[RE]

Here's where the rubber meets the road as far as RE is concerned.  Big cuts to Medicaid would almost certainly directly affect my situation in all sorts of ways.  If I am cut, no way can I remain in my current living situation.  Even if not though, its bound to affect how this entire business functions, because probably 95% of the residents here are covered by Medicaid.  The place was recently sold, and the new corporation already has cut staff ratios below the generally accepted levels to increase profits.  There's not much room for cost cutting.

Regardless of the reimbursements, legally speaking they're not allowed to put you on the street with no housing, so I'm not yet worried about a sudden eviction.  Just have to play it by ear.

Trump's Medicaid Cuts Would Leave Millions of Americans Without Health Care

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/trump-republican-medicaid-cuts-health-disability/

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[RE]

Here is a demoographic I do NOT feel sorry for.  This is eternal justice at work. 

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-02-26/federal-job-cuts-hit-trump-supporters

They voted for Trump, but now they're losing their U.S. government jobs

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[RE]

Cross "checks & balances" off the list of features of the Amerikan system of goobermint.  The rule of law does not apply to the POTUS.

https://www.vox.com/donald-trump/404665/trump-defy-supreme-court-alawieh-deportation

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[K-Dog]

Cross "checks & balances" off the list of features of the Amerikan system of goobermint.  The rule of law does not apply to the POTUS.

https://www.vox.com/donald-trump/404665/trump-defy-supreme-court-alawieh-deportation

RE

A federal judge on Monday questioned whether the Trump administration ignored his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador, a possible violation of the decision he'd issued minutes before.

District Judge James E. Boasberg was incredulous over the administration's contentions that his verbal directions did not count, that only his written order needed to be followed, that it couldn't apply to flights that had left the U.S. and that the administration could not answer his questions about the deportations due to national security issues.

His I.C.E. goons are deporting people illegally.  And it looks like Trump's El Salvador mercenary, Nayib Bukele    knows what to do with them when they get there.  Six million dollars can shave a lot of heads.  A whole years worth.  Likely only the start of a gravy train.


* Trump says he's ending Secret Service protection for Biden's adult children

If you ever wondered what the term 'Hater' means.  Trump be one.

[K-Dog]

Time for a:



Where I got the artwork.  Some forgotten American history.

On the morning of February 6, 1919, Seattle, a city of 315,000 people, stopped working. 25,000 other union members had joined 35,000 shipyard workers already on strike. The city's AFL unions, 101 of them, had voted to walk out in a gesture of support and solidarity. And most of the remaining work force stayed home as stores closed and streetcars stopped running.

Trump is crashing everything, and the modern equivalent would stop Trump dead in his tracks.

[RE]

If Trump follows thru on this threat, there will be total anarchy.  Even just the threat should be making any sane person quake in their boots.

I'm wondering how Repugnant CONgres Critters will react to this?  Not to mention the MAGA faithful.  A LOT of them are on SS.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/21/social-securitys-lee-dudek-raises-concerns-following-judges-restraining-order.html

RE

[K-Dog]

If Trump follows thru on this threat, there will be total anarchy.

There will be civil war.

Athena was in Portland, Seattle had the CHAZ or CHOP or whatever you want to call it.  Trump created a powder keg and George Floyd was the trigger.

Trump's response to police killing threatens to further deepen unrest in America, Democrats and Republicans say   <--- May 31, 2020

All Trump can do is divide people.  His skill as a manipulator depends on scapegoats.  But as the first rule of stupidity is always to underestimate the number of stupid people, Teflon Don will likely slide for a while longer.  Would Satan wear a nice suit and have a nice smile?  Of course he would.  He would probably smell good too.

But the time will come.

Just a small town girl living in a lonely world....  The music.    Over played as hell but I still like it.

[RE]

Sadly but not surprisingly Columbia (mostly) capitulated to Trumpolini's  diktats, although they tried to walk a tightropee on the "Academic Receivership" demand just by appointing someone to review the department's policies.  Whether that is sufficient for his Trumpness remains to be seen.  They also tiptoed around banning masks, which they only did if it was "for the purpose of hiding identity".  Medical and religious face coverings still allowed.  This renders the ban close to worthless.

Columbia doesn't want to lose the $400M in funding, which even with their endowment is a huge pill to swallow.  Just about everyone in the academic community is disappointed, but they're not the ones who will lose the money (yet).  I think they hope by giving in partially, it will satisfy Der Fuehrer, but it probably won't.  He's certain to keep going after the other schools, even if he accepts this from Columbia.  We'll have to see if Harvard has more backbone.  They definitely have more money.

It's definitely time for national level action from students and faculty.  We're going to need Vietnam era style demonstrations for this to get general attention, most people in the MAGA camp despise academia and could care less about academic freedom.  Do Gen Z students care about it?  Dunno.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/columbia-research-takes-immediate-hit-trump-funding-cuts-2025-03-21/

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[RE]

It didn't take long for the Crisis Creation Team to walk back the SS Shutdown threat.  Probably every Repugnant CONgress Critter shit the bed when they read that one.  Switchboard at the White House must have lit up like a Christmas Tree.

Of course, this was only the opening salvo.  I'm sure there will be more to come.

Judge slams Social Security chief for agency shutdown 'threats' after ruling barring DOGE access

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[RE]

Can't win in the courts?  Get rid of them!

Fascism on steroids.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/mike-johnson-congress-courts-trump

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[K-Dog]

For our post-truth word, some fiction:

The Privatized and Fascist States of America

The year was 2029. The American Experiment had ended.  Not with a bang, but corporate acquisition has trumped all freedom.

