Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Con Man

Let me start with this, Carole King's "Jazzman."  And let's all sing along but change "Jazzman" to "Con Man."


When the con man's testifyin' a faithless man believes
He can sing you into paradise or bring you to your knees
It's a gospel kind of feelin', a touch of Georgia slide
Conman take my blues away, make my pain
The same as yours with every change you play
Conman, oh Conman



"Con Man" the theme of Donald Chump.  And we work the con beat here.  Some of Chump's one time fans are growing jaded and realizing that he's not Jesus and he's not even a nice person.  He's gutter trash out to scoop as much money from people's pockets as he can.  Mohar Battacharjee (Inquisitr) reports:

A MAGA crypto influencer who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Trump-themed meme coins for a private dinner with the president says the experience left him “looking at Trump differently.”

Nick Pinto, 25, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that he was disillusioned by the event. It was a $370,000 dinner at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia on May 22. He now believes it was more about making money than meeting supporters.

“I look at Trump differently than I did before attending,” Pinto said in a statement.

The pricey event was part of a promotion for the $TRUMP meme coin, which launched in January with 200 million tokens. The top 220 buyers were invited to what was billed as an exclusive, “black-tie optional” dinner with the “Crypto President.” In total, at least $148 million was spent on tickets for the evening, according to Reuters.[. . .]

“I was hoping to maybe do a trend or some short video with him, maybe 15 seconds,” Pinto told Four Corners. “It’s not going to take much of his time.”

But the evening didn’t go as he imagined. In a TikTok video filmed during the dinner, a suited-up Pinto vented his frustration as Trump made a brief appearance. “Trump came, gave a speech for, I think, exactly 23 minutes, and then he left. His helicopter was right back there, left pretty quickly, didn’t stay for the dinner. Maybe he’ll come back,” Pinto said in the clip.

That hope faded. “He came, didn’t eat, didn’t drink water. I don’t think he even used the bathroom,” Pinto later told Four Corners. “He just left immediately on his helicopter. I would say the entire dinner was about making money.”

All Chump does is use people.  He'll gladly take money.  But he's not going to do a damn thing for you.  He's a con man.  


This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Wednesday, October 15, 2025.  Chump's followers shine back at him with all the shared hate in their hearts, Chump's reopened Gitmo again, Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin wants serious answers regarding ACA, and much more.



Let's start with Lawrence O'Donnell last night on MSNBC.



Michael Bartels remains on the government dime via his job in the administration.  He's still being paid by the US taxpayers.  

The disgusting I-Love-Hitler chats was reported on by POLITICO's  Jason Beeferman and Emily Ngo:

Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.

They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n--ga” and “n--guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”

Giunta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he should become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old.

“Im going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man. We only want true believers,” he continued.


Read the article, these are disgusting people.  And they are ugly people.  Bobby Walker, for instance, i a surprisingly overly confident male who must have never encountered a mirror or any other reflective surface in his entire life. Or do most Young Republican males today aspire to look like an obese female stand up comic from 1984?

 The reporters note:

The private rhetoric isn’t happening in a vacuum. It comes amid a widespread coarsening of the broader political discourse and as incendiary and racially offensive tropes from the right become increasingly common in public debate. Last month, Trump posted an artificial intelligence-generated video that showed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero beside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose fabricated remarks were about trading free health care for immigrant votes — a false, long-running GOP trope. The sombrero meme has been widely used to mock Democrats as the government shutdown wears on.
In his 2024 campaign, Trump spread false reports of Haitian migrants eating pets and, at one of his rallies, welcomed comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and joked about Black people “carving watermelons” on Halloween.




Two more members of a Young Republican group chat strewn with racist epithets and hateful jokes stepped down from their jobs Tuesday after POLITICO published an exclusive report on the Telegram exchanges.

Peter Giunta’s time working with New York Assemblymember Mike Reilly “has ended,” the Republican lawmaker said. Giunta served as chair of the New York State Young Republicans when the chat took place. Joseph Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for that group, is no longer an employee of the New York State Unified Court System, a courts spokesperson confirmed.

Another chat member, Vermont state Senator Sam Douglass, faced mounting calls for his resignation as well, including from the state’s Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, and Douglass’ fellow Republican lawmakers, who called his statements “deeply disturbing.”

POLITICO’s in-depth look into how one group of Young Republicans spoke privately was met Tuesday with widespread condemnation in New York, Washington and beyond. The members of the chat — 2,900 pages of which were leaked and reviewed by POLITICO — called Black people monkeys, repeatedly used slurs for gay, Black, Latino and Asian people, and jokingly celebrated Adolf Hitler.

In a bipartisan outcry, members of Congress and other political leaders from around the country said they were appalled by the contents of the group chat. The board of directors of the National Young Republicans said every member of the chat “must immediately resign” their state organization.



THE BULWORK has already covered this appalling story.

 

And Ben's covered it at MEIDASTOUCH NEWS.


 

Ben: Notable that Donald Trump, happy to give 20 billion dollars to Argentina 
while ripping away healthcare from 20 million Americans.  I guess that's Putting America Last now, isn't it Donald? 

We're focusing on the Young Republicans and 'peace deal' but I thought Ben's point there needed to be highlighted.  Here?  We've never credited Chump for a peace deal because there has been none.  What he did was a "pause" or "cease-fire."  That's what we've called it while the American press has too often embarrassed themselves.  And as Ava and I noted Sunday in "Media: Can Dems stop caving, can the media stop whoring?" the British press has had no problem being accurate while too many in the US press have lied and whored.  


British outlets continue to tell the truth.  Kevin Schofield (UK HUFFINGTON POST) writes:

A BBC Middle East expert has delivered a brutal reality check to Donald Trump’s claims that the war between Israel and Hamas “is over”.

