ABC host Jonathan Karl reminded Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) that former President Donald Trump had failed to notify Americans on at least three occasions when Chinese balloons entered the country's airspace.

During an interview on ABC, Karl asked Rubio if President Joe Biden should have gone against the advice of the U.S. military and instead shot the balloon down over populated land.

Rubio agreed that the debris could have "hurt, harmed or killed people."

"If that was the case, then I think it really would have been helpful for the president of the United States to get on national television and explain to the American people, this is what we're dealing with, this is what I'm going to do about it, and this is why I haven't done it yet. None of that happened. And I don't know why. I don't know why they waited so long to tell people about this."

But Karl pointed out that Trump had failed to disclose similar incidents at least three times.

"This happened three times under the previous president," the host said. "Obviously, there were no public notifications there."

Watch the ABC video below or at this link.

ABC host pops Marco Rubio's balloon rant youtu.be

Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) has faced a litany of accusations in his short time as a lawmaker. From financial mishandling, professional embellishments, and personal occurrences, Santos has been accused of lies across the board.

Now, a new analysis is breaking down the dynamics of compulsive lying. According to Business Insider, psychological experts have explained how compulsive lying is often a characteristic of a personality disorder.

"Many psychologists say compulsive lying is often a feature of a personality disorder, such as antisocial-personality disorder or narcissistic-personality disorder," Insider's Alia Shoaib wrote. "Compulsive lying is not, in itself, classified as a disorder in the DSM, the handbook healthcare professionals use as the guide to classifying mental-health disorders."

READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene 'let the truth slip' about George Santos’ departure from House committees: MSNBC

Speaking to Insider, Christian Hart —a psychology professor at Texas Woman's University— weighed in with a detailed explanation of pathological lying.

Hart admitted that he cannot deliver a formal diagnosis of the New York lawmaker because he doesn't have specific details about his background but he also insisted that it does appear he engages in pathological lying.

According to Hart, Santos said, "lied about being a star athlete on a volleyball team at a kind of a lower-tier college — that wouldn't carry any cache for most people. But just because we can't see the purpose of the lie doesn't mean the purpose doesn't exist for him. Perhaps, he's always had a sense of inferiority about not being an athletic person, and so to be seen that way means a lot to him where it would mean nothing to other people."

"In the sense that most people use the term 'pathological lying,' I'd say yes, it seems like he's got this long track history preceding his entering into politics where he's cultivated this reputation of being an extremely dishonest person," Hart said.

READ MORE: Watch: Candidate George Santos told news outlet that 'my parents were both down there' on September 11th

So what is the purpose of lying? According to Hart, "people don't lie unless there is some incentive to do so — though this incentive might not always be obvious to an outsider."

He also noted that: "When people have historically defined pathological lying, many of them have said these people lie with no apparent reason. But I argue that it does serve a purpose, it's just a purpose that we are unfamiliar with."

Offering a similar perspective, Drew Curtis, a psychology professor at Angelo State University, also offered an explanation about the origin of compulsive lying. Curtis explained that "pathological lying is often due to a combination of factors involving environment and genetics, both nature and nurture, and typically begins in later childhood and adolescence."

He also pointed out that Santos' deception appears to be a conscious act.

"I think in the case of Santos, he's come out, at least from my understanding, he's come out and apologized and said, you know, this wasn't necessarily true," Curtis said. "So then if someone's claiming that what they said wasn't true, then I think it's easier to say that was a deception, not a delusion."

READ MORE: 'I lied to him': Leaked audio reveals George Santos admitting to his deception and 'bad judgement'

Nikki Haley "embodies" the collapse of the modern Republican Party post-Trump, said former Mitt Romney presidential chief strategist Stuart Stevens to Business Insider, according to an article released on Sunday.

"Mitt Romney's former aide blasted Nikki Haley in a recent interview over the former South Carolina governor's decision to enter the 2024 GOP presidential primary, saying she 'doesn't have anything else to do' and arguing that she is actually seeking a vice presidential slot," reported John L. Dorman. "Stuart Stevens — who was Romney's chief strategist for his 2012 White House run and also a senior advisor for the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project — questioned Haley's motivation for running for the presidency during a February 2 interview on MSNBC."

"Why is Nikki Haley running? I don't think she's really running because she thinks she's going to be president of the United States," said Stevens. "First of all, she doesn't have anything else to do. She's raised some money here in her PAC and she'll run. And I would say she's running to be vice president. I don't think she's going to go out there and attack Donald Trump."

"No one else really embodies sort of the collapse of the party as well as Nikki Haley," Stevens continued. "She was what the party was supposed to be. She went out and said that Donald Trump was everything that she taught her children not to be, and she went from that to saying that she wants to carry on the Trump legacy. It's just so sad. She's already broken before she gets in the race."

Two years ago, Haley told reporters she would not run against Trump if he ran for president again. Last month, however, she reversed this in an interview on Fox News, saying she believes she can be part of a new generation of leaders in contrast to the more elderly Trump and President Joe Biden.

Haley is reportedly expected to launch her campaign for president formally later this month — which would make her the only major Republican presidential candidate to do so other than Trump himself, who is busy trying to reboot a campaign launch that was panned by experts as phoned in.

"Fox & Friends" host Rachel Campos-Duffy is adamantly insisting the U.S. Military did not take swift action to strike down the Chinese spy balloon because President Joe Biden "sought 'permission' from China" before doing so, according to Mediaite.

The remarks were made during a recent segment of "Fox & Friends." The panel of right-wing hosts did not mince words expressing their concern and disapproval of the Biden administration's delayed actions regarding the spy balloon.

Per the news outlet, Campos-Duffy "theorized that Biden wasn’t ordering the balloon to be shot down because China supposedly has leverage over the president concerning Hunter Biden."

READ MORE: Fox & Friends descends into chaos as one host actually calls out Trump's ridiculous attack on Democrats

“There’s a lot in that laptop that might have something to do with this response,” she said Saturday.

Hours after the Fox News segment aired, the balloon was struck down and Biden spoke with reporters about the incident as he insisted that he wanted it shot down on Wednesday of this week but refrained from doing so under the advice of national security.

However, Campos-Duffy argues otherwise. According to the Fox News host, Biden could be "'potentially compromised' over his son’s business dealings with the Chinese."

"This took so long as you said. There is no explanation unless there is some intelligence gathering on our part we needed with this balloon," Campos-Duffy said. "Again, back to the question that Pete asked, why would we take that long? Is it possible that our president was getting permission from the Chinese to take it down? I mean, let’s just all be honest. He is potentially compromised by many of the business deals his family made with the Chinese Communist government?"

READ MORE: Who is Fox News guest Jeffrey Tucker who whined about Monticello’s 'Wokeism'?

Kirk Lippold, a former U.S. Navy commander, also weighed in in agreement with Campos-Duffy.

"Thats a great point, Rachel. When I look at it, we should not have hesitated, when you look at it. This reminds me of kind of that mindset that our country had pre-9/11," Lippold said. "We were not apprecting the threat that al Qaeda represented to our nation, and I think today, we do not appreciate the threat that China represents to our national security. They are not a competitor. By their actions they are in fact taking decisive measures making them more of an enemy of the United States than an actual competitor, and certainly not someone we can cooperate and work with."

Watch the video below or at this link.

FOX & Friends 2/4/23 | FOX BREAKING NEWS February 4, 2023 www.youtube.com

READ MORE: House oversight chairman mocked for pushing unfounded balloon conspiracy theories

A U.S. physician took to the op-ed pages of The New York Times on Sunday to offer a scathing condemnation of the country's for-profit healthcare system and his profession's historical complicity in campaigns against universal coverage.

"Doctors have long diagnosed many of our sickest patients with 'demoralization syndrome,' a condition commonly associated with terminal illness that's characterized by a sense of helplessness and loss of purpose," wrote Eric Reinhart, a physician at Northwestern University. "American physicians are now increasingly suffering from a similar condition, except our demoralization is not a reaction to a medical condition, but rather to the diseased systems for which we work."

"The United States is the only large high-income nation that doesn't provide universal healthcare to its citizens," Reinhart continued "Instead, it maintains a lucrative system of for-profit medicine. For decades, at least tens of thousands of preventable deaths have occurred each year because healthcare here is so expensive."

The coronavirus pandemic accelerated that trend and spotlighted the fatal dysfunction of the nation's healthcare system, which is dominated by a handful of massive corporations whose primary goal is profit, not the delivery of care.

According to one peer-reviewed study published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a universal single-payer healthcare system could have prevented more than 338,000 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. from the beginning of the crisis through mid-March 2022.

"In the wake of this generational catastrophe, many healthcare workers have been left shaken," Reinhart wrote Sunday. "One report estimated that in 2021 alone, about 117,000 physicians left the workforce, while fewer than 40,000 joined it. This has worsened a chronic physician shortage, leaving many hospitals and clinics struggling. And the situation is set to get worse. One in five doctors says he or she plans to leave practice in the coming years."

"To try to explain this phenomenon, many people have leaned on a term from pop psychology for the consequences of overwork: burnout. Nearly two-thirds of physicians report they are experiencing its symptoms," he added.

