Main Stream Media must report about the physicians lawsuit against incompetent RFKjr because of his stupid vaccine policies! DANGER!

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFKjr) is a lunatic incompetent who has appointed himself to be an uneducated authority about the public health value and the administration of disease preventive vaccines. 

Report published in Politico, Yahoo news and STAT: 

Vaccines save lives. Moreover, virus germs hate vaccines, because when humans and animals are immunized against viruses, this prevents the virus from mutating into an even more morbid form. 

If the American public, or humans and animals in general, stop getting influenza vaccines and COVID immunizations, this gap in immunity will quickly be preyed upon by mutant hungry viruses. Viruses will create a new DNA configuration to create another deadly pandemic, because that is what viruses do.

Glad to see legal push back from physicians groups❗ 

WASHINGTON — Six major medical groups, and a pregnant physician, are suing health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (JRKjr) over changes he made to Covid-19 vaccine recommendations that they say were unlawful and undermine the public trust in health care.

The suit argues that a May 19, 2025, directive signed by Kennedy, which said that the Covid-19 vaccine would no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant people, violates decades of policy governing how vaccines are reviewed, approved, and recommended in the U.S.

Doctors’ groups are suing Kennedy over COVID shot changes for kids and pregnant women.

They say the decision “erodes trust” by pitting providers against federal recommendations that aren’t grounded in evidence.

A coalition of doctors’ groups led by the American Academy of Pediatrics filed a lawsuit against (the incompetent❗) Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arguing that his May announcement that the government would no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for healthy pregnant people and children violated longstanding norms governing U.S. immunization policy.

(RFKjr is crazy and his policies about vaccines and other stupid stuff are dangerous to the public health.) ⚠️

The organizations filing suit say Kennedy’s May 19 “Secretarial Directive” documenting his move to pull the vaccine from the CDC’s immunization schedule constitutes a final agency action ripe for challenge, noting that he cited no emergency or specific circumstantial changes to support the move.

The Secretarial Directive is contrary to the wealth of data and peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate the safety and efficacy of Covid vaccines for children and pregnant women,” the plaintiffs said in the lawsuit.

Health and Human Services (HHS) didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Organizations on the challenge include the American College of Physicians, the American Public Health Association and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The directive, they wrote, has put doctors “in the untenable position of telling their patients that the country’s top-ranking government health official’s advice and recommendations are wrong and that we are right.”

“This erodes trust, which is the foundation of a healthy physician-patient relationship and vital to the success of AAP members’ medical practices,” they added.

Kennedy announced the change in a May 27, video posted to X, in which he was flanked by FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary and NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, both of whom gained notoriety during the Covid pandemic for their opposition to mask and vaccine mandates. (All of them grossly incompetent❗)

The three officials said there wasn’t sufficient data to show healthy children and healthy pregnant women benefited from Covid vaccination. “Most countries have stopped recommending it for children,” Makary said in the video.

The plaintiffs in the case said Kennedy had unlawfully sidelined the CDC and its independent vaccine panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which are the federal bodies responsible for the immunization schedule.

“The statutory scheme that regulates the vaccine infrtructure in this country demonstrates Congress’ repeated policy decision to require that ACIP recommendations, made by a fairly balanced ACIP membership, 51 be the basis for what is put on or taken off of the CDC immunization schedules — not the unilateral decision of a single individual,” the plaintiffs wrote.

Public and private insurers are largely obligated to cover ACIP-recommended vaccines with no cost-sharing under the Affordable Care Act, and states often tie their daycare and school vaccine requirements to the panel’s recommendations.

While the CDC ultimately didn’t pull the recommendation from the childhood schedule, it did downgrade it to one involving “shared decision making” — a differentiation the physician groups say has made it harder for providers to counsel patients and for practices to assess insurance coverage.

The lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Massachusetts, where a landmark vaccine policy case set national precedent in the early 20th century. The Supreme Court’s 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts decision upheld states’ authority to mandate vaccinations.

Donald Trump and the Republicans supported federal cuts to the National Weather Service plus Texas officials rejected sirens due to costs

Officials Feared Flood Risk to Youth Camps but Rejected Warning System Echo report published in the New York Times.

Kerr County Texas officials had discussed buying such things as water gauges and sirens after previous flood disasters. But as with many rural Texas counties, cost was an issue.😔😞😓

Eight years ago, in the aftermath of yet another river flood in the Texas Hill Country, officials in Kerr County debated whether more needed to be done to build a warning system along the banks of the Guadalupe River.

A series of summer camps along the river were often packed with children. For years, local officials kept them safe with a word-of-mouth system: When floodwaters started raging, upriver camp leaders warned those downriver of the water surge coming their way.

But was that enough❓ Officials considered supplementing the system with sirens and river gauges, along with other modern communications tools. “We can do all the water-level monitoring we want, but if we don’t get that information to the public in a timely way, then this whole thing is not worth it,” said Tom Moser, a Kerr County commissioner at the time.

In the end, little was done. When catastrophic floodwaters surged through Kerr County last week, there were no sirens or early flooding monitors. Instead, there were text alerts that came late for some residents and were dismissed or unseen by others.

The rural county of a little over 50,000 people, in a part of Texas known as Flash Flood Alley, contemplated installing a flood warning system in 2017, but it was rejected as too expensive. The county, which has an annual budget of around $67 million, lost out on a bid at the time to secure a $1 million grant to fund the project, county commission meeting minutes show.

Guadalupe River in Kerr County Texas flooding July 4, 2025

As recently as a May budget meeting, county commissioners were discussing a flood warning system being developed by a regional agency as something that they might be able to make use of.

But in a recent interview, Rob Kelly, the Kerr County judge and its most senior elected official, said that local residents had been resistant to new spending. “Taxpayers won’t pay for it,” he said, adding that he didn’t know if people might reconsider now.

The idea of a flood warning system was broached in 2015, in the aftermath of a deadly flood in Wimberley, Texas, about 75 miles to the east of Kerrville, the Kerr County seat.

The Guadalupe River Basin is one of the most dangerous regions in the United States when it comes to flash floods. Ordinary floods from heavy rainstorms occur regularly, inundating streets and threatening structures as floodwaters gradually rise.

