled attacks on vaccines. Turns out, “Make America Healthy Again” means just the opposite.

And, I thought, “Make America Great Again” also means just the opposite. Nadra Nittle and Mariel Padilla, in an article for The 19th posted on Kos, discussed how easily young male teens on social media get hooked into misogyny. The society as a whole can make these boys feel insecure. Do they measure up to the expected profile of masculinity? Will they grow up to be man enough? They have “insecurities about their physiques, jawlines and even their hair.” So the boys, who feel no one knows them well, go into social media to find out what they can do to be more masculine. They might watch a “gym-bro” video on how to start increasing muscle size They might try videos on “looksmaxxing” to enhance their appearance. From there social media algorithms take over. Rachael Fugardi is a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which tracks extremism.

Fugardi said that algorithms force-feed sexism to young people. “So much of this misogynistic content isn’t being searched out,” she said. Research from the United Kingdom revealed that 10 percent of boys ages 11 to 14 encountered harmful content, such as misogyny and violence, within 60 seconds of going online.

The videos might start with guides to gym workouts, or a bit of comedy in ways that rack up page views, but then start slipping in the misogynistic content. Even that might start small, as in the problems of being a weak “beta male” rather than an “alpha male.” And it goes downhill from there, eventually into violence against women. Along the way they are exposed to the claim that feminism curtails men’s rights. “They have swallowed the ‘red pill’ — a manosphere metaphor for embracing a reactionary and male supremacist worldview.” Fitness influencers resonate with the boys because of “Pew Research Center’s finding that 43 percent of teenage boys feel pressure to be physically strong.” Geoff Corey, director of Advocates for Youth’s sex education project AMAZE explained:

They are looking to make friends, to look better, to win over girls or become better people. Then, they discover that it seems like the only people creating content geared towards men are people who give them an easy answer for what they want, and that easy answer somehow leads to trickery, violence, unhealthy behaviors, bottling up emotions.

The counterpart to those videos are the ones promoting “tradwives” or the traditional wife who is quite satisfied with the role of making a wonderful home for her man. The women film themselves whipping up snacks from scratch while wearing stylish outfits with expertly applied makeup.

“Male supremacy appeals to women as well. And, of course, the white supremacist project demands the participation of White women in the production of White babies,” said Pasha Dashtgard, director of research at the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University. The tradwife movement “is for men,” he stressed. “It’s not for women. It’s cosplaying what men think would be the ideal woman.”

Sreshta Erravelli, 17, and who finished 11th grade and thinks the manosphere is nonsense, observed:

Rather than teach that rejection is a part of life, the manosphere links rejection to weakness, causing boys to lash out when girls don’t reciprocate their feelings, she said. “You’re calling girls weird names just because she didn’t give you her number the first 20 times you asked.”

What to do about it? Jessica Berg of Rock Ridge High School in Virginia created a gender studies class that uses history to show students how patriarchy became the norm. She has plenty of recent examples. The class has also taught the young women to advocate for themselves. Dashtgard has created resources to help the public “recognize radicalization before it occurs and engage youth without condemning or humiliating them.” Fugardi wants social media companies to do more to enforce their existing rules on content moderation and demand they protect youth over prioritizing profit. AMAZE has videos that present alternatives to the manosphere. Julie Scelfo, founder of Mothers Against Media Addiction has suggestions for how parents should help their kids. View content with them. If they repeat sexist ideas, ask where they heard them and talk about the meaning of the messages. I’m glad that AMAZE is producing alternative videos. I think more liberal groups need to do the same so that social media algorithms will turn to them as well. Recently I wrote that the 988 National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline will, as of July 17, no longer provide a direct link for LGBTQ (especially the T) to get help from sensitive counselors. That help is currently supplied by the Trevor Project. I’ve since learned that since the Trevor Project is being booted out of the government system it is also losing its government funding, a good size chunk. The Trevor Project will still exist, back to privately funded, to help LGBTQ youth in crisis. Paul Berge drew a cartoon appropriate to the situation. I first saw it in Between the Lines in their previous issue. I normally like to describe cartoons, but this one I won’t because I want you to see the full impact for yourself. Trevor Project LGBTQ Crisis Hotline: 1-866-488-7386 or text START to 678-678

America has grown too comfortable with violence and cruelty

The national handbell seminar begins tomorrow. I’m not attending in person. Even so, it will be livestreaming three concerts a day starting with one tomorrow evening. The concerts will feature a selection of the best handbell performers. I don’t know how much this will affect my blogging time. I may post regularly or I may not post again until Sunday or Monday. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that 144 employees of the Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to administrator Lee Zeldin objecting to new agency policies. Another letter in March complained of the illegal dismantling of core agency functions. In response to the latest letter Zeldin put all who signed (some were anonymous) on leave. This is a violation of First Amendment rights of free speech. Needham spent much of the rest of the article explaining in what cases employees do and don’t have free speech rights. In this case they clearly do. What caught my attention in this article is the last few paragraphs:

Trump treats the presidency like an extension of his person, and his Cabinet has adopted that same framing: People voted for Trump, which means they preapproved anything he chooses to do. Any disagreement, therefore, means you are not respecting the will of the voters. It isn’t surprising, with that mindset, that the administration is coming for the free speech rights of public employees. After all, how dare they speak out against Dear Leader? Just because the GOP has signed on to Trump’s cult of personality doesn’t mean that federal workers have to do so as well.

Brett Kelman, in an article for KFF Health News posted on Kos a month ago, reported many American doctors are moving to Canada. One big reason is because, as Kelman paraphrased one of the doctors, “Too much of America has simply grown too comfortable with violence and cruelty.” There are a lot of reasons inside the big one. The nasty guy becoming more authoritarian. The deep cuts to Medicaid. Appointing Robert Kennedy Jr. to lead and dismantle federal health agencies. On the other side of the border, applications to be licensed in Canada has increased more than 750% in the last seven months compared to a year ago. Some are saying they are moving specifically because of the nasty guy. Also, Canadian provinces have relaxed some licensing regulations in recent years to allow easier migration. A Canadian physician recruiting company said they saw a 65% increase in inquiries from January to April and is now contacted by up to 15 American doctors a day. Another company helps doctors to get licensed in other foreign nations. They had previously worked with doctors with wanderlust, seeking adventure. Now it is more intentional about getting out of the US. Doctors who have made the move feel less stress, do less paperwork, and have no fear of burying patients in medical debt. And in the US we already don’t have enough doctors. When Musk slashed his way through federal agency personnel some of the talk was we’ll just replace all those workers with AI. Some of the most vocal people, like Musk, have shown they are anti-human and would rather deal with technology. So a month ago Needham reported that two AI tools have been installed at the Food and Drug Administration. And both of them suck. FDA Commissioner Martin Makary gushed over the new tools, as did Jin Liu, deputy director for Drug Evaluation Sciences. One of the tools isn’t connected to anything – like medical journals or even other computers – so it can’t manage basic tasks. The other was asked questions about publicly available information and answered incorrectly. We may get half-baked AI anyway. Also from a month ago Needham discussed another way the nasty guy is threatening universities. It is telling the organizations that do the accrediting that universities are in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws. In Needhan’s example the nasty guy claims Columbia doesn’t meet the standards for accreditation because of the way it treated Jewish students. The threat – the Notice of Violation – includes no information on what Columbia needs to do to comply. There are only the threats if it doesn’t. Columbia is finding out that although it bent the knee to the nasty guy it will still be attacked. It can’t do enough to stop the attacks (except maybe cease operations).

