The Kids Are Not Alright

Elect Republicans and watch the children suffer.



More Than 770,000 Children Are No Longer Receiving SNAP Benefits After Trump Changes Federal Food Program

Republican backers of Trump’s signature domestic policy bill repeatedly claimed that revisions to the food benefits program wouldn’t affect the most vulnerable. But reports from a dozen states show children are losing access.

As a House committee debated President Donald Trump’s signature domestic policy bill last year, Republican backers repeatedly emphasized that its changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, wouldn’t affect vulnerable people.

SNAP reforms would “restore integrity” to the program and ensure it works for the “most vulnerable among us, including children,” said Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican and chair of the House Agriculture Committee.

Passing the bill would be a “historic accomplishment” that will ensure “those in need can continue to receive the assistance they need,” said Rep. John Rose, a Republican from Tennessee.

And Rep. Dusty Johnson, a South Dakota Republican, said the bill would focus resources on the “neediest” Americans. “If you are a pregnant woman, your benefits are unaffected. If you have young children at home, your benefits are unaffected by this bill. If you are disabled, your benefits are unaffected by this bill.”

But nearly a year after the measure was signed into law, the number of children receiving food assistance has plummeted by at least 776,000, according to a ProPublica analysis. At least 12 states break down program participation by age, and of the 1,670,011 people who are no longer receiving benefits in those states, 776,134, or 46%, were children.

Another analysis reached the same conclusion: Just last month, the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found there were 700,000 fewer children receiving food assistance.

Arizona has seen the nation’s largest percentage decline in SNAP participants; 205,223 children are no longer receiving the benefit since July 2025, a 55% drop. Louisiana had the second largest percent decline among children, 22%.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees SNAP, hasn’t detailed the impact on children aided by the program, but initial figures show that compared to February 2025, 4.3 million fewer people received SNAP nationwide in February 2026, leaving 37.8 million participants.

Although children weren’t the intended targets of the legislation’s changes, they’re increasingly “collateral damage,” said Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

If states are trying to comply with the law’s changes to SNAP, they’re likely not focusing on making the program accessible, Bergh said. Other experts said that people may be pushed off the program because of increased paperwork requirements to remain eligible.

States are required to impose work requirements for most adult recipients, while preparing for two major cost shifts. In October, states will begin covering 75% of the program’s administrative costs. States have been paying 50% of those costs.

In addition, states will have to pay a larger share of SNAP benefits starting in October 2027, based on their error rate. Error rates reflect overpayments or underpayments of SNAP benefits. While sometimes characterized as fraud, such errors are usually the fault of the state agency or the SNAP recipient, according to USDA, which describes them as “largely unintentional.”

If a state agency is facing staffing shortages and struggling to comply with new regulations, it will be harder for low-income families to access the benefits, Bergh said. “Families are falling through the cracks.”

In Massachusetts, for example, the share of SNAP applicants who called an assistance line and couldn’t reach a worker rose from 61% in November to nearly 81% in March, according to the Department of Transitional Assistance, which administers SNAP in the state. The state agency did not respond to a request for comment.

A USDA spokesperson did not address ProPublica’s questions about the number of children who have lost access to SNAP. “There is no shortage of resources for the most vulnerable among us, including children,” the spokesperson said.

Have you lost your benefits? Are you working with those who have? Help ProPublica do more reporting. We need your help understanding what shifting policies actually mean for communities across the country. If your SNAP or Medicaid benefits have been cut or if you work to help people navigate public assistance programs, you can email us at safetynet@propublica.org to share your experience.

The three members of the House Agriculture Committee who defended last year’s bill before its passage — Rose, Thompson and Johnson — did not respond to ProPublica’s questions about their statements now that many children no longer receive SNAP benefits.

Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, asked Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins about her recent comments that it was “good news” that millions of people no longer receive SNAP. If more than 700,000 children have been dropped in the 12 states that report those figures, “that number’s going to be into the millions” when other states are included, he said.

Rollins responded, “The 700,000 number of children is not correct,” contending that most people who were kicked off SNAP were “fraudulent.”

“That is not a nonpartisan group that gave you that number,” she said. (ProPublica independently verified the figures reported by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.)

McGovern said he has talked to people who have lost food assistance. “These are people who actually need and rely on this food assistance to provide basic nutrition for their families,” he said.

Pressure to lower error rates “creates a temptation for the states to bump off working families,” said Parke Wilde, a food economist at Tufts University. Working families may have more volatile incomes, making it harder for state agencies to assess benefits accurately.