The Texas region is also prone to flash floods, which can occur with little to no notice.

People living near the Guadalupe in Kerr County may have little time to seek higher ground, especially when flash floods come through late at night when people are asleep. In 1987, a rapidly rising Guadalupe River swept away a school bus carrying teens from a church camp, killing 10 of them.

Avantika Gori, a Rice University professor who is leading a federally funded project to improve flood resilience in rural Texas counties, said that flood warning systems are often simple networks of rain gauges or stream gauges that are triggered when rain or floodwaters exceed a certain level.

The gauges can then be used to warn those at risk of flooding, whether by text message, which may not be effective in areas with spotty cellphone service; notifications broadcast on TV and radio; or sometimes through a series of sirens.

More complex systems use forecasts from the National Weather Service to predict rainfall and model what areas might be subject to flooding, Professor Gori said.

After the 2015, floods, an improved monitoring system was installed in the Wimberley area, and cell towers are now used to send out notices to all cellphones in the area.

Mr. Moser, the former commissioner, visited Wimberley after its new system was in place, and then led efforts to have a flood warning system in Kerr County. His proposal would have included additional water detection systems and a system to alert the public, but the project never got off the ground, largely because of budget concerns.

“It sort of evaporated,” Mr. Moser said. “It just didn’t happen.”

One commissioner at the time, H.A. “Buster” Baldwin, voted against a $50,000 engineering study, according to a news account at the time, saying, “I think this whole thing is a little extravagant for Kerr County, with sirens and such.”

Mr. Moser said it was hard to tell if a flood warning system would have prevented further tragedy in Kerr County during the July 4 flood, given the extraordinary circumstance of the flooding, which came suddenly after an intense period of rain. But he said he believed that such a system could have had some benefit.

“I think it could have helped a lot of people,” Mr. Moser said.

The death toll from the flooding, now at 80, includes at least 28 children, with several girls and a counselor from one of the camps along the river still unaccounted for.

According to a transcript from a Kerr County Commissioners’ Court meeting in 2017, officials discussed how even with additional water level sensors along the Guadalupe River, the county would still need a way to alert residents if water levels were rising dangerously fast.

Sirens, which are used across Texas to alert residents about tornadoes, were considered by county officials as a way to alert people who live along the river about any flooding.

“With all the hills and all, cell coverage is not that great in some areas in Hill Country,” Mr. Moser said, adding that a series of sirens might have provided people in vulnerable areas sufficient time to flee.

Mr. Moser retired as a commissioner of Kerr County in 2021. But he said this week’s flooding there should be taken as a warning.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of places in the United States that will look at this event that happened in Kerr County and determine what could be done,” Mr. Moser said. “I think things should come out of this. It should be a lesson learned.”

Current city officials on Sunday did not discuss the earlier deliberations over warning systems. Dalton Rice, the Kerrville city manager, sidestepped a question about the effectiveness of local emergency notifications, telling reporters at a news conference that it was “not the time to speculate.”

“There’s going to be a full review of this, so we can make sure that we focus on future preparedness,” he said.

Professor Gori said that the decision not to install warning systems in the past has for many Texas counties come down to cost.

“If the county had a flood warning system in place, they would have fared much better in terms of preparedness, but most rural counties in Texas simply do not have the funds to implement flood warning systems themselves,” she said in an email.

Some simpler systems, however, like those using stream or rain gauges, may still not have allowed enough time for evacuations, given how fast the water rose in Kerr County, she added.

It is hardly unique in facing challenges.

“Rural counties are extremely data-scarce, which means we are essentially blind when it comes to identifying areas that are prone to flooding,” Ms. Gori said.

Texas has a growing backlog of flood management projects, totaling some $54 billion across the state. The state flood plan of the Texas Water Development Board called on lawmakers to dedicate additional funding to invest in potentially lifesaving infrastructure.

But lawmakers have so far allocated only a fraction of the money needed for flood projects through the state’s Flood Infrastructure Fund, about $669 million so far, even as state lawmakers this year approved $51 billion in property tax cuts.

Kerr County, in its earlier discussions about a warning system, had explored along with other members of the Upper Guadalupe River Authority the possibility of applying for financial support through the infrastructure fund. But the authority dropped the idea after learning that the fund would provide only about 5 percent of the money needed for the project.

During last week’s flooding, despite the text notifications that warned of rapidly rising waters, some residents were unsure how seriously to take the flood warnings because they are not unusual in that part of the state.

Sujey Martin, a resident of Kerrville for the past 15 years, said she was awakened by an emergency alert on her phone at about 2 a.m. on Friday. She said she had glanced at it and went back to sleep.

“It’s never this bad, so I didn’t think much of it,” she said.

It wasn’t until about 5 a.m. that she became alarmed, when she realized that her power was out, and she started reading on Facebook about flooding and evacuations, some of them just a few streets over from her. “It was raining really hard,” she recalled.

Louis Kocurek, 65, who lives in Center Point, about 10 miles southeast of Kerrville, said that he had never received an official government text alert about the flooding. He had signed up for a private emergency alert service known as CodeRED, but by the time that alert came in, his power had gone out. At that time, he said, he had known about the situation for at least three hours, warned by his son-in-law at about 6:30 a.m.

He had checked on the water level of the creek near his home and decided to stay put — even though the water in the creek rose 15 feet in 15 minutes at one point. His house sits at a higher elevation than the homes of some neighbors, and there were 11 people hunkering down at his house.

Mr. Kocurek said the CodeRED alert came in at 10:07 a.m. “At that point, you know, the roads were closed, no way to get out.” His house, ultimately, was not flooded.

Linda Clanton, a retired schoolteacher who lives on the outskirts of Kerrville, said she did not know how bad the flooding had become until her sister called and woke her up with the news at 8:30 a.m. on Friday. The next day, she was among several people taking in the widespread destruction and piles of debris caused by the floodwaters at Louise Hays Park, along the Guadalupe River on the west side of town.

She said she couldn’t be sure that even sirens would have been useful in warning people about the fast-moving water.

“We are all spread out in these hills and the trees,” she said. “If we had a siren here in town, nobody but town people would hear it,” she added. “You’d have to have sirens all over the place, and that’s a lot of money and a lot of things to go wrong.”

