What the Medicaid Cuts Mean for Seniors and Rural Communities
If you care about older Americans and keeping local communities strong, you should be alarmed by the Medicaid cuts that are coming.
The Medicaid reductions in the One Big Brutal Bill Act (OBBBA) passed into law last year (and shown in the graphic) have two consequences that deserve more attention:
First, nursing homes. Medicaid pays for the care of nearly two-thirds of nursing-home residents. Brown University researchers identified 579 facilities—about 4% of the nation’s nursing homes—as especially vulnerable because they depend heavily on Medicaid and already have low occupancy and poor financial indicators.
Second, rural hospitals. UNC researchers examined 2,170 rural hospitals and identified 338—about one in six—as particularly exposed because they rely heavily on Medicaid, have operated at a loss for three consecutive years, or both. They could be forced to eliminate services, convert to smaller facilities, or close.
These are risk estimates, not predictions that every identified facility will close. But even service and staffing reductions would leave seniors traveling farther for emergency care and families with fewer options for long-term care.
The law includes $50 billion for rural health over five years. However, KFF estimates that it will reduce federal Medicaid spending in rural communities by $137 billion over ten years.
Whatever our politics, I think we should ask whether tax cuts are worth putting nursing homes and rural hospitals under even greater financial pressure—and urge Congress to protect them before the deepest cuts take effect.
For older Americans who depend on them, losing a nursing home, an emergency room, or a nearby hospital certainly doesn’t sound like Peace for Seniors.
Trump Is Very Much on the Ballot
As if Trump would ever want to be anywhere other than the center of attention!
And right now, the midterm elections are where the action is—and where the attention he craves is increasingly focused.
Republican strategists would probably prefer that Trump not be “on the ballot.” His approval ratings have sunk to new lows, and voters are increasingly unhappy with his handling of the economy, inflation and the cost of living.
But whether Republicans like it or not, Trump is on the ballot. Every action he has taken since the beginning of his second term—and every promise he has broken—has helped create the conditions voters will judge in November:
Inflation: Trump promised, “Starting on Day One, we will end inflation and make America affordable again.” Instead, inflation is higher than when he took office, and Americans are still struggling with the cost of living.
Health care: Trump promised to bring health-care costs “way down.” Instead, Americans are paying substantially more for health insurance. (Health insurance jumped 26% from last year.)
Medicaid: Trump said, “We’re not cutting Medicaid.” But the Republican legislation he signed makes enormous and growing cuts to federal Medicaid spending. (Medicaid cuts were $17B this year and the cuts will be bigger every year rising to $165B in 2034.)
Gas: Trump promised gasoline below $2 a gallon. Instead, the national average has climbed above $4.
Mortgages: Trump said he would get mortgage rates back down to “3 percent, maybe even lower.” Instead, mortgage rates have climbed above 7%.
Immigration enforcement: Trump has built an increasingly aggressive masked federal enforcement apparatus and unleashed it on some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
The debt: Trump promised to pay down the national debt “very quickly.” Instead, the public debt has grown substantially since he returned to office.
Corruption: he flaunts his insider trading and his pardons seem to be for sale… for his friends everything, for his enemies, the law.
Trump’s name may not be on the ballot in November., but his record will be.
Reflecting Pool Reflects Poorly on Trump
At first, it looked like it was working to get folks buying into the lies about the reflecting pool: the reflecting pool supposedly required a no-bid contract, his handpicked contractor would charge a very low amount, and vandals destroyed the newly installed liner… they even caught one picking up a piece of the destroyed liner.
But then, experts said the material couldn’t have been cut in the way Trump officials claimed, the project went more than 533% over budget, and the man they arrested on felony destruction of property charges for alleged vandalism was former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn.
But, as with so many Trump narratives, reality eventually caught up. Even his loyal U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., abandoned the criminal case after it became impossible to sustain the claim against a man who was, for all practical purposes, an innocent bystander. The Department of Justice and federal records ended up noting that the rushed, accelerated project timeline for the July 4th celebrations led to faulty installation rather than the vandalism initially blamed by administration officials.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz summed up the episode and put it in perspective:
“Found an imaginary problem, said only they could fix it, didn’t listen to experts, hired buddies who grifted millions, failed miserably, bragged how great it went. The entire Trump presidency in a nutshell.”
