| From: Mannie | 11/11/2025 12:14:15 PM | | | | | | A welcome change as voters, Supreme Court challenge Trump’s falsehoods
Nov. 11, 2025 at 8:12 am
By
Trudy Rubin
Syndicated columnist
Could Tuesday’s elections and Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on the legality of Donald Trump’s tariffs spell the beginning of the end for White House “truthiness”?
Late-night comic Stephen Colbert coined that term in 2005 to mean, in his words, “the belief in what you feel to be true rather than what’s supported by facts.” He was referring at the time to the Bush administration’s truthinessabout the Iraq War, but Trump has given the word a whole new life.
Trump’s “alternative facts” — as one of his first-term aides labeled his falsehoods — have evolved into lies so blatant and constant that they have become almost normalized.
During Trump’s first term, when the Washington Post compiled a list of more than 30,000 presidential lies, many Americans were horrified. But a year into his second term, even those who dislike Trump have been worn down by his continued rants, including that he won the 2020 election and that the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters were heroes.
The shock value has worn off from repetition, and the public outrage such lies should still inflame has become muted.
Yet, unexpectedly, this widespread mood of resignation to Trump’s fakery may be lifting.
The most exciting aspect of this politically charged week was watching the revival of truth as a weapon against unrestricted White House power.
On Tuesday, we were reminded that Trump’s truthiness is a dangerous aberration. Maybe, just maybe, even a few GOP senators and representatives will recognize that much of the public (and even conservative Supreme Court justices) has grown tired of Trump’s denial of reality.
The “aha” moment for me came on Wednesday, when Justice Sonia Sotomayor told the lead administration lawyer, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer: “You want to say tariffs are not taxes, but that’s exactly what they are. They are generating money from U.S. citizens.”
Her words may seem obvious. But for months, Trump has insisted repeatedly that tariffs are not a tax.
Anyone with the most rudimentary economic knowledge knows that is false. When the U.S. puts tariffs on Chinese-manufactured goods, for example, American importers either absorb the cost of the levy or pass it on to consumers. Small businesses with narrow profit margins get whacked especially hard, which is why a group of small businesses brought the court challenge.
Yet, Trump had so far gotten away with his tariff deception until Sotomayor brought reality into the national conversation. Importantly, not one of the court’s conservative justices contradicted that truth, as they discussed whether the taxing power Trump has exercised with tariffs rightly belongs to Congress.
Not only did the Supreme Court call Trump out on truthiness, but so did the voters — including some of the same Latino and Black voters who had switched sides to the GOP in 2024. They returned massively to the Democratic column on election night. (Latino voters now know Trump lied when he said only criminal undocumented immigrants would be deported.)
Most voters, except the very rich, know that, contrary to Trump’s claims, costs are rising sharply due to tariffs. Trump kneecapped himself, in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes last Sunday, when he falsely claimed that grocery prices were “going down” and that “we don’t have inflation.”
You can’t sell that lie to a mother who may have been laid off from her government job, or faces losing family health insurance, and who knows, the price of eggs has not come down.
While the truth gaining a foothold at home is heartening, it remains to be seen whether voter ire can inspire GOP legislators to call the president out on his dangerous falsehoods on foreign policy.
Most disturbing the previous week was Trump’s call for the Pentagon “to start testing” U.S. nuclear weapons again because, he said, “other countries are testing.” This is untrue.
Yes, Russia did test two nuclear-capable weapons recently (in an obvious effort to scare Trump into refusing to send Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles). There is a difference, however, between testing systems and testing nuclear warheads.
North Korea is the only country to test a nuclear weapon in the 21st century. Moreover, testing nuclear warheads would likely ignite a new arms race that would help an ambitious China speed up its nuclear production.
The man with his hand on the nuclear button is either ignorant of these truths or lying through his teeth about testing. I’m not certain which is worse, but his untruths on nuclear testing are another terrifying reason for Republican legislators to start rejecting his lies.
And then there are Trump’s increasingly heated and false explanations for amassing a huge U.S. military presence off Venezuela. The president claims that every small boat American planes have blown up in the Caribbean and Pacific since September carried a drug cargo that “kills 25,000 Americans.”
