<House Republicans finally passed a budget resolution on Tuesday night by the narrowest of margins following hours of vote wrangling and argument, initiating the process to draft a sweeping tax cut, energy, and border bill that could culminate in slashes to social services including Medicaid and nutritional assistance.

The budget resolution provides a framework for committees to draft more detailed legislation, which will require further votes. The Senate and House now must set aside their differences and agree on how to proceed.

In response, Democrats, who put up a united front against the measure, came out swinging against the House proposal — and signaled they plan a long fight to oppose the MAGA agenda.

"Instead of working to lower costs and make life easier, Republicans voted to strip Americans of access to affordable health care, jeopardizing the physical and financial wellbeing of millions of their constituents and threatening the future of Medicaid expansion in 40 states," said a statement from the Democratic Governors Association.

"99% of House Republicans just voted to gut Medicaid so they can lower taxes for the richest 1%," wrote Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). "They’re showing you exactly who they’re working for."

"After all of their speeches about the deficit, House Republicans just passed a budget scheme that makes the deficit worse, while showering the top 1% with tax cuts and making everybody else suffer," wrote Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA).

"Chaos on the House Floor this evening as Republicans flip-flop on voting on their budget that would gut Medicaid," wrote Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL). "This should be an easy vote. I joined every House Democrat to vote NO on their disgraceful budget."

"I've heard a lot of Republicans claiming they don't want to take away Americans' health care this week," wrote Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA). "House Republicans just voted to pass the largest cuts to Medicaid in American history. As always, Republicans will betray the middle class to help billionaire donors."

"Today, I made my easiest vote to date in Congress: I voted to protect Medicaid for millions of North Carolinians," wrote Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC). "The American people will not forget Republican's unconscionable attempt to destroy this critical program in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy."

"House Republicans at the direction of Trump & Musk, just voted to kick millions of Americans off Medicaid, to give billionaires big tax cuts," wrote Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA). "The wealthiest man on the planet will get richer as working families suffer. Everyone needs to get off the sidelines and fight back."

"I will never vote to cut healthcare for 37,000 Michiganders, many kids, in the 11th District," wrote Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). "That’s why I voted no on the Republican Rip Off. This isn’t a budget it’s a handout to billionaires like @ElonMusk."

"I voted no on House Republicans’ budget plan," wrote Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX). "It is not only fiscally irresponsible, but it would take food away from South Texas children and seniors and jeopardize healthcare for thousands in my district. We can do better, and we must do better.">

<In the wake of their passage late Tuesday of a budget resolution that sets the stage for massive cuts to Medicaid and other key programs, House Republicans who supported the measure with near unanimity faced calls to explain their vote to constituents who will be directly harmed if the proposed cuts become law.

"We expect every Republican who voted for the budget resolution to hold a town hall during recess on what parts of Medicaid and SNAP they want to cut," Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, said in a statement following Tuesday's vote.

"If you stand behind this plan," Mitchell added, "stop cowering from your constituents."

In recent days, GOP lawmakers have faced angry audiences at town halls in their home districts as voters—including Republican constituents—express outrage over President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's lawless assault on federal agencies and the party's broader legislative agenda, which includes destructive attacks on key programs to help finance trillions of dollars in tax breaks largely for the rich.

"Every single swing district Republican voted to cut Medicaid so they can shovel cash to their billionaire backers."

The intensifying constituent wrath has left Republicans "weary and wary of in-person town hall meetings," NBC News reported Tuesday.

Citing an unnamed GOP aide, the outlet reported that "House Republican leaders are urging lawmakers to stop engaging in" town halls altogether.

In response to NBC's story, Indivisible co-executive director Ezra Levin noted that "there were like eight GOP town halls last week in the entire country."

"Ninety-five percent of GOP members were already hiding from constituents," Levin wrote on social media. "The fact that they think EIGHT is too many is a real sign of how scared they are of constituents and owning this agenda."

Survey data indicates that the deep spending cuts congressional Republicans are pursuing are extremely unpopular, including with their own base. One poll released earlier this week found that 71% of Trump voters oppose Medicaid cuts and 60% oppose cuts to federal nutrition assistance.

Under the budget resolution that House Republicans passed late Tuesday, the committees that oversee Medicaid and SNAP are instructed to find over $1 trillion in combined cuts—a clear indication that the two programs are in the party's crosshairs, despite GOP leaders' claims to the contrary.

"This bill doesn't even mention the word Medicaid a single time," House Majority Leader (Steve Scalise) (R-La.) told reporters Tuesday....>

<....But as The New York Times observed, the resolution's instructions to the House Energy and Commerce Committee—which has jurisdiction over Medicaid—to slash $880 billion in spending over the next decade leaves Republicans with few options other than large cuts to the program that provides healthcare to more than 70 million low-income Americans, including children.

"If Republicans want to avoid major cuts to Medicaid, the largest pot of available money is in the other big government health insurance program: Medicare," the Times observed.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) claimed Tuesday that Republicans are only targeting "fraud, waste, and abuse" in Medicaid—a statement that one expert called "a smokescreen for the tired, harmful playbook to gut the Medicaid program that was tried and failed in 2017 as part of the highly unpopular effort to repeal" the Affordable Care Act.

"House Republican leaders have not really moved on," Edwin Park, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy's Center for Children and Families, wrote earlier this week. "Today, they are still pursuing the same kind of draconian Medicaid cuts that would take away coverage and access from tens of millions of low-income children, parents, pregnant women, people with disabilities, seniors, and other adults."

Shortly after Tuesday's vote, Protect Our Care announced a new flurry of ads targeting Republicans in competitive districts who backed the budget resolution, which still must be approved by the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate before the party can begin crafting its filibuster-proof reconciliation package.

