#COVID relief bill

[gregdotorg]

In 2022 (RED) and Gagosian dropped a SCIENCE IS TRUTH FOUND OUT scarf printed with a drawing by Ed Ruscha, the proceeds of which were matched by the Gates Foundation, and went to support equitable COVID relief in the world's vulnerable communities. I guess if enough art scarf shoppers cared about such things people in 2022, there wouldn't be any left in 2024, but well, guess what

[charlesoberonn]

They also voted to block to student debt relief, cut tax breaks and subsidies for renewable energy, added work requirements for financial assistance, take back COVID relief money from states, and boost fossil fuel production.

And a very insidious cap on government spending that only grows 1% every year (less than the rate of inflation). Meaning that every year would necessarily require even more cuts.

The worst part is that they made it all a condition for the federal government to pay its debt. Their plan being that if Biden doesn't capitulate to their demands, the US government goes into default, which would cause a global financial crisis.

Oh, and don't think that the 4 Republicans who voted Nay are reasonable. They're voted against it because this bill didn't go far enough for them.

The good news is that the Democrats control the Senate and White House, so this bill won't get enacted.

TL;DR: House Republicans passed an extorsion bill that threatens to blow up the world economy if Biden doesn't capitulate to their demands to hurt poor Americans and make climate change worse.

Abolish the Republican Party!

[joeburrowshaircurl]

A Lovely Night

summary: You meet Joe for the first time at the movies. Set during the off season of 2024 after the Chiefs won the Super Bowl against the 49ers.

paring: Joe Burrow x shy anxious reader

warnings: fluff, anxious thoughts, social anxiety.

words: 1,502

a/n: sat down and cranked this out all at once. I don't know if I like it. Eyes hurt from proofreading multiple times so apologies if I missed something. For now this the only part. But it could have potential to be multiple parts depending if people like it or not? Maybe? Happy reading y'all!

Solo movie dates had become your thing, but it hadn't always been this way. There had been a time when you had struggled to leave the house for work. Sometimes those days still happened, but for the most part, you were proud of yourself for your newfound sense of freedom. It had taken a lot to get to this point. Watching movies and acting out movies with your friends had always been one of your favorite things to do growing up. As an adult, Saturday Night became a designated 'movie night' as a way to de-stress from the week. Whether it was at home, or at the cinema, depended on what was playing.

The one positive about Covid had been the shift to being able to get tickets online and pick your seat ahead of time so you could get your snacks, and head to your seat to look at your phone without anyone bothering you until the movie started. Or so you thought.

The first time you had seen the handsome tall man was in March during a showing of Dune: Part 2. He'd shown up with two other men after the lights dimmed for the preview trailers and you hated when people showed up late. It was pet peeve as yours, your anxiety often caused you to arrive at least 15 minutes early anywhere you went.

You tried your best to not watch the group as they made their way to their seats, which was in the same row as yours, but a few seats away. You caught glimpses of their faces, the tall one putting his hand up in apology before he sat down. You gave a polite smile before you looked away. Giving a small annoyed huff through your nose, you decided to take a small handful of popcorn and focus on the trailers until the movie started.

You had mentally prepared for the 2 hour and 46 minute run time of the movie, but as the credits rolled and you looked at your watch, you were shocked to see how much time had gone by already. You had been gripped by the movie from start to finish and as you stretched, you noticed the three men were gone which confused you. You hadn't noticed them leave. Did they leave early? Why did they come see Dune if they didn't like Sci-Fi? You brushed it from your mind, figuring you'd never see them again. Especially not the tall one.

The next time you went on a solo date to the movies was only a month later in April. Bill Skarsgård was one of your favorite actors and the movie also happened to release near your birthday so you had decided to see it. Yes you were spending your birthday weekend alone but at this point in your life, you had gotten used to it. You were planning on being a spinster for the rest of your life.

As you made your way to your seat, you had to go by a guy who had his hood up. Thankfully the aisle was large enough where you didn't have to get too close to him, but he was man spreading and had his phone in front of his face. You were more focused on not hitting his foot then tripping and spilling your popcorn everywhere. "G6...G6..."

You had been repeating your seat number quietly to yourself once you had to put your phone in your pocket to carry your drink and popcorn. You always got the same seat in the very back if you could, it was easier to remember. The last thing you wanted to do was sit in someone's spot and embarrass yourself. Little did you know, the man was grinnng as he heard you.

Once you were sitting and set your popcorn bucket carefully on your lap, you triple checked you were in the right seat on the app and breathed a sigh of relief as you get comfortable.

"You okay over there?" You heard a voice to your right.

You looked over, your cheeks turning pink. He looked familiar.....

Then it hit you that it was the same guy who had arrived during the trailers last month when you had gone to the movies to see Dune Part 2. But his friends weren't with him this time.

"Oh, yes." You smiled at the man, meeting his eyes before quickly looking down and away and back at your phone. Great, now he was going to think you are crazy. You glanced over at him to see him looking at his phone. Then you looked around the theatre. There wasn't many people here yet. He was early for once.

"A-are you excited for the movie?" Your heart was pounding as you tried to make small talk. Had he even heard you? It was a bad habit of yours to mumble when you were nervous.

He set his phone down when he heard you and looked over at you. "Ehhh not excited, but it's something to do, gets me out of the house." He smiled at you. You were struck by his smile, his teeth were so white. Suddenly you were self conscious of your smile. "You?"

It took a second for you to process that he was keeping the conversation going. "Me? Oh a little bit. I'm a Skarsgård fan, I promise I won't giggle too much. I just find him an excellent actor. I'm just doing something fun for my birthday." It had slipped out before you knew it. The last thing you wanted was sympathy. What was so bad about spending time alone? Nothing, you thought.

Your heart sank as you noticed the frown appear almost instantly on his face. "You are spending your birthday alone? Your friends aren't taking you out? That's no good. Well happy birthday." He smiled again, and you felt your cheeks get warm.

"Thank you. My birthday isn't today but it is the birthday weekend, as they say. I don't have many friends here besides my co workers." You weren't even sure if you could count co workers as friends as you were strict about keeping work separate from your personal life. "I haven't been in Cincinnati long."

His eyebrows raised slightly. "Oh really? Where did you move from?"

"Boston." Should you be telling a stranger this? Probably should have said a different city.

"Ahh beantown." he grinned and you wanted to roll your eyes.