“When they say we want to preserve SNAP for those with the greatest need, they’re sort of acknowledging that they want the scale of the SNAP program to be smaller,” he said.

Mariana Chilton, an expert in child hunger at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said a smaller program won’t save money in the long run. Research shows that children who receive SNAP benefits are healthier, have better academic outcomes, use hospitals less often and have better mental health as teenagers.

She called the situation a “public health crisis” in the making. “When children are not healthy, this affects children today and it affects them throughout their lifetimes,” she said, likening hunger during early childhood to a brain injury.

As Arizona’s SNAP participation drops, nonprofits are feeling the effects. St. Mary’s Food Bank, the largest in the state, has seen a 15% increase in need this year, which translates into 300,000 more visits from people in search of food, said Milt Liu, the chief executive officer.

“It’s important for everyone to realize that policies have implications for people on the edge, and we’re seeing that in our line every day,” he said.

On a recent morning, Ana Alvarez waited in a line of vehicles at a St. Mary’s food bank in Phoenix. Alvarez, a single mother of five who works at a restaurant, started coming to St. Mary’s after she lost her SNAP benefits in September.

She reapplied for SNAP with the Arizona Department of Economic Security in December, but the application is still pending. The department did not respond to questions about its backlog.

She clips coupons and has cut out trips to the zoo and restaurants with her children. The slow season at the restaurant where she works is about to hit. And as summer temperatures rise, Alvarez wonders how she will afford her electric bill, her rent and her car payment.

At least once a week she contacts the agency about her application. The last time she called, a worker told her what others have in the past: She will have to keep waiting.

A Reminder

In 1979, Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House.

In 1986, Ronald Reagan had them removed.

If we'd listened to Carter, and continued to follow his lead, we wouldn't have to worry about the Strait of Hormuz.

Republicans, on behalf of The Dirty Fuels Cartel, have been fucking us over for a very long time.

How Do I Not Hate These Assholes?

We're living another episode of Classic GOP Proforma Bullshit.

• Completely fuck something up
• Walk away, leaving it for someone else to clean up the mess you've made
• Bitch about the clean up and the people doing the work

I live for the morning I wake up to The Big Beautiful Obituary.

Hillary Speaks

SECRETARY CLINTON'S OPENING STATEMENT

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of the Committee... as a former Senator, I have respect for legislative oversight and I expect its exercise, as do the American people, to be principled and fearless in pursuit of truth and accountability.

As we all know, however, too often Congressional investigations are partisan political theater, which is an abdication of duty and an insult to the American people.

The Committee justified its subpoena to me based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Let me be as clear as I can. I do not.

As I stated in my sworn declaration on January 13, I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices. I have nothing to add to that.

Like every decent person, I have been horrified by what we have learned about their crimes. It's unfathomable that Mr. Epstein initially got a slap on the wrist in 2008, which allowed him to continue his predatory practices for another decade.

Mr. Chairman, your investigation is supposed to be assessing the federal government's handling of the investigations and prosecutions of Epstein and his crimes. You subpoenaed eight law enforcement officials, all of whom ran the Department of Justice or directed the FBI when Epstein's crimes were investigated and prosecuted. Of those eight, only one appeared before the Committee. Five of the six former attorneys general were allowed to submit brief statements stating they had no information to provide.

You have held zero public hearings, refused to allow the media to attend them, including today, despite espousing the need for transparency on dozens of occasions.

You have made little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files. And when you did, not a single Republican Member showed up for Les Wexner's deposition.

This institutional failure is designed to protect one political party and one public official, rather than to seek truth and justice for the victims and survivors, as well as the public who also want to get to the bottom of this matter. My heart breaks for the survivors. And I am furious on their behalf.

I have spent my life advocating for women and girls. I have worked hard to stop the terrible abuses so many women and girls face here and around the world, including human trafficking, forced labor, and sexual slavery. For too long, these have been largely invisible crimes or not treated as crimes at all. But the survivors are real and they are entitled to better.

In Southeast Asia, I met girls as young as twelve years old who were forced into prostitution and raped repeatedly. Some were dying of AIDS. In Eastern Europe, I met mothers who told me how they lost daughters to trafficking and did not know where to turn. In settings around the world, I met survivors trying to rebuild their lives and help rescue others — with little support from people in power, who too often turned a blind eye and a cold shoulder.

If you are new to this issue, let me tell you: Jeffrey Epstein was a heinous individual, but he's far from alone. This is not a one-off tabloid sensation or a political scandal.

