We're coming down to the wire on Trumpolini's "Big Beautiful Ugly Bill", which besides cutting taxes for the rich will eviscerate Medicaid, which a huge number of low income people depend on to supplement Medicare, particularly in Alaska.  It remains to be seen whether Lisa Murkowski will vote against it, but even if she does it will take an additional 2 as yet unidentified Repugnants to vote no to crash the bill.

Yours truly of course is one of the folks depending on Medicaid. and I have no idea how it plays out for me if it passes.  No idea where the line will be drawn on who gets cut or whether the state will cough up money to fill in.  I do know if I get cut it will also cut many of the other residents of the Gulag with me, and how this place would stay open is a mystery.  Very exciting. lol.

https://alaskabeacon.com/2025/06/30/senate-moves-toward-final-vote-on-big-budget-bill-with-alaska-at-the-forefront/

US Senate moves toward final vote on big budget bill, with Alaska at the forefront

RE

Looks more and more likely Trumpolini's Big Ugly Bill will pass, which means now the question is how it will all end up playing out.  Obviously the 16M people about to lose their Medical Coverage will be none too happy, but since they're low income people with zero political power their complaints won't bother his Trumpness much.  More bothersome will be how the Bond Vigilantes react to the additional $3T in debt he'll have to sell to pay for making the rich richer?  Who wwill buy this toilet paper?  Perhaps with the Trump brand name plastered on the bonds the MAGAotts will buy them as collector's items?

Anyhow, the operative word of the week is UGLY.  It's gonna get ugly out there.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/03/trump-budget-bill

'It's harsh. I mean, brutal': Trump bill to cause most harm to America's poorest

RE

The most detailed and credible analysis of the projected mortality impact of the "One Big Beautiful Bill" comes from Yale University researchers, whose findings are cited across multiple sources in search results.

Annual Death Toll: 51,000 Americans

Have we ever seen that before?

HO Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh -- Ho Ho Ho Donald Trump

Tax cuts, spending hikes on defense and border security, and cuts to social safety nets in one 📦 giant package.

And America is without a political party that will work for those in need.


And that is why this is the Doomstead Diner.

5 points if you spot the mistake in the math.  No 10 points, because if you point the mistake out and solve this puzzle my point is only made stronger.

The Psychological Tactics Behind Republican Work Requirements in Social Programs

Republican lawmakers have long championed work requirements for social programs like Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), and housing assistance. These policies are framed as promoting self-sufficiency and personal responsibility, but a deeper analysis show psychological and rhetorical strategies to advance broader political and economic goals. A deliberate use of psychological and rhetorical strategies intended to blow smoke up your ass.

Republicans consistently frame work requirements as a way to restore dignity and encourage self reliance echoing America's cultural emphasis on individualism.  Republicans define welfare as a handout that must be earned. 

Bill Clinton's Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act imposed strict work requirements for welfare.  Bill shifted the Overton window and Republican Propaganda became Democratic Party Propaganda.  He significantly changed the way the Democratic Party was funded by modernizing its fundraising strategy and embracing large-scale, corporate-style donor operations that had previously been more associated with the Republican Party. I leave it to you to connect the dots.

Ending welfare as we know it played into narratives about lazy welfare queens, a racially charged stereotype popularized by Ronald Reagan involving several Cadillac cars, a fat woman, and lots of kids.  None of the stereotype was true. Most welfare recipients already worked, but the law led to deep cuts in assistance without significantly improving any employment outcome due to a paperwork trap that made benefits hard to get.

Republican lawmakers argue that Medicaid expansion under the ACA discourages work, despite studies showing 92% of Medicaid recipients who can work already do.  They simply can't afford private insurance.  They do not make enough money.  Framing the issue as moral rather than economic, Republicans bait and switch.  The switch avoids any talk of stagnant wages, lack of childcare, and the realities of gig work, which does not at the end of the day, pay.

