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At 'Peace Summit,' Trump Flaunts Egomania And Whines Over Nobel Peace Prize

At 'Peace Summit,' Trump Flaunts Egomania And Whines Over Nobel Peace Prize

President Donald Trump traveled to the Middle East on Monday to mark the first phase of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, in which Hamas agreed to release the final hostages held captive in Gaza in exchange for Israel releasing detained Palestinian prisoners.

And true to form, Trump made the day all about himself, basking in the praise of Israel’s far-right leaders, who lamented the fact that Trump did not win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, said Trump should have won the Nobel Peace Prize, declaring in a speech that Trump is a “colossus who will be enshrined in the pantheon of history.”

“What the world needs now are more leaders who are brave, resolute, strong, and bold. The world needs more Trumps,” Ohana added of the U.S. president who has sicced the military on his own citizens and has turned Customs and Border Patrol agents into masked goons who violently arrest anyone they think looks Hispanic.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, gifted Trump a golden statue of a dove—another hideously ostentatious trinket Trump can add to the White House he’s defiled with tacky gold ornaments.

And later, Netanyahu bragged in a speech before the Israeli parliament that he nominated Trump for the Nobel and said it's "only a matter of time" before Trump gets it.

Then in Egypt, where Trump traveled for a "Peace Summit," Trump whined about not winning the prize—which was awarded on Friday to a Venezuelan woman fighting for democracy who dedicated the prize to Trump anyway for his “decisive support.”

“We have Norway. Oh, Norway, aye aye aye! Norway, what happened? Norway, what happened?” Trump said in a speech at the summit, referring to the country that awards the annual award.

In the same speech, Trump also made Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif go up to the podium to "say what you said to me the other day"—which evidently was a boatload of over-the-top praise about how Trump deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.

"I would say that Pakistan had nominated President Donald Trump for Nobel Peace Prize for his outstanding extraordinary contributions to first, stop war between India and Pakistan, and then achieve ceasefire along with his very wonderful team," Sharif said. "And today again I would like to nominate this great president for Nobel Peace Prize.”

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Before his whining that he did not win the Nobel Peace Prize, he gave a speech in Israel in which he bragged about the weapons he sent to Israel that were used in their war against Hamas.

"Bibi Netanyahu would call me so many times asking for weapons I never even heard of, but we got them here didn’t we? You used them very well," Trump said.

Trump also embraces dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has carried out a brutally violent war against Ukraine, whose sovereign nation he is trying to annex to expand his dictatorial empire.

And he embraces other world leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban—who has silenced dissent in order to remain in power. On Monday, Trump even took time to praise Orban, who he called “fantastic” and a “great leader.”

Indeed, when giving out this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the award committee described why Trump will never win the award.

"When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist. Democracy depends on people who refuse to stay silent, who dare to step forward despite grave risk, and who remind us that freedom must never be taken for granted, but must always be defended—with words, with courage, and with determination," the committee wrote.

A man who is trying to silence dissent, imprison his enemies, and ignore laws to remain in power will never win the Nobel.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

House Republicans Spreading  Inflammatory Lies About 'No Kings' Democrats

House Republicans Spreading  Inflammatory Lies About 'No Kings' Democrats

As public polls show that Americans blame Republicans for the government shutdown, Republican lawmakers are now spreading a dangerous lie that Democrats are waiting until an Oct. 18 No Kings rally in Washington, D.C., to give them the votes they need to fund the government.

Not only is it an obvious lie, but the rhetoric Republicans are using as they spread said lie is inflammatory and dangerous.

"This is about one thing and one thing alone: To score political points with the terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold a hate America rally in D.C. next week," House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said Friday at a news conference on Capitol Hill.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson made almost identical comments at the same news conference, as well as during a Fox News interview.

"This hate America rally that they have coming up for October 18? The antifa crowd, the pro-Hamas crowd, and the Marxists, they're all gonna gather on the Mall. It is an outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes," Johnson said in the news conference, referring to the peaceful No Kings rally in which average Americans plan to show up to voice their opposition to Trump’s shredding of the Constitution.

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"I mean, I'm a very patient guy, but I have had it with these people," Johnson then told Fox News. "They're playing games with real people's lives. The theory we have right now—they have a hate America rally that's scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall. It's all the pro-Hamas wing and antifa people, they're all coming out. Some of the House Democrats, they're selling T-shirts for the event. And it's being told to us that they won't be able to reopen the government until after that rally because they can't face their rabid base. I mean this is serious business."

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These horrendous lies with incendiary rhetoric come as Republicans have blamed the "left" for political violence in the country, falsely saying that Democrats who call out the authoritarian actions of Trump and his GOP defenders were responsible for right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s murder.

Yet in the same breath they are accusing Democrats of holding a "hate America" rally and calling the protesters who will attend "antifa,” "Marxists," and “terrorists”—ratcheted-up lies that could get people killed.

"The very people who were loudest in lecturing us on political rhetoric now label millions of Americans peacefully exercising their constitutional right to free speech 'terrorist' because they don't hold conservative views," Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia wrote in a post on X. "Disgraceful and unacceptable."

With Threat To Cut 'Large Number Of People' From Health Care, Trump Hails Shutdown

With Threat To Cut 'Large Number Of People' From Health Care, Trump Hails Shutdown

President Donald Trump threatened to cause Americans pain if the government shuts down at midnight on Tuesday, saying he could use a shutdown to make "irreversible" cuts to health care and other benefit programs.

"We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them," Trump said in the Oval Office in response to a question from a right-wing activist masquerading as a reporter. "Like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like."

Trump went on to say that Project 2025 mastermind Russell Vought, who now serves as director of the Office of Management and Budget, will use a shutdown to "trim the budget to a level that you couldn't do any other way."