The government doesn’t accredit any school and therefore can’t yank any accreditation. The federal government does certify accreditors, but while it's likely that the leftover remains of the Department of Education could approve new accreditors, getting rid of the existing ones isn’t that easy. These are vague, meaningless attacks that don’t have a lot to do with the actual requirements for certification of accreditors. As the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions explained in a statement about Trump’s executive order, the Higher Education Act establishes due process requirements for recognition of accreditors, including reviews from multiple offices within the Department of Education. And it included a pointed reminder that “concerns about accreditor recognition can be escalated to federal court.”

There’s another reason why the nasty guy is attacking the accreditors. They were a big part of the demise of Trump University. In the comments of a pundit roundup on Kos Paul Fell posted a cartoon shows a waiter has delivered a dead bird, type unknown but definitely not appetizing. The customer says, “Waiter! This isn’t what I ordered!” The waiter holds up a sign saying “2024 election” and says, “Wanna bet?” Fell added:

As Americans keep finding out all the disastrous, cruel, & frankly anti-American things Trump & Republicans are doing, even MAGAts are saying this isn't what they voted for. Don't believe them. This is *exactly* what they voted for.

A meme related to the devastating Texas flood posted by exlrrp shows a photo of the president of Mexico. Below it is the text:

Mexico’s president just sent rescue teams to Texas. After all the hate. After all the anti-immigrant policies. After all the racism towards brown people. She still helped. She still showed up. She still did the right thing. To a red state that wouldn’t do the same for her. That’s leadership. That’s power. That’s a woman.

I’ve written about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming that Democrats can control the weather and that it must stop. Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz titled “Weather Control Machine” and showing a truck labeled “Big Oil” that is spewing a lot of pollution.

They built the wrecking ball now swinging at them

Myriam-Fernanda Alcala Delgado, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Daily Kos, discussed the Los Angeles volunteer organization Unión del Barrio. The group got their start in 1992 after the beating of Rodney King. They are a community patrol network to monitor law enforcement activity that might be dangerous to residents in vulnerable neighborhoods. These days they monitor ICE. Volunteers look for cars with tinted windows and masked license plates. They patrol neighborhoods looking for ICE. They also respond to tips about current ICE activity. They do some verification before issuing public alerts. They are very careful to keep to the speed limit and obey all traffic signs. They don’t want ICE or law enforcement a reason to stop and engage with them. Sometimes ICE leaves an area because they have lost the element of surprise. But ICE is changing tactics in response to volunteer patrols. Instead of morning operations ICE shifted to later in the day when volunteers are at work. They have also started using decoys – one ICE vehicle leads patrols one way while ICE operations go another. The group got a letter from Sen. Josh Hawley saying they are supporting civil unrest and aiding criminal conduct. The letter demands they “cease and desist.” Unión del Barrio says the letter is simple intimidation and won’t stop them. Carrie Levine, in an article for Votebeat posted on Kos, talked about an executive order involving new rules for voting machines. From this article I didn’t figure out whether the new rules promoted the nasty guy, promoted democracy, or were impartial. The article is more about the problems implementing the new rules. From what I can figure out, one problem is that federal accredited laboratories have not yet certified voting machines to the new standards, which can take years. In the meantime, the current standards are quite good and lead to accurate results. But devious actors can say the current machines don’t meet the new standards, spreading doubt on the election results. Another problem is the move to the new standard does not come with money to make that happen. Replacing voting equipment can cost millions. A while back I talked about ways authoritarians stay in power. One way is to hold elections that the opposition party is well represented on the ballot but just can’t seem to ever win. Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit wrote an essay in response to words by James Carville. Carville warned that as the nasty guy sees a decisive Republican loss in the coming 2026 midterms he may try something extreme to hold onto power. Hartmann is equally concerned, but doesn’t think the extreme action will be martial law or a national emergency. Instead, according to journalist Greg Palast, a Great Purge will be enough. The purge has been authorized by five corrupt conservatives on the Supreme Court. It involves scrubbing names from voter rolls. One part is removing names and Hartmann lists several ways that is happening. Another part is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act introduced by Republicans (who else?). One provision is if the name on the birth certificate is different from the passport or driver’s license a person can’t register (or reregister). The biggest group this affects is married women who take their husband’s last name. Others affected are transgender. The other half of the problem is that most Americans don’t have a birth certificate readily available or know where it is. The reason for the law is a racist myth. There are claims that millions of undocumented immigrants vote. When dedicated sleuths work to uncover evidence of that claim they can produce in court they come up empty, while defendants can show similar state laws prevent thousands of legal voters from voting. These tactics go back to before the 2000 election. In that one George Bush II was able to claim victory in Florida, and thus the White House, because his brother Jeb, governor of Florida at the time, had purged tens of thousands of black voters from the rolls. Republicans continue to use purging because it works. “That’s not election security. That’s systemic suppression.” And it happens before a vote is cast. If it doesn’t work? There is always ICE, answerable only to the nasty guy and with a growing number of concentration camps to use. Kos of Kos wrote that two Alaskan lawmakers, one a Republican, wrote a hand-wringing op-ed in the New York Times about the Big Brutal Bill with the headline, “Alaska cannot survive this bill.” Kos lists the horrors of the bill – lost health coverage, food assistance, school funding, and more. The nasty guy campaigned on all that carnage. And 54% of Alaskans voted for him anyway. Strange that the small-government crowd is the most dependent on assistance from the government. The state’s politicians, Sen. Lisa Murkowski in this case, scramble to shield their constituents from the cuts the citizens voted for. The pattern is getting old.

So, yes, Alaska is right to be scared. The bill will devastate them. But they aren’t innocent. They helped build the wrecking ball—and now they’re shocked to find it swinging in their direction. Actions have consequences.

In Saturday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin had several quotes worth mentioning. Norm Ornstein of The Contrarian talked about how Democrats were tripped up when the nasty guy’s campaign was able to cast several issues in terms of fairness. There was a female swimmer who tied for fifth place with a transgender swimmer, but got the sixth place trophy. Another case was student loan forgiveness that was portrayed as unfair to those who had worked hard to pay off their student loans.

Democrats who did not want to sacrifice anyone for temporary political advantage supported trans athletes as a matter of fairness and decency were easy to portray as being too woke to recognize the perceived unfairness.

