I am so tired of hearing the nonstarter argument from Republicans that "We'll extend healthcare after the CR is passed." I call bullshit: that's what they said last time, when Schumer gave in and voted for it. And of course, they didn't extend it - or provide any of the other programs.
I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them - trite, but true.
I am disgusted and appalled by the Democratic Senators' capitulation on their stand to protect affordable healthcare for all Americans. After forty days of shutdown, the Democrats had the high ground and threw it all away in exchange for a "promise" by the Senate Republicans that there would be a "full debate" about healthcare "sometime" in December. That sometime won't come because the Republicans can NEVER be trusted to keep their promises. Forty days of suffering all for not.
A frightening and painfully accurate description of the U.S. today. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . " How much worse do things have to get before we make the changes we need? And what are those changes? And how do we make them?
I think Mary was mad when she wrote this. Or, maybe I was getting more angry as I read it. "The most expensive shellfish in the world" and paid for by what must be biggest White House food budget EVER. Paying staff at mar a largesse puts more money in pocket of despot.
I pulled, "The regime’s answer? Propose a 50-year mortgage so Americans can spend half a century paying interest to banks while pretending to own homes. Even MAGA commentators called it “indentured servitude with a yard.”
What Mary describes is beyond infuriating, enraging, sickening.
Trump and his acolytes not only don’t care, they are harming millions of Americans as a sadistic show of dominance and what happens when the king is disobeyed.
Abusing the vulnerable to establish absolute authority is the signature of pathologies most commonly associated with destructive personal relationships. I’m no expert, but it’s hard not to wonder if Fred Trump used these sadistic tactics on his son, and we’re paying for it.
Just a thought. It doesn’t matter. Government by sadistic abuse of the governed and those who stand up for human rights and freedoms is not only evil, it violates the Constitution. These criminals must be held to account.
The Republicans are Peanuts’ Lucy, the ACA extensions are the football and the Dems are Charlie Brown. At least they still haven’t figured out that Lucy will pull the football away.
Everyone agrees that the health insurance industry is broken. Everyone needs healthcare. It’s time for Medicare for all. But, that’s a bridge too far in the USA.
Managed free healthcare for all would be great and cheaper in the long run over privatized healthcare. I’m not sure the answer would be Medicare for all. I am on Medicare and it is not free although it is affordable. I have had surgery in 2 previous years and the costs were through the roof but I just paid my premiums, again very affordable in today’s world. In years with no surgeries I pay more in premiums than medical expenses. Which is still ok because the premiums are affordable. It is the families with children that will see a lot of medical expenses and higher premiums.
Macbeth's soliloquy keeps running in my mind especially the last part, "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing", and yet as emblematic as those words are to today's disaster, it continues, droning on and on, and the longer he remains in his ivory tower of safety, established by his ever-ready adoring Republicans, this will continue. The lobotomies have been successful on them, the MAGA fools, and until they realize they have been bamboozled into intolerable food, housing, and health costs by this current administration, we all must suffer. May the reckoning day be swift in coming and cover fully the lack of responsibility and criminal activity hoisted upon our country by this disastrous group. I'm angry too, Mary, and I'm not taking it without a fight to the finish.
How much more of this can we abide? Trump is deliberately splitting the country in half, politically and emotionally. When ICE agents tell people, "It's the lib's fault," as they are handcuffing mothers, something is very wrong. When women are dressed skimpily to dance for the pedophiles and perverts. When a fifty-year mortgage is even an idea. When not only is the White House above the law, but the actual building is treated like a tear-down. We are in trouble but that's not new news.
I hope everybody is reading or has ordered a copy from the library of Virginia Guiffre's American horror story. These men are circling the wagons around Trump because they are in the files, know somebody in the files or perhaps, and I'm spitballing here, have been victims of sexual abuse and cannot imagine their secret showing on their face as everyone realizes exactly what it means to be raped, abused and trafficked. Guiffre's abuse started when she was young and was perpetrated by her father and her father's friend. How many families carry those secrets? (Actually this book is extremely triggering. I would not recommend it to somebody with suppressed and/or open wounds.)
The book I want to read in a few years is about how women were viewed by White House Maga, how women were expected to act, how wives subsumed to their powerful husbands, and how many of those wives have escaped. Some women are volunteers, like that nasty press agent, and some women are trapped, like, I believe, Usha Vance. Get their stories when they are ready to talk. That's the real story I want to hear from Melania, not some bullshit fairy tale as told by pervy Brett Ratner and the grossest gold digger of all time.