"Because of the shutdown, we can do things medically, and other ways, including benefits. We can cut large numbers of people out," Trump said, appearing to catch himself realizing that deliberately cutting medical benefits to Americans would be unpopular.

"We don't want to do that," he claimed.

Rather than negotiate with Democrats on a government funding bill, Trump has instead been threatening to cause pain to Americans during a government shutdown.

Democrats want Trump to agree to extend Medicaid subsidies that allow millions of Americans to have health insurance, something the White House said Trump is not inclined to do.

“He read all the shit they’re asking for, and he said, ‘on second thought, go fuck yourself,’” a White House official told Politico of Trump’s feelings on health insurance negotiations.

Already, Trump has threatened massive cuts to the federal workforce—which he was likely going to make whether or not the government shut down.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday also said that if the government shuts down, low-income Americans wouldn’t get their benefits—even though contingency funds are available that could fund those programs for one month in the event of a shutdown.

"The overwhelming majority of the American public wants to keep the government open,” Leavitt said. “They want food assistance programs for women and children and impoverished communities to continue going out the door. All of that will come to an end if Democrats vote against this clean CR that Republicans are proposing."

But now, Trump is clearly confirming that he will use a shutdown as a pretext to cut Medicaid benefits even more than he already did when he signed the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Already, polling shows voters would blame Trump and congressional Republicans—who have unified control over Washington—if the government shuts down.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released Tuesday found that 26% of registered voters would blame Trump and Republicans in Congress for a shutdown, while 19% would blame congressional Democrats.

If Trump decides to use a shutdown to purposefully hurt Americans, the polling could swing even harder against his party.

But Trump is hell-bent on trying to blame Democrats for a shutdown, rather than negotiate.

On Monday, after meeting with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Trump released a vile deepfake AI video that puts words in Schumer’s mouth and depicts Jeffries in a sombrero.

Don’t be fooled by any of the GOP rhetoric and lies: Trump wants a shutdown so he can hurt poor people and Democrats.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

John Thune

Republicans Praise Trump's Manic UN Speech And Vengeance Crusade

President Donald Trump has been inching the United States toward becoming an authoritarian state since he put his hand on the Bible and took the oath of office for a second time back in January.

But the inching turned into a full-on slide this week, as Trump took tangible steps toward weaponizing the Department of Justice to jail his perceived enemies and silence those with views that differ from his own.

There were fewer comments than usual this week, as Congress is in recess and thus lawmakers are not on Capitol Hill, and safe from reporters asking them to comment on Trump’s impeachable actions.

But the Republican lawmakers who did comment this week cheered Trump's actions.

Following reports that Trump's newly minted U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia will seek an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey—even though career prosecutors said they do not believe probable cause exists to charge him with a crime—multiple GOP lawmakers applauded.

"James Comey betrayed our nation. He meddled in the 2016 election, concealed the baseless Trump-Russia probe, abused FISA with the Steele dossier, leaked classified memos to spark the Mueller witch hunt, and lied to Congress. The DOJ should indict him. Justice must be served," Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) wrote in a post on X.

Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) went a step further, saying on Fox Business, "In my opinion he should be charged with treason."

And Rep. Derricek Van Orden had a more succinct response to the news of Comey's possible indictment.

"Prison," Van Orden wrote in a post on X.

Van Orden later said he was excited about the possibility of DOJ officials resigning in protest over a possible Comey indictment, saying that it would be "Outstanding."

"In SEAL training we call this 'self selection,'" Van Orden wrote.

Meanwhile, other Republicans continued to applaud Trump for trying to force ABC to pull comedian Jimmy Kimmel from the airwaves.

“It is reasonable for the FCC commissioner to say what he basically said, which is when he said, 'You can do this the easy way or the hard way, either back off, Disney ... or you’re going to deal with the fact that you’re going to have licenses,'" Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) told right-wing hack Glenn Beck.

They also refused to say Trump should rule out a third term—which the Constitution explicitly prohibits.

“Trump 2028. I hope this never ends,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) refused to condemn Graham for cheering on a blatantly unconstitutional action.

“Well, I didn't see—I know Lindsey said that before—and I think he generally expects a, you know, a pretty lighthearted response when he says it,” Thune said.

Less scary but embarrassing nonetheless were the Republicans who defended Trump's moronic speech to the United Nations on Tuesday, with others joining Trump's attacks against the organization over the failure of an escalator that Trump and first lady Melania Trump attempted to ride.

Thune called Trump's embarrassing speech that diminished the United States on the world stage, "Straight talk from the president."

"He puts out the unvarnished truth," Thune said of Trump's idiotic remarks.

"President Trump commanded respect at the UN, while Biden's wandering turned America into a global punchline," Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) wrote in a post on X, which is the absolute opposite of reality. "It's great to have leadership that doesn't apologize for American strength once again!"

Meanwhile, Steube called for an "investigation" into the escalator situation at the U.N., saying that it “could not be a coincidence" that the escalator stopped right when Trump was on it.

Never underestimate Republicans' ability to debase themselves in subservience to Dear Leader.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

James Comer

Republicans Spouting Absurd Claims To Deflect Trump's Epstein Letter

In yet another sign that GOP lawmakers have no shame when it comes to defending their Dear Leader, multiple Republican members of Congress made the insane claim this week that President Donald Trump’s vile birthday message to Jeffrey Epstein was forged.

The lawmakers were taking cues from the White House, which claimed that Trump's signature on the birthday note is not real—suggesting that someone nearly 25 years ago had the foresight to forge Trump's signature.

"From what I've seen, it's not his signature," Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida said, even though it is very clearly Trump's signature.