The US president made the bold prediction as world leaders gathered in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt to sign a peace deal ending the two-year-long conflict.
Under the agreement, Hamas agreed to hand over the remaining Israeli hostages it had been holding captive in Gaza, while Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from its jails.

However, lengthy negotiations are still due to take place to agree the finer details on how the agreement will deliver a permanent peace.

On Radio 4′s Today programme on Tuesday, BBC international affairs editor Jeremy Bowen said: “There’s actually almost no detail about how it’s going to be implemented.

“Donald Trump essentially stated the destination, but he didn’t say state how you got there, and that seems to be his style.

“It’s important to get some clarity from looking at what it is and what it isn’t. It is not a peace deal, it is not a peace process, it’s a ceasefire and hostage agreement.

“Now that’s a considerable achievement in itself, and it tries to go on to state where it wants to go, but it doesn’t say how you get there and that’s a real problem.


Donald Chump has brokered no peace deal.  We've called it a pause or a cease-fire.  That's all that's happened.  Ava and I pointed out that British outlets grasped this even when US outlets did not.  Ehud Olmert of England's THE INDEPENDENT notes:


It is not a peace agreement. The title Trump suggested for the conference now taking place in Sharm el-Sheikh – “Peace 2025” – has nothing to do with what has happened so far.

The crucial question now is whether the temporary cessation of the war, Israel’s partial withdrawal from Gaza, and the continued minor activity of Hamas will be a starting point for a bold political move that will change the entire Middle East and bring about an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on two states.


Again, the British find it so easy to state the basic facts.  But then in the US, we have so many idiot fools.  Doubt it?  Look at this statement:

I pretty much can assure you that once those doors are opened, it will be a scene of absolute, abject horror... It’s been a terrible, terrible two years for them, because not only are they there, you know, they’re probably being treated better than the average Gazan, because they are the pawns and the chips that Hamas had. Now, Hamas has given up all of its leverage, by the way, by giving them all up. So that is a victory for the Israeli side


Those are  Christiane Amanpour's words and she uttered them on CNN and has now apologized for them.   Why?  Because big baby idiots have comprehension issues.  She did not imply that the hostages had it easy.  She stated they were likely treated better by Hamas than Hamas treated the average Gazan.  Because they loved the hostages?  No, because the hostages became chips used in a negotiation.  There's nothing contorversial about her statements unless you're an idiot who can't comprehend.  Maybe it's time for all of us to start asking if English is MAGA's second language since it's so difficult for them to follow?


Amanpour’s comments had MAGA in a rage. “You can feel how mad she is with the release of hostages by Trump,” Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell posting on X, adding, “she’s a sick woman.”


Oh look, a woman-hating gay man from Glenneth Greenwald's generation and political grouping.  They were the worst.  Ask any lesbian from that generation about the conservative gay men with the chips on their shoulder (I don't want to be known as a bottom!  Even if I am bottom!) and how they hated and loathed women in their pathetic attempts to reassure themselves that they were manly -- gay or no gay, you can't tell them that they're not. 

No, Dick, Christiane is not "a sick woman" but you are certainly a sick man.

So is Isaac Schorr.  MEDIAITE needs to pull him off any story that has to do with Israel because he can't show any objectivity and he bends the truth to the point that it breaks.  There is no peace deal, you stupid fool. Nolink to his garbage but the garbage I'm commenting on right now is his article attacking Cornel West. 

But back to Richard Grenell.  Where's his condemnation of the Young Republicans' comments in their now exposed thread?  

He makes time to willfully misconstrue Chrisiane's comments and to weigh in.  But he's got nothing to say regarding these racists, homophobic and sexist comments by the Young Republicans?

You'd think he'd want to call it out.

That everyone in the administration would want to.

Donald Chump is still wrongly taking a victory lap for his cease-fire.  And he'll be doing that for at least two more days because it takes a fat boy a lot of time to haul all that around a track.  

And how does it look, as he claims to care about the Jews in Israel, that his most intense followers are praising Hitler and wanting another Holocaust.  How does that look?

It looks like he and his followers are full of s**t.  Is that why his gut's so big?  He can't take a dump anymore and it just stays in his body getting toxic?

Donald's delivered nothing to this world but hate.  The Young Republicans in that chat are disgusting but let's never forget that it was Chump's womanly hips that birthed them.
 

MOTHER JONES tries to tell the truth about the cease-fire but maybe next time speak to someone rationale?  That might allow for the trashing of Joe Biden not to be in there or for the idiot being interviewed to stop changing the goal posts from comment to comment.  MOTHER JONES published a s**t poor article.  We can't afford that right now.  There are too many important things going on in this country.  (And don't forget this Saturday's NO KINGS protests across the country.)  

While garbage Brit Daniel Levy fondles and sniffs Chump to MOTHER JONES, Carol Rosenberg (NEW YORK TIMES) reports that the despot has reopened GITMO to imprison those kidnapped off American streets:

Federal agents have moved about 20 migrants to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a Defense Department official said on Tuesday, repopulating the holding site for detainees designated for deportation for the first time in nearly two weeks.

The identities or nationalities of the detainees were not immediately known. All were believed to be men.

Trackers spotted the flight after it left a Homeland Security Department hub in Alexandria, La., on Monday afternoon. But the first confirmation came on Tuesday, after the federal holiday, from a defense official who was not authorized to be identified by name.

The operation raised to about 710 the number of migrants who had been temporarily held at the base since the Trump administration’s deportation operations began in early February.