Matt Fuller tweeted a link to a story on Notus and wrote:

That letter from 16 vulnerable House Republicans — about how they won't vote for the Senate's Medicaid cuts — is a pretty crazy read today. Everyone on this letter voted for the bill.

Paul Waldman of The Cross Section also talked about Republicans and the Big Brutal Bill:

So why are they doing this? One can certainly imagine a less radical version of this bill, one that moved in the same direction but not so far and fast, much as the legislation they passed in Trump’s first term did. That kind of bill might not be a political winner, but it wouldn’t be such a huge loser either. Why not go that route? They’re not giving away their shot [not quite the Hamilton lyric] The answer is that this isn’t about the politics, it’s about the substance. You don’t like weather-vane politicians, always checking the polls to see how they should vote? Well here you go. They are willing to take the political risk, even the certainty of future defeat, because they believe so strongly in what this bill does. They despise Medicaid and have contempt for everyone who uses it. The same goes for SNAP, aka food stamps. They desperately want to cut taxes for the wealthy, and always have. They don’t just want to roll back Biden-era climate policies, they want to destroy the entire green energy and manufacturing sectors of the economy. ... That’s just part of what’s in the bill, but the point is that this is the fulfillment of their fondest policy wishes. If it costs them their House majority and maybe even their Senate majority as well (a long shot, but not impossible), they’re willing to do it. Because they believe in it.

I’m on the email lists for Demand Progress and Move On. Both are very good at sending me frequent emails about the latest outrage from the nasty guy (and there are lots). All of them ask for money. Some ask me to sign a petition first, though I’ve gotten no feedback on whether any of the petitions have been effective – from what the nasty guy and Republicans are doing they probably aren’t. I also get letters from various prominent Democrats as well as the national committees, all asking for money. I get texts on my phones from Democratic candidates around the country hoping I would be a part of their team (as in donating money). So this tweet from Dan Pfeiffer resonated:

I understand the short term incentives involved, but the fact that every bad thing that Trump does is immediately followed by 1000 fundraising texts from every person in the Democratic Party has some long term consequences for the party’s relationship with its base.

In the comments ResJudicata22 posted a cartoon by Drew Sheneman. A MAGA man says, “Gender-Affirming care is unnatural!” Around him words point to various parts of his body, words such as, “Hair plugs, Beard coloring, Viagra,” and for his shoes, “Lifts.” Tracy posted another cartoon by Sheneman. This one shows the nasty guy telling young kids, “I’m cutting your school lunch program to pay for tax cuts and bombs. If you’re hungry, join the Army.” Another commenter noted that lowest level Army pay is below a living wage. In the comments of Sunday’s roundup Rented Mule posted a meme:

I didn’t grow up reciting “with liberty and justice for all” every morning at 7 am just to be called radical for actually wanting liberty and justice for ALL.

A cartoon posted by thendis-nye, creator unknown, shows a man on the phone as out the window is a formal garden with a fountain. The man says:

They’re all gone!? My pool’s dirty! Who’s going to cook for me and clean my house? Who will trim the hedges and take care of the estate grounds!? No one told me this would affect me!

And a cartoon by Garth German show a man with elephants:

Man: Why should we spend $60 billion to help Ukraine?! Elephants: Yeah! Damn Straight! Man: Think of all we could to if we spent that $60 billion helping Americans instead! Elephants: (uproarious laughter) Elephant1: This guy thinks we’ll spend money to help Americans... Elephant12: Hee Hee Elephant3: Here’s the plan to cut Medicaid, Social Security, and SNAP.

In today’s roundup Dworkin included a tweet by Melanie D’Arrigo that quoted a tweet by Aaron Rupar. First Rupar, referring to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, billionaire.

Bessent on Medicaid cuts: "The able-bodied Americans are not vulnerable Americans ... people can get off Medicaid and get a job that has good healthcare benefits ... I don't think poor people are stupid. I think they have agency."

D’Arrigo adds:

30% of American jobs do not offer health benefits, and 49% of employed workers can't afford healthcare without going into debt. Every American is a vulnerable American when healthcare is restricted, tied to employment, and for-profit.

Keeping democracy is a constant, high-stakes battle

My weekend movie was Saturday afternoon when I went to the Detroit Film Theater (and enjoyed some of the Detroit Institute of Arts) for the documentary Secret Mall Apartment. In the 1990s Providence, Rhode Island was getting rather run down. The mills that had provided its wealth had closed. So the city decided to build a shopping mall, Providence Place, at the edge of a good neighborhood where people on the other side saw it more as a barrier than a benefit. Many artists and musicians had taken over the old mill buildings not far from the new mall. They were quite annoyed that city planners saw their area as the next place to gentrify, and evicted them. One of those was the artist and art teacher Michael Townsend. As Townsend watched the mall being built, a place with unusual planes and angles, he saw a space that he identified as unusable. In 2003 he crawled through the in-between spaces of the building and found it. He and seven friends turned the space, about 750 square feet, into an apartment. They hauled furniture up there (through a route a bit more direct than crawl spaces, but still difficult) and turned it into a place to stay. They used a palm size camera to film their work and those films were an integral part of this movie. I think they had residences elsewhere, but that was never specifically said. They managed to live in the mall undetected for four years. This was an act of defiance against gentrification, their private clubhouse, and a place to plan their art. Townsend and his team were also working artists, and generous with their art. One of their big things is tape art – using rolls of blue and green painter’s tape to construct outlines of figures on walls. They were regular visitors to a children’s hospital, decorating rooms and hallways with whimsical figures and helping the little patients create their own ideas. These were intentionally temporary, easily pulled off the wall when no longer wanted. Here’s their tape art website. The main page of the site includes a photo of Townsend. Check out their murals page. The team also took their tape art to Oklahoma City for the tenth anniversary of the bombing there and to New York to commemorate those who lost their lives in 9/11. These people have their hearts in the right place. Townsend was the only one known to the public when their hideaway was discovered. The mall banned him for life for trespassing. When this documentary was premiered it was at the cinemas in – Providence Place. I’m sure Townsend was the guest of honor. I quite enjoyed this one. I read through the transcript of the June 10, 2025 episode of Gaslit Nation titled How a Christian School Kid in Indiana Saw the Fall of Democracies Coming. Gaslit Nation is hosted by Andrea Chalupa. Her guest in this episode is Chrissy Stroop. Chalupa introduces her this way at the top of the webpage:

Chrissy is a leading voice in exposing the Christian nationalist movement, the exvangelical uprising, and the growing marriage between the American and Russian far-right. She also happens to be a trans woman with a PhD in Russian history and a wild journey that took her from a fundamentalist Christian school in Indiana to teaching in Moscow.

And like this during the episode.

[She is] an analyst on global affairs as well as the American Ex-vangelical Movement, as well as Christian Nationalism and Russia. She's an advocate for religious deconstruction, LGBTQ+ rights and social justice.

