Democrats Caused the Shutdown, Then Folded First. Stop Making Excuses for Them.
Stop making excuses for Democrats. Here’s what actually happened, stripped of all the partisan spin and cable news theatrics: The Democrats shut down the government. Full stop. They made a calculated decision to pull the trigger on a shutdown, presumably thinking they had leverage, thinking they had the Republicans cornered. And then they blinked first.…
SCOTUS Is About to Decide If Your Mail-In Ballot Gets Thrown Out
The Supreme Court just agreed to hear a case that could decide whether mail-in ballots have to arrive by Election Day to count. Right now, Mississippi let’s ballots postmarked by Election Day arrive up to five business days later and still be valid. Republicans are challenging that, and the Court took the case. Its called…
SCOTUS Wasn’t Buying GEO Group’s Immunity Defense in ICE Detainees’ Forced Labor Suit
The Supreme Court didn’t seem impressed with GEO Groups claim today that it should be immune from forced labor lawsuits at its Colorado immigration detention center. At least four justices signaled they weren’t eager to overturn the lower court ruling that let the case move forward. More than 30,000 former detainees, led by Alejandro Menocal,…
Trump’s USDA Ordered States to ‘Undo’ the Full SNAP Payments They’d Already Sent
The Trump administration ordered states to “immediately undo” the full November SNAP payments some of them had already sent out to low-income families. The order came yesterday, just hours after the Supreme Court temporarily blocked full program funding. States that don’t comply risk losing federal administrative money. The directive, which followed an emergency stay from…
Why Eight Democratic Senators Voted to Cave on Healthcare: The Real Theory
Dems caved on protecting your healthcare. Here’s my theory on why. The eight Democratic senators who voted for the stopgap funding bill - Tim Kaine, Dick Durbin, John Fetterman, Jeanne Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, Angus King, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Jackie Rosen - didn’t just randomly cave on healthcare. This was coordinated political theater designed to…
Trump’s Plan to End Trans Care for Minors Without Ever Writing the Word ‘Ban’
Well, heres how you outlaw something without writing the word ban. The Trump administration is drafting a rule to cut off all Medicare and Medicaid payments to any hospital that provides gender-affirming care to minors. NPR got the draft. If it goes through, hospitals treating trans kids lose access to every federal dollar they depend…
Trump’s Refugee Policy Now Prioritizes White South Africans Over War Zones
Well, here’s a policy that says the quiet part out loud. The Trump administration quietly revised refugee admission priorities this month to favor white South Africans while effectively closing the door on refugees from war zones in the Middle East, Africa, and Central America. The change wasn’t announced in a press conference. It showed up…
Trump’s Hiring Freeze Has No End Date Now - and Every Hire Has to Fit His ‘Priorities’
There is so much news everyday it is very easy to miss stuff - which is basically the “flood the zone” strategy Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon spelled out. Well, in case you missed it, Trump signed an executive order on October 15 extending the federal hiring freeze and setting up committees of top…
Seven Universities Just Told Trump No Thanks to His Funding-for-Politics Compact
Well - wanna hear something that’s actually good news? Seven universities - MIT, Brown, Penn, USC, Dartmouth, the University of Virginia and the University of Arizona - all rejected the Trump administrations new Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. The deal sounded harmless enough: priority access to federal research grants and regulatory flexibility in…
Hacked Emails Show Larry Ellison Vetting Marco Rubio on Israel in 2015
Wanna fall down a rabbit hole with me? I never thought we’d end up with tech billionaires, ex-prime ministers, social-media apps, and war zones all tangled together - yet here we are. This story starts with Larry Ellison, the Oracle billionaire. According to hacked emails first reported by Drop Site News this month, back in…
JD Vance Hates Chinese Farmland Ownership Because He Wants It for Himself
Well, I fell down another rabbit hole today. You know how JD Vance is always talking about China owning American farm land and how it’s bad? Well, it’s not because he wants to protect American farmers - it’s because he wants it for himself. Peter Thiel bankrolled JD Vance’s venture capital fund Narya Capital when…
They Recalled Furloughed Workers to Check Inflation Numbers Then Sent Them Back
Well, this might be peak irony. The government recalled furloughed workers to calculate how much more expensive your groceries are getting - then sent them straight back to the food bank. The Bureau of Labor Statistics dropped September’s inflation data late because the shutdown benched almost everyone whose job is to track prices. Then someone…