Yes, this is another absolute scam. Money was already appropriated for military housing. Trump deviously redirected some of it and called it a win. Like moving the goalposts, innit? All to bribe the military’s approval of him because he’s that shallow, weak, and desperate for approval.
Did you hear? Trump believes himself to know more about grass than anyone because he owns a lot of golf courses.
Trump added, “I have a lot of golf courses all over the place. I know more about grass than any human being, I think, anywhere in the world.”
~snip~
*cough cough gag gag laugh* Sure he does.
Trump also complained that lawn mowers are complicated and probably need a high IQ to operate.
Trump said, “Farming equipment has gotten too expensive. They put these environmental excesses on the equipment, which don’t do a damn thing except make it complicated, make it impractical, and frankly, you really have to be, in many cases, you need about 185 IQ to turn on a lawnmower.”
As I’ve noticed many ‘brown-skinned’ people, the kind that that Trump routinely disparages, operating lawnmowers during the last decade, does this mean that they have high IQs?
I think Trump’s opinion about needing a high IQ to turn on a lawnmower makes us realize what a true idiot he is. I wonder, too: did Trump ever try turning on a lawnmower?
Maybe that’s how Trump hurt his hand. He tried turning on a lawnmower but wasn’t smart enough.
I’m busy typing at the coffee shop but the conversation going on with the newcomers to my left pluck me out of my fiction and into the real world.
The woman was catching up with her father. So I gathered because she asked, “What do you drink, Dad?”
“Black coffee.”
“Cream? Do you want a little cream?”
“No, black.”
They sat and talked. Her healthcare premiums were going up. That’d forced her to change insurance coverage, reducing it to reduce her monthly costs. That meant getting less insurance. Her deductible would now be $9,000 for her. Only her. Her monthly payment now would be $448 a month. She discussed the notices she’d received about her reduced subsidy now dictated by the Big Beautiful Bill.
Dad commiserated. Mentioned, you’re like one of those on television, facing tough choices because of the new bill. Lamenting that the legislators won’t take it up.
Then she said, “Thank God I’m healthy.”
I bit my tongue. Wondered about their politics. Shrugged.
We are so polarized in the United States in the second decade of the 2000s.
Yeah, that’s not news.
Last election for the POTUS in 2024, we had those on the right screaming about President Biden’s sleeping. They declared him feeble. ‘They’, egged on by Donald Trump and JD Vance, raged about President Biden’s enfeebled state. In their eyes, he was too old, too tired. And who should replace that enfeebled, tired president, the one called Sleepy Joe by Donald J Trump?
Why Donald J. Trump, of course! A year younger but so much more energetic, they declared. Despite his haggard appearance. Despite the photos of him sleeping at his trial in 2024.
Trump is what we need, they cried. Despite his felony convictions. Despite his business failures. He tells it like it is! Despite his well-documented lies. Despite his hatred, and his use of slurs against people, especially women and the handicapped. Despite his three marriages and payments to a woman for sex.
They thought Trump would lower prices through tariffs. Reduce inflation! Bring back jobs! Increase the prestige, success, and conditions in the United States.
The rest of us thought this weird. Trump had already been POTUS. He’d not accomplished anything he promised. His biggest broken promises were not building the wall that Mexico would pay for. He’d been twice impeached. He instigated insurrection against the United States and tried to overturn the election results when he lost.
Trump didn’t replace the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare, he mocked it — as he promised. Trump never even rolled out a concept in four years plus.
Trump said he would ‘never golf’ or ‘take vacation’ because he’d be too busy working for the nation. Trump has since golfed more than any POTUS. He’s golfed about 25% of his time in office in 2025.
And Trump, Trump, is the only POTUS to have the government shutdown three times. His third government shutdown, the Trump Epstein Shutdown of 2025, is the longest on record.
Now Trump has established new records. Through Trump’s orders, 80 people, strangers to the United States, as we rarely know their names, or their records, or any evidence against them, have been murdered in international waters, a violation of U.S. and international law.
Through Trump, U.S. citizens are being turned against one another through his deployment of unneeded national guard and military units. He offers flimsy excuses and reasons, declaring that the places where he’s deploying them are burning, when there is no evidence at all of these things happening.
Through Trump, tourism and travel to the United States is cratering. Through Trump, prices are rising and affordability is falling.