"Yes, but locals don't call it that." But you'd like it slide, he was cute.

"Oh I'm sorry. I'm Joe by the way. He was only a few seats away from you and reached over to extend his hand out so you could shake it. You moved your popcorn off your lap to the free seat next to you so you could reach out and shake his hand back. His grip wasn't too strong which you appreciated it, but it was still strong, he was respectful.

"I'm-" The lights dimmed and that quieted you before you could introduce yourself. The first trailer started quickly and you and Joe settled into your seats to watch the screen. But a dim light to your right caught your attention as you saw Joe texting. It was a thing that often happened during movies now, which ground your gears. But Joe didn't text long thankfully and you saw him putting his phone in his pocket out of the corner of your eye.

The lights brightened in the theatre as the movie was over and Joe looked over at you. "What did you think?" He asked as he stood up. It was then you realized how tall he was. You were quite short compared to him.

"It was funnier than I expected it to be for a revenge movie." You said as you got up and gathered your things. It was late and you wanted to get home to eat the cupcake you had bought yourself as a birthday treat.

"I felt the same, not sure how well it will do at the box office though."

You couldn't help but smile, it was refreshing meeting someone who also also appeared to have a deep passion for movies.

Joe walked side by side with you out of the theatre and into the evening air. "I'm meeting my friends Tee and Ja'Marr for dinner, you can come if you like so you aren't spending your birthday alone. Just throwing it out there. I can give you the directions to the place. They came with me when I first saw you at Dune 2."

He remembered! You were floored. Should you be creeped out? No you had made eye contact at Dune and you hadn't seen him again before tonight so he couldn't be stalking you.

You released a breath you hadn't realized you had been holding. You hadn't liked the thought of being in a strangers car so suddenly, you were relived that you could take your own car and escape when you wanted to. New friends couldn't hurt in this new city either. It was time to get even more out of your shell.

"Sure, I'd like that, thank you." You smiled before you handed your phone over so he could find it on the maps app for you.

...little did you know, he was also putting his number in your phone.

[simply-ivanka]

How the Biden-Harris Economy Left Most Americans Behind

A government spending boom fueled inflation that has crushed real average incomes.

By The Editorial Board -- Wall Street Journal

Kamala Harris plans to roll out her economic priorities in a speech on Friday, though leaks to the press say not to expect much different than the last four years. That’s bad news because the Biden-Harris economic record has left most Americans worse off than they were four years ago. The evidence is indisputable.

President Biden claims that he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, but this isn’t close to true. The economy in January 2021 was fast recovering from the pandemic as vaccines rolled out and state lockdowns eased. GDP grew 34.8% in the third quarter of 2020, 4.2% in the fourth, and 5.2% in the first quarter of 2021. By the end of that first quarter, real GDP had returned to its pre-pandemic high. All Mr. Biden had to do was let the recovery unfold.

Instead, Democrats in March 2021 used Covid relief as a pretext to pass $1.9 trillion in new spending. This was more than double Barack Obama’s 2009 spending bonanza. State and local governments were the biggest beneficiaries, receiving $350 billion in direct aid, $122 billion for K-12 schools and $30 billion for mass transit. Insolvent union pension funds received a $86 billion rescue.

The rest was mostly transfer payments to individuals, including a five-month extension of enhanced unemployment benefits, a $3,600 fully refundable child tax credit, $1,400 stimulus payments per person, sweetened Affordable Care Act subsidies, an increased earned income tax credit including for folks who didn’t work, housing subsidies and so much more.

The handouts discouraged the unemployed from returning to work and fueled consumer spending, which was already primed to surge owing to pent-up savings from the Covid lockdowns and spending under Donald Trump. By mid-2021, Americans had $2.3 trillion in “excess savings” relative to pre-pandemic levels—equivalent to roughly 12.5% of disposable income.

So much money chasing too few goods fueled inflation, which was supercharged by the Federal Reserve’s accommodative policy. Historically low mortgage rates drove up housing prices. The White House blamed “corporate greed” for inflation that peaked at 9.1% in June 2022, even as the spending party in Washington continued.

In November 2021, Congress passed a $1 trillion bill full of green pork and more money for states. Then came the $280 billion Chips Act and Mr. Biden’s Green New Deal—aka the Inflation Reduction Act—which Goldman Sachs estimates will cost $1.2 trillion over a decade. Such heaps of government spending have distorted private investment.

While investment in new factories has grown, spending on research and development and new equipment has slowed. Overall private fixed investment has grown at roughly half the rate under Mr. Biden as it did under Mr. Trump. Manufacturing output remains lower than before the pandemic.

Magnifying market misallocations, the Administration conditioned subsidies on businesses advancing its priorities such as paying union-level wages and providing child care to workers. It also boosted food stamps, expanded eligibility for ObamaCare subsidies and waved away hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt. The result: $5.8 trillion in deficits during Mr. Biden’s first three years—about twice as much as during Donald Trump’s—and the highest inflation in four decades.

Prices have increased by nearly 20% since January 2021, compared to 7.8% during the Trump Presidency. Inflation-adjusted average weekly earnings are down 3.9% since Mr. Biden entered office, compared to an increase of 2.6% during Mr. Trump’s first three years. (Real wages increased much more in 2020, but partly owing to statistical artifacts.)

Higher interest rates are finally bringing inflation under control, which is allowing real wages to rise again. But the Federal Reserve had to raise rates higher than it otherwise would have to offset the monetary and fiscal gusher. The higher rates have pushed up mortgage costs for new home buyers.

Three years of inflation and higher interest rates are stretching American pocketbooks, especially for lower income workers. Seriously delinquent auto loans and credit cards are higher than any time since the immediate aftermath of the 2008-09 recession.

Ms. Harris boasts that the economy has added nearly 16 million jobs during the Biden Presidency—compared to about 6.4 million during Mr. Trump’s first three years. But most of these “new” jobs are backfilling losses from the pandemic lockdowns. The U.S. has fewer jobs than it was on track to add before the pandemic.

What’s more, all the Biden-Harris spending has yielded little economic bang for the taxpayer buck. Washington has borrowed more than $400,000 for every additional job added under Mr. Biden compared to Mr. Trump’s first three years. Most new jobs are concentrated in government, healthcare and social assistance—60% of new jobs in the last year.

Administrative agencies are also creating uncertainty by blitzing businesses with costly regulations—for instance, expanding overtime pay, restricting independent contractors, setting stricter emissions limits on power plants and factories, micro-managing broadband buildout and requiring CO2 emissions calculations in environmental reviews.