And, in true Republican fashion, Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee used it as an opportunity to turn attention back to President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen.

"I don't know. I mean, anyone can do a signature. We’ve seen autopens been used quite a bit by the Biden administration,” he said.

“The president says he did not sign it. So I take the president [at] his word,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer told CNN.

Comer, who spent two years investigating Biden, added that he has no plans to investigate Trump over the letter.

“You asked if I'm going to be trying to figure out whether that, you know, fake or not, probably not. We're going to be trying to get justice for the victim,” he said.

Similarly, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio told CNN that he doesn't "buy" that the signature was Trump's, and that he doesn't think that the House should investigate Trump's ties to Epstein. But what else would you expect from someone accused of refusing to protect sexual assault victims when he was a wrestling coach at the Ohio State University?

Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri tried to pull the notorious "I haven't seen the letter" cop out when asked about it by CNN's Manu Raju. But when Raju pulled out a copy of the birthday message, Burlison refused to look at it.

"I don't want to see it,” he said while laughing.

House Speaker Mike Johnson also ridiculously claimed to have not seen the note.

"I’ve heard about it. But no," Johnson told reporters. "And the White House says it’s not true."

Meanwhile, Democrats are mocking Republicans for their blatant lies.

“So let me get this straight … 20 years ago, Democrats forged Trump’s signature on a creepy birthday card to a pedophile … planted it in Epstein’s estate before Trump even ran … and then waited to release it until *after* Trump got reelected? Got it,” Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts wrote on X.

"I have two eyes. You have two eyes,” Rep. Eric Swalwell of California told CNN. “Anyone who looks at that letter which was provided by the Epstein estate knows whose signature that was.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Suddenly, GOP Senators Are 'Concerned' About Kennedy's Lies And Misconduct

Suddenly, GOP Senators Are 'Concerned' About Kennedy's Lies And Misconduct

GOP Senators are now seeing what anyone with half a brain has known for months: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a dangerous quack who puts Americans' health at risk.

Multiple Republican lawmakers dressed Kennedy down on Thursday during a Senate Finance Committee hearing, expressing concerns with his anti-vaccine policies and his personnel decisions.

Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, an orthopedic surgeon by trade who cast the deciding vote to confirm Kennedy, took a page out of the playbook of Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, saying that he was "concerned" about Kennedy’s stance on vaccines.

“Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines,” Barrasso said. “Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned. The public has seen measles outbreaks, leadership in the National Institutes of Health questioning the use of mRNA vaccines, the recently confirmed director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fired. Americans don't know who to rely on."

Of course, just six months ago Barrasso was gung-ho for Kennedy, declaring that the Senate should confirm him because he’d “make America healthy again.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who was also a doctor before being elected to the Senate, said that Kennedy is making it harder for people to get vaccines, breaking a promise that Cassidy said he made before his confirmation vote.

“We’re denying people vaccine,” Cassidy said at the hearing.

In order to justify his obviously wrong-headed decision to confirm him, Cassidy said in February that he was confident that Kennedy would ensure access to vaccines.

“Now, Mr. Kennedy and the administration reached out seeking to reassure me regarding their commitment to protecting the public health benefit of vaccination. To this end, Mr. Kennedy and the administration committed that he and I would have an unprecedentedly close collaborative working relationship if he is confirmed. We will meet or speak multiple times a month. This collaboration will allow us to work well together and therefore to be more effective,” Cassidy said during a speech on the Senate floor, which has now aged like milk in the sun.

Meanwhile, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina also lambasted Kennedy for firing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez just a month after the Senate voted to confirm her.

"I don't see how you go over four weeks from 'a public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials, a longtime champion of MAHA values, caring and compassionate, and brilliant microbiologist ' and four weeks later fire her," he said.

Monarez said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that she was fired because she wouldn't approve the recommendations from a vaccine advisory panel that Kennedy stacked with anti-vax quacks. At the hearing, Kennedy disputed that, ridiculously claiming that Monarez was fired because she told him that she was not a trustworthy person.

Before voting to confirm Kennedy, Tillis said that he hoped he would “go wild” when he took the reins of HHS. Looks like Tillis got what he wished for.

On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune also expressed frustration with Kennedy’s decision to fire Monarez.

“Honestly he’s got to take responsibility," he said. "We confirm these people, we go through a lot of work to get them confirmed.”

Of course, it was always clear that Kennedy—a brain worm-addled, well-known anti-vaxxer—was going to be a disaster for public health.

"GOP senator votes to confirm anti-vaxxer, is shocked by anti-vax policy," Democratic Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts wrote on X, mocking Barrasso's shock that Kennedy would implement anti-vax policies.

Ultimately, Republicans had the chance to vote against Kennedy’s confirmation but failed. And while it's new for these lawmakers to speak up and criticize Kennedy, their words will mean nothing without action to remove him from his position.

Reprinted with permission from DailyKos

California's Redrawn Congressional Map Triggers GOP Hypocrisy

California's Redrawn Congressional Map Triggers GOP Hypocrisy

Multiple GOP lawmakers this week accused California Democrats of corruptly trying to redraw their state’s congressional districts, even though the Golden State is moving to redraw its maps only to counter the naked power grab Republicans pulled off in Texas with their mid-decade gerrymander.

House Speaker Mike Johnson—who supported the Texas redraw that could boot as many as five Democratic House members—said California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s planned redraw is "a slap in the face to Californians who overwhelmingly support the California Citizens Redistricting Commission."

"Gavin Newsom should spend less time trampling his state’s laws for a blatant power grab, and more time working to change the disastrous, far-left policies that are destroying California," Johnson wrote.

