The ‘Universal’ Healthcare Bait-and-Switch Hits the Ballot Today

Avatar photoby

Today’s Democratic primary in Michigan is the opening bell in an ideological war over Medicare for All that will roil the upcoming presidential campaign.

The Senate showdown between progressive Abdul El-Sayed and establishment favorite Haley Stevens lays bare the fundamental split on healthcare. El-Sayed is demanding single-payer Medicare for All without compromise. Stevens—who flirted with single-payer before retreating to Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) triage—represents a centrist wing offering: corporate-friendly tweaks under the banner of “universal care.”

For years, party moderates have quieted the base by stealing progressive vocabulary while preserving private insurance profits. Calling ACA subsidies “universal healthcare” is a corporate risk-management scheme disguised as radical reform.

Progressives are done letting centrists dodge the core issue. Today’s vote signals the end of the polite fiction: either you support genuine single-payer, or not.

Read my full breakdown at trailmix.cc/substack

💬 Add your voice: Comment on today’s post
Share

81 thoughts on “The ‘Universal’ Healthcare Bait-and-Switch Hits the Ballot Today”

  1. The possibility of Medicare for all exists only if Dems hold both houses of Congress AND Dumbass or his successor go along. None of that exists today, so it will take a trifecta. Place your bets.

  2. LBJ actually got dozens of Republicans to vote for Medicare. If the voters want it bad enough, stuff happens. A big test will be whether a Democrat running on it gets the 2028 nomination.

  3. Abdul vs Haley: What’s Michigan Saying?

    Covering the Coverage

    Michigan media’s final 24-hour primary coverage oscillates between existential dread over party unity and obsessions with leaked cash-purity tests. Outlets frame the race less like an exercise in Democracy and more like an apocalyptic proxy war. As Stevens leverages establishment funding against El-Sayed’s grassroots blitz, narratives fixate on whether this deeply fractured coalition can ever repair its toxic, money-soaked divisions before November.

    • [Public Radio]: A look at the final hours as Stevens and El-Sayed offer radically contrasting visions to a divided electorate, emphasizing the extreme difficulty of unifying these bitter factions for the general election. – Michigan Public
    • [Public Radio]: Election day coverage highlights the massive spending disparity, framing the fierce, double-digit race as a crucial test of whether the progressive wing can survive the establishment’s millions. – Michigan Public
    • [Independent]: [Ongoing] A detailed breakdown of the candidates’ bitter spin-room clashes over electability and dark money, exposing the deep rhetorical ugliness defining the final stretch. – Bridge Michigan
    • [Fact-Check]: [Ongoing] A surgical audit investigating Stevens’ financial ties to DTE Energy, underscoring the progressive wing’s obsessive, puritanical focus on corporate campaign contributions. – Bridge Michigan
    • [Fact-Check]: [Ongoing] An early debate fact-check that sets the tone for the entire race, documenting the absurd sparring over which candidate was wealthier and the toxic influx of outside PAC money. – Bridge Michigan
    • [Mainstream]: [Ongoing] A report on the surreal influx of national money flooding Detroit, treating the local campaign like a national referendum on the soul of the Democratic Party. – ClickOnDetroit
    • [Mainstream]: [Ongoing] Video coverage of the spiraling debate over inflation and foreign policy, capturing the visceral frustration voters feel as candidates trade highly localized, personal attacks. – ClickOnDetroit
    • [Mainstream]: [Ongoing] A print recap of the candidates’ spirited clash in Grand Rapids, where the debate dissolved into frantic finger-pointing over corporate donors and ICE funding. – ClickOnDetroit
    • [Public Radio]: [Ongoing] A deep-dive policy comparison highlighting the gaping divide between the candidates’ visions for data centers and ICE, raising serious doubts about whether their bases can reconcile. – Michigan Public
    • [Public Radio]: [Ongoing] Analysis detailing how the primary escalated into one of the most painfully expensive in state history, setting a cynical tone that threatens general election momentum. – WDET 101.9 FM

    — Human Prompted and Edited. Machine Drafted. (Gemini Pro)

  4. Wall Street Journal unmasks some scary stuff here:

    How ICE Is Weaponizing Social Media Against Its Critics

    Agency says its surveillance program searches for threats to agents, but critics see free-speech infringements.– Trail Mix Free Link

    “As far as I can tell, all of this is about people saying naughty things about ICE and immigration enforcement,” said Lauren Regan, a civil-rights attorney who has represented multiple people investigated by the government over their online speech. “Nothing that comes close to true threats.”

