Pasayten's Methow Valley Bulletin Board

Voters are taking notice, Trump's polling has dropped another 2 pts since the passage of the BBB. This is a state by state list of where Trump's approval numbers are in July
https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-do ... nYRVexqv6i

Big hit https://bsky.app/profile/robertscotthor ... igngv5v22t

"Lawrence H. Summers @LHSummers:
"My daughters, who practice medicine and social work in rural New Hampshire made me realize that a focus on macroeconomics, while valid, misses the human brutality that I now see as the most problematic aspect of the OBBB legislation. This round of budget cuts in Medicaid far exceeds any other cut the United States has made in its social safety net. Read my
The New York Times Opinion Section piece: (in full below)
<<. Last week, Robert Rubin and I warned of the many macroeconomic risks created by the domestic policy bill President Trump signed into law on Friday. I stand by our judgment that it will most likely slow growth, risk a financial crisis, exacerbate trade deficits and undermine national security by exhausting the government’s borrowing capacity. This is more than ample reason to regret its passage.
I want to return to the topic after conversations with health professionals, including my daughters, who practice medicine and social work in rural New Hampshire. They made me realize that a focus on macroeconomics, while valid, misses the human brutality that I now see as the most problematic aspect of the legislation. I don’t remember on any past Fourth of July being so ashamed of an action my country had just taken.
Over the holiday weekend, while the president was celebrating tax cuts that over 10 years will deliver an average of more than $1 million to families in the top 0.1 percent of the income distribution, medical professionals were considering questions like these:
• What should they say to seriously disabled patients, who can live at home only because Medicaid pays for rides to their medical appointments, now that those people could lose that coverage?
• What should they recommend to the relatives caring for poor patients at home, who will no longer be able to work when payments for home-health aides are no longer available?
• How should they advise the hospital to handle patients who can’t afford rehab or nursing facilities and can’t live at home, but who currently occupy rooms desperately needed by acutely ill patients?
• Should they still feel proud of and committed to the work of giving comfort to the lonely, poor and elderly, when their country’s leaders have decided that more money for the most fortunate is a higher priority?
• How can they face patients who will be evicted from the hospital with perhaps as little as a cab voucher when their stays end?
After we talked about these questions, it occurred to me to think about precedents in American history — other moments when the social safety net was cut — to see what followed. Did the feared consequences materialize? Were errors corrected?
I am plenty negative about this president and this moment. Even I was unpleasantly surprised by what I learned.
This round of budget cuts in Medicaid far exceeds any other cut the United States has made in its social safety net. The approximately $1 trillion reduction, over 10 years, represents about 0.3 percent of gross domestic product. Previously, the most draconian cuts came with President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax law. But they were far smaller — $12 billion over 10 years and 0.03 percent of G.D.P. The Trump law will remove more than 11 million people from the rolls, compared with about three million under the Reagan cuts. Other noteworthy reductions to the social safety net, such as the Clinton-era welfare reform, were even smaller.
Because Medicaid is a state-level program and varies widely across the country, economists can evaluate the impact of alternative policies. A number of studies suggest that removing one million people from the rolls for one year could result in about 1,000 additional deaths. It follows that removing more than 11 million people for a decade would likely result in more than 100,000 deaths. Because this figure fails to take account of the degradation of service to those who remain eligible — fewer rides to the hospital, less social support — it could well be an underestimate.
The administration claims its policies, such as adding work requirements for Medicaid eligibility, bear only on the able-bodied. I have supported the general idea of work requirements for cash welfare based on a common-sense idea of fairness. But a careful evaluation of an experiment in Arkansas confirms what common sense also suggests — imposing work requirements on a population in need of health insurance does not increase work and does inhibit necessary care.
The cruelty of these cuts is matched only by their stupidity. Medicaid beneficiaries will lose, but so will the rest of us. The cost of care that is no longer reimbursed by Medicaid will instead be borne by hospitals and passed onto paying patients, only at higher levels, because delayed treatment is more expensive. When rural hospitals close, everyone nearby loses. Hospitals like the one where my daughters practice can no longer accept emergencies by air because those beds are occupied by patients with chronic diseases and no place to go.
Because of the congressional instinct for political survival, the Medicaid cuts are backloaded beyond the 2026 midterms. Cynicism may have a silver lining. As more people realize what is coming, there is time to alter these policies before grave damage is done. TACO — Trump Always Chickens Out — is a doctrine that should apply well beyond financial markets.
More on the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill.’ >>
Lawrence H. Summers, a contributing Opinion writer, is a former president of Harvard University, where he is currently a professor. He was Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton."