The economy is still expanding, but business investment has slowed. And although the affluent are doing relatively well because of buoyant asset prices, surveys show that most Americans feel financially insecure. Thus another political paradox of the Biden-Harris years: Socioeconomic disparities have increased.

Ms. Harris is promising the same economic policies with a shinier countenance. Don’t expect better results.

[boag]

Are you guys seeing this 💀

[kittyit]

[centrally-unplanned]

The Swing Won't Save You

The "mainstream" account of the election results is one I generally endorse. Elections are thermostatic in the sense that they bounce around an equilibrium - these days the incumbent has a disadvantage, being blamed for the problems but not credited for the successes. Democrats lost because of things like the 2021-2023 inflation spike, or the immigration surge, and the next administration will be blamed for whatever problems the cycle of history throws upon us on top of the consequences of their own actions. That is just How It Be, and it isn't something internal reform can change.

This account is probably true, but this does not lead to some of the conclusions one is hoping it will. I see many taking this as a sort of dismal c'est la vie, assuming that you can just ride it out and win next time, then do good when you do. That therefore there really isn't any need to change all that much in the Dem party structure.

The miss here is that there are fundamental inequalities in the two parties. We just went through, quite handily, the most progressive democratic administration in decades. One that was maximally committed to the idea of "FDR reborn". And it did some good stuff! But I don't really think it lived up to the name, not even close. The democratic "win" - which occurred at the peak of the Covid Crisis in an era of nigh-unprecedented discontent against an incumbent president who was deeply unpopular - delivered a razor thin margin in the House and a literal tiebreaker Senate, itself only after a series of special elections.

The Biden administration spent its political capital on macroeconomic stabilization, one authentic Dem priority in the IRA bill, and then otherwise spent much of its time on a series of rearguard actions and failed attempts to appease coalition partners like unions (who broke away from Dems in record numbers in 2024). Bad policy ideas like student debt relief were themselves undone by the courts. They had four years to prosecute Trump for a blatantly obvious mountain of crimes, and could not get a single one of them across the finish line. And meanwhile, due to awful polling numbers, they felt forced to pursue a number of policies they didn't even really agree with to stave off future defeat. Which they, of course, did somewhat badly, for many reasons but "not really believing in them" is certainly a factor.

Meanwhile surveying the Republican Party's incoming administration, I of course cannot say what they will do with their probable quadfecta, so this is speculative. But through the dice of death they handily control the courts. More importantly, they play the dice to control the courts - we already have discourse on getting the two oldest Republican jurors in the SC to retire. Republican plans include debates around say abolishing the NLRB as unconstitutional, or mass scale deportations, and more you have certainly heard of. They will not do all of them, of course not. But "winning a court case to dismantle a regulatory capacity" is far, far easier than passing a congressional bill to reinstate it. You are not "un-deporting" anybody. The entire Republican agenda is structurally easier to pursue - tearing down is just easier than building up.

And meanwhile, the levers of power are themselves biased. The Supreme Court, of course, but more importantly the Senate, which has an awful map for the Dems. Even when you give Dems their best case scenarios where they win every competitive upcoming election, you are talking 52-48 seats up through ~2032. Meanwhile, the Republican ceiling is 60-40, and is not likely to dip out of the majority.

No one can predict the future of course - I just don't think this scenario and reality is getting the proper attention. A "swing" model where Dems win in 2028 at the same margins they won in say 2020, and then it swings back and so on, is a defeat for Democrats. Republicans will likely achieve X% of their agenda over the next two years, solidify court control, and then Dems will achieve X/2% or worse and otherwise play defense on their turn. It almost certainly isn't the apocalypse, it most likely is not the end of democracy - if you don't wanna care about politics, you don't have to, go live your life. But if you are trying to win at politics, if that is your goal - which for a political party it should be - this just ain't it.

The debate I see is over whether or not this election should be a "wake-up call" for Dems. Which is the wrong question, to me - the Biden administration should be a wake up call for Dems. Even if Harris squeaked out a win, it is a defeat to the party that they found themselves running a decaying man with sub-40 approval ratings for President, or found themselves taking a former senator in the top 1% of the leftwing voting record and running her as a centrist. It should be shameful that they took literally years to act on a "border crisis" that once they did act they found themselves perfectly capable of addressing, not because they authentically believed in increasing immigration and wanted to spend capital on that agenda (which they did not do), but because they were scared of the blowback that happened anyway. It is beyond the pale that Trump is not in jail because they think "politicizing the judicial branch" is somehow not their literal jobs as political actors. It is embarrassing that solidly blue Democratic cities are hemorrhaging population to purple and red states because the Democratic party is failing to govern them.

And I know, I am in the grand, august, tiresome tradition of using an election to repeat the same shit I always say. I have been on this beat since at least 2019. But it being tiresome doesn't mean it's wrong. It might not be right! Maybe Republicans will truly collapse into squabbling infighting and get nothing much done beyond tax cuts, their truest love. I don't know. But I think the odds matrix here is pretty ruthless - the opportunities to be a better party barely have downsides. They implement bad policy half the time even when they win! There is a fundamental disconnect between "what do we want to achieve as a party" and "how are we going to achieve that", a strategy void that infighting, paralysis, and special interest spoils-grabbing fills.

I am less confident on the solution for all this - at minimum we don't even have all the post-election data, that will take time. But the problem such solutions should be solving is that the Dems have been losing for 8 years. "Thermostatic swing in 2028" is not going to change that.

[mariacallous]

FLINT, Michigan ― The story of a wildly successful antipoverty program is also one of the most disheartening tales of Joe Biden’s presidency.

In 2021, Biden and congressional Democrats expanded a tax credit for children, transforming it from a targeted, sliding-scale subsidy to a simpler, more straightforward form of financial assistance. It was a version of an idea that’s become the hottest concept in antipoverty policy ― just giving people money, without restrictions on its use or complex eligibility procedures. By nearly all accounts, it worked magnificently. That year, the U.S. poverty rate hit a record low. The expansion was one of the COVID-19 relief measures in the American Rescue Plan, which passed on party lines. Biden and his allies had hoped to extend the program, making it permanent. But to do that, they needed every single vote from their 50-seat Democratic majority in the Senate. And they couldn’t get Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia, to go along. The program expired at the end of the year.