Funny, you could say basically the same thing about Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who was more focused on rigging the midterms for Republicans and his dear leader, President Donald Trump, than helping his state recover from devastating flooding that killed dozens of people.

Other House Republican leaders also slammed California’s redraw while ignoring Texas’.

“The NRCC is prepared to fight this illegal power grab in the courts and at the ballot box to stop Newsom in his tracks,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson said in a statement, accusing Newsom of “disenfranchising voters to prop up his Presidential ambitions.”

But when he was asked earlier in August about Texas’ gerrymander, Hudson demurred.

“Well, it’s up to the states. I mean, I have nothing to do with it. I found out about it when you all wrote about it,” Hudson told reporters, adding later that he was “not “concerned” about California’s redraw.

“Some of the states, they can do what they want to do,” Hudson said—before it was clear just how serious California was about countering Texas’ power grab.

Other Republicans cooked up their own criteria to claim that Democrats gerrymander more often than Republicans do, when the opposite is true.

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who comes from the state that fired the first shot in this latest redistricting war, also slammed California without taking a look in the mirror.

"Newsom & Obama are lying and they are hypocrites," Cruz wrote in a post on X. "The most egregious gerrymanders in the country are virtually ALL Democrat."

Cruz then made up a metric he thought would prove his point, asking Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok to "Examine states with six or more congressional seats. Compile a list of the five most egregious gerrymanders, defined as the biggest delta between the percentage of the congressional delegation a party wins & the percentage that party wins statewide."

"Which party is it?" Cruz asked Grok.

But Grok's response showed that Republican-run states also have gerrymanders that are "egregious" based on Cruz's metric, including Tennessee and Wisconsin. Not to mention, Cruz limiting the list to states with six or more districts leaves out a number of Republican-run states that heavily gerrymander their seats, including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Utah, and Iowa, among others.

Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley, whose House seat would be nuked if California voters allow the state to redraw its congressional map, also made the rounds on cable news shows to whine.

"When elections are fair, Republicans win. That's why we should end gerrymandering and establish Voter ID nationwide. And it's why Newsom is trying to permanently rig our elections by making himself Gerrymanderer-in-Chief," Kiley said.

Of course, Democrats would love to end gerrymandering nationwide. It's why it was in the first bill House Democrats introduced in 2019 after they took back control of the House in the 2018 midterms. Not a single Republican voted for the bill, and the GOP controlled Senate never brought it up for a vote.

Republican Rep. Ken Calvert, who would also be drawn out of his House seat in the California plan, also complained about California's redistricting effort without complaining about what Texas did first.

"There is zero transparency as Sacramento Democrats scheme to eliminate the power of the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission," Calvert moaned.

At the end of the day, Republicans are merely getting a taste of their own medicine in the redistricting wars. And it looks like they don't like it.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Trump Commands Smithsonian To Stop Showing 'How Bad Slavery Was'

Trump Commands Smithsonian To Stop Showing 'How Bad Slavery Was'

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump confirmed that he is going to force changes at the Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C., including removing exhibits that talk about the ills of slavery.

Trump made the comment in a Truth Social post, in which he said that changes to the museums are part of his war on "woke”—a term conservatives can’t even define but usually refers to their anger at anything that promotes equal rights for people of color, women, and the LGBTQ+ community.

"The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of 'WOKE.' The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. We are not going to allow this to happen, and I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made," Trump wrote. "This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the 'HOTTEST' Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums."

Of course, slavery was objectively bad, and remains a stain in U.S. history. Millions of African Americans were enslaved in cruel conditions, finding themselves raped and beaten at the hands of the white slave owners who reaped the economic benefits of their indentured servants.

Indeed, the impact of slavery still hurts Black people in the U.S. today—with Black communities facing economic and educational inequities that trace back to slavery and Jim Crow segregation.

What's more, other parts of Trump's idiotic Truth Social post are also false, as Smithsonian museums absolutely do feature success stories. Not to mention, Trump's claim that the museums do not contain anything about the future is also absurd, as history museums by definition focus on history, which by definition is in the past.

Ultimately, Trump’s vow to be the arbiter of what is included in Smithsonian museums is the latest way Trump is trying to rewrite history—and make the entire country view America through his racist and egomaniacal lens.

Since his first term in office, Trump has tried to whitewash the United States’ history, including when in 2020 he announced that he was creating the 1776 Commission in order to make sure kids were not being taught that the United States is “an irredeemably and systemically racist country.” The 1776 Commission ended up releasing a report in January 2021, right before Trump was booted from office, that the American Historical Association said amounted to “a screed against a half-century of historical scholarship.”

After taking office again in 2025, Trump quickly went to work to whitewash history, including stripping mentions of diversity and equity from government websites, which led to irrational things like the removal of photos of the Enola Gay B-29 bomber because it contained the word “gay.” A Defense Department tribute to Jackie Robinson, an Army lieutenant who became the first Black man to play Major League Baseball, was also removed. Additionally, articles about the Navajo Code Talkers, who in World War II used their native language to create a code that the Nazis could not understand that helped the Allied forces communicate battle strategy, were removed from the Defense website.

Trump also signed an executive order that deemed books that tell the story of slavery to be filled with “corrosive ideology,” and ordered them removed from the Smithsonian Institution and the national park system. And the Smithsonian changed an exhibit on presidential impeachment to make Trump's two impeachments look less damning.

Meanwhile, Trump is also attacking universities, threatening to pull funding if they do not bend to his will on everything from hiring decisions to admissions policies.