But for Reinhart, the explanation lies more in "our dwindling faith in the systems for which we work" than in the "grueling conditions we practice under."

He explained:

What has been identified as occupational burnout is a symptom of a deeper collapse. We are witnessing the slow death of American medical ideology.

It's revealing to look at the crisis among healthcare workers as at least in part a crisis of ideology—that is, a belief system made up of interlinking political, moral, and cultural narratives upon which we depend to make sense of our social world. Faith in the traditional stories American medicine has told about itself, stories that have long sustained what should have been an unsustainable system, is now dissolving.

During the pandemic, physicians have witnessed our hospitals nearly fall apart as a result of underinvestment in public health systems and uneven distribution of medical infrastructure. Long-ignored inequalities in the standard of care available to rich and poor Americans became front-page news as bodies were stacked in empty hospital rooms and makeshift morgues. Many healthcare workers have been traumatized by the futility of their attempts to stem recurrent waves of death, with nearly one-fifth of physicians reporting they knew a colleague who had considered, attempted, or died by suicide during the first year of the pandemic alone.

Although deaths from Covid have slowed, the disillusionment among health workers has only increased. Recent exposés have further laid bare the structural perversity of our institutions. For instance, according to an investigation in The New York Times, ostensibly nonprofit charity hospitals have illegally saddled poor patients with debt for receiving care to which they were entitled without cost and have exploited tax incentives meant to promote care for poor communities to turn large profits. Hospitals are deliberately understaffing themselves and undercutting patient care while sitting on billions of dollars in cash reserves.

Acknowledging that "little of this is new," Reinhart wrote that "doctors' sense of our complicity in putting profits over people has grown more difficult to ignore."

"From at least the 1930s through today, doctors have organized efforts to ward off the specter of 'socialized medicine,'" he wrote. "We have repeatedly defended health care as a business venture against the threat that it might become a public institution oriented around rights rather than revenue."

Confronting and beginning to solve the myriad crises of the U.S. healthcare system will "require uncomfortable reflection and bold action," Reinhart argued, and "any illusion that medicine and politics are, or should be, separate spheres has been crushed under the weight of over 1.1 million Americans killed by a pandemic that was in many ways a preventable disaster."

"Doctors can no longer be passive witnesses to these harms," he concluded. "We have a responsibility to use our collective power to insist on changes: for universal healthcare and paid sick leave but also investments in community health worker programs and essential housing and social welfare systems... Regardless of whether we act through unions or other means, the fact remains that until doctors join together to call for a fundamental reorganization of our medical system, our work won’t do what we promised it would do, nor will it prioritize the people we claim to prioritize."

Reinhart's op-ed came as the prospects for legislative action to transform the U.S. healthcare system appear as distant as ever, despite broad public support for a government guarantee of universal coverage.

With the for-profit status quo deeply entrenched—preserved by armies of industry lobbyists and members of Congress who do their bidding—the consequences are becoming increasingly dire, with tens of millions uninsured or underinsured and one health crisis away from financial ruin.

In a study released last month, the Commonwealth Fund found that "the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy at birth, the highest death rates for avoidable or treatable conditions, the highest maternal and infant mortality, and among the highest suicide rates" among rich countries, even as it spends far more on healthcare than comparable nations both on a per-person basis and as a share of gross domestic product.

"Not only is the U.S. the only country we studied that does not have universal health coverage," the study added, "but its health system can seem designed to discourage people from using services."

An anti-abortion group in Spokane has been ordered to pay about $960,000 to Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho after its protests were found to have interfered with patient care, the Spokane Spokesman-Review reported.

The Church at Planned Parenthood was ordered to pay $110,000 in civil damages to Planned Parenthood last month after a Spokane County judge ruled that the group interfered with patient care, violating state law, the Spokesman-Review reported.

The anti-abortion group also will be required to pay attorneys’ fees totaling $850,000, it reported, citing Legal Voice, a legal advocacy organization in the state of Washington. That number was reached as part of a settlement between Planned Parenthood and the church’s insurance company.

“This is a critical victory for Planned Parenthood at a time of historical attacks on abortion access,” said Planned Parenthood's Paul Dillon.

The web of conservative activist groups and donors informally known as the "Koch network" plans to oppose former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential primaries, reported The Washington Post on Sunday — breaking a years-long silence as the network has sat out "overt" politics for a few years.

"The move marks the most notable example to date of an overt and coordinated effort from within conservative circles to stop Trump from winning the GOP nomination for a third straight presidential election," reported Isaac Arnsdorf. "Some Republicans have grown increasingly frustrated with Trump after disappointing midterm elections in which he drew blame for elevating flawed candidates and polarizing ideas. But absent a consolidated effort to stop Trump, many critics fear he will be able to exploit GOP divisions and chart a course to the nomination as he did in 2016."

The Koch network's plans were laid out in a memo released on Sunday by Emily Seidel, director of Americans for Prosperity (AFP) — the flagship group that coordinates the Koch efforts.

“The best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter,” said the memo. “Lots of people are frustrated. But very few people are in a position to do something about it. AFP is. Now is the time to rise to the occasion.”

The Koch brothers, Charles and David — the latter of whom passed away in 2019 — are billionaire business tycoons who built a network of chemical companies. For years, they were some of the most well-known right-wing megadonors and villains to liberal activists. After David Koch's unsuccessful run for vice president in the 1980s, the two largely tried to influence politics from the sidelines, supporting the Tea Party movement in the 2010s and pushing Republican candidates who supported their libertarian philosophy of government.

The Koch brothers, despite their efforts helping to make Trump's initial election possible in 2016, soured on Trump early in his presidency, and the feeling was mutual, with Trump publicly attacking them during his time in office.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has moved to retaliate against an Orlando-based performing arts venue in his state that recently hosted a drag show back in December of last year.

According to HuffPost, the Republican governor's move came after a 27-page complaint was filed by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. The complaint accused the Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation of violating Florida state law by “knowingly” welcoming attendees under the age of 18 to watch a show called “A Drag Queen Christmas.”

As a result of the complaint, DeSantis is moving to have the venue stripped of its liquor license.

READ MORE: Truth on trial: In a world of speed, will the courts go down?

Per the news outlet: "The Dec. 28 event was billed as the 8th annual holiday drag show. Photos from the venue show at least two children apparently being led into the audience. The complaint also contained still images of the stage; one featured a screen with a finger pointing into a holiday wreath. Others showed shirtless men and a costumed drag queen wearing antlers."

The complaint pointed out a total of six counts of civil violations according to Florida statutes' laws regarding lewd content being displayed where in the presence of minors.

"Songs performed included 'Screwdolph the Red-Nippled Reindeer,' which, according to the complaint, featured the following lyrics: 'Then one soggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say, ‘Screwdolph with your nipples so bright won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?’” HuffPost reports.

It also highlighted a number of songs played during the show that it deemed controversial.

READ MORE: Did some of our federal police conspire to overthrow the United States?

The move comes as DeSantis continues his attack on the LGBTQ community while accusing them of child abuse; one that appears to be lauded by his far-right supporters as speculation brews about his possible 2024 presidential run.

READ MORE: 'Fox News bankrolls it': Network blasted for giving Libs of TikTok founder a platform to spew hate

For centuries, the Okefenokee Swamp has been a haven for people, animals, and plants. The wilderness, which straddles the Georgia-Florida border, is a mire of winding, midnight waters, giant cypress trees cloaked in Spanish moss, and peat islands floating among alligators and lily pads. The swamp has seen many chapters: It was part of the homelands of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation before the Tribe was forcibly removed from Georgia in the 1820s and 1830s. A hundred years later, the swamp came under federal protection as a national wildlife refuge.

Now, yet another chapter may be approaching for the Okefenokee watershed: a titanium mining site.

For years, the Okefenokee Swamp has been warding off Alabama-based Twin Pines Minerals, which in 2019 filed for permits for a mining project just outside of the refuge. The company hopes to extract titanium dioxide, which can be used to create bright white pigments used in a wide variety of consumer and industrial products. While the swamp itself is not at risk of being turned into a giant mining pit, the project would result in a 500-by-100-foot pit in the nearby Trail Ridge, which holds the swamp waters in place.

This January, the mine moved one step closer to breaking ground when the Georgia Environmental Protection Division released a draft plan for the development and opened a 60-day period of public comment. The progress was made possible by a short-lived Trump administration rule that created a window of opportunity for industrial projects to proceed along protected waterways — even without a federal permit.

"What we're seeing at Twin Pines is not the only example of waterways that remain at risk because of the prior administration's rule," said Kelly Moser, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, of the Okefenokee Swamp. "It is the most striking example, given that it jeopardizes one of our most iconic and valuable natural resources, but it is not alone."

During Trump's time in office, the federal government rolled back hundreds of environmental protections, enacting many new pro-industry policies. Among those was the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, which removed the protection of the Clean Water Act — aimed at preventing water pollution — from huge swaths of streams and wetlands across the United States.

The rule lasted just over 16 months before it was vacated by a federal judge who cited "fundamental, substantive flaws" in the rule. But the damage had already been done: During that time period, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers reported a three-fold increase in projects that no longer needed federal permits. At least 333 of those projects would have required a permit had it not been for the rule.