It's a global scourge with an unimaginable human toll.

My work combatting sex trafficking goes back to my days as First Lady. I worked to pass the first federal legislation against trafficking and was proud that my husband signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which increased support for survivors and gave prosecutors better tools for going after traffickers.

As Secretary of State, I appointed a former federal prosecutor, Lou deBaca, to ramp up our global antitrafficking efforts. I oversaw nearly 170 anti-trafficking programs in 70 nations and directly pressed foreign leaders to crack down on trafficking networks in their countries. Every year we published a global report to shine a light on abuses.

The findings of those reports triggered sanctions on countries failing to make progress, so they became a powerful diplomatic tool to drive concrete action.

I insisted that the United States be included in the report for the first time ever in 2011. Because we must hold ourselves not just to the same standard as the rest of the world but to an even higher one. Sex trafficking and modern slavery should have no place in America.

None.

Infuriatingly, the Trump Administration gutted the Trafficking in Persons Office at the State Department, cutting more than 70 percent of the career civil and foreign service experts who worked so hard to prevent trafficking crimes. The annual trafficking report, required by law, was delayed for months. The message from the Trump Administration to the American people and the world could not be clearer: combatting human trafficking is no longer an American priority under the Trump White House.

That is a tragedy. It's a scandal. It deserves vigorous investigation and oversight.

A committee endeavoring to stop human trafficking would seek to understand what specific steps are needed to fix a system that allowed Epstein to get away with his crimes in 2008.
A committee run by elected officials with a commitment to transparency would ensure the full release of all the files.

It would ensure that the lawful redactions of those files protected the victims and survivors, not powerful men and political allies.

It would get to the bottom of reports that DOJ withheld FBI interviews in which a survivor accuses President Trump of heinous crimes.

It would subpoena anyone who asked on which night there would be the "wildest party" on Epstein's island.

It would demand testimony from prosecutors in Florida and New York about why they gave Epstein a sweetheart deal and chose not to pursue others who may have been implicated.
It would demand that Secretary Rubio and Attorney General Bondi testify about why this administration is abandoning survivors and playing into the hands of traffickers.

It would seek out officers on the front lines of this fight and ask them what support they need.
It would put forth legislation to provide more resources and force this administration to act.
But that's not happening.

Instead, you have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump's actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers.

If this Committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein's trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files.

If the majority was serious, it would not waste time on fishing expeditions. There is too much that needs to be done.

What is being held back? Who is being protected? And why the cover-up?

My challenge to you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, is the same challenge I put to myself throughout my long service to this nation. How to be worthy of the trust the American people have given you. They expect statesmanship, not gamesmanship. Leading, not grandstanding. They expect you to use your power to get to the truth and to do more to help survivors of Epstein's crimes as well as the millions more who are victims of sex trafficking.

Thomas Massie

Massie would never get my vote. Other than the Epstein thing, he votes with Trump and the authoritarian right wing something like 95% of the time.

And honestly, that old school hardass Republican thing used to appeal to me a little. But in the last 30 years, they've gone completely fucking crazy. So no - I doubt very seriously I'll ever vote for another Republican. Ever.



‘You’re Going to See More Defections’: Thomas Massie’s Ominous Prediction for the GOP

In a new interview, the Republican congressman opens up about Donald Trump, Mike Johnson and his strategy to dig even deeper into the Epstein files

Rep. Thomas Massie has gone toe-to-toe with the president of the United States, the speaker of the House and the attorney general in just the last few months. And he says there’s more to come.

The libertarian Republican from rural Kentucky has long been a headache for party leaders, but he’s taken it to another level by co-authoring bipartisan legislation that compelled the Justice Department to release vast troves of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In an interview with POLITICO Magazine in his Capitol Hill office, Massie boasted that some 3 million files have already been released, even as he said he’d continue to bring pressure on the DOJ to reverse redactions in the documents.

Massie was the sole Republican to spar with Attorney General Pam Bondi at a combative congressional hearing last week, but he said for now, he won’t pursue efforts to hold her in contempt for not fully releasing the files.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to proverbially pull a knife right now in this argument because we’re winning it,” he said. “When the attorney general is reduced to a stack of pre-prepared insults to deliver, and when the DOJ is responding to my every tweet with additional unredactions, I don’t think I’m going to change what I’m doing just yet.”

Massie also joined several other Republicans recently to buck President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson on legislation that would block some Trump tariffs. And he had an ominous prediction for GOP leadership in the coming months.