The episode begins with the story of a woman who came to the US as a fetus. Chalupa reminds us that the media sees immigrants as a hostile invader rather than an individual human story of someone seeking a better life. Chalupa describes the bill the nasty guy just signed (still in process when this episode was recorded) as the “concentration camp” bill. It allocates “a staggering $160 billion to expand state terror and intensify their anti-immigrant crackdown.” The current ICE budget is $8 billion. The new bill keeps that funding and adds $15 for deportation and $45 billion for new camps. That increases ICE’s power by 20 times. This is how MAGA plans to stay in power. Stroop got her PhD in Russian History. After the Cold War there wasn’t much use for it, which is why she taught in Moscow for a while. She noticed that in Florida the big education push was to make sure everyone related to colleges and universities are on the same page. Not said so loud is that the same page is the state ideology. It’s what the Nazis did when they came to power. Now Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education, is using the term. A goal of dismantling public education is so that students would be funneled into Christian education (which implies conservative Christian views). These same Christians are a big supplier of resources for homeschooling. Stroop discusses her own conservative Christian education. As a student she was constantly told liberals are evil because they kill babies (allow abortion). Gay people want special rights. If a country disobeys God it will be punished. If it follows God’s will it will flourish. To get God’s blessing abortion must be banned, the queers must be kept at bay, and the political system must align with God’s will. There is a world of Christian broadcasting and Fox News carries similar ideas. Stroop tells the story of recognizing she is trans. She had hints, but didn’t figure it out until she was living in Moscow at age 33. She stopped going to church and began to have a few queer friends. That journey is what helped her reject the teaching of her youth. Her time in Moscow also helped her see the similarities between Russia and far-right Americans. Chalupa said Putin’s 2013 anti-gay laws were pivotal in the global fascist war against democracy. Because of the law Madonna and other superstars began to boycott Russia. There was one notable exception – the nasty guy held his 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. By his actions the nasty guy was telling Putin I’ve got your back and I know you have mine because my businesses depend on you and Russia. Putin invaded Crimea in 2014 and the nasty guy was elected in 2016. Christopher Steele (of the Steele dossier) noted something must have happened to the nasty guy during that pageant. Stroop reminds us that the nasty guy is currently targeting immigrants. But they won’t do that forever. You say the wrong thing, such as praise the Palestinians and condemn Israel, and they arrest you. They’re trying to Christian Nationalize the universities as well as the K-12 education system. They may not be able to get rid of all public schools, but they’ll try to Christianize what’s left. Since they think public education should not exist that remnant will be as bad as they can make it. Conservative Christian schools and conservative homeschool programs resist government standards because the parents have certain things they don’t want their children to learn, such as evolution and comprehensive sex ed. And human rights. They say that’s a secular concept. Human rights aren’t to be used for things that don’t contribute to human flourishing. Human dignity means one is not gay and not trans. If one is those things one is doing dignity wrong. Yeah, that very much depends on ones definition of “flourishing.” The gay and trans people I know flourish when they are allowed to be gay and trans. As a child getting a Christian education, Stroop felt out of sync a lot of time. One thing that guided her out was a subscription to Ranger Rick Magazine given to her by her moderate grandmother. That magazine is pro environment. At the end of the episode, starting at minute 45, Chalupa discusses the Gaslit Nation Action Guide, which has its own page.

Donald Trump is not the cause of America's fascism crisis. He's a symptom. Trump reflects a deeper disease of corruption, institutional failure, and widespread indifference. We can no longer afford to look away. We're in a moment that calls not just for outrage, but for action.

So study the action guide. The June 24 episode of Gaslit Nation has guest Anne Applebaum. She’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of Gulag, Iron Curtain, Red Famine, Twilight of Democracy, and Autocracy Inc. Host Andrea Chalupa’s grandfather, a Holodomor survivor, is cited in Red Famine. In 2023 Poland ousted the far right Law and Justice party. By razor-thin margins they retook power this year, only 18 months later. “Democracy isn’t a destination. It’s a constant, high-stakes battle.” We will all be in this struggle for the next few decades. Neither side will achieve a definitive victory. Applebaum commented on the nasty guy’s attack on Iran. The regime in Iran is waging two wars. One is against the US and Israel and has been going on for four decades. The other is against its own people. About the same time the bombs fell there was a crackdown on the opposition. Even though the bombs cause death and destruction and the crackdown causes more, the opposition is delighted with the mess. The nasty guy did not have Congressional approval for his attack. He did not explain why he did it nor convince the public for its need. There is no groundswell of opinion (well, there is... against him). He didn’t say whether uranium had been moved before he struck or what the bombs really accomplished. He hasn’t defined any strategy for Iran, the Middle East, or the world. That’s all a red flag. Perhaps he engaged in war because it is war. Perhaps because he likes the Fox News reporting. Perhaps he thinks he’ll look strong. Chalupa asked how the strike in Iran might affect Russia. As part of her reply Applebaum said:

Putin thinks a lot about other autocracies, and he's concerned about the survival of other autocracies because he thinks of himself as being part of a global war of ideas against liberal ideas, against democratic ideas, but also against the rule of law, against accountability and a win for the other side. In other words, the fall of a sister regime would be interpreted in Moscow is bad for them.

Maybe propping up the Iran regime is in Russia’s interest. But Syria fell because both Iran and Russia have been weakened. And Russia would not be taken seriously if it tried to be a broker in the Iran-Israel war. Even so, Russia maintains ties with and offers help to autocrats in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba in addition to Iran, China, and North Korea. Turning to the situation in the US, Applebaum said we can’t ever be completely lost into autocracy. One dictatorial family ruled Syria for 50 years, then it collapsed. Nothing is irreversible. What happens tomorrow depends on what we decide today. The US has has autocratic periods in the past, such as the rise of the Klan and Huey Long ruling Louisiana in the 1930s as an autocrat. An autocrat at the federal level at this scale is new. One type of corruption is financial. The only purpose of the nasty guy’s cryptocurrency is being a pathway to bribe him. He can’t do anything else with it. The other type of corruption is taking over government institutions and making them loyal to himself and not the Constitution. Right now American politics isn’t about discussing policy it’s about the nasty guy’s taking over institutions, the nature of the state. It’s about do we and the candidate believe in democracy or not? Is government to help or harm? We have to think differently to organize to stop that. In 1945 in Europe most Communist parties tried to take over with minimal violence. In Hungary this was known as salami tactics. Make a little change. Let the opposition adjust. Make another little change. Do it until the opposition is squeezed out. Many people won’t notice the individual steps. Orbán, Hungary’s current dictator, is doing the same thing. This is the most common way democracies fall. That’s not the method the nasty guy, with the help of DOGE, has been using in the US. His method makes progressives feel overwhelmed. The Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe was also all at once. Their takeover focused on education and culture, in hijacking the way people think. When they captured Berlin in May 1945 their first step was to take over the radio station, moving in German communists. Another early step was replacing kindergarten teachers. The nasty guy isn’t particularly interested in this. But the people around him are. American science is admired around the world. So why attack scientific institutions? It’s to hijack the way people think, to mold culture in their own image. That didn’t work in the Soviet Union, nor in Poland and Hungary. They didn’t win people’s minds. People assumed what the government said was a lie. They got their information from other places. Destroying institutions is easy. Getting people to change their thinking to conform to government ideas is quite hard. They can do a great deal of damage, but they won’t win. Those in the government will completely believe their ideology. When it doesn’t work they’ll blame spies and traitors. In the Soviet Union there were waves of harsh repressions. Those didn’t work either. So they would liberalize a little bit and that would prompt a popular uprising. Somebody began to see the value of obeying the law, of following the regime, wasn’t worth the low returns. Protests would be organized. The fall of communism in Poland was negotiated. There were already people who could take over the functions of government. In each of those countries by the 1980s few people believed the ideology or accepted the government, which had little legitimacy. Orbán faces his strongest opponent in the next election. He has massaged the system rather than smashing it. Has he made enough changes to the Constitution that he can’t be defeated electorally? Will he allow himself to lose? How far would he go to prevent a loss? What happens to the companies, the dominant ones in Hungary, connected to himself and his family and friends? Once Orbán is gone all the government institutions will have to be examined to see how to make them neutral again, how to make them belong to the nation rather than the party.