And the danger is not over yet. As a matter of fact, this catastrophic tragedy will be remembered for generations in the memories of all who were impacted and among the grieving victims families. 

Around 3 p.m. on Sunday, another emergency alert went out to people along the Guadalupe River, including the hundreds conducting searches, warning of “high confidence of river flooding.” Move to higher ground, the alert urged.

Christopher Flavelle and Anushka Patil contributed reporting.

Jesus Jiménez is a Times reporter covering Southern California.

Danny Hakim is a reporter on the Investigations team at The Times, focused primarily on politics.

Mike Baker is a national reporter for The Times, based in Seattle.

Comments: 

• Natleman- "Cost 💲versus Value"- The learning curve is extremely stiff and often paid for in lives lost.
• Steven- We need government. We can spend billions defending other countries with no problem but a million is too much to spend to prevent something like this❓ Tell that to the families in harms way.

A meaningful life meditation during very tragic times on July 4th 2025: Horrible news and sadness brings grief to many in multiple ways

Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper meditation: Hope and Meaning For A Time Such as This:

Astibles feather like- perennial blossoms (L'Heureux photo 2025)

About July 4th celebrations, there is sadness, Maria Shriver asks us to contemplate how to focus on living a meaningful life:

It feels almost impossible to even ask about how people celebrated July 4, 2025. This is a difficult question to answer in light of the devastating news out of Texas, where record breaking horrible flash flooding has drowned children who were attending a Christian camp and untold numbers of other victims that are still being searched for over this weekend. It is indeed difficult to be celebratory.

Like many of you, my heart has been heavy. The tragedy unfolding in Central Texas—the flooding, the dozens killed, the many still missing—has left so many of us feeling shaken. 

My spirit felt especially crushed by the story of the girls missing from the Christian Camp Mystic. I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like to send your child off to camp and wake up to such heartbreaking news. 

My heart is with the families still waiting for answers, and with those grieving the sudden, unimaginable loss of a loved one.

In the midst of all of this, it can feel disorienting to return to the everyday rhythms of life. But still, I find myself wanting to check in with you this morning. How are you doing today❓ How  did you spend your holiday weekend❓ Did you gather with anyone❓ Did it go as planned❓

Did you travel or stay put❓ Sometimes—actually, oftentimes—staying put is exactly what the body and the mind need so that they can rest, replenish, and recharge.

Maybe your holiday didn’t go as planned. Maybe someone you wanted to show up for your cookout didn’t make it, and that hurt your feelings.

Or maybe the wrong people showed up, and things went awry. Maybe you didn’t get a break at all. Maybe you were caring for a loved one around the clock. Maybe you’re struggling with your own independence, so the idea of celebrating the nation’s independence feels off-message. Maybe you’re struggling with the country as it is today and didn’t feel like celebrating much at all. Maybe you’re simply struggling—with all of it.

I feel with you.

I know it’s a hard time for a whole lot of folks of all ages, and I know that it’s going to get harder for those who are about to lose their healthcare, their home health aide, or the food they relied on from a specific government program. 

Meanwhile, young people who’ve just graduated are struggling to find that perfect job—or really any job at all. Artificial intelligence has already disrupted the job market, with more of that to come. Meanwhile, parents of young children are grappling with how to fill their kids’ days now that school is out. Camp is too expensive for many, leaving families wondering how to make it work. Lots of my friends who are grandparents say they’re being called in to help. Others cobble together groups of friends and neighbors to get through the days. I know. It can all feel like too much.

It’s in moments like these—when everything feels heavy and out of balance—that I find myself thinking about how we define a good life. So might I suggest something❓ Pull up a chair🪑 to my table, and let’s take a moment to talk about something that’s been on my mind. It may seem slightly off-topic, but it feels deeply relevant to me. What I’ve been contemplating lately is the definition of success and what it really means.

Lately, I’ve had so many conversations with all kinds of people reflecting on success—theirs and others’. They say they’re inundated by images of what success is supposed to look like. They speak about the pressure to be more successful than they currently feel. And yet, when I ask, “But what does success mean to you❓” very few can actually answer.

One friend who owns a very successful bookstore told me she wants to scale it up. I asked, “Scale it up to what?” She paused. “Good question.” Another friend, who recently launched a business, talked about the pressure to make it successful. When I asked what would make her feel like she and the business were truly successful, she wasn’t clear.

Young adults sit around my table, feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to keep up with so-called successful people. It all feels so far out of reach. Then they wonder: What is within my reach?

Today, we are inundated with superficial images of success—out-of-control weddings, luxury vacations, endless material possessions. We’re told stories of influencers with millions of followers and massive incomes. But is it all true? What do these so-called influencers really have in the bank? What’s a fantasy? What’s a mirage? What’s real❓ Are they the new face of success? Do they feel successful? What does success even feel like today? Is it fleeting? Is it internal? Are those who flash their success truly happier? I wonder.💭😟

Before I went out on my book tour this spring, I wrote down what success would feel like to me. I wrote: I’ll know it when I feel it in the room. I’ll have deep, meaningful conversations with people about their heartbreak, their healing, and their journeys home to themselves. I’ll feel full. That is when I’ll know I’ve been successful.

I used to think success was a specific accomplishment, but I’ve come to understand it as a feeling of contentment, of peace, of knowing I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. I often speak to my kids about what constitutes a successful life. I remind them of the importance of their faith, their family, their circle of friends—and that having those in alignment is, in fact, success. I remind them to keep their feet firmly planted in the ground (and on it) and to surround themselves with people who will tell them if they begin to lose their way. I speak to them about feeling good about where they actually are in life and about managing their wants so they don’t allow some future desire make them miss out on the present moment.

I often ask myself: What does it mean to have a successful family? A successful relationship? A successful business? A successful publication? I think a lot about the question: What is enough? 

When does scaling up get in the way of appreciating what you’ve already built

I don’t have the answer to what makes you feel successful, but I do think we need to talk more at our tables about the pressure we place on ourselves as we try to compete with a false god or an illusion.

If someone gives up their job to care for another, are they not successful? If one retires, are they no longer successful? If someone has a job that will never land them on the cover of a magazine, are they not successful? If someone is content with having less, or simply content with their life as it is, are they not successful?