Companies were trying to take advantage of "the fast food window" to grab their project clearances, said Stu Gillespie, a supervising senior attorney with Earthjustice. (The nonprofit has been involved in litigation against the Army Corps of Engineers and mining companies as a result of the Navigable Water Protection Rule.) He said these projects are likely to have environmental, cultural and potential health consequences that will play out over decades.

"The harms are irreparable," Gillespie said.

For the Twin Pines mining site, the Trump-era rule meant that for a brief but meaningful window, all the waters associated with the project site were abruptly excluded from federal protection. During that period, the Army Corps of Engineers determined the project only required state approval, a small hill to climb compared to the regulatory mountain that is the federal Clean Water Act, in order to proceed.

As with other projects where all the waters were determined not to be under federal protection during that period, the Corps' decision at Twin Pines has been allowed to stand despite the fact that the rule they were based on is no longer in place. For projects where the federal government still had jurisdiction under the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, many of these had to go back to the starting line.

Scientists from the University of Georgia as well as the Fish and Wildlife Administration have warned against the Twin Pines project moving forward. In 2019, in a document obtained by the Defenders of Wildlife and shared with Grist, the Fish and Wildlife listed concerns about the project's impact on water levels in the Okefenokee, increasing the likelihood of fires, and destroying habitats. "The effects of the action may be permanent to the entire 438,000-acre swamp and nearby ecosystems on nearby Trail Ridge," the agency wrote.

Moser called the situation "an absurdity." The Corps "is not protecting critical wetlands that have been waters of the United States and are waters of the United States," she said.

Across the country, about an hour south of Tucson, Arizona, another mining complex is already breaking ground as a result of the Navigable Waters Protection Rule. The Copper World Complex is owned by Hudbay Minerals, a Toronto-based mining company. Just like Twin Pines, the Trump-era rule allowed Hudbay to proceed without the need for a federal permit. Within the complex, ephemeral waterways — dry stream beds that turn into rivers or streams after periods during the monsoon season — weave through the slope of the Santa Rita Mountains. These waterways are essential to maintaining surface water levels of the Santa Cruz River, but were categorically excluded from protection under the Navigable Waters Protection Rule.

Still, the two projects have faced multiple legal stumbling blocks. In June 2022, the Army Corps of Engineers identified the proposals in a memo rescinding its previous determinations as a result of the agency's previous failure to consult local tribes: the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Georgia, and the the Tohono O'odham Nation, Pascua Yaqui Tribe, and Hopi Tribe in Arizona. But after Twin Pines filed a civil suit, the Corps reinstated its Trump-era determination for that site, putting the fate of the project back in Georgia's hands.

The Corps seems to have applied the same thinking to Hudbay's Arizona mining project. "Unlike Twin Pines, there hasn't been any kind of out-of-court settlement with Hudbay or anything along those lines," said Earthjustice's Gillespie. The progress in the Copper World Mining Complex is "a direct result" of the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, he said.

Under the guise of Trump-era guidelines, Hudbay has already begun development in the Santa Rita Mountain range, filling the stream beds that are technically back under federal protection.

In November 2022, the Southern Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers, arguing the agency was in charge of protecting "waters of the United States," such as the freshwater wetlands on which the Twin Pines mining site might be built. But at the state level, there are no Georgia laws protecting freshwater wetlands. "The state has always abdicated that responsibility to the federal government," said hydrologist and University of Georgia professor Rhett Jackson.

In order to proceed, both Twin Pines and Hudbay await only a handful of state permits from Georgia and Arizona, respectively. These permits are related to air quality and groundwater withdrawals, but do not need to address the potential destruction of the waterways in question.

In Arizona, state law restricts its own water department from regulating streams not under federal protection. But the Environmental Protection Agency has begun an investigation into the Copper World site to "determine whether there's been violations to the Clean Water Act," Gillespie said.

In Georgia, the project must first hurdle the 60-day period of public comment, which began January 19, for Twin Pines' draft mining plan. With the fate of the Okefenokee Swamp at risk, voices have risen up against the mine both locally and nationally, with opposition likely to reach a fever pitch over the next few months.

Jackson is one of those opposed to the project. "I have traveled all over the world (29 countries), hiked in many national parks, and worked as a wilderness ranger in the North Cascade Range of Washington State, and I have never seen anything more beautiful than the Okefenokee Swamp," he wrote in an email to Grist.

Meanwhile, Twin Pines sees the period of public comment as a victory: It moves the project forward.

"We are pleased to have reached this important milestone in the permitting process and appreciate the Georgia [Environmental Protection Division] EPD's diligence in evaluating our application," said Steve Ingle, president of Twin Pines Minerals, in a statement. "This is a great opportunity for people to learn the truth about what our operations will and will not do, and the absurdity of allegations that our shallow mining-to-land-reclamation process will 'drain the swamp' or harm it in any way."

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division says it hopes to receive thoughtful feedback on the Twin Pines draft plan. "Good comments on the [Mining Land Use Plan] MLUP — additional analysis, data, technical perspectives, mitigation measures, etc. — helps EPD make better decisions and we look forward to the process," said the department's Communications Director, Sara Lips.

The federal government, however, is putting pressure on Georgia to halt the project. In September 2022, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland visited the Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge along with Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia. The pair spoke with over a dozen local leaders about protecting the area, according to WABE. Just two months later, Halaand wrote to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, urging him to halt approval of the mine.

The recommendation is a reminder of how fast the wheels of politics can turn — albeit with lasting environmental consequences. "What the Trump rule did was embolden industry to flout the law, to ignore the science, and to rally around this false approach to protecting waters of the United States," Gillespie said. Furthermore, it gave extractive industries a roadmap for circumventing the federal permitting process for protecting waterways.

We see that companies "are continuing to press those very same arguments," Gillespie said.

The White House on Saturday condemned a newly introduced Republican bill that would repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, a law that includes a number of changes aimed at lowering costs for Medicare recipients.

Unveiled Thursday by freshman Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), the bill has 20 original co-sponsors and is endorsed by several right-wing groups, including the Koch-funded organization Americans for Prosperity.

The Biden White House argued that rolling back the Inflation Reduction Act, which also contains major climate investments, would represent "one of the biggest Medicare benefit cuts in American history" as well as a "handout to Big Pharma." According to Politico, which first reported the White House's response to the GOP bill, the administration is planning to release "state-by-state data indicating how this would affect constituents in different areas."

"House Republicans are trying to slash lifelines for middle-class families on behalf of rich special interests," White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement. "Who on earth thinks that welfare for Big Pharma is worth selling out over a million seniors in their home state?”

The Inflation Reduction Act authorized a $35-per-month cap on insulin copayments for Medicare recipients, as well as an annual $2,000 total limit on out-of-pocket drug costs.

The bill will also, among other long-overdue changes, allow Medicare to begin negotiating the prices of a subset of the most expensive prescription drugs directly with pharmaceutical companies, which fiercely opposed the law and are working with Republicans to sabotage it. The newly negotiated prices are set to take effect in 2026.

Ogles, whose two-page bill would eliminate the above reforms, repeatedly attacked Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs and protections during his 2022 campaign for the U.S. House.

The White House's critique of Ogles' bill comes as Biden is facing pressure from advocates and physicians to cancel a Medicare privatization scheme that his administration inherited from its right-wing predecessor and rebranded.

It also comes as the White House is locked in a standoff with House Republicans over the debt ceiling. Republican lawmakers have pushed for deeply unpopular cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and other critical federal programs as a necessary condition for any deal to raise the country's borrowing limit and avert a catastrophic default.

"In less than a month, MAGA extremists have threatened to drive the economy into a recession by defaulting on our debt, promised to bring up a bill to impose a 30% national sales tax, and now have introduced legislation to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act," Patrick Gaspard, president and CEO of the Democratic Party-aligned Center for American Progress said in a statement. "This will cut taxes for corporations who earn billions in profit while empowering Big Pharma and Big Oil to continue ripping off the American people."

"It is vital that all Americans understand what is at risk if MAGA extremists succeed in passing their latest dangerous idea: millions of lost jobs, millions more without health insurance, and higher costs for lifesaving insulin, utilities, and more," Gaspard added.

Merrick Garland should have indicted Donald Trump as soon as he had the chance, according to one legal expert.

The attorney general could have charged the former president for hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and refusing to hand them over to the National Archives immediately after the ultra-conservative Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Dec. 1 unanimously affirmed the Justice Department search warrant, and Washington Monthly columnist James D. Zirin argued that recent events only make that failure look worse.

"Garland also knew what we didn’t: A few weeks earlier, Joe Biden’s lawyers had uncovered a file of government documents, some of them classified, at the Washington office Biden had used for his work with the Penn Biden Center, the think tank he founded after he served as vice president," Zirin wrote. "Even if the attorney general had allowed for the possibility that Biden might have more government documents elsewhere, Garland could easily have distinguished the two cases and moved forward with a Trump prosecution."

Zirin, a former federal prosecutor, points out that Biden cooperated with investigators from the start while Trump stalled and obstructed until FBI agents executed the search warrant, and he argued that Garland knows, and has always known, more about the inner workings of both cases than has been publicly revealed.