Keep it up fu**ing liars! It's working so well, you're changing EVERYONES mind, lol

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8647 BLOTUS!!!


He's BLOTUS: the Biggest Liar of the United States.

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71 year old white male US citizen detained by CBP at airport for nearly an hour.
‘Veteran Los Angeles political consultant Rick Taylor said he was pulled aside by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents while returning from a trip abroad, asked if he was from California and then separated from his family and put in a holding room with several Latino travelers for nearly an hour.
“I know how the system works and have pretty good connections and I was still freaking out,” said Taylor, 71. “I could only imagine how I would be feeling if I didn’t understand the language and I didn’t know anyone.”
Taylor said he was at a loss to explain why he was singled out for extra questioning, but he speculated that perhaps it was because of the Obama-Biden T-shirt packed in his suitcase.
Taylor was returning from a weeklong vacation in Turks and Caicos with his wife and daughter, who were in a separate customs line, when a CBP agent asked, “Are you from California?” He said he answered, “Yeah, I live in Los Angeles.”
The man who ran campaigns for L.A.’s last Republican mayor and for current Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla when he was a budding Los Angeles City Council candidate in the 1990s found himself escorted to a waiting room and separated from his family.
There, Taylor said he waited 45 minutes without being released, alleging he was unjustly marked for detention and intimidated by CBP agents.
“I have no idea why I was targeted,” said Taylor, a consultant with the campaign to reelect L.A. City Councilwoman Traci Park. “They don’t talk to you. They don’t give you a reason. You’re just left confused, angry and worried.”
Former Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the incident brought to mind Sen. Alex Padilla, who was arrested and handcuffed June 12 while trying to ask a question during a Los Angeles press conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“My former chief of staff and political consultant, Rick Taylor, was detained at Miami International Airport by federal authorities after returning from an international vacation,” he said in an email. “As Senator Alex Padilla said a couple of weeks ago, ‘if it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone.’ This Federal government operation is OUT OF CONTROL! Where will it end?!”
A representative from the Customs and Border Protection in Florida said an inquiry made by the Los Angeles Times and received late Friday afternoon will likely be answered next week.
“If Mr. Taylor feels the need to, he is more than welcome to file a complaint online on our website and someone will reach out to him to try and get to the bottom of things,” CBP Public Affairs Specialist Alan Regalado said in an email.
Taylor, a partner at Dakota Communications, a strategic communications and marketing firm, said he was more concerned about traveling and returning to the U.S. with his wife, a U.S. citizen and native of Vietnam.
He said he reached out to a Trump administration member before leaving on vacation, asking if he could contact that individual in case his wife was detained.
The family flew American Airlines and landed in Miami on June 20, where he planned to visit friends before returning to Los Angeles on Tuesday.
In a twist, Taylor’s wife and daughter, both Global Entry cardholders, breezed through security while Taylor, who does not have Global Entry, was detained, he said.
He said after the agent confirmed he was a Los Angeles resident, he placed a small orange tag on his passport and was told to follow a green line. That led him to another agent and his eventual holding room.
Taylor described “95% of the population” inside the room as Latino and largely Spanish-speaking.
“I was one of three white dudes in the room,” he said. “I just kept wondering, ‘What I am doing here?’”
He said the lack of communication was “very intimidating,” though he was allowed to keep his phone and did send text message updates to his family.
“I have traveled a fair amount internationally and have never been pulled aside,” he said.
About 45 minutes into his holding, Taylor said an agent asked him to collect his luggage and hand it over for inspection.
He said he was released shortly after.
“The agents have succeeded in making me reassess travel,” Taylor said. “I would tell others to really think twice about traveling internationally while you have this administration in charge.”’
https://www.latimes.com/.../are-you-from-california...

Well, now we know what "the concepts of a plan" were all about.

You dipsh**s are so full of crap! Stop listening to morons who are ALWAYS wrong.

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The more proper term, Pearl, rather than Alcatraz….. would be ‘Alligator Auschwitz’, because that is what it intended for; to debase and dehumanize people…to make them ‘other’.
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Alligator Alcatraz was flooding yesterday. Some local Floridians said it was in a flood zone.
Wonder if that is on purpose. Drowning while in captivity.

