#MEpolitics: This thread from May about the dire state of the Maine healthcare system has unfortunately only become more relevant as the months have passed. The Trump regime’s elimination of ACA subsidies—coupled with the coming massive cuts to Medicaid and Medicare— will make things much worse.

Our children’s futures are currently being controlled by imbecilic charlatans.

I think one of the aspects of extreme Trump sycophancy from the leaders of most major tech companies that has gotten lost in the corruption muddle is that they aren’t just doing it to get regulatory or policy assistance now. They’re doing it to get truly historic bailouts when the market crashes.

My god (ironic as an atheist). That Bill Donahue is trying to make this “it wasn’t paedophilia, actually“ argument is incredibly troubling. That the Catholic League would actually publish it is a sign that they have lost any and all moral authority within Christendom they may have still possessed.

Is there a named law that states “If it is possible for a corporation to attempt something, it will attempt to do that thing”? Because, if not, I propose we call that “Ingen’s Law”.

If Trump’s post on Truth Social indicating he is directing the DOJ to investigate ties of Democratic Party members to Epstein is indeed a corrupt play to claim the Epstein files can’t be released due to an ongoing investigation… A brave patriot needs to leak them and we need to protect that person.

#MEpolitics: Reminder that both the MPRC (heavily skews progressive) and EMILY’s List (endorsed Mills) polls are partisan and really shouldn’t be used to assess general support for either candidate, we are 7+ months out from the primary, and aggregating polls in this manner is statistically dubious.

Who could have predicted that ideologue loyalists appointed by the ‘Mad King’ to important economic policy roles would further endanger the entire global economy by going on international TV and making it exceedingly obvious that they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

We’re all now fairly sure Trump had Epstein murdered, right? Does anyone still actually believe Epstein hung himself, and all of the exceedingly suspect aspects of his supposed suicide are just a coincidence? I‘m genuinely curious if there are people on here that still believe the official story.

* TRUMP: I HAVE INVESTIGATED MY ALLEGED TIES WITH JEFFREY EPSTEIN AND HAVE FOUND NO WRONG DOING @theonion.com

Even ignoring the fact that considerable victim testimony exists confirming that they were minors when the men had sex with them (at the very *least* statutory rape), what Batya Ungar-Sargon (self-proclaimed “MAGA leftist”) is describing here is sex trafficking, by both Epstein and his “patrons”.

For all the Trump regime’s efforts to paint the left as “communist”, “Marxist”, “anarchist”, and/or “anti-captitalist”, it sure does look more and more like a hybrid Nazi/Soviet/Maoist enterprise, doesn’t it?

And a herd of C-suite heavy weights and AI industry lobbyists are balanced on the edges of the top cards, making highly corrupt backroom deals with the current regime to ensure colossal and economically destabilising backstops when the entire misbegotten structure inevitably comes crashing down.

The current public equity market is a house of cards being built upon a cardboard base, resting atop another house cards representing the private equity market, which sees a card moved to another position every day. Eventually the foundation will collapse, unfortunately, we just don’t know when.

There are a number of potential (legitimate) explanations for why the Epstein files were not released during Biden’s term: • Files sealed, appeal to unseal working up to SCOTUS (this year?) • Agency and congressional independence (Garland) • Not wanting to appear to be targeting political opponents

Barring a very unlikely master plan being implemented behind the scenes by the Dems that will see the regime ousted off the back of this shutdown ”deal”, there really is no way to spin it as anything other than a catastrophic capitulation that ensures the suffering of millions was for nothing.

This “deal” essentially punts the shutdown ball down the field for another two months, whilst giving the regime several things it wanted, and giving the rest of us absolutely nothing we wanted (the RIF reversal/pause is only necessary because of what the regime *choose* to do during the shutdown).

Every policy and action by the Trump regime—and I mean every single one—is an attempted shakedown. Sometimes they work (see universities, law firms, media corps), sometimes they don’t (Democrat-led govs, nonprofits, community action), but it’s always meant to induce kickbacks and/or compliance.

False alarm! He wanted to cuddle with me (and two of his stuffies) before getting ready for school this morning. All is not yet lost.

To recap: Jeffrey Epstein offered a NY Times reporter photos taken in Epstein's kitchen of Donald Trump and girls in bikinis *and* implored the NYT reporter to put this information in the public discourse in 2015 What did the NY Times editors know about this offer?

The crisis of elite impunity that is ruining our society cannot be more clearly or convincingly demonstrated than with the fact that all of these people wrote all this stuff into an email and hit Send.

To put things in perspective, Jeffrey Epstein, infamous child rapist and child sex trafficker, thought Donald Trump was ”nuts”, “mad”, ”evil”, and a pathological “liar”. That‘s like Charles Manson calling Jim Jones a sadistic sociopath. The adage ”takes one to know one” comes to mind.

Absolutely something you do when you are completely, unequivocally, without a shadow of a doubt NOT a paedophile, child rapist, and/or child sex trafficker who was close friends with the world‘s most infamous child sex trafficker who died under very suspicious circumstances during your first term.

