swim pool filled

belated redumbdent disambig?

NOTE EMPATHY EQUITY... AND RESILIENCE ON DOGE BAN WORD LIST

SEE CRUEL

see retaliation i am your retribution punish those demonized

trumpista wife deport still supports 3 25

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5/21 someone said democracy depend on empathy (trust, rebuild commons vs rather fill in public pool good than let those undeserving POC use it; rather cut social safety net that i poor rural not well educated ppl need to stay in middle class to make sure brn/blk ppl don't use it b/c lazy.

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an 8 26

Trump’s $500/month Social Security cuts will go nuclear in Alabama: report

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an 8 26

From dismantling the Affordable Care Act to supporting Republican lawmakers’ attacks on Medicare and Medicaid, President Donald Trump has made it much more difficult for people to receive health care during his second term. Now a new report reveals how millions of Americans will literally die because of these policies — that is, once their votes for Trump are in the bag.

“When the Republican Congress enacted Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill in July 2025, it included massive cuts in the Medicaid program, totaling around $1 trillion over 10 years—but made sure to postpone them until 2027, conveniently after the midterm elections,” wrote The New Republic's Norman J. Ornstein on Sunday. “The cuts focused on adding onerous work and paperwork requirements, all designed to force recipients off the rolls, and will remove somewhere between 10 and 15 million people from the program, leaving them without any health coverage. That is in addition to the millions losing coverage or facing huge premium increases with the erasure of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.”

Ornstein added, “But the impact will go far beyond those directly losing their health insurance. Medicaid money does not go to Medicaid recipients. It goes to the providers. The loss of a major chunk of the money going out to them will have big reverberations.”

After detailing how the cuts will harm hospitals and nursing homes in essential ways, Ornstein characterized the consequences as devastating to American patients. For example, when it comes to the hospital cuts, ERs will be overtaxed while hundreds of necessary workers will be thrown into unemployment. Patients will find it more difficult to receive care, even as health workers struggle to make ends meet.

“As for the nursing homes, some will close; others will cut staff and staff pay,” Ornstein wrote. “The ratio of residents to staff will decline, meaning residents unable to secure help when they need it for such vital tasks as getting medications when they require them, getting help going to the bathroom, getting help in bed to prevent bedsores or worse, having responsive care during a health trauma or emergency. More unqualified staff could mean more abuse of the residents.”

He concluded, “There will be more effects seen throughout the country, for everyone who is a part of our intertwined health care system, from those working in it to those using it. No wonder Republicans made sure none of the Medicaid cuts would happen before voters experienced the impact.”

Referring to America as a “kakistocracy,” or government run by the least competent and most corrupt, Ornstein opined that “it turns out that kakistocracy is not just a funny word, but a reality with horrific consequences.”

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an 5 26

Research reveals that white people appear to support social safety net programs unless they perceive those programs as also helping nonwhites.

“White Americans who feel they are on the losing side of politics are more likely to oppose economic redistribution programs,” reports PsyPost, citing research posted in Research and Politics. “This effect only appears when people compare their political standing directly to that of racial minorities.

Economic redistribution involves transferring wealth or income within a society, usually through taxation and social welfare programs, reports PsyPost, and in many developed nations, high levels of income inequality usually lead to increased public demand for these programs. But the U.S. is different in this regard. Despite the nation suffering high economic inequality, public support for government redistribution remains relatively low.

University of Delaware political scientists Sumeyye Mine Iltekin Gocer and Joanne M. Miller, wanted to test how these social comparisons operate across racial lines. What they learned was that hostility to safety net programs appears to be an issue primarily with White people — even those in poverty — because they fear the programs give nonwhites a boost.

The researchers focused specifically on more than 700 white survey respondents and divided them into two groups: those asked “whether white Americans have been winning or losing in politics lately,” and those asked “if white Americans have been winning or losing in politics compared to racial minorities.”

Both groups were then asked to rate their support for two specific types of economic proposals, reports PsyPost. “The first was an index of general economic redistribution, and included questions about government intervention to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. The second policy question was more targeted: It asked if the current government is spending too much or too little to reduce income disparities between white people and racial minorities.

