California weighs penalties for healthcare providers that don’t rein in costs
About half of U.S. adults say they can’t afford healthcare. California is among at least eight states that have set spending growth targets for the healthcare sector. It may soon impose enforcement penalties aimed at pushing hospitals and other providers to meet those goals. By Claudia Boyd-Barrett for KFF California is weighing stiff penalties for hospitals and other healthcare…
Top secret mash notes
A cartoon by Clay Bennett. Related | ‘Here I am’: Melania Trump turns up amid Natalie Harp firestorm…
Missouri Republicans are trying to repeal abortion rights by leaning into anti-trans sentiment
Two years after falsely linking reproductive rights to gender transition care for minors, GOP lawmakers have packaged the two issues into one amendment in an effort to strip away the right to abortion. By Jeremy Kohler for ProPublica Two years ago, abortion opponents in Missouri tried to defeat Amendment 3, a ballot initiative to enshrine reproductive rights in the state…
Washington Post fails to censor writer’s take on Charlie Kirk
The Washington Post has been ordered by an arbitrator to rehire opinion writer Karen Attiah, who was fired last year for comments about the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. Posting on social media in September 2025, she lamented that politicians say that gun and political violence is an issue but do little to curb the availability of guns. “America…
Trump’s gilded ballroom loses its pretense for existing
After all of the White House’s insistence that President Donald Trump’s ballroom would be a lid over the world’s most top-secret and most necessary military installation, so top secret that Trump has blabbed about it constantly, it turns out that there was already a secret White House bunker. Whoopsie. The Washington Post reports that in the wake of 9/11, federal officials built an…
The world inches toward catastrophic climate events: ‘Bigger shocks are on the way’
In the opening scene of American writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Ministry for the Future,” a heat wave combined with a breakdown of the electrical grid in India kills 20 million people. The devastation causes the world’s nations to unite to combat climate change. Scientists have long warned that the world will experience more intense extreme weather events like heat waves, storms…
USS Scurvy
A cartoon by Drew Sheneman. Related | Trump says struggling sailors haven’t been at sea ‘nearly long enough’…
USS Lincoln sailor heartbroken after Trump’s ICE goons arrest his dad
A service member aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln returning from a widely criticized extended deployment is now contending with a family crisis after ICE agents arrested his father. The USS Lincoln was stuck in the Middle East for a record-breaking 270 continuous days at sea as part of President Donald Trump’s decision to wage war against Iran. Family members of service members serving on the…
US and Canada fall deeper into a trade war with new tariffs as talks collapse and blame is spread
The United States and Canada, historic allies along an undefended border, fell deeper into a trade war Saturday marked by angry recriminations and new tariffs that are expected to raise prices for products in both countries. Each side blamed the other for the collapse of negotiations in Washington late Friday, leading the U.S. to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods and…
Aug. 24: Trump starts a race and a new trade war
47 minutes agoWalter EinenkelTrump starts new tariff fight on social media. Copy linkShare on FacebookShare on XShare via email 5 minutes agoWalter EinenkelFox Business embarrasses itself—and Trump’s top NASA stoogeCopy linkShare on FacebookShare on XShare via email 25 minutes agoWalter EinenkelInline comment threads are live!Copy linkShare on FacebookShare on XShare via email 33 minutes…
We’re raising hell this summer … and beyond!
Our summer merch series is back with its next drop—and this one says exactly what we’ve been doing for more than two decades. RAISING HELL. SINCE 2002. The new Raising Hell T-shirt features the slogan front and center, with Daily Kos underneath—a nod to 24 years of fighting back, speaking out, organizing, and refusing to sit quietly while the right tries to drag this country backward.
JD Vance doesn’t have a clue about homeownership
Vice President JD Vance has taken a page out of President Donald Trump’s playbook, blatantly lying at an event in Ohio this past Friday when he said that he and Trump are putting homeownership in reach for many Americans. “We’re finally seeing that American dream of homeownership become accessible again to our young people,” Vance said, in a remark so absurd that the people the White House…
How much of a cancer drug is too much? Patients, researchers challenge FDA-approved dosages.
By Arthur Allen for KFF Northwestern University economist Chuck Manski studies decision-making amid uncertainty. That prepared him better than many other cancer patients to decide whether to stay on an immunotherapy treatment that was making him very ill. For six months in 2022, Manski received monthly infusions of nivolumab to fight advanced melanoma. The drug ruined his thyroid…
The manliest men
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Does socialism help Democrats win elections?
Survey Says is a weekly series rounding up the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics or culture. Democratic socialism appears to be ascendant in the Democratic Party, but when it comes to winning elections, is that a good thing? There is perhaps no more fraught intraparty discussion at the moment.
Totally Flocked
A cartoon by Jack Ohman. Related | What the Flock: Only ICE and cops seem to like creepy camera network…
A new Trump administration analysis claims noncitizens voted in 2020. Experts are questioning its validity.
Trump said it shows he won the 2020 election, but the 24,000 voters in question wouldn’t change the outcome. By Dion Nissenbaum for Votebeat President Donald Trump this week unveiled another effort by his administration to raise questions about the outcome of the 2020 election he lost: an unusual U.S. Census Bureau analysis concluding with “high confidence” that 24,000…
More than 50 sloths died at a Florida wildlife attraction. Officials say no crime occurred.
The investigation details emaciated, dehydrated animals and concerns about Sloth World’s operations, but concluded there was no evidence of criminal neglect or abuse. By Katie Surma and Kiley Price for Inside Climate News New investigative findings from a Florida sheriff’s office detail the stark conditions of emaciated and dehydrated sloths at a planned tourism attraction where…
Republicans have only themselves to blame for the Natalie Harp mess
Congressional Cowards is a weekly series highlighting the worst Donald Trump defenders on Capitol Hill, who refuse to criticize him—no matter how disgraceful or lawless his actions. Republicans have been on a multiday freak out over a passing comment Sen. Jon Ossoff made at a campaign event when he brought up Trump’s relationship with White House aide Natalie Harp.
Running on empty
A cartoon by David Horsey. Related | Trump shills for AI while lying about surging energy prices…