A description of an autocrat’s offenses against a free people

Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported the Big Brutal Bill passed the House. The margin 218-214 isn’t as tight as when it first passed the House a month ago. Two Republicans voted against it. Republicans in swing districts were concerned with the big Medicaid cuts and voted for it anyway. Those who said they could not vote for adding trillions to the deficit voted for it anyway. And Dear Leader got his wish to sign the bill on Independence Day, his declared deadline.

While Republicans celebrate the bill's passage, Democrats warn that it will be only a pyrrhic victory. The Democratic Party plans to hang the overwhelmingly unpopular legislation around the GOP's neck in the 2026 midterm elections. In a record-breaking speech lasting more than 8 hours and 32 minutes, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries lambasted Republicans’ bill, saying it violates the principles they pray to in the Bible. “We’re going to press on until victory is won,” he said. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the Senate passed the bill, “This vote will haunt Republicans for years to come.” In fact, even House Speaker Mike Johnson warned his members that passing the bill was probably the death knell of his narrow House majority, due to the bill’s deep Medicaid cuts. Yet, rather than amend the bill, he passed the Senate version and possibly sealed the fate of his speakership.

Already, a hospital in rural Nebraska, one that has mostly Medicaid patients, has said the Medicaid cuts make an already tough financial situation worse and they will close. Bill Addis of the Kos community reported that yesterday, while the brutal bill was still being debated, Rep. Jamie Raskin read a “preamble” for the Big Ugly Bill into the Congressional Record:

We the billionaires, and our King, in order to deform and sicken our Union, establish injustice, ensure domestic servility, weaken our peoples defenses, undermine our general welfare, and reserve to ourselves and our posterity staggering debt servitude for eternity, do hereby instruct the Republicans in Congress to strip 17 million people of their healthcare, increase copays, premiums and deductibles for everyone else, cut 42 million people off of nutritional assistance, increase the national debt by 4 trillion dollars, trash renewable energy systems, increase our electric bills for the carbon kings, all to weaken and destroy the Constitution of the people of these United States of America.

The nasty guy objected to Raskin’s words and Addis took some time to dissect them. Pedro Molina posted a cartoon on Kos showing the nasty guy siphoning gasoline out of an ambulance and into a very expensive car. The hose is labeled “Megabill.” Margaret Coker, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, discussed the Medicaid work mandate in Georgia, the only state that has a mandate. As of May this year about 3% of the nearly 250,000 eligible Georgians enrolled in Medicaid, even though 64% of those eligible are working. The reason is bureaucratic hurdles in the work verification system. That system is known as Georgia Pathways to Coverage and Gov. Brian Kemp admitted it was never designed for maximum enrollment. He’s in favor of moving from government-run health care. The system was glitchy and those who worked in the informal economy, such as house cleaners, didn’t have the required documentation. The national bill just signed, based on Georgia’s experience, will cost hundreds of millions in administrative costs and threaten coverage for nearly 16 million people. At least the federal system requires verifying employment only twice a year instead of monthly. Arkansas did have work requirements, but Republican state lawmakers changed their minds when the verification process threw 18,000 people off in just a few months. A federal judge helped that along by ruling the uninsured rate went up without increased employment. The federal bill gives $100 million to be divided among the states, but Georgia spent $55 million to get their system set up. And Kentucky expects administrative costs to top $200 million. The federal math isn’t mathin’. The federal bill says nothing about staffing or who pays for them. Georgia Pathways is understaffed and in March had a 5,000 application backlog. Verifying employment means more caseworkers, which means more expense for states. Or maybe the cost gets passed to counties.

“There are provisions in there that are very, very, very challenging, if not impossible, for us to implement,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, told reporters in June of the costs facing her state to meet the House bill requirements.

She said that before Alaska got an exemption on Medicaid changes. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev started with a quote from Jennifer Rubin of the Contrarian on a topic appropriate for Independence Day.

Desperate for some inspiration, I decided to reread the entire Declaration of Independence. We know it as an aspirational document (“We hold these truths…”). We understand it as a repudiation of tyranny (“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”). It is both those things, but it is also a compendium of complaints, a description of an autocrat’s offenses against a free people. And that was the part I found strangely relevant to our times. The signers railed about exclusionary immigration policies that hurt the colonies (“He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither”). They inveighed against barriers to trade (“cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”). And they condemned imposing “Taxes on us without our Consent,” which, if we remember that unilaterally imposed tariffs are a consumer tax, also sounds familiar. Tyrants, then and now, seek to dominate and micromanage commerce to the detriment of ordinary people seeking a better life. And notice the common problem, then and now, when a tyrant attempts to corrupt the rule of law by seeking to intimidate and threaten members of the judiciary (“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice…. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices”); seeks to impair due process (“depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury”); and even ships people out of the country for punishment (“Transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences”). The tyrant playbook has not changed much in nearly 250 years.

In the comments are several good cartoons and memes. A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Branch shows a man of color doing yard work while inside the house a man holds a “Mass Deportation Now!” sign and the woman says, “Let’s wait for him to finish cleaning up the yard before putting the sign back.” Underneath the cartoon is a tweet from Human, “How did the poor guy mowing your lawn every two weeks become the biggest national security threat, rather than a Defense Secretary posting war plans on Signal?” Another cartoon posted by paulpro shows Lady Liberty blowing out candles in a birthday cake. Uncle Sam asks, “A 249th birthday! What do we wish for?” Lady Liberty replies, “A 250th.” The Political Cartoon Gallery posted one from Morten Morland showing the nasty guy talking to the founding fathers, “Let’s declare a big, beautiful independence from the tyranny of checks and balances!” A third cartoon posted by paulrpo is by Clay Bennett. Half of it shows a classroom and has the words, “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Those who prevent history from being taught fully intend to repeat it.” The other half shows a library in which the only book is Project 2025. A meme posted by Angie is Pissed has a creator I can’t make out. It says:

Unfriendly Reminder: If you only support abortion in instance of rape or incest, you’re reinforcing the idea that in order for a woman to have a right to her body, someone else has to violate it first.