Trump during his first run for office declared that he “loves the poorly educated.” Now, he’s trying to ensure everyone in the U.S. is poorly educated, taught only his false and whitewashed view of history.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Gallup Poll: Americans Moving Away From Republican Party

Gallup Poll: Americans Moving Away From Republican Party

More Americans now affiliate themselves with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party, marking the first time this has happened since January 2024, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday.

Gallup finds that in the second quarter of 2025, an average of 46 percent of Americans say they identified as a Democrat or a Democratic-leaning independent, compared with the 43 percent who say they are a Republican or Republican-leaning independent.

That's a change from the first quarter of the year, when an equal 45 percent of Americans identified with either party. And it's an even bigger shift from the fourth quarter of 2024—when last year’s presidential election took place—when 47 percent identified as Republicans.

Gallup said that the shift is not unexpected since the party in power usually sees voters turn away from it in the first few months of a new administration.

"Shifts in party affiliation away from the ruling party have occurred in the first year of most recent presidential administrations. The current movement in party preferences is primarily driven by a greater share of political independents saying they lean toward the Democratic Party," Gallup said.

Still, the Democratic Party has a lot of work to do to improve its image.

Gallup also finds that just 34 percent of Americans view the Democratic Party favorably, which is the lowest rating for the party since Gallup first asked the question, in 1992. The GOP performs only marginally better, with 38 percent viewing it favorably.

Gallup said that Democrats' poor image is thanks to Democratic identifiers viewing their own party in an unfavorable light—likely because they want to see their party leaders fight harder against Trump’s shredding of the Constitution and the GOP’s cruel policies and evil attempts at stealing power.

"Seventy-three percent of Democrats now have a positive opinion of the party. This is down sharply from 87 percent in the prior reading in November and contrasts with a 91 percent favorable rating of the Republican Party among Republican identifiers," Gallup said.

Indeed, it’s why Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey unleashed on his fellow Democrats on the Senate floor on Tuesday, saying, “The Democratic Party needs a wake-up call.”

“It's time for Democrats to have a backbone. It's time for us to fight. It's time for us to draw lines,” Booker said.

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Still, despite the Democratic Party’s struggles, Gallup added that the shift in party affiliation away from the GOP is likely a worrying sign for Republicans going into the 2026 midterms.

In each of the past few midterm elections, "midterm losses were preceded by shifts in party affiliation away from the ruling party during the president’s first year in office," Gallup wrote.

For example, in 2017, when Trump first took office, Republicans saw a two-percentage-point decline in the number of people who affiliated with their party. In the next year’s midterms, a blue wave led to Democrats regaining control of the House.

And in 2009, when Barack Obama first entered the White House, Democrats saw a 5-point drop in the number of Americans affiliated with the party between the first and fourth quarters of the year. A year later, Republicans romped to victory in the 2010 midterms.

At the end of the day, the laws of thermostatic politics still stand.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Agriculture Secretary: If You Get Medicaid, Go Pick Crops!

Agriculture Secretary: If You Get Medicaid, Go Pick Crops!

Americans fear that they will lose their Medicaid coverage thanks to the massive cuts Republicans made to the program when passing President Donald Trump's "One Big, Beautiful Bill." Luckily, the Trump administration came up with a new and novel way for people to earn their health insurance coverage back.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that Americans can work the fields to replace the thousands of immigrant farmworkers the Trump administration is deporting—leaving farms desperate for labor.

"We move the workforce toward automation and 100% American participation, which again with 34 million people, able-bodied on Medicaid, we should be able to do fairly quickly," Rollins said Tuesday at a news conference at the Department of Agriculture.

Of course, millions of people who will lose their Medicaid coverage are working, and thus don't need jobs in fields picking crops. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 92% of Medicaid recipients work. The other 8% are either “retired, unable to find work, or were not working for another reason,” KFF said. Hard to see how retirees could do the hard labor of harvesting crops in hot fields.

What's more, there are not enough jobless Americans to fill the thousands of back-breaking jobs farmers are losing thanks to Trump's cruel immigration raids.

“The data for the last five months indicate a serious fall in the number of immigrant workers,” labor economist Mark Regets, a senior fellow at the National Foundation for American Policy, told Forbes of the data from recent job reports. “Despite growth in the unadjusted numbers, the U.S.-born labor force participation rate and the overall seasonally adjusted labor force total suggest that the loss of immigrant labor is not bringing more U.S.-born workers into the labor force.”

In fact, farmers have been sounding alarm bells, saying that the immigration raids are leading workers to not show up, which is putting crops at risk of rotting in the fields—something that will hurt both farmers and American consumers, who could see price hikes due to food shortages.

And ultimately, Americans simply do not want the farm jobs Rollins suggests they should get if they want Medicaid coverage.

For decades, farmers have said that Americans are not interested in the difficult jobs picking crops, which has led them to rely on immigrant labor. Even Trump knows that, as he at first said he would stop immigration raids at farms and businesses that rely on immigrant workers—before reversing that position and allowing raids on farms to resume.

At the end of the day, this is just more cruelty from Republicans and the Trump administration—who think all poor people are lazy and undeserving of help.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Medicaid Cuts Have Already Shuttered A Hospital In Rural Nebraska

Medicaid Cuts Have Already Shuttered A Hospital In Rural Nebraska

President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" isn't even signed yet, but is already having negative consequences for Americans.

A hospital in rural Nebraska announced on Wednesday that it will shut its doors after more than 30 years, explicitly citing the expected cuts to Medicaid that Congress is set to pass in Trump’s bill.

“Unfortunately, the current financial environment, driven by anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid, has made it impossible for us to continue operating all of our services, many of which have faced significant financial challenges for years,” Troy Bruntz, the CEO of Community Hospital in McCook, Nebraska, said in a statement to a local news outlet.

