Blue States Step Up Where Trump Is Falling Down
Trump and Kennedy are decimating America's national public-health system; but state Democrats aren't taking it lying down
Aug. 31 Bonus TFN: Blue states and doctors are quietly building a new U.S. public-health system parallel to Kennedy’s basket of rabid eels … Chicago tells Trump: Don’t bring it on … Judge cites Stephen Miller to shiv Stephen Miller … Only five shopping days until Epstein’s Birthday Book Day! …
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You might not know it from corporate media, but Pres. Donald Trump is not God. He isn’t even Jesus. And so, ipso fatso, Trump’s health appointees are not the gods of Health and Human Services.
So just because HHS Sickretary Robert Fallacious Kennedy, Jr., has trapped the federal public-health system in the confines of his bemaddened brain, it doesn’t mean nothing can be done. Although TFN in principle is anti-states, they’re certainly proving their worth now.
Greg Sargent at the New Republic seems to have some inside skinny on what the Rebel Alliance of blue states is up to. Kennedy’s HHS is barreling toward raising the price of a barrel of Covid vaccine, and other vaccines, by ending the recommendations that drive insurance coverage.
So some states are alt-healthing this bullshit to make vaccines affordable on their own. While Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) made headlines, including Fucking News headlines, with his defiance against Trump last week, Sargent reports that Pritzker is also forging his own path on health:
“Pritzker’s health department in Illinois is currently exploring the possibility of purchasing Covid-19 vaccines in bulk straight from manufacturers in response to the mess in Washington, a senior Illinois health official confirms to me.”
Pritzker’s not alone. As Sargent notes, Gov. Maura Healey (D-MA) is taking potentially even more steps in Massachusetts and in potentially even more states.
She’s already gearing up for the state to set its own vaccine recommendations, which may or may not be binding on insurance companies1.
And now, she said in a press release2 last week, she’s leading “a bipartisan coalition of states to coordinate on vaccine recommendations.” Sargent reports it’ll likely include New York and Pennsylvania, but Healey’s press3 person didn’t immediately respond to my text asking who else, be it blue else or red else.
How can states pay for all this, especially socializing vaccines? Raise taxes on rich fucks, obvi. In fact, states could raise taxes precisely enough to poetically make up for Trump’s tax cuts for the rich. (Just kidding, it should be more.)
But oh noes what if these exploitative sociapaths go away? Well, feature, not a bug! But also, go where?
Texas? And subject their sons to a toxic theocratic educational system and subject their daughters to the sons subjected to a toxic theocratic educational system? Fine, go thee yonder, rich dudes.
And the states aren’t alone. Medical associations are also developing alternate realities, including vaccine recommendations, to Kennedy’s alternate realities. It’s going to be rough work, though, building a parallel health system for however long Kennedy’s legacy stains the one that just last year was good.
By one estimate, almost 600 state laws and regulations are tied to federal vaccine recommendations, which now suck.
But some states are already at work severing their laws from Kennedy’s brain problems. Colorado’s school immunization policies, for instance, have already added recommendations from big medical associations.
And other states — California, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin — are sticking with pre-flibbertigibbet vaccine recommendations.
According to Reuters, however, “health” “insurance” companies reportedly have said they’re more likely to cover vaccines that are recommended uniformly, rather than patchworkly by state.
In a perverse way, that’s a good thing, as it provides political impetus for still-sane states like Massachusetts to work together and rebuild a sane, national, public-health framework. And the work has already begun. (h/t)
Chicago Readies Defenses Against Trump
The city of Chicago is preparing to defend itself against a foreign invasion that could come as soon as this week.
Pres. Donald Trump is threatening to send in National Guard troops to reduce crime that’s already being reduced. The fake Chicago crime crisis follows in the non-existent Bigfoot footsteps of the fake Los Angeles immigration crisis, the fake Venezuelan invasion crisis, and the fake Something Something Tariffs crisis.
On Saturday, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson ordered Chicago police and other officials not to go all Vichy if the invasion comes. Johnson’s order affirms that city workers will not “collaborate with federal agents on joint law enforcement patrols, arrest operations, or other law enforcement duties including civil immigration enforcement.”
Johnson has called Trump’s threatened invasion unconstitutional and illegal. Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) last week vowed to pursue justice against any federal invaders who break the law there.
What Pritzker and Johnson have not done (yet) is threaten to sue military officials who comply with unlawful orders — which deployment would be, according to Johnson. For instance, no one’s sued Gen. Gregory Guillot for invading Los Angeles, even though California officials called that illegal.
That said, as your rule-of-law-favoring TFN wrote yesterday, Pritzker is just one of a growing number of Democrats now willing to threaten consequences for “just following orders.”
Stephen Miller’s Seething Hate Bites Him In His Seething Ass
A federal judge on Friday blocked the administration’s expansion of so-called expedited removal of alleged undocumented immigrants. It’s thanks in part to Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
The policy has been in place for decades, because both parties built the weaponry Pres. Donald Trump is now wielding against us just like the hippies and radicals warned us. Typically, expedited removal was used when undocumented immigrants were busted with border dust still on their shoes and federal agents told ‘em, nice try, back where ya came from now. But Trump has Weaponized™ it because Crisis™ to scoop up just about any immigrant anywhere who’s been here less than two years.