I like this one: Exsyntrix posted a cartoon by Garth German showing people reacting to a woman wearing a shirt with the words, “Freedom includes me making choices that conflict with your faith.” A week ago Lisa Needham of Kos reported the nasty guy might have his very own housing crash.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte just ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to treat cryptocurrency—a volatile and largely unregulated mess—as an asset when evaluating whether to purchase mortgages from banks. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae support about 70% of the mortgages in the country. They don’t issue loans but instead buy up home loans and package them into mortgage-backed securities, which are then sold to private investors. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae then guarantee payments to those investors if the mortgage holder defaults. You can see where this is going. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are likely going to have to issue loans to people partly based on their cryptocurrency holdings. So when the cryptocurrency market collapses and homebuyers default on loans, Freddie and Fannie will have to cover the resulting losses.

Ten days ago Needham reported on the state of abortion to mark the third anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. At the time Justice Alito promised the Dobbs decision would return abortion to the states. A lot of people knew that promise was a lie. Yeah, there is an effort to ban abortion nationwide. It is shown in trying to apply the 1873 Comstock Act that criminalizes mailing “obscene materials” to shipping abortion drugs across state lines. A problem for anti-abortion crusaders is even in red states people want abortion to be legal, as shown by approving ballot measures to do that. There are efforts to ban travel for abortion and efforts by red state officials to try to reach into blue states to prosecute doctors and clinics. And the nasty guy is trying to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds. In Texas a man was arrested for slipping abortion pills into his girlfriend’s coffee. Yeah, that is a crime. But the man is being charged with murder under the claim that harming an embryo is the same as killing a human. The case is really about making life hell for anyone seeking an abortion out of state. As part of that there are efforts to allow one state to demand health records for suspected abortions in other states. States are criminalizing pregnancy, as in banning taking certain drugs while pregnant. Or having to prove a miscarriage wasn’t an abortion. Even in states where abortion is legal and protected clinics are running low on money and having to close. Planned Parenthood had to close four in each of Michigan, New York, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota. People are dying from not being able to get an abortion. But many states have stopped tracking that data. The public won’t be able to tell. In contrast, abortion, especially medicated abortion, is significantly less dangerous than pregnancy. Needham also reported that the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case based on a boring technical question. But it can have profound implications because the plaintiff is a chain of crisis pregnancy centers. Those are the places that advertise pregnancy care. Once a patient shows up they use a variety of tactics, based on lies, to keep that woman from having an abortion. So the case is really about protecting the ability for these clinics to lie. Since the high court is done for the summer I guess this case will have oral arguments in the fall. Needham reported that Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem went to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador to have photos of her posing in front of an overcrowded prison cell. Yet, she said they were receiving terrific care – mattresses, full meals, exercise, and medical checkups. The nasty guy and Noem knew that if Klmar Abrego Garcia was ever let out of CECOT he could prove Noem was lying. That was a big reason why they refused to bring him back, though being sent there was a mistake they admitted to. Abrego Garcia is back and is talking about his experiences. Remember the Iraqi Abu Ghraib prison scandal from 20 years ago? Yeah, that’s how Abrego Garcia was treated. He’s amending his legal complaint (not well described) to tell about his treatment. Through that court document he’s also telling the world. Abrego Garcia is incarcerated right now facing bogus charges. He asked the judge to keep him there. He knows the moment he is released ICE would immediately deport him again. My city has given up on fireworks for Independence Day. Detroit had a big display on the river last week, but from newspaper reports it would have been hard to get to. Other cities around me have already done their fireworks display or won’t do one at all. So the residents around me have bought fireworks at the various stores and since 9:30 this evening the noise has been constant. I think the city ordinance says they have to stop at 11:30, which is bedtime for me.

Not the land of the free, but the home of the caged

Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that the Department of Justice has issued a memo saying DOJ attorneys were to strip the citizenship of immigrants that have committed certain crimes. Yeah, this is a historical thing, though rarely used. It’s usually reserved for literal Nazis who hid their past when they became citizens. The memo lists the usual crimes that can trigger denaturalization – torture, espionage, trafficking – but they added a really bad one: any other case determined sufficiently important to pursue. Yep, that can be anything. To make all that worse denaturalization cases will be done in civil court where the burden of proof is lower and the victim doesn’t have the right to an attorney.

Of course, the Trump administration was never going to stop at deporting undocumented immigrants who’ve committed violent crimes. And it was never going to stop at deporting undocumented immigrants with no criminal records or immigrants with temporary legal status. The inevitable next step was to strip citizenship from those who already have it. And after that, who knows? But rest assured Trump will figure out another way to hurt people.

Thom Harumann of the Kos community and an independent pundit posted an essay comparing Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, to Alligator Alcatraz. This comparison further pushes my belief that “Alligator Auschwitz” fits better. Dachau opened just three months after Hitler took power. It was described as a place for political prisoners. From the beginning it was known for its brutality. The first people sent there were not criminals or traitors. They were people the regime considered a threat or a convenient enemy.

The Nazis didn’t hide Dachau. They advertised it. It was a warning. A message. Step out of line, and this is where you go.

Only much later did they add extermination facilities. Alligator Alcatraz isn’t just a deportation facility. It is a political prison to humiliate, dehumanize, and broadcast terror. It is a symbol that American democracy is being publicly dissected, cruelly, and with calculation. It is also proof-of-concept. If it succeeds – as political spectacle – there will be more. Another similarity is the ongoing state of emergency. Florida declared an immigration state of emergency in 2023. It allows the governor to act without oversight. The Nazis used the 1933 Reichstag Fire to give themselves emergency power, which removed democratic guardrails. A third similarity is location. Both are in isolated places. Escape is close to impossible. Oversight is nonexistent. Rights lawyers and journalists will find it hard to access.

The most dangerous thing about Alligator Alcatraz isn’t the alligators. It’s the message. The message that some people are less than human. That caging them is acceptable. That they deserve no rights, no hearing, no compassion. Just mud and barbed wire. That was the logic behind Dachau. And it’s becoming the logic behind Trump’s America. This facility is being built not to solve a problem, but to create one. To manufacture outrage. To train the public to see brown-skinned immigrants not as workers or families or survivors but as invaders. Intruders. Animals. And that’s when the door opens for something far worse.

There are ways to engage: Lawsuits to challenge it, using any statute possible. Journalists to document construction, conditions, and policies. Peaceful protests. Using proper words – not “detention center” but “political prison” or “migrant concentration camp” and people were not sent there “for their own protection.” Learn how Dachau started and what happened there. Teach your neighbors. Democracy ends with a shrug. We need to commit to human dignity, due process, and liberty.

If we wait too long, we may wake up one day and discover we are no longer the land of the free, but only the home of the caged.