Indeed, hospital associations have been warning that the massive cuts to Medicaid in the GOP's bill will decimate rural hospitals, whose patients are often Medicaid recipients. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that about 17 million people will go uninsured in the next decade because of the bill’s cuts to health care spending. The majority of those losing health care currently have Medicaid, which covers over 71 million Americans and more than 41 percent of births in the United States.

For example, the American Hospital Association, a major industry group, said in a statement after the Senate passed the bill, "This legislation will cause 11.8 million Americans to be displaced from their health care coverage as they move from insured to uninsured status. It also will drive up uncompensated care for hospitals and health systems, which will affect their ability to serve all patients. It will force hospitals to make service line reductions and staff reductions, resulting in longer waiting times in emergency departments and for other essential services, and could ultimately lead to facility closures, especially in rural and underserved areas.”

A group of hospitals and health care systems in Louisiana also warned House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), whose district is in the state, that the bill he shepherded through his chamber will devastate hospitals that serve his constituents.

"The impact of provisions in the United States Senate’s version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act reflects an estimated annual loss of more than $4 billion in total Medicaid funding for Louisiana healthcare providers. This will negatively impact our ability to deliver care and have devastating consequences for our state budget," they said in a letter to Johnson. "These economic consequences pale in comparison to the harm that will be caused to residents across the state, regardless of insurance status, who will no longer be able to get the care that they need."

However, rather than try to fix the bill to stave off the awful consequences, Republicans are instead lying about what it does.

Multiple GOP members have falsely claimed that the Medicaid cuts impact only people who refuse to work.

"Look, if you're able-bodied without dependents and you choose not to work, well, you shouldn't be on a public welfare program. That's the bottom line,” Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland said in an interview with the right-wing propaganda outlet Newsmax, adding, “You should be off the public dole. Yes, you will lose your Medicaid coverage. Get a job and get coverage through a job if necessary.”

But able-bodied people who choose not to work are a minuscule portion of Medicaid recipients. In fact, according to health policy outlet KFF:

Among adults under age 65 with Medicaid who do not receive benefits from the Social Security disability programs, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), and who are not also covered by Medicare (referred to hereafter as “Medicaid adults”), 92% were working full or part-time (64%), or not working due to caregiving responsibilities, illness or disability, or school attendance. The remaining 8% of Medicaid adults reported that they are retired, unable to find work, or were not working for another reason.

Republicans passed Trump’s bill after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries ended a blockbuster speech in which he torched Republicans for hurting the poor to pay for tax cuts that benefit the rich.

“Leadership requires courage, conviction, compassion—and yet what we have seen from this administration and co-conspirators on the Republican side of the aisle is cruelty, chaos and corruption,” Jeffries said in the speech, according to The New York Times.

Jeffries added that the GOP bill is “an extraordinary assault on the health care of the American people.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Echoes Of Iraq Invasion As Trump Lurches Toward War On Iran

Echoes Of Iraq Invasion As Trump Lurches Toward War On Iran

President Donald Trump is publicly toying with the possibility of joining Israel's war on Iran, ignoring his own administration’s intelligence assessment that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon”—giving nightmarish flashbacks to President George W. Bush’s war on Iraq.

“I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble,” Trump said on the White House lawn Wednesday morning.

According to The New York Times, Trump is inching closer to U.S. involvement in Iran, even though national intelligence disputes Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Iran was weeks away from achieving nuclear capabilities. It’s the same claim Netanyahu has been falsely asserting for three decades, making him sound like the boy who cried wolf.

Meanwhile, Trump is feuding with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who testified before Congress in March that Iran isn’t building a nuclear weapon and is now seemingly trying to deter Trump from going to war.

“I don’t care what she said,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Tuesday. “I think they were very close to having a weapon.”

And like Bush, who was goaded into invading Iraq by fellow bloodthirsty Republicans—like Vice President Dick Cheney, who falsely claimed that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction”—Trump is being provoked by GOP hawks advocating for bombing Iran.

"He's very focused, very calm," warmonger Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told CNN. "I feel like when he says no nukes for Iran, he means it. He gave them a chance for diplomacy. I think they made a miscalculation when it comes to President Trump."

And Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, told Margaret Brennan, host of CBS’ “Face the Nation,” that Iran is "very close to having enough pure weapons-grade uranium for several weapons."

He also said that Trump has "appropriately kept all options on the table."

This is terrifying because Trump has a history of believing the last person he speaks to on an issue. And given that the Iran hawks now have his ear, it looks like Trump may be swayed by their bloodlust and enter the United States into another aimless war.

"He’s easily manipulable, but this is on him. That is where we are now. He has engaged the U.S. in a new war in the Middle East, and he seems to be on the brink of going just all in," Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, told the New Republic.

What’s more, Republicans and right-wing media are also painting people against U.S. involvement in the war as un-American—trying to pressure Trump’s base, which is uneasy about it, to fall in line. It echoes right-wing media tactics used to sell the public on the war in Iraq in 2002.

"This is good versus evil. You’re either a patriotic American who is going to get behind the president of the United States—the commander-in-chief—or you’re not," Fox News personality Mark Levin said Tuesday night.

Sound familiar?

As the saying goes: history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Elon Musk

Congressional Republicans Veer Between Musk And Trump Over Budget Bill

President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk are locked in an ugly breakup—and Republicans are having a hard time choosing sides.

Since leaving the Trump administration in late May, Musk has gone rogue, openly attacking the House GOP’s "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" for its deficit-busting tax cuts. He called the legislation—which cuts Medicaid and food stamps but still would add trillions to the deficit thanks to its tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefit the rich—a "disgusting abomination." Ouch.

That has angered Trump, who told reporters on Thursday that his friendship with Musk may be over, and that Musk is against the legislation only because it ends electric vehicle subsidies.