“On any given day, I would just need one or two of my own co-conspirators to get something done,” he said. “I think you’re going to see more defections.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I want to start with the recent Bondi hearing. You had some heated interactions with her. What did you come away with from that interaction?

Not necessarily for my own exchange, but just overall I think she looked weak and frustrated when she started talking about the Dow Jones, which has literally nothing to do with her job. I thought that looked bad. [She] kind of had this stack of insults that were pre-prepared — in politics you might call it oppo research — and you could see her shuffling through them to try and find which one matched the person who was trying to ask her a question at the time. She found my card like right at the end, as you can see she was looking for it.

What do you make of the attorney general coming to the Hill to testify in a general oversight hearing and then dishing out these flashcards about members of Congress?

This was her first appearance in front of the House of Representatives, and I think the public consensus is that she didn’t do a great job. Obviously, I prefer her politics to Merrick Garland’s, but he was better as a witness in terms of weathering it and looking credible, even if he didn’t give us the answers he was supposed to.

Did you get any substantive answers you were looking for?

She did admit that they changed the redactions [on Epstein documents] within 40 minutes of me finding the inappropriate redactions. I think that was a win. You can approach these hearings in different ways. If you’re not comfortable mixing it up with the witness, you can just give a five-minute speech. Or, if you’re thinking the witness is probably not going to be cooperative and not answer the questions, then you ask questions that sort of answer themselves when they don’t answer the question.

Although I genuinely wanted to know if they could track the individual redactions and who did them, because there could be somebody at DOJ who kind of reports to Pam Bondi, but is kind of at another level than Pam Bondi. The people who were there for life sort of run the place. They know how to get things done. I did think it was really fishy that there were thousands of instances of Leslie Wexner’s name, but the one instance that would’ve shown that Kash Patel may have committed perjury was redacted. And so my question legitimately was, who made this redaction? Because if I could find out who made that redaction, then I would go over to the DOJ computers and put that name in and see what else that person was in charge of redacting.

And then in the instance of releasing, that’s the grossest incompetence I’ve ever seen in government. An attorney sends you a list of the victims he represents so that you can redact their names, and you release the whole list. It’s like your worst nightmare. And I would guess that the attorney never in his wildest dreams dreamed that the DOJ would be that incompetent.

Do you have any plans to take legal action to fully redact any of these documents? Obviously they’ve been redacted multiple times.

I think six months ago, nobody ever thought we would be where we are now. I mean, we have 3 million files released. We do have some evidence that at least at some point the government thought there were co-conspirators, that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked women to other men. So that’s a victory right now. And things are unfolding. If you look at the overall pace over the last six months, the pace has actually picked up, it hasn’t slowed down.

I don’t think it’s necessary to proverbially pull a knife right now in this argument because we’re winning it. When the attorney general is reduced to a stack of pre-prepared insults to deliver, and then the DOJ is responding to my every tweet with additional unredactions, I don’t think I’m going to change what I’m doing just yet. We’re at a stage right now where we still have steam.

With that strategy, are you still planning on holding Bondi in contempt?

Well, to do that, we need two or three Republicans. I do think within the conference our momentum is gaining some steam as well. When I go over to the DOJ terminals, I see Republicans interested in this who didn’t sign the discharge petition [to bring the Epstein files bill to the floor]. And I think they’re being compelled to do that because they see that there’s some there there. And they’re also being asked by their constituents, well, what are you doing?

Where do you think the disclosures go from here? Is there anything else Congress can do other than contempt to prod the administration along?

The strongest tool we have now and have wielded through all of this is public pressure. And the hearing was useful in that regard. The recent document dump is useful in this regard. I heard the White House press secretary say we’re moving on. And if you look on the internet, people are sharing that clip and saying, no, we’re not.

What do you make of her saying that? And even the president recently has said again, he thinks the country should move on to something else.

Yeah, he’s decided that since these files don’t further implicate him in his opinion and exonerate him, that we should just move on now. Throughout this whole thing, Ro Khanna and I have taken great pains to keep this from becoming a partisan exercise because if it devolves into who shows up in the files more, Bill Clinton or Donald Trump, that’s just the typical food fight that you have in Washington D.C. And then you end up in a stalemate where you can’t get a bipartisan vote.

Trump often wields power on Capitol Hill through intimidation and fear. That obviously has not broken through on the Epstein matter as much. Several of you defied him on tariffs as well. How is that toolkit wearing thin for him, that he’s not able to badger enough Republicans into falling in line?