Trump makes money on being POTUS. He pushes products with his name on them, like his Bible, his gold shoes, his gold cell phone. He’s destroying the White House, having it torn down, over the objections of We the People.
And weirdly, weirdly, through all of this, some part of the United States population declares that Trump represents the best of us.
The rest of us recoil in horror. We think Trump represents the worst of us.
Trump’s greed is not the best of the United States. His failed businesses are not the best of the United States. His lies, womanizing, and cheating are not the best of the United States. His lawlessness and childish mocking of other people are not the best of the United States. His ranting on Truth Social is not the best of the United States. His wanton disappearing people based on the color of their skin or their accents, without any due process, is not the best of the United States. His killing of citizens from other nations without due process is not the best of the United States. His persecution of political opponents is not the best of the United States. Nor is his greed, avarice, and shallow thinking the best of the United States.
Twisted and polarized. This is what we are. The real question for us is, where do we go from here, in 2025, as we near the end of just the first year of Trump’s second term?
Many of us are holding our breath as 2026 approaches. Because we do not know what Trump will do next. And given his lawlessness and the way he’s breaking our nation, chances are, whatever he does, it will not be good for anyone except Donald J. Trump.
It’s now 80 murders. Let’s call them for what they are. Crimes.Yes, Dozy Donny is killing in the name of the United States to provoke Venezuela into retaliation, giving Trumpy a paralegal excuse to invade the oil rich nation. I’m sure Trump will whip out the autopen and pardon this criminal soon. It’s the Trump way!
I’ve been thinking about that $2000 that Trump is waving in front of people.
What an utterly disconnected offering. What a cheap fucking bribe. Sure, the poorest and those close to being poor will jump on two grand. It’d give them temporary breathing room, maybe help fix a car or pay for part of something needed. For most, though, two thou in today’s economy is like a cold slice of half-eaten pizza found for breakfast.
Fierce Healthcare notes that red staters have been flocking to ACA for the last several years.
Enrollment on the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) exchanges has more than doubled over the past several years, with much of that growth coming from red states, according to a new report.
Analysts at KFF found that enrollment in marketplace plans reached 24.3 million for 2025, up from 11.4 million in 2020. That’s growth of 113% for those five years, the researchers said.
Almost all states have seen some level of increase since 2020, per the report. However, there are six states where enrollment more than tripled, and all were won by President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. The highest increases were in Texas and Mississippi, where enrollment grew by 255% and 242%, respectively.
In Louisiana and West Virginia, enrollment increased by 234%, while Georgia saw an increase of 227%. Enrollment rose in Tennessee by 221%.
Yowza! Sounds like Trump is screwing over his base without the breaks the Big Beautiful Bill of 2025 ended. When cruelty is the point, it doesn’t matter who the victim is. More pointedly, when healthcare premiums are jumping by huge chunks, two thousand doesn’t gain much, especially now, when affordability is rising as a problem for ‘Muricans. Industries, reporters, businesses, and analysts are citing increases in food prices, pet food, construction and home repair, gas for heating homes and gas for driving cars, electricity, healthcare, and consumer goods. Against that flood, Trump desperately throws up two thousand dollars and tries those tired ol’ ploys of crying fake news, hoax, while repeatedly and shrilly lying, “No, no, it’s all going great!” But even hard-headed MAGAts are starting to notice the dick-tator’s new clothes.
Of course, Trump is booming with promises.
He promises — again — he’s coming out with a new healthcare plan. Promises and lies is what he doth best. ‘Member any of these?
Trump and Republicans once again own the issue of health care, with millions of citizens — not just those on ACA plans — afflicted by rising premiums and high deductibles against the backdrop of a wider cost-of-living crisis. And just as in his first term, Trump lacks a comprehensive, detailed plan to bring relief to citizens who lack health care, who can’t afford the plans they have or who know that the loss of a job could leave them without any coverage at all.
~snip~
During the 2016 campaign, Trump pledged to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something “terrific.” At rallies, he promised Americans new health care that would cost less but be far better. If that sounds impossible, it’s probably because it is.
Early in his first term, Trump promised that change was on the way. “Despite what you hear in the press, healthcare is coming along great. We are talking to many groups and it will end in a beautiful picture!” he wrote on the website formerly known as Twitter in March 2017. The GOP failure to repeal Obamacare, partly because it couldn’t come up with an alternative, didn’t stop Trump’s sunny predictions. “The Republican Party will be soon be known as theparty of health care,” the president declared in March 2019.
