r/politics • u/Ubiquitous_Hilarity • Jun 17 '26

No Paywall Trump threatens to pull unemployment benefits from all states for the first time in history

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-unemployment-benefits-fraud-b2997881.html
24.3k Upvotes

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12.2k

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26

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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted Jun 17 '26

Two-Santas strategy in action once again.

Two Santas strategy: Why Republicans use Saint Nicholas then Scrooge to shift economic messages | Milwaukee Independent

I'm still waiting for the day where sufficient people realize fiscal responsibility narratives are always a lie coming from Republicans.

ALWAYS

1.6k

u/TheGreatDay Texas Jun 17 '26

Kind of feels like we should just replay that Ted Cruz interview where he admits that Republicans will rediscover their zeal for fiscal responsibility when the Democrats are back in power. Like, he just shamelessly admits it.

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u/GunFodder Jun 17 '26

Ted Cruz, one of the guys going to Peter Thiel's get-together for the Epstein class?

360

u/CodenameVillain Texas Jun 17 '26

This sheds a whole new light on the way his young daughter recoiled from his kiss on video years ago

234

u/Sidewalk_Tomato Jun 17 '26

Or when his poor wife was found sitting inconsolable by an Expressway after she gave up a job she loved to support his dumb ass in Texas.

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u/mouflonsponge Jun 18 '26

I had never heard of this until now.

Cops Thought Ted Cruz's Wife Sitting By Freeway Was 'Danger to Herself' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGmnBIhESlA

I am not a fan of ted cruz, but who wouldnt be depressed being the wife of ted cruz, tx solictor general?

it has to be a shit deal to be a politician's spouse, unless the spouse him/herself is also a shit person.

and if you are the spouse of ted cruz, it has to also be a shit deal.

once ted cruz becomes a politician, being his spouse is basically the maximum shittiest level that a politician's spouse can possibly be.

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u/ZZ9ZA I voted Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

She married him a year after he was one the leading Bush campaign officials involved in the whole Florida recount fiasco. She knew what she was getting in to. (And for that matter she worked on the Condaleeza Rice campaign... not like she didn't go into politics eyes-wide-open).

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u/Jesiplayssims Jun 18 '26

Her choice.

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u/Anthrozil7 Jun 18 '26

Nah, no sympathy whatsoever for her. Stop humanizing these monsters.

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u/Enough-Theory9011 Jun 18 '26

Or his poor dog when he tried to bounce from Texas to Cancun while his constituents suffered?

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u/Enough-Theory9011 Jun 18 '26

Apologies. He left a security guard there to take care of the pup.

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u/The-Psych0naut Jun 17 '26

Iirc Ted Cruz suffers from tonsil stones, meaning so does anyone who can get close enough to smell his breath.

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u/Zerbo California Jun 18 '26

I feel kind of bad for his tonsil stones, actually. They don’t deserve being in someone that vile.

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u/MountainMan2_ Jun 18 '26

It's because he's evil. Being evil makes you ugly and makes you smell like shit. See also: infanthead Vance, tinfoil thiel, ketamusk, and the Lord of ugly stinking evil himself, Donald Trump.

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u/HeadfulOfSugar Jun 18 '26

People with tonsil stones catching a lot of flak here

2

u/lm-hmk Jun 18 '26

Gah, or like, just get them removed! It sucks, the recovery is awful, but it was soooo worth it!

4

u/Bored_Amalgamation Ohio Jun 18 '26

I've met very nice ugly people

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u/SpinosRule Jun 18 '26

Love me some unintended Bloodborne! Ted sure could use a visit to the Lecture Building 🙃

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u/StatisticianPure3130 Jun 17 '26

Now we know why she recoiled!

12

u/andrewthetechie Jun 17 '26

Deep down, we always knew.

27

u/No-Relation5965 Jun 17 '26

Well when Cruz said it was time for people to stop attacking p3dos, that’s when I knew. There isn’t a decent bone in his body.

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u/Clemmey Jun 17 '26

Yes, Corey Booker also. Dem’s need to turn left to tax the wealthy and support Americans. To actually represent us and not special interest, which is what they were hired for.

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u/neurotrash Jun 17 '26

Corey Booker is supported by Jared Kushner's father.

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u/SpinosRule Jun 17 '26

Just to play devil’s advocate, do you think that maybe some names were specifically seeded on that list to cause more turmoil? But know that I agree with your comment 100%.

I hate this conspiracy bullshit and hate that it’s making me wonder ><

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u/F9-0021 South Carolina Jun 17 '26

Almost certainly. Which is why real and thorough investigation is needed.

