A bright spot for Democrats, as Republicans’ scramble to gerrymander the old confederacy plows forward: Over in Nebraska, the path is cleared for an independent who supports things like strengthening the social safety net and taking on corporate power.
Continue reading “Nebraska’s Bizarre Senate Primary Gives State Dems the Result They Wanted”The Cost of the GOP’s Medicaid Cuts: ER Bills for States and a Spiraling Oral Health Crisis
Dentist Dr. Tara Prasad thinks a lot about the logistics of homelessness — how difficult it is to brush your teeth when you don’t have a place to store a toothbrush, or how to protect a life-changing set of dentures when you’re sleeping and someone may steal your belongings. Prasad is the dental director at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, where she often sees patients who have delayed dental care for a long time.
Prasad and oral health providers in several states are bracing for impact as the fallout of HR1, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, descends upon state legislatures. The budget law’s cuts to Medicaid — to the tune of over $900 billion over the next 10 years — are now being passed on to state legislatures.
“This is a movie we’ve seen before,” said Alex Sheff, senior director of policy and government relations at the advocacy group Health Care for All Massachusetts. In lean times, optional Medicaid adult dental benefits have often been the first on the budget chopping block as states search for ways to make up for shortfalls. But history has shown that these cuts are a fool’s bargain, with dire consequences for both states’ budgets and their residents’ health.
Continue reading “The Cost of the GOP’s Medicaid Cuts: ER Bills for States and a Spiraling Oral Health Crisis”Trump Alludes to Ominous Plans When Asked About ICE At the Polls
While administration officials went from side-stepping the question to openly embracing the potential that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers might be being deployed (illegally) to polling places in November, President Trump himself has yet to speak on the topic — whether by design, as ICE’s popularity plummeted earlier this year, or not.
Continue reading “Trump Alludes to Ominous Plans When Asked About ICE At the Polls”South Carolina
“We are the most gerrymandered Republican state in the country already,” said South Carolina Sen. Majority Leader Shane Massey (R), announcing his opposition to a new post-Callais redistricting effort which went down to defeat, for now, a short time later. Massey made both political and moral arguments against the move. We shouldn’t underestimate the political motivation. Democrat Joe Cunningham won the 1st district in the wave election of 2018. Nancy Mace defeated him by less than a single percentage point two years later. Her district then had to be significantly fortified with Republican voters to help her keep her seat. Point being, there are a lot of Democratic voters in Jim Clyburn’s 6th district. Spread them out into neighboring districts and you’ve spread the gerrymander so tight it can just snap. And those snaps happen in wave elections.
With the Corrupt Supreme Court, It’s Calvinball All the Way Down
Some of the most consequential and trust-shattering Supreme Court decisions of late have been ones that could have been predicted decades ago. Certainly that’s the case with the Dobbs decision. Callais doesn’t have quite as long a history, in terms of attempts to overturn the precedent. But certainly it’s been in the cards for at least a decade. Still, it’s some of the smaller decisions that tell us just who and what this corrupt court is. Kate Riga notes one of them here: Conservatives on the Supreme Court have previously invoked the “Purcell principle” to rule that a change couldn’t be made to districts on the “eve” of an election. Now it’s fine to do so in states like Louisiana and Alabama where primary elections are actually already underway and tens of thousands of cast ballots must be invalidated.
The message is simple: there are no rules. Only power. It reminds me of my hand tool woodworking shop. There are a big selection of tools. And it’s just a matter of what helps the GOP and the Court in that particular moment. In a way it’s clarifying. Even helpful.
Continue reading “With the Corrupt Supreme Court, It’s Calvinball All the Way Down”The Exit of This Trump Administration Official Could Threaten Abortion Access Nationwide
This story was originally reported by Shefali Luthra and Barbara Rodriguez of The 19th. Meet Shefali and Barbara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.
Food and Drug Commissioner Marty Makary’s resignation creates a new opening for anti-abortion activists to push for national restrictions on the procedure — and in particular, limit the availability of a key abortion drug. The move comes as anti-abortion groups became angry over what they viewed as his agency’s failure to curb access to the drug.