The first round of ads, according to Protect Our Care, is aimed at Reps. David Valadao (R-Calif.), Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), Young Kim (R-Calif.), Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), Ryan Mackenzie (R-Pa.), and Scott Perry (R-Pa.).

"Instead of standing up for their constituents' health, Republicans fell in line to vote in favor of ripping away healthcare from millions of Americans—all so they can give a tax break to billionaires and big corporations," said Leslie Dach, the chair of Protect Our Care. "Medicaid is popular across the board with voters, no matter where they live or who they voted for."

"By ignoring the impact of these cuts on their constituents, every House Republican who voted for this horrific budget is playing a dangerous game," Dach added. "If Republicans proceed with these cuts, we will hold them accountable.">

<Now that President Donald Trump's second term is in its second month, conservative attorney George Conway is arguing that his central guiding philosophy — along with that of his supporters in the GOP — is now crystal-clear.

During a Tuesday interview on MSNBC, former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele asked Conway (the former spouse of ex-Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway) if he's seen anything change in the administration's approach to governing since Trump's second term began. Conway opined that Republicans "just want to burn it all down."

"I don't see any rationality in what they're doing other than that it is a performative attack on the government, and it is an attempt to destroy what they perceive to be as the enemy, which is the very government that they are charged with administering," he said. "That's the only way to explain almost everything this administration has done."

Conway asserted that the "burn it all down" ideology is what led Trump to appoint Robert F. Kennedy as Health and Human Services secretary, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as attorney general (who was eventually replaced by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi). And he assailed centibillionaire Elon Musk's firing of federal workers — particularly those in charge of managing nuclear weapons — who he eventually had to hire back.

"Basically, Donald Trump wants to have revenge on the United States of America," Conway said. "You cannot figure out who should stay or go unless you know what the hell's going on with the government, and these guys don't, and they don't care.">

<[Event "16th World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1988.07.??"]
[EventDate "1988"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Blocker, Calvin"]
[Black "Pozarek, Stephen J"]
[ECO "A29"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "First Boston Futurity"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1981.04.??"]
[EventDate "1981"]
[Round "3"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Rizzitano, James"]
[Black "Kelleher, William"]
[ECO "B40"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America might not seem like a top issue compared to, say, trying to end birthright citizenship or carrying out mass firings of the federal workforce, but events surrounding it have serious implications, authors Jeffrey Abramson and Jack E. Davis argue in a piece published at the Guardian Wednesday.

When the Associated Press continued to use the term "Gulf of Mexico," the Trump administration revoked their press access to White House events. The news organization sued last week, but on Monday, a federal judge refused to order the White House to restore access. On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced that they would choose who had access to events.

“Granting access to the White House on the suppressive conditions set by the Trump administration is a blow to the first amendment and the free press. If the retaliation against the AP is allowed to stand, more restrictions on the press are certain to follow, creating Kremlin-like conditions that will affect all Americans who might question, or be suspected of questioning, the Trump party line,” Abramson and Davis write.

“This is why a seemingly trivial issue – what to call the Gulf – is freighted with importance. Trump’s renaming of the Gulf unmistakably delivers his 'America first' message. He has every right to his message. But he doesn’t have the right to turn the press into his messenger,” they continue.

“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government. The Constitution does not allow the government to control speech,” the AP says in its complaint.

Abramson and Davis note that there is a disturbing historical precedent for renaming places. For example, when he seized power in 1933, Adolf Hitler renamed streets and public places. Joseph Stalin renamed "Tsaritsyn" to "Stalingrad."

This is not Trump’s only bold foreign policy move. He has brought up reclaiming the Panama Canal, buying Greenland, turning Canada into the 51st state, and taking over Gaza. “Even if these are mere paper ambitions, the disdain Trump shows for international law is already doing irreparable harm,” they write.

“The ripple effect of Trump commandeering global waters reaches beyond the sea to all Americans," they continue. "His actions must be considered alongside his other executive orders on his first day back in office, declaring the arrival of immigrants at the southern border an“invasion” and suspending grants of asylum, no matter how dire the situation of refugees. When we let Trump scapegoat vulnerable immigrants for this country’s – and the world’s – problems, we are in fascist territory. That is why Trump’s renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America is no laughing matter. It expresses a level of disrespect for Mexico that could well be a precursor for how strongmen treat peoples whom they first strip of dignity. Substitute Jew, Catholic, Turk, Armenian, Arab, gay or transgender for Trump’s talk of an invasion of aliens across the Gulf, and you get the point.">

<Uncle Sam Reshevsky was hit with Biden's Mate (crossways Catholic bishops) in a St. Louis (now the USA chess capital of sorts) department store, but business is booming back.

The Elephant in the Room is obviously the GOP's Donald J. Trump, already man of the decade. Although the bar was very low, and personal cost very, very high, fighter Trump has returned to office less than two months and already accomplished more than bumbling Joe Biden did in four awful years. The Deep State has been exposed, the Woke agenda is being erased from children's books and women's locker rooms, hostages are returning to their homes, trespassers are staying south of the border, and the Washington D.C. Swamp is being drained. Mighty America is Great Again!!>

Links omitted--none of those he posts can be trusted.

This incompetent, worthless piece of flotsam cries about political content anywhere--except, of course, that which he posts on game and player pages everywhere outside the Rogovian miasma (which is too tough a place for him to post very often, moral coward and thoroughgoing pussy that he is).

<[Event "16th World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1988.07.??"]
[EventDate "1988"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Browne, Walter"]
[Black "Kutschenko, Roland"]
[ECO "A51"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]