California, Oregon and Washington Ally on Vaccines in Rebuke to Trump’s CDC

  

Gavin Newsom speaks in San Francisco, California, on 22 August 2025. (photo: Getty)

 

“Vaccines are among the most powerful tools in modern medicine; they have indisputably saved millions of lives."  

 

Lauren Gambino / Guardian UK 04 September 25

 

The governors of California, Oregon and Washington announced on Wednesday the creation of a West Coast Health Alliance aimed at safeguarding access to vaccines, amid growing turmoil at the nation’s top public health agency under the leadership of Robert F Kennedy Jr.

In a joint press release, Governors Gavin Newsom of California, Tina Kotek of Oregon, and Bob Ferguson of Washington said the CDC had become a “political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science”.

“President Trump’s mass firing of CDC doctors and scientists – and his blatant politicization of the agency – is a direct assault on the health and safety of the American people,” the Democratic governors said in a joint statement, adding: “California, Oregon, and Washington will not allow the people of our states to be put at risk.”

The move comes days after the White House forced out the newly confirmed director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Susan Monarez, who had clashed with Kennedy, Trump’s secretary of the US health and human services department (HHS), over his efforts to reshape federal vaccine policies in ways that contradict established scientific research. 

Her firing, just weeks after her confirmation, prompted several senior officials to resign in protest and has led to rising calls from lawmakers, scientists and former agency employees for Kennedy to step down. Monarez was replaced by a Trump loyalist with no medical or scientific background.

He argued that the organization’s “dysfunction” was responsible for “irrational policy” during the Covid pandemic, leading to a disproportionately large number of deaths recorded in the US compared with the global average.

In a statement, an HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon, blamed Democrats’ response to the Covid-19 pandemic for undermining public trust in vaccine policy, and said federal immunization recommendations would continue to be “based on rigorous evidence and Gold Standard Science, not the failed politics of the pandemic”.

“Democrat-run states that pushed unscientific school lockdowns, toddler mask mandates, and draconian vaccine passports during the Covid era completely eroded the American people’s trust in public health agencies,” he said.

The newly formed West Coast Health Alliance will coordinate health guidance across the three states, including evidence-based immunization recommendations. Officials say the effort is intended to provide residents with access to consistent and credible information about vaccines in the absence of reliable federal leadership.

According to the announcement, the alliance will release a set of shared principles in the coming weeks. While the states will share immunization recommendations, they will also pursue independent strategies based on their “unique laws, geographies, histories, and peoples” and with respect to Tribal sovereignty.

The three states registered their concern over Kennedy’s leadership in June, when they jointly condemned his abrupt removal of all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices – a group long considered central to vaccine safety oversight. 

In announcing the new alliance, the governors said they were acting to protect the health of the tens of millions of residents across California, Oregon and Washington, pledging that public health guidance would be shaped by “science-driven decision-making”. Without consistent, evidence-based leadership from the federal government, they warned, the nation’s health security was increasingly at risk.

Their action comes on the same day as more than 1,000 past and present HHS employees published a letter calling for Kennedy’s resignation. It comes two days after nine former CDC officials wrote in a New York Times guest essay that Kennedy’s leadership, and ousting of Monarez, months after he appointed her, was “unacceptable” and “unlike anything we have ever seen”.

It also marks a stark departure from some Republican-led states that have moved to loosen – or eliminate entirely – certain vaccine mandates. On Wednesday, the Florida state surgeon general announced that children will no longer be required to receive vaccines against preventable diseases including measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio and hepatitis. And earlier this summer, a new law took effect in Idaho removing the requirement for children to be vaccinated to attend schools in the state.

Public health officials in California, Oregon and Washington warned of an erosion of trust in vaccines.

“Our communities deserve clear and transparent communication about vaccines – communication grounded in science, not ideology,” Sejal Hathi, the director of the Oregon health authority, said in a statement. “Vaccines are among the most powerful tools in modern medicine; they have indisputably saved millions of lives. But when guidance about their use becomes inconsistent or politicized, it undermines public trust at precisely the moment we need it most.”