"However the facts fall, Garland may have dug a hole for himself, courted further delay, and dealt a lethal blow to the ideal of principled non-partisan justice," Zirin wrote.

United States Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) told right-wing commentator Steve Bannon on Saturday that he would back efforts to slash spending toward the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as a substitute for cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Nearly half of those Americans who benefit from SNAP are children.

"I just don't understand why we're a country that pays people who could go to work, not to. And when I go..." Gaetz began.

"How big a deal is that? Does that come away with the emergency measures coming off or is it deeper?" Bannon interrupted to ask.

READ MORE: Coalition of progressive advocacy groups aim to fight off GOP threats to Social Security and Medicare

"Oh, considerably deeper. And by the way, it pays you on both sides of the ledger, right? If you impose work requirements on all means-tested entitlement programs for working-age people, not for the disabled, not for seniors, but for working-age people, it's a trillion dollars in savings during the ten-year budget window," Gaetz said on War Room.

"This is in Medicaid and other..." Bannon interjected.

"This is in Medicaid and in food stamps," Gaetz stated.

"... in food stamps. Discretionary spending," Bannon added.

READ MORE: Letter from 30 of Matt Gaetz’s classmates 'denounced' him as 'the antithesis of a citizen lawyer'

"Yeah. The biggest chunks are from the Obamacare Medicaid expansion to able-bodied adults and to the SNAP program. It's over 400 billion to SNAP," the congressman continued.

"So Social Security and Medicare are off the table. But you're saying taking Medicaid and other aspects of discretion?" Bannon wondered.

"Well look, if it was Matt Gaetz, I think that we do need reforms to Social Security and Medicare. I understand politically enough people have said that's off the table," Gaetz mused.

"But that can come later," Bannon added.

"By the way, Medicaid should not be a sacred cow. And so it hasn't been," said Gaetz. "You notice people and talk about Medicaid the same way they're talking about Social Security, right? So with Medicaid, I think there's a lot of meat on the bone for savings. In SNAP, you can get over 400 billion in savings."

Watch below or at this link.

\u201cMatt Gaetz personally supports cuts to Social Security and Medicare but said politically Republicans should start with cuts to SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid.\n\nGaetz: \u201cIf it were Matt Gaetz, I think we do need reforms to Social Security and Medicare.\u201d\u201d

— PatriotTakes \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@PatriotTakes \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8) 1675531708

READ MORE: Matt Gaetz: Voting to oust Ilhan Omar from committee was 'tit-for-tat' for removing Marjorie Taylor Greene

As with most days this week, it’s nearly impossible to understand what’s happening in Bakhmut. So take everything that follows about the situation in that area with a full cup of salt.

Bakhmut area. Open image in another tab for a larger look.

According to pro-Russian sources, Wagner Group mercenaries have moved up from the Optyne area into streets along the south end of Bakhmut proper. Videos have been posted that appear to confirm the presence of Wagner forces in this area.

On the east side of Bakhmut, there doesn’t seem to have been any real change in position with Russian forces still noted along the road to the east and moving toward “the winery.” For all the fighting that took place in this area, it’s becoming increasingly irrelevant to the outcome in Bakhmut.

Russian forces are also reported to have moved into portions in parts of both Pidhorodne and Paraskoiivka, though neither area has been overrun. Repelling the Russian movement in this area is critical to Ukraine’s hold on Bakhmut. Should Paraskoiivka be occupied, it would give Russia control of the highway junction north of the city, which is now the only major supply route for troops and equipment moving into or out of Bakhmut. What Ukraine does now, it heavily affected by how well it’s able to hang onto that location.

Meanwhile up the road at Kreminna, Ukraine is reporting Russian attacks repelled near Nevske and Makiivka. The fact that both attacks were repelled is certainly a good thing, but that they happened at all generates a lot of questions.

Kreminna area. Open image in another tab for a larger view.

For better than a month now, Ukraine has controlled the crossroads east of Ploshchanka and the highway down to Chervonopopivka. At times, Ukraine has challenged Russian positions at Holykove, as well as attacking south into Zhytlivka.

This northern axis of the battle for Kreminna represents an important tactical position, not just because it gives Ukraine another angle from which to assault Russian positions in the occupied city, but because it prevents Russian forces from moving materiel and troops along the highway between Kreminna and Svatove.

Does the report of attacks on Nevske and Makiivka mean that Ukraine has lost its positions on the P66 highway? It would seem that way. However, Russia has long held a position in the wooded area northwest of Kreminna, using that location in the past to strike to the south at Ukrainian positions in Dibrova. It’s possible that, rather than moving up the highway, Russian forces moved out of that little “red nose” northwest of Kreminna to make their assaults near Nevske and Makiivka.

However, the most reasonable assumption would seem to be that Russia’s “big push” out of Kreminna has succeeded in regaining control over the highway area, even if it hasn’t apparently displaced Ukrainian forces in the woods south of Kreminna. An earlier attempt by Russian forces to move directly west was apparently dampened (literally) by the same mud that has made this such a difficult approach for Ukrainian troops over the last month.

Pro-Russian bloggers are spending this Saturday engaging in the count of a lot of unhatched chickens. Right now, the plot goes like this: Russia displaces Ukraine from Bakhmut, forcing Ukraine to move to defensive positions to the west. That leaves a line of Ukrainian positions on the current front line — including Spirne and Bilohorivka — hanging in the wind. Ukraine then drops back to at least Siversk, if not another ten kilometers to the west. This means that the forces on the south side of Kreminna can no longer be supported and … bing, bang, boom, Russia is back in Lyman.

They’re already celebrating as if this has happened, but at the moment … none of it has happened. The sheer number of Russian forces on the front lines, and the relatively better equipment and training of those forces as reported over the last few weeks, is certainly not encouraging. But there seems to be no reason to assume that Ukraine is about to surrender larger areas, even if Russia does finally manage to reach Bakhmut a year into their invasion.

CNN has more on the amazing life, and tragic loss, of volunteer Pete Reed.

Reed started his humanitarian career working after Superstorm Sandy hit his home state of New Jersey, according to the biography pages on the Global Response Medicine and Global Outreach Doctors websites. Reed led medical teams during the Battle for Mosul in Iraq, treating over 10,000 trauma patients, according to the websites.

Reed died helping to evacuate civilians from Bakhmut. He was just 33.

A couple of assistance packages back, the U.S. included a line item for “8 patrol boats” for Ukraine. It’s one of those easy things to scan past, and the use of the term “boat” rather than “ship” could give the impression of something with an outboard and just enough room to paint “harbor patrol” across the bow. But this feature from KING 5 television in Bremerton, WA shows these boats under construction, and they’re a long way from what you might think. It’s worth getting past the ad to see what these things are like. To begin with, they are 85’ long, sleek, and fast.

These boats seem ideal for not just racing along the Black Sea coast, but cutting among the islands on the Dnipro River to deliver special forces, escort barges, or take out attempted crossings by Russian forces.

We’ve had a few notes in the past about Ukraine’s homegrown T-84 tank. Ukraine made this tank based on the Soviet T-80, but it’s more than just an updated version of the old tank like the many versions of the T-64 or T-72. It’s the result of plans that were in the works at the end of the Cold War, and which included a new welded turret to replace the old cast turrets still used on the T-80. It has a new, more powerful diesel engine and a new transmission that’s designed to make it faster and more agile forward, in reverse, and when spinning in place. It also has much more modern electronics giving it a better view range. On paper at least, it’s a much-improved tank.

Ukraine began cranking them out in 1994, and has actually exported the tanks to militaries in several nations. At one point, the tank was even marketed as the “T-84 Supertank” to highlight its improvements over the T-80.

T-84U Oplot. Ukrainian-made main battle tank review. Why tanks still matter? youtu.be

But even though it sold the tank to others (including selling four examples to the United States), Ukraine’s fiscal issues made it hard to build a significant number of T-84 tanks for its own use. There may have been as few as six of the tanks in Ukrainian service when Russia invaded. Ukraine was also working on a version of the T-84 that used NATO standard ammo, and at least one of these tanks—called the T-84-120—was demonstrated near the factory in Kharkiv. Several may have been built. However, many parts of the tank were manufactured at facilities in Crimea, so after 2014 it became impossible to produce more.

If Ukraine had a full compliment of T-84-120 tanks, it’s entirely possible that Western tanks would not have even been on their shopping list. It’s worth watching the video to see how good this tank looks when compared to a T-80.

Right now, Oryx has not confirmed the loss of a single T-84, and there have definitely been videos of the tank in service. How many T-84s are out there, and how effective is it really when facing off with its Soviet-era relatives? We don’t know.

It’s possible I’m including this mostly because of the soundtrack. However, the ineffectiveness of the supposedly elite Russian forces at Vuhledar is somewhat reassuring when compared to all those claims of a big Russian offensive on the way.

Arizona's Republican-controlled state legislature advanced bills last month that they claim will improve election transparency — but voting rights advocates worry will actually have the opposite effect.

The state House elections committee last week voted to pass House Bill 2308 – a bill that would bar any future secretary of state from overseeing and confirming the results of an election if they are a candidate. The bill comes after then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs won the gubernatorial election in November.

