Exactly! - Health Care

Why Is Healthcare Expensive?

 ... we still pay a ridiculous amount for healthcare. We pay twice as much as the average for other wealthy countries, with little to show in the form of better outcomes. Our total healthcare costs will come to over $5.4 trillion this year, more than $40,000 per household, or $16,000 per person. By comparison, Germany and the Netherlands both spend around $6,000 per person for their healthcare.   

Exactly!

Worth reading it all. 

Is This Rock Bottom? America is broken. We need to fix it.

I keep waiting for someone in power or seeking it to say the quiet part out loud: the amount of work required to fix this country is far bigger than “beating Trump” or “restoring norms” or whatever line gets handed to Democratic donors and MSNBC panels. I keep waiting for someone to look the public in the eye and say: we’re not going to vote our way back to the America we think we used to have, because the America we think we used to have never actually existed for most people.

Here’s the reality: we are the richest country in the history of the world — not just now, but ever — and one in eight Americans needs SNAP benefits to eat. Not because of COVID. Not because of a recession. Because our economic structure literally cannot sustain the basic well-being of tens of millions of people without federal food aid.

We spend twice as much per person on healthcare as Japan or Italy, and yet we live shorter lives, get worse outcomes, and bankrupt people for getting sick. Medical debt is the number-one cause of personal bankruptcy, and 70,000 people a year die because they can’t afford care in time. That’s not a healthcare system. That’s an extraction machine.

So yes, the fights over SNAP, ACA subsidies, and shutdowns matter — but they’re symptoms, not causes. You don’t get 40 million people needing food aid and 100 million drowning in medical debt because of one bad president or one unlucky decade. You get there because the institutions that were supposed to protect the public spent decades serving somebody else. 

Freedom

The World’s Highest Incarceration Rates (Including U.S. States)

 

Auto-Pen

So maybe the Biden auto-pen thing was just to cover for Trump's group using the auto-pen.

Trump on why he pardoned Binance CEO: “Are you ready? I don’t know who he is.” 

Also, Trump made a big deal about his signature being on those COVID-era relief checks that went out to everyone.

Did he sign them individually? Fuck no. 

Does that make them invalid? Fuck no.

Biden auto-pen is a non-issue. 

Bad Headline

Well, actually subheading.

This from Politico.

 ‘At What Point Does This Cross a Line Into International Criminality?  

with the subheading

An expert on international law weighs in on the legality and global implications of the Trump administration’s drug boat killings.

As far as I know none of these boat killings have been proven to be drug boats. The Trump Administration claims they are drug boats but have offered no proof. 

Every time a news source refers to them as drug boats it strengthens the administrations claim.

They should be called what they are, boat bombings. 

Trump - Corruption

Can you imagine the uproar from Republicans and their propaganda outlets if this was Joe and Hunter Biden. 

This paragraph from The Big Picture. 

 

Culture Wars

The Business of the Culture War

Our estimates suggest that cable news can account for one-third of the time-series increase in cultural conflict since 2000.

or ... Fox News worked. 

 

Trump - SNAP

Yep. He doesn't give a shit about anything but his money and power. 

Mar-a-Lago Guests Spill Tacky Details of Trump’s Gatsby Bash

Worth looking through for the images. 

Is she an Epstein-Trump girl?

 

 

Trump - ICE

Almost every MAGA I know says they are only against "illegal" immigrants. The "legal" ones are OK.

If that's the case then why aren't we spending all that ICE money on immigration processing to just make all immigrants legal? 

It'd probably be cheaper on the whole and would look a lot better in the eyes of the world.

But we all know, it's not about legal vs illegal. It's about skin color and language. 

Israel - Gaza

Why did Israel launch air strikes on Gaza, then ‘resume’ truce?

Because they can.  

Like most thing Trump, the "deal" is only the initial sizzle. He doesn't really care what happens after that.