It it quacks, it's probably a quack.

Nearly 1,000 ‘Worker Over Billionaire’ Actions Planned for Labor Day in US

   

Care workers protest proposed cuts to Medicaid in Washington DC on 23 June 2025. (photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty)

Rallies from Alaska to Hawaii will highlight cuts to wages, unions and social safety nets under Trump policies

 Michael Sainato The Guardian

Nearly 1,000 “worker over billionaire” protests are being planned in all 50 states starting this weekend as part of a Labor Day week of action organized by labor unions and advocacy groups in opposition to the Trump administration’s policies.

The actions include marches and rallies in cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, a Labor Day parade in New York City, rallies in Palmer, Alaska, Freeport, Maine, and a planned protest at the state capitol in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The protests are organized by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, and dozens of partner organizations, including Public Citizen, Indivisible, Democracy Forward, MoveOn and Patriotic Millionaires.

“This is about organic, grassroots organizing, and we intentionally wanted it to be outside of Washington DC, because that’s where the impacts are being felt,” Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said.

“Whether it’s teachers or nurses or construction workers, they’re all determined to stand up and fight back, because they’re experiencing the cuts, they’re experiencing the change in policies, they’re experiencing the attacks of this White House on their unions, and so they’re determined to make their voices heard and mobilize to fight forward regardless of what’s happening around us, no matter the obstacles.”

Among the policies being protested are the Trump administration’s attempts to rescind collective bargaining rights from 1 million federal workers, the largest single act of union busting in US history, a cut to minimum wage requirements for federal contractors from $17.75 an hour to $13.30 an hour, a proposed rule to eliminate federal minimum wage and overtime protections for 3.7 million childcare and home care workers, and the rescission of a minimum wage requirement for disabled workers.

The actions come as public support for labor unions remains strong. A national poll conducted by the AFL-CIO and David Binder Research found trust in labor unions is at 55% – larger than the 36% of respondents who said they trusted the Democratic party and the 35% of respondents who said they trusted the Republican party.

“People are waking up to the fact we don’t have to just sit back and take it and the labor movement is the place to go to channel that activism, to build what’s next and we’re putting forward a vision for what the economy can be,” added Shuler.

“When people see tanks rolling into Washington DC, when we were promised lower costs, they’re like, this makes no sense,” said Shuler. “We’re getting billionaires standing up at the front row of the inauguration, basically taking over agencies, our economy and our country. So I think that no matter what party you belong to, that is a unifying thing that everybody wants, the freedom, fairness and security that all working people deserve.”

“The billionaire agenda, the corruption we’re seeing, is changing the way government is functioning. It’s leading to real-time and impactful ramifications for regular people,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen. “The gutting of Medicaid, all the firings we’ve seen of federal workers, the ravaging of families through Ice raids. It’s just all coming together to cause people to stand up and say, ‘we are the people of this country. It is workers over billionaires.’”

Gilbert noted they currently have 984 events scheduled, with the aim to reach over 1,000 by Labor Day, a mass organizing effort that has been weeks in the making.

“We’ve been standing together over and over again to talk about the authoritarian slide that this administration is ushering in in our country. We expect a lot of energy this weekend. This is really just the beginning of an ongoing fight against what’s being taken away from regular people,” she said.

First she killed her dog, now innocent children: You won't believe how badly Kristi Noem bungled Texas flood response

   

Kristi Noem and Cricket in happier times, before the deadly trip to the landfill.

 

Didn't approve rescue teams for 3 days 

 

By Emily Singer

Daily Kos Staff 

Thursday, July 10, 2025 at 10:30:12a MDT

 

REPUBLISHED BY:

Blue Country Gazette Blog

Rim Country Gazette Blog 

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's cost-cutting measures at the Federal Emergency Management Agency slowed search and rescue efforts in Texas by 72 hours, possibly costing some of the at least 120 lives lost in the devastating natural disaster, CNN reported.

According to CNN, Noem created a new policy that requires her to personally sign off on any costs greater than $100,000. The Urban Search and Rescue crews seeking to be deployed to the Texas Hill Country—where hundreds of people were swept away by the rapidly rising rivers after heavy rainstorms—met that criteria.