"There's a lack of confidence from some of my constituents in the election itself," Republican state Rep. Rachel Jones of Tucson, who presented the bill, said during the committee meeting. "I think the optics of that – of a secretary of state running their own election for governor and then certifying that election was a major concern."

State Rep. Melody Hernandez, a Tempe Democrat, questioned why the bill was being presented now but wasn't a concern when GOP Secretaries of State Ken Bennett and Michele Reagan were on the ballot in 2014 and 2018.

Jones countered that the environment changed after the 2020 election and claimed that "there's a lack of confidence in our election process" now, which brought the issue to the forefront.

When state Rep. Oscar De Los Santos, a Democrat from Laveen, asked her if she had "any concrete evidence that there were any misdeeds from the secretary of state in the 2022 election," Jones responded saying "It was more just the optics."

"It was instilling a lack of confidence in the results of the election," she added.

While there has been no evidence of corruption in the election process, Arizona Republicans have continued to sponsor bills they claim will instill faith in the election system for voters. Citing a survey from Rasmussen Reports, which has a history of Republican-leaning polling, Jones shared that 71% of U.S. voters stated they believed the midterms were "botched" during the committee meeting.

But voting rights organizations raised concerns that advancing such bills can create more uncertainty around the election system and even increase threats against election administrators.

"These are the same people who brought you the 'fraudit' following the 2020 election," a Democratic source who asked to remain anonymous told Salon. "So, it just continues to be more bad-faith conspiracy theories and, frankly, I think voters are tired of it. This has been going on now for two years. And because of it, we've seen so much of violent rhetoric, resulting in threats to the safety of secretaries of state and election administrators up and down the ballot."

The Maricopa County elections office recorded nearly 140 threatening and hostile communications against election workers between July and August of last year, according to Reuters.

Many of these threats stemmed from conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election that were promoted by former President Donald Trump and his allies.

The threats asserted false claims of fake ballots, fixed voting machines and corruption among election officials in the county during the 2020 election.

The same efforts that were used to sow doubt about the election system after the 2020 election are being repeated now, said Hannah Fried, executive director of All Voting is Local and All Voting is Local Action.

"Despite the fact that our elections were overwhelmingly proven to be secure, reliable, trustworthy, there are still going to be efforts to drive mis- [and] disinformation from 2022, and use that as a pretextual basis for passing new laws, and that is exactly what we are seeing in Arizona," Fried added.

The Arizona legislature also passed three other bills, two of which the committee split along party lines.

House Bill 2319 would tell judges to "aggressively" favor an election-law interpretation that provides greater transparency and HB 2322 would put observers appointed by each party in charge of voter signature verification.

Observers would have the ability to challenge the decisions of election workers at polling places, voting centers and other counting facilities.

"Signature verification processes, often, the way they're carried out can be to the detriment of older voters," Fried said. "For example, people whose signatures have changed, you really want to be mindful of any kind of change because it can have a really direct impact on people's right to vote."

Beyond Arizona, other states are also enacting similar efforts to "chip away" at the opportunities that have helped more people access voting, she added.

If these efforts continue to advance in other states, it will allow legislators to strip power from people they didn't agree with, which defeats the purpose of having separate branches of government, a Democratic source told Salon.

"This is a hyper-partisan attack based on the fact that they don't like election results," said Kim Rogers, the executive director of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State. "And I think that Arizona, frankly, has one of the strictest voter fraud guidelines already in the country."

Republicans have pushed out unproven claims of voter fraud when it comes to in-person early voting and voting by mail. Many candidates even made the centerpiece of their campaigns promising to ban some of these efforts.

Republican Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake said she would support slashing early and mail-in voting citing unsubstantiated or disproven claims of widespread voter fraud. When she lost to her Democratic opponent Katie Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes in the midterm election, Lake refused to concede and instead filed a lawsuit against Hobbs and Maricopa County election officials claiming election fraud.

While her suit was dismissed in court last month, her efforts to sow doubt in the integrity of the election system have continued.

Lake came under fire recently for posting photos of voters' signatures on Twitter. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes asked Attorney General Kris Mayes to investigate her for potentially violating a state law that prohibits "records containing a voter's signature" from being used by another person who isn't the voter.

Even after election workers in Maricopa County were forced into hiding after receiving threats related to the 2022 midterms, Lake has continued to peddle conspiracy theories.

Now, the Republican-controlled Arizona legislature is passing bills fueled by such election conspiracy theories, which Fried pointed out has been a concerted effort to undermine election integrity for the last couple of years.

"There are points of connectivity between all of this," she added. "It's not happening by accident… people who are trying to break our systems are getting smarter about it, and the really kind of over-the-top stuff that we sometimes see getting replaced with things that look reasonable on the surface are not reasonable."

Nevada Democratic Party Chair Judith Whitmer said Friday that progressives won't stop working to stem the flow of untraceable cash into national primary contests after the DNC Resolutions Committee blocked a vote on her proposed dark money ban for the second time.

Whitmer, a DNC member, told Common Dreams that "time and time again, we've watched 'dark money' used to silence the voices our party most needs to hear."

"Our party and our country need strong Democratic candidates willing to speak truth to power, but when their messages can be drowned out in a flood of untraceable expenditures, many candidates are questioning why they should even run," Whitmer said. "Restoring faith in our democracy has never been more urgent, and that all-important work should start in our own primary elections."

Whitmer sponsored the proposed dark money ban alongside fellow DNC member James Zogby, who previously served as chair of the resolutions panel. If approved, the resolution would have prohibited dark money donations in Democratic primary contests and established guidelines for investigating any violations of the ban.

On Thursday, members of the DNC Resolutions Committee—who likely faced pressure from DNC leadership—stayed quiet when the proposed ban was put up for consideration, so the measure did not receive a vote. Had the committee approved the proposal, which was backed by dozens of DNC members, it would have gone to the full DNC for a vote this weekend. (The DNC doesn't publicize membership lists for its standing committees.)

"Although we were disappointed that the Resolutions Committee once again chose not to move our resolution forward, we will keep fighting to make our primaries a fair and level playing field for all candidates," Whitmer told Common Dreams.

Democratic leaders, including President Joe Biden, have repeatedly railed against the scourge of dark money, decried its corrupting influence, and pledged to rein it in—only to balk at pressure for substantive action.

The party's platform, adopted in 2020, states that "we will bring an end to 'dark money' by requiring full disclosure of contributors to any group that advocates for or against candidates."

Yet as the DNC leadership, headed by Chair Jaime Harrison, refuses to act on its rhetoric—and as congressional Republicans block broader legislative efforts to curtail dark money—Democratic incumbents continue to benefit from untraceable donations, which are frequently used to undercut progressive challengers.

Last year, the newly formed dark money group Opportunity for All Action Fund spent around $600,000 to bolster Reps. Donald Payne Jr. (D-N.J.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), and Danny Davis (D–Ill.).

All three went on to defeat their progressive primary opponents and win reelection. That pattern played out across the country, though some candidates—including Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), who was aggressively targeted by AIPAC's super PAC—were able to overcome torrents of opposition spending and prevail in November.

According to an August 2022 study by the Wesleyan Media Project, nearly 70% of pro-Democratic Senate ads up to that point in last year's election cycle were funded by groups that don't disclose any of their donors.

"Letting our primaries devolve into auctions, rather than elections, has done more than simply create an unequal and unfair playing field," Whitmer said during the DNC Resolutions Committee's last gathering in September. "In races around the nation, we've seen these underhanded tactics used to silence debate on critical issues, with competing views buried under an avalanche of dark money-funded messaging."

At this weekend's DNC meeting in Philadelphia, members are expected to approve a presidential primary calendar that would bump South Carolina up to the first-in-the-nation primary slot—a plan that has drawn criticism from some progressives.

But the issue of dark money is likely to be brushed aside once again.

While Democrats in Congress continue to push legislation to curb dark money across the board in federal elections, progress will be virtually impossible with a closely divided Senate and a Republican-controlled House, leaving internal party rule changes one of the only viable paths toward genuine campaign finance reform in the near future.

Larry Cohen, a DNC member and the board chair of Our Revolution, wrote in an email Friday that the DNC and state-level Democratic parties "have extensive rules relating to the nominating process, which provide many opportunities to block dark and dirty money."

"What happens inside the Democratic Party and inside party caucuses of elected Democrats is frequently ignored by progressives, who are generally more comfortable protesting and working solely outside the party. Of course, protest is essential, and new party-building is fine," Cohen wrote. "But for those of us who believe we must fight in every possible way to advance progressive issues and win real power, we ignore party reform at our peril, even as we demand broader electoral reforms, such as fusion and ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, and more."

Supreme Court employees raised security concerns that were not made public when an internal investigation was completed following the leak of a draft opinion reversing abortion rights.

Multiple sources familiar with the court's operations told CNN that justices often used personal email accounts for sensitive communications, employees used printers that didn't produce logs and "burn bags" to collect sensitive materials for destruction were often left open and unattended in hallways.

“This has been going on for years,” one former employee said.

Some justices were slow to adopt email technology -- they were "not masters of information security protocol," according to one source -- and court employees were afraid to confront them over the security risks.

