A ‘Golden Dome' Could Make America Less Safe
The question is whether this astronomically ambitious missile-defense shield — which will require sensors, interceptors, satellites, software, lasers and more, all of them stitched together seamlessly with artificial and human intelligence — is a good idea. I don't just mean financially, but strategically: Would it make America (and possibly Canada) safer?
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Yahoo
7 minutes ago
- Yahoo
White House Pushes B.S. About ‘Big Beautiful Bill' as Popularity Craters
President Donald Trump has insisted that Republicans get his so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill' to his desk by the Fourth of July. With only days left before the self-imposed deadline, the White House is now scrambling to do damage control around the deeply unpopular legislation produced by Congress. A series of recent polls shows that the bill — which will force millions off of Medicaid, restrict access to food assistance programs, and cost the poorest Americans billions over the next 10 — is underwater with the public. A Washington Post survey recently produced a net favorability rating of -19. Fox News clocked in at -21, a Quinnipiac poll produced a -26 rating, and KFF — formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation — found net favorability to be at -29 points. In the face of this widespread public disapproval and the GOP's inter-party squabbling over the bill, the White House is pushing 'fact checks' insisting that the legislation would not hurt low-income families or the economy at large, and that it is not just a dressed-up tax break for billionaires at the expense of everyone and everything else. In a 'fact check' sheet issued Sunday night by the White House Communication Office, the administration claimed that the legislation would 'put more than $10,000 a year back in the pockets of typical hardworking families,' that the 'OBBB protects and strengthens Medicaid for those who rely on it,' and that the suggestion that people will 'literally die' if denied access to health care is 'one of the most egregious deranged attacks from the Left peddling fear over the facts.' The document repeatedly emphasized that American households would be taking home an extra $10,000 in income a year. Huge, right? Unfortunately — but not unexpectedly — the figure is a gross misrepresentation. The figure, which was circulated in several communications released by the White House and touted by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt during a briefing earlier this month, is the high end of a projection produced by the Council of Economic Advisers – an internal White House agency. According to a Politifact review, the Council's range of a $7,600-$10,900 increase in annual take-home pay for a family of four was based on uniquely optimistic projections about how much total economic stimulus the 'Big Beautiful Bill' would produce. Where other independent agencies have predicted a maximum GDP increase of around 0.5-2 percent over the next 10 years, the counsel assumed an almost five percent increase over five years and a weighted 2.9-3.5 percent increase over 10 years. The $10,000 figure isn't a tangible change in income based on rewrites to the tax code, but rather a fantastical number carved out of an imaginary GDP boom. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Trump's enshrinement of his 2017 tax cuts, along with the exclusionary reforms being made to programs like Medicaid and SNAP, will cost the lowest-earning tenth of American households about $1,600 a year. 'Federal and state in-kind benefits would decrease household resources by $1.0 trillion,' the CBO wrote. 'Primarily because federal spending on benefits provided through Medicaid and SNAP would be lower. Changes to program benefits that states made in response to changes in federal policy would also reduce household resources.' Meanwhile, the richest Americans would see 'resources would increase, on average, over the projection period by about $12,000,' or even more given to the favorable pro-corporate policies packed into the bill. During Monday's press briefing, Leavitt insisted that 'this bill strengthens Medicaid,' and that rural hospitals were exaggerating the potential fallout of spending cuts to the program. According to the CBO, 11 million Americans could be squeezed out of their health care coverage over changes to Medicaid, bureaucratic red tape, more stringent work requirements, and changes to public insurance marketplaces. According to KFF, 'an estimated 1.5 million fewer people could be covered by Medicaid in rural areas under the reconciliation bill in 2034,' and the resulting drop in Medicaid enrollment could force rural hospitals and clinics — often the only nodes connecting rural Americans to the health care system — to close down. The bill 'protects' Medicaid only in the sense that the program will continue to exist, but it in no way protects the Americans who rely on it for their health. Millions of them will be forced to find care elsewhere if Republicans pass the 'Big Beautiful Bill.' More from Rolling Stone Senate Republicans Pass Trump's Bill to Strip Health Care From Millions J.D. Vance Dismisses Kicking Millions Off Medicaid: 'Minutiae' Trump Teases Deporting Elon: 'We'll Have to Take a Look' Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
J.D. Vance Dismisses Kicking Millions Off Medicaid: ‘Minutiae'