But CNN reported that Noem didn't approve the deployment of those search and rescue crews until Monday—three days after the floods swept through Texas.

From CNN’s report:

As central Texas towns were submerged in rising waters, FEMA officials realized they couldn’t pre-position Urban Search and Rescue crews from a network of teams stationed regionally across the country.

In the past, FEMA would have swiftly staged these teams, which are specifically trained for situations including catastrophic floods, closer to a disaster zone in anticipation of urgent requests, multiple agency sources told CNN.

But even as Texas rescue crews raced to save lives, FEMA officials realized they needed Noem’s approval before sending those additional assets. Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began, multiple sources told CNN.

DHS tried to deny that Noem’s incompetence hindered the search and rescue efforts. But their denial actually proved the CNN story.

DHS said in a post on X, “President Trump approved a Major Disaster Declaration, hours after Governor Greg Abbott’s request. By Tuesday, FEMA had deployed 311 staffers, providing support and shelter for hundreds of people. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS is reforming FEMA to prioritize state-led, locally executed disaster response, as Texas has exemplified.”

That means that CNN’s report was correct, that it took until Tuesday for FEMA to deploy the search and rescue teams.

Noem appeared on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, where she was asked about the CNN report. But instead of providing evidence that she swiftly approved the search and rescue teams, she only attacked CNN—classic deflection that did not actually deny the report.

“CNN has a report accusing you of slowing the process in Texas,” one of the hosts asked Noem, to which she replied, “Well there you go. Fake news CNN is absolutely trash, what they are doing.”

Noem, for her part, has implemented the cost-cutting measures in DHS that hamstrung the search and rescue efforts in Texas even as she spends hundreds of millions galavanting around the country and globe cosplaying for PR stunts and visiting the torture camps she's gleefully sending immigrants to.

A Wall Street Journal report from April said Noem spent $9 million on a television ad advising immigrants to self-deport.

She also sported a $50,000 Rolex watch on a visit to the CECOT prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration illegally deported immigrants against court orders. Noem is also seeking a $50 million private jet to transport her to the stunts she's carrying out.

Turns out, Noem cares more about creating torture porn than she does about saving lives.

Below: Kristi Noem and her $50,000 Rolex watch pose in front of prisoners deported to El Salvador without due process.  Too bad for Cricket.  Her dead dog would be better off in El Salvador.

SENATE PASSES BIG BULLSHIT BILL: JD Vance says millions losing health insurance is 'immaterial'

 

Vice President JD Vance doesn't care about 17 million Americans losing their health insurance.

 

"Republicans are about to force the largest loss of health care in American history — and they clearly couldn’t care less...." 

 

By Emily Singer 

Daily Kos Staff

July 2, 2025 

 

REPUBLISHED BY:

Blue Country Gazette Blog

Rim Country Gazette Blog 

By Emily Singer Daily Kos Staff Senate Republicans barely got the votes on Tuesday to pass the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” Act—which could lead to roughly 17 million people losing their health insurance, cause millions more to have their food stamps yanked away, and cause energy prices to skyrocket.

Vice President JD Vance sought to get GOPers on board by saying that all of those negative things are just "immaterial" "minutiae" compared to the money the bill provides to help Republicans deport immigrants.

"The thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy is flooding the country with illegal immigration and then giving those migrants generous benefits. The OBBB fixes this problem. And therefore it must pass," Vance wrote in a post on X. "Everything else—the [Congressional Budget Office] score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy—is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions."

---

Related | Senate GOP races to pass bill that screws everyone but the rich

---

Not only is Vance's statement absurd as he claims that actively harming the poorest among us is not important, but his statement is also false.

The nonpartisan CBO has said immigrants actually help lower budget deficits.

"People are rightly noting that kicking millions off of Medicaid is not 'minutiae,' but the premise is wrong here too. Of the reasons to deport undocumented immigrants, federal fiscal health is one of the worst ones. CBO found they *lower* deficits by ~$1T over the next 10 years," Ernie Tedeschi, director of the Budget Lab at Yale, wrote in a post on X. "That’s because undocumented immigrants tend to pay taxes funding programs like Medicare & Social Security (despite the stereotype, most undocumented immigrants who work are above the table) but are often ineligible to receive benefits."