Work requirements exploit deep-seated cognitive biases to make asshole policies seem reasonable.  It is done to make shit smell good.

If someone looses benefits, it's assumed they did something wrong.  The system is rigged so people loose benefits in a red tape paperwork trap.  Low wages, disabilities, no fucking jobs, are considerations that are not talked about.  With the onus of responsibility moved, it is assumed that everyone can easily comply with work requirements.

The Arkansas' Medicaid Work Requirement (2018) shows otherwise.  The state imposed a 20-hour a week work requirement for Medicaid. 18,000 people lost coverage for failing to report their hours.  People working could not jump through the hoops.  Sick people could not do the paperwork.

Republicans do not care.  They just say everybody dies.

Trump's new law strips coverage, jacks up costs, and risks 200,000 deaths

Various estimates have come dropping in for the potential death count resultant from the Big Ugly Bill, starting down around the ridiculously low figure of 50K.  How do you count up such a number?  Which deaths do you attribute to lack of access to care when hospitals close?  Which from peoplee who choose not to go to the doctor because they know they can't afford it?  Over what time period are you measuring this death toll?

Suffice it to say, the numbers are likely gross under estimates, but one thing is clear.  The death toll whatever it is will fall disproportionately on the poor.  The effects however won't stop there, since a huge number of middle class families of health care workers get paid by the medicaid budget.

Whatever it ends up being will take quite a while to play out.  Unpleasaantt time.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-medicaid-big-beautiful-bill-americans-uninsured-1235379423/

Trump's Big Bill Will Make Americans Uninsured Again

RE

The OBBBA's Medicaid cuts are catastrophic in scale, with 11.8M–17M losing coverage, 1M+ jobs vanishing, and $100B+ in economic activity evaporating annually.

Rural areas and vulnerable populations (disabled, elderly, children) will bear the brunt.

First wave:  Administrative disruptions and provider strain (2025–2026)
Second wave: Mass coverage losses and job cuts (2026–2027)
Third wave:  Economic collapse in vulnerable states (2028–2034)

Not like stats from the Bureau of Lies & Statistics have ever represented reality very well, but at least there was some consistency in how the numbers were tallied up.  Now there will be a new variable introduced monthly, the Trumpnomics Fudge Factor or TFF.  The raw data will be processed monthly  and forwarded to the WH, where Trump will take out his calculator and multiply it by the TFF to get the final Big, Beautiful Employment stat proving the economy is the Greatest Ever!

Can't wait till he replaces the Fed Chairman with another ass kisser.  The Big, Beatiful Economy will be growing exponentially on paper while the number of Going Out of Bizness signs on Main Street grow exponentially in reality.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/04/politics/trump-job-numbers-federal-reserve-analysis

Trump's rewriting of reality on jobs numbers is chilling, but it could backfire

RE

Rewriting of reality on jobs numbers is chilling, and so is this:  Teflon Trump slides by because American Laws do not anticipate the idiocy of the outrageous.

Parts of Constitution disappear from government site.

QuoteIt was a coding error. They said, "It has been brought to our attention that some sections of article 1 are missing from the Constitution annotated website.




We've learned that this is due to a coding error. We have been working to correct this and expect it to be resolved soon.

A coding error!  BULLSHIT It took five minutes for me to find and post a reliable PDF.


Why would this happen.  It is almost like new ICE hires will have to uphold the constitutions as defined at the official website.

And not the fake news copies that are posted everywhere else!


You do not need the glasses to see what they are doing, and who they are.


Every time the motherfucker plays golf he is talking to the mother ship.

So if the Tariffs are ILLEGAL, he broke the LAW.  Since it involves BILLIONS, it's a FELONY.  Doesn't that fit into the category of HIGH CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS?

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/most-trump-tariffs-are-not-legal-us-appeals-court-rules-2025-08-29/

RE

Quote from: RE on Aug 30, 2025, 01:44 AMSo if the Tariffs are ILLEGAL, he broke the LAW.  Since it involves BILLIONS, it's a FELONY.  Doesn't that fit into the category of HIGH CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS?
RE

No. More specifically, no more than other Presidents who did some stupid shit that a court said was bad.I mean seriosly RE, the country was founded on "We The People" and forgot to mention that it didn't include them colored folk. Or women. Or poor folk.

None of them being people apparently.

You have to be high to know it is not a crime.

Quote from: K-Dog on Aug 30, 2025, 04:42 PMYou have to be high to know it is not a crime.

No, I am not railing through a 80mph corner on a racetrack waiting for the front or the rear to begin to slide. The only "high" I have ever known. Maybe winning cross country races in high school and college? That was pretty euphoric. But being so out of sorts that I need artificial help with feeling better? Nope.

In either case, my point was more, he isn't the first asshat President to do something that has been brushed back by the courts. Truman's seizures of steel mills? Roosevelts New Deal programs? I imagine someone in the moment might have thought those Presidential actions were out of the line, the courts did as well. Maybe even trumpeted high crimes and misdeameanors. So now its the Orange One's turn to see how far he can stretch his wings.

Crimes are also relevant within historical context. John Brown was hung for treason. But he was right. I imagine the opposite has happened as well.

American history is replete with not just our inconsistencies, but our need to lie, boast, bleat like sheep when we disagree and trumpet triumphs that involve killing off fellow citizens that aren't even considered bad in the moment.  1921 Tulsa Race massacre. Happy times for white folk!

America....land of the free and home of the brave. More like land we stole from the locals and then he who murdered the most along the way who had the most money made the rules.

Maybe folks need to be high to firmly insist on the a position or a side in this country, because cold hard logic sure isn't much fun when looking at current political leaders, or past ones.

A question among the more politically oriented....who was the last decent President? I mean, a DECENT person, someone most certainly not from our modern crop of scumbags and glad handers looking for power and prestige?

Jimmy Carter?

Quote from: TDoS on Aug 30, 2025, 05:27 PMNo, I am not railing through a 80mph corner on a racetrack waiting for the front or the rear to begin to slide. The only "high" I have ever known. Maybe winning cross country races in high school and college? That was pretty euphoric. But being so out of sorts that I need artificial help with feeling better? Nope.

Never had a glass of wine?

Goes a long way toward explaining the stick stuck up your ass.



RE

Quote from: RE on Aug 31, 2025, 10:34 AMNever had a glass of wine?

Nope. No beer. No cigarettes. No weed. No pills. I objected to prescription medication until I got gout in my 40's. Was quite anomalous growing up in the hills and mt friends first thought it was funny, and then tried to get me to participate, and then gave up.

And then I discovered motorcycles and it was game over for thinking artificial means could ever replace the feeling of dancing at the edge with every sense heightened and screaming information and guess what?

Drugs are a crutch of some sort. Difficulty in dealing with a life that didn't go as planned? Difficulty with a reality that doesn't recognize their abilities, assuming they were even there to recognize? To compensate for lack of...something? Anything? Robin Williams used drugs to alleviate mental issues to begin with.

Hunter had it more right, and when he got it right, he certainly allowed for the use of drugs in this quote I suppose. But once you watch and see who uses them, what it does to them, his theme certainly doesn't REQUIRE them to arrive at the right mental attitude. Never seen drugs do much good, but the latest SOuth Park episode and what drugs did to them? An absolute riot....and quite illustrious.

Quote from: REGoes a long way toward explaining the stick stuck up your ass.

Nah. That comes from a lifetime of delivering results, and the confidence that comes with it.

[/quote]

Quote from: TDoS on Aug 31, 2025, 03:04 PMThat comes from a lifetime of delivering results, and the confidence that comes with it.

Doubtful.  If you didn't drink beer in college, the stick was already up your ass.  I'd bet you were a prick in preschool.

RE