President Donald Trump and the GOP's so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill' is far from beautiful and deeply unpopular with the public. Battling concerns from voters about increased barriers to accessing programs like Medicaid and food assistance; massive transfers of wealth from less fortunate Americans to corporations and the rich; and the mass deregulation of industries like crypto and AI, Vice President J.D. Vance is attempting a new tactic to persuade the hesitant: ignore all of that and focus on how much money the bill is giving to ICE. 'The thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy is flooding the country with illegal immigration and then giving those migrants generous benefits. The [One Big Beautiful Bill] fixes this problem. And therefore it must pass,' Vance wrote Tuesday on X. 'Everything else — the CBO score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy — is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions,' he added. The millions of people who are expected to lose access to their health insurance as a result of the legislation would likely beg to differ. The version of the legislation passed by the House would give Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over $100 billion for the construction of new immigration detention centers, increasing arrest and deportation efforts, militarization of the border and the hiring of new agents. Such a massive windfall for immigration enforcement comes as ICE has blown through its annual budget months before the end of the fiscal year. In May, during a hearing of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) laid into the reckless spending of the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Kristi Noem. 'You are spending like you don't have a budget. You are on the verge of running out of money for the fiscal year […] You are ignoring the immigration laws of this nation, implementing a brand-new immigration system that you have invented that has little relation to the statutes that you are required — that you are commanded — to follow as spelled out in your oath of office,' Murphy said. 'Your agency acts as if laws don't matter, as if the election gave you some mandate to violate the Constitution and the laws passed by this Congress. It did not give you that mandate.' Through the reconciliation bill and presidential policy, Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration are looking to give DHS and ICE that mandate. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has demanded that ICE detain at least 3,000 migrants a day. As the reconciliation bill continues to move through the Senate, Trump and Noem traveled to Florida on Tuesday to tour the so-called 'Alligator Alcatraz,' a migrant detention center built in the hostile backwaters of the Florida Everglades. 'We're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator,' Trump said ahead of his visit to the center. 'Don't run in a straight line,' Trump said, waving his hand in a zig-zag to demonstrate how a detainee might potentially need to move to escape a half-ton reptile. This kind of callous cruelty is what the administration is focused on, whether it be its treatment of migrants, or dismissing kicking millions off of their health care as insignificant 'minutiae.' More from Rolling Stone White House Pushes B.S. About 'Big Beautiful Bill' as Popularity Craters Dem Senator Whines Amid GOP Push to Gut Medicaid: 'I Just Want to Go Home' Rick Scott Demands More Cuts to Medicaid, Which His Company Allegedly Scammed Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
San Francisco Chronicle
12 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Mayors, doctor groups sue over Trump's efforts to restrict Obamacare enrollment
WASHINGTON (AP) — New Trump administration rules that give millions of people a shorter timeframe to sign up for the Affordable Care Act's health care coverage are facing a legal challenge from Democratic mayors around the country. The rules, rolled out last month, reverse a Biden-era effort to expand access to the Affordable Care Act's health insurance, commonly called 'Obamacare' or the ACA. The previous Democratic administration expanded the enrollment window for the coverage, which led to record enrollment. The Department of Health and Human Services rolled out a series of new restrictions for Obamacare late last month, just as Congress was weighing a major bill that will decrease enrollment in the health care program that Republican President Donald Trump has scorned for years. As many as 2 million people — nearly 10% — are expected to lose coverage from the health department's new rules. The mayors of Baltimore, Chicago and Columbus, Ohio sued the federal health department on Tuesday over the rules, saying they will result in more uninsured residents and overburden city services. 'Cloaked in the pretense of government efficiency and fraud prevention, the 2025 Rule creates numerous barriers to affordable insurance coverage, negating the purpose of the ACA to extend affordable health coverage to all Americans, and instead increasing the population of underinsured and uninsured Americans,' the filing alleges. Two liberal advocacy groups — Doctors for America and Main Street Alliance — joined in on the complaint. The federal health department announced a series of changes late last month to the ACA. It will shorten the enrollment period for the federal marketplace by a month, limiting it to Nov. 1 to Dec. 15 in 2026. Income verification checks will become more stringent and a $5 fee will be tacked on for some people who automatically re-enroll in a free plan. Insurers will also be able to deny coverage to people who have not paid their premiums on past plans. The rules also bar roughly 100,000 immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children from signing up for the coverage. HHS said in a statement that the polices 'are temporary measures to immediately tamp down on improper enrollments and the improper flow of federal funds.' The mayors — all Democrats — argue that the polices were introduced without an adequate public comment period on the policies. 'This unlawful rule will force families off their health insurance and raise costs on millions of Americans. This does nothing to help people and instead harms Americans' health and safety across our country,' said Skye Perryman, the president of Democracy Forward, which is representing the coalition of plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The lawsuit does not challenge the Trump administration's restriction on immigrants signing up for the coverage. The Biden administration saw gains in Obamacare enrollment as a major success of the Democratic president's term, noting that a record 24 million people signed up for the coverage, thanks to generous tax breaks offered through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. But the program has been a target of Trump, who has said it is riddled with problems that make the coverage unaffordable for many without large subsidies. Enrollment in the program dipped during his first term in office.