Democrats immediately pointed out the cruelty of Vance's tweet

"The 17 MILLION Americans you’re kicking off their health insurance aren’t 'minutiae,'" Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle, ranking member of the House Budget Committee, wrote in a post on X. "Republicans are about to force the largest loss of health care in American history — and they clearly couldn’t care less about working families."

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) pointed to one of his constituents who is at risk of losing his Medicaid coverage in his response to Vance's tweet.

"Ben, a disabled 14-year-old from Chesterfield, VA, isn’t 'minutiae,'" Warner wrote. "His health insurance isn’t minutiae. His future isn’t minutiae. Medicaid matters and I am fighting to protect it."

Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins have “serious reservations” about the bill.

Vance was needed to help Republicans pass the travesty of a bill with a 51-50 vote—which hurts the poor and working class in order to give tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the richest few. 

Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, all either said they were voting no or had “serious reservations” about the bill.

“As I've said from the beginning, I have a lot of serious reservations about the bill,” Collins told reporters Tuesday morning. “I'm going to wait ‘til we're done, know what direction we're going in, before announcing my position.”

Republicans tried to get Murkowski on board by making a specific carveout for Alaska that would keep the state from losing its Medicaid and food stamp benefits—while screwing everyone else.

There was also talk about trying to flip Paul to a yes by lowering the debt ceiling increase from $5 trillion to $500 billion.

However, Erik Wasson of Bloomberg News reported that Senate Majority Leader John Thune was confident he had a deal to get the bill to pass, though it’s unclear what that deal entails.

As we’ve said repeatedly, never bet against Republicans caving to Dear Leader’s will.

Editor’s note: This story was updated after the Senate passed the bill on Tuesday.

Will Trump's BBB spell the end of America as we knew it?  Have we become the land of the fearful and the home of the billionaires?

 

Elon Musk Allegedly Took Large Amounts of Drugs Including Ketamine While Advising Trump

 

Elon Musk reacts during a cabinet meeting at the White House. (photo: Reuters)

 

"World’s richest man regularly consumed ketamine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms"

 

Joseph Gedeon / Guardian UK 30 May 25

Elon Musk engaged in extensive drug consumption while serving as one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers, taking ketamine so frequently it caused bladder problems and traveling with a daily supply of approximately 20 pills, according to claims made to the New York Times.

The world’s richest man regularly consumed ketamine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms during his rise to political prominence, anonymous sources familiar with his activities told the Times. His drug use reportedly intensified as he donated $275m to Trump’s presidential campaign and later wielded significant power through his role spearheading the “department of government efficiency”, or Doge.

Musk announced his departure from government service on Wednesday evening, months after exhibiting erratic behavior including insulting cabinet members and making a Nazi-like salute at a political rally.

Ecstasy is classified by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as a Schedule I controlled substance with no accepted medical use, making it entirely prohibited for federal employees – though Musk has been classified as a “special government employee” and not subject to the same stringent rules as a regular employee.

While ketamine can be legally prescribed as a Schedule III substance, recreational use or mixing it with other drugs would probably violate federal workplace policies.

The Doge leader developed what those sources described to the Times as a serious ketamine habit, consuming the powerful anesthetic sometimes daily rather than the “small amount” taken “about once every two weeks” he claimed in interviews. “If you’ve used too much ketamine, you can’t really get work done, and I have a lot of work,” Musk previously told journalist Don Lemon in March 2024, downplaying his consumption.

However, by spring last year, the Times reports that Musk was telling associates his ketamine use was affecting his bladder – a known consequence of chronic abuse of the drug, which has psychedelic properties and can cause dissociation from reality, according to the DEA.

His regular medication box contained pills bearing Adderall markings alongside other substances, according to sources with the Times who have seen photographs of the container.