Today’s pundit roundup for Kos has a couple good cartoons. One posted by Jon Cooper and created by Bagley shows handcuffed men in suits boarding an ICE bus. The caption:

Something you will never see: ICE rounding up the CEOs who illegally exploited undocumented workers...

Cooper added, “I wonder why we aren’t seeing this? A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Geoff Coats shows the nasty guy handing a sack of cash to a rich dude while beside them is a MAGA hospital patient with a high bill. The nasty guy says, “Don’t worry, little buddy. We can still hate trans people together.” Needham also reported Republicans of North Carolina introduced a state bill to replace over a third of state election staff jobs with political appointees.

The new state elections director, Sam Hayes, had a very Trump-ish explanation for why he needs to eliminate experienced nonpartisan staff, NC Newsline reported: “These positions would just allow me the flexibility that I need to conduct that reorganization and make sure that folks that are surrounding me, certainly my direct reports and I, are aligned on the vision for the agency as I set forward.” That’s just code for “I want a bunch of stooges who will help continue the GOP project of undermining elections in the state.” But somehow, according to Hayes, this will also be nonpartisan. Yes, replacing nonpartisan staff with political appointees is totally nonpartisan indeed. It’s not surprising that Hayes only knows how to operate like a hardcore partisan, as his previous gig was as counsel for the GOP House speaker.

Any guesses to his “vision for the agency”? Dan K of the Kos community started a post with:

Lots of stories both here and elsewhere have been written in the past few days about how Republicans are committing political suicide by pushing the One Hugely Ugly Bill, how it will not only cost them the House but also the Senate. Very few if any have asked the obvious questions: Don’t you think they know this? And if they do, why are voting for it anyway? That’s because they may have come to the conclusion that they will not have to pay a political price because the next election is being rigged for them.

We don’t have one election system, we have fifty. And many of them are run by honest people dedicated to an accurate count no matter who wins (though see above). But Republicans have been tampering with elections since at least Nixon. Republicans may not be counting on this. There has been a lot of talk about cuts to Medicaid but no talk that the main cuts take place after the midterms. Three weeks ago Jeremy Kohler, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos wrote that Republicans are getting annoyed with citizens undoing their work. The citizens have been passing state constitutional amendments and voter initiatives. So Republican led legislatures are trying to make citizen initiatives harder to pass. Missouri citizens led efforts on two big measures, one of them restoring abortion rights. Abortion was also the issue in Arizona. The other Missouri initiative was sick leave benefits, which also passed in Alaska and Nebraska. In those states the effort is to undo what citizens did. Republicans in Florida, Utah, Montana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Ohio, North Dakota and South Dakota are trying to restrict initiatives, making changing laws outside of legislatures harder.

Republican elected officials across these states make strikingly similar arguments: They say the initiative process is susceptible to fraud and unduly influenced by out-of-state money. What’s more, they say that they, as elected officials, represent the true will of the people more than ballot initiatives do.

I’ve worked on a couple citizen initiatives in Michigan and likely gearing up for two more. The only ones associated with fraud were Republican efforts, such as in 2004 getting a same-sex marriage ban into the state constitution. Signature gatherers said they were working for one initiative while the actual forms were for the harmful one. As for out-of-state money, Republicans are good at collecting cash for a cause from across the country. As for elected officials representing the true will of the voters, I’ll believe that when gerrymandering is outlawed and every state draws district lines through citizen commissions, as is now done in Michigan. Needham reported that California is in a tough spot – it’s regular fire season started swiftly over the weekend. And a good chunk of its National Guard, who normally serve as fire fighters, are being used by the nasty guy as his personal police force. Which means California is asking the Department of Defense if, pretty please, the state could have the use of its own National Guard. The original request was for 200 guardsmen. The DOD was magnanimous in offering 150. How can a state have enough guardsmen for state-level challenges if the president can yank them away at any time? Back in 2018 the nasty guy punished Washington state by deliberately delaying wildfire aid. This year he isn’t punishing through money, but by yanking personnel. He’s got lots of ways to punish blue states. Last week Wednesday Alix Breeden of Kos reported that Jeff Bezos planned to marry Lauren Sanchez at the 14th-century Grande Scuola Misericordia in Venice. But locals planned to form a blockade in the canals around the venue, in addition to other protesting. Protesters won and the venue was changed to Tese 91 of the Arsenale, which is described as a shipyard. Part of the protest was a huge banner laid out in St. Mark’s Square saying, “If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax.” Though protesters got the wedding venue switched, Bezos’ visit still caused havoc. He kicked out all the other paying guests at his chosen hotel so that he wouldn’t be disturbed. Breeden then listed several ways Bezos has been bending a knee to the nasty guy.

Ideological bumper stickers are for fundraising, not life

Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported the Big Brutal Bill has passed the Senate. Three Republican senators voted no so the vice nasty broke the tie in favor of passage. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska seemed to be heading towards no, but the Republican leadership gave her a deal that the Medicaid cuts won’t hit Alaska and threw in some other goodies so she voted yes. How sweet that Alaska is protected from a bill that screws over all the other states. How annoying that Murkowski doesn’t care about all the other states. And then said she hoped the House would correct some of the bill’s problems. The bill goes back to the House because the Senate made changes to what the House passed. One of those changes was deeper Medicaid cuts. Already some of the Freedom Caucus members are saying the bill doesn’t cut Medicaid and the social safety net enough. They don’t like how the bill will balloon the national debt and they certainly aren’t going to give up on tax cuts to the wealthy. Singer reported the vice nasty wrote on X:

The thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy is flooding the country with illegal immigration and then giving those migrants generous benefits. The OBBB fixes this problem. And therefore it must pass. Everything else—the [Congressional Budget Office] score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy—is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.

Yeah, he wrote that throwing millions of people off Medicaid is “immaterial” and just “minutiae.” Singer rebuts the opening lie: Immigrants lower budget deficits by about $100 billion a year because undocumented workers pay taxes but can’t receive benefits. Then Singer quoted several Democrats who say the loss of Medicaid is not “minutiae.” Merlin196360 of the Kos community used a term I like: “MAGAcaid.” They started their post with a tweet from digby:

One more time, folks. This isn't a Trump thing. “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”--Vice President Dick Cheney "They'll get over it." - Mitch McConnell This is all performative nonsense meant to secure tax cuts and keep working America poor, sick and desperate. It's their raison de'etre.

Merlin196360 added:

While some element of fear of Trump supporters may have played a role in MAGAcaid, what’s really going on is that the current GOP is filled with people who simply hate to pay taxes for the social safety net. Full stop. The legacy media still talks about — cough, cough — “moderates” in Congress, but I’m with Catherine Rampell of now MSNBC: GOP moderates on the Hill are like Bigfoot sightings. There is no proof they exist.