Trump wants all females to be 16 years old with lots of make up on and not much else. Read his poem on Epstein's birthday letter. Then read between the lines.
Whether you read between the lines or work behind the scenes, the trenches have been the same for centuries. Most every social worker knows. This is not a new ballgame. But it certainly is far less secretive ..in your face and go ahead try to sue me..is near blatant.
Window dressing has ,as has make-up tummy tucks-boob jobs ,smiling cons, or Mother Nature ..raped anything they could forever, selling what looks good on paper appealing. Technology made it easier.
Striving for equality is admirable, the hippies had utopian dreams, then turned on and fell out of a rat race. Near everything was resourced abroad , the rich got richer. The facts still remain though, the happier countries keep balance best practice.
The writing has ,as stated in this post, been going on hard for 40+ (+++++) years , the middle class hollowed, our #1 status down to 18-30th, our over health statistics worst of the civilized ( loose interpretation) nations, and our world climate on a precipitous brink , but a lot of people would prefer to hear the fantasy “we’re doing just fine,the best ever..” and the famous..”trust me”.
I wondered about asbestos abatement in the White House. Too much HGTV trying to dodge apocalyptic news flashes about starvation and death by insurance. Well, time to glean the fields for dinner and look for roots to eat to lower my blood pressure. Thanks, Mary.
On the lighter side (sorry), my husband put a set of old folk songs on to play and some of them reminded me of Mary’s fire and your fight. We fought off the Right wing a few years ago with people power (the French were revolting again, against the Le Pen Right wing embezzlers). 22 were found guilty and she is currently banned from standing for public office. The polls showed her party well ahead and People Power got the vote changed. I hope at some point you all get justice.
What you describe isn’t just policy failure — it’s the performance art of indifference. The cruelty is deliberate, ritualized, and public. A government that withholds food and medicine while throwing galas for oligarchs isn’t broken; it’s functioning exactly as designed....and cruelty IS the point
I’m pleased to see that at least one “media outlet” (ie yours) has stated for the record that the inflation figures are bullshit. I’ve been wondering about that for many months.
I’m not paying higher prices in America (because I don’t live there) but I watch a lot of YouTube videos which contain compilations of people carrying their cameras around supermarkets and recording themselves in their cars lamenting about paying a small fortune for a measly number of grocery items.
I was experiencing cognitive dissonance each time I saw the “official” inflation numbers. I actually began to wonder whether the peeps reporting on their personal circumstances in my “informal” sources of information were exaggerating.
I obviously dismiss everything Trump says about the price of the word he brought back to modern parlance - “groceries”. And I find it unfathomable that his cult followers can’t see that he’s lying through his teeth when they compare the rosey picture he paints to the rising price of eggs. Fuck they must be stupid.
But, until I read your latest, I was properly confused about the crevasse between the inflation figures being quoted everywhere and the stories from the peeps at the check out.
That part of my mind can now relax while the other parts worry harder for Americans that the circulating propaganda has now reached a whole new level.
i have long believed that no one in a position of power (i.e., the rich) really believe the "trickle down theory" or Laffer's curve or which ever euphemism you care to use. it makes a great story to give some plausibility for stuffing their pockets. it has not worked, never did, and is the modern right wing equivalent to selling snake oil... by the time you wake up to the fact that you have been had, i will be out of town counting my ill gotten gains... trump has thrown out all the law, all decency, any pretext of caring for the common citizen... what just astounds me is that all the while he has his hands in their pockets (and in the case of women, perhaps just a bit lower) people still praise him.. his popularity is low, but who the hell is the stupid 37%??? i get the uber rich thinking he is doing a fine job, but that is only a few percent... the rest are just getting fleeced.. and i have no idea why Schumer capitulated on this... i have the sneaking suspicion so that they will reopen congress prior to Dec 2nd special election so they can force the vote on the Epstein papers. of course nothing will be released as it will not get past the senate nor the presidents desk... but "we showed them!!!" we showed who does not support the release of the files.. i also suspect that anything and everything in them that implicates trump or other far right people has long since been destroyed... what is it going to take to fix all this?
I am so tired of hearing the nonstarter argument from Republicans that "We'll extend healthcare after the CR is passed." I call bullshit: that's what they said last time, when Schumer gave in and voted for it. And of course, they didn't extend it - or provide any of the other programs.