Chump's immigration war is destroying the country.  It's destroying our rights.  It's destroying our safety.  It's destroying our economy.  He's destroying businesses that depend upon foreign travelers to this country.  He's destroying farming.    On farming, Dave Smith (FORBES) reports:



At the Fortune Most Powerful Women (MPW) Summit Tuesday morning, Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford warned that American farmers face a critical labor shortage that could lead to a “black swan event” if the U.S. doesn’t institute more pathways for legal immigration.​ “While there might be some discussion on undocumented, et cetera, this is critical for the health of the economy,” she said.
Ford, who chairs the Business Roundtable’s immigration committee, told the MPW audience that farmers “absolutely need labor,” adding that “we need more legal immigration” as an economic driver for businesses and the broader U.S. economy. For some context, America’s agricultural sector is currently grappling with mounting pressures from trade disputes, farm bankruptcies, and an increasingly restrictive immigration environment.​

“These are folks who oftentimes try to get American labor [but] are struggling to do so,” Ford said. “They absolutely need labor, and if they don’t have it, that’s yet another element—and it could be a black swan event for a farmer if they don’t have somebody who can help and be on [the] farm.”

The term “black swan event,” for those unfamiliar, refers to an unpredictable occurrence with severe consequences that appears obvious only in hindsight. In agriculture, such events can include natural disasters, disease outbreaks, or severe labor disruptions that threaten food production systems.​

In other disturbing news from THE TIMES, Ruth Igielnik and Jazmine Ulloa cover a new poll, "Nine months into President Trump’s mass deportation campaign, registered voters largely support the idea of removing immigrants who have arrived in the country illegally, even as majorities say they feel his methods have gone too far, according to the latest survey from The New York Times and Siena University."

 How can it be both?

The easiest answer would be muddled questions.  

But that's not the case if you break down the poll.

So what's going on?

Reality leaks out to some and not to others.  FOX "NEWS" and other firght-wing outlets do not cover reality.  

So you can get people thinking that we do need to deport non-criminal immigrants who have been here forever and also people who say that Chump i going too far.

We're not consuming the same news.  

We're not witnessing the same reality.

If we were, it'd be over right now.  ICE physically attacking a rabbi?  ICE shooting at priest?

There's no support for that.  

But not all Americans are getting truth when they sit down to watch partisan infotainment that they think is news.

How many Americans, for example, will learn of the story Robert McCoy's notes at THE NEW REPUBLIC: 

Federal immigration enforcement agents allegedly interfered with—and even threatened to “shoot and arrest”—emergency personnel rescuing an injured protester last week in south Portland, as first reported Monday in Willamette Week.

Citing public dispatch records and two confidential internal reports filed by the ambulance workers, Willamette Week reported that agents blocked an ambulance on the evening of October 5 as it tried to exit an ICE facility with a protester who had suffered a collar bone injury.

Federal agents allegedly delayed the emergency workers manning the vehicle for several minutes, repeatedly requesting to ride in the ambulance to the hospital—even after having agreed, due to their lack of arrest paperwork, to simply follow along in their own vehicle instead.

After some delay, the driver began moving the vehicle toward the garage’s exit, when a plainclothes man with a partial face covering reportedly stepped in its path, urging the driver to stop so as not to hit a group of officers in riot gear standing about 15 feet away.

Eventually, seeing the group of officers line up in apparent “preparation for the gate to open so they could escort the ambulance” off, the driver reported having inched forward a bit further. But the delay stretched on, as federal agents stood “incredibly close” to the vehicle and behaved aggressively, the driver recounted. One of the crew members decided to get out to “calm and deescalate the situation,” they later wrote.

Deciding to join them, the driver, according to their report, put the emergency vehicle in park, which caused it to lurch forward slightly. An agent evidently interpreted the vehicle’s forward movement as deliberate, and is said to have begun threatening the driver.

The agent “pointed his finger at me in a threatening manner,” the driver recalled, “and began viciously yelling in my face, stating, ‘DON’T YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN, I WILL SHOOT YOU, I WILL ARREST YOU RIGHT NOW.’”

“I was still in such shock,” the driver said, “that they were not only accusing me of such a thing, but crowding and cornering me in the seat, pointing and screaming at me, threatening to shoot and arrest me, and not allowing the ambulance to leave the scene. This was no longer a safe scene, and in that moment, I realized that the scene had not actually been safe the entire time that they were blocking us from exiting, and that we were essentially trapped.”


Chump's gestapo is nothing but goons who can't get jobs anywhere else because they're uneducated sociopaths.  


Federal agents deployed tear gas on Chicago residents and more than a dozen police officers on Tuesday, the latest clash in the nation’s third-largest city as the Trump administration has carried out its immigration crackdown.

The clash began on Tuesday morning when federal agents were seen chasing a car through a working-class, heavily Latino neighborhood on the city’s far South Side, witnesses said. An S.U.V. driven by the federal agents collided with the car they were pursuing, the Chicago Police Department said, sending that car into another vehicle that was parked nearby.

After the crash, dozens of additional immigration agents in masks arrived and residents emerged from their houses, gathering on streets and sidewalks, throwing objects at agents and shouting, “ICE go home!”

As the agents left, they released tear gas, apparently without warning, sending people coughing and running for cover. Among those affected by the gas were 13 Chicago Police Department officers, the police department said, and at least one officer was seen rinsing his eyes out with water from a neighbor’s garden hose. 


They need to go home and get the hell out of Chicago.  They need to go home and kneel before their shrines to Donald Chump.  Salute their Fuhrer.  







Why Trump might admire Egypt’s regime is no secret. Trump has made enemies out of his stateside opposition, publicly calling for the political persecution of Democratic lawmakers that have dared to object to his agenda, including Pritzker, Senator Adam Schiff, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and more.

Just last week, the president threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a 19th-century law that would let him utilize the military for domestic purposes, to quell fictitious bedlam that he has claimed has taken over Democratic cities.