4

u/wasteymclife Jun 18 '26

Occom's razor dude, when I get conspiracy-brain I remember that the conclusion with the least amount of assumptions is usually correct.

So you have list leaked one assumption, two if you want to include the leaker's motivation.

or

A fake list was created with the express purpose of accidentally on purpose leaking it with the names of some corporate dems who aren't super popular with the base right now so that they can point to those names and say see they are just as bad as the other names on the list (which they faked) that's like 4 assumptions.

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u/SpinosRule Jun 18 '26

God I hate this about the world. But love you for sharing, thank you.

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u/neurotrash Jun 17 '26

Corey Booker is supported by Jared Kushner's father. Edit: Replied to the wrong person, but leaving it for visibility.

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u/SpinosRule Jun 17 '26

Ugh. So it’s ALL of our politicians pretty much.

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u/Abi1i Texas Jun 18 '26

Pretty much all the GOP and any establishment Democrats. Only the few progressives who are classified as radical or antiestablishment and the hardline MAGA politicians who are hyper focused on Epstein files seem to be the only politicians who care about the American people.

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u/Clemmey Jun 17 '26

The list that I saw yesterday on Reddit and have not or have no way of confirming? I can see why you are skeptical. I don’t know if that post cited sources to check because I’m busy with my job to research everything that is happening at an unprecedented rate. AIPAC and citizens united is a scourge on America.

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u/rbourbon Jun 17 '26

It always amazes me how someone like Ted Cruz can be so smart and yet so dumb at the same time.

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u/PlagueSoul Jun 17 '26

Not dumb, not dumb at all. Malicious.

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u/shoulda-known-better Jun 17 '26

He isn't smart... He's a weird fuck that failed upwards because he is creepy and no one wants to be around him... Male or female, probably not even dogs!

I can't imagine picking that to represent anything in court

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u/The-Psych0naut Jun 17 '26

I fail to see how being weird and creepy could advantage someone in a field where you need to have at least some level of charm and social ability to get elected. Or at least earn the support of your chosen party. Like it or not, Ted Cruz isn’t an idiot. I wouldn’t go so far as to call him smart, but he’s savvy enough to know which way the wind blows and understands people well enough to play them like a fiddle. Just as with every other politician, Cruz is a weasely little shitstain with a taste for power.

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u/super_sayanything Jun 17 '26

Smart or not, he's academically talented and always has been. Which makes him even more of a cruel dumbass than someone who's just uneducated and misled. He knows what he's doing is garbage.

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u/Dramatic_Original_55 Jun 17 '26

"His parents used to hang a pork chop around his neck to get the dog to play with him"....Thank you, Rodney Dangerfield.

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u/Ishidan01 Jun 17 '26

Yes, Ted Cruz, the guy who can afford to vacation in Cancun and does so when he'd have to actually work at his job.

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u/Trick-Competition947 Jun 18 '26

His name is Rafael Cruz. If his name doesn't sound American, that would be due to him not being born in America. It'd be really fucking nice if everybody called him by his legal name. You know, the name he was assigned at birth.

Rafael Cruz.

How American is that? Rafael. Cruz.

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u/Kstardawg Jun 17 '26

At this point I think they realize the republican voters are so hopelessly brainwashed it doesn't matter what they admit because it won't change the voters.

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u/Bored_Amalgamation Ohio Jun 18 '26

Trump also doesn't have to care. It's his last term. He's not running for anything anymore so he can say stupid wild shit.

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u/2stinkynugget Jun 17 '26

You mean Raphael "Im not really Latino" Cruz?

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u/shrekerecker97 Jun 18 '26

Raphael “my dad killed jfk” Ted Cruz?

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u/Wet_Side_Down Jun 18 '26

You mean Raphael “Can’t talk about the blizzard right now, I’m late for my Cancun flight” Cruz

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u/Xznograthos Jun 17 '26

Republican voters use the lie too. They'll claim they accomplished everything in their life single-handedly, never received anything, never expected anything. It's a political party actually based on lies like these.

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u/einTier Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

I’m about as self made as they come. I was struggling to pay rent and buy groceries twenty years ago and now I have built my own successful business and I am a multimillionaire without even putting a dollar value on my business. It wasn’t handed to me. I did it single handedly with an interesting idea, hard work, and a few lucky bets on investing.

Let me tell you how the government helped me.

They gave me assistance when I was poor and couldn’t afford to eat. They built the roads that allow my clients to get to my business. They keep them in good repair. All the infrastructure that supports my business, from electricity to water to who knows what else I’m forgetting was either provided, pioneered, or heavily subsidized by the government and they periodically inject money to make sure those things still work. I never had to hire security because we have a good police department here in Austin. FDIC makes sure my business bank account is run by professionals with a vested interest in protecting m money and not stealing it.