On Friday, Judge Jia Cobb issued a ruling of irrumabo quod cacas, or, in lay terms, fuck that shit.
Part of Cobb’s reasoning is that wrongful detentions and violations of due process are more likely to occur due to Miller’s stupid, arbitrary quota of 3,000 arrests per day. Cobb specifically cited two people who’d been here ten years but were still targeted for expedited removal as, obviously, an advance deep-cover recon team for Venezuela’s coming invasion.
MILLER’S CROSSINGS Hilariously, illegal border crossings increased this month and not because former Pres. Joe Biden now makes extra spending cash as a part-time coyote.
Preliminary data obtained by the New York Post, Rupert Murdoch’s dream journal, show that the number of border encounters rose from 4,600 in July to 7,200 this month. How come? Because, the Post says, Trump’s deportations aren’t sticking and more people are now trying to come back. (Maybe they haven’t picked up on Trump’s plans to make this country just as shitty as theirs, which they’d know if they read The Fucking News. Subscriptions are free to everyone, folks!)
Mark Your Trump/Epstein Calendars!
Your ever-optimistic TFN believes there are more important issues than Jeffrey Epstein and how Donald Trump covered for him. Like, educating a nation to stop voting dumbly. So your occasionally stubborn TFN is not of the school that insists All-Epstein/Trump-All-The-Time.
However, as we’ve promised, Epstein will continue to rise from the grave to haunt Trump and eat away at his base, thanks to House subpoenas and coming testimony. So, mark your calendars…
Sept. 3 — A tiny handful of Epstein’s victims address a news conference held by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), assuming Massie isn’t deported to Mos Eisley by then.
Sept. 8 — Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) said Friday that this is when the Oversight Committee will get the Epstein birthday book. Since Garcia’s the ranking member, presumably that means we’ll get to see the book on Sept. 8, too. It will either provide incredibly damning proof of Trump’s intimacy with Epstein and willingness to lie about it — or pretty much spell the end of the Wall Street Journal, which first alleged the book’s alleged existence.
Sept. 17 — FBI Director Kash Patel testifies about how all the stuff he swore existed doesn’t.
Sept. 19 — Former U.S. attorney Alex Acosta testifies about how his deal to let Epstein off easy didn’t.
Oct. 9 — Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies about how all the Epstein stuff that was on her desk wasn’t.
Six Quickies
The New York Times has a dispassionately devastating video report on Israel’s bombing of a Gaza hospital that killed four medical workers, five journalists, and 11 other human beings. Israel claimed it had a good reason for bombing a hospital: It was targeting a Hamas camera, which wasn’t a Hamas camera, as Israel could have found out by asking the journalists who shot from the hospital, “Hey, is that your camera?”
Sixty percent of car chases initiated by the U.S. Park Police deployed to Washington by Pres. Donald Trump have ended in crashes, the Washington Post reports. All ten chases began as traffic stops for nonviolent crimes including tinted windows and broken headlights. One of the six crashes involved a child in the back seat. Another nearly struck a detective. Both the DC police and the Park Police used to bar chases for nonviolent bullshit, but last week the Park Police ended that, making DC less safer and adding to the expected number of lawsuits against the Park Police.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) won’t run for re-election next year, raising Democratic hopes of capturing her seat the way Pres. Donald Trump captured her integrity. During the confirmation hearings for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, there was considerable focus on Ernst being a female combat veteran and surviving sexual abuse, both of which Hegseth opposes. In May, Ernst revealed her decision to leave politics forever when she responded to a question about Trump’s Medicaid cuts killing people by saying, “Well, we are all going to die.” RIP, Joni Ernst’s political career.
Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) fled his Alabama town hall on Wednesday after getting mocked and heckled and drowned out by his Alabama constituents in Alabama. Moore didn’t help things by betraying his oath to uphold the Constitution with flagrant ignorance of said Constitution, actually saying with his face-mouth: “So, due process for a citizen and a non-citizen are different things.” (Hilarious/awesome)ly, Moore was insta-fact-checked by Alabama cries of “False!” Anyway, Moore couldn’t take any more so he ran off into the Alabama night.
Older Newsfuckers and all B-movie cinephiles might be familiar with Walking Tall, the 1970s movie about real-life Sheriff Buford Pusser, whose wife was killed by criminals in an ambush. Turns out Pusser killed her. Never meet your heroes or adapt their elaborate coverups into movies, kids.
You Newsfuckers may have seen Wired’s new story on a dark-money group secretly paying leftie influencers. I don’t follow alt-punditry enough to weigh in on any specifics except one: In case anyone’s wondering, no, The Fucking News wasn’t even invited. My hurt feelings, however, are entirely assuaged by the fact that I am supported solely by your paid subscriptions to TFN and my original-reporting Substack. Thank you, Newsfuckers!
