Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Plow Fields or Lose Benefits? Trump Admin Says Medicaid Recipients Should Become Farm Laborers...
https://hartmannreport.com/p/saturday-report-71225-plow-fields
— Killing them softly with criminal negligence: July 4th, the day Trump signed the bill to cut taxes on billionaires, jack-up the national debt our children will have to pay off, and turn ICE into one of the largest federal police forces in the world, a massive climate change-fueled flood hit central Texas. The first alert from the National Weather Service (NWS) went out at just after 1 AM, but the city of Kerrville didn’t let people in the area know about it until after 7:30 that morning because the so-called Department of Government Efficiency had given early retirement to the fellow whose job was to communicate NWS warnings to local authorities, and, to save money to pay for billionaire tax cuts, he was not replaced. By then many were already dead. To compound the horror, FEMA wasn’t able to preposition disaster assistance or even respond in a meaningful way for a full three days because it’s acting director, David Richardson — who has no disaster experience whatsoever — reportedly hasn’t been seen in weeks and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem had put into place an order that no FEMA activity could take place costing more than $100,000 without her personal sign-off, presumably to free up even more tax dollars for billionaires’ tax cuts. It took her 72 hours, according to CNN, to get around to signing off on the authorization so FEMA could do their job. When asked about all this, Noem’s spokesperson said and rightwing media dutifully reported: “DHS is rooting out waste, fraud, abuse, and is reprioritizing appropriated dollars. Secretary Noem is delivering accountability to the U.S. taxpayer, which Washington bureaucrats have ignored for decades at the expense of American citizens.” Asked about the situation, Trump told Fox “News” that Noem was doing a “great job” because he saw her “on television.” And when a reporter asked him about it, he called the journalist “evil” for questioning him or his administration. Sadly, the Fox cult followers will almost certainly never know the true story of what happened.
— Trump’s IRS now says that churches, contrary to Jesus’s teachings and the law, can openly advocate political positions and hustle on behalf of politicians. Anybody who’s ever read the Bible, or just the books of Matthew or Mark, knows Jesus was violently — literally — opposed to churches and synagogues engaging in politics and hustling money: “On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers … ‘Watch out for the Scribes... They devour widow’s houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.’ … ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” As much as Mike Johnson and a group of Republicans made a big show of praying on the House floor for passage of their tax cuts for billionaires that screws the poor and needy, in actual fact they’re the classic hypocrites Jesus condemned; they don’t give a damn about His actual teachings, or any of the other great spiritual leaders of history. All of them throughout history have said to first do good for “the least of the least,” as Pope John Paul II mentioned to me when he invited Louise and me to a private audience at Castle Gandolfo, and as His Holiness the Dalai Lama reiterated in the week I spent with him when I “took refuge” at his monastery in Dharamsala and the meditation room in his private home in McLeod Ganj (Harrison Ford narrated a documentary about our visit) reiterate. And yet now Trump’s toady running the IRS says churches can openly preach politics from the pulpit. This is naked blasphemy, and a violation of the 1950s federal law known as the Johnson Amendment stripping tax exempt status from churches that engage in politics that has stood for more than a half-century. So much for the constitutional mandate that the president “shall take care that the laws are faithfully executed.”
. . .
— Work in the fields for $5/hour or lose your healthcare? Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has a plan: if you’re on Medicaid and want to keep your benefits, you can replace migrant farm and hotel workers! Isn’t that special? “We got to work with the farmers and people that have hotels and leisure properties, too. … And then also, when you think about, there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America.” Right. Get grandma out there in the fields, and teach grandpa how to tuck in the corners of those bedsheets. But what about when the cuts hit all the Amazon and WalMart and other workers for massive corporations who are already on Medicaid because they’re paid so little? It’s pretty damn unlikely that Bezos, et al, are suddenly going to start offering benefits to their lowest-paid workers, so millions of Americans will be, as the old saying goes, SOL.
— Red state Republicans won’t discover how badly screwed they are until after the next years’ midterm elections. In one of the most cynical and disgusting parts of the Billionaires’ Big Bill, the cuts to Medicaid and many other benefits don’t kick in until January, 2027, just after the November, 2026 midterm elections. Just a coincidence, right? “Heartless” doesn’t begin to describe these people.
. . .
— Trump’s IRS now says that churches, contrary to Jesus’s teachings and the law, can openly advocate political positions and hustle on behalf of politicians. Anybody who’s ever read the Bible, or just the books of Matthew or Mark, knows Jesus was violently — literally — opposed to churches and synagogues engaging in politics and hustling money: “On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers … ‘Watch out for the Scribes... They devour widow’s houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.’ … ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” As much as Mike Johnson and a group of Republicans made a big show of praying on the House floor for passage of their tax cuts for billionaires that screws the poor and needy, in actual fact they’re the classic hypocrites Jesus condemned; they don’t give a damn about His actual teachings, or any of the other great spiritual leaders of history. All of them throughout history have said to first do good for “the least of the least,” as Pope John Paul II mentioned to me when he invited Louise and me to a private audience at Castle Gandolfo, and as His Holiness the Dalai Lama reiterated in the week I spent with him when I “took refuge” at his monastery in Dharamsala and the meditation room in his private home in McLeod Ganj (Harrison Ford narrated a documentary about our visit) reiterate. And yet now Trump’s toady running the IRS says churches can openly preach politics from the pulpit. This is naked blasphemy, and a violation of the 1950s federal law known as the Johnson Amendment stripping tax exempt status from churches that engage in politics that has stood for more than a half-century. So much for the constitutional mandate that the president “shall take care that the laws are faithfully executed.”
. . .
— Work in the fields for $5/hour or lose your healthcare? Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has a plan: if you’re on Medicaid and want to keep your benefits, you can replace migrant farm and hotel workers! Isn’t that special? “We got to work with the farmers and people that have hotels and leisure properties, too. … And then also, when you think about, there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America.” Right. Get grandma out there in the fields, and teach grandpa how to tuck in the corners of those bedsheets. But what about when the cuts hit all the Amazon and WalMart and other workers for massive corporations who are already on Medicaid because they’re paid so little? It’s pretty damn unlikely that Bezos, et al, are suddenly going to start offering benefits to their lowest-paid workers, so millions of Americans will be, as the old saying goes, SOL.
— Red state Republicans won’t discover how badly screwed they are until after the next years’ midterm elections. In one of the most cynical and disgusting parts of the Billionaires’ Big Bill, the cuts to Medicaid and many other benefits don’t kick in until January, 2027, just after the November, 2026 midterm elections. Just a coincidence, right? “Heartless” doesn’t begin to describe these people.
. . .
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