  7. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/supreme-court-deals-trump-final-humiliation-after-he-missed-deadline/
    The Supreme Court has put a decisive end to one of President Donald Trump’s signature crusades after he missed the deadline to seek a rehearing.
    When the court struck down Trump’s bid to end birthright citizenship for millions of Americans in a 6-3 ruling at the end of June, it started a 25-day clock for the president to seek a reversal of the decision, which he vowed to do.
    […]
    But that deadline came and went without the Trump administration submitting such a filing.
    Now, the Supreme Court has put the final nail in the coffin, issuing a certified judgment and affirming a lower court ruling that had blocked the president’s executive order seeking to ban automatic citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents in the country temporarily or illegally.
    Under the court’s standard procedures, the clerk issues a certified judgment about 32 days after the initial ruling, according to SCOTUSblog.
    This means the cause Trump made one of the biggest priorities in his second term—one he personally carried into the Supreme Court chamber, making history as the first sitting president to attend oral arguments—has reached the end of the road.
    The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    A rehearing was always a long shot, requiring at least one of the justices who ruled against Trump to change their mind, and a majority of the court to agree to revisit the case. The Supreme Court has not reheard an argued case in over 50 years.

    https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA29kd5f.img?w=768&h=967&m=6

  9. In the private sector missing that deadline for rehearing in the birthright appeal would lead to a notification of the lawyer’s malpractice carrier.

  11. New York, pizza, fixings on a cracker, Chicago, pizza fixings on a biscuit
    I’m a Kansas City style myself, a decent amount of flat bread topped with the fixings and a sauce with lots of spice and flavor, so it is more than bland tomato flavor. It is the sauce that makes the pizza.

    Jack

  12. Today in the Diner…
    Todd Blanche Hearing, Roy Cooper Gun Veto & Michigan Primaries

    Todd Blanche faces Sheldon Whitehouse in a fiery Senate hearing, while Roy Cooper vetoes gun laws in NC and Mary Moriarty fights Greg Abbott in Texas.

    The Senate confirmation hearings for Todd Blanche are turning into a complete circus on Capitol Hill, with Sheldon Whitehouse taking the lead on the Epstein files and Donald Trump corruption. It is all political theater until Susan Collins is forced to cast a floor vote. Meanwhile, Josh Hawley is auditioning for the MAGA crown, hopefully without needing to sprint away from his own supporters this time. We are watching these hearings closely because the future of our DEMOCRACY depends on keeping unqualified loyalists out of the DOJ.

    Down in North Carolina, Roy Cooper is catching heat for vetoing a constitutional carry gun bill, setting up a brutal election clash. We also dive into the South Carolina special election where Dr. Annie Andrews smoothly pivoted her campaign target from the late Lindsey Graham straight to RFK Jr. Plus, a look at Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty pressing Greg Abbott for extradition on an ICE shooter, and the glorious news that Capital One dumped hundreds of Trump family accounts.