Supreme Court marshal Gail Curley in her investigative report noted that printer logs intended to track document production were insufficient, but a former employee said employees who had VPN access could print documents from any computer, and remote work during COVID-19 shutdowns and otherwise meant draft opinions could have been taken from the building in violation of court guidelines.

Curley's report noted that court methods for destroying sensitive documents should be improved, but three employees said striped burn bags supplied to chambers were often left sitting out unattended, and each justice had their own protocols for disposing of court documents.

A source familiar with court security practices said some colleagues stapled burn bags shut, while others filled them to capacity and left them near their desks, and others simply left them sitting in hallways where anyone with access to non-public areas could have taken sensitive materials.

Fox News panelists on Friday's edition of The Five suggested that workers who call in sick are "lazy" and then trivialized medical leave as generally unnecessary.

American workers have access to fewer paid sick days than their counterparts compared to other industrialized countries.

"A total of more than 30 days of vacation time allotted to workers in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom stands in stark contrast to the 10 public holidays in the U.S., which are not guaranteed to come with pay," CNBC noted in 2018. And while many employees admit to "faking" illnesses, research shows that upper management does so much more often.

READ MORE: 'Worst game of chicken ever': Fox News host blames Kevin McCarthy's failed speakership bid on the media

Fox's hosts, however, implied that the concept is deeply flawed.

"If you're feeling sick, don't do this. Two-in-five employees will sniffle and cough around the office just to prove to their coworkers that they're actually under the weather instead of just taking a sick day. Judge, have you done that recently?" Harold Ford Jr. asked Jeanine Pirro.

"No but I'll tell you why they do it. Does that mean I did it? They do it to prove to people they really are sick. You don't want people to think you're just lazy and want to stay home. And eat candy. Dark chocolate," Pirro replied.

"You've been hacking up a lung this entire show," joked Jesse Watters.

READ MORE: Fox News host suggests Xbox's 'woke' power-saver mode is meant to brainwash kids about climate change

"Very specific," Martha McCallum chimed in.

"You didn't have to come in today. We could have had [Jessica] Tarlov or Geraldo [Rivera]. We get it," Watters added.

"I dunno, ya know, I'm not big on sick days. I don't think that you necessarily should have like, the six sick days every year. Then people say, 'Oh, I'm taking a sick day tomorrow!' which I think is really bogus," MacCallum continued. "I don't know. So we just come in and cough all over each other and push through. I mean, that's the way we work."

Watch below via Media Matters for America or at this link.

United States Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) lamented her life as a lawmaker in a recent episode of a podcast.

"The nature of this job – it keeps members of congress and senators in Washington so much of the time, too much of the time to be honest with you, that we don't get to go home and spend more time with our families, our friends, you know, all in our district, or maybe just be regular people because this job is so demanding, and it's turned into practically year-round," Greene said. "And for those of us in the House of Representatives, we have to run for Congress every two years. So you're practically campaigning nearly the entire time that you're here serving as a representative. So that's just a couple of examples that I can give you that I believe is a recipe for disaster, and that's how people just fall into this social club. I would call it a social club here in Washington, DC."

Greene successfully ran for a second term in November 2022 and is reportedly yearning for the vice presidency in 2024.

READ MORE: 'Performative disgrace': Marjorie Taylor Greene ridiculed for defending Ashli Babbitt while misspelling her name

"Now, for me, I have no interest in that. I really don't. And I'll tell you why," she continued. "Becoming a member of Congress has made my life miserable. I made a lot more money before I got here. I've lost money since I've gotten here. I have people come up to me and say crazy things to me out of the blue in public places that they believe because they read it on the Internet or saw it on some news show about me. So it's not a life that I think is, like, something that I enjoy because I don't enjoy it. But I'm committed to this job because I believe in it."

Watch below or at this link.

\u201cMarjorie Taylor Greene: \u201cBecoming a member of Congress has made my life miserable. I made a lot more money before I got here. I\u2019ve lost money since I\u2019ve gotten here. \u2026It\u2019s not a life that I think is like something that I enjoy because I don\u2019t enjoy it.\u201d\u201d

— PatriotTakes \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@PatriotTakes \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8) 1675451433

READ MORE: 'Regarding the issue of requesting pardons?' MTG trolled after demanding a debate with AOC

The “crisis at the border” is manufactured.

Immigrants are not “invading.”

Demonizing people who enter this country “illegally” is bad enough. But since the Trump administration, there seems to be a complete conflation of asylum seekers, who can’t file an asylum claim until they are inside the US, and those who cross the border illegally.

READ MORE: Abbott says he won’t give up COVID-era power until Texas lawmakers ban vaccine mandates, strengthen border

Asylum seekers are not entering the country “illegally” (by the very definition of asylum seeker, they can’t), but they are being targeted by federal policies aimed at curbing so-called “illegal immigration.”

Asylum seekers are refugees.

They apply for protected status from inside the desired country while refugees apply from outside the country. Barring asylum seekers from entering the US, or immediately deporting them for entering “illegally,” is denying any right to seek asylum in the US.

A confused mix

READ MORE: 'They increase the level of hate and violence': Adam Schiff blasts the GOP's 'demonization' of immigrants

US immigration policy has always been a confused mix of racism and desperate need. From the inception of the country until the post-Civil War era, immigration was mostly the purview of local and state government policies with few restrictions.

The first federal immigration laws targeted Chinese immigration in 1875 and 1882, which ushered in an era of increased immigration restrictions and bizarre eugenics-minded immigration quotas that even split Europeans into more or less “desirable” groups.

“Illegal entry,” resulting in “illegal immigration,” didn’t exist in the US until the passage of the 1921 and 1924 acts. Border control didn’t have the authority to arrest “illegal aliens” without a warrant until 1925.

For most of US history, there was no such thing as illegal immigrants. Law enforcement couldn’t arrest or detain those suspected of entering the country illegally without oversight from the courts.

This is something that the Biden administration and other proponents of immigration restrictions should remember when recalling family members who came to the US “legal immigrants.”

Asylum is a right

In the wake of the Holocaust, the US and much of the world opened their immigration policies to include refugees and asylum seekers.

The concept of an individual right to claim asylum began in the 20th century. The 1933 League of Nations Convention Relating to the International Status of Refugees required participating states to allow in refugees fleeing from neighboring states.

Prior to this period, asylum was connected more to religious sites offering sanctuary, though the recognition of the right dates back to Greek, Egyptian and Hebrew tradition. There were individual cases of countries offering political figures asylum, such as Karl Marx being accepted in the United Kingdom, in the 19th century as well.

The right to apply for asylum was recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. While this was a non-binding resolution, it showed a clear change in the understanding of the importance of asylum and ushered in a new age of international law.

In response to the Second World War’s upheaval, the US passed the first law to allow for the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of refugees in 1948. For the next 30 years, refugee resettlement was piecemeal in response to specific international crises.

Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980, which standardized resettlement services and incorporated the UN definition of “refugee” from the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees into US law. The US has a legal obligation to offer protection to those who qualify as refugees and allow people to seek asylum in the US.

The US removed obvious racial restrictions on immigration and naturalization in the 1950s (incompletely removed until 1965), but retained immigration restrictions that have gotten more draconian and implicitly (if no longer explicitly) racist over the years.

“The right way”

Unfortunately, both Democrats and Republicans have supported anti-immigrant policies. While Barack Obama began Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which offered a possibility of legal status for undocumented people brought to the US as children, his administration also oversaw historic rates of deportation. Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies were inhumane and unprecedented. While families seeking asylum had long been detained in horrible conditions, it wasn’t until the Trump administration that families were separated and little distinction was made between asylum seekers and those crossing “illegally.”

Trump instituted a number of anti-asylum policies while in office, including forcing asylum seekers to “remain in Mexico” while awaiting hearings and treating any asylum seeker who entered in between official ports as entering “illegally” and blocked them.

Trump also used the covid pandemic as an excuse to block asylum seekers for supposed public health concerns with Title 42 immediately “removing” anyone who crosses the border “illegally.”

While the Biden administration has been fighting Title 42 in court, the DOJ appealed the decision of a DC federal court to block it.

This is apparently an important legal strategy to support the power of the administrative state, but the administration’s recent immigration policies are also not supportive of asylum seekers.

While Title 42 is still in effect, Joe Biden announced it would be expanded to block those seeking asylum. While the president expands pathways, his policies and rhetoric emphasize “legal” pathways for people coming the right way who get “permission” first.

The government’s making

Once again, the entire concept of asylum presupposes that you do not need permission, but instead can apply once they are here.

However, with the expansion of Title 42, asylum from Haiti, Nicaragua and Cuba as well as the existing Title 42 application to migrants from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, means that asylum is a tiered and racialized process by which immigration is harder for migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Seeking asylum is a human right guaranteed by both American and international law. Asylum seekers must be treated humanely and with good faith rather than lectured on coming here the “right way.”

The only thing these new policies accomplish is inhumane treatment for desperate people to substantiate political rhetoric about the “illegal immigrants” who are causing a “crisis at the border.”

If there is a crisis, it’s of the government’s making.