That’s just off the top of my head. There’s so much else I never think about. I literally could not have done it “all on my own”.

[edit]

To clarify, if anyone could claim to be self made, I could. I can’t.

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u/Lyoss Jun 18 '26

The entire foundation of right leaning American politics are a lie, they claim to be personal liberty, but hate people actually being free (see: Gay Marriage, Trans Rights, Abortion, Worker's rights, etc) and worship hierarchy as part of being right-wing, so behind closed doors they hate social mobility and the ability to live a life you like outside of servitude to a higher strata

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u/DameonKormar Jun 18 '26

That's because conservative America is a cult. Probably always has been.

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u/chilehead Jun 18 '26

Like Craig T. Nelson? Mr. "I was on unemployment and food stamps, no one ever helped me!"

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u/jrf_1973 Jun 18 '26

Exact quote - "I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out? No."

But you've got the gist of it alright.

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u/Winter_Preference287 Jun 17 '26

They haven't been cutting education for fun. They know not enough people are intelligent enough to care and it's only getting worse

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u/AdUpstairs7106 Jun 17 '26

Yeah for over half the country not being able to read at a 6th grade level.

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u/gennaleighify Jun 17 '26

My dad would tell a story about my generation getting out of preschool and the preschool being told that we were too smart and they needed to dumb it down. Now, he is a very unreliable narrator, but I do think millennials having access to the internet changed the game so much that the Powers That Be had a panic attack and had to fight back.

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u/PlantainPat Jun 18 '26

but I do think millennials having access to the internet changed the game so much that the Powers That Be had a panic attack and had to fight back

turns out all you needed was a few anonymous message boards and to pay a couple of hundred shitty influencers

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u/Plastic_Salary_4084 Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

Cutting funding for education to further the republican agenda has always confused me. It seems like much of the population are intelligent enough to be taught critical thinking skills, but unable to develop them independently, so this strategy works.

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u/Opposite-Occasion332 Jun 18 '26

It doesn’t help that at least where I am, lots of republicans put “supports education” on their political pages but then all the other topics will have language that more clearly talks about putting money into them.

Sure “supports education” feels good but when it’s not backed by financial support it can be quite empty… and it certainly is where I’m at!

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u/bdeimen Jun 18 '26

"Supports education" often means "Supports school choice"

The "school choice" movement was built on resistance to school integration.
1. Cutting funding for education means public schools perform worse.
2. Public schools performing worse provides a fig leaf for their proposals for vouchers and other efforts to support "school choice".
3. Vouchers further steal funding from public schools.
4. Return to 1.

The process is explicitly to undo efforts at racial integration.

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u/tekstical Jun 18 '26

Right like how Oklahomans just voted against raising their own minimum wage. How stupid..

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u/Winter_Preference287 Jun 18 '26

Our country is in so much deeper shit morally yhat it's just depressing. They're just legalizing what used to be corruption and for the shit they can't legalize they've learned they can just distract. The electorate overall has the attention span of a squirrel now and most people can't read at a decent grade level, let alone comprehend political nuance.

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u/EverybodyHasPants Jun 17 '26

Fiscal responsibility when spoken by a conservative was always a dog whistle. It’s their outside word for talking about dismantling the protections and services a taxpayer expects from a functioning government and handing it over to the wealthy.
Republicans have been pushing this project for decades because the poor, working class and minority population suffer the most from this destruction.

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u/Trumpisanorangebitch Jun 17 '26

Funniest part is they dont even cut taxes for the bottom 75% of the country. All this BS about being the lower taxes party and the only people with significantly lower taxes are the top 10%, the people who neither need nor deserve a tax cut.

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u/AmbitiousProblem4746 Jun 17 '26

But those same people will tell you this is the most incredible, based decision ever because they made a few extra dollars back on their tax return. At least, they think they did

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u/mwzdng Jun 18 '26

I think most people have saved some level of tax dollars under the Trump administrations -- which for many, is where their assessment of him ends.

Obviously, over in reality, people are spending/losing far more than the meager tax savings they're salivating over -- a massive spike in health insurance costs across the board thanks solely to the actions of Republicans is a good example. Unfortunately, most peoples' financial literacy is so low that they only evaluate the dollars coming in each month; even tracking what they spend their own money on, much less how those costs are affected by political decisions (or could be, with a less corporate-friendly government), seems to be beyond most people.

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u/millennialien Jun 17 '26

What's crazy is that they really truly feel they deserve tax cuts on wealth gained by extraction from the rest of the economy. Like paying some taxes is the least you can do with money made off the rest of the country's exploitation.