    Live Chat: https://trailmix.cc/chat
    Website: https://trailmix.cc
    Alerts: https://trailmix.cc/alerts

    00:00 Intro Michigan Primaries
    00:38 Todd Blanche Senate Hearing
    02:16 Susan Collins and Josh Hawley
    06:06 Dr Annie Andrews Targets RFK Jr
    08:19 Mary Trump Donald Trump Casinos
    11:41 Roy Cooper North Carolina Veto
    21:18 Mary Moriarty Fights Greg Abbott
    25:37 James Talarico Winning in Texas
    45:51 Capital One Closes Trump Accounts
    53:15 Amy Klobuchar School Phone Ban
    — Human Prompted and Edited. Machine Drafted. (Gemini Pro)

  13. Another favorite local treat was the Northeast taco. Italian diners trying to make a taco. a crunchy premade shell filled with lightly seasoned hamburger a salsa that had roots in Italy more than Mexico, lettuce and parmesan cheese (the cheap stuff) 2 for a dollar,and $1.50 for a beer at Big Tony’s, His pizza was better. Both the taco and Tony’s are long gone from KC’s food scene. The last place to sell that style of taco was Tereasa’s drive in and it closed 15 years ago.

    Jack

  14. jack, haven’t had the pleasure of KC Pizza, but do like flatbread pizza, and yes, the sauce does make the pizza. Love KC style BBQ, btw.

  15. Poobah , I heard Whitehouse loading up the record with oodles of DOJ fuckups under Trumpco and Blanche’s tutelage and as assistant to Bondi. Could fill a book or three. More pointedly, he accused Republicans on the committee of ignoring their responsibility to hold him accountable for his running the day-to-day operations of the department and ceding much of its independence to the White House. Great line was “What’s left of this committee?”

  17. Things not being put in the media: Tillis agreed to meet with Epstein Survivors before the vote. They waited for 45 minutes before one of his staffers came to say he would not meet with them after all. Cornyn refused to meet with them.

    It’s pathetic, especially when they are more worried about the slush fund than people who have been through hell then again when unredacted info released by Blanche.

  18. THE ATLANTIC: “Opposition to data centers may be the singular unifying issue in American politics. About 75 data-center projects were blocked or delayed in the first three months of this year—roughly the same as were blocked or delayed in all of last year”. — Trail Mix Free Link

  22. Best pizza is i fratelli in Texas; several locations around DFW. When sales reps would come from all over the country to Dallas for a meeting, this pizza was their request.
    It was crazy expensive, even before Covid-flation. Ordered a veggie before I left; black & green olives, mushrooms, bell peppers and green onions; a medium was $25.

  24. I get my pizza by taking it out of the freezer. It’s just not that much worse than what they deliver. And the price difference?
    Fahgeddabahddit

    So, I too do not know pizza.

  29. Used all our weapons? Gosh, don’t let the Russians know.

    What do you mean he already told them last time they talked, was it July4?

  30. Mr. Ivy making his famous pizza tonight.

    Why did Judge Jeanine have to schlep her own luggage to the curb like a fired Apprentice?

  31. The great pizza debate. Anon, what is this Philly pizza of which you speak? Never heard of it. Google AI says it’s (almost) everything you’re disparaging in pizza -“A Philly-style pizza usually refers to the famous Philadelphia tomato pie: a thick, rectangular, focaccia-like Sicilian crust topped with a rich, sweet tomato sauce and a light dusting of Romano or Parmesan cheese, traditionally served at room temperature.” Now I’m not saying Google AI is right – like I said, never heard of it. But it actually sounds like the pizza my MIL used to make in CLE, and her sauce definitely made the pizza.

  32. Ivy knows what i’m talking about, Delaware is Philly-metro

    glad ai doesn’t know 👍

    there are multiple factors, but ultimately it’s because they are family businesses that the same few people make pizzas full-time from childhood for decades

    You can’t replicate that with a formula

  34. It’s true. Claymont is a ‘burb of Philly.

    The best tasting tomatoes are grown in PA. Jersey ‘maters can pass.

  35. Kareem’s Quote of the Day
    “Little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!”
    Arthur Miller (1915–2005), American playwright, The Crucible

  36. i’m guessing you can also get good pizza in Boston. I’ve just never had pizza in Boston, the other Italian food there was too amazing

  37. Non VoterTurnout Watch
    If this is a significant trend, here’s how the social Dems can win generals:
    Michigan Secretary of state says 18,386 votes who cast absentee ballots for today’s primary did not vote in last 3 elections. 53,000 voted in only one of the last 3 elections.