One such area that Trump has honed in on is Portland, Oregon, a city better known for Voodoo Doughnuts and cold brew than hellish riots. Late last month, the president ordered the National Guard to the hipster paradise, but his rationale for sending them was not informed by statistics or data—instead, it was because of something he saw on TV.

Other crime stats that have informed his decision to federalize the law enforcement of American cities were completely imagined. When Trump deployed hundreds of National Guard members to Washington in August, he blamed the city’s rising crime data—from 2023. The cherry-picked statistics misrepresented the state of crime in the nation’s capital, which, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department that was touted by the FBI, had actually fallen last year by 35 percent.


Let's wind down with this from Senator Tammy Duckworth's office:

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) led all Democratic members of the Illinois congressional delegation in sending a letter to health insurance companies to request answers about how the potential expiration of the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits would impact Illinoisans using the marketplace to purchase insurance. Today’s letter comes as the Republican-led government shutdown continues and Republican congressional leaders and President Trump refuse to extend the ACA tax credits that expire at the end of 2025. If these tax credits are not extended by the end of the year, more than four million Americans could lose their health coverage, and more than 20 million Americans are expected to see a significant rise in their premiums.

“We are writing to request information about how the potential expiration of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA; P.L. 111-148) enhanced premium tax credits would impact patients, health care providers, and hospitals in Illinois,” the lawmakers began. “The ACA established premium tax credits, helping lower- and middle-income families lower their health insurance premiums for plans offered through the marketplace. These premium tax credits made health care affordable for millions of families, small business owners, and farmers across the country.”

In 2021, Democrats passed the American Rescue Plan, establishing these enhanced premium tax credits to support Americans in affording their health insurance. In 2022, Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act, extending these critical enhanced premium tax credits.

“To make health care even more affordable, the American Rescue Plan Act (P.L. 117-2) enhanced the premium tax credits. This measure ensured that eligible households would not contribute more than 8.5 percent of their income to their health insurance premiums and allowed more middle-income Americans to access the premium tax credits,” the lawmakers wrote.

“Due to the beneficial impact these enhanced tax credits had for American families, Congress extended them as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (P.L. 117-19) through the end of 2025. The enhanced premium tax credits helped double enrollment in ACA health plans from 11.4 million Americans in 2020 to 24.3 million Americans in 2025. In Illinois, ACA enrollment grew 59 percent, from 292,945 Illinoisans in 2020 to 465,985 in 2025. The enhanced premium tax credits have allowed more Americans to access primary care visits, prescription drugs, mental health and substance use disorder services, maternity care, and other essential health benefits,” the lawmakers wrote.

Continuing their letter, the lawmakers emphasized that if Republicans in Congress allow these enhanced premium tax credits to expire, premiums for more than 22 million Americans, including 395,850 Illinoisans will more than double—from an average of $888 to $1,904 each month. But some Americans could see even steeper premium increases.

“In Illinois, a 60-year-old couple with an income of $82,800 could see their annual premium increase $17,018—254 percent—while a family of four with an income of $64,000 could see their annual premium increase $2,571—226 percent. Such a large premium increase is unsustainable for most families. In fact, more than four million Americans will become uninsured due if Congress does not act, including 106,000 Illinoisans,” the lawmakers wrote.

The lawmakers underscored that health care providers and hospitals will lose critical revenue if Republicans allow the tax credits to lapse. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation projects that hospitals and health care providers across the U.S. could lose more than $32 billion in revenue, while uncompensated care costs could increase by $7.7 billion, in 2026.

“For hospitals and providers in Illinois, lost revenue could amount to $372 million, while uncompensated care costs could increase by $129 million. This is in addition to the congressional Republicans’ $1 trillion Medicaid cut included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which will reduce federal Medicaid funding to Illinois by 19 percent over the next decade. We worry that health care providers and hospitals will face even more severe financial hardship if the enhanced premium tax credits expire, and patients will suffer,” the lawmakers wrote.

Concluding their letter, the lawmakers requested details about the potential impacts of Republicans refusing to address this health care crisis.

The following insurance companies received a copy of the lawmakers’ letter: Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, UnitedHealthcare, Cigna Group, Molina Healthcare, Celtic Insurance Company, Mercyhealth, and Oscar Health Inc.

A copy of the letter is available here and below:

October 14, 2025

Dear [CEO],

We are writing to request information about how the potential expiration of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA; P.L. 111-148) enhanced premium tax credits would impact patients, health care providers, and hospitals in Illinois.

The ACA established premium tax credits, helping lower- and middle-income families lower their health insurance premiums for plans offered through the marketplace. These premium tax credits made health care affordable for millions of families, small business owners, and farmers across the country. To make health care even more affordable, the American Rescue Plan Act (P.L. 117-2) enhanced the premium tax credits. This measure ensured that eligible households would not contribute more than 8.5 percent of their income to their health insurance premiums and allowed more middle-income Americans to access the premium tax credits.

Due to the beneficial impact these enhanced tax credits had for American families, Congress extended them as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (P.L. 117-19) through the end of 2025. The enhanced premium tax credits helped double enrollment in ACA health plans from 11.4 million Americans in 2020 to 24.3 million Americans in 2025. In Illinois, ACA enrollment grew 59 percent, from 292,945 Illinoisans in 2020 to 465,985 in 2025. The enhanced premium tax credits have allowed more Americans to access primary care visits, prescription drugs, mental health and substance use disorder services, maternity care, and other essential health benefits.

If the enhanced premium tax credits are not extended, premiums for more than 22 million Americans, including 395,850 Illinoisans, will more than double—from an average of $888 to $1,904 each month. Some could see even steeper increases. In Illinois, a 60-year-old couple with an income of $82,800 could see their annual premium increase $17,018—254 percent—while a family of four with an income of $64,000 could see their annual premium increase $2,571—226 percent. Such a large premium increase is unsustainable for most families. In fact, more than four million Americans will become uninsured due if Congress does not act, including 106,000 Illinoisans.