READ MORE: Cops act as occupying armies to maintain the white-power status quo

After decades of criminalization, Australia's government said Friday that it will legalize the prescription of MDMA and psilocybin for the treatment of two medical conditions, a historic move hailed by researchers who have studied the therapeutic possibilities of the drugs.

Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said in a statement that starting July 1, psychiatrists may prescribe MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine), commonly called "Molly" or "ecstasy" by recreational users, to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psilocybin—the psychedelic prodrug compound in "magic" mushrooms—for treatment-resistant depression.

"These are the only conditions where there is currently sufficient evidence for potential benefits in certain patients," TGA said, adding that the drugs must be taken "in a controlled medical setting."

Advocates of MDMA and psilocybin are hopeful that one day doctors could prescribe them to treat a range of conditions, from alcoholism and eating disorders to obsessive-compulsive disorder.

David Caldicott, a clinical senior lecturer in emergency medicine at Australian National University, told The Guardian that Friday's surprise announcement is a "very welcome step away from what has been decades of demonization."

Caldicott said it is now "abundantly clear” that both MDMA and psilocybin "can have dramatic effects" on hard-to-treat mental health problems, and that "in addition to a clear and evolving therapeutic benefit, [legalization] also offers the chance to catch up on the decades of lost opportunity [of] delving into the inner workings of the human mind, abandoned for so long as part of an ill-conceived, ideological 'war on drugs.'"

MDMA—which has been criminalized in Australia since 1987—was first patented by German drugmaker Merck in the early 1910s. After World War II the United States military explored possibilities

Patients who've tried MDMA therapy and those who treat them say otherwise. A study published last year by John Hopkins Health found that in a carefully controlled setting, psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy held promise for "significant and durable improvements in depression."

The California-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)—the world's premier organization for psychedelic advocacy and research—interviewed Colorado massage therapist Rachael Kaplan about her MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD:

For the majority of my life I prayed to die and fought suicidal urges as I struggled with complex PTSD. This PTSD was born out of chronic severe childhood abuse. Since then, my life has been a journey of searching for healing. I started going to therapy 21 years ago, and since then I have tried every healing modality that I could think of, such as bodywork, energy work, medications, residential treatment, and more. Many of these modalities were beneficial but none of them significantly reduced my trauma symptoms. I was still terrified most of the time...

In my first MDMA-assisted psychotherapy session I was surprised that the MDMA helped me see the world as it was, instead of seeing it through my lens of terror. I thought that the MDMA would alter my perception of reality, but instead, it helped me see... more clearly... The MDMA session was the first time that I was able to stay present, explore, and process what had happened to me. This changed everything... There are no words for the gratitude that I feel.

Jon Lubecky, an American Iraq War combat veteran who tried to kill himself five times, told NBC's "Today" in 2021 that MDMA therapy—also with MAPS—enabled him "to talk about things I had never brought up before to anyone."

"And it was OK. My body did not betray me. I didn't get panic attacks. I didn't shut down emotionally or just become so overemotional I couldn't deal with anything," he recounted.

"This treatment is the reason my son has a father instead of a folded flag," Lubecky said in a message to other veterans afflicted with PTSD. "I want all of you to be around in 2023 when this is [U.S. Food and Drug Administration]-approved. I know what your suffering is like. You can make it."

MAPS' latest clinical research on MDMA—which is aimed at winning FDA approval—is currently in phase three trials. The Biden administration said last year that it "anticipates" MDMA and psilocybin would be approved by the FDA by 2024 and is "exploring the prospect of establishing a federal task force to monitor" therapeutic possibilities of both drugs.

Like MDMA, psilocybin—which occurs naturally in hundreds of fungal species and has been used by humans for medicinal, spiritual, and recreational purposes for millennia—remains illegal at the federal level in the U.S., although several states and municipalities have legalized or decriminalized psychedelic mushrooms, or have moved to do so.

There have also been bipartisan congressional efforts to allow patients access to both drugs. Legislation introduced last year by U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) would permit therapeutic use of certain Schedule I drugs for terminally ill patients. Meanwhile, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) passed amendments to the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act providing more funding for psychedelic research and making it easier for veterans and active-duty troops suffering from PTSD to try drug-based treatments.

Republicans are resorting to their age-old tactic of manufactured moral outrage to distract from the fact that they have no economic agenda other than to enrich the already wealthy. It would be laughable if their culture wars didn’t have a deadly impact on people’s lives. From attacks on the right to an abortion, to the right to be transgender, to the right to study accurate history, conservative attacks on vulnerable populations have reached a fever pitch. And it’s destroying the nation.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

As if overturning Roe v. Wade at the Supreme Court in 2022 wasn’t enough, 20 GOP state attorneys general are now targeting pharmacy chains Walgreens and CVS for fulfilling mail orders of the abortion drug mifepristone. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a federal agency, in January expanded availability of the drug across the country. The abortion pill was relatively unknown some years ago but is now used in more than half of all abortions nationwide, likely in response to the rapidly disappearing access to surgical abortions. Now, as they go after mail-order abortion pills, Republicans are showing just how hell-bent they are on ensuring that the bodies of women (and transgender men) remain glorified baby incubators.

Republicans claim that in addition to protecting the life of a collection of fetal cells that they are determined to personify, they are working in the interests of women’s health. Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey explained his opposition to the abortion pill in a written statement, saying he was merely “protecting the health of women and their unborn children.”

However, not only are abortion pills safer than penicillin or Viagra, but going through pregnancy and childbirth is far more dangerous to women’s health than aborting a fetus. According to a New York Times report on one study of the effects of abortion restrictions on women, “Women who were denied an abortion and gave birth reported more chronic headaches or migraines, joint pain and gestational hypertension compared with those who had an abortion.” Furthermore, “They also reported more life-threatening complications like eclampsia and postpartum hemorrhage, and burdens that included higher exposure to domestic violence and increased poverty.” (It is a wonder that some of us choose to have children at all.)

The GOP’s war on transgender people has also gained steam. Just as Republicans are determined to control the bodies of people who want to terminate pregnancies, they are battling the right of transgender people to transition via surgeries, hormone supplements, or other gender-affirming medical treatments. It’s a shocking attack on people’s right to be who they want and need to be—one that targets young people in particular.

Again, the right wing uses concerns over health as cover for its attacks on human rights. For example, GOP lawmakers in Texas have introduced 35 anti-LGBTQ bills, three of which would view medical care as child abuse. But, even though the vast majority of the anti-LGBTQ bills that are introduced fail to become law, according to the Trevor Project, the debate itself is deeply traumatizing for young people. The organization found that “86% of transgender and nonbinary youth say recent debates around anti-trans bills have negatively impacted their mental health.” It has further encouraged bullying, and the risk of suicide.

Writing in the Nation, Amy Littlefield and Heron Greenesmith point out how “The right is deploying tactics against trans rights that are eerily similar to those mounted against abortion rights over the past five decades.” It’s the same Republican playbook over and over: claim that attacks on vulnerable people are in their own best interests to distract from the fact that the party has no actual plan to make people’s lives truly better.

Like the attacks on abortion and transgender rights, Republicans are also so worried about the supposed harm to students of American history that their third major battlefront is educational courses that question white supremacy and its impact. Claiming they are fighting a college-level academic approach to history called critical race theory, GOP leaders such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are busy banning books and classes at all levels of education. DeSantis’s latest assault is a ban on a new AP-level high school African American studies course that the College Board spent years devising and is set to pilot in 60 schools across the country.

The pushback by DeSantis and his allies has already yielded results. The College Board seemingly capitulated and sanitized the AP course, paring back mentions of Black feminism, queer theory, and the Black Lives Matter movement and replacing it with a new section on Black conservatism.

The move came at the same time that congressional Republicans took aim at Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN), unceremoniously stripping her of membership in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy justified his ousting of Omar from the committee over her alleged antisemitism because she has criticized the state of Israel. Never mind that criticism of Israel is not equivalent to racist attacks on Jews; two of the GOP’s own representatives, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ), whose antisemitism is well documented, are now poised to regain their committee seats.

In a speech on the House floor, Omar rightly pointed out that the Republican attack was about “who gets to be an American.” She called out the GOP for its earlier culture war aimed at the nation’s first Black president, Barack Obama, and for spreading rumors that he was a secret Muslim and not a natural born U.S. citizen.

The message that emerges from the conservative party is that those who are not either straight, white, cisgender men, or in service of white supremacist patriarchy, had better fall in line or face prohibition and the threats of violence.

Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are busy readying their pitchforks over the federal government’s debt, hoping to extract austerity measures in exchange for their support to raise the debt ceiling. According to the Washington Post, “the party has focused its attention on slimming down federal health care, education, science and labor programs, perhaps by billions of dollars.” And, some have “pitched a deeper examination of entitlements,” which is a euphemistic way of saying they want cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Aggressively bombarding women, transgender people, Black people, immigrants, and people of color over their bodily autonomy and their gender and racial identity is a tactic that Republicans hope will keep conservative voters loyal to the GOP and lets them off the hook on regressive economic policies. It’s a classic bait and switch—one that we ought not to fall for.

Author Bio: Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her forthcoming book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at Yes! Magazine. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission and is a co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. She also sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization.