Some Republicans, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, are taking Trump's side, saying that Musk is wrong and that Republicans need to pass the legislation.

“I think he’s flat wrong … and I’ve told him as much,” Johnson told reporters on Wednesday, insisting that he's not worried that the legislation will negatively impact Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune also downplayed Musk's criticism and its potential impact on how Senate Republicans will handle the bill.

“I can’t speak to his reasons other than what he stated, and I think that what he stated was that he thought it was something that would add to the deficit. And we believe the opposite,” Thune said, rejecting the nonpartisan independent analysis that shows the legislation will add $2.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

Other Republicans say Musk's concerns about the fact that the bill lifts the debt ceiling and increases the national deficit are valid.

"He has real-world experience. [JPMorgan Chase CEO] Jamie Dimon has real-world experience. When they throw up red flags about the deficit, we ought to pay attention," Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland told reporters. Harris cowardly voted “present” on the bill to allow it to pass the House despite his reservations with the legislation.

"So @elonmusk is right to call out House Leadership. I wish I had a nickel for every time the @freedomcaucus sounded the alarm and nobody listened, only to find out the hard way we were right all along," Rep. Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, wrote in a post on X, even though Perry voted for the legislation he now says is bad.

"It’s insincere for @SpeakerJohnson to insinuate @elonmusk is against the Big Beautiful Bill because it doesn’t benefit his companies specifically," Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, one of two House Republicans who voted against the bill, wrote on X.

"Musk is a true America First entrepreneur who could have had a much more comfortable existence and a higher net worth by sitting on the sidelines of politics. But he cares about this country, so he got involved. He knows if America collapses financially, we aren’t making it to Mars. He’s right,” Massie added.

Other Republicans want nothing to do with the fighting at all, like little kids who stick their fingers in their ears when their parents are arguing.

“I ain't got any thoughts on that. We got a lot of work to do. He doesn’t get to vote," said Sen. Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama.

It's an ugly war that could end badly for the GOP no matter which side they choose.

Republican lawmakers can face Trump’s MAGA mob if they vote against the legislation, or they might go up against a Musk-funded primary opponent if they vote for the bill.

Republicans made a deal with two devils—Trump and Musk—and they’re finding out the hard way that their actions have consequences.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Americans Losing Their Jobs

New Data Show Trump Tariffs Are Ruining Job Market

Unemployment claims have risen for the second-straight week, exceeding economists' expectations at the highest level in eight months, the Department of Labor announced on Thursday.

Initial jobless claims stood at 247,000 for the week ending on May 31, higher than the 236,000 claims that economists had been projecting. That jump caused the four-week moving average to increase by 4,500.

"New jobless claims are ticking up. The numbers are still low, but there's an upward trend. This is key to watch. The main reason the US economy has been so resilient is 159.5 million people are still employed and getting paychecks. If that goes down, a downward spiral will start,” Heather Long, the chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote on X.

According to the Labor Department, the biggest surge in new unemployment claims was in Michigan, where 8,490 people filed claims—up 3,259 from the week prior. The state’s job losses came from the manufacturing industry, which is being hit hard by President Donald Trump's steel, aluminum, and automobile tariffs.

Indeed, a number of automobile manufacturing companies have announced layoffs, including Stellantis, Ford, General Motors, and a handful of other companies that manufacture car parts.

Ultimately, the increase in jobless claims comes after the payroll company ADP said that just 37,000 private-sector jobs were created in May—a major slowdown and possibly the first tangible signs that Trump's idiotic tariffs are now impacting the job market.

Economists said that Trump’s tariffs would cut into companies’ profit margins, leading to increased prices, layoffs, or both. And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday that the tariffs would cause the U.S. economy to shrink.

“If the president does not reverse course, he will increase the unemployment rate to recessionary levels,” Michael R. Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, told CNBC in April.

All eyes are now on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which will release its monthly jobs report Friday morning. Should that number come in under economists’ expectations, it will be more proof that their fears of Trump’s tariffs are coming true.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Margie Whines That Her Life In Congress Is 'Miserable' -- And Costs Too Much

Mad Margie Is Sorry She Voted For Trump's Budget Bill

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, previously celebrated the House's passage of President Donald Trump's "One Big, Beautiful Bill.” But now she claims that she would have voted against it—had she actually read it.

In a post on X, Greene explained that she didn’t know that the bill includes a provision blocking states from regulating artificial intelligence, and had she known, she would have voted against the Medicaid-slashing legislation that passed by a one-vote margin.

"Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years. I am adamantly OPPOSED to this and it is a violation of state rights and I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there,” she wrote.

Greene had been championing the dogshit legislation that slashes health care and food stamps while exploding the deficit with tax cuts for the rich. And after it passed the House ahead of Memorial Day, she cheered.

"We passed President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill out of the House this morning and now it’s on its way to the Senate!!" Greene wrote on X, celebrating the fact that the legislation would block Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood.

But now she claims that she didn't read the full bill, the text of which was released late at night and just a few hours before the House voted on it.

But Greene isn't the only Republican to admit to having no idea what she voted for.

Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska said he didn't know that the bill includes a provision that would make it more difficult for federal judges to enforce contempt rulings—a last-minute addition from sycophantic lawmakers who want to protect Dear Leader from being held accountable for ignoring court orders.

“This provision was unknown to me when I voted for the bill,” Flood said during a town hall, where he was mercilessly booed by his constituents who were angry that he voted in favor of the bill.

As backlash mounts against the bill, it’s possible that we’ll see other GOP lawmakers express remorse for voting in support of legislation that will kick millions of people off of their health insurance and food assistance while potentially taking down the U.S. economy.