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Indivisible wants You to Defend Free and democratic Elections
Join the Hands Off Our Vote program if you haven’t already. You’ll get access to trainings, alerts about threats to voting, action items to prevent election sabotage, and info on rapid response mobilizations if nonviolent mass responses are needed.
Sign up for the first two Hands Off Our Vote trainings: Election Protection 101 on August 19, and Election Protection 201 on August 26 (8pm ET/5pm PT). In this two-part virtual training series, we’ll explore how to get out the vote, become a trusted messenger, prepare for election defense scenarios, and get in formation for fall activations. (The two sessions will build on each other, but it’s okay if you can only attend one.)
It’s critical to get into election protection formation now -- not wait until the final days or weeks before November 3. Trump has made it exceedingly clear that he will use every possible mechanism -- legality be damned -- to block free and democratic elections, undermine democracy, and subvert the will of American voters.
If you can’t do anything else, donate: Chip in to help us recruit for Hands Off Our Vote across all 50 states and continue building out election protection resources and infrastructure. Building a nationwide program with the capacity to respond to attacks on voting rights in every community across the US takes significant funds.
Asymmetric War
The Trump regime has created an asymmetric political conflict. It routinely ignores long-standing norms and, at times, the law itself, testing how much it can get away with before anyone successfully pushes back.
Trump threatens to use the power of government to take 6ABC off the air and our response is… a call to make a public comment telling the FCC they must respect freedom of the press rights. I guess this stalls the regime for a little while with uncontrollable laughter.
Public comments have their place, but it’s hard to believe they will deter officials who have repeatedly shown they’re willing to disregard established legal and democratic norms.
The Environmental Protection Agency itself has proposed eliminating public comment requirements for many new industrial facilities, including numerous data centers. As NBC News reported, that tells us something about how this administration values public participation.
When one side treats laws, norms, and oversight as obstacles to be bypassassed while the other responds primarily through procedures that depend on respect for those same institutions, the playing field is no longer level.
Norwegian Nobel Committee is evaluating Peace Prize candidates
This must be awkward timing for the current U.S. administration, since “most creative ways to destabilize the planet” is not a criteria Nobel Committee will consider. Somewhere in Washington, people are confusing “peace” with “temporary silence after a rapid unscheduled disassembly”.
ICE Actions Hurt our Local Businesses
For many of us, it’s the cruelty and injustice of the ICE roundups that are unacceptable. But for those who are moved only when it affects their pocketbook, here is a report from NPR’s Marketplace Morning detailing how destructive the raids are to local economies:
Overview
Marketplace's Sabri Beneshore interviews Wharton professor Zeke Hernandez on new research measuring the economic fallout of ICE enforcement surges. The core finding: raids don't just scare people from shopping, they pull people out of the workforce, and the damage compounds rather than fades.
Key Findings
Foot traffic collapse: In the current administration's first year, ICE raids in targeted cities caused a drop of over 8 billion unique visits to business locations. This captures both people not showing up to work and people not showing up to shop.
Revenue loss: Up to $14 billion in lost revenue at businesses that sell goods and services.
Persistence: The effects did not fade over time. Not short-term blips.
Small businesses hit hardest: Independent shops absorbed far more damage than large national chains.
Why Small Businesses Suffer Most
No corporate backstop. Independents lack a headquarters to maintain cash flow or subsidize an employee through a downturn. Hernandez calls this the more important explanation.
Enforcement optics. ICE may prefer targeting a corner supermarket over a Walmart or Target, since raiding a large store forces visible shutdowns and worse press. He treats this as secondary.
Nuance and Friction
No shift to online: The interviewer pressed whether activity simply migrates to delivery. Hernandez found the opposite. Use of Uber Eats and Instacart went down after raids. The shock hits labor supply, not just where people spend.
Downward spiral risk: Fewer workers earning means less spending, which forces businesses to cut hiring and inventory, feeding a self-reinforcing decline. This is the mechanism he flags as most dangerous.