I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them - trite, but true.
I am disgusted and appalled by the Democratic Senators' capitulation on their stand to protect affordable healthcare for all Americans. After forty days of shutdown, the Democrats had the high ground and threw it all away in exchange for a "promise" by the Senate Republicans that there would be a "full debate" about healthcare "sometime" in December. That sometime won't come because the Republicans can NEVER be trusted to keep their promises. Forty days of suffering all for not.
And yet, Dems surrendered, enough of them to matter. While the rest can posture about what a travesty it is.
A frightening and painfully accurate description of the U.S. today. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . " How much worse do things have to get before we make the changes we need? And what are those changes? And how do we make them?
Or....It was the darkest of times, it was the dumbest of times.
spot on!
I think Mary was mad when she wrote this. Or, maybe I was getting more angry as I read it. "The most expensive shellfish in the world" and paid for by what must be biggest White House food budget EVER. Paying staff at mar a largesse puts more money in pocket of despot.
I pulled, "The regime’s answer? Propose a 50-year mortgage so Americans can spend half a century paying interest to banks while pretending to own homes. Even MAGA commentators called it “indentured servitude with a yard.”
What Mary describes is beyond infuriating, enraging, sickening.
Trump and his acolytes not only don’t care, they are harming millions of Americans as a sadistic show of dominance and what happens when the king is disobeyed.
Abusing the vulnerable to establish absolute authority is the signature of pathologies most commonly associated with destructive personal relationships. I’m no expert, but it’s hard not to wonder if Fred Trump used these sadistic tactics on his son, and we’re paying for it.
Just a thought. It doesn’t matter. Government by sadistic abuse of the governed and those who stand up for human rights and freedoms is not only evil, it violates the Constitution. These criminals must be held to account.
The Republicans are Peanuts’ Lucy, the ACA extensions are the football and the Dems are Charlie Brown. At least they still haven’t figured out that Lucy will pull the football away.
Everyone agrees that the health insurance industry is broken. Everyone needs healthcare. It’s time for Medicare for all. But, that’s a bridge too far in the USA.
Managed free healthcare for all would be great and cheaper in the long run over privatized healthcare. I’m not sure the answer would be Medicare for all. I am on Medicare and it is not free although it is affordable. I have had surgery in 2 previous years and the costs were through the roof but I just paid my premiums, again very affordable in today’s world. In years with no surgeries I pay more in premiums than medical expenses. Which is still ok because the premiums are affordable. It is the families with children that will see a lot of medical expenses and higher premiums.
Macbeth's soliloquy keeps running in my mind especially the last part, "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing", and yet as emblematic as those words are to today's disaster, it continues, droning on and on, and the longer he remains in his ivory tower of safety, established by his ever-ready adoring Republicans, this will continue. The lobotomies have been successful on them, the MAGA fools, and until they realize they have been bamboozled into intolerable food, housing, and health costs by this current administration, we all must suffer. May the reckoning day be swift in coming and cover fully the lack of responsibility and criminal activity hoisted upon our country by this disastrous group. I'm angry too, Mary, and I'm not taking it without a fight to the finish.
Go Ireland! (Lindsay Graham is such a fool.)
How much more of this can we abide? Trump is deliberately splitting the country in half, politically and emotionally. When ICE agents tell people, "It's the lib's fault," as they are handcuffing mothers, something is very wrong. When women are dressed skimpily to dance for the pedophiles and perverts. When a fifty-year mortgage is even an idea. When not only is the White House above the law, but the actual building is treated like a tear-down. We are in trouble but that's not new news.
I hope everybody is reading or has ordered a copy from the library of Virginia Guiffre's American horror story. These men are circling the wagons around Trump because they are in the files, know somebody in the files or perhaps, and I'm spitballing here, have been victims of sexual abuse and cannot imagine their secret showing on their face as everyone realizes exactly what it means to be raped, abused and trafficked. Guiffre's abuse started when she was young and was perpetrated by her father and her father's friend. How many families carry those secrets? (Actually this book is extremely triggering. I would not recommend it to somebody with suppressed and/or open wounds.)
The book I want to read in a few years is about how women were viewed by White House Maga, how women were expected to act, how wives subsumed to their powerful husbands, and how many of those wives have escaped. Some women are volunteers, like that nasty press agent, and some women are trapped, like, I believe, Usha Vance. Get their stories when they are ready to talk. That's the real story I want to hear from Melania, not some bullshit fairy tale as told by pervy Brett Ratner and the grossest gold digger of all time.