The margin is razor-thin, so on any given day, I would just need one or two of my own co-conspirators to get something done. And what’s happening is that the retirement caucus is growing and primary days are coming up and passing. Once we get past March, April and May, which contain a large portion of their Republican primaries, I think you’re going to see more defections.

Because quietly and privately, people are telling me they agree with me. And so there are people who plan on running again who will be past their primaries or certainly past the date at which the administration could put another Navy SEAL up to run against somebody. And then there’s the retirement caucus, which includes people who don’t want to retire, but redistricting is going to take them out or pit them against another Republican when they may retire for that reason.

Why has that sentiment changed in this term, and not as much in the first term?

I think there’s some fatigue, I call it rubber stamp fatigue. People who get elected to Congress, almost none of you got here by mistake. Everybody’s got flaws but everybody who gets here is driven and probably could accomplish other things besides Congress with that level of drive. They could be entrepreneurs or make a lot of money as lawyers. Nobody graduates from high school and signs in their yearbook that they want to be the class rubber stamp.

And so you have competent, driven individuals — some of these are military officers — who are being told every week to stand down, bite their tongue, sit on their hands, do what they’re told, be part of the team and put their brain in neutral, and that kind of job will make you tired by noon.

How big do you think is the caucus of people whom the president has no control over anymore? Do you think it is just a handful right now?

It’s really just the retirement caucus. And so they have to weigh the cost of alienating the president of the United States in their future job. Maybe they want to be the head of a trade association where crossing swords with the president would disqualify them later.

When was the last time you heard directly from the president or his team about anything?

Does the prayer breakfast count? I mean, he called me a moron at the prayer breakfast.

Just on the stage, thousands of pastors, including some from my own district, who apologized to me. They were literally here in my office that day and praying with me. And then they go to the prayer breakfast and hear the president say that. They are not impressed and I don’t think anybody was impressed by his performance at the prayer breakfast. It was completely political. But to answer your question, last time I heard from him was at the prayer breakfast and people said well what’s your response to that? And I just said I’m glad to know I’m in his prayers.

Have you talked to him or anyone on his team?

I talked to him when they needed my vote to get the “big, beautiful bill” to the floor, and he told me that he would tell Chris LaCivita to quit running ads against me if I helped him get the bill to the floor. And I said, “I want to be completely clear with you.” And I told him twice. I said, “I’m not voting for the bill when it gets to the floor. I want you to understand that’s not part of this agreement.” And he goes: “I understand. I get it. That’s fine.” Those were his three things he said.

And then they just kept running the ads. And then when the success of the Epstein Files Transparency Act was imminent, I think he just succumbed to Massie derangement syndrome at that point.

And that was when you were on the phone with the president himself during that conversation over the rule for the legislation.

In a room with the speaker of the House. There were two other members of Congress in there who made the same deal. So they got nothing for their vote either.

When was the last time you talked to Speaker Johnson about the Epstein matter at all?

One day they needed my vote and I offered to give them my vote if he would issue a press release thanking me for my good work on the Epstein Files Transparency Act. That’s all I required to get my vote. And I think he probably went and gave somebody else a bill to pass instead of doing the public statement.

That’s the last time I talked to him about that. And we had a serious discussion. He was like, you know, I can’t do that. He said the bill was flawed and worked against it. Well, obviously it wasn’t flawed. It’s working right now. And so anyways, I haven’t talked to him since then about that.

With the exception of when they put [“crazy stuff”] in the rule, I’ve been pretty reasonable on these votes. And I’ve asked Mike Johnson, tell me why I should keep being reasonable?

Do you think you could go further than what you are doing right now?

Oh yeah. Yeah. I’ve voted for a lot of rules when they’ve needed me.

In Europe, we’re seeing lots of consequences and resignations from the Epstein disclosures. The UK government is in tumult over it. We’re not seeing that same reaction in the United States at least yet.

Why do you think it’s different here?

I think the way that politics is structured in Europe is more ephemeral and reputational. They can recall a prime minister. They can have a vote of confidence. I think their head’s always on the chopping block. And so if reputationally somebody becomes a burden to the party, they might be quicker to jettison that person. And with the case of Prince Andrew, it’s all about reputation with royalty, right? They’re supposed to be better than everybody else, and when they aren’t, they can’t be in the club.