False. False. False. The drug that kills thousands of Americans is fentanyl, mostly made in Mexico from Chinese chemical precursors, according to Trump’s own Drug Enforcement Administration. Small Venezuelan boats smuggle cocaine, a minor threat to Americans, to Caribbean or South American staging points, often en route to Europe.
Trump officials have indicated that the real reason for the Caribbean military standoff is the hope of achieving regime change in Venezuela by somehow eliminating President Nicolás Maduro. Do Trump’s America First supporters really want to see the U.S. enmeshed in another disastrous effort at regime change? Does Trump?
And why on earth is a major U.S. armada staged off Caracas when America’s focus should be on strengthening its position in the Indo-Pacific — and helping Ukraine push back Russia?
Whatever the real reasons for Trump’s Caribbean madness — whether to demonstrate U.S. military glitz on TV, or to satisfy some anti-Maduro activists who have his ear — he is lying to the public.
But last week’s events indicate that Trump’s constant falsehoods could finally become a GOP burden in 2026. |
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| From: Mannie | 11/11/2025 12:19:51 PM | | | | | | Trump’s shutdown win just landed Republicans with a huge political headache
ANALYSIS BY STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN
Tue, November 11, 2025 at 4:38 AM PST
It’s the Trump ship that never sails.
The president was back at it on Monday, promising an imminent solution to America’s growing health care crisis — on which he has repeatedly failed to deliver in the past.
“I tell you, we’re going to be working on that very hard over the next short period of time, where the people get the money,” President Donald Trump said, referring specifically to Americans thrown into crisis by expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies. “We’re talking about trillions and trillions of dollars, where the people get the money,” he added, without giving details about a vague idea to send cash to affected policyholders to replace subsidies while bypassing insurance firms.
Trump’s off-the-cuff answer was a typical example of the waffle he sometimes conjures to escape a jam in a photo-op. But he could not disguise the downside of his “win” in the government shutdown, which looks set to end after Democrats failed to secure their top demand: the extension of those enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
Trump and Republicans once again own the issue of health care, with millions of citizens — not just those on ACA plans — afflicted by rising premiums and high deductibles against the backdrop of a wider cost-of-living crisis. And just as in his first term, Trump lacks a comprehensive, detailed plan to bring relief to citizens who lack health care, who can’t afford the plans they have or who know that the loss of a job could leave them without any coverage at all.
If the GOP cannot fix the immediate issue of the subsidies — and convince voters they have a serious solution to this and other affordability questions — their 2026 midterm election hopes could take a dive.
Trump’s fogginess on health care is nothing new. Repeated unfulfilled promises to act took their place alongside his much-lampooned “ infrastructure weeks” as punch lines in his first term. Trump’s pledges to replace Obamacare shimmered with hyperbole but delivered nothing, and the 2010 law survives despite multiple Republican efforts to destroy it.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump pledged to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something “terrific.” At rallies, he promised Americans new health care that would cost less but be far better. If that sounds impossible, it’s probably because it is.
Early in his first term, Trump promised that change was on the way. “Despite what you hear in the press, healthcare is coming along great. We are talking to many groups and it will end in a beautiful picture!” he wrote on the website formerly known as Twitter in March 2017. The GOP failure to repeal Obamacare, partly because it couldn’t come up with an alternative, didn’t stop Trump’s sunny predictions. “The Republican Party will be soon be known as theparty of health care,” the president declared in March 2019.
Second term, same as the first. In his debate with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in 2024, Trump was mocked for saying he had “concepts of a plan” to make health care “better and less expensive.” More than a year later — and despite some significant efforts by Trump to bring down the cost of some prescription drugs — Americans are still waiting for his wider solutions.
Republican divisions boil over health careThe fight over health care was not just at the center of the government shutdown battle with Democrats. It’s tearing at Republican Party unity. It’s even estranged Trump and one of his most outspoken supporters, Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Georgia representative broke ranks early in the shutdown to highlight ACA insurance premiums for her family that she said would double in price due to expiring subsidies. While no fan of the ACA, she lashed out at her own party. “Not a single Republican in leadership talked to us about this or has given us a plan to help Americans deal with their health insurance premiums DOUBLING!!!” Greene wrote on X in October.