It remains unclear whether Musk was under the influence during his time at the White House, where he attended sensitive meetings with foreign leaders and held power over federal spending cuts.

The White House did not return a request for comment on whether Musk underwent drug testing despite his access to classified information.

SpaceX maintains strict drug-free workplace policies for employees due to its government contracts. However, those insiders tell the Times that Musk received advance warning of random drug tests – undermining their effectiveness.

Popular podcaster and public intellectual Sam Harris, who publicly ended his friendship with Musk, wrote in a January newsletter: “There is something seriously wrong with his moral compass, if not his perception of reality.”

How high was he?  Pictures don't lie.

'Confused, forgetful, incoherent': Move over, Joe

Trump's age-related decline documented in startling new report

Tom Boggioni

RAW STORY

October 6, 2024 1:22PM ET

Donald Trump's age-related issues, which have seemingly accelerated during his third run for the White House, received a thorough analysis by the New York Times on Sunday which came to the conclusion that the former president appears to have debilitating memory issues along with bouts of confusion.

Long criticized for blanket coverage of President Joe Biden's decline following his alarming debate performance with Trump in June that led to the president stepping aside for Vice President Kamala Harris to run in July, on Sunday the Times' Peter Baker and Dylan Freedman scrutinized Trump's downward spiral over time.

As they noted Trump recently rambled on about the audience at his debate with Harris applauding his every move –– despite the fact there was no audience.

ALSO READ: Why Trump is barely campaigning

As the report notes, "Anyone can misremember, of course. But the debate had been just a week earlier and a fairly memorable moment. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention."

Adding Trump "rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished," the Times reporters reported that an analysis of Trump's speeches before adoring crowds revealed some alarming signs of cognitive decline.

"Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like 'always' and 'never' than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age," the Times is reporting. "Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change."

According to one former ally who has known Trump for years, there are definitely signs of cognitive problems.

ALSO READ: Protesters outside New York Times demand newspaper 'stop normalizing Trump'

"He’s not competing at the level he was competing at eight years ago, no question about it,” explained Anthony Scaramucci. “He’s lost a step. He’s lost an ability to put powerful sentences together.”

Former Trump White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews agreed, telling the Times, "I don’t think anyone would ever say that Trump is the most polished speaker, but his more recent speeches do seem to be more incoherent, and he’s rambling even more so and he’s had some pretty noticeable moments of confusion. When he was running against Biden, maybe it didn’t stand out as much.”

With the Times report adding, "Experts said it was hard to judge whether the changes in Mr. Trump’s speaking style could indicate typical effects of age or some more significant condition," Dr. Bradford Dickerson, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School explained, "That can change with normal aging. But if you see a change relative to a person’s base line in that type of speaking ability over the course of just a few years, I think it raises some real red flags.”

"His speeches in 2015 and 2016 were more aggressive, but still clearer and more comprehensible than now, and balanced with flashes of humor," the report notes before cautioning, "Now his rallies are powered as much by anger as anything else. His distortions and false claims have reached new levels. His adversaries are 'lunatics' and 'deranged' and 'communists' and'“fascists.' Never particularly restrained, he now lobs four-letter words and other profanities far more freely. The other day, he suggested unleashing the police to inflict 'one really violent day' on criminals to deter crime."

Too long has lived the King.

 

Despite campaign promise, it only took two months for Trump and Musk to break Social Security

President Donald Trump lies to America as Elon Musk nods approval in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025.

Seems tax cuts for billionaires "Trump" a self-funded retirement program

 

By Emily Singer

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday, March 25, 2025 at 3:00:01p MDT

 

REPUBLISHED BY: 

Blue Country Gazette Blog 

Rim Country Gazette Blog

President Donald Trump and co-President Elon Musk's cuts to the Social Security Administration's workforce and operations have caused massive problems for the popular social safety net program that 73 million Americans depend on to afford their basic cost of living.

The Washington Post published a bombshell report on Tuesday, detailing the problems Musk has caused at the Social Security Administration through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

From the report:

The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers’ experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.

[…]

The turmoil is leaving many retirees, disabled claimants and legal immigrants who need Social Security cards with less access or shut out of the system altogether, according to those familiar with the problems.