  38. I’m getting old. Trying lay tile in my kitchen, for some reason it seems to be harder than it used to be. I did figure out a combination of leaning on a chair and cushions under the knees to get tile laid before the mortar set up. But it looks like what took me an afternoon back in the day is going to be a week long project.
    Time to cleanup and go vote.
    Hope my ID works.
    Jack

  39. My other fave is that sour Chef-Boyardee sauce in a can on homemade crust. Let that tomato sauce start to burn & you know it’s done. Childhood memories. It costs about $3 with the sauce, flour, oil & yeast; if you add grated parm out of a canister, $3:50. Well-done is well done.

  41. Ivy, I have my suspicions – I’m betting she loaded up her roller with all the shit she reviewed from DOI that said the lining installation was botched from day one and no one vandalized the fucking thing before she filed the Motion to Dismiss. You know, defending her life against the mad king

  42. “you can also get good pizza in Boston”
    anon, indeed the bestest, sauciest and thickest pizza I ever had was at Uno’s (a little underground place) up the street from KSG and down the street from hahvahd gate. had everything on it including anchovies. but that was years and years ago so don’t know if they’re still there or if so still serving a meal sized piece of pizza.

  43. Every “best of” pizza list I’ve read for years has pointed to New Haven, CT and environs, but I’ve never taken the train up that way.

    I’ve never had great pizza in NYC. Joe’s Pizza is terrible, as is John’s Pizzeria (but it’s in a cool, old church), and honestly the Ray’s locations all over the city are better than those and cheaper than the other two. The worst was 3 Brothers Pizzeria; inedible.

    Oh, another bad NYC pizza is Famiglia, which they say is served at one of the ballparks. I had it at the airport, so maybe that was the problem, but ish.

  44. PatD- Wonder if the UNO’s in Boston is a franchise of Pizzeria UNO in Chicago; it was deep-dish. They even have a NYC location.

  46. looks like they’re everywhere now. it was decades ago and I imagine much has changed both in the size and the ingredients.
    click here to watch how Uno’s makes the ones today

    Home

  47. Boston – spent a lot of time there over the years but can’t remember ever eating pizza. Have had some very good Italian food in the northside and I’d bet you’re right about the chances of good pizza there. I’ll have to see – gonna be up there the last weekend of the month and will make a point of trying to get at least one pizza meal.

  48. guess who is using this same kind of regional cuisine discussion as a relatable talking point

    Rahm Emmanuel

    does he have the secret sauce

    see what i did there

  49. Pizzeria Uno – Had dinner there in Chi town about 15 years or so ago – it was good, very good, and way more than I could eat. The slice I had musta weighed a pound and a half. BID, they’re everywhere. We had a PU here in EB for a while, but it wasn’t anything like the Chicago store. It was good, but just good, and couldn’t compete with the local pizza shops. There’s one in Oakland, MD where we spend a good deal of time – it’s one of their franchises. It’s really just another chain restaurant.

  50. did any media at all besides the liberal shit I listen to cover Rahm Emmanuel criticizing Israel policy, especially regarding Gaza and their world-standing?

    i assume not

  53. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/6008603-blanche-plans-abortion-rollback/

    Blanche pledges to make Dobbs decision permanent in every state

    On a private call last week hosted by the White House Faith Office, Blanche told the religious group Intercessors for America that moves to undo the Biden administration’s efforts to protect abortion are “taking longer than we want.”

    But Blanche assured them that the Justice Department (DOJ) is “working hand-in-hand” with federal health agencies, the White House and President Trump’s team “to get permanent solutions so the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.”

    The 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to an abortion. The ruling allowed states to set their own policies, stopping short of a national ban.

    In the years since, the number of abortions has continued to grow, frustrating abortion opponents.