Republicans say they vote for the bill because they fear the nasty guy. But what this post says, and what I’ve concluded, is Republicans, nearly all of them, want the Medicaid cuts because they hate paying taxes so that other people get “free stuff.” I don’t know the origins of the various pieces of this gigantic bill. I know the nasty guy campaigned on extending the big tax cuts that favor the wealthy. Did he also say the cuts should be “paid for” by cutting Medicaid? Or did that cruel mess come from Congressional Republican leadership? Oliver Willis of Kos reported that Elon Musk decried the bill the Senate passed because it isn’t cruel enough, it doesn’t cut the social safety net enough. When one hast $400 billion (didn’t Musk lose about half that over the last half-year?) why does the cost of Medicaid matter so much to him? Why does he demand to make the lives of poor people even worse? From what I’ve figured out he doesn’t value his life for who he is or for the huge amount of money he has. He values the difference between what he has and what the lowest people have. The further he beats them down the better he thinks he looks. Musk’s comments did not please the nasty guy, so their “feud” is back on. The nasty guy is talking about having DOGE examine Musk’s billions in government contracts. He also mentioned perhaps deporting Musk, sending him back to South Africa. That is one worth sending back. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin had a few good quotes. A tweet from Greg Sargent commented on the vice nasty’s quote above:

What JD Vance is really doing here is telling MAGA voters who are set to lose health coverage due to Medicaid cuts not to think too much about that eventuality. It'll all be worth it once they get to see lots more migrants detained and frog-marched on to deportation planes.

Jilll Lawrence of The Bulwark talked about transgender kids:

Studies do not support the idea that peer pressure leads to “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” among susceptible teens or young adults (the “social contagion” effect). In addition, research shows that the prevalence of regret among people who transition is “extremely low.” And intriguing recent research points to possible factors in brain anatomy that correlate with identifying as transgender—which suggests it is wrong to describe transgender identity as a “subjective preference,” as the Ohio attorney general did in 2023. So let’s be clear: Trump’s “two-genders-only” is not science, it’s an ideological bumper sticker. Fundraising pitches are just that simple, but life is not. Here’s what the American Medical Association told governors in 2021: “Empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”

G Elliott Morris tweeted a graph about Medicaid. Before I got to that I thought to check what the government spends on Medicaid. The number isn’t straightforward because Medicaid is open-ended. The federal program pays a particular percent of whatever the state Medicaid programs incur under the rules of the time. At least that’s what I came up with while scanning a Medicaid financing document put out by Congress. The closest I came up with for a dollar amount was from Figure 2: All personal health care in 2023 was $4.1 trillion. Medicaid paid 18.8% of that total or $771 billion. Figure 3 says that for 2023 federal spending was $614 billion and state programs paid $280 billion. However, news organizations have been saying there would be $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid. I didn’t flunk arithmetic all those decades ago and I’m pretty sure $771 billion is less than $800 billion. Then I see, as in this article from CBS News, there is a missing phrase (at least in my memory): “over a decade.” So $80 billion a year (or $93 billion a year in the Senate version). That makes more sense. Which means (a guess here) that for 2026 the cut is about 10%. So back to that graph that Morris tweeted. It divided up the Medicaid recipients in 2022 into groups. 37% were children and 9% were 65 and over. That meant 54% were working age. Out of that 54%, 48% (or 26% of the total) worked that year. 7% worked the next year 27% were disabled. 12% would soon leave Medicaid. And only 6% (or 3% of the total) were not working. From the way Republicans say it (and I quite possible have mixed this up) they want to get that 3% working so they institute work requirements and figure Medicaid expenses will go down by 10%. Yeah, my math isn’t mathing. In the comments are several good cartoons and memes. One by Kevin Kallaugher shows a globe with dynamite attached that is labeled “US Gov’t, Int’l Relations, Int’l Trade, The Environment, ETC.” The nasty guy is about to set off the dynamite. Behind him is this discussion:

Lady Liberty: “Are you going to watch and do nothing?!” Elephant: “NO!! I’m going to close my eyes and do nothing!”

Art Garfunky posted a cartoon of a cop holding up a skin color chart beside a stopped driver. The pale colors on top are labeled “Ignore” while the darker shades are labeled “Yank out of car.” Garfunky added:

There are almost a million people residing here illegally from Europe, Canada, and Australia, but you don’t see footage of ICE hassling them.

In a cartoon Lalo Alcaraz has a better name for the new detention center in Florida I wrote about yesterday. He calls it “Alligator Auschwitz.” exlrrp posted a tweet from the Florida GOP. They are indeed selling “Alligator Alcatraz” shirts and other merch. paulpro posted a meme that starts with a tweet from Adam Kinzinger, “Imagine being a grown man waiting for Donald Trump to tell you what to do. Lol. Super beta.” paulpro replied to that with a cartoon by Clay Bennett showing a man in his hands and knees wearing a GOP shirt and red hat with a dog collar around his neck and holding a leash in his mouth looking up at a guy in a dark suit and red tie. In another tweet paulpro quoted a tweet by The Serfs: “If it took 8 days to build a massive concentration camp in Florida then it means they could build and house the homeless at any point but choose not to.” Then paulpro quoted chris.writes.books:

Elon Musk said, “Homelessness is a lie.” Hear that? A billionaire thinks you’re faking your poverty. You genuinely can’t make this up. Even comic book villains are less cartoonishly evil.

Captain Frogbert responded to cartoons about abortion (which I won’t describe) first with a quote:

The conservative solution to any problem is always the proximate cause of the problem to begin with.

Then Frogbert added:

How to have fewer abortions: + Provide universal, age-appropriate sex education. + Safe and effective birth control to everyone asking for it. + Universal healthcare including pre- and post-natal care. + Ensure a living wage for all Americans. + Secure the civil rights of women. + Investigate and punish all rape severely. + Teach boys to be better men. + Do the work needed to make abortions safe, legal, and rare. How NOT to have fewer abortions, but ensure more women die: + Criminalize abortion. Conservatism is ignorant and harmful to humanity. Conservatism is not Christian.

In June, the views of this blog set a record of 48,310 views. It is quite a bit higher than any month in over a year. In the last 30 days (which doesn’t line up with June, but it is info I can get), 18 thousand views came from Brazil, 13.5 thousand from the US, 8.9 thousand from Vietnam (!), and about 1.5 thousand from both Britain and Argentina. Blogger will give me view counts from 19 countries and at the bottom of the list is Colombia with 133 views. In the last 7 days there were 7.5 thousand views from Brazil, 6.8 thousand from the US, 2.2 thousand from Vietnam, down to 38 from Russia. In overall statistics (from when Blogger started keeping stats for me in 2010) the top ten countries are the US (238 thousand), Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy, France, Brazil, Russia, Germany, Vietnam, and Sweden (9.8 thousand). Brazil hit the top ten in January and is now at 6th. Vietnam didn’t have enough views for me to notice until mid May and is now at 9th. The number of views has been climbing since March 2024, when it was 2668 views. There were a few months in the year before then that had high counts, but not consistently. After 17 years of writing the world has found my blog and declared it worth reading.