Health care providers and hospitals across Illinois also will be impacted if the enhanced premium tax credits are not extended by the end of the year. According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, hospitals and health care providers across the United States could lose more than $32 billion in revenue, while uncompensated care costs could increase by $7.7 billion in 2026. For hospitals and providers in Illinois, lost revenue could amount to $372 million, while uncompensated care costs could increase by $129 million. This is in addition to the congressional Republicans’ $1 trillion Medicaid cut included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which will reduce federal Medicaid funding to Illinois by 19 percent over the next decade. We worry that health care providers and hospitals will face even more severe financial hardship if the enhanced premium tax credits expire, and patients will suffer.

To help inform our legislative efforts to improve health care for Illinoisans and better understand the implications of letting the ACA tax credits expire, we request that [health insurer] respond to the following questions by October 22, 2025:

  1. How many Illinoisans does [health insurer] cover? Please provide statewide figures and a breakdown by congressional district.
  2. How many Illinoisans does [health insurer] cover who receive the enhanced premium tax credit? Please provide statewide figures and a breakdown by congressional district.
  3. For Illinoisans who are covered by [health insurer] and receive the enhanced premium tax credit, what is their average premium reduction? Please provide statewide figures and a breakdown by congressional district.
  4. If the enhanced premium tax credits are allowed to expire because of congressional Republican inaction, does [health insurer] plan to increase premiums for Illinoisans next year?
    1. If so, please provide the justification for such premium increases.
    1. If so, please provide the average statewide increase and a breakdown by congressional district.
  5. If the enhanced premium tax credits are allowed to expire because of congressional Republican inaction, does [health insurer] expect the Illinoisans it covers to lose coverage?
    1. If so, please provide estimated statewide coverage losses and a breakdown by congressional district.
    1. If so, what continuity of care plans does [health insurer] have in place for Illinoisans?
  6. When would notices of premium changes be sent to Illinoisans?
    1. How many Illinoisans will [health insurer] have to notify?
    1. How will [health insurer] inform Illinoisans (e.g., mail, e-mail)?
    1. What processes does [health insurer] have in place to ensure that Illinoisans will be informed before their coverage is renewed?
  7. If the enhanced premium tax credits expire, are there specific counties that will cease to be a part of [health insurer’s] service area?
    1. If so, approximately when will such a decision to exit be made?

Thank you for your timely attention to this important issue.

Sincerely,

-30-


The following sites updated:


on No comments:

Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Celebrity breakups?


I don't care about Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick.  I don't mean that in a mean way.  I think they lead respectable lives and if Cedric and I were actors, I'd take a page from their book.  I bring it up because, at work today, in the breakroom, there were all these mags and rags with Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban on the cover so everyone was talking about their divorce.  And for a moment I felt bad and then thought, "No, I don't."  

Keith used Nicole for fame.  I'm Team Nicole.  Both of them were very public about their marriage.  Kevin and Kyra are married -- and have been married longer -- and they're kind of low key about it.  Which I applaud.  But Keith and Nicole basically invited us into their lives.  So too bad for Keith if he doesn't realize he's lost a lot of American women.  We're Team Nicole.  And, again, it's on him.  He participated in a very public relationship.  It's like with John Mulaney.  Used to love him as a stand up comic.  He seemed real and relatable.  Made his whole act about his marriage, his wife, their dog Petunia.  And then?  He ends up with an actress and a new baby and a raging drug addict and it's like, "Who are you?"  Because he's not who pretended to be.  He doesn't even look the same anymore. He's got pudge all over his body and his face looks 30 years older.

I don't think it's smart to make your personal life your brand.  I don't mean you can't go out in public.  Kyra and Kevin do.  Or that if you have kids, you can't talk about them.  But if you are marketing your marriage, you are asking people to be vested in it which gives them every right to comment and choose sides if it breaks up.


This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Tuesday, October 14, 2025.  Protests this Saturday across the country, CBS gets into bed with Bari Weiss let's hope they deloused her first, Barack Obama points to warning signs, and much more.




Millions of people will take to the streets again this Saturday to protest the autocratic regime of President Donald Trump, his government shutdown, and his demolition of Medicare, Medicaid, and other public programs in service of tax cuts for billionaires. The protests, under the brand No Kings, have the potential to be the largest ever in the United States.

As of last Friday, 2,500 events were planned across every state, Europe, and Canada, No Kings organizers said. They expect that number to grow. Multiple cities will host anchor events, including Bozeman, Montana, a college town that rarely makes national news. Other No Kings anchor protests will be in Atlanta, Boston, Kansas City, New Orleans, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The latter two have been burdened by a persistent federal law enforcement presence over the past several weeks. 

“If you are cynical, you might not understand the utility of simply standing together and showing the massive agreement in this moment around our disdain for a president who believes he is a king,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the nonprofit Public Citizen and one of the rally’s organizers.


At THE NEW REPUBLIC, Greg Sargent uses his DAILY BLAST podcast to explain how the attacks by Donald Chump and Chump's love slaves did not work out the way that they had hoped.  Excerpt:

Greg Sargent: This is the Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

It has become very clear that President Donald Trump is really, really worried about the No Kings protests that are scheduled for October 18. Suddenly, multiple Republicans are all using the same disgusting talking point about the protests, referring to them as agitators and terrorists. It sure looks coordinated. They’re all using the same vile language. This really displays extraordinary contempt for our whole political system. Yet we think it’ll backfire. It’ll only prompt the protests to get larger, and there’s nothing Trump hates more than seeing big crowds arrayed against him. Today we’re talking about all this with writer Jill Lawrence, who has a new piece for The Bulwark on Trump’s hatred of our system and of democratic voters. Jill, thanks for coming on.