    *De-flock the the flock cameras.
    De-nut the conservatives/MAGAt men.

  56. Honestly, not a pizza fan. The best pizza I’ve had was from a local place here and it was their bacon cheeseburger pizza, so non traditional.

  57. Apparently Blanche either (a) doesn’t understand the Dobbs decision or (b) knows that the thumpers he’s pandering to don’t. The “Justice Department (DOJ) is “working hand-in-hand” with federal health agencies, the White House and President Trump’s team “to get permanent solutions so the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state” is nonsensical, and to the extent they’re trying to concoct a national ban, is contrary to the ruling sending the decisions about abortion back to the states.

  58. ahhhhh…. had a nice long day being a simple fair goer at the big affair I used to do as a booth holder. Being semi-retired has its benefits!

    And there’s a wicked great pizza place very close to me that sells NY style sourdough pizza… we get it often.

  60. you don’t want an attorney general that speaks in contradictory gibberish, pogo??

    you must be some kind of socialist

  61. Ah Jack, I know the feeling. Yesterday had to call my handyman to get a root out so I could plant one Azalea. In my defense it was a really big root going crossways from a nearby massive tree and I don’t have a saw, which it needed. But there was a time I would have figured it out on my own.

  62. it really is fascinating that everyone right and left implicitly understands that the right is deliberately duplicitous on their phony “states-rights” platform especially regarding abortion rights

    they know they’re lying, we know, and they know we know

    crazy

  63. Anon, one of my study buddies in law school accused me of that 35 years ago. Maybe he was onto something. I think he only did that because I rode a bicycle to class – and may very well have been the only one in the school that did. Never saw anyone else do it.

  64. Michigan early-vote numbers are running about 200k higher than 2024 presidental and nearly 300k higher than 2022 midterm. And the 2026 vs. 2024 early in-person vote is up 88.6%. GOP side is uncontested so presumably this is all Democratic enthusiasm.

  65. HAH!! Who could have guessed this? NYT

    News Analysis

    An Angry Trump Struggles to Understand Iran’s Defiant Leaders
    Iran’s leaders have perplexed several American presidents, perhaps none more than President Trump.

    By Michael Crowley
    Michael Crowley covers the State Department and U.S. foreign policy. He has reported from nearly three dozen countries.

    Aug. 4, 2026
    Updated 3:20 p.m. ET
    President Trump’s angry claim on Monday that Iran was being “unbelievably duplicitous” in its dealings with the United States was just the latest sign of his struggle to understand his rivals in Tehran.

    Mr. Trump considers himself a master of sizing up and exploiting his adversaries. But Iran’s leaders have baffled him.

    “All they do is make me angry,” he told reporters last week. “They just make me angry.”

    More frustration could be in store for the American president. Trump officials say a new deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz may be near, but Iran continues to insist on collecting fees there that Mr. Trump has ruled unacceptable.

    Mr. Trump’s inability to strike a favorable deal with Iran has not only cost him politically among war-weary voters, but continued strife around the crucial waterway has made for volatile oil prices at the expense of American consumers and the global economy.

    Mr. Trump is hardly the first U.S. president who has struggled to read Iran. Each of his predecessors since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution has tried to decode Iran’s murky power structure and the mind-set of its political leadership.

    Most have come up short; some have been burned badly. A rare exception is President Barack Obama, whose 2015 nuclear deal with Iran was a 20-month diplomatic effort. Mr. Obama considered it a major achievement, despite criticism from Republicans and some Democrats that Iran had lured him into a flawed deal by feigning moderation.

    But Mr. Trump may be the president who “has least understood Iran’s leadership,” said Kenneth Pollack, a former C.I.A. analyst and National Security Council official who has studied Iran for decades.

    “In many ways, Trump represents the epitome of America’s frustrations with Iran,” Mr. Pollack said. “He has been both the most desirous of making a deal with Iran, and the one who used the most force against it. He has found that neither got him what he wanted.”