Long-Term View
Hernandez argues the lasting damage may exceed the immediate hit. He frames it as "an economy of fear."
A closed business cannot reopen on command. Workers relocate, capital disappears, recovery is slow.
Second-order effects are harder to measure and potentially larger: reduced community investment, less innovation, fewer people willing to bring new ideas, businesses, and products to a location.
The Bottom Line is a Vicious Cycle Harming the Local Econony
The ICE raids create a self-amplifying loop: as their initial negative event triggers further problems,
ICE raid → Fewer workers show up → Less income earned → Less spending → Businesses cut hiring and inventory →
(loops back to) Fewer workers show up
This is What Racism Looks Like
Racism isn't always as obvious as Donald Trump's housing discrimination case in the 1970s, his full-page newspaper ads demanding the death penalty for the Central Park Five, who were later exonerated, or the lie that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States.
Sometimes it is more subtle, as when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth purges the stories of distinguished service members of color (and women) from military history in the name of fighting "wokeness."
And sometimes it is hidden in plain sight, in the places chosen for the nation's dirtiest industrial projects.
Two years ago, one of the world's largest artificial intelligence data centers appeared almost overnight in Southwest Memphis, a predominantly Black community that already bears generations of industrial pollution. Because xAI could not obtain enough electricity from the grid, it has operated dozens of methane gas turbines, adding still more pollution to a community that already suffers cancer rates far above the national average and some of Tennessee's highest childhood asthma rates.
The NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center sued xAI, arguing that the turbines were operating without the permits required under the Clean Air Act. State regulators claimed that because the turbines were mounted on trailers, they qualified as "mobile" equipment. Yet the EPA later concluded that these turbines require permits, public participation, and environmental review. Even so, the Department of Justice has sought dismissal of the lawsuit on national security grounds.
When powerful people decide that one community can be sacrificed on the altar of the artificial intelligence race, while regulators and government agencies look the other way, that isn't simply injustice…
It is deadly racism.
Trump Cheats at Everything!
Donald Trump doesn’t merely bend rules. He treats public office as another business opportunity and government power as a tool to reward allies, enrich his family, punish enemies, and help friends cut to the front of the line.
The latest example is almost comical: President Trump personally called FIFA president Gianni Infantino and asked him to reconsider the suspension of U.S. soccer player Folarin Balogun after a red card. Days later, FIFA took the extraordinary step of lifting the suspension, allowing Balogun to play. It was reportedly the first such reversal since 1962.
Most people understand something Trump apparently never has: a victory only means something if it is earned fairly. When someone with power intervenes to change the rules for your side, the win is forever tainted.
But this isn’t just about the beautful game being sullied, it’s part of a pattern inherent to the man.
Trump Corruption Tracker
This is only a sampling.
June 16, 2026 - Taxpayer dollars will cover roughly half the cost of Trump’s White House ballroom after earlier promises that private donors would pay.
June 16, 2026 - A no-bid contract connected to a Trump supporter cleaned the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which quickly turned green with algae.
June 3, 2026 - Peter Navarro helped secure a $620 million Pentagon loan for a company after Donald Trump Jr.’s investment firm acquired a stake.
May 1, 2026 - The Air Force awarded a drone contract to a company backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
April 30, 2026 - Trump’s sons invested in a construction company tied to a mining project that later received $1.6 billion in U.S. government backing.
April 25, 2026 - The administration quietly awarded a no-bid contract to a company already building Trump’s White House ballroom, with costs ballooning from $3.3 million to over $17 million.
March 18, 2026 - More than $13 million in no-bid contracts went to a firm staffed by Trump allies who helped organize the January 6 rally.
March 11, 2026 - Congress opened an investigation into at least $63 million in payments to Trump’s planned presidential library.
March 6, 2026 - Wealthy offenders spent hundreds of thousands, sometimes over $1 million, seeking presidential pardons through Trump-connected operatives.
May 21, 2025 - Trump accepted a $400 million aircraft from Qatar despite constitutional concerns.
May 5, 2025 - Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump announced billions of dollars in global real estate and cryptocurrency ventures.