Makary’s resignation, which multiple outlets reported Tuesday, followed reports of Trump’s growing dissatisfaction with the commissioner. According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump was frustrated by an FDA decision not to approve multiple flavored vape products, which Makary worried might particularly appeal to children. Trump pressed Makary to approve the products, calling flavored vape availability a key issue for younger supporters. After Trump’s intervention, those products received federal approval.
Continue reading “The Exit of This Trump Administration Official Could Threaten Abortion Access Nationwide”Kevin Warsh Confirmed as Fed Governor as Powell Stays on the Board
After what may go down as the most controversy-laden confirmation process in Federal Reserve Bank history, conservative economist Kevin Warsh was confirmed Tuesday to a 14-year term as a Federal Reserve Governor, clearing the way for his appointment as chair. Democrat Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) joined Republicans in a 51-45 vote. Current Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s term ends on Friday.
Warsh’s arduous journey included a blockade from a member of his own political party, deep skepticism about his own independence from Trump, and ongoing questions about his vast personal wealth and obscured investments. His candidacy was shrouded in distrust, mainly from Democrats, because of Trump’s open attempts to force the U.S. central bank to enact monetary policy based on his desires to lower borrowing costs rather than on economic data and inflation risks.
And some economists and other experts have highlighted what they view as Warsh’s flip-flopping stance on monetary policy as Warsh’s signal to Trump that he’ll be an amenable central bank head.
“He, more than others, has a set of policy views and macroeconomic views that are very correlated to, call it, political, presidential, electoral outcomes,” Skanda Amarnath, who leads an economic policy organization called Employ America, told TPM in February.
Representing an unprecedented threat to Fed independence, Trump has, so far unsuccessfully, tried to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook, and let his Department of Justice launch a sham investigation into Powell for criminal misconduct pertaining to costs of a Federal Reserve building renovation project. Because of that investigation, retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, refused to vote to confirm Warsh until the DOJ dropped its investigation. During Warsh’s first Banking Committee hearing, Trump’s words were repeatedly used against him as senators from both parties pressed the nominee on whether he could operate independently from the president. Warsh said he would.
And when U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro kind of dropped the case — adding in a social post that she would not “hesitate to restart a criminal investigation” — Tillis dropped his blockade and Warsh’s path to lead the central bank was clear.
Notably, current Chair Powell has said he will stay on the board as a Fed governor after his term as chair ends. Powell’s governor term lasts until early 2028, and he said he will remain on the board until the investigation into the Fed building renovations are “well and truly over, with transparency and finality.”
How the Trump Admin Tried to Turn Foreign Aid Funds Into Deportation Cash
On the first day of his second-term in office, Donald Trump issued an executive order that caught many off-guard: all foreign aid would be subject to an immediate review.
Continue reading “How the Trump Admin Tried to Turn Foreign Aid Funds Into Deportation Cash”There’s an Easy Way to Tell That Trump’s Judicial Nominees Don’t Belong On the Bench
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at Balls and Strikes.
President Donald Trump berated Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett on Sunday, in another social media rant in which he accused the justices of being insufficiently loyal to him. “They were appointed by me,” said Trump, yet they “voted against me” in the tariffs case—and, he predicted, they “will be ruling against us on Birthright Citizenship,” too.
According to Trump, Republican justices on the Supreme Court “often go out of their way” to oppose him in order to show how “independent” they are. He considers this a mistake. “It’s really OK for them to be loyal to the person that appointed them to ‘almost’ the highest position in the land, that is, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court,” he wrote.
Continue reading “There’s an Easy Way to Tell That Trump’s Judicial Nominees Don’t Belong On the Bench”Trump Officials Claim The War That Isn’t Happening Now Costs $29 Billion
Acting Department of Defense Comptroller Jay Hurst on Tuesday said the cost of the Iran war is now closer to a total of $29 billion.
“The joint staff team and the comptroller team are constantly looking at that estimate, and so now we think it’s closer to 29,” Hurst said as he testified in front of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.
Continue reading “Trump Officials Claim The War That Isn’t Happening Now Costs $29 Billion”