The problems are thanks to a myriad of choices Musk has made to how the agency runs.

The Social Security Administration plans to cut roughly 7,000 employees—or 12% of its workforce—which current and former Social Security officials say could make it impossible for the program to keep up with the needs of the tens of millions of Americans who receive and apply for benefits annually.

“Everything they have done so far is breaking the agency’s ability to serve the public,” Martin O’Malley, who served as Social Security commissioner under former President Joe Biden, told The New York Times.

Musk and his DOGE bros also changed the way recipients can verify their identities to the agency, nixing the ability to do so over the phone and requiring the elderly and disabled people who receive benefits to do it either online or in-person. That’s an incredible burden for a population that is not as computer literate as others. It could also burden recipients who live in rural areas or areas with poor internet access. Going in person would be even more of a burden since many elderly and disabled recipients cannot travel to offices—if they could even get an appointment.

Demonstrators gather outside of the Edward A. Garmatz United States District Courthouse in Baltimore, on March 14, 2025, before a hearing regarding the Department of Government Efficiency's access to Social Security data.

A memo obtained by the newsletter Popular Information said the new identity-verification procedure would lead an additional 75,000 to 85,000 weekly visits to agency offices. In turn, that would lead to “longer wait times and processing times,” the memo said. Already, wait times for appointments can be more than a month.

Musk has had it out for Social Security since his buddy Trump put him in charge of finding waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.

Musk criticized the social safety net program as a “Ponzi scheme.” He lied that the program is rife with fraud—lies that have led eligible people to lose benefits. He also helped force out the acting Social Security administrator and replace him Leland Dudek, an unqualified hothead who has acted vindictively since taking over.

For example, Dudek canceled a contract that allowed new parents in Maine to apply for Social Security numbers for their newborn infants at the hospital—a move that would have forced those parents to travel to a Social Security office to obtain. He seemingly did it to punish Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who stood up to Trump at a meeting with governors.

Dudek also threatened to shut the entire Social Security Administration down because he was mad that a judge blocked DOGE officials from accessing Americans’ sensitive personal information as they sought to prove Musk’s baseless lies that the agency is rife with fraud.

Musk isn’t the only Trump administration official attacking Social Security.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick disparaged the program and accused anyone who has had problems receiving benefits as being "fraudsters."

"Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who's 94, she wouldn't call and complain. She just wouldn't. She thinks something got messed up and she'll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise screaming, yelling, and complaining. And all the guys who did PayPal, like Elon knows this by heart, right? Anybody who's been in the payment system and the process system knows the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen,” Lutnick—who is a billionaire and could easily ensure his mother-in-law wouldn’t face financial ruin if her Social Security check went missing—said on a podcast.

Musk’s attacks on the overwhelmingly popular social safety net program goes against Trump’s claim that he would protect Social Security if elected.

And breaking Social Security is politically moronic. It is one of the most popular programs in the country. 

Eighty-seven percent of Americans ages 25 and older believe that Social Security should be a priority for the nation, regardless of governmental budget deficits, according to an October 2023 poll from Greenwald Research for the National Institute on Retirement Security, a nonpartisan research organization. And a more recent poll, conducted by Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that 67% of Americans believed the government spends too little on Social Security. Only 6% said too much is spent on the program.

What’s more, older voters who receive Social Security benefits are among the most reliable voting blocs in the country. That means a backlash from those voters could sink Republicans chances in the 2026 midterm elections. In 2024, Trump won voters ages 65 and older by just 1 percentage point, according to exit polls, so even a modest backlash from that voting group could heavily damage Republicans next November.

And the signs that the backlash is coming are already showing up. Older voters are packing into Republican lawmakers’ town halls to demand they stand up to Musk’s DOGE cuts.

Time to take to the streets, Seniors.  You have nothing to lose but the food on your table.