Here in the United States, once you become the ruling party in the White House, you’re there for four years. It’s almost unheard of that you would switch horses in the middle of the stream in the United States like they do in Europe. And also because we don’t have a coalition in our version of parliament. The president right now uses Congress as a rubber stamp, and he doesn’t have to really worry about the coalition falling apart in parliament. He doesn’t have to worry about members of his own party defecting. So I think they’re going to just keep taking on water here. If reputations mattered more in the United States, Howard Lutnick would already have resigned.

How do you feel the Epstein matter is playing in your primary? The president is pushing in on the primary challenge against you. How do you feel like this is shaping your race at this point?

Well, there are a lot of factors that play back home. You’ve got to understand, you can’t pretend that things in D.C. are the same as they are in Kentucky’s fourth district. When I undertook this cause to get this bill passed, I didn’t think it would hurt me back home, and I didn’t think it would help me back home. You know, I’ve taken up for raw milk, ending the Federal Reserve. Those are causes that maybe they’re nationally popular, but back home, maybe they only motivate a low single-digit percent of my voters, right?

And I thought the Epstein case might be similar to that — a national concern that doesn’t have a lot of effect or a disproportionate amount of influence in my district. But I was surprised to find out that it does. This isn’t a boutique or niche issue back home. This is a big deal back home, and it’s also shaped the demographics of my support back home. The people who were upset that my entire family posed with machine guns are now voting for me. And the president has control over the people who get 100 percent of their news from FOX.

So I’ve lost support there, but I’ve gained support from Republican soccer moms.

Here’s where I have to laugh every time somebody says “Oh, you just did this because it’s politically expedient.” There’s nothing politically expedient about pissing off the president and drawing 10 or 20 million dollars into your primary and causing them to double down. He was already a little bit annoyed at me for the votes on the “big, beautiful bill,” the [continuing resolution to fund the government], and even [the speaker’s race for] Mike Johnson. But once I did the Epstein thing, I crossed the rubicon. There was no, “I’m sorry, we misunderstood each other. We can be friends now.” So, it’s drawn a lot of fire from outside of my district and from the White House into my district, but in the district among my people it’s popular.

And it’s done one other thing: It has disarmed completely the argument that I never get anything done. When you go to your social media and half your feed is about something that I’ve done — if my opponent tries to say on his social media, “Massie is a gadfly and he never gets anything done,” they’ll just dogpile him with all the things that are happening because of me.

So it helps back home.

Today's Monte

Homan says he doesn’t ‘know’ meaning behind Noem’s ‘right leaders’ comments

White House border czar Tom Homan said Sunday he didn’t “know” what Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem’s recent comments about ensuring “we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country” meant.

“So, what does she mean when she says ‘electing the right leaders?’ That’s not really immigration enforcement or DHS responsibility,” CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Homan on “State of the Union.”

“I don’t know. That’d be a question for the secretary. If I had to guess, probably that — you know — only those legally eligible to vote would vote. But I have not talked to the secretary about those statements. That’d be something she’d have to answer,” Homan replied.

On Friday, Noem suggested that her department plays an expansive role in election security. The secretary alleged that she has the authority to find “vulnerabilities” in the election system and put in place “mitigation measures” to ensure local and state elections are carried out “correctly.”

In a press conference in Arizona, Noem claimed that elections were under DHS’s mission of “maintaining critical infrastructure.”

“I would say that many people believe that it may be one of the most important things that we need to make sure we trust, is reliable, and that when it gets to Election Day, that we’ve been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country through the days that we have, knowing that people can trust it,” she said.

Noem also said on Friday that she was “still in charge” of DHS, even as Homan recently gained more control over President Trump’s immigration agenda.

DHS has faced heat in recent weeks over the two fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal immigration authorities.

Guns No Guns

• Cruelty is the point
• Hypocrisy is the point
• Fuckery is the point
• Assholery is the point

Red Wine & Blue

IDK if the tag on this is true or not - whether the NC Republicans deleted this file. But would it surprise anyone if they did?

GOP Fuckery

The question is, Why?

Social Darwinism is one answer, but again - Why?

If they're counting on AI to take up the slack created by horrendously shitty economic policy that puts millions out of work, I think they're in for a rude surprise.

First because AI is not all it's cracked up to be. It's already beginning to eat itself, as we get more and more stories about how it's "learning" from the material it puts out, and that has caused it to "hallucinate", often churning out product that's way off the mark, if not pure fantasy.

Plus it's a resource hog - especially where water is concerned. Gee, I wonder if that could be a limiting factor in light of a pending global shortage of fresh water due to pollution, and drought driven by climate change.