Now, with the tax credit back to its more complicated, restrictive version, poverty is back up. And although a year’s worth of helping low-income families with kids surely did a lot of good, neither Biden nor the Democrats have gotten much credit for that. Few Americans are even aware of the program, or of Biden’s role in it. And among those familiar with the program’s history, the prevailing sentiment seems to be disappointment at the failure to make it permanent.

But there’s a coda to this story involving a new initiative in Flint, Michigan, that’s already helping hundreds of families. And it’s got political relevance, given that it probably wouldn’t have happened without the help of Biden and other Democrats.

If the program lives up to its billing, it could inspire copycat efforts around the country, fueling calls to resurrect a federal version of the program. But the prospects for those efforts depend on keeping sympathetic leaders in office, which in turn depends on what happens in the next election.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

Do you have $32,000 for covid treatment? Neither did Nannette, and now her whole family is paying the price for her covid hospitalization. This is why we must mask up: You may be able to afford that cost, but you are just as likely to spread covid to dozens who cannot if you refuse to take precautions, especially when ill.

By Noah Zahn

CHEYENNE — When Nannette Hernandez got COVID in 2021, she didn’t realize how long it would take to recover. Although she was released from the hospital after only a few days of care, she is still suffering from the financial burden that has led to the loss of her job and her home.

At 45 years old, Hernandez and her son, 26, moved in with her mother when she lost her home. The three of them now live together in a mobile home south of Cheyenne. The walls and tabletops are decorated with photos of family members, many of the frames containing photos of her three grandchildren.

Papers were strewn across the coffee table in the living room: bills from the hospital, letters to the hospital, research on how to get financial assistance, one letter denying financial assistance.

Although Hernandez says she tries to keep a positive attitude, her smile faded when she said she often feels hopeless as her debt continues to grow and she is considering filing for bankruptcy.

“They garnish my wages every week, and I owe them more now today than what the judgment was for, and that’s all due to the interest,” Hernandez said. “I’m never going to get through this, you know.” Toys are neatly put away in a corner of the room, behind the couch, for when her grandchildren come to visit on her days off work.

Hernandez has a new job and has health insurance. In addition, she contributes a portion of her wages to life insurance. She said she does this so that she at least has something she can pass on to her family.

Before interest, Hernandez’s bill from Cheyenne Regional Medical Center was around $32,000 after three days of care for COVID and related pneumonia and reduced to $22,000 because she was paying uninsured and out-of-pocket. Between garnished wages and paying for insurance, Hernandez says she only sees at most $12 of her $17.30 per hour wage from working at a deli in a truck stop.

Hernandez said she now suffers from depression as a result of the stress caused by her medical debt. It is difficult for her to work full 40-hour weeks at her job.

However, her smile returned as she talked about how she gets to spend time with her grandchildren, aged 2, 4 and 8, on her days off.

“They’re my light. Oh, they’re wonderful,” she said. “… I stay happy. I don’t let it give me misery, that’s one thing. I might carry it, and I might be right here, always talking about it, but very blessed, very happy, though, still, no matter what.”

Available funding The Provider Relief Fund (PRF) was established in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) to reimburse eligible health care providers for increased expenses or lost revenue attributable to COVID care.

A companion fund to the PRF is the Uninsured Funds, which made $10 billion available nationally to reimburse providers for treatment, vaccines and vaccine administration costs for care provided to uninsured individuals.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, CRMC received $3,145,097 in Uninsured Funds for COVID treatment, accounting for nearly 30% of the Uninsured Funds received by care providers across the state. It is unclear whether these funds were what reduced Hernandez’s bill from $32,000 to $22,000. Her itemized bill notes the reduction as a discount for “self-pay, uninsured.”

Hernandez received her $22,000 bill shortly after she was released from the hospital and was summoned to court when she did not make payments. She did not appear in court, as she said she felt hopeless and afraid and knew she would be unable to pay. As a result, the court ordered the hospital to garnish 25% of her wages and any argument she had that the government should have assisted her financially was nullified.

After her hospitalization, Hernandez was forced to leave her job of 10 years, where she worked as a waitress, and was unable to work for three months while she stayed at home and was on oxygen 24 hours per day, due to COVID complications.

“I would like to see if they could reverse this, it’s not that I didn’t seek assistance. Now I’ll never get out of this, I’m never going to get out of this,” she said. “It started at $32,000. I’ve been paying on that this whole time. I had started working, they started garnishing right away. I owe them more now. What am I paying for? What am I working for?”

Additionally, Hernandez said she applied for and was denied CRMC’s financial assistance program. According to CRMC’s policy summary, CRMC determines whether patients qualify for financial assistance based on their income and household size compared to the Federal Poverty Guidelines from the HHS. In 2021, those guidelines stipulate that the threshold for a one-person household is $12,880 annual income.

“If being an uninsured waitress making $350 a week doesn’t qualify a person for financial assistance under your hospital’s charity policy, I’d like to know what does,” Hernandez wrote in an email to CRMC officials.

Hernandez sent this email to CRMC, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services and Wyoming government officials. In nearly two months, she only got a response from CMS, which informed her it never received an application submitted on her behalf for Wyoming Medicaid and she was not on Medicaid at that time.

Hernandez: “The prices, they’re outrageous”

In this letter, she also claims she was overcharged. On her itemized bill, she was charged $2,124.20 per 100 mg vial of Remdesivir. Gilead Sciences, the drug’s manufacturer, set the price of Remdesivir at $390 per vial for uninsured patients. Hernandez was charged for five vials for a total of $10,621 instead of what would have been $1,950 for five vials directly from the manufacturer.

Hernandez was charged $8.01 for each 20 mg tablet of famotidine, an acid reducer. This medication is commonly available over the counter and a pack of 225 20 mg tablets is available on Amazon for just under $9, equivalent to about $0.04 per tablet. At this rate, CRMC’s price for the medication is 19,825% higher than what can be purchased in store or online.

CRMC charged her the same price for each 100 mg tablet of thiamine mononitrate, more commonly known as a B1 vitamin. These can also be purchased in the pharmacy section of most grocery stores. A pack of 100 tablets can be found for $7, or $0.07 per tablet, more than 114 times less than the hospital’s price.

It is common for hospitals to charge more for medications, even if it can be purchased at a CVS or Walgreens, for charges associated with administering the drug to the patient. This may include factors like the doctor’s prescription, the pharmacy charge to fill the order, the transportation of the drug from the pharmacy to the medication unit, administration of the medication from the registered nurse to the patient and documentation that the correct medication was administered on the patient’s record.