‘On the Brink of a Dictatorship’: State Attorneys General Condemn Trump’s Actions

  

‘No one put a crown on this guy’s head’: Delaware’s attorney general, Kathy Jennings, co-chair of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, on Tuesday. (photo: Damian Dovarganes/AP)

 

"America has never been in a more dangerous position than she is today” - Kris Mayes,  Arizona AG

 

By Lauren Gambino / Guardian UK 13 February 25 

Several Democratic state attorneys general warned that the country was in the grip of a full-blown constitutional crisis, as they battle Donald Trump in court over actions they argue are lawless and in some cases brazenly unconstitutional.

“We are on the brink of a dictatorship, and America has never been in a more dangerous position than she is today,” Kris Mayes, the attorney general of Arizona, said at a press conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Mayes alleged Trump’s stunning power grabs, his disregard for the rule of law, his alliance with – and reliance on – billionaire Elon Musk, and his attacks on judges and journalists amounted to “an ongoing coup against American democracy”.

“He was elected president, but no one put a crown on this guy’s head,” said Delaware’s attorney general, Kathy Jennings, co-chair of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, which convened its quarterly policy conference in Los Angeles. The state attorneys general spoke to reporters during a round table on the sidelines of the event.

“We have three branches of government,” Jennings continued. “He thinks there’s one. We have separation of powers. He thinks there is none.”

Matthew Platkin, attorney general of New Jersey, said that Trump – in carving out new executive powers and forcing clashes with Congress and the judiciary – had thrust the country into a constitutional crisis.

“No one’s going to wave a flag and say it has started,” he said, adding that the scope and scale of Trump’s efforts to dismantle the federal government would have devastating, real-life consequences for Americans – not just the country’s system of government. “I think the American public needs to wake up and see that because the harms that people are experiencing are unprecedented,” he said.

As Trump moves to expand his power without any resistance from Republicans in Congress, the courts have emerged as the central threat to his agenda with Democratic attorneys general acting as the “last bastion of defense”, Platkin said.

Among the attorneys general, there was some nuance about whether the current situation constituted a constitutional crisis. Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, said he believed a crisis was looming but that the country had “not yet” tipped over the threshold.

“We are being stress-tested, but we’re durable,” he said.

There was widespread concern over the growing attacks on the judiciary by Trump, his vice-president, JD Vance, and other senior Republicans. The Illinois attorney general, Kwame Raoul, said the threats, both implicit and explicit, displayed a “total disregard for our constitution and for our systems that create those checks and balances”.

The attorneys general spoke on Tuesday as they notched another legal victory. A federal appeals court in Boston rejected a Trump administration bid to reinstate a sweeping freeze on federal funding in a lawsuit brought by nearly two dozen Democratic-led states. The decision came one day after a judge found the Trump administration had defied an earlier order – as part of a legal case brought by a coalition of Democratic attorneys generals.

They have also filed lawsuits challenging Trump’s attempts to end birthright citizenship, slash research funding from the National Institutes of Health and permit Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” from accessing Americans’ private data. In each case they have won favorable rulings that temporarily pause or block the actions from taking effect. It will take time for the myriad challenges to reach the supreme court, and Trump may still prevail before a bench tilted heavily in his favor.

But the Democrats liked their odds.

“We are 4-0 against the unconstitutional actions of this president,” Mayes said. “And we will continue to do a lot of winning as long as this president continues to violate the law.”

Of the six attorneys general who joined the round table, Mayes was the only Democrat to represent a state that voted for Trump in the 2024 election. But her office, she said, has been overwhelmed by calls from constituents alarmed by the president’s actions.

“Arizonans … voted for border security and a better economy. They did not vote for a dictatorship,” she said, noting that callers were especially upset that members of the “department of government efficiency” had accessed sensitive treasury department payment systems.

“No one wants Elon Musk’s hands on their private data – absolutely no one wants that in Arizona,” she said.

Arizona joined 18 states in suing the Trump administration, arguing that the “department of government efficiency” was “attempting to access government data to support initiatives to block federal funds from reaching certain disfavored beneficiaries”. A federal judge agreed and blocked Musk’s team from accessing sensitive treasury department records – a decision that set off an escalating series of attacks by Trump and his allies.