“[White respondents in the second group] who felt their group was losing in politics became less supportive of both types of economic redistribution,” said PsyPost. “They opposed general public welfare programs and initiatives specifically aimed at reducing racial inequality.

Researches noticed also that the relationship held true regardless of the respondents’ income, employment status, political ideology, or underlying racial beliefs.

“The results highlight the power of framing in political messaging,” according to PsyPost. “The mere feeling of losing is not enough to shift economic policy preferences toward the conservative end of the spectrum. A person has to feel that they are losing out relative to another specific demographic group.”

The study suggests why populist leaders like President Donald Trump and MAGA frequently rely on group-based rhetoric to build a white base.

“Stoking fears of relative decline appears to be a highly effective way to mobilize opposition to egalitarian economic policies,” PsyPost reports.

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MMA

### On MSNBC, Angelo Carusone discusses how right-wing media leaning on “more bloodthirst and more cruelty” in SNAP coverage

10/28/25

October 28, 2025, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House

BASIL SMIKLE (GUEST): And the the point I would make in addition to that is if you are looking to punish people, right, they're mostly punishing their supporters. There are more people in this country from red states -- there are more white Americans, particularly Republicans, that are on these programs. So if you want to even use the sort of, you know, that sort of welfare queen trope that a lot of Republicans have historically used, it doesn't even touch that or come close to touching that. So the suggestion -- the point I would think is that they're only just trying to punish Americans using this tactic.

ALICIA MENENDEZ (HOST): Well, Angelo, to build on the point that Basil just made, I'm sure you've seen the highly partisan framing of the USDA's -- a government agency's communication in a message saying that Democrats are to blame and, quote, "The well is about to run dry." I wonder the extent to which on conservative media that message is being echoed or how they are justifying to Basil's point about the fact that this is a lot of Trump's own supporters who are being impacted by this, how they are explaining that away.

ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah. I mean, you know, I think the way they look at it is in a few dimensions. One, they never acknowledge the reality, right, that it's going to be a lot of their own supporters. Even though they all kind of know it, they never actually acknowledge that. The predominant right-leaning narrative is what's been that way for 20-plus years going all the way back to Rush Limbaugh, you know, sort of really reinforcing the false notion of a welfare queen or, you know, one of the things he used to say about the WIC program in particular was that it was all just a gigantic fiction because why would you need a program like this if they were able to have babies in the first place? Surely, they weren't that desperate if they were able to have babies. So clearly, it was just sort of a Democratic fiction, and that's been percolating forever.

So it's basically the notion that it's liberals and Black people that are getting this program predominantly. So to some extent, they're happy. There's a lot of schadenfreude and they're leaning into the cruelty that there's a whole bunch of people that don't get it, that they don't like, that are going to be punished.

And on the flip side, some of this soft undercurrent, and you sort of got to that in your messaging, is that, yeah, there are going to be some of their people that are going to suffer from this. And to an extent, they're perfectly fine with that as long as they know that they can convince their people that it's Democrats at fault. Because recognize that a big part of what they want to do here is not only to punish liberals and Democrats, any of their perceived political opponents, but to keep the anger flowing on their side so that they can continue to justify and rationalize the cruelty that they're inflicting on the country and our slide toward authoritarianism. And you sort of need that as the fuel to then justify all the other extreme measures that you're taking. So that's the large framework that's playing out in the right-wing media right now. More bloodthirstY and more cruelty.

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an 10 25 reporter no ID

President Donald Trump has repeatedly — and falsely — claimed that Democrats want to shut down the federal government in order to obtain $1 trillion for health care for undocumented immigrants, who by law are not allowed to access programs like the Obamacare exchanges, Social Security, or Medicare.

Democrats are “threatening” to shut down the government “unless they can have over $1 Trillion Dollars in new spending to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens,” Trump alleged last week.

He also wrongly claimed Democrats want to “force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors, have dead people on the Medicaid roles, allow Illegal Alien Criminals to steal Billions of Dollars in American Taxpayer Benefits, try to force our Country to again open our Borders to Criminals and to the World, allow men to play in women’s sports, and essentially create Transgender operations for everybody.”