However, Hernandez believes an 11,343% upcharge for a B1 vitamin may be a bit too much.

When she initially went to urgent care and got an X-ray scan, she was told to go to the emergency room immediately, and the providers at the urgent care said it was a matter of life or death. Without financial assistance or price transparency as her bills continued to grow, Hernandez felt disenfranchised and marginalized and is now fearful of the system that is supposed to provide care for her and the community. She said she is now afraid to ever get sick again.

“I feel it’s unjust. I should not be living every day with a heavy burden like this,” Hernandez said. “… I’m sure I’m not the only person this has happened to. I know there has to be so many more.”

Price transparency In 2022, the White House reported that one-in-three adults in the United States — nearly 100 million people — have medical debt. It is now the largest source of debt in collections — more than credit cards, utilities and auto loans combined. Data from the 2020 U.S. Census also found that Black and Hispanic households are more likely to hold medical debt than white households.

The U.S. spent 17.8% of gross domestic product on health care in 2021, nearly twice as much as the average economically developed country. However, the Peterson-KFF life expectancy tracker shows that the average American lifespan is nearly five years lower than those in the comparable country average and was about the same in 2022 as it was in 2004, while most other comparable countries’ life expectancies have increased since then.

Marni Carey is the president of Power to the Patients, a nonprofit organization advocating patients’ rights to upfront price transparency from hospitals.

“I get letters every day from people who are fighting medical debt, burdensome medical debt,” Carey said. “… It’s just a horrible place to be driven to. And if hospitals could tell patients in advance what their financial responsibility is, or if patients could look online and see what the cost of care is, they could choose providers that were affordable to them and competition could enter the marketplace and Tylenols wouldn’t be $80, they would be $5. That’s why we need transparency, so patients can have financial certainty when they go into the medical system.”

A February 2024 report from Patient Rights Advocate, a nonprofit advocating systemwide health care price transparency, found that nearly two-thirds of American hospitals were not compliant with the federal Hospital Price Transparency Rule, which took effect in January 2021, including CRMC. This legislation requires hospitals to make their prices publicly available and easily accessible online to help patients understand the cost of care before they receive it.

According to the report, CRMC is compliant with all transparency rules except for negotiated rates, which Patient Rights Advocate measured by whether the hospital posted the charge that the hospital has negotiated with a third-party payer for an item or service. They found CRMC lists 89% of its negotiated rates as “N/A.”

“I couldn’t go into the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center machine readable files and find out if (Hernandez’s) bill was at all correct, because the hospital doesn’t have that, they don’t comply,” Carey said.

CRMC officials declined to comment on this story, citing patient privacy.

“For privacy reasons, we can’t disclose patient medical treatment or billing details. We recently received a letter from Ms. Hernandez and we will review the medical and billing records and provide a response,” CRMC told the WTE in a statement. “As a general matter, please note that sending a bill to a collections agency and potentially sending an unpaid bill through a court process are last resorts, used only when someone does not respond to offers of financial assistance, billing statements and phone calls.”

At the time of publication, Hernandez said she has yet to receive a response from CRMC and never got any offer of financial assistance. The only correspondence she has received after her release from the hospital has been her bills and a letter stating she did not qualify for the hospital’s charitable care program.

No savings left Hernandez said she believes she would have been in a better situation now if she had more savings before she got COVID more than three years ago. She said she did have savings, but she had to burn through those savings when her father, who lived in California, passed and her grandmother, also in California, passed a month later. Between several trips to California and multiple funeral services, she said she had little savings remaining when she got sick.

“My dad’s burial cost took all my savings, everything, because I just wanted my dad to lay in peace, you know, I wanted to bury my father, and that took all my savings,” she said.

“It’s just like a train of events, such an unfortunate train of events in life that people go through. Everybody goes through it, and that was mine. I said, ‘Man, if I would have had all that money held just a little bit longer, I would not be in this right now.’”

[phoenixyfriend]

Suggested topics to call your reps about today, 1/30/24!

I’ve been doing two subjects per call recently; one is almost always about the events in the middle east, and then one is domestic policy. I’m including a bit of verbiage you can use as basis for what you say (if you agree with me), for a few of these.

BOTH SENATE AND HOUSE:

Foreign Policy: Reinstate funding for UNRWA. While the claims made by Israel that employees of the relief agency were involved in Oct. 7th are troubling, this arm of the UN is currently providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to the 2.3 million displaced peoples of Gaza. It is especially disturbing and concerning that the many children of Gaza, who are already suffering due to this conflict, are now having this support revoked.

Warn Congress to reaaaaally think about whether a strong response to the incident in Jordan, currently attributed to an Iraqi group backed by Iran, if we're truly looking to avoid a wider regional war as claimed. There is already growing unrest in Yemen and the threat of another civil war, fire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and now the situation with the Islamic Resistance. Caution them against an overreaction of the kind that the US has a tendency towards.

FOR THE SENATE: Urge your senator to put their support behind Bernie Sanders and his motion to restrict funding to Israel until a humanitarian review of the IDF’s actions in Gaza has been completed.

FOR THE HOUSE: Urge your representative to put their support behind Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s petition for the US government to recognize the IDF’s actions in Gaza as ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and put a stop to it.

Domestic Policy

House of Representatives:

Expansion of the child tax credit. The House of Representatives is currently voting on whether or not to expand the child tax credit that was instated during COVID-19. This credit offers a return on taxes for individuals with children, but currently does not apply to families that are too poor to qualify. During COVID, this tax credit was expanded to include those families, and child poverty fell to record lows, but as it was a temporary measure, those children are getting left behind again. Given the effectiveness the expansion of this tax regulation showed in the past, it would be a net positive for the country as a whole to codify it more permanently.

Other things coming up in the next week if you think your rep might be receptive:

H.R. 6976: Protect Our Communities from DUIs Act: Vote no. This act is discriminatory and enforces harsher penalties on immigrants than in legal citizens. While DUIs are a significant issue, enacting stronger guidelines on a small portion of the population that is already at risk from discriminatory police action is not a solution.

H.R. 6679: No Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act - Vote no or dismiss if possible. Terrorism is already considered a reason to reject immigrants. This bill is pointless peacocking. You have better things to do with your time.

H.R. 6678: Consequences for Social Security Fraud Act - Vote no. This proposed act is discriminatory and enacts unduly harsh sentences against minorities. The system already has punishments for fraud; this specific act is unnecessary.

H.R. 5585: Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act - Are you sensing a pattern? It's discriminatory! Evading law enforcement on a motor vehicle is already illegal, you do not need to ADD IMMIGRATION PENALTIES.

Senate:

Abortion rights. Domestically, for the senate, push for abortion rights.

Specific things coming up in the next week if you think your Senator might be receptive:

H.R. 6914: Pregnant Students’ Rights Act - Call to ask that the resolution EXPLICITLY include abortion access, or otherwise vote against. This passed the house on strict party lines; other than a handful of abstentions, the vote was all republican for and all dems against. The text of the proposal is explicitly anti-abortion.

H.R. 6918: Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act - same as above, it was very partisan in the house vote, though less explicitly anti-abortion in the text. Nonetheless, it focuses explicitly on protecting funding to "pregnancy centers," which are often anti-choice and dedicated to pushing patients towards keeping a baby they don't want.

DOMESTIC POLICY, BOTH BRANCHES OF CONGRESS: Border policy is currently being hotly debated and negotiated. A very strong policy in favor of the Republican party is the status at the moment. Even some democrats are in favor of it due to small border communities being ill-equipped to handle large numbers of migrants, and states usually removed from the situation getting migrants bussed in from Texas despite telling Texas to knock it off. Despite some Republicans saying that they have gotten everything they could want out of the current deal, the party at large is refusing to pass it as the politics of the debate are more useful to the coming election than actually passing policy. This is also causing delays in passing the federal budget.

I... don't actually want to tell anyone WHAT to think of the border policy since I do not have any real knowledge on the budget impacts and resources dictating the actual problems (nor the racism or xenophobia, that part is obviously bullshit). I can recognize that too some degree, there is a genuine issue of manpower and budget restriction impacting the ability to house and process immigrants.

However, DREAMers are not being considered in the current deal, the delays in the deal are impacting the federal government and threatening a partial shutdown, and people are STILL getting hurt and even dying at the border.

I would focus on protection for DREAMers, chastising the Republicans for deliberately delaying the budget in order to use the border as a reelection premise instead of actually working on the policy they claim to want (emphasize that they are going to lose votes for focusing on reelection at the expense of their people), and protection for children, parents with those children, and nonviolent migrants in general.

[beardedmrbean]

Senator Bernie Sanders, progressive independent from Vermont, said he will "absolutely" be willing to work with President-elect Donald Trump, especially if the Republican "follows through" with a proposed credit card interest rate limit.

Sanders joined The New York Times' Michael Barbaro on "The Daily" podcast Friday. Barbaro asked Sanders if there are "any areas where you are prepared to work with the President-elect." Trump had suggested during his campaigning in September that he would put a cap on credit card interest rates at 10 percent.

"If Trump, for example, follows through on his proposal to limit interest rates on credit cards to 10 percent, which is what he campaigned on, absolutely I will be there," Sanders said.

"I think it's a very good idea. I think it's time we told the people on Wall Street they cannot charge the desperate working-class people who have a hard time paying their bills' 25, 30, 40 percent interest rates."

The current average for credit card interest rates is 21.5 percent, according to Federal Reserve data. This is six percentage points higher than the rates were prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Sanders called these rates "immoral."

Additionally, Americans are currently tackling $1.28 trillion in credit card debit, a $36 billion increase during the second quarter of 2024 alone.

"We're going to cap it at around 10 percent. We can't let them make 25 and 30 percent," Trump said at a Long Island, New York event in September. "While working Americans catch up, we're going to put a temporary cap on credit card interest rates."

Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, told CNN in September that Trump's proposal would "provide temporary and immediate relief for hardworking Americans who are struggling to make ends meet and cannot afford hefty interest payments on top of the skyrocketing costs of mortgages, rent, groceries and gas."

Sanders and progressive Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York have previously proposed similar ideas in Congress, but they were stalled. In 2019, the two proposed a Loan Shark Prevention Act to limit the annual percentage rate for an extension of consumer credit to 15 percent. This would create a ceiling, similar to what Trump suggested, for consumer credit products, which includes both loans and credit cards.

"The reality is that today's modern-day loan sharks are no longer lurking on street corners breaking kneecaps to collect their payments," Sanders said at the time. "They wear three-piece suits and work on Wall Street, where they make hundreds of millions in total compensation and head financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and American Express."

Sanders, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic party's presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020, has said since Trump's election win that Vice President Kamala Harris' defeat "should come as no great surprise" because Democrats had "abandoned working-class people."

While Sanders praised Harris for her messages on abortion rights, democracy and Trump's perceived unfitness for office, he—and other progressive critics—said the campaign fell short on bold, economic policy plans that they believe would have appealed to more working-class voters.

In August, Sanders told Newsweek that "many working-class people feel that the Democratic Party has kind of abandoned them." He had hoped at the time that Harris and her campaign would reprioritize the working-class voters.

"This is a pivotal moment in American history, and the next year or two will determine what happens in this country for decades in my view," Sanders said Friday on "The Daily."

[misfitwashere]

[Fox News] Kamala Harris is once-in-a-generation candidate and this is a once-in-a-generation moment for America

From the sidewalks of Oakland to the halls of the White House, Kamala Harris’ story is the stuff dreams are made of…the American Dream. Because where else could the daughter of immigrants rise to the highest office in the land, shattering glass ceilings all along the way? Only in America.

Of course, she had plenty of examples to show her what was possible. Coming to America from India at only 19-years-old, her mother became a celebrated biologist. Her father had come from Jamaica, studied at UC Berkeley and became a renowned economist and professor at Stanford. So, they raised her not only to see what is and what has been, but to imagine what is possible — not who we are, but who we can be.

It worked because she thrived on that possibility. It took her to Vanier College in Montreal, Howard University and the University of California College of Law, San Francisco. It drove her to organize for justice. It helped her prosecute murderers and rapists as the District Attorney’s chief of the Career Criminal Division and eventually become San Francisco’s district attorney herself, then attorney general, U.S. senator and vice president.

It gave her the moral clarity to fight the big banks who paid for their own misdeeds by foreclosing on working families. It gave her the strength to fight for students and veterans who were taken advantage of by a for-profit education company and it gave her the tools to win bringing rent relief and badly needed resources to low-income communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, to deliver student debt relief to countless American, to help create millions of new jobs and more.

