Trump Accounts Are a Wall Street Subsidy Disguised as a Baby Bonus
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been talking about Trump accounts like he’d just invented sliced bread. What he’s not mentioning is that this whole setup is designed to look generous while quietly offloading risk, funneling billions to Wall Street, and potentially undermining Social Security. Here’s how it works: The government seeds $1,000 into accounts for…
Trump Pardoned 77 People Involved in the Plot to Overturn the 2020 Election
In case you missed it over the weekend, Trump pardoned 77 - SEVENTY SEVEN! - people who helped him try to overturn the 2020 election. His pardon attorney announced it on Sunday. Rudy Giuliani got one. Mark Meadows got one. So did lawyers like Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro, aides like…
Trump’s 50-Year Mortgage Was Pitched With a Literal Posterboard at a Golf Club
You probably saw that Trump floated a 50-year mortgage plan over the weekend. Maybe you saw the pushback - his own base losing their minds, Republican congresspeople calling it debt slavery, housing experts explaining why it’s economically illiterate. What you might not know is how this disaster actually happened. Saturday night at Trump’s Palm Beach…
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…
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…
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…
Trump’s $300 Million White House Ballroom Works Out to $3,333 Per Square Foot
I just read a post on FB that got my spidey senses tingling. An architect named Andrew Kerr just laid out why Trump’s White House ballroom project is basically bullshit. And his math checks out. Here’s the deal. Trump’s now saying this 90,000 square foot ballroom will cost $300 million. Do the math on that…
The Shutdown’s Real Purpose Is Gutting Everything You’re Not Watching
The government shutdown standoff is supposedly about health care subsidies. Republicans won’t extend them. Democrats won’t budge. The media frames it as a principled fight over Affordable Care Act funding that helps about 22 million people afford insurance. That’s real, but it’s not the whole story. The subsidy fight is useful cover for gutting everything…
DHS Is Funneling $10 Billion Through the Navy to Build Detention Centers Faster
The Trump administration just found a creative way to spend $10 billion on detention centers while sidestepping those pesky federal procurement rules that slow things down. They’re funneling the money through the Navy to build what CNN calls a sprawling network of migrant detention facilities across the country. Construction on some of these facilities could…