Jill Lawrence: Thanks for having me, Greg.

Sargent: So the No Kings protests are set for next Saturday. Let’s listen to what House speaker Mike Johnson had to say about this.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (voiceover): This Hate America rally that they have coming up for October 18th. The Antifa crowd and the Pro-Hamas crowd and the Marxist, they’re all gonna gather on the mall. We got some House Democrats selling t-shirts for this event. It is an outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes.

Sargent: So there you heard Johnson talk about Antifa, pro-Hamas, Marxists, Jill. These are American citizens, millions of them exercising their right to peacefully protest. Your response to what you heard there from Johnson?

Lawrence: Well, I’m not surprised. And this is traditional, this is constitutional, this is a right, and they’re trying to turn it into something really evil. But that’s because they’re scared of it, and they know that it turns public opinion.

The problem here is that people like Johnson and the Republicans in Congress aren’t doing their jobs. They’re not putting any checks and balances on the president, and they’re not upholding American values or even American constitutional rights.

So this is where we are. The people have to protest, and I don’t really see this working out the way they hope.

Sargent: Well, they clearly hope for some sort of violence, which either will allow them to respond with violence of their own—state violence—or to demonize the protests as terrorism and extremism. You know, the funny thing about this is, as you alluded to, the more people show up, the more other people feel supported, and it really is a sort of snowballing effect that can take place in these situations. And I think that’s what really worries them.

Lawrence: I think they should be worried, because nothing they’re doing is popular. And people who may support them generally on issues like crime and immigration are seeing how they carry out these policies. And he’s down on his best issues in polls, and the midterms—if they go ahead fairly and freely—will put a check on Trump, at least through the House. So that’s the problem. And the more momentum they gather, and the more peaceful they are, and the more it’s obvious that there are troops hanging around with nothing to do except maybe provoke people, then, you know, the worse it’s gonna get for them. 



Last night on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow explained that a huge turnout is expected at the protests.
 
 


The protests matter.  They put us on record that we do not consent to the destruction of democracy, we do not join Chump in his efforts to burn the Constitution, we say the US stands for something and we will not let Chump degrade and destroy our country.

Speaking with Marc Maron, former President Barack Obama about the state of dismay.  

 




Former President Barack Obama has weighed in on President Donald Trump’s latest escalation — sharply condemning the president’s call to jail Chicago’s mayor and Illinois’ governor for opposing his deployment of National Guard troops to the city.

Speaking on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast released Monday, Obama accused Trump of “politicizing the military” and warned that the deployment of troops to U.S. cities is “inherently corrupting” when used against civilians.




He called Trump’s federalization of National Guard troops “a deliberate end run around” of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prevents the use of the nation’s military for domestic law enforcement.

The law says “don’t use our military on domestic soil unless there is an extraordinary emergency of some sort,” Obama said. “When you see an administration suggest that ordinary street crime is an insurrection, or—”

“A terrorist act,” Maron added.

“A terrorist act,” Obama replied. “That is a genuine effort to weaken how we have understood democracy.”

He suggested that if he had sent troops to Republican strongholds,

“Man, it’s almost too easy of a thought experiment,” Obama said. “If I had just sent the National Guard into Texas, and just said, You know what? Lot of problems in Dallas. Lot of crime there. I don’t care what [Governor Greg Abbott] thinks. I’m gonna kind of take over law enforcement

“It is mind boggling to me how Fox News would have responded,” he said.




Obama said that instead of caving to the administration, universities should say, “This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for. Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”

Firms should also take a stand against the administration’s pressure campaign to turn away from hiring minorities and women, Obama said.

“We think it’s important, because of what this country is, to hire people from different backgrounds,” Obama said of what businesses should stand for during the second Trump administration. 

Universities, law firms and other businesses have all reached agreements with the White House and changed policies to end investigations or avoid being targeted.



As I noted last week, people like Chump can't learn.  They can't alter course.  It's the ego and the stupidity combined.  Republicans try to help him out and he blows them off because he's not a Republican.  That is reality.  He's distorted what that party was about.  His cult gets smaller each day and, in about a decade, you'll find that the Republican Party tries to foist him off on us, tries to say he was a Democrat.  And he was a member of the Democratic Party once upon a time.  But he's no Democrat.  He's nothing but a fascist.  I'll be glad when Republicans wipe their hands of him but not so glad that I'll let them lie that, while in office, he was a Democrat.  Karl Rove becomes the latest GOP insider to try to offer him advice that we all know Chump will blow off. Frank Yemi (INQUISITR) reports:

Karl Rove has a warning for President Donald Trump, troops on American streets may juice a few tough-on-crime headlines, but it is likely to backfire where it counts, with voters. On Fox News’ Journal Editorial Report, the GOP strategist walked through fresh polling and concluded that President Donald Trump’s push to deploy National Guard units into Democratic-led cities, even over governors’ objections, is “going to end up being a loser.”
A new Reuters/Ipsos survey finds 58 percent of U.S. adults say the president should deploy troops only in response to external threats, not to police domestic unrest. That posture commands 72 percent support among Democrats and a narrow majority among Republicans, 51 percent. Just 37 percent of respondents say presidents should be able to send troops into a state “even if its governor objects,” a view driven largely by Republicans, while independents lean against it. In other words, the bigger the standoff with blue-state leaders, the worse the politics get with the middle.

“If a governor objects, though, the partisanship starts to be felt,” Rove said, noting that independents tend to side with Democrats on the question. He allowed that some crime-concerned voters might credit Trump for “taking action,” but still judged the overall play as negative. “This ultimately, I think, will tend to be a loser,” he said, sketching out the same risk Republicans faced in 2020 when federal force became the story rather than the solution.
Judges in multiple jurisdictions have slowed or stalled deployments, and in the Chicago area, the legal fight collided with optics when several Texas Guardsmen were quietly sent home and replaced after a viral backlash over fitness standards. The administration insists the Guard is there to protect federal facilities and Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, but the courtroom calendar, not the cable-chyrons, now dictates the tempo.