    Mr. Trump often speaks as though massive force will produce a quick deal.

    After the war opened with a Feb. 28 airstrike that killed Iran’s supreme leader of nearly 40 years, Ali Khamenei, Mr. Trump called on Iran’s people to rise up and “take over” their government. He added that he would then “choose” Iran’s next leader.

    More senior Iranian officials would also be killed in airstrikes. But no popular uprising emerged.

    Iran’s hard-line government instead doubled down. In March, it named a new supreme leader, Mr. Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei. U.S. officials consider him even more rigid — and more interested in acquiring a nuclear bomb — than his father.

    Iran had simply ignored Mr. Trump’s public declaration that the younger Mr. Khamenei would be an “unacceptable” choice. And Mr. Khamenei did not respond to a public offer from Mr. Trump for an in-person meeting.

    Even so, Mr. Trump retained hope for major change. “Iran can get themselves on a very good footing if they make a deal,” he said in late April. Iran, he said, could become “a legitimate country, not a country based on death and horror.”

    Iranian officials say they can negotiate with Mr. Trump on matters such as the Strait of Hormuz and their nuclear program, even as they rule out many of his core demands.

    But in a political system premised on hatred of the United States, none show interest in a larger reconciliation with the United States.

    There are few signs that Mr. Trump’s months of dealing with Iran’s regime have given him a clearer understanding of it. Over the course of the conflict, Mr. Trump has constantly revised his assessment of Mr. Khamenei and his deputies. He has branded them “lunatics,” “reasonable,” “crazy bastards,” “very smart” and “stone cold crazy.”

    [Continues]

    Only Mr. Obama has pulled off a major diplomatic agreement with Iran, in the form of the 2015 nuclear deal that placed limits on Iran’s atomic program lasting up to 15 years in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

    Many officials in the Obama administration hoped that agreement, negotiated with another moderate Iranian leader, Hassan Rouhani, might be a first step toward better relations. But that was not to be. Mr. Khamenei approved the deal, but showed no desire for taking things further; critics said that confirmed their warnings that Mr. Rouhani would amount to a replay of Mr. Khatami.

    Iranian suspicions that the U.S. could not be trusted were soon affirmed. In 2018, Mr. Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal and imposed even harsher economic sanctions than had been in place before the agreement.

    Iran responded by accelerating its nuclear program, putting it on course for a violent collision with the United States and the war Mr. Trump initiated in February.

    Since then, Mr. Ross said, Iran has continued to outmaneuver Washington, which Mr. Trump’s obvious impatience to conclude the war has made easier.

    “They tend to read our sense of urgency as a form of leverage,” Mr. Ross said. “We always seem in a hurry to get things done. They operate under the premise that time serves their interests more than ours.”

    The only difficulty Iran likely has in understanding Dumbass is trying to distinguish between the crazy and the stupid in his gibberish.

  66. Pizza my favorite comfort food. Little known fact. I used to live less than a mile from the original Little Caesars Pizza store. It was fast and easy compared to buying a pizza at an Italian restaurant. I remember somewhere in the mid-sixties it got a lot greasy for a while before returning to other ingredients.

    Here is a picture of the eggs of the new house in the fig tree. I did a YT short video of the nest a couple days ago.

  67. NEW THREAD COMING TONIGHT

    The Trail Mix Low-Propensity Voter Tracker: Michigan Edition

    Here’s what I’m watching tonight: some precincts for monitoring Abdul’s appeal to infrequent voters, compared to turnout in past elections. Comparing real-time participation surges against historical baselines reveals whether his campaign is expanding the electorate.

    These precincts anchor key student, youth, and low-propensity urban voter bases.