February 11, 2025 - The Trump family earned millions from a cryptocurrency meme coin.
Source: RepresentUs corruption tracker.
The FIFA incident matters because it reveals the same instinct that runs through everything else: if Trump can pull strings, break rules, or even break the law, he will. His only boundary is what he can get away with.
If government power can benefit his family, his donors, or his political allies, he sees no reason not to use it.
Cheating isn’t an occasional lapse, it’s in his DNA.
Don’t Become Inured to the Trump Corruption
On June 23, 2026, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) outlined the “unprecedented corruption of [the] Trump White House” in the first 500 days of the president’s second term. “This is a national crisis,” Murphy said, “and we should start acting like it.”
“The pay-to-play schemes. The pardons for donors. The contracts for friends. The favors for Trump’s children. The use of inside information to make money. This is not a disconnected series of scandals. This is a system.
“Government is supposed to serve us. It is supposed to lower costs, supposed to protect our families, strengthen our schools, make life better for people.
“But Donald Trump believes that government exists to serve him—to make him richer, to protect his friends, to reward his donors.
“That is why he doesn’t have time for you. He doesn’t have time to solve real problems because he’s making money for himself and his friends.
“And he’s betting that the corruption will be so constant that we stop hearing it. That the outrage will just turn into exhaustion, and the exhaustion will just turn into acceptance.
“We can’t let that happen.
“Because once corruption becomes normal, it becomes permanent.
“The White House is not a business opportunity. The presidency is not a license to steal from the American people. The government of the United States doesn’t exist to make Donald Trump rich.
“It belongs to the American people. And after 500 days of corruption, Democrats and Republicans in this body, along with the American people, should start acting like it.”
Fitzpatrick's Vote is Why Healthcare is Becoming Less Affordable.
According to a Gallup poll released this month, for the first time in five years, fewer than half of Americans say they can consistently afford the healthcare they need. The situation is expected to worsen. This year, an estimated 1.3 to 3.4 million more Americans are projected to lose health insurance. By next year, that number is expected to grow to 5 to 7.5 million.
How did we get here?
Last July, Congress passed the One Big Brutal Bill Act, which included the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits. As those subsidies disappear, many families are seeing their health insurance premiums rise sharply.
Brian Fitzpatrick's vote in May 2025 was essential. The original House version passed by a razor-thin margin of 215-214-1. Had Fitzpatrick voted no at that stage, the bill would have failed in the House and never reached the Senate. Then, when his vote wasn’t needed, he voted against the Senate's revised version, but his earlier vote allowed the legislation to continue through the process.
Stop Payment on that Ballroom Check
As the Making the Case substack informs us:
A White House spokesman said yesterday that Trump’s famous ballroom would be paid for by “President Trump and generous American patriots.” In this case, “generous American patriots” includes every American taxpayer, as the $600 million project is now estimated to cost taxpayers over $300 million, at a time the Trump administration is cutting healthcare and food assistance. Since the ballroom’s announcement, Trump has repeatedly claimed the project will pose no cost to taxpayers.
Just tell me how I can stop my tax dollars from funding things that the majority of Americans don't support.
While we're at it, how is a minority able to force taxpayers to continue funding ICE when so many Americans want serious reforms before another dollar is appropriated?
Come to think of it, how can one president discard the goodwill that the United States spent decades building through cooperation and good-faith engagement with the rest of the world? One bad-faith actor shouldn't be able to throw all that away.
And what about our peace of mind? We have a megalomaniac broadcasting threats and grievances around the clock. Wouldn't it be nice to explore a new hobby instead of feeling obligated to monitor every headline for fear that, while you were looking away, another norm, right, or institution disappeared?
What is Brian Fitzpatrick Celebrating this Memorial Day?
Is Fitzpatrick celebrating his deciding vote to pass the One Big Brutal Betrayal Act (OBBBA) and send it to the Senate? The bill that hands DHS and ICE enough money and power to operate with frightening impunity?
Or is he celebrating a voting record that advances—nearly every time it matters—the agenda of the most fascist President this nation has ever seen ? Trump may attack him now and then, but that doesn’t make Fitzpatrick “independent.” It just gives him cover to keep selling the fiction that he’s a “problem solver.”