Now, because it’s her time and her turn, she is zooming through and into history and nobody deserves it more. Yes, we recognize that politics is a contact sport and we know that the attacks will come. In fact, some are coming already.

But we also recognize that a lot of the folks wearing different jerseys than we are keep running the same old plays of racism, bigotry, misogyny, ignorance and hate. From birtherism 2.0 and dismissing the vice president as a DEI hire, to claiming she “became Black” and purposefully mispronouncing her name, it’s clear that the closer we get to history, the louder and sicker they become.

That’s OK. She can take it because the contrast is easy to see.

It’s not just about the prosecutor vs. the felon or even the undeniable truth vs. rapid fire lies. It’s about progress vs extremism. It’s about who we can be.

Think about the landmark legislation Vice President Harris helped marshal through Congress and into law. Think about all the executive orders to raise wages, fight climate change, protect reproductive freedom and more that she helped make reality. Now compare that to the four years of deprivation and degradation we saw under Donald J. Trump. 

Of course, elections are about the future forecast. So, compare former President Donald Trump’s all but official endorsement of the plans laid out in Project 2025 to President Harris signing a real bipartisan border security bill into law, protecting a woman’s right to control her own body and make her own health care decisions, extending the child tax credit that cut child poverty in half, building on the more than 15 million jobs she already helped create. 

Compare Trump’s plan to declare martial law to President Harris strengthening the middle class, growing small businesses, expanding health care, keeping medical debt off your credit report and making sure no one raises taxes on Americans who make less than $400,000 per year.

While Harris knows that affordable internet is a must not a plus for all Americans, the MAGA Republicans refuse to fund the Affordable Connectivity Program. And while they’re screaming about imagined crises, we’re talking about raising wages, closing the wealth gap, lowering the cost of childcare and making sure getting sick doesn’t mean going broke.

That’s just a hint of the differences.

Simply put, Vice President Harris is a once-in-a-generation candidate who has generated more power and energy for this country than Duke Power. It’s been less than a month since she announced her campaign for president and she’s already unifying the Democratic base, expanding our coalition, stretching the map and forcing the Republicans to short circuit.

In less than two weeks, Vice President Harris has recruited nearly 200,000 volunteers, sparked nationwide grassroots organization, secured the Democratic nomination and raised $310 million, which is twice as much as Trump raised through all of July. 

From campaign calls to rallies to local volunteers knocking on doors on a Saturday morning, folks are getting tuned in all across this nation like we’ve never seen before. It’s unprecedented. It’s historic.

Vice President Kamala Harris is a once-in-a-generation candidate and this is a once-in-a-generation moment for America. The choice is clear. Will we choose truth or lies? Will we choose hope or hate? Will we choose the future or be doomed to repeat the past?

Well, like the vice president says, we are not going back.

Antjuan Seawright is a Democratic political strategist, founder and CEO of Blueprint Strategy LLC and a senior visiting fellow at Third Way. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter @antjuansea.

[tomorrowusa]

In 2016 we had But Her Emails. In 2024 we have Biden Is Too Old. The sources of these two lines haven't changed: the flailing GOP with an assist by bothsiderist news media.

Yes, it's the same old distraction technique to draw attention away from the leader of the Republican Party who is an adjudicated sex offender who just lost a gigantic lawsuit based on his past use of fraud.

It's time to push back and aggressively. And successful messaging is repetitious messaging – get used to repeating things if you wish to cut through the noise.

But the main thing is not to freak out and to play offense instead of being defensive. For example: Why are so few people on our side bringing up Trump's unhealthy lifestyle? Drinking 12 Diet Cokes® a day and copious chomping of double cheeseburgers wouldn't be recommended for somebody half his age. And what kind of drugs is he being prescribed?

[A]ll of the #BidenTooOld coverage is about as new and revelatory as #ButHerEmails. If nothing else, it proves that a scandal holding that the president forgets things is always going to go down smoother than a scandal in which a special counsel flagrantly violated a long-standing Justice Department practice and protocol not to “criticize uncharged conduct.” As Sullivan was quick to point out, CNN and the New York Times and every U.S. corporate media entity and its cousin jumped onto the bandwagon. [ ... ] Perhaps one way to navigate yourself through this seemingly insoluble morass would be to ask yourself why Biden, who is stipulated #Old, has managed to helm the most successful presidency in modern history. Booming economy, eye-popping jobs reports, first gun violence reduction bill in decades, $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan plus COVID relief, Inflation Reduction Act, infrastructure prioritized, judges seated. Pick your metric—there have been a lot of wins. And the reason this old man who sometimes forgets things like dates has gotten all this done? He has, for the most part, surrounded himself with experts, genuine scientists, respected economists, and effective governmental actors and advisers. Governance is not an action film. There is no minute-to-minute psychodrama involving someone in a tight black T-shirt mincing along the outdoor ledge of a skyscraper, ninja-kicking his lonely way down to the stairwell, where he karate-chops the well-armed baddies and then commando crawls his way into an empty vault with the glass chest where the nuclear reactor sits. No. Despite our fascination with the Great Man theory of American lawmaking, the presidency is an office that largely turns on superb staffing, visionary planning, deft political negotiation, and artful execution. Joe Biden doesn’t actually have to remember every single detail himself—he has to use his judgment to employ and empower a large contingent of skilled experts to execute upon their agreed-upon vision. If you are unconvinced, the best evidence that we keep falling for Great Man fantasy propaganda is the unmitigated failure of the first Donald Trump presidency. Here we had a self-described loner literally trumpeting his I-alone-can-fix-it worldview, all embodied in Great Man megalomania. He managed to accomplish virtually nothing: Almost none of his promises for single-handed economic revitalization, world domination, or intrepid urban crime-solving panned out. His great dreams were either strangled in infancy by staffers or halted by courts. And whether you believe that this happened because Donald Trump surrounded himself with incompetent yes men or steely adults in the room, both versions serve to offer proof of concept: Donald Trump accomplished close to nothing because the people around him were either too inept to put his vision into practice or too skillful at blocking him to allow him to put his vision into practice. Put another way, if you or anyone you know finds themselves reacting to the Biden Is Old revelations with the thought that, sure, Donald Trump is a 91-indictments-richer, adjudicated sexual abuser, defamer, liar, violator of national security, self-enriching, fascist-boosting insurrectionist, but it’s OK because he will surround himself with people who might check those impulses—well, doesn’t it rather intuitively make more sense to instead vote for the highly effective, internationally respected, but yes, sometimes forgetty guy who is surrounded by people with day planners?