Greene’s persistent criticism is a warning sign for House Speaker Mike Johnson after he called back the House to vote on the Senate plan to reopen the government this week. It might explain why he was so keen to keep the chamber dark during a shutdown that set internal GOP dissent simmering. Greene further distanced herself from Trump on Monday, saying on X that he should spend less time meeting foreign leaders and instead hold “nonstop” meetings on domestic policy.
The president told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, “I don’t know what happened to Marjorie. She’s a nice woman, but I don’t know what happened. She’s lost her way, I think.” Greene then told CNN, “I haven’t lost my way. I’m 100% America first and only!”
Greene might now be regarded as a MAGA heretic by some in Trump’s orbit. But her comments on health care raise another possibility — that she’s far more in tune with the economic insecurity felt by regular Americans than a billionaire president and his wealthy Cabinet.
She’s not alone. During the shutdown, a group of endangered House Republicans wrote to Johnson to urge him to address expiring enhanced ACA subsidies when the government reopens. “While we did not create this crisis, we now have both the responsibility and the opportunity to address it,” they wrote.
Senate Republican leader John Thune agreed to hold a vote in December on extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies as part of the deal with moderate Democrats to reopen the government. Chances of a Democrat-written bill passing are slim. But the vote will put GOP senators on the record and on a political spot.
Johnson hasn’t pledged to hold a similar vote — one reason why progressive Democrats are angry about centrist Senate Democrats’ compromise to end the shutdown.
The speaker told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead” Monday that he’d always been willing to talk about rising health care costs, but that Democrats had squandered weeks of valuable time by triggering the shutdown last month. He promised debate on a plan to get to the “root cause” of the health care issue. But that is unlikely to help ACA policyholders forced to decide now whether to give up health plans they can’t afford or pay punitively rising premiums.
Johnson could not tell Tapper whether there’d be a vote on this issue soon. “I’m not committing to it or not committing to it. What I’m saying is that we do a deliberative process. It’s the way this always works and we have to have time to do that,” the speaker said. But the tiny GOP majority gives little cause for optimism that an issue as complex and divisive as health care reform is something the fractious GOP and an absent president could handle.
One tangible gain for Democrats in the shutdown drama was their highlighting of the ACA issue and attacks on Republicans for failing to fix health care. In an NBC News poll taken last month during the shutdown, 10% of respondents cited the cost of health care premiums as the single top issue deciding their vote for Congress next year. And 49% of respondents said Democrats would do a better job dealing with health care compared with 26% who thought the same of Republicans
Many Democrats are furious that their moderate Senate colleagues made a deal with Republicans to reopen the government because they see it as a betrayal of Americans on the health care issue. But Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who helped broker the deal and joined seven others in the Democratic caucus to back it, told CNN’s Kate Bolduan the deal would show whether Republicans were serious.
“Finally, because of the shutdown fight, we’ve had a number of Republicans who have figured out that this is an issue for them,” the New Hampshire Democrat said. “So, now we’ll see. We’ll see if they are really going to work with us to make sure that Americans can afford their health insurance.”
Viewing Democratic tactics, a cynic might wonder whether the party, which failed to make the enhanced Obamacare credits permanent during the Biden administration, laid a trap for Republicans on an issue their rivals always failed to solve, especially under Trump.
But some Republicans don’t buy the idea that the party is vulnerable on health care, arguing that Democrats would be blamed for higher costs. GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt told CNN that “I think people know that Democrats own Obamacare, and it’s been a disaster.”
How Trump has tried to lower some health care costsRepublicans argue that Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” domestic policy law had already made significant steps to make health care more affordable by loosening the power of insurance companies and by restoring choice and control, partly by handing more responsibility to the states. But multiple health care analysts and groups say that the bill’s cuts to Medicaid funding could leave millions vulnerable to losing coverage and threaten many rural hospitals with closure.
The administration has several initiatives designed to reduce the costs of prescription drugs for Americans. It plans to launch TrumpRx, a direct-to-consumer website, early next year. Last week, the president unveiled a plan to make certain obesity drugs available for as little as $149 in an arrangement that gives pharmaceutical firms like Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk tariff breaks. If this plan works, it could be lifesaving for many patients who can’t get the drugs through their insurers and can’t afford out-of-pocket prices to buy them.
The initiative reflects Trump’s willingness to use government power to intervene in markets, which has also been seen in other sectors, and which flies in the face of conservative orthodoxy. A plan he recently floated to send money directly to ACA policyholders, instead of offering subsidies, also seems to spring from a similar motivation to shake up the industry.