As one pundit observed, the main problem Fitzpatrick has worked to solve is how to get reelected.
Memorial Day should honor those who fought against authoritarianism and fascism, not politicians who normalize it one vote at a time. Every vote Fitzpatrick casts should be on the side of democracy and against fascism.
From Black Lives Matter to Black Votes Don’t
A few short years ago our country had a great awakening about how poorly we treated people of color. Millions of people looked around and realized that Black Americans were still being treated as less worthy, less protected, less heard, and sometimes killed as if their lives carried no weight at all.
It was as if the scales had fallen from our eyes and we were able to see afresh the injustices white people had perpetrated on people of color. The “woke” metaphor was quite apt as so many of us became aware of our privilege, strived to maximize equality, minimize oppression, be anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti- homophobic.
Then came the backlash. First they mocked the language itself. “Woke” became a sneer, compassion became weakness, and equality was turned on its head. The people demanding fairness were treated as the real threat instead of the people stripping rights away. Next they targeted the institutions promoting inclusion: schools, libraries, universities, corporations, public health agencies, even churches.
And now the mask is off completely. Districts with large Black populations are gerrymandered, polling places disappear, voting rolls are purged, and now the Supreme Court has trumpeted the message:
Black Votes Don’t Count!
A Time to Work Together
Our Doylestown Action League worked together to bring about Friday’s “May Day” rally encouraging economic boycott. There is a lot to coordinate for an event like this: the speakers, the music, the peacekeepers, and all of the behind the scenes activities. This remarkable collaborative effort was a powerful reflection of how working together can achieve big things.
There are many threats imperiling our future: war, climate change, nuclear weapons, and the unchecked rise of artificial intelligence. What they share is simple: none can be solved alone; every one of them demands cooperation.
We like to celebrate “healthy competition,” but much of what passes for competition today is not healthy for individuals nor sustainable for society. Just a few years ago, leaders in AI spoke of working together to build guardrails strong enough to prevent harm. That spirit has been shoved aside. In its place: speed, dominance, and a reckless drive forward. Safety be damned.
While we have had conflicts for as long as memory serves, we did not have the wars of aggression that have arisen: Russia invading Ukraine, Israel working to destroy Gaza (for which it has earned international condemnation and even accusations of war crimes against humanity), the United States invasion of Venezuela, and then working with Israel to destroy Iran. Now Israel has begun to apply the “Gaza model” to Lebanon. This is nationalist fever on steroids destroying hope for cooperation.
Now conflict threatens to widen further, fueled by nationalism and a willingness to escalate rather than restrain. Cooperation is treated as weakness and aggression as strength.
The danger of nuclear catastrophe has not disappeared. It has simply faded from our daily awareness, even as the risk grows.
And climate change, the slowest-moving crisis of all, remains the clearest example: there is no path forward without collective action. No nation can solve it alone, and none will escape its consequences.
The world has drifted away from cooperation, pulled by fear, lust for power, and short-term thinking. But this is precisely the moment when cooperation is not optional. It is the only way through.
We need to clean what’s left of Our House
Start at the top. That’s where the rot is deepest. That’s where corruption isn’t just practiced, it’s modeled, encouraged, and handed down as policy. When leadership cheats, lies, and steals, it becomes permission for everyone below them to do the same.
Look at the crypto pipeline. Money flowing to Donald Trump even before inauguration, in exchange for favors. The old image was Spiro Agnew walking out with bags of cash. Now it’s digital, laundered through screens, harder to trace but no less corrupt. Once Trump realized crypto’s greatest strength is how well it hides transactions, he embraced it.
Then there are the open bribes. Tech billionaires underwriting vanity projects, political loyalty dressed up as “support.” A ballroom here. A glossy, self-promotional vanity film there. The transaction isn’t even subtle anymore.
If you need a pardon? Just bring your checkbook.
According to the The Wall Street Journal, Trump has promised mass pardons to staff before leaving office. His thinking that pardons are needed shows the level of corruption and the disdain for the rule of law.
