F**king Mondays: RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!!! (But Not Really!!), Trump's Idiot Healthcare "Plan", and Marjorie Taylor Greene is a Normie?
Does Trump really want the Esptein files released? Almost certainly not.
Welcome to another edition of F**king Mondays, the only column you need to start your week off! In the roundup today:
For the 50 millionth time, Trump has no health care plan
Trump voters know that Obamacare has been a huge failure. It doesn’t work, it makes health insurance more expensive, and it was started by a Muslim Communist, so it must be terrible.
That is until Trump tries to take away Obamacare — then Trump voters don’t mind Obamacare all that much. In fact, they’d prefer it if Trump didn’t take the health care subsidies away, because it would plunge many of them into poverty or force them to ditch their health insurance altogether.
Because in the real world, away from the fear mongering on Fox News and the right wing disinformation bubble, Trump has no alternative to the Affordable Care Act — and never has.
This is Trump’s current idea for health care in America:
Trump’s “plan” was apparently a genius brainwave he had during the government shut down and involves giving “large amounts of dollars back to the people.”
“The insurance companies are making a fortune,” he went on. “Their stock is up over a thousand percent over a short period of time. They are taking in hundreds of billions of dollars, and they’re not really putting it back, certainly like they should.”
Trump would take this money and pay it “directly to the people of our country” so that “they can buy their own health insurance, they can negotiate price.”
If you have no idea what this means, don’t worry because it makes no sense whatsoever.
If we take this word salad literally, Trump is going to tax insurance companies and give the money to Americans… so they can buy insurance plans from the same companies? What I think he really means is that they are going to take the ACA subsidies and give it to the public so they can negotiate directly with the insurance companies.
The problem is, the ACA subsidies aren’t given to insurers as a gift. The government pays part of people’s premiums on their behalf. Insurers don’t “keep” subsidy money as profit — they simply receive it as payment for covering individuals they’re required by law to insure. You can’t “take” money from insurers that they never had. ACA subsidies go straight through them to cover legally mandated benefits.
If you take the subsidies away from insurers and give them to individuals, nothing actually changes. People still have to buy insurance, the rates are market driven so will continue to go up if they aren’t regulated. The risk pool problem remains the same, and without the government to negotiate, individuals won’t have any leverage to lower costs. The entire system relies on collective bargaining power, and if that goes, so does the affordable health care plans.
My guess is Republicans are going to continue funding the ACA, because despite its flaws, it actually works quite well. 2026 is another big election year, and if Republicans want to win the midterms, they’re going to have to ensure their voters have affordable health insurance.
Thanks, Obama!
Marjorie Taylor Greene is sounding kinda normal?
It is quite something to watch the MAGA movement rip itself to pieces over antisemitism and the Epstein files. These topics are fueling the mother of all rifts between the true Trump cultists and what is left of the moderates, and it shows no signs of abating.
Marjorie Taylor Greene has been the most surprising casualty of this civil war. The firebrand MAGA-diehard has morphed into a far more moderate, sensible Republican after coming to Washington, and she is — I can’t believe I’m about to type this — showing a considerable amount of bravery. Not only has she stood up to Trump over the government shutdown, health care, the Epstein files, she has also accepted responsibility for “taking part in the toxic politics” of the Trump era. Yes, really.
Here was Greene speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash over the weekend:
You could argue that Greene is only doing this because Trump has turned the mob on her, and I think that is partly true. But I do — and again, I can’t believe I’m typing this — sense she is being genuine.
We’ve seen this kind of dynamic play out in far left circles too. There have been a number of prominent woke activists who have realized the errors of their ways after being attacked by their own side.
Activists like Natalie Wynn and Chloé Valdary moderated their views after discovering that no matter how ideologically rigid you are, someone in your movement will always demand you go further. Frances Lee famously wrote “Excommunicate Me From the Church of Social Justice” after being devoured by the activist culture they helped build. Even within anti-racist organizing, Valdary broke with the movement once she saw how quickly it turned on dissenters.
This isn’t to excuse Greene from all of the shitty things she has done, but unlike many other Trump defectors, she started speaking out against him at the height of his power. Greene wasn’t booted out of the MAGA inner circle, and there is little to be gained from her disavowing the president.
Democrats aren’t obliged to embrace Greene, but if she continues to stand up to Trump, then they might be able to at least work with her.
Trump: Release the Epstein Files! But don’t really…
Donald Trump appears to have relented after months of trying to stop Congress forcing the release of all Epstein files from the Justice Department. Now Trump wants House Republicans to vote to release the Epstein files, because “we have nothing to hide”:
The thing is, Trump has the power to release the Epstein files without Congress by declassifying them. So what is actually going on here?
According to a TIME investigation, Trump may be publicly backing release while quietly creating a way to block it. After the DOJ closed its earlier Epstein probe, he abruptly ordered a new investigation into several political opponents’ ties to Epstein — a move legal experts told TIME could justify withholding documents under the pretext of an “ongoing investigation.”
Rep. Thomas Massie, who is leading the House effort to force disclosure, called the new probe a “smokescreen” and a “last-ditch effort” to stop release, noting that active investigations prevent documents from being made public.
Former federal prosecutors interviewed by TIME agreed. Barbara McQuade called the timing “a strategic effort” to block further releases, while Stephen Saltzburg said Trump appears “desperate” to distance himself from Epstein and may use the probe to delay more files.
Trump likely wants to avoid directly invoking executive privilege or vetoing a transparency bill — actions that would put responsibility on him — and instead use the new investigation to slow-roll disclosure while claiming he supports it. Put simply:
Step 1: Say “Release the files!”
This makes him look transparent and gives him political cover.Step 2: Launch a new investigation into political opponents.
Once there’s an “ongoing investigation,” DOJ can say the files can’t be released yet.Step 3: Let the delay happen quietly.
If the files don’t come out, he can blame the investigation or Congress — not himself.
So release the Epstein files! But don’t really.
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