Yet the idea is fraught with uncertainties, including whether such payments would cover the shortfall of all the subsidies. Another question is whether it would simply make up the shortfall in subsidies to pay for premiums. Or would it be a separate payment that patients could use to pay for the costs of treatment directly?
In the latter case of a payment that bypasses insurance firms, recipients might be exposed to massive costs if they get an adverse diagnosis. Trump told Fox News on Monday evening that he didn’t want money to go to insurance companies but that it would go into a separate account so people could negotiate their own, better health insurance.
“They’re going to feel like entrepreneurs,” Trump said. But he gave no details of how such a complex scheme could help policyholders now, and did not explain how it would lower costs.
And spiking health costs don’t only afflict ACA policyholders. If the government sent cash to certain Americans, how would that be fair to other taxpayers? And wouldn’t state-financed payments for health care go against everything the GOP believes?
Such thorny questions, and the president’s past failures to deliver on health care, explain the Republican Party’s new but familiar political nightmare on an issue that causes anxiety for tens of millions of voters. |
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| From: bustersmith | 11/11/2025 12:57:54 PM | | | | | | The United Kingdom steps away from complicity in the Trump administrations Thrill Kills...
( vow not to violate international law )
Exclusive: UK suspends some intelligence sharing with US over boat strike concerns in major break
Source: CNN Politics
The United Kingdom is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. The UK’s decision marks a significant break from its closest ally and intelligence sharing partner and underscores the growing skepticism over the legality of the US military’s campaign around Latin America.
For years, the UK, which controls a number of territories in the Caribbean where it bases intelligence assets, has helped the US locate vessels suspected of carrying drugs so that the US Coast Guard could interdict them, the sources said. That meant the ships would be stopped, boarded, its crew detained, and drugs seized.
The intelligence was typically sent to Joint Interagency Task Force South, a task force stationed in Florida that includes representatives from a number of partner nations and works to reduce the illicit drug trade.
But shortly after the US began launching lethal strikes against the boats in September, however, the UK grew concerned that the US might use intelligence provided by the British to select targets. British officials believe the US military strikes, which have killed 76 people, violate international law, the sources said. The intelligence pause began over a month ago, they said |
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| To: Mongo2116 who wrote (354610) | 11/11/2025 12:58:16 PM | | From: John Koligman | | | | For a modest monthly savings, look at what you would pay in additional interest. It is a scam. I saw some posts that 15 year car loans are next, but I suspect they might be fake <ggg>.
Significantly, average mortgage rates on 50-year loans would undoubtedly be higher than on 30-year loans, the same way 30-year rates are higher than those for 15-year mortgages.
"The longer the life of the loan, the more compensation the lender will demand," says Berner.
Last week, rates on 15-year mortgages averaged 5.5%, compared with 6.22% for 30-year home loans, according to Freddie Mac. It's unclear how much higher 50-year rates would be, as there are currently no conventional mortgages of that length for comparison.
Assuming for the sake of argument that mortgage rates were equal across both products, a 50-year mortgage would lower mortgage payments by about $250 per month on a $400,000 home, assuming 10% down and a 6.25% mortgage rate.
Total interest payments over the life of the 50-year loan would amount to $816,396, compared to $438,156 on the 30-year loan, a difference of $378,240. That amounts to 86% more interest over the life of the loan.
"Buyers do benefit from spreading out the high cost of a home purchase over a longer period, but lenders certainly benefit, too, by having a longer period to charge higher interest rates," says Berner.
As well, after 10 years of homeownership, you'd have only a 14% equity stake in your home with the 50-year loan, compared with a 24% stake on the 30-year. |
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| From: bustersmith | 11/11/2025 1:03:00 PM | | | | | | Republican Christian Cockroach Update...
Republicans Already Backtracking on Their Promise as Mike Johnson Refuses to Guarantee a Vote on Obamacare
Source: Daily Boulder
House Speaker Mike Johnson is already backing away from a key Republican promise — holding a vote to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire soon. When pressed Monday, Johnson dodged the commitment entirely, saying instead the House would need “to find a consensus” before moving forward.