Who is this man
In our house
Who is this man
Better get him out
We've got a problem
He's gotta go
He don't leave
Can't live here no more
If we wanna save our home
We need to get him out
We Came to Our Senses Then. We Can Again.
Roy Cohn is one of the darkest through lines in modern American politics.
As chief counsel to Joseph McCarthy, he helped engineer a politics of fear, intimidation, lies, and public destruction. Years later, he would mentor Donald Trump, passing along the same toxic playbook: attack relentlessly, never admit wrong, invent enemies, and use cruelty as power.
The medium changed. The poisonous playbook did not.
But here’s what matters: we beat this before.
McCarthy terrorized the country for a time. He ruined lives, cowed institutions, and made fear feel patriotic. But Americans eventually saw through the bullying. People found their backbone. His abuse of power was exposed, and his hold on the country broke.
So why not now?
Trumpism wants us to believe this moment is too far gone, too dangerous, too entrenched to defeat. History says otherwise. We have faced this kind of demagoguery before, and we came to our senses before.
Bullies are powerful only as long as people are afraid to stand up to them.
We got out from under one in the 1950s. We can do it again.
We Broke McCarthyism. We Can Break Trumpism.
Shutting Down the Government Now is Different
The shutdown last fall—an attempt to avoid suffering and allow people to keep their healthcare—was different than many reckless and harmful ones in the past over relatively minor budget disputes.
Today, we are dealing with a rogue government that has destroyed many beneficial aspects of our Federal government designed to make our lives better. Now, we are watching a federal government fund and normalize violent, unaccountable actions against people on U.S. soil. ICE’s actions recently are the epitome of the destruction of the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness guaranteed to us. And the destructive actions are ramping up.
To compromise now, to agree to fund this government without addressing the root abuses at the heart of this crisis, is to give political cover and cash to departments that have repeatedly violated civil liberties with little accountability. This is why many activists say they don’t want “another cent” to go to Homeland Security with their expanded powers and aggressive tactics which have cost American lives and eroded trust between communities and the government.
The people marching in the street don’t want to see another cent go to DHS—a department that got far too much in that one big ugly bill passed last summer. (And the vote for that bill should be hung around every Repulican’s neck in these midterm elections.) Right now, the Washington Democrats are once again not reading the prevailing mood, not understand the zeitgeist of this moment.
This administration is not backing down; the removal of Bovino from Minneapolis was a feint and now they are doubling down. It’s part of the distraction they are using while they strip us of our voting rights and although the greedy plunderer in chief to enrich himself.
Funding injustice is a choice. Refusing to do so is one too.
A World Worth Bringing Children Into
The Trump administration is pushing for more pregnancies, more births—more people. But let’s be clear: they mean certain people. Certain demographics. Certain voters.
They offer child tax credits, counseling programs, and messaging campaigns encouraging motherhood. Everything but actually paying women to give birth—though give it time.
A January, 2026 NYTimes headline, “The Quest to ‘Make America Fertile Again’ Stalls Under Trump” points to their failure of their flailing methods.
And for those who don’t want children? The Dobbs decision, abortion bans, and criminalization of reproductive autonomy make sure you don’t have a choice.
But here’s a radical idea: Instead of trying to force more births, why not build a world that welcomes it?
A world where:
Children aren’t growing up under the constant threat of gun violence
Storms don’t take their homes because climate denial rules policy
People aren’t snatched from streets by masked agents in unmarked vans
A handful of billionaires don’t hoard the wealth of 90% of the population
The American Dream isn’t a relic of the past
There isn’t a growing threat of nuclear annihilation
And corruption isn’t baked into governance
If we truly care about children, we should be fighting for a world worthy of them. Not one that mandates their existence while abandoning their future.
The Spirit of Thomas Paine
“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered,” Paine wrote in that fraught moment, “yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”
Thomas Paine wrote these words in his Common Sense pamphlet at a low point in the struggle to throw off the yoke of the King George III. Now, nearly 250 years later, we are in similarly fraught times with a man who would be king yearning to reign over us. We must invoke the spirit of the pamphleteer to buck up our spirits.
Here is Heather Cox Richardson’s telling of how the Continental Army turned the tide and threw off the yoke.