Maybe it’s just the skeptic in me, but having the US AG and FBI Director meet with a member of Congress in the world’s most secure SCIF to try to get them to take their signature of a petition to release evidence against the world‘s most infamous child sex trafficker seems slightly suspicious.

#MEpolitics: Original announcement image with alt text for today’s rapid response demonstration against Angus King at 3-4 PM at Elm Plaza in Waterville.

#MEpolitics: Angus King is making a private appearance at Colby College after capitulation to Republicans, abandoning the fight to save our healthcare, and ensuring the suffering of millions during the shutdown was for nothing. RAPID RESPONSE PROTEST Today, 3-4 PM Elm Plaza, Waterville

Scientists:

Well, it happened. My four year-old apparently no longer wants to cuddle with me. [stares wistfully into the middle distance as tears well up in his eyes] #ThanksDemocrats

For those fortunate enough not to have much experience with how bullies operate: When you give into their demands for reprieve, that only signals to them that you are weak and can be controlled using similar or more severe demands in the future. Capitulation does not stop them, it emboldens them.

Don’t be fooled—in this case the regime knows exactly what it is doing. It wants to get rid of the ACA structure to both move further away from a public single-payer option and further fragment bargaining power, giving healthcare providers and insurance companies even more price-setting control.

Just a reminder that as of right now, there is no major party on the left in the US. As anyone from any other democratic country on earth will tell you, there is only a centrist party, and what used to be a far-right curious party, which has now been fully subsumed by a fascist regime.

Cull the Democratic Party. Systematically chip away all the weak, corporate centrists and corrupt, gutless elected officials who refuse to fight and instead suck at the teat of the oligarchy.

The fact that the Democratic Party leadership think they can fool the electorate by putting up mostly retiring senators to vote for this capitulation is yet another indicator that they are not up to meeting the current moment and can’t be trusted to fight for their constituents’ wellbeing.

#MEpolitics: If we are looking for a silver lining in this Democratic Party capitulation, it is that their fecklessness and cowardice is likely to supercharge the progressive movement across the US, as more and more people realise we must create *real* opposition to the Trump fascist regime.

Republicans bet that they could torture America until the Dems surrendered and they were right. Get ready for more torture.

#MEpolitics: The abject shame of seeing Angus King in the same list of capitulating Senators as John Fetterman.

Every element of this “deal” is just mitigating the impacts of the shutdown. None of the “concessions” would be needed otherwise. Which means the question everyone should be asking any Dem that votes for this ”deal” should be: Why did you choose to allow millions of people to suffer for no reason?

i think this is key. taking the deal would amount to taking the blame. it would turn a clear political victory into an unambiguous defeat.

This will only embolden the regime. Now they know the Dems can be relied upon to help shield them from all immediate consequences—political and practical—and will cave whenever sufficient pressure is applied. All for empty promises of future action from pathological liars and adjudicated criminals.

#MEPolitics: It appears the rumours that Democratic Party Leadership plans to capitulate to the Trump regime are accurate. Only Chuck Schumer could decide—after a resounding election smack down of the regime—to accept a “promise to negotiate after reopening the government” from pathological liars.

Trump is turning The People’s House into a replica of Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace.

It’s interesting which Maine races should be made more “competitive” by the Democratic establishment and which should be left alone so “Mainers can decide“.

I’ve seen quite a few posts deriding the “Democratic establishment“ for scouting for another candidate to jump into the ME-2 House race because Matt Dunlap has already declared, coming from people that rejected criticism of the same Dem establishment for pushing Mills to enter the Senate race.

One of the reasons the Right wants to get rid of the ACA structure is to both move the country further away from a public single-payer option and further fragment bargaining power, giving healthcare providers and insurance companies even more price-setting control. It‘ll drive costs up, not down!

A healthcare system primarily utilising HSAs doesn’t just individualise risk (big issue)—it individualises bargaining, in the same way to union-busting. One of the main benefits of a public single-payer option is that the government has massive bargaining (and regulation) power to drive down costs.

#MEPolitics: To recap, Trump’s “plan” to “fix” our healthcare system is to defund the ACA insurance exchanges, and replace them with a direct federal payment system to taxpayers so they can purchase their own insurance plans, likely administered via an online healthcare marketplace. Sound familiar?

To be fair, as Secretary of Health and Human Services, this has been RFK Jr’s trademark response to any and all health crises.

Good morning. I hope you were able to take some time yesterday to come together with your fellow freedom fighters, defenders of democracy, protectors of the persecuted, and avengers of the disadvantaged to celebrate the amazing things you have achieved over the last few months. Today, we go again.

#MEPolitics: I despise the threats of violence against *all* politicians—and have denounced anyone threatening Golden, his family, or his staff—but I think the timing of this announcement suggests it wasn’t just about such fears. And it certainly doesn’t change my assessment of him being a coward.

The shady doth protest too much, methinks.