I think it’s time to radically reframe success. It’s time to make it broader, more inclusive, deeper, wider, more inviting, more human, more real, more attainable.

Several years ago, I remember interviewing Stephen Covey when he published the book The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. He followed it up with The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Families.

In fact, I just recently reordered a copy, because now, as a grandmother, I’d like to update my own version of success. I’ve been thinking that it’s time to update my family’s definition of success as well. I also want to incorporate my son-in-law and my soon to be daughter-in-law into this discussion. As I sat at my Fourth of July table, I gave thanks that three of my kids and their friends and partners chose to join me. That felt like success.

Making time—making room to come together—feels like a big part of my vision and mission statement, as does prioritizing my health so my family doesn’t worry. So does seeing myself as a hopeful, loving person.

Truthfully, we all have our own unique success stories, as do our children, our siblings, and our friends. But, thinking about our wants and needs, thinking about what is enough and adjusting our definition of ambition and our visions to the present day …well, that seems like a good exercise for this moment in time.

Or at least that’s what I’ve been thinking. We seem to all have an opinion about the vision and the mission of our country. Maybe it’s important to have a mission and vision for ourselves and our families at the same time.

We all have our own unique success stories. Mine is very different than I thought it would be. Pull up a chair,🪑 and tell me yours.

Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans will deeply regret the immoral big bad ugly tax cuts for billionaires paid for by the working class

Donald Trump  bargained with Republicans in the middle of the night, to get what he wanted out of Congress; but it’s possible, in the coming years, that he is going to deeply regret and reject it.

Echo opinion published in New York Magazine "Intelligencer", by Ross Barkan, a political columnist for Intelligencer

This isn’t because Trump has any particular laments about the devastating policy in the reconciliation package, which will gut social safety-net programs and cut taxes, particularly on the rich. He won’t lament ballooning the deficit, either. He doesn’t think too hard about any of that.

Rather, the so-called One Big Beautiful "Bullshit" 💩❗ Bill is bound to be a tremendous albatross for the Republicans charged with shepherding his agenda through Congress. 

It may, too, prove especially damaging for his plausible successor, J.D. Vance, who is still somewhat likely to be the 2028, Republican nominee, despite Trump’s flirtations with seeking an unconstitutional third term.

That’s because, in the end, Trump and congressional Republicans didn’t pursue any great policy commitments consistent with the populist, MAGA-infused realignment that delivered him a slim victory in the 2024, election. They didn’t, like far-right populists across the world, marry social conservatism and immigration crackdowns with a charge to safeguard the welfare state. 

Gutting health care isn’t what the far right does outside the United States. Trump, at least, was wise enough to not campaign on it last year.

But you can’t spin Americans about their health care. Failed attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017 fueled a Democratic midterm wave the following year. And these cuts, which are going into effect, will do a great deal of tangible damage: $1.1 trillion stripped from the health-care system, including nearly a trillion from Medicaid. Yes, the prototypical Republican politician cares almost nothing about health insurance for the working class and poor — this outpost of socialism in our capitalist economy — but they’ll understand very soon that insulating their constituents from these cuts will not be simple. They may fantasize about a world where Medicaid cuts merely torment Blue America, those big cities stuffed with the urban poor who generally don’t back their candidates. But Medicaid is what keeps rural America afloat, especially the underfunded hospital systems. There’s a reason Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina, backed away from the reconciliation bill: He saw the suffering that was coming.

The irony of this legislation is that the movement of the working class and poor into the MAGA coalition did nothing to save them from the brunt of these cuts. This is a bill from the old-guard Republican Party, one forever partial to elites. That party won this fight. It’s a reminder that fealty to Trump extends far more to the person than to policy. Yes, Republicans will bend to Trump’s whims, but the cannier conservatives always understood what mattered to Trump was the spectacle of signing any legislation by July 4. Trump wants a win for the sake of a win. He doesn’t much care what’s in a Big Beautiful Bill as long as he can sign it and brag about it. He can preen. He can (lie 🤥 ....like he always does) feel he has done something.

This is a domestic-policy bill, ultimately, that could have been belched out by any generic GOP administration — and in that sense, it doesn’t veer very much from Trump’s first term, when he rhetorically moved his party leftward on questions of economics and foreign policy but largely governed like the men he vanquished in the 2016, primary. There are no great surprises here; it’s merely the tax cuts generations of Republicans have brayed about. Adding spending on “border security,” meanwhile, is no revolution. 

Little of it is a coherent outgrowth of what happened last year, when Trump made tremendous inroads with Black, Latino, and Asian voters, portending a realignment that he has done almost nothing since to secure. The reconciliation package, above anything else, may be remembered just for the trillions it added to the national debt with virtually nothing to show for it. No budget holes are being blown open to give Americans much of anything.

Americans, on the whole, will be worse off for what just transpired in Washington. And those beleaguered, feckless Democrats will be handed a road map back to the House majority. The Senate is still the far tougher fight, but whatever messaging problems the Democrats have now will be solved, to a great degree, by next year. 

Democrats know how to campaign on health care; they’ve done it for years, and usually with success. A strong defense of Medicare and Medicaid always polls well. They can blast away at the DOGE cuts to the federal government, which very few voters actually wanted. Republicans will have full control of Congress for at least one more year, and that may mean yet another reconciliation package that causes a great deal of chaos and benefits the vanishingly few. The only comfort the left can take is that MAGA will have no permanent, longstanding majority in this country. It’s only downhill from here.

Donald Trump and Republican broken promises: A cruel administration spreading chaos and confusion

Echo opinion published in the Olean Times Herald:

As the harsh reality of Donald Trump’s second term sinks in, many disillusioned voters are now saying, “This isn’t what I voted for.”🙄 😡

During the first few months, his cruel administration has brought  only chaos and confusion, plus a valid concern about the direction of the government — as well as a legitimate threat of a constitutional crisis.

Despite these serious developments, Trump remains a constant (and annoying) presence in the media. His tweets and television appearances are often attempts to justify or cover up the fallout from his controversial policy decisions and executive orders. 