Axios’ roundup of public surveys mirrors the Reuters/Ipsos findings, with broad discomfort over domestic military missions and a strong consensus that the armed forces should remain politically neutral. Task & Purpose, summarizing the same poll, underscores that sentiment, noting overwhelming support, 83 percent, for keeping the military out of politics. That neutral-ground instinct is exactly what Rove is tapping, the idea that voters may tolerate a “surge” for a true emergency, but will punish a president who makes troop deployments feel routine.


Rove is standing in the middle of the road, waiving his hands desperately at Chump who is blindly barreling down the road ignoring all the signs alerting everyone to the construction up ahead.  Chump doesn't know how to hit the brakes, how to save himself. 



Rove's warning about how conservatives will see the fascistic move Chump is making comes as James Bickerton (NEWSWEEK) notes four quicksand traps for Chump in the latest polling, "On immigration, Trump has a net rating of -4.7 percentage points, for the economy it was -15.3, for trade it was -16 and -27.7 was recorded for inflation."  People are tired of it -- all of it.  They're especially tired of inflation and Chump's non-stop lies about inflation.  Christopher Rugaber (LOS ANGELES TIMES) explains:


Inflation has risen in three of the last four months and is slightly higher than it was a year ago, when it helped sink then-Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign. Yet you wouldn't know it from listening to President Donald Trump or even some of the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve.
Trump told the United Nations General Assembly late last month: “Grocery prices are down, mortgage rates are down, and inflation has been defeated.”

And at a high-profile speech in August, just before the Fed cut its key interest rate for the first time this year, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said: “Inflation, though still somewhat elevated, has come down a great deal from its post-pandemic highs. Upside risks to inflation have diminished.”

Yet dismissing or even downplaying inflation while it is still above the Fed's target of 2% poses big risks for the White House and the Federal Reserve. For the Trump administration, it could find itself on the wrong side of a potent issue: Surveys show that many Americans still see high prices as a major burden on their finances.


As you read through Rugaber's report you see bad news over and over -- one example?  Artificial trees are expected to rise in cost by 10% since Christmas season last year.  And it doesn't help Chump's image that the "American-Firster" actually puts America last over and over.  Steve H. Hanke (FORBES) reports:


The world’s biggest deadbeat has passed the begging bowl again. This time, Argentina is asking for $20 billion. That’s the size of the swap line that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has promised to pony up in order to bail out Argentina and its floundering president, Javier Milei.
Where will that kind of money come from? Secretary Bessent will dip into the seldom-used Exchange Stabilization Fund at the U.S. Treasury. He will do so without Congressional approval. Why? Because President Trump has bet on President Milei. Trump sees Milei as Uncle Sam’s man in Latin America—the man who will lead the charge against the “pink tide” of leftist Latin American governments and counter the commercial and geopolitical inroads made by China in the region.

But maybe President Trump has bet on a dead horse. After all, Argentina has never been a good bet. Since independence, it has faced one economic crisis after another. In the last two generations alone, there have been one hyperinflation (1989–90); six banking crises (1980, 1982, 1995, 2001, 2008, and 2019); five balance-of-payments crises (1958, 1962, 1981–82, 1989, and 2018–19); four external debt defaults (1982, 1989, 2001, and 2020); three local public debt defaults (1989, 2007–09, and 2019); numerous currency devaluations; and a near-constant, punishing inflation.



He's got money for Argentia (our tax dollars) but Special Ed in this country is now at risk?  Zachary Schermele (USA TODAY) reports:

Families and educators across the country were plunged into a state of uncertainty over the weekend after the federal Education Department laid off practically every staffer in the government's special education division.

Nearly the entire Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, including the Office of Special Education Programs, was let go, according to agency workers and their union.

Employees in the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, many of whom work to protect students with disabilities from discrimination, were also laid off, the union said. The impacted divisions included offices in the District of Columbia, Seattle and Atlanta.


 

 


He's got serious problems, problems of his own making.  No one to blame but himself.  Did someone say Epstein and Maxwell?  Yes, the two pedophiles continue to cause problems for their former pal Chump -- even with Jeffrey Epstein dead and gone and even with Ghislaine Maxwell locked away in prison, they continue to cause problems for Chump. 




The decision to move disgraced socialite Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security female prison has been irritating her fellow inmates - who are angry at the move.

Reports from the US said the prisoners were even once placed on lockdown so her visitors could be properly accommodated. Maxwell, 63, was transferred to the Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas in August after three and a half years in a federal prison after her conviction for aiding Jeffrey Epstein in his abuse of under-age girls.
[. . .]
According to The Wall Street Journal, inmates were confined to their dormitories after breakfast on one occasion in August as Maxwell held meetings in the camp's chapel.

Some prisoners claimed they had been told the lockdown had been necessary because of the importance of her visitors.


Covering the same story, Isabel Keane (INDEPENDENT) notes:

It was not known whom Maxwell met with in the chapel that day, though some of her fellow inmates heard rumors that the lockdown was meant to accommodate important visitors, according to the report.

Later that day, one inmate said they saw Maxwell return to her dormitory with a smile on her face. When asked about her mysterious meeting, Maxwell said it went well, but didn’t share any other information, according to the report.

Meanwhile, less than a week later, the Department of Justice released a transcript of an interview Maxwell had had with senior official Todd Blanche weeks earlier in July.

During the interview with Blanche, Maxwell said she had never seen President Donald Trump doing anything inappropriate or illegal with Epstein when they were friends. Soon after, she was transferred to Federal Prison Camp Bryan.


