I find it hard to believe that that a majority of congress, or even a majority of the Republicans in congress would approve of a bill to take us out of NATO. To me it seems treasonous for Mike Lee or anyone else to propose such a thing. Is Trump trying to return us to the pre-WWII isolationism? He has already taken us out of vital organizations like WHO and the Paris Treaty On Climate Change. What's next? Is he going to take us out of the United Nations Organization as well? At this point, I wouldn't be greatly surprised if he proposed joining Russia in the Warsaw Pact against Ukraine and our current NATO allies!
Withdrawal from WHO alone was extremely foolish and is going to cost us far more that what we are likely to save by having done so.
But if we think it’s expensive to be part of the WHO, just wait until we aren’t part of the WHO. That's where we're going to see the true costs. This withdrawal will be incredibly costly for both the American people and the global community, and not just in the pure economic terms of our contributions to WHO.
Since World War II the U.S. has developed a reputation around the world as a country that supports others, and that has important consequences for global diplomacy. We are known in the health space as a country that provides assistance to many countries. In fact, many countries with whom we have very poor diplomatic relations, and that we don't see eye-to-eye with politically, still reach out to us for support around health.
Health provides an entryway for us to engage with countries, many of whom we may not agree with, and to have diplomatic conversations and other conversations. If that is lost, it will have tremendous consequences for the U.S.’s security and long-term economic and political outlook.
The Trump administration cites the WHO’s response to COVID as a reason for the U.S.’s withdrawal. What role did the WHO play in response to the COVID pandemic?
The COVID response globally can be classified in some ways as a technical success. We had many technical breakthroughs, including the development of vaccines at a pace that had never been seen before, the deployment of drugs and vaccines to places that previously were hard to access, and in some circumstances very quickly.
I firmly believe, despite Trump's stupidly vindictive bloviating, that if there was any serious fault in world-wide covid response it was Trump's administration, not WHO's. That's why the U.S.A with only 4.1% of the world's population had nearly a quarter of the fatalities from the pandemic!
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
I firmly believe, despite Trump's stupidly vindictive bloviating, that if there was any serious fault in world-wide covid response it was Trump's administration, not WHO's. That's why the U.S.A with only 4.1% of the world's population had nearly a quarter of the fatalities from the pandemic!
Good gracious - I knew that Trump (wash your lungs with bleach ...) was not the best leader for the US to have during a pandemic, but was it really that bad?
Just in case I want to repeat this somewhere, can you post a link to the 4.1% pop 25% fatalities evidence?
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
Good gracious - I knew that Trump (wash your lungs with bleach ...) was not the best leader for the US to have during a pandemic...
You didn't need to qualify it that way.
This country is basically being run by one of those robot vacuums, bouncing off walls because it's been programmed to avoid resistance, looking to suck up everything in it's mindless path to keep for its clueless self.
Religion is for people whose existential fear is greater than their common sense.
This country is basically being run by one of those robot vacuums, bouncing off walls because it's been programmed to avoid resistance, looking to suck up everything in it's mindless path to keep for its clueless self.
The White House has released Trump’s latest OGE form. It makes for interesting reading and a good record of some of this Administration’s grift opportunities, even with the minimal or terse descriptions offered.
The White House has released Trump’s latest OGE form. It makes for interesting reading and a good record of some of this Administration’s grift opportunities, even with the minimal or terse descriptions offered.
234 pages of “preventing conflicts of interest in the Executive branch.” It’s interesting how how Trump can funnel capital through these trusts and investments. It looks like he’s carved up vast holdings into small reportable shell companies(?), piece-by-piece, so he can maintain plausible deniability and avoid oversight. What’s even more nauseating is to think of how many more shells have been created to hold under-the-minimum monies. It can be into tens of thousands if necessary.
Also, I wanna know what holdings are under the umbrella of the reported holdings. Like, it could easily be turtles all the way down.
Republicans are just about ready to wrap up their performance about having some ‘concerns’ about their budget bill.
Senate Bill Would Add at Least $3.3 Trillion to Debt, Budget Office Says
A new analysis showing the legislation would be far more expensive than the House version could complicate its chances of final passage in that chamber, where fiscal hawks have said the cost must not grow.
By Andrew Duehren
Reporting from Washington
June 29, 2025
The sprawling tax and health care bill that Senate Republicans are trying to pass would add at least $3.3 trillion to the already-bulging national debt over a decade, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Sunday, putting a far higher price tag on the measure than some of the party’s fiscal hawks had indicated they could stomach.
The cost of the Senate bill, which Republicans rolled out overnight on Friday and were still shaping on Sunday, far exceeds the $2.4 trillion cost of the version passed in the House, where lawmakers had insisted that the overall price of the bill not substantially change. But Senate Republicans still moved forward with a number of costly changes to the bill, including making prized tax breaks for business a permanent feature of the tax code.
With roughly $29 trillion in debt currently held by the public, the budget office had already expected the government to borrow another $21 trillion over the next decade, meaning the Republican bill would make an already-dire fiscal forecast worse. And the initial estimate of a cost of $3.3 trillion for the Senate bill is an undercount, because it does not include additional borrowing costs which could push the bill’s overall addition to the debt closer to $4 trillion.
That is the central complaint of hard-right Republicans who have resisted the measure and insisted on a lower cost. On Saturday night, a group of them demanding bigger cuts — including Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Rick Scott of Florida — held out for four hours before agreeing to begin debate on the bill.
The main component driving the cost of the Republican legislative effort is the extension of a series of tax cuts from 2017. Many of those tax cuts are set to expire this year, and extending them into the future represents a roughly $3.8 trillion hit to the budget. Republicans have also piled some additional tax cuts on top, including versions of President Trump’s promises to not tax tips and overtime, bringing the overall size of the Senate tax cut to roughly $4.5 trillion.
To offset some of that cost, Republicans have also proposed deep cuts to the country’s social safety net, particularly Medicaid. According to the C.B.O., the Senate version of the legislation would mean 11.8 million Americans lose their health insurance by 2034 as federal spending on Medicaid, Medicare and Obamacare is reduced by roughly $1.1 trillion over that period.
To save more money, Mr. Johnson, who initially voted to block the bill on Saturday night but later reversed himself to allow it to move forward, told reporters that he planned to propose an amendment that would cut Medicaid even further. But it was not clear whether it would have enough support to be adopted — or whether Mr. Johnson would support the legislation if it failed.
Republicans in the House had sought to limit the size of the tax cut by necessitating that its cost not be more than $2.5 trillion larger than the total spending reductions. The Senate plan would miss that benchmark, angering some conservatives in the House, where nearly every Republican would have to support the bill for it to pass.