When his messaging fails to maintain support, he’ll often blame former President Joe Biden, the liberals, Democrats or anyone that opposes him, including Republicans not in his camp. His “go to” tool, however, for distracting his base from a prevailing issue is to create a new one.

These smokescreens make it easy to forget the record from Trump’s first term: more than 30,000 documented falsehoods including the unfounded claim that the election was stolen, two impeachments, the shutdown of his charitable foundation for misuse of funds and the collapse of Trump University resulting in a $25 million settlement for fraudulent practices. 

Donald Trump has since been convicted in court on 34 counts of business fraud and found liable for sexual assault — with combined penalties totaling nearly half a billion dollars.

Is this the record of a man you’d like running your government❓

It should come as no surprise, then, that many of the promises made during the 2024, campaign and early in his second term have either evaporated, gone sideways or proven to be outright lies. The following is a small sampling of what was said by Trump and the outcomes delivered:

• Prices on food were supposed to fall “on day one.” Instead, according to the CPI, they are currently up by 2.5% and we haven’t yet felt the full impact of tariffs.

• Gas prices would drop below $2/gallon with a target of $1.87. U.S. gas pricing was at $3.11 when Biden left office and $3.12 as of this writing — nowhere near the $2 mark.

• Tariffs were framed to generate revenue for the government and as protection for American industries. While they have generated revenue, they’ve also triggered global financial instability, disrupted stock markets, created harmful trade wars and are a significant contributor to the rising cost of consumer goods

• Ukraine war: This war would end within 24 hours of taking office. It didn’t.

• Iran bombing: During the fall campaign, he said he was “the only president in generations who didn’t start a war” and wanted to “turn the page forever on these foolish, stupid days of never-ending wars.” Until now. Was it wishful thinking or is it now a needless assertion of authority? NOTE: Tulsi Gabbard, DNI "Director of National Intelligence", said in May, under oath, before Congress that “Iran had not restarted the nuclear weapons program that it halted in 2023.”  (Obviously, Iran's enriched uranium was not destroyed by the bunker busting enormous bombs. What happened to Iran's 900 pounds of enriched uranium❓)

CONSIDER THREE KEY POINTS when assessing the viability of Trump’s first five months:

First, the sheer volume of executive orders and proposed changes is overwhelming, generating both an unprecedented number of legal challenges and a growing backlash from the people he’s supposed to be representing. As many predicted, the “guardrails” keeping him in check would come down if he were reelected. In the first 100 days, he’s issued 142 executive orders. Biden had only 42.

Even FDR, whose critical executive orders helped lift the U.S. out of the Great Depression in his first term and carry us through World War II in the second and third, issued far fewer. From aggressive tariffs, trade wars and mass deportations to ludicrous side shows like annexing Canada, reopening Alcatraz and a military “birthday parade,” the administration’s activity is dizzying, leaving our nation in a state of perpetual confusion.

Second, this frenzy of activity is paired with relentless dishonesty. Trump and his team, as in his first term, regularly spew false or misleading information, making it difficult for the public to separate fact from fiction.

Third, consider the broader damage that’s unfolding: cuts to essential services, threats to Social Security and Medicaid, downsizing of agencies, reductions in scientific and health research and environmental rollbacks. These policies have real consequences for all of us — financial, social and personal.

IF YOU VOTED for Trump but are now having regrets, you’re not alone. Trump’s appeal as a populist outsider masks a life-long history of manipulation and misconduct in his personal, business and political endeavors. While always a flamboyant personality, the general public knew little about him prior to his first term. We did know, however, that Congress was becoming increasingly more polarized leading to partisan gridlock and a serious decline in congressional effectiveness.

As an outsider, many believed Trump would be a welcome alternative to the political status quo. Instead, we quickly learned that he was a pathological liar, 🤥a bully, an ego-maniac and a masterful con man who pushed an agenda focusing mostly on bolstering his ego, improving his brand, usurping authority and further enriching himself and his family.

So, here we are. If this information about Trump’s history, character, false promises, confusing agenda and questionable policies doesn’t deter you from supporting him, that is your prerogative. 

But, if you’re now seeing him for the man he really is, if you’re concerned about the dismantling of our democracy and if you’re frustrated with the perception of the U.S in the eyes of our allies (and enemies), then you can do something about it.

Share what you’ve learned with family and friends who voted for Trump. Let them know that the executive branch does NOT rule over Congress and the judiciary. Each is a check and balance on the other two. You can also write your congressional representative, attend demonstrations, participate in “town hall” meetings, donate to and volunteer with organizations that are on the chopping block and vote Trump’s Senate and House supporters out of office in the upcoming midterms.

All of these actions and activities are steps towards repairing the damage that’s been done and restoring our democracy to the core principles that our forefathers had intended. Reining in the chaos will be essential for the nation’s stability and its future.

Be a part of it.  (Written by Ron Missel, who lives in Olean, New York State.)

P.S. Maine Writer:  And the right wing Republican Supreme Court of the United States abandoned their check on executive power. In fact, Donald Trump now has carte blanche to exercise all the power he so badly craves, and this freedom to spread #MassCruelty will worsen over time. Be afraid. Be very afraid about what is to become of us.  

Donald Trump lies: Signed tax bill did not tell Americans the truth about how the working class will pay for his 51.8 million golf games

Donald Trump MAGA Republicans continue to lie about everything❗

Opinion letter published in the Olean Times Herald, a newspaper published in Olean, New York State.

At the Right Thinkers meeting on June 16, (attorney) Ginger Schroder stated that every Democrat she’s talked to is totally in favor of massive amounts of illegal immigrants 🤥 pouring into our country. I challenge her to broaden her circle of Democratic friends.

Truth Check❗  Reality❗ Most Democrats I talk to are in favor of immigrants entering our country through legal channels. 

What "Right (extremely right wing) Thinkers do not say is how the Donald Trump administration currently removed all legal methods of entry. Even those who had appointments for entry were refused as their appointments were suddenly canceled.

The website for legal asylum seekers has been discontinued. Not all who seek entry are murderers, rapists and drug smugglers. We have our fair share of American criminals who flood to New York state due to our get-out-of-jail free policies.

Ms. Schroder also found it “shocking” at how the U.S. has been spending overseas. Many Democrats have been “shocked” at how much has been spent domestically. 