“We’re going to do in the House what we always do and that is a deliberative process. We’re going to have to find consensus on whatever, whatever the proposal is,” Johnson told CNN.
He went on to make it clear he wouldn’t guarantee anything, not even a timeline. “As you know, I do not guarantee the outcome of legislation or dates or deadlines or anything,” he added.
Read more: dailyboulder.com
What a shocking surpise |
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| From: bustersmith | 11/11/2025 1:13:35 PM | | | | | | It's a good day to remember NO Trump has ever served this country...
Friedrich Trump, Donald Trump's grandfather, was classified as a draft dodger after he emigrated from Germany to avoid mandatory military service. |
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| From: Wharf Rat | 11/11/2025 1:22:52 PM | | | | | | Netanyahu takes a page from Trump's playbook.
Israel Is No Longer a Free Society, According to Netanyahu Confidante Ron Dermer
Story by Amir Tibon
• 23h
Israel Is No Longer a Free Society, According to Netanyahu Confidante Ron DermerBy the measure of Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Israel under his boss is deteriorating from a free society into a fearful one. This is all happening under the government of Netanyahu, a man who once spoke highly about democratic, liberal values and presented Israel as a beacon of freedomNovember 10th, 20PM November 11th, 13PM
Israel is becoming a fear society, a society where freedom of speech isn't upheld, and the citizens aren't free to express their opinions.
Don't take it from Haaretz, a newspaper known for its criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government. This warning, rather, is based on the words of Netanyahu's closest confidant – Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer. By his own measure, Israel under his boss is deteriorating from a free society into a fearful one.
In 2004, Dermer published a book he co-wrote with Natan Sharansky, under the title "The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror."
The book came out at the height of the interventionist George W. Bush era, and included strong support for the war in Iraq. Dermer was already close to Netanyahu at the time – as evident from Netanyahu's well-known speech in support of the invasion, during which Dermer can be seen seated right behind him, nodding to every word.
On page 48 of the book, Dermer and Sharansky write a brilliant paragraph about the importance of freedom of speech – and present a test that distinguishes between societies where free speech is cherished and protected, and societies where the government persecutes civilians for expressing their views and opinions.
Here is the exact quote: "A simple way to determine whether the right to dissent in a particular society is being upheld is to apply the town square test: Can a person walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm? If he can, then that person is living in a free society. If not, it's a fear society."
Last week, in Jerusalem, a ceremony was held on the campus of the Hebrew University, and Israel's national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was in attendance. A man who sat in the crowd shouted at Ben-Gvir that he's a fascist and is responsible for the deaths of many Jews and Arabs. Campus security guards removed him from the ceremony, as they are required to do in such a case, and the ceremony continued uninterrupted.
But then, the Jerusalem police – which operates under Ben Gvir's directive – arrested the protester and took him in for questioning. Not for anything illegal or violent – but simply and only for speaking up and expressing his view in the town square.
At the nearest police station, he was stripped naked and handcuffed for more than four hours. Eventually, realizing that there's no way any judge in Israel would support his detention, the man was released by the police – but the damage was already done, and the message had been sent: speaking your mind against a powerful minister is no longer an obvious right in today's Israel.
This incident is one of many recent stories that highlight the deterioration of free speech under the current government. There is also the case of Yarden Mann, a special-ed teacher and the mother of a child with special needs, who was arrested and indicted for alleged assault after she saw Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman in the street and told her she should be ashamed of herself.
Silman filed a false report of violence against Mann, and the police prosecutor followed through immediately with an embarrassing indictment, which was thrown out by a judge earlier this year.
The courts in Israel remain, to some degree, a bastion of democratic rule of law, and they protect the right to free speech and dissent – which is exactly why the Netanyahu government tried to take over the judicial system at the beginning of its term, and still intends to do so.
The police, sadly, can no longer be trusted on this issue, as is evident by another story published just today by Bar Peleg in Haaretz: police officers tried to break into the phone of a protester who documented the arrest of other demonstrators. Once again, a judge rejected the police's request, but the very fact that the court had to protect the protester from such police action speaks volumes about the current reality.
This is all happening under the government of Netanyahu, a man who once spoke highly about democratic, liberal values and presented Israel as a beacon of freedom. Perhaps he should reread the Dermer and Sharansky book, or at least page 48, to be reminded of what a free society looks like. |
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