Second, people - Americans in particular - aren't historically shown to just hang out down on the street corner while their government fucks them with their pants on. No Kings isn't just a bunch of loonies in frog costumes, and purple-haired baristas, and nostalgic Boomers larking about on random Saturdays.

Even the kind of unprecedented Money-n-Power these wannabe plutocrats have doesn't make them bulletproof - metaphorically or otherwise.

I prefer the Gandhi approach, but there's a bit of Luigi in all of us.

Anyway, Republicans are ignorantly fucking with things better left to people who actually know what the fuck they're doing.

Today's Robert

"... and if the lights go out for a while, fuck it. So be it. The truth shines brightest in the dark anyway."

Jon Stewart

Tried-n-true. Like one of their favorite J6 myths about how the Dems attacked the Capitol in order to prevent the certification of an election their guy won.

Daft motherfuckers.

Stalling

It's Trump's favorite play. Use every trick in the book to push your responsibilities out - to buy time, hoping people will stop thinking about it, or that somebody will come up with some bullshit that gets you off the hook.

Today's Belle

Call now

202-224-3121

Keep your grubby little fingers

off my Social Security

Overheard

For literally decades, Republicans have blocked legislation for:

• Paid sick leave
• Paid family and medical leave
• Universal childcare
• Universal pre-K
• Expanded child tax credit
• Programs to support prenatal, maternal, and reproductive health

Stop wondering why so many people want fewer children.

Thru The Back Door

Trump's fuckery is unlimited.

Every time we think it can't get worse,

he makes it worse.

There is no bottom.

But anyway -

Project 2025 is basically a plan to re-jigger the executive branch, in service of pushing hard for The Unitary Executive - which the wingnuts have been slavering over for decades.

Two things come to mind whenever I look at what President Musk and his frontman Trump have been doing the last 7 weeks.

First, it seems clear to me that the DOGE nonsense is at least partly about bringing the Line Item Veto back into play. This has been a major hobby horse for "conservatives" as far back as US Grant. Then Nixon's impoundment antics prompted legislation to outlaw that shit, and it popped up big in the Reagan years. They got Clinton to sign on for it in the mid-90s, but it got knocked down by SCOTUS in just a few years.

So it looks a lot like DOGE is an attempt to bring it in thru the back door.

Second, another bit they're trying to sneak in on us is the whole Schedule F thing - where they fire a huge number of career federal workers, and then hire (ie: appoint) people who are sufficiently loyal to Project 2025's ideology and objectives - where the ideological loyalty is disguised as loyalty to Trump.

All this shit is classic Republican fuckery on steroids.

1. Fuck something up
2. Wait for people to feel the pain, and start to push back
3. Bring in the changes you wanted to make all along, "per the mandate of the people"

Granted, government needs to work better - nobody disputes that. But only a very few obscenely wealthy assholes want to remake the whole thing so it fits the standard Animal Instincts Business Model.

The Rundown

The Republican freakazoids are busy busy busy.

Rhyming History

In the Upside Down

Dateline Washington, 1940:

Speaker of The House Sam Rayburn today called on Winston Churchill to resign, demanded the UK cede Scotland to Germany, and the US halt Lend Lease immediately - in the noble pursuit of a lasting peace with Mr Hitler.

Johnson says Zelenskyy may need to resign

Speaker Mike Johnson said Zelenskyy either needs to “come to his senses” or step down to end the war in Ukraine.

Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy might need to resign to bring peace to his country following a contentious meeting between Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Friday.

“Something has to change,” Johnson said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, echoing comments made Friday by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “Either he needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude, or someone else needs to lead the country to do that.”

Johnson’s comments on Sunday come on the heels of a heated exchange between Zelenskyy, Trump and Vance in the Oval Office on Friday, where Zelenskyy was accused of not sharing enough gratitude for U.S.’s role in trying to end the war and not wanting to come to a peace agreement.

“The fact that he acted as he did, I think, was a great disappointment,” Johnson said of Zelenskyy’s behavior in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The meeting was supposed to be followed by the signing of a minerals deal aimed to provide future security guarantees for Ukraine. However, the rest of Zelenskyy’s visit was canceled after the Oval Office argument, with Trump posting to the social media platform Truth Social that Zelenskyy “disrespected the United States in its cherished Oval Office” and can only “come back when he is ready for Peace.”

Zelenskyy was subsequently ejected from the White House, leading to additional criticism of Trump for his rhetoric and behavior that day.

On Saturday, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski — a sometimes critic of Trump since he returned to office — disparaged Trump’s behavior toward Zelenskyy on Friday in a post to X, saying the U.S. is “walking away from our allies and embracing Putin.”