Right Wing Thinkers do not acknowledge the high costs of Donald Trump's weekend golf trips that, so far, have been 37 out of President Donald Trump’s first 152 days at a reported cost to the taxpayers of $51.8 million.

You’re welcome, Mr. Trump, it’s on me. (I do not qualify for a billionaires tax cut so my tax money is funding your golf course expenses.)

And how about Trump’s failed birthday parade❓ That was between $40 million and $45 million. That is the same amount as 307 federal employees’ annual salaries and benefits. 

So, you’re welcome, Trump, that was on all of us who did not receive any tax relief in the Big Bad Ugly #MassCruelty Bill.

Most of us would be happy to celebrate our birthday with a cake with candles and maybe a dinner at Applebee’s.

If we’re looking to save money, we could set our vision a little closer to home. Stop #MassCruelty❗ Take care of Americans first❗

From Sue Scott, in Cuba, New York State

Donald Trump and the "Bible TRumping" Republican Speaker Mike Johnson enacted "Mass Cruelty" in the Big Bad Ugly Bill

New York Times Opinion by Brendan Buck*

Is This Really How We’re Legislating Now❓

"Bad political process can lead to bad policy and bad politics"
"...no serious effort was made to cover the costs of the tax cuts and new spending".

"Bible TRumping" Speaker Mike Johnson once again defied skeptics and found a majority in a high-stakes vote, with the House passing Donald Trump's big bad ugly policy bill on Thursday along party lines with a few Republicans voting with Democrats to oppose the Mass Cruelty legislation. 

"Bible Trumping" Speaker Johnson and John Thune, the Senate leader, ably made whatever deals and promises were necessary to get the bill through their chambers, and Republicans are celebrating it as a major victory. But, the wobbly passage of the fiscal package says more about the frivolity of the game Congress now plays than it does about how well (or badly ❗) G.O.P. congressional leaders played it.

Few seem to be happy with the actual product. 

(As a matter of fact, Senator Angus King I-ME on the Senate Floor: "This Tax Bill is 'Irresponsible, Regressive, and Downright Cruel'”.

Republicans and Democrats alike have found plenty to criticize about the substance of the bill: the cost, the cuts, the gimmicks. Just as concerning, though, is the way it came together — and what that says about America’s once admired legislative body.

The process was marred by dynamics that have increasingly undermined Congress’s status as a dominant and deliberative institution: The bill lacked a clear and inspired purpose; it supplanted the expertise of congressional committees for the whims of holdouts and the president; and it relied on the make-or-break reconciliation mechanism that limits the ability to write sound policy.

Congress is no longer in the business of thoughtful legislating. Its role has been reduced to putting political points on the board for the president.

Senator Joni Ernst as a a prophet:🙄 "We are all going to die"
IOW cuts to Medicaid will just accelerate the inevitable.

There are a series of changes in how leadership and legislating in Washington works. Republican House members have long argued that too much power is centralized in the speaker’s office. They’ve chafed at speakers, including the two I worked for, who have presented them with a plan and told them it was either the right way to go or the best we could do.

"Bible TRumping" Speaker Johnson has taken this criticism to heart, and his staying power as speaker can in part be attributed to the light touch he takes with his conference. 

This big bad bill was not viewed as the "'Bible TRumping" Mike Johnson plan". Seemingly his only restraint was what could get 218 votes in the House.

But, members of Congress today are not well suited to fill that policy vacuum. Too many see their jobs as playing characters in the Trump melodrama rather than serving as policymakers in a separate and equal legislative branch.

The downsides of this dynamic should now be clear.

Congress, particularly the House, is a body built around committees, which have jurisdiction over various areas of policy. This is where expertise is supposed to be housed. Historically, members of these committees have jealously defended their policy terrain, and they have been given deference to do their jobs.

However, this critical architecture has been collapsing in recent years. In this instance, "Bible TRumping" Speaker Johnson allowed rank-and-file members to end-run the committees of jurisdiction. After the committee process, the bill was workshopped through a series of hasty negotiations with holdout members such as with the changes to the state and local tax deductions. Medicaid policy, affecting tens of millions of Americans, appears to have been made on the fly.

In the Senate, the bill didn’t even go through a full, open committee process, and policy was still being written last weekend as senators began voting to proceed.

With committees relegated, there was no ownership of the product — and certainly little pride in it. With Medicaid, changes on the table ranged from adding work requirements for those receiving benefits to a wholesale restructuring of how the federal government funds the program. Until late in the process, many members didn’t know what was in or out, and certainly not how to sell it.

This lack of definition allowed Democrats to pounce. Bad process can lead to bad policy and bad politics.

I don’t mean the all-night voting in the Senate or both chambers passing legislation before official scorekeepers had even provided final cost estimates. Those are just unfortunate realities of legislative politics. There’s another process story that has been building for decades across both parties, as Congress increasingly relies on large legislative vehicles like this. Many of the issues with this package can be traced to the decision to put everything in one big bill. With little interest in policymaking through regular order, or bipartisan compromise, the majority is left to place all its eggs in the basket of the budget reconciliation process.

The wonky rules of the reconciliation process give the majority a narrow crack at avoiding the Senate filibuster — but the process also significantly limits how policy can be written. Generally speaking, everything must be drafted to address matters of spending or revenue. The 1974, Budget Act that created this process was intended to help Congress balance the budget. It’s now being used for issues like artificial intelligence standards and immigration policy.

This is a poor mechanism for addressing the nuances of complex policy. It also functionally means that the biggest policy changes both parties are making are increasingly partisan ones. 

Since Republicans are uninterested in working with Democrats through regular order, this bill was also viewed as the only train leaving the station — so anything and everything Republicans could think to throw in the bill, they did.😖😔😡😨

The legislative stew that resulted is not fine-tuned policy, nor does it offer a cohesive purpose. It’s just good enough for a Congress that doesn’t particularly care about being any better than “good enough.”

The bill does not improve America’s tax code. An extension of the 2017, tax law — which significantly simplified the tax code and which I helped pass as well as later working with groups that wanted it extended — ended up littered with new carve-outs and gimmicks, like no taxes on tips or overtime.