In a rare moment, a reporter told the President that undocumented immigrants are not eligible for health care, and pressed him on what he meant.

IFrame Content

“They’re not eligible for the healthcare subsidies that Democrats are demanding,” the reporter said. “So can you clarify, what are you talking about when you say, Democrats want to protect their healthcare?”

“So,” Trump responded, seemingly unaware of the law, “when an illegal person comes in, a person who came into our country illegally, therefore, breaking the law, and — look, we all have big hearts, I have a bigger heart than you do — they’re all breaking the law, and they’re coming into our country, and we just, as a country, cannot afford to take care of millions of people who have broken the law coming in.”

“We want them to come into our country, but we want them to come and legally,” he claimed, before going off on a tangent about the border.

“I mean, we had a border that was reckless. We had a border that was a disaster. They were coming in by the millions. I say 25 million people, and you’re saying less, but I say 25 million people came in illegally.”

“And no system can take care of the healthcare of all of those people that came in our lifetime for that,” Trump added, again, apparently unaware that that is not what Democrats are asking for.

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an 4 25

These MAGA voters are willing to 'suffer' — if Trump is 'hurting' others even more: analysis

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an 3 25

In the 2024, voters who helped put Donald Trump back in the White House ranged from hardcore MAGA Republicans to swing voters and independents — some of them 2020 Joe Biden voters — who blamed the Biden Administration for inflation. The economy was a major concern of Biden-to-Trump voters, and the term "buyer's remorse" is being used in connection with swing voters and independents who now regret voting for Trump and are worried about steep new tariffs or possible cuts to Social Security.

But diehard MAGA voters have no regrets about voting for Trump. In a conversation published by the New York Times' opinion section on March 21, four conservative columnists — David Brooks, David French, Bret Stephens and Ross Douthat — lay out some reasons why those voters continue to be diehard Trump supporters.

The writers aren't promoting Trump's policies during the conversation — French, in fact, is very much a Never Trump conservative — but rather, are explaining the president's unending appeal to his hardcore MAGA base.

Brooks cited **:{"brokenism" as a key reason for their support. The columnist describes "brokenism" as "the idea that everything is broken and we just need to burn it all down."}:

Brooks told his Times colleagues, "Personally, I think some things are broken and some things are OK, but most of my Trump-supporting friends are brokenists. They get this from media consumption."

French, who is a scathing critic of Trump but also has major complaints about the left, interjected, "In addition to the brokenism that David talks about, there's a strong undercurrent of raw animosity in our politics. Republicans and Democrats have very negative views of each other, and many Republicans, sadly, want their opponents to suffer. They're actually happy to see people lose their jobs or to see nonprofits lose funding if those people are perceived as part of the 'deep state' or RINOs. So, yes, Republicans want a disruptive president, but who's being disrupted really matters — and if it's the government or institutions that many Republicans believe are hostile to them, then Republicans are just fine with the pain."

French added, "Many Republicans dislike foreign aid. Or loathe elite universities. Or hate big liberal law firms. Students and professors at elite universities have a long track record of targeting the free speech rights of their conservative colleagues, and Republicans are rationalizing their own constitutional violations as fighting fire with fire."

According to Brooks, diehard MAGA voters enjoy seeing him target institutions they feel excluded from.

Brooks told French, Douthat and Stephens, "I'd offer up one more word for consideration: 'exclusion.' Progressives really have spent the last few decades excluding conservative and working-class voices from a lot of institutions. Trump has gone after these institutions big time — the universities, the Department of Education, the State Department. Of course, the MAGA crowd feels justified revenge."

Douthat alluded to the fact that Trump's strongest support continues to be within the MAGA movement.

Douthat told his colleagues, "First, I would stress that Trump is not terribly popular, and undoubtedly will become less so if the stock market trends down and recession fears mount. He has a commanding position within his party, but even at his apotheosis, his approval ratings barely got over 50 percent. Second, Americans lived through the first Trump term, when sky-is-falling rhetoric was commonplace, but the average American did not experience a crisis until COVID hit."

*Read the full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).