Musk lashed out on his social media platform, X, calling the judge “corrupt” and suggesting he be impeached. The next day, Vance, a graduate of Yale Law School, wrote on X: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” On Capitol Hill, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, said that courts should take a “step back” from the challenges. The Arizona congressman Eli Crane declared that he was drafting articles of impeachment against the Manhattan-based US district judge Paul Engelmayer, who issued the injunction against Musk’s “department of government efficiency”.

And in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump, with Musk at his side, claimed that judges were standing in the way of his efforts to root out corruption in government, asserting: “It seems hard to believe that a judge could say, ‘We don’t want you to do that,’ so maybe we have to look at the judges because I think that’s a very serious violation.”

“This is frightening stuff because it’s a direct attack on a judge’s role,” Jennings said. The prospect of a president simply ignoring court decisions he doesn’t like would pose “an existential question for this country”, she added.

The Lyin' King and the Prancing Dipshit hope their aerial atrocities will bring down America.  Putin is rootin' for them to succeed.

Here's the heinous way Republicans plan to fund tax cuts for the rich

TRYING TO SPEAK OUT OF BOTH SIDES OF HIS MOUTH: House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, says that the GOP's budget proposal "reflects our collective commitment to enacting the President’s full agenda—not just a part of it."

ROBIN HOOD IN REVERSE: “They have one agenda — stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.”

 

By Emily Singer 

Daily Kos Staff 

Wednesday, February 12, 2025 at 5:00:13p MST

REPUBLISHED BY: 

By Emily Singer Daily Kos Staff House Republicans released a budget proposal Wednesday outlining plans to pay for President Donald Trump's tax cuts for the rich by forcing deep cuts to programs like food stamps and Medicaid.

"This budget resolution is a key step to start the process in delivering President Trump’s America First agenda. With nearly every House Republican directly engaged in this deliberative process, this resolution reflects our collective commitment to enacting the President’s full agenda—not just a part of it,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, posted on X

The budget blueprint calls for $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid—the program that provides health insurance to 72 million low-income Americans—over the next 10 years, which would require states to either come up with the money to fund it themselves or slash benefits for recipients.

The budget also calls for $230 billion in cuts to food stamps, which the Center for American Progress says amounts to a 20% cut to the program that helps feed 42 million Americans annually. Many food stamp recipients live in red states that Trump won by large margins, such as West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, which have some of the highest populations of food stamp recipients in the country.

A protester holds a sign that reads, “Save our lives … don’t cut Medicaid.”

And in recent days, Republicans and DOGE bro Elon Musk have suggested that they are coming for Social Security, the popular social safety net program that provides an income for retirees. Politicians have historically avoided cutting Social Security for fear of voter backlash.

All of these cuts would be used to pay for the $4.5 trillion renewal of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefited the wealthiest tax payers. A Tax Policy Center analysis found that the top 1% of earners received an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2025, while the bottom 60% received an average annual tax cut of just $500.

The Republicans’ budget says that their ultimate goal is to reduce mandatory spending by $2 trillion—this includes Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and veterans benefits. If they cannot find $2 trillion, the tax cuts “should be reduced by a commensurate amount to offset the difference,” according to the budget.

Republicans plan to have a budget hearing on Thursday, with a goal of passing the budget by the end of the month, CNN reported.

Republicans have admitted that those kinds of cuts will be “painful” for Americans. Ultimately, making these kinds of cuts could be politically disastrous for the GOP.

A January poll from the Democratic firm Hart Research found that 76% of voters have a favorable view of Medicaid, and that 78% disapprove of major Medicaid cuts. It also found that 82% of voters disapprove of making cuts to health care programs in order to pay for tax cuts.

Democrats immediately lambasted the Republican budget proposal.

"Senate Republicans' partisan budget resolution would toss programs like SNAP and Medicaid into the woodchipper—all in service of passing tax giveaways for the wealthiest Americans," Sen. Patty Murray of Washington wrote on X.

And Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina shared similar opposition to the GOP budget proposal in a post on X. 

“They have one agenda — stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.”

Musk has said they are coming for Grandma's Social Security, all in the interest of tax cuts for his rich buddies.