It does not strengthen our health care system. While the bill makes significant policy changes, and millions of Americans will feel the impact of Medicaid cuts, the motivation behind the bill’s health care reforms was budget savings — not better health care service or outcomes.

It will not better the nation’s fiscal trajectory. Despite the Medicaid cuts, no serious effort was made to cover the costs of the tax cuts and new spending.

There wasn’t even anything particularly MAGA about the bill.

None of that mattered. Leaders bet that members would not deny Donald Trump his bill signing, and they were right. 

Before final passage, there were gaping pockets of opposition from every corner of the House conference, almost all waved off by the simple argument that Republicans could not let Trump down. (OMG, this is not legislating, this is an abdication of legislative responsibility and a violation of the oaths taken by every legislator.)💥💢❗

In the opening of his 2006, book, “The House,” the historian Robert Remini wrote: “The United States House of Representatives is regarded by many as the finest deliberative body in human history. A grand conceit, to be sure. But one that is not far from the mark. It is an extraordinary instrument for legislating the will of the American people.”

Less than two decades later, the passage reads as comedy 🎭— or is a deeply depressing tragedy 🤢, depending on your lens.

*Buck is a contributing writer who worked for two Republican speakers of the House, John Boehner and Paul Ryan.

Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans continue their cruelty campaign against innocent immigrants: Senator Alex Padilla STRONG!

Senator Alex Padilla endured dehumanizing treatment opinion letter to the Santa Cruz Sentinel in California: 

Dear Senator Alex Padilla,

I would like to extend my gratitude for your speaking up against ICE (Immigration and Customs) deportations at the Department of Homeland Security meeting last month with Kristi Noem. I was utterly appalled by the sight of a U.S. senator being roughed up and handcuffed just because you asked a question.

As a fellow person of color, you must realize the ugly truth of racism that underlies this outrageous action: racism against brown people (the darker the worse generally) within a structure of white supremacist imperialism that plagues our lives.

Brown people from Baja to Gaza are victims of colonialism. Hardworking brown folks, undocumented Latino immigrants who represent the undersalaried essential workers of our food and health systems, must juggle imprisonment in their homes with the need to work (for living expenses) with its attendant risk of being swept up by ICE agents (masked like the evil hooded Ku Klux Klan) to horrible detention centers. They are living in uncertain precarity under conditions of occupation.

Another brown people, oppressed by Israel, which the U.S. seems to consider as a 51st state, are the Palestinians, who have been living under conditions of occupation, dispossession, five wars since 1967, this current one aiming to annihilate or expel them, God knows where.

With the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear sites extending the war into the broader Middle East region, the Palestinians, in their 100-year struggle for freedom and rights to their indigenous land against Israeli occupation, seem to be forgotten. Senator Padilla, with your recent experience of being stripped of human dignity, you might feel a sense of the complete loss of dignity, the invisibility, and powerlessness that Palestinians have endured for a century. 

Donald Trump and MAGA Republican extremists sold Americans health care away to billionaires- irresponsible tax cuts are "blood money"

A big Trump bill, but ‘beautiful’ it is not❗- Echo opinion letter published in The Boston Globe: 

Benefactors of Donald Trump’s largesse are receiving blood money.

As Republicans twist themselves into unnatural positions to support Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful 🤢 Bill,” they must think about how many people, including children, will die* as a result. Rural hospitals will close, children will starve, and millions will lose their health insurance, all to pay for the tax cuts for the president’s billionaire friends. Do those receiving the lion’s share of Trump’s largesse not understand that it is blood money?

From Bruce Zabinsky in Waban, Massachusetts

Reported by BBC *'We are all going to die' - Senator's healthcare comment sparks a bruhaha row.  During a political town hall meeting in Iowa, Senator Joni Ernst addressed an audience member's concerns about reduced spending on Medicaid in Donald Trump's Big Beautiful 🤢 Bill Act by saying: "We are all going to die."💀❗

The Iowa Republican senator went on to post a tongue-in-cheek video from a cemetery saying she made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium "understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth".

The bill would require able-bodied recipients to work, participate in job training programs or volunteer for 80 hours a month in order to be eligible for Medicaid, a healthcare program for low-income Americans.

The measure will lower the number of people with healthcare by at least 7.6 million from the Medicaid changes, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Donald Trump cruelty campaign betrays the Latino voters that supported him now live in fear of ICE deportations

Trump was winning with Latinos. Now, his cruelty is derailing him.

Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by Gustavo Arellano:  

Maine Writer comment:  Donald Trump is throwing his voter base under the bus; in fact, the poor will be paying for his tax cuts to billionaires. Now, the Latino voters who were wrongminded in supporting Trump  are among those carrying their passports to help protect them from disappearing. 

The Pew Research Center is one of the most trusted polling firms in the country, especially when it comes to Latinos. 

It's recent published findings should have been a victory lap for Donald Trump and his tortuous relationship with America’s largest minority.

According to Pew, Trump won 48% of Latino voters in the 2024, presidential election — the highest percentage ever recorded by a Republican presidential nominee and a 12 percentage point improvement from his 2020 showing.

Latinos made up 10% of Trump’s coalition, up from 7% four years ago. Latino men went with a Republican, for the first time. Trump even improved his share of support among Latinas — long seen by Democratic leaders as a bulwark against their macho Trumpster relatives — by a 13-point margin, a swing even greater than that of Latino men.

These stats prove what I’ve been warning about for years: that Latinos were souring on illegal immigration — even in blue California — and tiring of a Democratic Party too focused on policies that weren’t improving their lives. This gave Trump a chance to win over Latino voters, despite his years-long bloviations against Mexico and Central American nations, because Latinos — who assimilate like any other immigrants, if not more so — were done with the Democratic status quo. Latino voters were willing to take a risk on an erratic strongman resembling those from their ancestral lands.

Pew’s findings confirm one of Trump’s most remarkable accomplishments — one so unlikely that professional Latinos long dismissed his election gains as exaggerations. Those voters could have been the winds blowing the xenophobic sails of his deportation fleet right now.

All Trump had to do was stick to his campaign promises and target the millions of immigrants who came in illegally during the Biden years. Pick off newcomers in areas of the country where Latinos remain a sizable minority and don’t have a tradition of organizing. Dare Democrats and immigrant rights activists to defend the child molesters, drug dealers and murderers Trump vowed to prioritize in his roundups. Conduct raids like a slow boil through 2026, to build on the record-breaking number of Latino GOP legislators in California and beyond.

Trump has done none of that. He instead decided to smash his immigration hammer on Los Angeles, the Latino capital of the U.S.

Instead of going after the worst of the worst, la migra has nabbed citizens and noncitizens alike. A Times analysis of data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley Law found that nearly 70% of those arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement from June 1 through June 10 had no criminal convictions.

Instead of harassing newcomers with few ties to the U.S., agents are sweeping up migrants who have been here for decades. Instead of doing operations that drew little attention, as happened under Presidents Obama and Biden — and even during Trump’s first term — masked men have thrown around their power like secret police in a third-rate dictatorship while their bosses crow about it on social media. Instead of treating people with some dignity and allowing them a chance to contest their deportations, the Trump administration has stuffed them into detention facilities like tinned fish and treated the Constitution like a suggestion instead of the law of the land.

The cruelty has always been the point for Trump. But he risks making the same mistake that California Republicans made in the 1980s and 1990s: taking a political win they earned with Latinos and turning it into trash.

Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the last amnesty for immigrants in the country illegally. It was signed into law by Ronald Reagan, who famously said that Latinos were Republicans who didn’t know it yet. The Great Communicator knew that the best way to bring them into the GOP was to push meat-and-potato issues while not demonizing them.

The 1986, amnesty could have been a moment for Republicans to win over Latinos during the so-called Decade of the Hispanic. Instead, California politicians began to push for xenophobic bans, including on store signs in other languages and driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, arguing that these supposed invaders were destroying the Golden State. This movement culminated in the passage of Proposition 187 in 1994, which sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants and was eventually declared unconstitutional.

We all know how that worked out.

My generation of Mexican Americans — well on our way to assimilation, feeling little in common with the undocumented immigrants from southern Mexico and Central America who arrived after our parents — instead became radicalized. We waved the Mexican flag with pride, finding no need to brandish the Stars and Stripes that we kept in our hearts. We helped Democrats establish a supermajority in California and tossed Republicans into the political equivalent of the La Brea Tar Pits (La Brea Tar Pits comprise an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles.)

When I covered anti-ICE protests in June outside a federal building in Santa Ana, it felt like the Proposition 187 years all over again. The Mexican tricolor flew again, this time joined by the flags of El Salvador, Guatemala and other Latin American countries. The majority of protesters were teens and young adults with no ties to the immigrant rights groups I know — they will be the next generation of activists.

Back to Pew. Another report released last month found that nearly half of Latinos are worried that someone they know might get deported. The fear is real, even among Latino Republicans, with just 31% approving of Trump’s plan to deport all undocumented immigrants, compared with 61% of white Republicans.

California Assemblymember Suzette Martinez Valladares and state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh are among those GOP skeptics. They signed a letter to Trump from California Republican legislators asking that his migra squads focus on actual bad hombres and “when possible, avoid the kinds of sweeping raids that instill fear and disrupt the workplace.”

When proud conservatives like Ochoa Bogh and Valladares, who is co-chair of the California Hispanic Legislative Caucus, are disturbed by Trump’s deportation deluge, you know the president’s blowing it with Latinos.

Yet Trump is still at it. This week, the Department of Justice announced it was suing the L.A. City Council and Mayor Karen Bass, arguing that their “sanctuary” city policy was thwarting “the will of the American people regarding deportations.”

By picking on the City of Angels, Trump is letting us set an example for everyone else — because no one gets down for immigrant rights like L.A., or creates Latino political power like we do. When mass raids pop up elsewhere, communities will be ready.

Many Latinos voted for Trump because they felt that Democrats forgot them. Now that Trump is paying attention to us, more and more of us are realizing that his intentions were never good — and carrying our passports because you just never know.

You blew it, Donald — but what else is new?
I also met folks such as Giovanni Lopez. For a good hour, the 38-year-old Santa Ana resident, wearing a white poncho depicting the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, blew a loud plastic horn as if he were Joshua trying to knock down the walls of Jericho. It was his first protest.

“I’m all for them deporting the criminals,” Lopez said during a short break. “But that’s not what they’re doing.... They’re getting regular people, and that’s not right. You gotta stand up for regular raza.”

Since then, I’ve seen my social media feeds transform into a barrio CNN, as people share videos of la migra grabbing people and onlookers unafraid to tell them off. Other reels feature customers buying out street vendors for the day so they can remain safely at home. The transformation has even hit home: My dad and brother went to a “No Kings” rally in Anaheim a few weeks ago — without telling each other, or me, beforehand.

When rancho libertarians like them are angry enough to publicly fight back, you know the president is blowing it with Latinos.Back to Pew. Another report released last month found that nearly half of Latinos are worried that someone they know might get deported. The fear is real, even among Latino Republicans, with just 31% approving of Trump’s plan to deport all undocumented immigrants, compared with 61% of white Republicans.

California Assemblymember Suzette Martinez Valladares and state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh are among those GOP skeptics. They signed a letter to Trump from California Republican legislators asking that his migra squads focus on actual bad hombres and “when possible, avoid the kinds of sweeping raids that instill fear and disrupt the workplace.”

When proud conservatives like Ochoa Bogh and Valladares, who is co-chair of the California Hispanic Legislative Caucus, are disturbed by Trump’s deportation deluge, you know the president’s blowing it with Latinos.

Yet, Donald Trump is still at it. This week, the Department of Justice announced it was suing the L.A. City Council and Mayor Karen Bass, arguing that their “sanctuary” city policy was thwarting “the will of the American people regarding deportations.”

By picking on the City of Angels, Trump is letting us set an example for everyone else — because no one gets down for immigrant rights like L.A., or creates Latino political power like we do. When mass raids pop up elsewhere, communities will be ready.

Many Latinos voted for Trump because they felt that Democrats forgot them. Now that Trump is paying attention to us, more and more of us are realizing that his intentions were never good — and carrying our passports because you just never know.

You blew it, Donald — but what else is new?