Jay Kuo:
It isn’t easy hearing about what our government is doing. It produces anger, revulsion and fear—all emotions that we’d rather not experience.
Yesterday, Kilmar Abrego García filed a brief in his criminal case, and for the first time we have a first-person account of what is going on inside of CECOT, the El Salvadoran prison to which the Trump regime sent hundreds of immigrants, all without any kind of hearing or due process.
What he recounts is horrifying, and it should be on the front page of every paper. Sadly, much of the media has grown numb to the horrors, lies and gross spectacle of this White House, and so it is often up to independent sources such as this newsletter to report on it.
To date, we have only presumed, based on what the El Salvadoran government itself released, that there was widespread abuse and physical torture occurring inside of CECOT. Human rights groups had verified this, but because no prisoner was ever supposed to get out, we haven’t ever had a first-hand account. But through persistence, we brought Abrego García home to the U.S.
And what he had to tell us confirmed our worst fears.
**A hardworking immigrant with no criminal record
Before we discuss what occurred in CECOT, it’s important to remember that we are talking about a fellow human. He is a man with a life, a family and a career. The Trump Department of Justice and the President himself have attempted to smear his name and label him a criminal (thus the photoshopped MS-13 tattoos and trumped-up Tennessee indictment of May 21, 2025), but let’s set the record straight here.
As the filing states:
“Both Plaintiff Vasquez Sura and Plaintiff Abrego Garcia work to support their family of five.”
“Before his unlawful removal, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was a union member and was employed full-time as a first-year Sheetmetal Apprentice. In addition, he had been pursuing his own license at the University of Maryland.”
“As a condition of his withholding of removal status, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia is required to check in with ICE once a year, and has been fully compliant. He appeared for his most recent check-in on January 2, 2025, without incident.”
“Separate and apart from the May 21, 2025 Tennessee indictment, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia has never been arrested or charged with any crime in the U.S. or in El Salvador.
“There remains no known link or association between him and the MS-13 gang, or any other gang, and no judicial tribunal has found that any such link or association exists.”
It’s important to remember that the government admitted in open court that Abrego García was sent to CECOT as a result of an “administrative error.” As I wrote about earlier, the lawyer who made that admission was later fired because he refused to sign a brief saying that Abrego García was a terrorist, because there was no evidence to support that charge.
It’s also important to remember that several news outlets have confirmed, through separate investigations, that most of the men sent to CECOT have no criminal record. And as I wrote about back in March, there are very likely innocent people who were summarily rendered to CECOT because of mistaken assumptions about their tattoos. This is from the lawyers for Andry Hernández Romero, a barber who was caught up in this horror show:
“Our client worked in the arts in Venezuela. He is LGBTQ. His tattoos are benign. But ICE submitted photos of his tattoos as evidence he is Tren de Aragua. His @ImmDef attorney planned to present evidence he is not. But never got the chance because our client has been disappeared….
Our client came to the US seeking protection but has spent months in ICE prisons, been falsely accused of being a gang member and today he has been forcibly transferred, we believe, to El Salvador. We are horrified tonight thinking what might happen to him now.”
There are many other stories like this. And this makes what Abrego García was finally able to tell us all the more horrifying.
**Physical and psychological torture
In his filing, Abrego García recounts the first few days he arrived at CECOT. Any one of these conditions, standing alone, would comprise torture and violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment had they occurred in the U.S.:
“Plaintiff Abrego Garcia reports that he was subjected to severe mistreatment upon arrival at CECOT, including but not limited to severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition, and psychological torture.”
U.S. authorities put him in chains on the plane ride to El Salvador. Recall, this plane should never have taken off in the first place, but U.S. officials, including Trump attorney and Department of Justice lackey Emil Bove, conspired to ignore direct court orders.
“Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was the first name called to disembark the plane that transported him to El Salvador on March 15, 2025. As he exited the aircraft, still in chains, two officials grabbed his arms and pushed him down the stairs, forcing his head down.”
The prisoners were used as props for political propaganda intended to portray the El Salvadoran president as a ruthless strongman.
“There were strong lights illuminating the area despite it being nighttime, and cameras were filming the detainees’ arrival.”
The beatings and further humiliation began right after that.
“Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was pushed toward a bus, forcibly seated, and fitted with a second set of chains and handcuffs. He was repeatedly struck by officers when he attempted to raise his head. He observed an ICE agent on the bus communicating with Salvadoran officials to confirm the identities of the Salvadoran nationals on board before the bus departed.”
The dehumanization, including being shaved with a razor and forced to move like cattle, occurred once they got to the prison. To dispirit them further, the prisoners were told they would die inside its walls.
“Upon arrival at CECOT, the detainees were greeted by a prison official who stated, ‘Welcome to CECOT. Whoever enters here doesn’t leave.’ Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was then forced to strip, issued prison clothing, and subjected to physical abuse including being kicked in the legs with boots and struck on his head and arms to make him change clothes faster. His head was shaved with a zero razor, and he was frog-marched to cell 15, being struck with wooden batons along the way. By the following day, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia had visible bruises and lumps all over his body.”
Then the physical and psychological torture began. Read this and imagine yourself in his position, without hope, without any information on why he was there, and wondering what pain and abuse was yet to come.
“In Cell 15, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia and 20 other Salvadorans were forced to kneel from approximately 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM, with guards striking anyone who fell from exhaustion.
During this time, Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was denied bathroom access and soiled himself. The detainees were confined to metal bunks with no mattresses in an overcrowded cell with no windows, bright lights that remained on 24 hours a day, and minimal access to sanitation.”
The prisoners officials used fear of the other prisoners as way to inflict more psychological dread and torment.
“While at CECOT, prison officials repeatedly told Plaintiff Abrego Garcia that they would transfer him to the cells containing gang members who, they assured him, would ‘tear’ him apart.”
This was no idle threat.
“Plaintiff Abrego Garcia repeatedly observed prisoners in nearby cells who he understood to be gang members violently harm each other with no intervention from guards or personnel. Screams from nearby cells would similarly ring out throughout the night without any response from prison guards on personnel.”
**A warning of horrors to come
Abrego García is brave for coming forward with his account. He is still under threat of deportation, perhaps back to El Salvador where he could face persecution and retribution. The new criminal charges he faces are so absurd and so blatantly politicized that the head of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville, Ben Schrader, who has 15 years of experience in that office, resigned rather than pursue them as directed by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
His recounting of torture and abuse at the hands of a government that struck a commercial agreement to house migrants is a dark warning about the Trump regime’s future plans. Rather than recognize and draw back from the potential for error, mistreatment and even death, the White House is doubling down. It is currently speaking to several governments, including some with horrifying human rights records, to accept more immigrants.
Meanwhile, it is building domestic concentration camps in places like the swamps of Florida, outsourcing the management of processing and detention to red state governors, each eager to prove they are harsher than the next. And it will fill those camps with immigrants who, like Abrego García, have no criminal records and have been contributing members of society for years, sometimes decades.
The mind and heart reel at the inhumanity, until it becomes clear that this is the very point. CECOT and camps like “Alligator Alcatraz” are meant to be human zoos. The American public has already been conditioned to accept absurdities, such as that all immigrants are gang members, drug dealers, rapists and murderers. And bit by bit, we are being led to accept the next new horror, until the horrors become atrocities.
When asked how it was possible the German people ultimately allowed the Nazi Party to rise to power, to take the nation to war, and ultimately to commit the Holocaust, we need not look further that what is happening in our name, using our tax dollars, this very moment in the U.S.
**Thoughts on Independence Day
I want to challenge the inevitability of this path. We can stop this madness, this descent into American fascism. But it will take all good people standing together to do so. Those in power are racing to establish a police state, concentration camps for immigrants, and ethnic cleansing through mass deportation. As I wrote about yesterday, their foot soldiers in ICE will soon multiply, thanks to the impending passage of the GOP budget. ICE will receive billions more in funding, making its allocation larger than the defense budgets for many countries. What we are seeing in Southern California will soon be happening all across our country as communities are forced to gather to resist ICE.
On this Independence Day, I’ll be reflecting on why we broke from rule by a tyrant in the first place. I’ll remember how our demands for basic due process and no militarization of our cities and towns became unstoppable rally cries that fueled our cause. That hard-fought war proved that it is not, and it is never, too late to resist, however we each choose to do so.
What will soon no longer be optional is picking which side you stand on. What is happening in CECOT, and what will soon be happening in the “Alligator Alcatraz” and similar camps here in the U.S., is wrong. It is immoral. It is un-American.
We cannot and must not rest until every person wrongly rendered there is brought back, until all these camps within our borders are closed, and until those who built them, gave the commands, defied court rulings, and violated international law are held to account.
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