Second term, same as the first. In his debate with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in 2024, Trump was mocked for saying he had “concepts of a plan” to make health care “better and less expensive.” More than a year later — and despite some significant efforts by Trump to bring down the cost of some prescription drugs — Americans are still waiting for his wider solutions.
~snip~
But with unemployment likely rising, some people will be very desperate for any additional income.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics did not release an October jobs report thanks to the GOP’s government shutdown. But the United States likely lost a whopping 50,000 jobs last month, according to a report released Tuesday by Goldman Sachs. This is a flashing warning that the nation may be entering recession territory.
Goldman Sachs’ report was backed up by data from the payroll company ADP, which on Tuesday said that the private sector lost an average of 11,250 jobs per week in the four weeks ending Oct. 25. ADP said the numbers signal that “the labor market struggled to produce jobs consistently during the second half” of October.
It’s all part of the MAGA magic, an illusion as deep and real as the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz.
Which means, of course, brace yerself. Trump and his allies need more distractions. Bigger distractions. They’ll get angrier. Meaner. Crueler. Declare more enemies and attack more. Lie more, and do it more loudly. Because, you know.
Just in time for the holidays. You’re a cruel one, Mr. Trump.
TL/DR: Trump lies a lot. So does Speaker Mike Johnson. And they’re wrecking the United States. Also, an explanation of the TLLs.
GOP duplicity and hypocrisy increases. Not surprising, really. Duplicity and hypocrisy are not finite. Tariffs don’t affect their availability. Duplicity and hypocrisy are as cheap and free as words. With the Epstein Shutdown of 2025 diving toward unpopularity reaching MAGA’s levels of hatred for diversity, Trump and the GOP are lying more about it.
BTW, this is Trump’s third government shutdown in less than five years of running the government. Spell that out, Trump has had a government shutdown in three out of five years of governing. Such a weak leader, isn’t he?
Except, we know the Epstein Shutdown isn’t like the others. This shutdown is to, one, distract people from the Epstein files and stop their release so that all the dirt that Trump did with Epstein is kept hidden from the light.
The Smirketeers. Donald Trump, left, with Jeffrey Epstein, second from the right, BFFs.
Perhaps as importantly, the Epstein Shutdown gives cover to the Project 2025 architects, enabling them to orchestrate the MAGA takeover of the Federal government. They want only GOP loyalists in there. Anyone critical of Trump or the anti-Christ known as Charlie Kirk must go! Third, and even more importantly, Trump can barrel through the Constitution and its checks and balances and broaden the cold war he’s conducting against Democrats through Federal funding of projects in blue states and blue cities. It’s all pretty cunning evil, certainly worthy of another Austin Powers movie.
Here’s where the hypocrisy, duplicity, and well, general lying kicks in.
Trump says it’s all the evil Democrats’ fault. Claims, they want funding to give trillions away to illegal immigrants. That’s a bonafide Trump Lie Level 5 lie, or in net shorthand, a TLL5. Trump lies so often and completely, we’ve been forced to develop a scale to discuss his lies.
Going along with Trump’s lie, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Hell) is now praising the Federal government that he so often maligned. From Carl Hulse in the NYTimes.
“You’re talking about women, infants and children who rely upon these supplemental nutrition programs that are now not being funded and being shut down,” Speaker Mike Johnson lamented on the Fox Business Network. “They are affecting FEMA services in the middle of the hurricane season.”
Never mind that Mr. Johnson led Republicans this year in pushing through legislation to slash nutrition assistance programs as part of the party’s marquee tax cut law, or that President Trump has taken an ax to FEMA grants during his first months in office.
In the upside-down political messaging surrounding the shutdown fight, conservative Republicans, usually eager to assail government largess, have transformed themselves into enthusiastic evangelists for federal spending and programs. It is part of a bid by the G.O.P. to maximize the pressure on Democrats, who routinely advocate for government workers and services, to relent in the spending battle.
Speaker Johnson pushes TLL5 lies out there, pretending he cares about people and how the government helps people. Johnson’s actions, as Carl Hulse pointed out, Speaker Johnson has consistently and cruelly demonstrated that he does not give a shit about anyone but Trump and whoever will help keep Trump and the GOP in power as they destroy the United States in all but name.
