My brother-in-law is blind.

He's blind because when his son was born, he moved to Arkansas for lower cost of living. He's T1 diabetic. He worked at Walmart, which did not provide health insurance. He made too much for Medicaid, but not enough to buy insulin.
1/ He could've quit and taken Medicaid, but it was during the period of time with work requirements—and how would he support his family?
Instead, he rationed insulin for nearly 3 years. He moved back to the Northwest for healthcare, but nothing could be done by then.
2/

In case you hadn't picked up on it, things aren't going well for the Right, so the Conservative™ movement is flooding the zone with as much bullshit about trans athletes as possible.
It hasn't been taken up by MSM because
1/ they don't have any journalists following things like Council for National Policy (Heritage), which has explicitly stated they are going to draw as much media attention to trans athletes as possible.
The current panic isn't what they previously said—
2/

🚨The real scoop?
The Trump admin hand-picked a "refugee" who owns a lucrative granite mine, leads a right-wing party that courts gangs, runs an illegal grow op, and has social media full of a decade’s worth of Putin propaganda.
The Episcopal Church knows who these people are.
1/ The Episcopal Church is ending refugee resettlment contracts with the government over this issue.
That is a massive step, and the Bishop of the American Episocopal Church spoke out about it. This will unfortunately harm refugees and program workers.
2/
goerie.com/story/news/202…

RFK Jr. is misusing a surveillance report on autism to promote cruel conspiracy theories. What's worse is how the CDC failed to look at a public source to test their conclusions—special education data and placement.
This isn't an epidemic, it's a change in classification.
/🧵 In 1972, a report to Congress found 1.75 million disabled children weren’t in school at all and millions more were underserved. There was bipartisan support for legislation for a right to education for disabled children — Ford signed the All Handicapped Children Act in 1975.
2/

Federal Agencies have made these beautiful annual data books with tables, charts, and their legislative authority since the start of our country— but they just sit and molder online now while people look at tiktok and think-tank blogs.
Journalists aren't even using them!
🧵/


You can find the annual FTE at the EPA, their budget, and all the programs they've had going back decades.
2/

These have to be the stupidest people in history, anybody who trusts them is licking shit off the floor.
The signatures are from the Federal Register.
The Federal Register has used a reproduction signature for every presidential document since Nixon.
Total slop.
🧵/

https://twitter.com/OversightPR/status/1897726502156091716

The Federal Register has published 177 documents for Trump so far this term, every one with a reproduction signature.
2/

Holy crap.
Beneficiaries in current payment status by age are listed on the SSA website. There are 89,000 age 99+
Census lists the population 99+ as 134,179.
This is publicly available data, up to date as of December. 👇
ssa.gov/oact/progdata/…

The CDC is officially not updating death data.

There's been no communication with state governments, local health departments, or health systems on when or if they'll start again.
Your local health department is now in the dark about what's happening in the rest of the country. Hey @RepMGP this seems like something congress should really be concerned with?
Your local health departments are not being given access to the data we need from federal agencies!

All the Republicans in Congress are is shitposters.
The worst example is the "Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act". 163 Reps and 46 Senators cosponsored. The text of the bill is abhorrent on purpose. Families are a joke to them and parental rights are a toy.
🧵/ Look at the text.
Notice the boolean issue here, "or"?
Read it again: "Any infant born alive after an abortion or within a hospital, clinic, or other facility".
That's *any* child born alive. Doctors must resuscitate or go to prison for 5 years.
The bill is a shitpost.
2/

Trump admin ordered a full pause on external communication from federal health agencies:
CDC, FDA, NIH.
They are banned from sharing any outbreak updates, advisories, food recalls— nothing without political approval, not even to local health departments.
This is NOT normal.🚨
1/ The directive covers regulations, guidance, social media, press releases, and even official correspondence with Congress and governors.
Everything must be reviewed and approved by a presidential appointee. Public health is now being filtered through political operatives.
2/

We are about to lose 1/4 of the Affordable Care Act.
Trump repealed EO 14009, in which Biden instructed the IRS to fix the 'family glitch'.
That fix allowed 5 million people to purchase marketplace health plans, mostly married mothers of young children— including me.
1/ Before Biden's EO, if a spouse's employer offered family coverage you were ineligible for a marketplace plan.
My husband's employer offered family coverage for over 70% of his salary, but because his individual coverage was affordable, that made me ineligible for the ACA.
2/

TikTok wasn’t banned overnight.
Years before Rep. Mike Gallagher (R) introduced the latest bill and resigned to take a job with Peter Thiel at Palantir, the app was used by the Trump admin to play games with Gen Z —👇
🧵/ 2019, Marco Rubio (R) demanded a congressional investigation into TikTok. Tom Cotton (R) asked Trump appointed DNI John Ratcliffe to investigate TikTok. Trump’s billionaire treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, announced an investigation as well.
2/