A president is a lot closer to being a CEO than a superhero. And when it does come to being businesslike, Trump has declared bankruptcy six times – approximately six more times than Biden. Trump's business "skills" lean heavily towards fraud, deceit, and bullying.

The real reason we all keep falling for Great Man horse race stories is because they are good for fueling fantasies of all-powerful big daddy presidents who control every tiny aspect of governance in their tiny wee hands. If that is your jam, well, it would make sense to vote for the only candidate who believes in the same dream. If it’s not, the question is reducible to rather simple stakes: Do you want the Big Daddy who surrounds himself with sycophants and nutters and people with shared last names, or the one who surrounds himself with competence and expertise? This doesn’t seem, on balance, like a really tricky call. Do we prefer presidents who can backflip and ninja-kick their way to total world dominion? Perhaps. To my knowledge, nobody ever made a Tom Cruise movie about listening and learning and compromising. But if you still believe governance to be a sober and serious enterprise, vote like the alternative is chilling, because it is.

Trump flatters himself as a "stable genius". But it is Biden who brought stable governance back to the US. Being a constantly ranting gasbag is not an indicator of competence.

Very little attention is being paid to psychological age. Trump is just 42 months chronologically younger than Biden, but Trump acts like a toddler who is not yet 42 months old.

Parents with kids who were constantly having temper tantrums and being frequently disruptive would consider taking those kids to a child psychologist. Being a disruptive narcissist in his late 70s does not make Trump seem youthful but instead more like a case study for arrested development as a toddler.

[jack-bytez-genuine-corner]

List of warnings and then a little rant at the end

* Last time Trump was in office his COVID response killed over 1 million Americans and infected millions more. If even 10% of that got Long COVID even in minor cases there's an exceptionally high probability that whoever oversees our pandemic response and health care agencies could very well refuse to treat the currently affected and those who will continue to get disabled by any virus as legitimate. It is no exaggeration that you will likely know someone who will now die due to an incompetent federal health system.

* Insurance for health care and any federal safety net is likely gone. I can't stress enough how this has been said for the last decade to be coming.

* Republicans will replace the oldest justices on the SCOTUS with people who are worse than those sitting currently. It is again no exaggeration that Alito and Thomas will be replaced by far more extreme versions of themselves and we're very likely going to see that court decide cases about Abortion even in Blue states, about social safety nets in all states, voting in all states, gerrymandering, guns, and queer rights nationwide. Even in a Blue State people who feel fear, should. All you can hope for is that national trends change before that happens.

* Republicans can and have promised to cut federal safety nets in extreme measures in exchange for rich people's taxes. People, including children will starve and die, they will not get the insulin they need and die, etc. These are things they directly promised for the last 4 years or more and no, I really don't have any hopeful messaging on this one. I recommend looking into your state resources if you're relying on federal ones.

* Women can and will continue to die due to a lack of reproductive care and all I can recommend is that you save up money for any life saving procedure up to having to fly out of country. This is an incredibly high bar I know but local fundraise, family savings, just anything for that extra safety net cause a nation wide abortion ban is exceptionally likely.

* Ukraine and Gaza are guaranteed fucked and Thailand is likely on that list too. I don't even want to think about South Korea or any number of other countries that we finance the defense of.

* If you're Palestinian and in America please make sure you have an up to date passport. House Republicans floated a bill to remove Palestinian Americans from the US alongside "Illegals" which will inevitably include legal citizens being forcefully deported to countries they have never even lived in. Same warning for any DACA recipents, Muslim Americans and other foreigners, there's an incredibly high chance that this is not good.

* Political violence will honestly just get worse. If the mass deportations and incarcerations weren't hint enough as is I'm just going to preach extreme caution about being out in public.

* If you voted for Trump I really really really don't like you and I truly hope you suffer as much under his policies as everyone will and I'm not kidding. I truly hope you finally learn, but this country is a god damn shithole and I was wrong to believe that a majority of people are good people, and for that I apologize: A majority of people are idiotic morons who can have keys jingled in front of their eyes while being punched repetitively and not notice. It truly feels like Trump voters would be ok with going in a gas chamber as long as a random gay or woman or POC was forced in there with them, and that Nazi metaphor is not misplaced given we just elected a god damn Nazi, who he himself all but says in broad daylight and is openly supported by Neo Nazis.

* If you chose not to vote or otherwise encouraged that, the up above applies to you. The blood will absolutely be on your hands and we literally know how this is going to be.

* We won't know the makeup of the house for a while but it's safe to say that if you were hoping for any type of federal aid or relief that we're out of luck.

I don't think I'll ever view America or Americans positively and I live here. I'm disabled cause of Trump's response to COVID. I'm constantly afraid to leave my house due to the potential for mass shootings and political violence. I was 100% wrong to think most people are good, cause there is a substantial portion of our population who isn't just viewing hurting innocent people as acceptable but actively want to further that as much as humanly possible. Republican politicians are some of the worst human beings in the US and the only thing preventing me from labeling their supporters as such is the potential that they are honestly just too ignorant to know better. The fact that basic human rights will be reigned back is revolting. I don't have any hopeful message to close out on or any call to action cause I'm honestly done. Every election I've contributed to as an adult has just lowered my faith in society into non-existence, all I can hope for is that people actually start giving a damn about their neighbors but honestly it's more likely a meteorite kills everyone on Earth than for America to do the right thing.

I hope everyone who supported Republicans in the past fucking choke on it. Cause this is all the same thing Republicans promised to do for decades now and if they do even a 10th of it we will all feel it.

[appro880]

Oh and By the Way, Those Stimulus Checks Y'all Keep Harping On, Were Actually Due to Efforts By the Democratic Legislators... Trump Was Ultimately Pressured Into Signing the Stimulus Bill!

Donald Trump, Not to Be Outdone, Put His Name on the Checks -- Something No Other President Had Done in the Past...

That Was "Your" Tax Money, That He Attached His Name to! And You Swallowed It, Hook, Line and Sinker...

"There's a Sucker Born Every Minute" -- P.T. Barnum

Apparently, There Are 70 Million Suckers Already Here!

Please, We Don't Need Anymore!