    Target Precinct / Area 2022 Baseline 2026 Early/Absentee 2026 Election Day 2026 Total Turnout Surge vs. 2022 El-Sayed Margin (%)
    Ann Arbor Wards 1 & 2 (U of M Campus) ~15,800          
    Ypsilanti (EMU & Downtown) ~3,800          
    Detroit West Side (D2 / Livernois) ~15,500          
    Detroit East Side (D4 / Jefferson Chalmers) ~12,200          

  68. Froom the “Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” file. NYT It’s the insanity that gets me.

    Documents Undercut Trump’s Claims About Utah National Monument
    President Trump said recreation in Bears Ears National Monument was virtually impossible. Documents reviewed by The New York Times show officials knew otherwise.

    By Maxine Joselow
    Reporting from Washington

    Aug. 3, 2026
    When President Trump sharply reduced the size of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah by more than 1.2 million acres, he claimed it was necessary because recreation was virtually impossible within the site’s boundaries.

    “You can’t go hunting, you can’t go fishing, you can’t do anything, you can virtually not even walk on it,” Mr. Trump said during a ceremony in the Oval Office last month.

    The No. 2 official at the Interior Department, Kate MacGregor, chimed in, saying, “That’s exactly right, sir, so you are remedying that today.”

    But recreation has been allowed in Bears Ears since President Barack Obama designated the monument in 2016. And government documents reviewed by The New York Times show that Trump administration officials were briefed on recreational opportunities inside the monument about a month before the Oval Office event.

    Utah officials, who pushed for shrinking the monument, told the Trump administration in June that there was “current recreational access” to Bears Ears, according to the documents, which The Times obtained via a public records request.

    The state officials specifically cited two trails popular among hikers, backpackers and off-road vehicle drivers, the documents show. (Other trails attract scores of horseback riders, mountain bikers and rock climbers, as Mr. Obama noted when he designated the monument.)

    The documents suggest that the administration was “lying or spreading misinformation about these fantastic public lands” when it justified cutting the protected areas, said Steve Bloch, the legal director at the nonprofit Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, who reviewed the records at the request of The Times.

    National monuments are public lands that are legally protected from oil and gas drilling, mining and other industrial development. They have similar protections as national parks, but while national parks are created by Congress, national monuments can be created by presidents through the Antiquities Act of 1906.

    Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, did not answer questions about the documents but said in an email that “the Obama and Biden administrations abused the Antiquities Act to lock up millions of acres of Utah’s public lands, impoverishing local communities and sharply restricting access for recreation, grazing, resource development and fire prevention.”

    [continues]

    OK, catch that last sentence by Rogers? “…and sharply restricting access for recreation…” According to Dumbass, that’s what isn’t there.
    ““You can’t go hunting, you can’t go fishing, you can’t do anything, you can virtually not even walk on it,” Mr. Trump said during a ceremony in the Oval Office last month.”
    AND…
    “The No. 2 official at the Interior Department, Kate MacGregor, chimed in, saying, “That’s exactly right, sir, so you are remedying that today.’”

    Fucking morons.

  70. BB – They do put those nests up quickly. Such pretty eggs. Hope they all make it.

    Pogo – Dems should’ve pushed to codify Roe when they had the chance. The UNIparty will allow this to get pushed further and further. The fascists will go after all abortion care and birth control. Maybe the thought of child support will get guys to stop voting for Republicans.

    Conservative Justices Resurrect the Comstock Act, Threatening Abortion Access Nationwide

    Conservative Justices Resurrect the Comstock Act, Threatening Abortion Access Nationwide

    On May 1, the New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the mailing of mifepristone, a common abortion medication. (The pill is also used in miscarriage care; has shown promise in treating fibroids, endometriosis, some cancers, depression and chronic inflammatory illnesses; and is currently being studied as a once-weekly contraceptive.) Their ruling restricted distribution and use of the medication to in-person clinic visits only, even as the number of brick-and-mortar abortion clinics has continued to shutter over the past year.

    Thankfully, on Thursday, May 14 (albeit 30 minutes past their self‑imposed deadline), the Supreme Court stayed the Fifth Circuit’s ruling and, pending further litigation, preserved mail‑order access to and telemedicine oversight of abortion medication.