When discussing high tax rates of the 1940s and 50s, it's worth mentioning the reality for middle-class taxes: they've remained roughly the same over time. If you consider change in real median income, they've actually increased.
Meanwhile, taxes on the wealthiest plummeted—
🧵/ Yes, income over $200k was taxed at 91% in 1946, but that would be income over $3.3 million today.
In 1964 the highest bracket was 77% on income over $200k (single), or $2 million today.
The dollar value of these cuts is so high showing them requires different scales —
2/

I am so angry with this from @newrepublic / @EllieHotel_ing —"exactly why the fire department was deprioritized amid escalating wildfire season is unclear"
No, Ellie it IS clear! The budget wasn't cut! You're talking about a one time purchase for new breathing equipment!
1/ Karen Bass did not cut $17 million from the fire budget. Los Angeles is busy today, with better things to do than feed you budget appropriations. So I will—
1. In '23 the department spent $12 million on new SCBAs because the old set expired. This was not a recurring expense!
2/

Harris campaign should have just posted Trump’s Official 2021 Budget Request. Highlights:
- Cut all federal spending on child welfare
- Cut SSI benefits to families with disabled children
- End subsidized student loans and PSLF
- Raise crop insurance premiums 37%
1/
The wildest part is the justifications—
Ending child welfare spending "because there are other services, like Head start" but a few pages later, they cut Head Start.
"Cutting all small programs and doing a Block grant," until they decide Block grants have too little oversight.
2/

On education, the United States spends more like Lithuania than Luxembourg.
The story is that the U.S. is a top education spender, but tests below peer nations. Reality? 17% of ed spending goes to staff health benefits— inflating U.S. per-student spending in OECD comparisons.
🧵/ U.S. higher ed costs are exorbitant, and a different issue. You can’t compare international test scores of 15-year-olds and show a graph of higher ed costs— but that’s what American Enterprise Institute, Peter G. Peterson, Heritage, etc. all do when they make this claim. 👇
2/

Weirdest part of the MAGA war? As ConservativeOG influencers rail against Indian immigrants and get canceled by Musk for speaking against H1B visas— the PAC is 100% funded by Indian immigrants, including one busted for medicare fraud.
The weirdness doesn't stop there.👇
🧵/ FEC records show the current CEO of Conservative PAC is internet troll Preston Parra— self-described Columbian, Jewish, twink.
He's an odd choice to Whip for a group of influencers like Loomer, Fuentes, Wax, Fournier, who promote white nationalism.
2/

Apparently the funding bill is too woke for Rep. Mace, who points to the language change from 'offender' to 'justice-involved' person. The one problem? Those 'woke' changes are from Virginia Foxx (R), not a Democrat.
Foxx authored the bill and introduced it to the House.👇
🧵/
After Foxx introduced the bill on Dec 7, 2023, including the shift from 'Criminal' to 'Justice-Involved Individual', it was sent to the Committee on Education and Labor—where she is the chair—and underwent markup on Dec 12. The "woke" language in this week's CR? It's hers.
2/

"Where's Biden?!" ...in the United States.
He came back from Angola early Thursday.
He was at the WH Christmas tree lighting Thursday night. Yesterday, he gave remarks at a Pearl Harbor memorial event, and today he's with WWII veterans and survivors—
His schedule is public.
/ Americans are too illiterate to question their own echo chamber or look anywhere else. They're so insulated from real sources or news, so easily convinced with 280 characters.
Right or Left, people didn't bother to look at what was really happening.
/
forth.news/whpool

The Heritage Foundation doesn't just write policy: They commit fraud and manufacture evidence used by Republicans in Congress, in courts, briefs to SCOTUS, and by right-wing media. The scam is sloppy, and they often leave their names on it.👇
(This hasn't been reported on.)
/🧵 They play a game presenting information without context to make anyone outside their movement look bad— but that’s not what I’m talking about.
Heritage has been committing fraud for 5 decades, manufacturing documents and claiming they’ve retrieved them by FOIA or leaks.
2/

I want to clarify what I believe is happening, I think it’s important to put it on the record —
The reason the economic policies proposed by the Trump campaign are so bad is because their plan is to deliberately collapse the U.S. economy.
1/ What these people learned from Russia is that the wealthy benefit enormously from economic shocks. When they say they plan to shut down all government agencies, they mean it. As in Russia, assets will be sold off to the highest bidder, and only the ultra-wealthy will win.
2/