Following Donald Trump's re-election in 2024, the U.S. government underwent a radical transformation. With Elon Musk as Chief Efficiency Officer, Trump's unofficial but all-powerful special government employee, the new administration began the largest privatization scheme in history. Agencies deemed "inefficient" were sold to the highest bidder. Social Security was acquired by Meta. The U.S. Postal Service? is replaced by Tesla Logistics. The Federal Reserve is gone and a new digital currency run by an AI, " $TRUMP dollars" takes its place.  With a picture of the smiling orange motherfucker on every god-dammed digital wallet.  This is required by law.

At first, markets surged. Investors celebrated. America became a corporate utopia, innovation replaced bureaucracy and stimulus checks squelched any resistance to Trump's profit of plunder.

By 2026, cracks began to show. California and New York, resisting federal mandates and the surging poverty, declared economic independence, refusing to recognize the authority of the newly privatized government.  California became fully independent while Texas unlike the rest of America, thrived. 

Fully embracing Musk's vision of a decentralized, crypto-backed society based on cultivated economic disparity, Texas became the go to place for slave labor and tax free profit.  The Texas economy boomed at the same time interstate trade collapsed.

Basic services became subscription-based. Water in Arizona became a premium commodity controlled by Amazon Aquatics.  Any emergency medical care required a Platinum + membership.  Nothing was free and Trump instituted an air tax on anybody deemed a useless eater.  $50 a month if your net worth was less than $1,000,000 or if your politics were considered "progressive".  The tax became known as the "progressive tax",  but nobody who had to pay it thought it was funny.

By 2028, Washington D.C. was an abandoned husk, its marble monuments covered by corporate branding. Power had moved to Austin, where Trump, Musk, and their billionaire council presided over the fragmented remains of a once-united nation, fully protected by their mercenary armies of private police.

Their Privatized States of America restored the age of great robber barons.  For a small few America was great once again.

But not everyone was happy with the changes. A resistance movement, inspired by abandoned and outdated ideals of democracy and fueled by daddy issues with the big orange daddy, emerged in the Rust Belt.

Led by ex-government officials and the legion of unemployed.  The resistance sought to reestablish a public government, battling AI-controlled security forces and corporate mercenary forces. Their leader, a former postal worker named Hope Dashed, spread propaganda through underground networks.  Distributing printed pamphlets which urged Americans to reject their status as "subscribers" and reclaim their rights as citizens.

California its own nation began to launch its own communication satellites unwilling to pay the Musk nut for use of Starlink in 2028.  A direct challenge to Musk's dominance Starlink satellites went dark in an attempt to bring California into submission as had been done successfully to Canada.  Armed skirmishes erupted along the Mississippi in the ensuing chaos.  The Mississippi is a de facto border between privatized corporate states and free territories.

Now as the battle for America's rages on, one question looms.

Will America find its way back from the brink, or is it destined to follow the Soviet Union's path.   Fragmented, leaderless, impoverished, and lost to history?

It appears to be so.  Millions now die.

[RE]

Not gonna see campus rebellions like  1968 this time round.  By targeting the immigrants and foreign students, Trump has successfully put the fear of deportation and imprisonment in the people protesting.  This has divided the community into a them and us situation, demonizing the foreigners.  During Vietnam, protesters might get arrested, but they weren't being deported to jails in El Salvador.  The risks this time around are substantially larger.

I suspect with Peaceful Protest now off the table, we'll see a rise in bombings and violent actions to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians.  This in turn will result in even more repression.  Civil War seems inevitable.



At Columbia University, Trump's crackdown chills a fervent campus

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/columbia-university-protests-trump-crackdown-rcna198016

[K-Dog]

El Salvador.

Indeed 'Gitmo' is now privatized.  New and improved and more EFFICIENT   than a fucking NAZI gas chamber.  Add in a few of the more native American, latino looking DACA Dreamers to start with next. Then when there is not a peep from anyone, add in Joe next door.  Put him on the list.  Native born corn fed Scots-Irish too.  Come one come all.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out.  Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out.  Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

The rank and file of MAGA slowly wakes up.  But the full realization that Trump never gave a fuck about them, they will not realize in time.  Not until it is too late.  The truth can be painful, and we all avoid pain.

Some veterans in MAGA have reached a point where they are thinking.  'He does not get it.  Somebody needs to tell him stuff, and as soon as Trump understands he will do the right thing.

In a case of such total delusion, coming to one's senses can be painfully slow.

[RE]

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out.  Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out.  Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

Niemoller's quote is getting a lot of play these days.  Of course the MAGAotts figure they're safe because they're old white folks.  Wait till their Social Security checks go missing and nobody answers the phone on the help line.

The whole idea that Ph.D, candidates at Ivy League schools are a threat to National Security is utterly preposterous.  All that is happening here is like any Totalitarian state, dissent is being crushed.  Same as Stalin sending Solzhenitsyn to the Gulag.  ICE is Trump's Stazi & KGB.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/28/rumeysa-ozturk-tufts-trump-immigration-gaza

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[RE]

As I mentioned when Columbia responded to Trumpolini's demands originally, they were attempting to appear to acquiese without going the full 9 yards on Academic Reeceivership or masks.  It was questionable whether it would be enough to satisfy His Trumpness, and clearly so far it hasn't been.  The $400M is still being held hostage, and my guess is rather than further capitulate, the interim Prez decided to resign and hand off the thankless job to somebody else.

Faculty and students are already unhappy, so further actions to get the money released likely won't go over well.  So they need a new tactic.

Rather than demonstrations, a Student-Faculty Strike would be worth a try, particularly since they would likely get support from the other Ivies.    They also have to make thee narrative about Freedom of Speech and not about Palestinian genocide.

It will be interesting to see what the new interim Prez does now.  Definitely a job with no upside.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/28/columbia-university-katrina-armstrong

RE