On CNN, Johnson said the Alaska Republican is “plainly wrong,” adding that “the person who walked away from the table yesterday was President Zelenskyy.”

While Johnson offered support for Trump on blaming Zelenskyy for Friday’s failed meeting, he did criticize Russia and Putin in both interviews — something Trump has shied away from doing, particularly since returning to office.

“I’d like to see Putin defeated, frankly,” Johnson said on NBC. “He is an adversary of the United States. But in this conflict, we’ve got to bring it into this war. It’s in everybody’s interest.”

“Putin is the aggressor,” Johnson said on CNN. “It is an unjust war. We have been crystal clear about that.”

Today's Keith

If this isn't Peak Daddy State, then my suspicions are validated - there's no bottom they can't get under, and no top they won't tear down to get over.

ie: Voters don't believe Trump will do the shitty things he's said he'll do because they don't believe he has the core principles he needs to make good on his promises.

So, it's his untrustworthiness that makes him trustworthy.

And don't say things like "Make it make sense", and then shrug and go back to watching your shows.

Stop that shit.

It doesn't make sense because it's not supposed to make sense.

These Prison Stocks Soar Again On Trump's Hardline Border Move

Geo Group (GEO) and CoreCivic (CXW) surged again on Monday after a huge rally last week spurred by earnings and elections. CoreCivic stock and Geo stock extended gains after President-elect Donald Trump picked immigration hardliner Tom Homan as his top border official.

Border Pick Homan A Hardline Immigration Official

Homan previously was head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Trump's first term. Trump said Sunday that Homan would lead the "deportation of illegal aliens" in his new administration starting Jan. 20, after vowing a mass deportation of undocumented migrants on the campaign trail.

"I've known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our borders," Trump said on the Trump Media majority-owned social media platform TruthSocial.

Geo stock and CoreCivic also surged after Trump's first U.S. presidential election win. They broke out to highs last week after his second victory, scoring one of their best weekly gains since November 2016.

Investors seemed to bet — again – that a Trump-led White House would detain more undocumented migrants in the company's facilities.

Solid earnings last week also helped the prison operators.

Shares of Geo Group and CoreCivic surged 8% and 10%, respectively, in Monday's stock market action.

CoreCivic stock scored a 29% election and earnings breakaway gap last Wednesday. It jumped above a 16.54 buy point in the biggest volume since shares began to consolidate in June, MarketSurge shows. The prison stock soared nearly 88% last week before paring the weekly gain to 69%.

Last Wednesday, Geo shares broke out in sympathy. Geo stock extended gains from the 16.47 cup-with-handle entry amid its own earnings report on Thursday. It skyrocketed almost 76% last week.

Geo Group Earnings, CoreCivic Earnings

Last week, prison and detention operators GEO Group and CoreCivic diverged on outlook after reporting strong third-quarter earnings.

CoreCivic revealed last Wednesday that it earned 19 cents per share, more than double estimates for 9 cents. The company hiked its full-year 2024 guidance for adjusted funds from operations for 2024 to $1.59-$1.65 per share — from $1.48-$1.56 — after Q3 occupancy grew from 72% to 75%. Analysts expected adjusted funds from operations of $1.49 a share, according to FactSet.

Geo Group last Thursday posted its first earnings gain after eight quarters of declines, FactSet shows. But the company missed views. Geo said it is now targeting full-year 2024 adjusted EBITDA of $470 million-$480 million, down from $485 million-$505 million previously. Analysts expect $488.2 million.

Prison Stocks Soared After 2016 Trump Win

In 2016, private prison stocks galloped ahead after Trump's first presidential election win.

Geo Group, which owns, leases and manages correctional facilities, advanced 107% in the three months after the election. Rival CoreCivic rose 149% in the same three-month period.

Many investors credited Trump's win for the initial rally in the prison stocks. Trump vowed to crack down on crime and illegal immigration, and private prisons and detention centers were seemingly one answer to overcrowding.

This was a sharp reversal from former President Barack Obama's order to phase out private prisons. In February 2017, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions turned the green light back on for private prisons.

Much has changed since then. The two main prison stocks quickly saw gains from the first Trump victory evaporate.

Both Geo stock and CoreCivic languished for much of the past year before breaking out to highs this week amid the elections and earnings.

Here's Johnny

Coach D Speaks

How do we hide our bigotry and make white supremacy seem OK?

Put a brown face on it.

Coach D explains: