Rising health care costs are unsustainable especially when Senator Susan Collins voted to cut ACA federal insurance subsidies

Rising healthcare and insurance costs are unsustainable


by Opinion Contributor August 20, 2026

The Maine Bangor Daily News Opinion:
Ann Woloson is executive director of Consumers for Affordable Health Care and recent recipient of a Families USA Health Advocate of the Year award.

The crisis in healthcare affordability is about to get worse.

Last week, the Maine Bureau of Insurance released approved rate increases for health insurance for 2027 — and the news is bad for consumers.

Mainers who receive their health insurance through the individual market, many of whom are self-employed or not offered coverage through work, will see rates increase 13.5% For the small group market, the increase will be 14.8%. That’s a double-digit increase — again.

While most individuals who purchase coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace receive help paying for it, these increases are making it extremely difficult for many Mainers and small businesses to access the coverage they need.

With the price of basics such as electricity, groceries and gas increasing, too many families are having to choose between health insurance and other necessities. They simply can’t stretch their dollars far enough.

A survey of Maine voters released this spring revealed that more than 4 out of 10, almost half of Maine families, carry burdensome medical debt. Most Mainers attribute their medical debt to hospital services, with 1 out of 3 carrying

💲5,000 or more. Hospital services contribute the most to total healthcare spending, followed by physician services and prescription drugs.

Per capita hospital expenses have significantly outpaced inflation nationally and Maine households’ median income. This trajectory is unsustainable.

This year’s insurance rate increases only add to big hikes that went into effect last year. Individuals without employer-sponsored coverage saw an average increase of 24% in their monthly premiums. Premiums for small businesses increased an average of 17%.

Data from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services show a 9.5% decline in total enrollment in Maine’s marketplace in 2026 from 2025 (from 64,678 to 58,523). The decrease is in large part the result of increased costs and decreased federal premium subsidies.

The February survey found that 2 out of 3 families have experienced negative consequences from their efforts to pay their medical bills. Thirty-five percent of families say they haven’t been able to afford heating fuel, food or housing due to medical bills. A third report being hounded by collection agencies, while others report using all of their savings and taking on new credit card debt. They’ve even been forced to take out a new mortgage on their homes or raid their retirement accounts.

But the tragedy doesn’t stop there. Mainers are also delaying or skipping needed medical care due to the cost. Nearly half of Mainers say they have delayed going in for dental care, 40% skipped a visit to the doctor when they were ill and 3 in 10 say they have put off needed medical tests because they could afford it.

As Mainer’s brace themselves for the next round of health insurance rate increases, they broadly agree on what has gone wrong and what they want to happen.

Almost 2 out of 3 voters in Maine believe the state’s healthcare system can be described as “unaffordable” or “profit-centered,” and half of all voters believe the state’s health care system is “confusing.”

Their fix? Eighty-five percent of Mainers support limiting the amount paid for hospital services. Seventy-five percent of people say they would support a government-run, public health insurance option, and 67% say that every Mainer should have access to healthcare affordability.

As Mainers learn about their health insurance rates for next year and begin to reckon with the consequences, it’s critical — and politically expedient — for policymakers to take a hard look at the way we pay for healthcare, review the cost drivers and develop solutions that can ease the financial strain and worry our current system creates.

But Senator Susan Collins voted to cut ACA insurance subsidies. This vote supported Donald Trump 's tax cuts to rich millionaires and multimillionaires who are friends and colleagues of Senator Susan Collins. Cuts to insurance subsidies and Medicaid helped to pay for the tax cuts.  

Donald Trump and maga Republicans create hypocritical myths about "Democratic Socialists" when the greedy GOP want to control the economy

We need less Chicken 🐔Little when it comes to Democratic Socialists.  🐔🙄

‘Political control over the economy is anathema* to capitalism and a free market. So let’s be fair in our media coverage about what communism and socialism are and have less of the sky is falling,’ the letter writer says.  (*anathema: something or someone that you intensely dislike, loathe, or strongly disapprove of.)

Echo opinion letter published in the Twin Cities Pioneer News in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

There’s a recent hyper-clamor and hysteria about "those Democratic Socialists". Lots of hypocritical hyperbole: “Democrats are 🤥socialists who want to destroy our country.” And so the beat goes on. Most fail the test of reality and lack facts and credibility. 

Of the hundreds of Democrats who ran for elective office only a few are Democratic socialists. With few exceptions most ran in deeply blue districts. Chicken Little and his pals who panicked on an unfounded “the sky has falling” story didn’t fare well at the end. Facts matter. 

To digress, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander:” What about the Trump administration❓ As one author stated, “He has crossed the Rubicon.”

Donald Trump has taken a playbook out of Communism 101. Central, government control versus our founding fathers who built our nation on liberty, equality, private property and a free press. Trump’s government owns a part of 31 private and public companies. Of Nippon Steel, they own a “Gold Share,” which gives the government veto powers. Trump enacted sweeping tariffs. 

Political control over the economy is anathema to capitalism and a free market. So let’s be fair in our coverage of communism and socialism and have less of the sky is falling.

From Geri Minton, in Roseville, Minnesota 

Canadians elected Prime Minister Mark Carney to be "Canadian" he will never rubber stamp "deals" from corrupt Donald Trump

By Stephen Marche published in The New York Times:

#CanadaStrong: 

Opinion | Mark Carney Did What Canadians Elected Him to Do❗

America Came for Canada. We Said No. 

Prime Minister Mark Carney was elected to lead Canada. He may be the 21st century's example of "Churchilian" courage. 

Friday, August 21, 2026, may go down in history as Canada’s Liberation Day. It was the day America came for us, and we said no.

The trade negotiations between the United States and Canada had been moving forward in the weeks after Trump first threatened 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods, but just before midnight, Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the American proposal. “Last-minute changes in the U.S.-proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic and called into question the reliability of any deal,” Mr. Carney said in a statement. “Canada will match those tariffs dollar for dollar to protect our workers and businesses.”

But Mr. Carney did not simply reject a trade offer on Friday. He was openly defiant of the new breed of American aggression. “We will not allow any nation to determine our future,” he said.

It was a decision made, seemingly, on the spur of the moment, but the deep history of this country paved the way for this one, critical gesture — a historic “no.”

Trump’s tariffs on some 💲20 billion of Canadian goods began immediately after his deadline passed. 

For Canada, the choice came down to either severe but temporary economic instability or binding itself to a pseudo-democratic fiscal basketcase of a nation, whose only apparent foreign policy objective has become domination for the gratification of its president’s slapdash vanity.

It was a unique statement for any leader in Canada to make. The country has long defined itself through its participation in global systems, seeing itself as a node in the larger orders of the world, the postwar trans-Atlantic order and, before that, the British Empire. 

Mr. Carney is taking Canada in another direction, emphasizing national sovereignty on every front — economic, political, military and technological (and cultural).

While the prime minister’s approach is certainly new, it emerges from deep reservoirs of the Canadian spirit. For nearly a decade, I was a columnist at Esquire magazine. During that time, one of the greatest discrepancies I noticed between Canadians and Americans — and Canadian and American men in particular — was in their basic idea of what earned respect. For Americans, the capacity to project power, the ability to make things happen, to win, are the primary virtues. In Canada, the defining virtue is toughness, the capacity to endure.

The difference is subtle but profound. Margaret Atwood’s work of literary criticism that defined 1970s, Canadian nationalism is entitled “Survival.” The coureurs des bois, the great New French traders who went into the impossible North on canoes looking for pelts, measured themselves by their ability to survive on the bare minimum in the midst of a vast indifferent wilderness.

These deep-running values, rarely openly expressed, are the undercurrent of Canada’s rejection of America last week. The offered deal, or at least the details that have emerged, veered significantly from purely economic matters. Apparently, one of the final sticking points was an American demand that Quebec undo its French language laws and French language cultural protections. French, in Canada, is not a business matter. Its place in our nation transcends absolutely any market-based consideration. It is not something that gets “put on the table.”

While the decision to tough it out is iconically Canadian, Mr. Carney’s gesture will resonate far beyond Canada’s border. 

A gray banker, and not just any banker, but one of the leading bankers in the world, has stood up and said that there’s more to life than a little bit of money. The power of that recognition alone, at this moment in history, cannot be overstated. Trump’s world — a world of transaction and submission — is not the only world we all have to live in.

The economic impacts of Trump’s tariff regime remain to be seen, especially given his history of reversing tariff policies on a whim. But we will suffer. America remains Canada’s leading trading partner. Mr. Carney has chosen suffering, but he did what Canadians elected him to do: stand up for Canada. It’s funny to wake up relieved that you’re about to take a beating. We will not go along to get along.

The American president clearly did not know whom he was dealing with. He is following in the grand tradition of American leaders starting wars with people they don’t understand, then wondering what went wrong.

Donald Trump brings wife Melania out of self imposed hiding to prove he is somehow not having an affair with "Natalie WHO?"

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by Maureen Dowd:

Natalie’s Magnificent Obsession

(Natalie WHO?)

I’ve spent my career watching officials maneuver and scheme, often in absurd ways, to get closer to presidents. But I’d never seen anything like the photo of Natalie Harp dashing after Trump’s golf cart in Scotland three years ago. I’d also never heard of a staffer jumping into the trunk of an S.U.V., as Harp did, when she was denied a seat in the motorcade.

The hit horror movie “Obsession,” about a man who wishes for more adoration from a young woman, who falls under his spell and maniacally provides it, is playing out on in real time on Pennsylvania Avenue, writes Maureen Dowd in The New York Times.

Like others, I winced when I first heard Senator Jon Ossoff, the Georgia Democrat, refer to how Trump liked to “travel with Natalie.” Was he gratuitously turning a salacious spotlight onto a White House aide?

But as it turns out, with three little words, Ossoff pulled a string and unraveled something really dark and deranged at the innermost circle of Trump’s White House.

Trump's obsessive proclivity for surrounding himself with sycophants — and attractive young blondes — is well known.

But this relationship with Harp is pathological, and a source of great irritation among other courtiers. 

It is Trump distilled to his essence: cult leader and his most rabid follower, narcissist and his most flattering mirror.

The daughter of a devoutly Christian real estate broker who died by suicide during the pandemic, Harp idolizes Trump with a rare fervor. As one of his social media facilitators, she is with him most of the day and often evenings, and she never takes a day off.

The Times’s Maggie Haberman calls Harp the “binky” of the man-child president.

Harp is nicknamed — and refers to herself as — “the human printer” because she follows Trump around with a portable printer to provide him with paper copies of any positive stories or tweets. (When The Mirror published the picture on Friday of Harp dashing after the golf cart at Turnberry in Scotland, the story’s author dubbed Harp “the human sprinter.”) 

Haberman said foreign leaders also try to use Harp as a conduit to reach Trump.

As Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported in their blockbuster, “Regime Change,” Trump told his staff that Harp was the only one who loved him as much as his wife and kids did. “She’ll never leave me,” he would tell other staffers.

Harp first came to his attention in 2019, when she spoke on Fox News about how Trump had helped save her life with the Right to Try Act, which she said had allowed her to get experimental treatment for bone cancer.

Before she began to work on Trump’s restoration in 2022, Harp was an anchor at the far-right OAN and spread the gospel that the election was stolen. This winter, she was the one who posted the sickening video depicting Trump as the king of the jungle and the Obamas as apes.

The Harp saga reflects a truly weird fact about Trump. The 80-year-old president got elected, governs, provokes and seeks revenge using social media, and he was surrounded by bootlicking tech titans at his inaugural. But he still needs someone young and online to sit beside him and type his posts. Their online symbiosis raises the question of whether all those strange capitalizations are his or hers.

Ossoff impaled Trump with his Natalie Harp-oon last weekend during a speech in Atlanta. The senator was lambasting the commander in chief for his erratic, pathetic handling of the Iran war: “While he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” After so many years of flailing around, trying to figure out how to get under Trump’s skin, as he has grown ever more destructive and unhinged, Democrats are not in the mood to follow Michelle Obama’s dictum, “When they go low, we go high.” They were happy to drag Natalie into the fray.

But it was the MAGA megaphone that did in Natalie. The White House was clearly rattled by the allusion to the close relationship between Trump and his 35-year-old, 💲150,000-a-year social media helper. Melania even made a rare appearance to show the conjugal flag.

Harp made headlines earlier when Donald Trump chose her and a few other close aides to accompany him when he sneaked into a catering truck and switched planes to fly back from Turkey to the District, after a (never proven to be true) threat of an Iranian assassination attack. 

Shockingly, Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent and the media were left on the other plane as decoys.

The vitriolic MAGA response to Ossoff, the usual risible caricature of macho bullying, had a suspicious “doth protest too much” aroma. The White House called Ossoff a “cringeworthy, feminine theatre kid” and Trump mocked him as Pee-wee Herman (showing that he has lost his touch for nasty but effective nicknames).

After Kristen Holmes, the CNN White House correspondent, asked Trump about Ossoff’s critique, the White House tweeted a creepy warning: “Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question. They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It’s quite troubling.”

Hrp frets in another that she works so hard for him that she looks like “a hunchback who didn’t have time to freshen up.” She pleads, “We shouldn’t have to talk about work all the time!!” and pines to “hear every conversation” he has.

Harp quotes a line from “Pride and Prejudice” to say that it would have been hard to lose her father if she had not had someone so “worthy” to turn to in Trump. “And, I will add,” she signs off, “it is I who is unworthy.”

It’s a perfect (taxpayer-funded) relationship. She thinks he’s
But the troubling thing was the tone of Harp’s adoring letters to the man she addresses as “Mr. President,” released by The Daily Beast, in which she talks about her fragile emotional state — forgetting to eat or sleep and getting hurt by others’ critical remarks.

“I want things to always be right between us,” she writes, adding, “I’m sorry I lost my focus. You are all that matters to me. I don’t want to ever let you down. Thank you for being my Guardian and Protector in this Life.”

It’s a perfect (💲taxpayer-funded) relationship. She thinks he’s amazing. And he agrees.🤢

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney courageously stands up against Donald Trump but Senator Susan Collins gives a "concerned" speech

The New York Times echo report about failed negotiations with Canada about Trump tariffs.  

On Friday night (August 21), Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada did something that few other world leaders before him have dared to do.

After days of intense trade negotiations with the United States, with less than an hour to go on a midnight deadline for a new round of tariffs from the Trump administration, Mr. Carney instructed his negotiators to walk away.

Then, he announced that once 50 percent tariffs came into effect on 💲20 billion worth of Canadian goods, he would order retaliatory tariffs on the United States “dollar for dollar.”

Then on Saturday, in a lengthy televised address to Canadians, Mr. Carney brought fighting words to Canada’s act of defiance.

“Last spring, I warned that America is trying to break us so that they can own us. And I promised: “That will never, ever happen.” We are keeping that promise,” Mr. Carney said somberly, before reporters in Ottawa.

“Canada is becoming stronger and less dependent on America. We are already giving ourselves more than they can take away. And we are just getting started,” he added.

By walking away, Mr. Carney chose a road that no major U.S. ally has taken: With his country’s economy on the line, he stood up to  Trump and refused to accept the administration’s offer of a new trade relationship with tariffs permanently baked in. 

Britain, the European Union and other major U.S. trading partners have agreed to smaller deals that have been volatile and often left them worse off.

The collapse of the talks came after Trump declared that the deal was practically done. 🤥😡

Mr. Carney never echoed that. Over the week, as negotiators spent long hours in Washington huddled in the office of the U.S. trade representative, Mr. Carney appeared optimistic but insisted that there was still work to be done.

Each side now claims that the other introduced new or unreasonable demands at the last minute — the kind of finger-pointing that is common when trade talks fall apart.

On Saturday, August 22, Mr. Carney mentioned in some detail a number of what he described as last-minute curveballs presented by the United States, as talks were supposedly near the finish line. 

Those included, he said, a demand that Canada comply with U.S. tariffs on its trade with other countries.

“We are the partners of choice for countries around the world and the Americans wanted to restrict that — unacceptable,” he said.

Make no mistake, Mr. Carney has a lot to lose.

Canada, which is closely integrated with the United States and relies on it for defense, is heavily dependent on trade with its superpower neighbor. Mr. Carney acknowledged on Saturday the cost of his choice for many Canadians and said his government would do “whatever it takes” to support businesses and workers impacted by the U.S. tariffs, as well as those impacted by the retaliatory tariffs Canada will take out against U.S. goods on Sept. 8.

It will also be costly for U.S. residents, who are paying for Trump’s tariff policies through higher prices that have also been driven by the war in Iran and spiraling oil costs.

But Mr. Carney appeared resolved to shoulder the costs of his decision. And he has risked Trump’s ire before.

In a speech in Davos, Switzerland, in January, he described a new era in which the United States was no longer a guarantor of stability and where middle powers like Canada have to unite to survive. The speech — and its enthusiastic global reception — angered  Trump.

Trump is also been riled by Mr. Carney’s outreach to China, which led to a narrow but significant trade agreement this year; by Canadian provinces’ persistence on banning the sale of U.S. liquor; and by the Carney government’s retaliatory measures against the United States for its broad, devastating tariffs on core Canadian industries.

Ever since Mr. Carney rose to lead Canada last year, he put in motion a plan to help his country survive Trump’s (disaster) presidency and, in the long run, thrive apart from the United States. 

One of his favorite lines is, “nostalgia is not a policy,” and he has told everyone who will listen that there is no going back to the old relationship with the United States — a close and familial, if lopsided, bond.

Instead, Mr. Carney is traveling to secure new partnerships in Asia and Europe, a generational shift away from economic dependence on the United States, although that is unlikely to bear fruit fast enough to cushion the blow of the breakdown of the two countries’ relationship.

It’s likely that Trump will not take kindly to Mr. Carney’s trade decision. Just before beginning his second term, Trump said he was willing to inflict “economic pain” on Canada to get what he wanted. He has repeatedly expressed a desire to make Canada the 51st state, describing it as little more than a vassal that “lives because of the United States.”

But, Canada's Mr. Carney’s vision, with a surprising assist from Trump’s needling, ignited a wave of Canadian patriotism. 

Going into the trade talks, more than half of Canadians — many more than those who voted for Mr. Carney — said they wanted him to give nothing away.

Several premiers of different political stripes expressed their support for Mr. Carney after his decision. Doug Ford, a conservative who leads Ontario, cheered him on. 

David Eby, the progressive premier of British Columbia, said, “We didn’t ask for this, but we’ll keep fighting for as long as it takes.”

There is little doubt that Mr. Carney will be cheered, at home and abroad, for doing what he thought was best for his country.

“We take this step confident that it is in the best interests of Canada,” he said. “And that, by rejecting a bad deal, standing up for Canada, and focusing on what we can control, we are building a Canada strong for all.”

Check out the transcript of Prime Minister Carney's courageous speech to the Canadians at this link here. (IMO Prime Minister Mark Carney is the 21st century's new Winston Churchill❗

Check the Senator Susan Collins "concerned" 😒😔😦speech about the tariffs, at this social media page here.

Donald Trump lives in Mar-A-Lago luxury while homeless people cannot afford food, shelter and basic necessities

Social media message by Honorable Bonnie Titcomb Lewis:

Absolutely no reason to worry about the 😰😥homeless, the uninsured sick, the hungry, the afraid, the uneducated, the “lost and not found”, the addicted, the victims of racial violence, and the people who turn and find no one there. 

No need to worry about cut food benefits and the future for any of those kids out there.

No reason to worry and no reason to see beyond the need for more..and more…and more. 

After all, it’s not relevant for some.

Like Donald Trump, who has a net worth estimated at approximately 💲6.5 billion, featuring iconic properties like Mar-a-Lago, Trump Tower, and a custom Boeing 757. Key Assets and Properties:

• Mar-a-Lago Estate
• Palm Beach, Florida private club and residence valued over 💲320 million.
• Trump Tower: Fifth Avenue, New York commercial and retail space.
• Trump Force One: Custom-branded Boeing 757 luxury private jet.
• Multiple international golf courses and clubs across the US, Scotland, Ireland, and the UAE.
• Financial Valuation Net Worth: Tracked at around 💲6.5 billion (according to estimates by Forbes Profile).

Revenue Sources: Traditional real estate holdings alongside expanding digital media and cryptocurrency-related assets

Why worry❓ No need. Just keep the gaudy gold filigree decorations and ugly signature logos flowing.

Post Script message to Senator Susan Collins: In expensive political ads, Senator Collins asks voters to say, "Thank You Susan". But, Senator Collins was born and raised a Roman Catholic in Aroostook County, Maine. 

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that safe and affordable housing is a basic human right. Rooted in the preferential option for the poor and the belief that every person has inherent dignity made in God's image,

Nevertheless, Collins supports Donald Trump 96 percent of the time in her wrong-minded votes in the U.S. Senate.  "NO thank you, Senator Collins".  #Hypocrite (Matthew: 23)

Donald Trump and maga Republicans like Senator Susan Collins are causing ruin to our nation driving up debt while the rich get tax cuts

Echo opinion letter published in TribLive.com 

Trump has ruined our country: Is anyone else besides myself sick of the self serving criminal running our country, who I did not vote for❓

Trump is ruining our country.🤥 He started a war that he stated would only last two weeks.  He is putting our country in so much debt that we will never get out of it.

How is that 💲4-plus gallon of gasoline working out for you❓

Please vote Democrat in November. Then the Democrats can attain a majority of the House and Senate and vote to impeach Trump, and he can be removed from office. Then he would have no immunity and may be put in prison for his continuing unlawfulness toward America, where I believe he always belonged. 

Then, American will be great again. Come on, people — take our country back. America belongs to us, not to the criminal Trump.

From Rose M. Guerra in West Newton Pennsylvania

Post Script note to Senator Susan Collins, Republican from Maine:

While your constituents are paying over 💲4 a gallon for gasoline, you voted to give yourself and your rich multimillionaire friends tax cuts. Maine voters want you to move on.  Vote Blue❗ #TroyJackson

Donald Trump and "Whiskey" Pete Hegseth are destroying U.S. Military moral with promotion denials and selective advancement criteria

Calmes:  Hegseth is purging people of color. Trump’s war is killing them.

Echo opinion published in The Mercury News by Jackie Calmes.

Pete (Whiskey) Hegseth and Trump are stripping diversity from top military ranks even as women and minorities carry the casualty burden.

Need another metric to show that, for Donald Trump, “Make America Great Again” means regressing to a 1950s-style white patriarchy? Probably not. But here’s a good-bad one for you, marking the deplorable progress of Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s war on diversity in the leadership ranks of the nation’s military:

Hegseth’s virtually unprecedented and probably illegal blocking of promotions for high-ranking female officers in the armed services in 2026 has helped produce the lowest percentage of such nominations for women’s advancement in this century, including zero — zero — for female officers in the Navy, according to a recent data analysis by the New York Times. The brass has gotten the message.

Things aren’t any better for Black and other minority officers, men and women. This year Hegseth has vetoed at least 40 high-ranking promotions, half of them women and people of color. White men who’ve also been blocked often have been proponents of diversity. “For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons,” Hegseth lectured military leaders last year. “Based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts.”

The combination of Hegseth’s stepped-up interference this year in the military’s promotions process — a thoroughly meritocratic one, despite his claims to the contrary — and his purge since early last year of senior officers is rankling both the military and Congress, Republicans and Democrats, particularly for his and Trump’s evident targeting of women and minorities. But as in most things, Hegseth and his boss are undaunted.

And their white-macho warnings against “woke” are being heard from the Pentagon’s promotion selection boards all the way to America’s streets — the pipelines to military enlistment offices. 

Who could miss Trump and "Whiskey" Hegseth’s message when, just after taking office, they fired General Charles Q. Brown Jr., the second Black man to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to become the Navy chief?

All told since then, nearly 60% of those fired are female or Black officers, according to Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a former Army infantry officer who is the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. Reed accused Hegseth in a recent hearing of “hollowing out” the senior ranks “while making young officers wonder if they should continue to serve.”

Hegseth is also making would-be enlistees wonder if they should even sign up.

Retired Air Force officer Jessica Ruttenber, who flew in Iraq and Afghanistan, lamented in an online essay in May that a friend’s daughter decided against enlisting given the current climate. Ruttenber decided not to try to change the young woman’s mind, given that “we are watching hard-won progress move backward in real time.” “If I am honest,” she added, “I now find myself wondering: Would I want my own children to enter a system like this❓”

The answer is crucial for a nation with an all-volunteer military force and perennial recruitment worries.

Americans hardly need demographic analyses (there are plenty) to know that minority men and women have signed up to fight for their country in numbers disproportionate to their groups’ shares of the U.S. population. Or that the military ranks include more women than ever before, including in combat — a role (Whiskey) Hegseth as Fox (Fake❗) News pundit long opposed for them.

Suddenly, however, we have another measure of how much women and minorities (and immigrants) in the lower ranks contribute to protecting America, even as Trump and Hegseth are pushing out so many at the top who look like them: the casualty toll in Trump’s war against Iran.

Look at a gallery of the “faces of the fallen” in the Iran operation and other military deployments under Trump. (Never mind Hegseth’s complaint that the media focus on the dead because we’re trying to “make the president look bad.”) About half of the 18 service members who have died since February are women and minorities.

Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, 54, a Filipino American from Sacramento, had served more than 30 years when he was one of six service members killed in an Iran drone attack in Kuwait in March. Army Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, a father from Fayetteville, N.C., had served nearly a decade when he died in July in Iraq.

The six service members killed in March in a plane refueling crash included Air Force Capt. Ariana Savino, 31, of Covington, Wash., a proud Puerto Rican. Her family’s statement surely would make Hegseth wince: “She made it her mission to be a role model for … the next generation of youth, women, and minorities with their hearts set on a career in aviation.” 

Also killed in the crash was Tech Sgt. Tyler Simmons, 28, of Columbus, Ohio. His father, Charles “Mylo” Simmons, praised his son’s expertise as a refueling boom operator: “It’s not usual to see African American men in that position. Made me very proud.”

Trump famously asked about fallen troops, “What was in it for them❓😡” He, and Hegseth, should put that question to Mylo and Cheryl Simmons. The Simmonses would tell them that their only child “was living his best life,” in her words to ABC News, in service to his country.

Not that the conversation would do any good with those two entitled white guys, both of them promoted far beyond either their merit or fitness for office.

Jackie Calmes is an opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

This is more gloomy news coming out of the disabled Pentagon: Stars and Stripes is now a victim of censorship

Trump’s war on Stars and Stripes news:

Echo report published in AlJazeera by Sarah Shamim

Why has military newspaper chief quit❓

Longtime Stars and Stripes publisher Max D Lederer Jr announced his resignation over clashes with the Pentagon.

Sad to learn, Max D Lederer Jr, the longtime publisher of the United States military publication Stars and Stripes, announced his retirement in a memo to staff.

In his memo, Lederer suggested that he had clashed with the administration of Donald Trump. He confirmed his resignation in an interview with Stars and Stripes.

Lederer’s departure from his position comes shortly after Stars and Stripes and other military publications broke the story about the mental health crisis roiling the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Gulf.
Why has Lederer retired❓

Lederer’s memo suggested that the publication editorially clashed with the Trump administration, which sought greater control over it, The Associated Press reported.

It has “become clear that my philosophy of leadership, and my understanding of the value and mission of Stars and Stripes, differ in fundamental ways from the direction the leadership of the Department of Defense has for the organiszation,” Lederer wrote in his memo.

His comments came after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon accused Stars and Stripes of promoting “woke distractions”.

Lederer, who has been the publisher of Stars and Stripes for the past 19 years, is set to retire on September 30.

What is Stars and Stripes❓

Stars and Stripes, a publication founded in 1861, is a daily newspaper which largely reports on members of the US armed forces and their families. About 1.4 million people read Stars and Stripes daily, mostly online, according to CBS News.

The publication technically operates under the Department of Defense’s organization, Defense Media Activity (DMA). Its funding and the newspaper's administration are ultimately tied to the Pentagon. The outlet receives about two-thirds of its funding from the Pentagon, according to recent estimates by multiple US media outlets. It receives the rest of its revenue from subscriptions and

advertising.

What is the latest source of disagreement with the Trump administration?

This month, Stars and Stripes, along with outlets such as Military Times and Navy Times, broke the story of struggles being faced by sailors who have been on board the USS Abraham Lincoln for the past nine months. One wife of a serving crewman told the Navy Times that her husband had attempted to jump overboard amid the extended deployment, poor working conditions and mounting mental health concerns. She described her husband as suffering from “severe burnout”.

The USS Abraham Lincoln is currently in the Middle East on a deployment that is nearing nine months amid the US-Israeli war on Iran. Since then, it has had only one two-day port stop in December last year, eight months ago.

More than 5,000 staff members have been on board the vessel, which has been conducting maritime security and blockade operations around the Strait of Hormuz since it set sail on November 21, 2025, from its home port of San Diego for an extended deployment to the Asia Pacific and the Middle East. The ship had just one brief, two-day stop in December.

Family members in touch with crew have reported food shortages, as well as broken toilets and showers, prompting concerns about conditions of sanitation, health and hygiene.

The latest reports about poor mental health have also triggered alarm.

In a recent letter to Secretary of Defense Pete (aka "whiskey") Hegseth, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote that the aircraft carrier has now been “continuously at sea for a record length of nearly seven months”. That surpasses any previous deployment of a US aircraft carrier without a port stop.

“These reports warrant immediate attention, but they also raise a broader question: whether the Navy can sustain the operational tempo now being demanded of its carrier force, particularly as this administration repeatedly commits US forces to conflicts of its own choosing and increasingly relies on aircraft carriers to sustain those operations,” Blumenthal wrote.

US Admiral Brad Cooper visited the USS Abraham Lincoln last week and subsequently wrote on X that “of the US Navy’s 11 active aircraft carriers, the Lincoln currently has among the lowest number of cases related to mental health”.  (HELLO❓ When the crew who are presenting with mental health issues are removed from the ship and taken elsewhere....guess what happens❓)

Have Republicans under Trump previously threatened Stars and Stripes❓

The Pentagon sought to defund Stars and Stripes during Trump’s first term from 2017, to 2021. However, it was Trump who then pledged not to cut its budget.

In September 2020, he wrote on X, then called Twitter: “The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to @starsandstripes magazine under my watch. It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!”

As a result, the Pentagon rescinded the shutdown order.

In January this year, following the start of Trump’s second term, however, the Department of Defense sought to overhaul the publication.

“The Department of War is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell wrote on X.

“We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members,” he added. He did not give examples of articles considered to be about “woke distractions”, however.

This came shortly after The Washington Post reported that new applicants to Stars and Stripes were being asked how they would support the Trump administration’s policies.

In April, the Pentagon fired Jacqueline Smith, Stars and Stripes’ independent reader representative. Her firing came shortly after she warned publicly that defense officials were implementing “attempted control” over the newsroom.

Has Stars and Stripes clashed with the Pentagon before❓

In 2009, Stars and Stripes revealed that the US military had signed a $1.5m contract with Washington-based public relations firm The Rendon Group.

The company was tasked with analyzing the work of embedded reporters and rating their stories as “positive”, “neutral” or “negative” in relation to US military objectives.

While the military insisted it did not use these ratings to manipulate coverage or bar journalists, Stars and Stripes reported that the profiles included suggestions on how to “neutralize” negative stories. The US military cancelled the contract shortly after the revelations.

Donald Trump uses surrogate Marco Rubio to spread horrible lies about Democrats by using rants about "isms" of unknown origin

Echo opinion published in the Boston Globe, by 

Stephen Kinzer, a senior fellow at the Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.  
Marco Rubio got it wrong❗
How the secretary of state warped the meaning of a proud American tradition.

In a fire-and-brimstone speech last month that often bordered on the bizarre, Secretary of State Marco Rubio identified “a distinctive and unique evil.” Rubio ranted and called it “far-left terrorism” and asserted that it poses a “serious threat” to the United States.

“It is time for the people of the civilized world to defend ourselves,” Rubio told an audience at the State Department, “to stand united against this encroaching darkness, and fight for what is ours.”

Much of Rubio’s speech was a boiler-plate rant reflecting Donald Trump’s cultist obsessions. Its central premise is dubious at best, since “far-left terrorism” is in fact quite low on the list of dangers that face the United States and the world. The oddest piece of this speech, though, was Rubio’s mention of anti-imperialists as part of the evil coalition.

“They can call themselves 🤥anti-capitalist or 🤥anti-imperialist or 🤥communist or 🤥anarchist or 🤥Marxist, but the fundamental character is always the same,” he asserted. “It is a 🤥poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice and liberation.”  💩💩💩❗

TRUTH❗ Anti-imperialism has no relation to communism, anarchism, or Marxism. In fact, anti-imperialism is a rich American tradition. Especially at this point in our American history, it should be taken seriously. Rubio has every right to embrace the imperial idea. Other Americans, however, have an equal right to oppose it without being demonized as allies of communists or anarchists.

Debate over imperialism is as old as our Republic. It addresses a profound question: Should the United States seek to impose its will on foreign nations or allow them to go their own way❓

George Washington warned future generations of Americans not to become involved in “obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.” John Quincy Adams declared that the United States “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” 

Abraham Lincoln opposed the American invasion of Mexico in the 1840s, and Ulysses Grant called it “a wicked war.”

The widest-ranging debate over imperialism exploded in 1898, when the United States set out to crush Spanish power in the Philippines, Guam, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. 

Massachusetts was the epicenter of opposition.

Headquartered in an office near what is now Liberty Square in Boston’s financial district, the Anti-Imperialist League became a major force in American life. It was headed by George Boutwell, a former Massachusetts governor. Its eminent supporters included Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in the United States; Samuel Gompers, the country’s most prominent labor leader; former president Grover Cleveland, who had unsuccessfully opposed the annexation of Hawaii; and Mark Twain, who forthrightly declared: “I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”

In the debate over whether the United States should begin imposing its will abroad, the most powerful arguments were presented by the two US senators from Massachusetts. George Frisbie Hoar called it “the greatest question ever discussed in this Chamber from the beginning of the Government” and colorfully denounced the rising imperialists: “You have no right at the cannon’s mouth to impose on an unwilling people your Declaration of Independence and your Constitution and your notions of freedom and notions of what is good!”

To this, the silver-tongued internationalist Henry Cabot Lodge had an equally powerful response. The United States, he said, “has a great mission in the world — a mission of good, a mission of freedom. I would have it fulfill what I think is its manifest destiny.”

Senators voted narrowly to ratify the treaty by which the United States turned the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico into American colonies. Anti-imperialists appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Constitution gives the government no power to impose its will on foreign lands. The Court rejected their argument by a 5-4 margin. In a ringing dissent, Chief Justice Melvin Fuller wrote that overseas military expeditions are “wholly inconsistent with the spirit and genius, as well as with the words, of the Constitution.”

This debate reemerged repeatedly. Following World War II, Senator Robert Taft, known as “Mr. Republican,” opposed the creation of NATO because “the building up of a great army surrounding Russia” would set off “an inevitable arms race.” Debates over US intervention in Vietnam and Iraq also echoed those of the late 19th century.

Anarchism and Marxism are ideas that came to the United States from Europe. Neither ever found much support. Anti-imperialism is the opposite: a homegrown ideology that has long been embraced by a significant minority of Americans. 

Rather than a “far-left” idea, it is essentially a conservative one. It argues for humility, restraint, and limits on America’s role in the world. Liberal utopianism is what drives the idea that American intervention in other countries will ultimately lead to peace and prosperity for all.

Lumping anti-imperialism with communism also reflects a deep misunderstanding of history. Countries that have proclaimed themselves Communist, notably China and the Soviet Union, were built on imperial conquest at least as fully as the United States was.

Whether “far-left terrorism” is truly the deep threat that Secretary Rubio perceives may be debated. So may the question of whether the United States should seek to project military power around the world. To describe anti-imperialism as a form of 🤥 “far-left terrorism,” however, is a slander that ignores American history.

Donald Trump made a lot of broken promises to voters to get re-elected. As usual he lied. Promises were all broken.

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by Steven Rattner:

“Promises made, promises kept.” Other presidents have employed variations of that phrase, although few with the gusto of Trump; he even proclaims it on the White House website. When it comes to the economy, though, “promises not kept” would be a more apt description of the first 19 months of Trump 2.0. And many of the promises he has kept are causing as much damage as critics predicted. All in all, while Trump continues to boast about the “greatest economy we’ve ever had, by far,” the record to date falls far short of that lofty pronouncement.

Trump’s Promise: ‘We’re going to grow like nobody’s ever grown before.’  Economic Club of New York, Sept. 5, 2024. But in reality, the economy is slowing.  In this year’s second quarter, growth dropped to an annual rate of just 1.5 percent, a shift substantially caused or exacerbated by Trump’s policies. Rising energy prices and inflation. Decreased government spending. A deteriorating trade balance, thanks to his tariffs. That’s added up to materially slower growth than the healthy 2.75 percent rate that Trump was bequeathed by President Joe Biden.

Trump’s Promise: ‘In the near future, I want to do what has not been done in 24 years: balance the federal budget.’ Address to a joint session of Congress, March 4, 2025.  In reality, the deficit is projected to keep growing. Spending was high under President Biden as he worked to combat the lingering effects of the Covid epidemic, and invest in priorities like clean energy and infrastructure. But even as Republicans cut a number of these initiatives, the deficit rose in Trump’s first budget after his return to office, largely because of his huge tax cut. And the Congressional Budget Office projects that it will continue to climb to 💲3.1 trillion by 2036. That makes the notion of Trump balancing the budget just plain laughable.

Trump’s Promise: ‘But now it’s our turn to prosper, and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt, and it’ll all happen very quickly.’  Tariff announcement, White House Rose Garden, April 2, 2025.  In reality, the national debt is about to break its World War II record. Huge deficits mean, of course, more debt. The soaring national debt should terrify every American. It makes business loans and mortgages more expensive. And perhaps more important, it burdens future generations by squeezing Washington’s ability to fund other important priorities. The ratio of total debt held by the public to the size of our economy is about to surpass the World War II record. By 2036, the C.B.O. projects our national debt will reach 120 percent of gross domestic product.

Trump’s Promise: ‘America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have.’  Second inaugural address, Jan. 20, 2025. In reality,
manufacturing employment has stalled. Manufacturing employment, which grew during much of President Biden’s administration because of his ambitious industrial investments, has slipped to 12.6 million, down 62,000 since Trump’s second inauguration. China and other emerging nations continue to put pressure on higher-cost production in the United States, and Trump’s tariffs have yet to reverse this trend. They probably had the opposite effect by increasing prices on the materials factories need to produce goods for export.

Trump’s Promise:  ‘Without tariffs, and all of the TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS we have already taken in, our Country would be completely destroyed.’  Truth Social, Aug. 31, 2025, after the appeals court ruling against the IEEPA tariffs. In reality, tariff refunds are in full swing.  The only visible changes are to tariffs themselves, given that the Supreme Court ruled that the bulk of Trump’s new tariffs were illegal and lower courts ordered those payments refunded. It should be noted that the refunds are going to the companies that paid them rather than to the consumers who probably bore much of the cost. And the array of new tariffs Trump has rolled out since have already been challenged in court. Even if they are upheld, they stand to generate only 💲121 billion in 2026 — far less than the 💲166 billion that the government must refund.

Trump’s Promise:  ‘Starting on Day 1, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods.’  Campaign rally, Bozeman, Mont., Aug. 9, 2024. In realith, inflation has caught up with paychecks. (IOW Americans cannot afford to pay for the increasing costs of health care, housing, energy and food.)  It’s unimaginable that Trump was ever going to bring down prices. But, in reality, thanks to Trump's war of choice against Iran, inflation has become an even bigger problem. When Trump took office in 2025, inflation was only modestly higher than the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent a year. With prices now rising by more than 3 percent, the Fed may begin raising rates — a move that will make everything from credit card debt to mortgage loans more expensive — in order to curb inflation.  

Trump’s Promise:  ‘Energy is going to bring us back. That means we’re going down and getting gasoline below 💲2 a gallon.’  Economic Club of New York, Sept. 5, 2024.  But, in reality, gas is above 💲4 a gallon. Trump’s promise of gasoline prices under 💲2 per gallon was never realistic. At that price, the price of crude oil would probably have to fall to 💲30 per barrel, a level that would make drilling for new supplies so unprofitable that supply would drop, eventually causing prices to turn back up. And that was before Trump started the Iran war. Gas prices reached 💲4.50 in mid-May and remain around 💲4 — about 30 percent higher than they were on Inauguration Day.

Trump’s Promise: ‘Young people will be able to buy a home again and be a part of the American dream. We will eliminate regulations that drive up housing costs, with the goal of cutting the cost of a new home in half. … The regulations alone cost 30 percent. Regulation cost 30 percent of a new home.' Economic Club of New York, Sept. 5, 2024.  In reality, home costs have barely gone down. If we use conventional methodology, a family would need an annual income of about 💲120,000 to afford the median price of a newly constructed home. At present, the median household earns roughly 💲86,000.

Trump’s Promise: ‘Reducing mortgage rates is a big factor. We’re going to get them back down to, we think, 3 percent, maybe even lower than that, saving the average homebuyer thousands of dollars per year.’  Economic Club of New York, Sept. 5, 2024. In reality, mortgage rates are stuck near 7 percent.  The mortgage interest rate — a large component of the cost of home ownership — is virtually unchanged since Trump took office. Why❓ Largely because of the surge in overall prices and the upward pressure the growing debt is putting on long-term rates. The higher the inflation rate, the more lenders charge so they can earn an acceptable after-inflation rate of return.

Trump’s Promise: ‘We’re not cutting Medicaid, we’re not cutting Medicare, and we’re not cutting Social Security.’ NBC’s “Meet the Press,” May 4, 2025. In reality, Medicaid cuts get bigger every year. 

In reality, Just months after Trump claimed that there would be no cuts to Medicaid, he broke that promise with his 2025, domestic policy legislation. It imposed an onerous requirement that recipients document at least 80 hours of work per month to keep their coverage, limited states’ ability to finance their share of the program and closed off simplified paths to enrollment. To minimize the political fallout, more than 95 percent of the cuts were timed to take effect after the 2026 midterms. But, some changes have started being phased in, and the number of Medicaid recipients has already fallen by almost five million over the past year.

Trump’s Promise:  ‘Costs were going to go way up, and that’s what happened, and now I’m bringing them way down on health care and everything else.’  State of the Union address, Feb. 24, 2026. In reality, the price of health insurance jumped 26% from last year. 

Although Republicans stopped talking about repealing the Affordable Care Act, their smaller changes are making health care more expensive for millions of Americans. The average premium for a benchmark plan on the marketplace rose nearly 26 percent from last year, contrary to one of Trump’s promises. And the number of uninsured Americans is rising.