 

 

 

Nothing is rotting more today than Chump's skin except for craven and collapsing media.  We addressed the freak show possibly joining CBS at the start of last month with "As ugly as she is stupid," "Barely Bari can't wait to destroy CBS NEWS," "An idiot named Bari Weiss," "Crazy Karens named Bari Weiss," "What Bari Weiss wants to (mis)teach the world" and "THIS JUST IN! BARI WEISS GROWLS NEXT TO HER FOOD BOWL!"


FUGLY CRACKPOT FREAK BARI WEISS IS SAID TO BE TRYING TO SQUEEZE INTO THE ROLE OF OMBUDSPERSON AT CBS NEWS -- IF SHE CAN LOSE FORTY OR FIFTY POUNDS AND SOMEONE CAN CUT THE POOP OUT OF HER ASS HAIR.  THE WALKING DISASTER HAS NEVER PLAYED WELL WITH OTHERS AND IS KNOWN TO BITE ANY CANINE  WHO COMES NEAR HER BOWL OF PURINA PRO PLAN SENIOR DOG FOOD.  

BUT WHEN THESE REPORTERS MET WITH HER FOR A SCHEDULED Q.&A., WEISS WAS SURPRSINGLY CHIPPER HAVING JUST TAKEN A DUMP ON A NEWSPAPER BESIDE HER DESK.

Q: DONALD CHUMP BASICALLY CREATED THIS JOB FOR YOU -- DOES THAT MEAN YOU'RE ON WELFARE?

BW: I'M A HAPPY CAMPER BECAUSE, DESPITE MY FACE, I MAY GET ON TV.  I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO TV BUT NEVER HAD ENOUGH MONEY FOR PLASTIC SURGERY.  THE RISE OF CHUMP MEANS ALL THE UGLY PEOPLE FINALLY GET A SHOT AT HIGH PROFILE MEDIOCRITY.  

Q: AND WHAT WILL YOU BRING TO CBS?

BW: DIVERSITY.  DIVERSITY'S REALLY IMPORTANT.

Q: BUT CHUMP GOT CBS TO AGREE TO KILL ALL DIVERSITY INITIATIVES.

BW: NO, NO AND NO.  WHAT WE DON'T WANT IS EQUALITY.  DIVERSITY -- AS WE DEFINE IT -- MEANS DIVERSITY OF OPINION.  FOR TOO LONG, MAINSTREAM MEDIA HAS STRESSED CONFORMITY WITH NO REAL DIVERSITY.  THANKS TO ME, CBS WILL NOW BE ABLE TO DEMONSTRATE TRUE DIVERSITY.  FOR EXAMPLE, THERE ARE A LOT OF MURDERS IN THIS COUNTRY.  MAINSTREAM MEDIA COVERAGE ALWAYS TREATS THIS AS A BAD THING.  DIVERSITY OF OPINION MEANS I CAN GO ON TV AND TALK ABOUT THE MANY GOOD PARTS OF MURDER.  OR ELDERLY ABUSE!  I WON'T BE PART OF THE ECHO CHAMBER CONDEMING IT.  I'LL POINT OUT THAT SOME ELDERLY PEOPLE DON'T HAVE MUCH TO DO AND ELDERLY ABUSE ACTUALLY BRINGS SOME EXCITEMENT INTO THEIR LIVES.  IT'S ABOUT PRETENDING YOU HAVE A BRAIN AND PRETENDING YOU'RE USING IT.  I'VE DONE THAT FOR MANY YEARS NOW.  LIKE WHO SAYS RACISM IS WRONG?  I NEVER HAVE!  DIVERSITY OF OPINION IS SO VERY IMPORTANT TO ME.  UNLESS WE'RE TALKING HIRING PEOPLE OF COLOR.  THEN YOU CAN FORGET ABOUT DIVERSITY.  DIVERSITY IS MY RIGHT TO ARGUE THAT THE EARTH IS FLAT WITHOUT BEING CANCELLED!  YES, I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CANCELLED!  YES, I DO!


IN OTHER NEWS, OLD YELLOW TEETH RONNIE JACKSON HAS HAD HIS 2022 DEMOTION OVERTURNED.  REACHED FOR COMMENT BY THESE REPORTERS, JACKSON RESPONDED, "CAN'T TALK NOW, I'M OFF TO CVS FOR CREST WHITE STRIPS!"



In an early taste of CBS News’s editorial direction under its newly anointed editor in chief, the anti-woke pundit Bari Weiss, the storied outlet elevated a hit piece on Zohran Mamdani, the progressive New York City Democratic mayoral nominee.

CBS News on Friday published a segment featuring Olivia Reingold—a reporter for the Weiss-founded Free Press, which is now owned by the same parent company as CBS. Reingold, whose previous work for Weiss includes a much-criticized August story that attempted to downplay the Israel-induced famine in Gaza, shared her reporting on Mamdani on a CBS morning program.

“Some NYPD officers worry about Mamdani becoming the NYC mayor, The Free Press reports,” reads the title of the segment posted on CBSNews.com. (Until Monday, “Mamdani” had been misspelled “Mandani.”)

Reingold reported that officers in the New York Police Department are worried about Mamdani, with some “considering retiring.” The evidence? In total, her Free Press article contains quotes from four of the at least 33,000 uniformed officers serving in the NYPD. None of them are named.

 

 Shoddy reporting which is no surprise.  Weiss is not a reporter.  She was a (bad) opinion writer as John Oliver explained on Sunday.  

 

 
 
 

Let's wind down with Lawrence O'Donnell last night on MSNBC analyzing how Miss Sassy JD Vance lied over and over on Sunday trying to pretend Tom Homan didn't take a $50,000 bribe.


 

 


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