It seems that even Republicans understand how much of a political loser the bill is, as GOP lawmakers are straight up lying about its Medicaid cuts to try to avoid voter backlash, which has exploded at town halls across the country.

The White House even released a fact sheet assuring Americans that people won’t “literally die” because of the bill.

If you have to explain to people that you don’t think they’ll die from your signature legislation’s health care cuts, it’s safe to say that you’re not in a great place politically.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Ernst's Callous Quip On Medicaid Cuts Inspires A Challenger

Ernst's Callous Quip On Medicaid Cuts Inspires A Challenger

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa made some callous and disgusting comments about her support for Medicaid cuts during a town hall on May 30, telling constituents that “we all are going to die.”

Now her comments have officially earned her a top Democratic challenger in the 2026 midterm election: JD Scholten, a current state representative for Iowa.

"After her comments over the weekend, I've been thinking about it for a while, but that's when I just said: This is unacceptable and you've gotta jump in," Scholten told The Gazette on Monday. "At the end of the day, though, it's not about her, it's not about me, it's about the people of Iowa deserving better. I don't think there's anything worse that you could do than cut Medicaid, cut SNAP benefits for everyday Iowans just so you can give billionaires bigger tax breaks. That is not Iowa in my mind."

Ernst has not apologized for her comments, but instead she’s doubled down, posting a video over the weekend to make fun of people who condemned her comments.

“I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth. So I apologize. And I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well,” she said in the video.

But Scholten isn’t having her sarcasm, calling out her video as out of touch with what Iowans need.

“We’re taking them off [Medicaid], so billionaires can have a second yacht, so they can have a bigger tax break. We have a system that’s geared towards and favors billionaires and huge multinational corporations, and that’s not working for most of Iowa,” he told Politico.

Though Iowa has shifted right over the past decade—with Trump winning the state in every election since 2016—Ernst, who won in both 2014 and 2020, saw a margin of just 6 points in the 2020 election. That same year, Trump carried the state by 9 points.

And in a “blue wave” year like 2026 is shaping up to be—coupled with Ernst’s latest missteps—the race could be quite competitive.

Scholten overperformed the Republican lean in his district both in 2018 and 2020, according to Split Ticket data. And in 2024, he won his state House district by 6.9%, while Vice President Kamala Harris lost it by 1.6%.

It’s looking like we won’t want to sleep on Iowa in 2026.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

At GOP Town Halls, Furious Voters Condemn Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill'

At GOP Town Halls, Furious Voters Condemn Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill'

Forget Elon Musk—congressional Republicans are facing new fury from voters, this time for voting in support of President Donald Trump’s "One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” which proposes slashes the social safety net to pay for tax cuts for the rich.

Two Republicans brave enough to hold town halls—Reps. Mike Flood of Nebraska and Ashley Hinson of Iowa—were both met by angry voters who questioned their support for a bill that would strip away health insurance, food aid, and more from millions of Americans.

Hinson was booed by the audience in her deeply Republican district after she said that she was "proud" to vote for the bill.

"This is a generational investment …” Hinson said, trailing off as the boos drowned her out.

And when Hinson claimed that judges who rule against Trump are engaged in "egregious abuses,” she was met by chants from the audience calling her a "fraud.”

Meanwhile, Flood also faced angry voters in his heavily Republican district, with Flood unable to defend certain provisions in the bill, including a last-minute addition that would make it harder for federal judges to enforce contempt rulings.

“This provision was unknown to me when I voted for the bill,” Flood said, admitting that he didn’t read the bill, which GOP leadership put up for debate in the middle of the night just minutes after releasing the amended text.

Given that House Republicans passed the dogshit bill right before Memorial Day weekend, few other GOP lawmakers have had time to hold town halls to see if this anger is widespread.

But polling shows that voters do not support cutting Medicaid and food stamps to fund tax cuts for the rich. So these displays of rage could be just the beginning for GOP lawmakers—most of whom have been hiding from their constituents by either holding heavily scripted events or eschewing town halls altogether.

Now House Republicans are trying to blunt the backlash by lying about what the legislation does. After the bill passed, the National Republican Congressional Committee, which seeks to elect Republicans to the House, issued a memo falsely claiming that it wouldn’t cut Medicaid.

“The One Big, Beautiful Bill is more than a messaging opportunity; it’s a midterm roadmap. Republicans must drive this contrast, simplify our message, and target Democrats every day. This is about fraud vs families. This is about taxes vs take-home pay. This is about securing the border vs subsidizing chaos. This is about putting working families first, not last,” the memo said.

Of course, independent analyses show that millions of Americans will lose Medicaid coverage and Affordable Care Act subsidies. And the lowest income brackets will actually see their take-home pay decline thanks to the bill, should Trump sign it into law.

Indeed, House Democrats are already gearing up to use this vote to hammer Republicans in the 2026 midterms.

“As the economy is tanking, consumer confidence is at historic lows, and millions are struggling to make ends meet, House Republicans decided to ignore it all… and advance an astonishingly detrimental bill – the GOP Tax Scam – that raises costs on working families while benefiting the wealthiest few,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wrote in a memo.

“It’s a vote that every single vulnerable House Republican will come to regret next year,” it said.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are now having their turn to amend the legislation, and they’re doing their usual performance of claiming that they won't back the bill because it adds to the deficit.

“In the House, President Trump can threaten a primary. Those guys want to keep their seats, I understand the pressure. He can’t pressure me that way," Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who says he won’t vote for the bill because it increases the deficit, told Punchbowl News.

But given how cowardly Republicans continue to prove themselves to be, there’s no doubt that they’ll fall in line with Dear Leader.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.