If you are hired to work in Senator Kyrsten Sinema‘s office on Capitol Hill there is a 37-page memo you’ll want to read detailing all the responsibilities her staffers are required to perform, from getting her groceries, calling Verizon and going to her D.C. home to wait for a repair person if the internet goes out, scheduling massages, and ensuring her very detailed airplane requirements are met.

“It is your job to make her as comfortable as possible on each flight,” the memo says, as The Daily Beast first reported in December.

But now a group of 13 non-profit organizations have joined to file an ethics complaint against Senator Sinema (I-AZ), a new Daily Beast report reveals Friday, including details from that 37-page memo which the newly-independent lawmaker directed to be drawn up. Dated Thursday, the complaint is titled: “Letter to Senate Ethics Committee Regarding Reports of Sinema Abusing Taxpayer Dollars.”

“Senate Ethics guidelines stipulate that staff should not be asked to perform personal errands for members. This is an unambiguous ethical boundary,” the group’s complaint reads.

READ MORE: Santos May Owe Thousands in Unpaid Traffic Violation Fines and Fees Across Two States: Report

It also points to that 37-page memo, which it says, “indicates that staff are required, as a condition of their jobs, to carry out numerous tasks that are outside the scope of public employment, including doing personal errands for the Senator, carrying out household tasks at her private residence, and advancing their own funds for her personal purchases. It makes unreasonably precise scheduling demands, and former staff have confirmed some of the allegations.”

The allegations continue.

“And, most troubling, it calls on staff members, who are employed and paid by the public and explicitly barred from campaign activity, to schedule and facilitate political fundraisers and meetings with campaign donors, presumably during the workday while they are on the clock and physically on federal property.”

“Senate staff are prohibited under your guidelines from engaging in political activity ‘on Senate time, using Senate equipment or facilities.’ While you have not prohibited campaign activity outside work hours, the plain language of the memo clearly implies that Sen. Sinema expects her staff to carry out these scheduling tasks during the workday. And these tasks may separately violate Senate Rule 41.1, which explicitly prohibits Senate employees from ‘solicit[ing]’ campaign funds.”

READ MORE: ‘Bioweapons? FFS’: House Oversight Chairman Mocked for Pushing Unfounded Balloon Conspiracy Theories

The complaint also alleges that “Sen. Sinema required her staff to schedule three physical therapy and massage sessions a week related to her training for athletic competitions, and to tightly manage her dietary schedule — while allotting only a 30-minute period on Wednesdays for meetings with the constituents she represents.”

The carefully-worded complaint adds, “the allegations paint a picture of a Senator who is not only unresponsive to her constituents, but also disrespectful and even abusive to her employees and wholly unconcerned about her obligations under the law.”

The Daily Beast has posted a copy of the complaint here.

You can read The Beast’s full report here.

When he left for Washington, D.C., U.S. Rep. George Santos also appears to have left a string of unpaid traffic violation fines and fees in two states, including red light, double parking, and overtime parking citations totaling thousands of dollars.

The embattled serial liar and freshman New York GOP lawmaker “may owe more than $3,400 in unpaid citations, according to records from New York City and Florida,” CBS News reports.

Included in that total is $1,299.10 from Florida for toll violations that “racked up late fees and were ultimately sent to collections agencies.”

READ MORE: George Santos Says Man Interviewed for Staff Position ‘Violated’ His Trust After Secretly Recording Conversation

It appears that in November of 2016, as soon as he got his New York driver’s license after having one in Florida, a car previously ticket via a red light camera whose plates match one registered to Santos “began piling up citations in New York City — 29 in the next two and a half years, according to city government records, which do not identify the drivers of vehicles being ticketed.”

“More than $1,800 in payments were made for 17 citations, but another 12 remain unpaid, with $2,142.61 still due, according to city records.”

CBS News also points to a New York Post report from January revealing “a Nissan Rogue driven frequently by Santos in recent months had been issued speeding tickets at least five times since he was elected on Nov. 8, ‘including four times in school zones.'”

Santos is under numerous state and federal investigations that span the gamut from campaign finance to allegedly stolen charity funds donated to save the life of a veteran’s service dog. The dog died after the vet could not afford to pay for the operation.

READ MORE: ‘Bioweapons? FFS’: House Oversight Chairman Mocked for Pushing Unfounded Balloon Conspiracy Theories

Fox News host Harris Faulkner set the stage perfectly for the far-right Republican from Kentucky, declaring the balloon is “the size of three buses” and that “China says was taken by wind – wind that we can’t substantiate.”

The Kentucky congressman who has falsely described President Biden as “compromised,” and stated he is going to target and investigate him, told Faulkner, “I have concern this is going to be another example of the Biden administration’s weakness on the national scale.”

READ MORE: ‘Ran a Bribery Center Blocks From the White House’: Comer Mocked for Claiming No Evidence of Trump Influence Peddling

Comer, 50, a former agriculture commissioner, lamented about Biden’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, claiming it hurt the reputation of America’s military and Commander in Chief.

The balloon, he said, should “never have been allowed” to cross over into the United States.

“My concern is that the federal government doesn’t know what’s in that balloon. Is that bioweapons in that balloon? Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?” he asked, pushing unfounded theories while echoing the far-right’s false claims the COVID-19 virus was developed as a bioweapon and escaped the lab in Wuhan, China.

After suggesting it might have bioweapons, he then said it was “very concerning” the balloon was not shot down before reaching the U.S. – which could have spread the alleged bioweapon.

Faulkner, seen by some as a propagandist, then jumped in to exhibit her surprise that “people on Capitol Hill were not briefed” about the balloon.

READ MORE: Trump Spent 2020 Attacking Ballot Drop Boxes – but Now He’s Demanding They Be Deployed in Churches

“Calling for the president to ‘shoot down’ the craft,” The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona adds, “some in the GOP called the president ‘Beijing Biden’ while claiming this is further proof that ‘Communist China’ doesn’t ‘fear or respect’ Biden.”

\u201cHouse Oversight Committee Chair James Comer to Fox News: "My concern is that the federal government doesn't know what's in that balloon. Is that bioweapons in that balloon? Did that balloon take off from Wuhan?"\u201d

— Justin Baragona (@Justin Baragona) 1675440781

“Honestly,” communications strategist Doug Gordon noted, “just surprised he didn’t find a way to include Hunter’s laptop into that conspiracy theory.”

“Actually, he did later on,” Baragona replied.

National security expert Denver Riggleman, the Republican former U.S. Congressman from Virginia who assisted the Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, tweeted: “Bioweapons? FFS”

Referring to Comer’s unfounded bioweapons claim, one Twitter user observed, “Isn’t that more reason not to shoot at it? I’m not saying I know what to do, but logic would dictate ‘don’t shoot at balloons full of bioweapons.’ Right?”

Another noted that the Oversight Chairman should have been listening to the Pentagon’s briefing “taking place now instead of running to get on Fox to talk about something he has no expertise in.”

READ MORE: ‘When Was Your Most Recent Period?’: Student Athletes in Florida May Be Required to Share Menstrual History

And yet another, wholly mocking Comer, who holds far-right anti-LGBTQ beliefs, said: “Or worse, what if it has woke trans undocumented drag queen athletes?”

Another, mocking Comer, noted: “If they were sending a bio weapon, why would they park it over sparsely populated Montana? *rolls eyes*”

Watch the video above or at this link.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is among the economists who has been sounding the alarm about the United States’ debt ceiling, warning that if the U.S. defaults on its debt obligations, it could trigger a major financial crisis. Krugman is vehemently critical of the way in which far-right House Republicans have been handling debt ceiling talks, and in his February 2 column, he accuses them of being willing to “burn things down” if they don’t get their way.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, especially members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, have been demanding spending cuts. But Democrats, including President Joe Biden and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have maintained that cuts to either Social Security or Medicare are off the table.

“This time, Republicans aren’t making coherent demands,” Krugman argues. “It’s completely unclear what, if anything, they want in exchange for not blowing up the economy. At this point, they’re blackmailers without a cause.”

READ MORE: Khanna warns House GOP wants to 'hijack the entire US economy' to cut Social Security

Krugman adds, “Some of the reporting I’ve seen on the debt standoff describes Republicans as unable to agree on which spending should be cut. This might give the impression that there are factions within the GOP that have different priorities. But as far as I can tell, no influential players within the party are advocating anything that might make a significant dent in the budget deficit, let alone achieve the balanced budget Kevin McCarthy promised as part of the deal that made him speaker.”

The liberal economist compares House Republicans to “blackmailers” who don’t even know what their demands are.

“So, the bottom line on the debt crisis is that there is no bottom line: Republicans denounce excess spending, but can’t say what spending they want to cut,” Krugman laments. “Even if Democrats were inclined to give in to extortion, which they aren’t, you can’t pay off a blackmailer who won’t make specific demands…. It’s hard not to be worried.”

Krugman adds, “It’s dangerous when a political party is willing to burn things down unless it gets its way; it’s even more dangerous when that party just wants to watch things burn.” is willing to burn things down unless it gets its way; it’s even more dangerous when that party just wants to watch things burn.”

READ MORE: Coalition of progressive advocacy groups aim to fight off GOP threats to Social Security and Medicare

Read Paul Krugman’s full New York Times column at this link.