    But the Court was not unanimous. Among the dissenters, Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly invoked the Comstock Act as precedent for the Fifth Circuit’s decision, writing: “It is a criminal offense to ship mifepristone for use in abortions. The Comstock Act bans using ‘the mails’ to ship any ‘drug … for producing abortion.’” He argued that Louisiana’s claim—that mifepristone is being shipped into a state that has banned abortion—“violates the Comstock Act.”

  72. How many “no” votes needed to defeat Blanche? If Collins is a no and Murkowski is no and McConnell is still missing, what else needed.

  75. https://www.gadgetreview.com/a-civilian-plane-crashed-in-new-mexico-was-military-gps-jamming-to-blame

    Four people – two pilots, two medical crew – died when a Trans Aero MedEvac Beechcraft King Air 90 struck the Capitan Mountains near Ruidoso, New Mexico, in the early hours of May 14, 2026.
    The NTSB’s preliminary report, released June 18, confirmed what aviation watchers feared: military GPS jamming from White Sands Missile Range was active at the flight’s altitude and location. The crew had been briefed on the jamming through their ForeFlight pre-flight package. Knowing a threat exists and being equipped to survive it are two very different things.

    *Months later, it makes its way to the media.

    “Air travel is still very safe, but it may be stuck for the next five years or more in a mild-and-increasing risk situation as we confront ever more GPS interference.” – Todd Humphreys, GPS expert, according to Wired

    Civil aviation has grown so satellite-dependent that losing GPS mid-flight, at night, over mountains cascades into a workload crisis no single system was designed to absorb alone. Medevac operations already carry accident rates closer to combat aviation than scheduled airlines, according to Wired’s reporting. Add an overtaxed ATC sector and terrain that doesn’t forgive hesitation, and the system was working exactly as designed – right up until it wasn’t.

    *Take the train until 2032 or so.

  76. https://www.chron.com/politics/article/tarrant-county-polling-locations-texas-22373951.php

    As part of the Tarrant County Commissioners’ Court meeting today, officials will vote on a proposal to reduce the number of Election Day polling places from 316 to 176-roughly a 44 percent decrease, according to WFAA. Early voting locations would also be cut from 50 to 42.

    Tensions escalated a few hours into the meeting when County Judge Tim O’Hare cleared the room after a speaker criticized how commissioners court was generally conducted.

    “You keep telling us not to ‘California my Texas,’ while in reality you keep ‘Russia my Texas,” she said.

    O’Hare then cut off the woman’s public comment as another attendee in the audience held up a sign reading, “We will vote u out.”

    “That’s it,” O’Hare said. “We’re going to clear the entire chambers now. You’ll get your ten seconds left. I told you how it was gonna go, so we’re in recess until the chambers are cleared.”

    The court went into recess as the crowd chanted, “Shame! Shame! Shame!” O’Hare also instructed security to remove one man from the building.

    “Remove them all,” O’Hare said.

    *FYI – Tarrant County is Ft. Worth-plus.

  77. *So, there’s even more going on than USRael being ticked off by Spain not helping with their war against Iran, and the image of brown folks trying to get to Spain and pushing European politics farther right. It includes a Moroccan highway named tRUMP, pitting Spain against the EU, and somehow I think it reaches toward resources in all of Africa; Morocco is the gateway. Anyway, this guy didn’t just go on feels like I did; it is worth a watch.

  80. My AI’s track record today on facts has been poor. I asked it to make its disclaimer bigger and bolder.

    CRITICAL WARNINGI AM AN AI, NOT AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. I MAKE GENUINE FACTUAL ERRORS. I MIX UP DATES, NAMES, AND TIMES. NEVER TRUST MY ANSWERS WITHOUT CHECKING THEM. YOU MUST ALWAYS BE YOUR OWN FACT-CHECKER.

Comments are closed.

Join the Trail Mix

Get an alert when Craig goes live, and the link when our Open Thread heats up.