Recommended Sharing
Until yesterday, I had yet to hear a good argument for following, reading, sharing, or platforming “former” Republicans, Never Trumpers, and other architects of The Road That Got Us Here. As far as I’m concerned, everyone should give their eyeballs and dollars to people who got it right every day of their lives and recognized Republican wrongness before it swapped its George W. Bush costume for a Donald Trump costume.
Then I came across a decent argument for occasionally paying attention. It was in response to former Mitt Romney campaign strategist Stuart Stevens calling for radical steps if Democrats retake the House. The argument was to listen to Stuart and other ex- or exiled GOPers because they’ve seen the worst of what we’re fighting up close, behind closed doors, where the n-word and f-word and c-word roam free. And we should listen to what the exers say is necessary to fight such people.
Unlike the institutionalists mentioned in the post, I don’t seek a return to comity, which always leads to tragi-comity. And I support some “radical” steps when Democrats are back in power. But I am serially guilty of over-assuming the reachability and good faith of some of the people now supporting, working for, or being Trump.
It’s important to recognize everyone’s humanity, and tough to win back some of the idiot sheep who flocked to Trump without doing so. But it’s just as important, certainly for me, never to lose sight of the fact that some men just want to burn the world down.
Recommend Reading
If you want to soak in a hot, soothing tub of Trumpian failure, TFN recommends a deep dive into a subject TFN has been tracking. Salon Senior Writer Sophia Tesfaye collects many, many receipts on the many, many failures of new Washington, DC, U.S. Attorney Jea(si)nine Pirro, the old Fox star.
Taking Action
Labor Day will see Workers Over Billionaires rallies all over the place (find one here). Tomorrow, Saturday, there’s an organizing call you can sign up for here.
I’m also planning to publish a TFN Bonus Story about Labor Day tomorrow, so if you want to make sure you get it, check your account settings. (I will also be on the road tomorrow taking my son to college, so please forgive any perceived slacking in newsfucking this week!)
TCB
SUPPORTING TFN There’s a reason I’m working over a long holiday weekend. Calvinism is zero of them. One is that I’m still trying to build TFN at a time when more and more people famous for being famous are flooding Substack, making it tougher to compete.
Another is money. TFN is my only source of revenue, and while we’re on track for financial sustainability, we’re not there yet. Which means days off and vacations are fondly aspirational.
Another is that I know a lot of you Newsfuckers count on TFN being here for you. That’s real to me. Even when TFN becomes fabulously lucrative and I get to take vacations/days off, I expect to make sure TFN’s reliably showing up in some form. And so many of you have already showed up for me and TFN by upgrading to paid subscriptions that TFN is one of Substack’s top 100 political newsletters, despite my embarrassing lack of famousness.
So if you count on TFN being there for you, and you can afford a paid subscription, I hope you’ll consider helping TFN keep growing. No day will make more of a difference than today. E pluribus fuckem.
CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE I was all set to go to town on The Guardian for their piece on questions the Justice Department didn’t ask Ghislaine Maxwell, assuming they wouldn’t credit your unasked-questions-flagging TFN for flagging a couple weeks ago. Turns out, they linked to TFN! So, thanks to The Guardian for the integrity and thanks to you Newsfuckers for helping TFN get seen by the big boys and girls and nonbinary children.
ICYMI On Friday, Blue Amp evil genius Cliff Schecter joined me for a live chat so I could explain where he went awry in arguing that former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is the national model Democrats need. You can watch us go at it here.
In a TFN Bonus Story on Saturday, I rounded up examples of Democrats — state, local, and even one senator — threatening legal consequences for Trump minions just following Trump orders. The numbers are growing.
NEWSFUCKING IN THE WILD My regular Monday stint on The Nicole Sandler Show takes a hiatus for Labor Day, but I’ll be back Mondays afterward at 3:30pm eastern and you can watch for free, right here.
And superstar superhero writer Mark Waid joins me for a live chat on Monday, Sept. 15, at 4:30pm eastern time to talk about men and supermen and the Superman movie.
MERCH SALE! The Fucking News Shop’s Labor Day sale lets you take 10% off your order by using the codeword FINGNEWSER. The codeword expires after Monday, Labor Day. And keep in mind, the codeword is only good for one Newsfucker per order, so shop wisely!
RESOURCES
Go get ‘em, kids! Celebrating Labor Day doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to a day of leisure…
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
Meaning I literally just don’t know.
Exciting news! In TV they taught me to write “news release” because “press release” refers literally to the presses that made make newspapers. I have hereby decided that “press release” is idiomatic. Just like “the press.” You’re welcome, ink-stained wretches.
See? It’s everywhere now!
As a Floridian, I may never see another immunization but I can drink raw milk to my heart’s content. Welcome to the state where people come to die.
Readers might not be old enough to remember the Joe Don Baker classic "Walking Tall," but don't forget The Rock starred in a remake in 2004. Bet he's feeling real good about that now...