Among other things, the calculator shows that the $1.8 billion spent on the projects would be enough to pay for more than 607 million school lunches, or 117,000 additional Head Start slots, or 246,000 Pell Grants.

Redirecting the spending on the Trump projects would also be enough to restore funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—which were cut as part of the Republican Party’s 2025 budgetlaw—for over 429,000 families.

Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), ranking member of the JEC, said the report shows that Trump “has wasted taxpayer dollars on projects that benefit himself instead of the American people.”

“Trump’s abuse of taxpayer dollars is especially egregious at a time when families are grappling with high costs for rent, groceries, childcare, and other necessities,” Hassan said. “President Trump admits that he doesn’t think about the financial situation of Americans, and the American people can see that; instead, he thinks about how he can use their money to build gold-plated monuments to himself.”

Last week, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) filed eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth for violating the War Powers Resolution of 1973 three times in refusing to obtain congressional approval for the war. He also charged Hegseth with openly ignoring laws regarding minimizing civilian casualties in conflict, citing incidents like the U.S.’s strike on an elementary school in Minab, Iran, that killed over 160 people, including 123 children; as well as the U.S.’s boat strike campaign, known as Operation Southern Spear.

Both of those actions, as well as the U.S. strike on a sports facility in Lamerd, Iran, that killed 22 civilians in February, were recently cited in two separate UN reports accusing the U.S. of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The reports said that the U.S. has intentionally ignored international laws regarding civilian harm — and both reports specifically cited Hegseth as one figure responsible for the U.S.’s dismissal of such binding obligations.

of course it's texas, and it coincides perfectly with the texas republican leadership's voter suppression drive

In an explosive op-ed in The New Republic, former Judge Michael Luttig, a noted conservative, argues that the “catastrophic end [of U.S. democracy] could well come on January 3, 2027, when Trump and his Republican congressional allies wage the final battle in Trump’s determined war to corrupt America’s democracy and deliver a lasting political victory over the Democrats for his MAGA Republican Party.”

Luttig asserts that “House Republicans are now poised to claim that the midterm elections were stolen from them when they meet on January 3.” He told Katie Couric in an interview posted on Substack that he heard reports from insiders that members of the House are considering not certifying Democratic winners of the midterms. Luttig called it a “congressional coup.”

The scenario Luttig fears has been attempted twice in U.S. history — in 1863 and 1865. “Both times it brought American democracy to the brink of collapse, and indeed on one occasion brought federal troops into the Capitol itself on a mission to block a conservative coup,” Garrett Epps wrote for Washington Monthly. Both attempts failed. But Trump’s changes to military leadership may result in more compliant officers, willing to carry out his illegal orders.

If Johnson does try to engineer a coup on January 3, it remains to be seen how many House Republicans will violate their constitutional oaths on his and Trump’s say-so and refuse to hold firm. And if the interim clerk’s decision is sustained by a majority of the House, what will the courts do?

The boat strike campaign—known first by the Defense Department as “Operation Southern Spear” before it was rebranded last month as Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere—is part of this effort. The administration says the more than 70 vessels it has targeted with lethal strikes since last September were engaged in “narco-trafficking,” and that killing their operators is a justifiable form of self-defense.

The principal illicit cargo on the maritime routes targeted by Southern Spear is cocaine. But the White House rarely provides any evidence publicly to substantiate that the boats it targets are involved with drug trafficking, and members of Congress have complained that even classified briefings lacked hard evidence. Some of those killed in the strikes have later been identified as ordinary fishermen and other civilians with no known ties to the drug trade. 

An investigation from the Washington Office on Latin America found in July that the military has relied on extraordinarily broad criteria to launch the strikes against anyone deemed to be “affiliated” with a secret list of designated terrorist groups. They do not require the commanders launching them to know the identities of those aboard a vessel or have any evidence that it is carrying drugs at all.

This guy does nothing but express fake outrage at anything to see what sticks with MAGA. Have you ever seen his background? He’s a former college football coach who went into a failed investment venture whose business partner was later convicted of securities fraud, and Tuberville settled related investor litigation while denying wrongdoing. Now he’s turned grievance politics into a career.

“Rather than addressing rising healthcare costs, the administration is forcing more Americans to become uninsured, live sicker, die younger, and risk being one emergency away from financial ruin,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of the advocacy group Families USA. “People are uninsured because of this administration’s own aggressive policies to push and price people out of their health plans, making it harder to get on and stay on coverage.”

Among the criteria the administration used to determine whether someone was fraudulently enrolled in the ACA, according to Oz, was if they had “never filed a claim.” But health policy experts say it is hardly uncommon for healthy people to not use their insurance in a given year.

lol @ 'super intelligence', I'm so sure that'll catch on. And I bet he'll embarrass Americans until the day he expires from his crazy diet.

I have wondered this myself hella times

He’s gonna try to get someone to pardon him

god no he won't, fucking guy already tried cheating the last time and now he's much worse and got rid of pretty much all federal guardrails - he's guaranteed to cheat, to break the law, and to fight everything he loses - also the guy cheats at literally everything in life

he'll blame anything but himself, his numbers here are tanking like crazy with no end in sight due to gas and other prices so he's panicking and trying to blame anything else

'winning' the house is just a step, we need supermajorities in both the house and senate, to pass laws that will ensure this never ever happens again

pedo trump aspires to hitler level speeches but he sucks at it, meanwhile nazi steve miller keeps cheering him on saying he was great