Trump wants all females to be 16 years old with lots of make up on and not much else. Read his poem on Epstein's birthday letter. Then read between the lines.
Whether you read between the lines or work behind the scenes, the trenches have been the same for centuries. Most every social worker knows. This is not a new ballgame. But it certainly is far less secretive ..in your face and go ahead try to sue me..is near blatant.
Window dressing has ,as has make-up tummy tucks-boob jobs ,smiling cons, or Mother Nature ..raped anything they could forever, selling what looks good on paper appealing. Technology made it easier.
Striving for equality is admirable, the hippies had utopian dreams, then turned on and fell out of a rat race. Near everything was resourced abroad , the rich got richer. The facts still remain though, the happier countries keep balance best practice.
The writing has ,as stated in this post, been going on hard for 40+ (+++++) years , the middle class hollowed, our #1 status down to 18-30th, our over health statistics worst of the civilized ( loose interpretation) nations, and our world climate on a precipitous brink , but a lot of people would prefer to hear the fantasy “we’re doing just fine,the best ever..” and the famous..”trust me”.
Have a nice Sunday
I wondered about asbestos abatement in the White House. Too much HGTV trying to dodge apocalyptic news flashes about starvation and death by insurance. Well, time to glean the fields for dinner and look for roots to eat to lower my blood pressure. Thanks, Mary.
On the lighter side (sorry), my husband put a set of old folk songs on to play and some of them reminded me of Mary’s fire and your fight. We fought off the Right wing a few years ago with people power (the French were revolting again, against the Le Pen Right wing embezzlers). 22 were found guilty and she is currently banned from standing for public office. The polls showed her party well ahead and People Power got the vote changed. I hope at some point you all get justice.
What you describe isn’t just policy failure — it’s the performance art of indifference. The cruelty is deliberate, ritualized, and public. A government that withholds food and medicine while throwing galas for oligarchs isn’t broken; it’s functioning exactly as designed....and cruelty IS the point
https://jaywilson1.substack.com/p/a-masterclass-in-cruelty?r=10sd39
I’m pleased to see that at least one “media outlet” (ie yours) has stated for the record that the inflation figures are bullshit. I’ve been wondering about that for many months.
I’m not paying higher prices in America (because I don’t live there) but I watch a lot of YouTube videos which contain compilations of people carrying their cameras around supermarkets and recording themselves in their cars lamenting about paying a small fortune for a measly number of grocery items.
I was experiencing cognitive dissonance each time I saw the “official” inflation numbers. I actually began to wonder whether the peeps reporting on their personal circumstances in my “informal” sources of information were exaggerating.
I obviously dismiss everything Trump says about the price of the word he brought back to modern parlance - “groceries”. And I find it unfathomable that his cult followers can’t see that he’s lying through his teeth when they compare the rosey picture he paints to the rising price of eggs. Fuck they must be stupid.
But, until I read your latest, I was properly confused about the crevasse between the inflation figures being quoted everywhere and the stories from the peeps at the check out.
That part of my mind can now relax while the other parts worry harder for Americans that the circulating propaganda has now reached a whole new level.
i have long believed that no one in a position of power (i.e., the rich) really believe the "trickle down theory" or Laffer's curve or which ever euphemism you care to use. it makes a great story to give some plausibility for stuffing their pockets. it has not worked, never did, and is the modern right wing equivalent to selling snake oil... by the time you wake up to the fact that you have been had, i will be out of town counting my ill gotten gains... trump has thrown out all the law, all decency, any pretext of caring for the common citizen... what just astounds me is that all the while he has his hands in their pockets (and in the case of women, perhaps just a bit lower) people still praise him.. his popularity is low, but who the hell is the stupid 37%??? i get the uber rich thinking he is doing a fine job, but that is only a few percent... the rest are just getting fleeced.. and i have no idea why Schumer capitulated on this... i have the sneaking suspicion so that they will reopen congress prior to Dec 2nd special election so they can force the vote on the Epstein papers. of course nothing will be released as it will not get past the senate nor the presidents desk... but "we showed them!!!" we showed who does not support the release of the files.. i also suspect that anything and everything in them that implicates trump or other far right people has long since been destroyed... what is it going to take to fix all this?