The truth is the Democrats want the CR being offered to include provisions to stop healthcare premiums from rising. The GOP under the Trump and Johnson tandem put those into effect in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill passed earlier this year. Even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is outraged about it.
We need to vote these liars out of office. Stand up and be heard. Wake up those who are sleeping through the Trump Destruction Machine and what it’s doing to the United States. The longer it takes to wake others up and stop the destruction, the longer it’ll take to rebuild and resume our effort to be a democracy with justice, freedom, and equality for all.
The headline about Trump pitching an alternate reality irritated me. This is nothing new. Trump has always pitched an alternate reality as a politician. He pushed and supported the idea that President Barack Obama was not a United States citizen. He damned the 2020 election that he lost as stolen. That alternate reality caught on with his MAGAfans and lured more of them in. Facts and court cases consistently reveal this as an alternate reality. Many of his supporters still live in that alternate reality. Trump went after “Sleepy Joe Biden”, disparaging him as too old and uninvolved, selling the alternate reality via hysteria about inflation that President Biden’s presidency was a disaster. He sold the alternate reality that he would “fix it on day one”, and now claims that’s what he’s done.
Trump continually bellows about what a terrible deal the ACA is for Americans, selling the alternate reality that he would have a big, beautiful replacement. He used to talk about that coming out in two weeks. Then he swung to an alternate reality that he had the concept of a plan. Now that he and the GOP control both houses, Trump doesn’t mention replacing ACA much. It played its part in his alternate reality that he had something better.
If you can cast your mind back to earlier this year, Trump and the GOP eagerly spread the alternate reality that not passing the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would cause economic disaster, would not change Medicaid, would not cut SNAP, and wouldn’t add to the national deficit. As the truth about the OBBBA has emerged, enraging voters, elected GOPers are hiding from their constituents, refusing to hold live townhall meetings because of OBBBA blowback.
In Trump’s alternate reality, companies or other nations pay tariffs and they won’t raise prices, because in his alternate reality, companies aren’t profit driven, and other nations were always ripping off the United States. Even in the deals he made, Trump claims in his alternate reality that they were terrible deals and the other nations were taking advantage of the United States.
“More than half of Republicans now say the country is heading in the wrong direction, a new AP-NORC poll shows. The new survey conducted between Sept. 11 and Sept. 15 found that 51 percent of Republican voters say the country is heading in the wrong direction, up from 26 percent in March. What’s more, less than half of Republicans (49 percent) now say the country is heading in the right direction, down from 70 percent in June. Republican women and individuals under 45 are more likely to say that America is not on the right track.“
The greater problem now is that corporations are deciding that they’d rather support Trump’s alternate reality than risk upsetting him, because upsetting Trump could jeopardize their business plans and money-making intentions.
And, while the Roberts Court seems to be taken in by Trump’s alternate realities, many other judges and courts are still rejecting them.
I hope all of us could hold out long enough against this onslaught of unnatural realities and get rid of this plague on the world, aka, Donald J. Trump.
Saw this on Facebook and stole it to circulate. I think Ryan DeGooyer’s insight has some merit; many people miss connections between what their state offers and the Federal Medicaid program. To put this into context, remember that many people do not realize the ACA — the Affordable Care Act — is the same thing as “Obamacare”.
I couldn’t figure out why there wasn’t even more outrage about impending Medicaid cuts. then saw a lady on tv state she wasn’t concerned because she’s on medi-cal… and I realized… some people don’t even know THEIR benefits are being cut because states often rename Medicaid (we all see where this is going right?). So, If you or your loved ones are covered by any of the following… they are talking about you:
Alabama: Medicaid
Alaska : DenaliCare
Arizona: Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS)
Arkansas: Health Care
California: Medi-Cal
Colorado: Health First Colorado
Connecticut: HuskyHealth, Husky C (for aged, blind or disabled persons)
Delaware: Diamond State Health Plan (Plus)
Florida: Statewide Medicaid Managed Care Program (SMMC), Managed Medical Assistance (MMA) Program, Long-term Care (LTC) Program
Georgia: Medicaid
Hawaii : MedQuest
Idaho: Medicaid
Illinois: Medical Assistance Program
Indiana: Hoosier Healthwise, Hoosier Care Connect, M.E.D. Works, Health Indiana Plan (HIP), Traditional Medicaid
Michael Seidel, writer 