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an no lnx

The 'MAGA civil war' narrative has been greatly exaggerated

John Stoehr, The Editorial BoardFebruary 27, 2025

This week, the Republicans in the House passed a budget resolution that would, if it later becomes law, take nearly a trillion dollars away from Medicaid over 10 years to cut taxes for the very obscenely rich.

Every House Democrat voted against it. Even so, the way is clear from House leaders to begin negotiations with the Senate Republicans. They are trying to make things “revenue-neutral” to dodge the filibuster.

The move aroused the belief among liberals and Democrats that the Republicans are themselves heading for trouble with their own people, as most of the more than 80 million Americans who are on Medicaid are supporters of Donald Trump. Indeed, Medicaid recipients are more highly concentrated in red states compared to blue states. Yet every single Republican voted Tuesday night to take their healthcare away.

As evidence of the trouble ahead, liberals and Democrats cited the various town halls that have made headlines in which Trump supporters appear to take issue with the president’s assault on the federal government, including firing people who voted for him.

Liberals and Democrats also cited Steve Bannon. They quoted a segment from his February 14 podcast in which he warned the president and billionaire Elon Musk, who is spearheading the assault, that “you got to be careful, because a lot of magas [are] on Medicaid. I’m telling you, if you don’t think so, you are dead wrong. Medicaid is going to be a complicated one. Just can’t take a meat axe to it.”

This tension was reflected in a segment aired Monday in which ABC News reporter Rachel Bade accidentally told the truth. Most people think Medicaid is just for the poor, for “inner cities, more Democratic areas” – which is to say, Black – but that’s not true, she said. One in five receive assistance. Today, Hart Research released a poll showing that 71 percent of Trump voters said Medicaid cuts are unacceptable.

Because Bannon has called Musk a “phony” who is in league with the Chinese Communist Party, which is to say, not one of “the chosen people,” liberals and Democrats are taking his warning against cutting Medicaid as sign of brewing civil war inside magaworld – between white working-class people, represented by Bannon, and the very obscenely rich, represented by Musk. There’s a lot of effort right now to demonstrate that the Republicans are not the party of working class Americans. Critics say there’s no better evidence than the Republicans’ attempt to rob 80 million ordinary people and give to the .001 percent?

It’s here, however, that I think many liberals and Democrats are making a basic mistake. Donald Trump’s people don’t support him in spite of the fact that he’s a crooked billionaire. They support him because of that fact. There is no cognitive dissonance, because their bond has little or nothing to do with money. It has everything to do with prejudice against a system of government that treats everyone equally.

Billionaires have so much wealth that they can do pretty much whatever they want. Trump voters know they can’t have that kind of money. But with his support, they can have that kind of impunity.

Liberals and Democrats tend to believe that Bannon’s warning is about cutting Medicaid for everyone, but a shrewder reading of his fuller remarks shows something different – and the complexity of the challenge ahead for Democrats who are trying to mount a resistance. He does not say do not cut Medicaid, because “a lot of magas [are] on Medicaid.” He says go ahead and cut it, but not for the magas.

In that February 14 podcast, Bannon doubted that Musk was cutting spending. He said that if he is really serious about dismantling the government, he would “stop whining about entitlements. Get into that discretionary spending. Get into the Pentagon. Get into Medicaid.”

So Bannon’s warning wasn’t a warning as much as a note of caution: be careful with Trump’s people. As Bannon said: “You got to be careful because a lot of magas [are] on Medicaid. I’m telling you, if you don’t think so, you are dead wrong. Medicaid is going to be a complicated one. Just can’t take a meat axe to it, although I would love to.”

In other words, use a scalpel. Precision cuts for non-white people who are undeserving of a safety-net. No cuts for white people who are.

But even this might be too generous a reading of Bannon’s remarks.

As he said, he wouldn’t take a meat axe to Medicaid, “although I would love to.” There is a plenty of risk to cutting healthcare for Trump’s people, but there’s also plenty of room for convincing them that Trump and the Republicans are cutting it for the sake of the country. This is where liberals and Democrats make another mistake: underestimating how much suffering Trump’s voters are willing to endure in his name.

People who can be told to believe that Haitians eat dogs – or that the covid isn’t real or that Democrats drink the blood of children – can also be told to believe that losing their healthcare is a good thing. Given Trump’s hold on their minds, they might believe it. It’s unlikely that they will complain about tax cuts, or the assault on the government, even if it hurts them, not as long as he gives them someone to blame.

Liberal and Democrats find themselves in a position in which they must trust Trump voters to figure out that the president and his party are screwing them. That is misplaced trust, to say the least, because their bond isn’t about money or policy. It’s about power, namely hate.

fill in the swim pool

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DOGE COUP DISRUPTER BANNON BS ADMIN STATE = REGULATION SAFETY NET

AHA DOH MODERATION BUFFER

MUSK IS IRON MAN DIRTY HARRY MEL GIBSON LETHAL WEAPON ROGUE COP NOT BY THE BOOK BUT GETS RESULTS/JUSTICE EFFECTIVE VIA FORCE?

AN 2 25

According to the Washington Post, as many as 200,000 federal workers may be fired because of efforts by the Trump Administration and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to greatly downsize the United States' federal government. And the criticism of their efforts is coming not only from Democrats, but also, from voices on the right.

Former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pennsylvania), during a February 17 appearance on MSNBC, slammed Trump and DOGE for carrying out mass government layoffs in a "haphazard" way. And the next morning, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough (a Never Trump conservative and ex-GOP congressman) argued that while government "waste" needs to be reduced and the U.S. needs to balance its federal budget, the Trump Administration and DOGE are recklessly jeopardizing "food safety" and "air safety."

The Guardian's George Monbiot also fears that Trump's second term could trigger some type of major crisis.

In a February 18 opinion column, Monbiot lays out a variety of frightening scenarios and offers some tips for surviving a worst-case scenario.

"Though we might find it hard to imagine," Monbiot warns, "we cannot now rule it out: the possibility of systemic collapse in the United States. The degradation of federal government by Donald Trump and Elon Musk could trigger a series of converging and compounding crises, leading to social, financial and industrial failure…. A financial crisis in the U.S. would immediately become a global crisis."

Monbiot continues, "But the hazards extend much further. Musk, calling for a 'wholesale removal of regulations,' sends his child soldiers to attack government departments stabilizing the entire U.S. system. Regulations, though endlessly maligned by corporate and oligarchic propaganda, are all that protect us from multiple disasters. In its initial impacts, deregulation is class war, hitting the poorest and the middle classes at the behest of the rich. As the effects proliferate, it becomes an assault on everyone's wellbeing."

The columnist warns that undermining regulatory government agencies could make everything from a pandemic to "future climate disasters" worse.

"As Trump rips down environmental protections and trashes federal responsiveness," Monbiot explains, "the impacts will spiral. They could include non-linear shocks to either the insurance sector or homeowners, escalating into U.S.-wide economic and social crisis. If, or when, another pandemic strikes, which could involve a pathogen more transmissible and even more deadly than COVID-19 — which has so far killed 1.2 million people in the U.S. — it will hit a nation whose defenses have been stood down."

Monbiot urges Americans — as well as residents of the U.K., where The Guardian is published — by doing a lot of networking.

"So, though there is no substitute for effective government, we must seek to create our own backup systems," the Guardian columnist advises. "Start with this principle: don't face your fears alone. Make friends, meet your neighbors, set up support networks, help those who are struggling. Since the dawn of humankind, those with robust social networks have been more resilient than those without. Yes, we also — and urgently — need national and global action, brokered by governments. But it's beginning to look as if no one has our backs. Prepare for the worst."

*George Monbiot's full Guardian column is available at this link.

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alternet-

Trump's poorest supporters are in for a rude awakening

John Stoehr January 19, 2025

Since the election, you have probably heard a lot about FAFO (“f--- around and find out”). It’s the idea that voting is a choice and voters must face the consequences of their choices. If you are, say, a poor person, you shouldn’t have voted for Donald Trump or any Republican, because in the end, they’re going to betray you. But if you did, well, f--- around and find out.

Low-income voters did indeed vote for Trump.

According to the Post, “50 percent of voters from families with an income of less than $50,000 a year cast their ballots for Trump, according to [exit polls], compared with 48 percent for Vice President Kamala Harris. Four years ago, President Joe Biden carried those voters by 11 percentage points; Hillary Clinton won them by 12 points in 2016 and former president Barack Obama by 22 points in 2012.”

They’re anxious now, the Postsaid.

Some believed his promise to put them first, but the Republicans around him keep talking about cutting spending and slashing services.

“Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy – whom Trump has chosen to lead a new nongovernmental advisory panel, the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ – have said they want to trim $2 trillion from the government’s annual budget, a cut that some experts say could be accomplished only by slashing entitlement programs,” the Post said.

ALSO READ: We're watching the largest and most dangerous 'cult' in American history

The Post continued: “Trump’s pick for White House budget director was a key architect of Project 2025, a plan drawn up by conservatives to guide his second term that calls for steep cuts to programs such as food stamps. And GOP leaders in Congress and Trump advisers are considering significant changes to Medicaid … and other federal aid.”

Low-income supporters want him to honor his promise.

The Post report isn’t alone. Since the election, I have seen many stories about Trump voters who are now concerned about what Trump is going to do – sick people who fear the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare); Latinos who fear their families being deported; and now poor people who survive on food stamps but fear them being cut.

These stories never fail to get the attention of the FAFO crowd, which is to say, of liberals and Democrats who are still smarting from defeat.

They take some comfort in the idea that Trump voters will feel the consequences of their actions. The more literate among them might even cite HL Mencken: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

But the FAFO crowd is giving Donald Trump too much credit.

They assume that the Trump administration’s policies and programs will affect everyone equally. They do not assume, as they should, that Trump will reward his friends and punish his enemies. If he ends up in the process looking like a hypocrite, or committing a crime, so be it.

The incoming administration is going to be fantastically corrupt. It’s going to take a large, serious and sustained counteroffensive to fight against it. But we might end up underestimating the enormity of the project by continuing to focus on FAFO, as if Trump would not spare supporters from facing consequences if doing so suited his interests.

He will try if it does.

Even if that means breaking the law.

Take immigration. Trump vowed to deport millions of “illegal” workers. If successful, he’d decimate the labor supply and hurt the big farming states like Nebraska and Kansas that cannot function without “illegal” workers to pick their crops. Knowing that they voted for him anyway, by huge margins, the FAFO crowd is expecting them to find out.

They probably won’t. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will almost certainly focus on “illegal” immigrants in states like New York and California, especially in cities like New York City and Los Angeles, because they voted against Trump. Meanwhile, “illegal” immigrants in Nebraska and Kansas will be overlooked, because it’s convenient to.

Take tariffs, too. Trump vowed to impose across-the-board levies on imported goods from China and elsewhere. The impact could, in effect, be as much as a 20 percent sales tax on everything from sneakers to video games. Knowing that poor people voted for Trump, because prices are too high, the FAFO crowd is expecting them to find out.

Again, they probably won’t. First, Trump’s tariffs will be unequal. They will depend on who’s willing to bribe him and for how much. Those who won’t or can’t will face a levy. Those who can and will won’t.

And if tariffs make things more expensive for Trump voters, and they will, because they’re inflationary, there’s nothing saying Trump can’t “offer” them a “tax rebate” to offset the increase. That such a thing would be illegal and unconstitutional and impossible to implement is beside the point. The point is that Trump will be fantastically corrupt.

Same thing with entitlement programs – Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the rest. The FAFO crowd is expecting Trump supporters to suffer the consequences of their choices. If they didn’t want cuts to food stamps, for instance, they shouldn’t have voted for a Republican.

But they do want cuts, not for them but those who don’t “deserve” them, which is to say, people who are not like them. This is clear when you read the Post report carefully, especially quotes from the “longtime Democrat” who “struggled over whether to vote for Trump.” She “kept coming back to the conclusion that Trump would put Americans like her first and improve her economic prospects” (my italics).

“We helped get you in office; please take care of us,” she told the Post.

“Please don’t cut the things that help the most vulnerable.”

You’re not vulnerable if you’re not one of them.

Trump won’t help, because he never put you first.

NOW READ: It's time for liberals to abandon MSNBC's 'sweet little lies'

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