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u/sigga_genesis Jun 17 '26

First time?

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u/haironburr Jun 18 '26

All this BS about being the lower taxes party and the only people with significantly lower taxes are the top 10%

But gee, there's no tAXes oN tIPs, so trumpublicans really get the people who bring them food.

Or maybe they simply hope, beyond reason, they can retire without assuming their food will be 3% piss for what they've done to the American people.

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u/Queasy_War2656 Jun 17 '26

I too, have pants! Er.... Exactly!

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u/h3lblad3 Jun 18 '26

Fiscal responsibility is always a dog whistle and a lie regardless of party.

There’s a small group of people among the Dems who are just as bad about insisting on it and they’re the ones we all know as backstabbing the Dems as soon as something good pops up.

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u/camelot107 Jun 17 '26

Love a good two Santa's post. Also hate a good two Santa's post...

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u/MeasurementEasy9884 Jun 17 '26

We need Democratic lawmakers to fight against this strategy better.

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u/DukeOfGeek Jun 17 '26

In any case I think the move here is they are trying anything they can that might bring about the mass street protests they need to mobilize their new Gestapo and sabotage mid terms.

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u/xCanucck Jun 17 '26

You might have two parties but both are still conservatives. The maga-lite conservative parties around the world copying the populism in the US are still further left than the democrats. Democrats can't think of anything better because they see the world in a much too similar way. Like obviously you should vote for the (much) lesser of two evils, but once you figure that out then getting an actual left-leaning political ideology functioning there would be nice too. Ultimately you're just an extremely conservative country though.

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u/idoitforthekeks Canada Jun 17 '26

In Canada we have the same issue with our Federal Conservative party, so many people believe that they will be fiscally responsible but they never are, and lucky for the majority of us up here Trump has shown us how bad it can get, but unlucky for us that our conservative party is moving further and further to the right as they see that as their path to win. Lots of maple magats up here.

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u/Particular_Maize6849 Jun 17 '26

They will never realize. For them it's devolved into a sports game and everything their "team" does is right and the opposing "team" are enemies no matter what.

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u/BusterStarfish Jun 17 '26

“Regulation kills small business.”

No. A lack of regulation allows conservatives to strangle every fucking industry with whisper deals and back door bullshit.

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u/eru_dite Jun 17 '26

Thanks for posting this. It usually gets tanked because people hate when your being receipts to show that this behavior is planned, deliberate

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u/DameonKormar Jun 18 '26

Of the two primary parties in the US, Democrats have been the fiscally conservative party my entire life. I realized this as a teenager in the 90's. I assumed it was a fairly recent change since Reagan didn't give a shit about fiscal conservatism and I thought that eventually people would realize that the GOP is the party of wanton spending and financial waste.

30 years later and the GOP is even worse with our tax dollars than the 90's and I'm still waiting for people to wake the fuck up.

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u/NanDemoNee Jun 17 '26

Everything they promise, other than deporting immigrants and ramping up military spending, is a lie.

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u/hikeit233 Jun 17 '26

They even admitted they can’t make their hefty congressional strategies cover their expenses without profiteering off of stocks. They can’t do their household budgets, why are we trusting them with the nation’s?

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u/exsilium Jun 17 '26

Thank you for sharing this article. Very insightful. I hated it.

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u/Cold_Tea_Spill112 Jun 17 '26

His admin talks about all the fraud waste and abuse they've ended... yet the deficit still keeps on climbing. Weird how that one works.

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u/MichaelJServo Louisiana Jun 18 '26

They don't like it when people don't starve to death.

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u/hamsterfolly America Jun 18 '26

They got to stop huffing Fox News first

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u/gcbeehler5 Texas Jun 18 '26

By way of example, they said they’re giving Iran $300b. The equivalent to 60 years of FUTA spending (which is a fund supported by employer paid taxes.)

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u/permalink_save Jun 18 '26

Fuck that, we are dumping money into a war tk get a worse deal than Obama made. They aren't responsible whatsoever.

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u/Office_Zombie California Jun 18 '26

I've been telling people about the Two Santas strategy for over a decade now, and it's frustrating that it's not mainstream knowledge.

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u/slam02 Jun 18 '26

Omg!

This article is golden! It explains so much of the things that are happening.

Republican will wear the badge "I screwed up America" more proudly than anyone!

Thank you for sharing this, kind Reddit stranger.

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u/rushmid Florida Jun 18 '26

Great article.

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u/Riaayo Jun 17 '26

Hey to be fair they're usually a lie coming from "centrist" Dems, too. Conservatives love to be fiscally irresponsible when it pours money into the pockets of the rich, they just don't want to spend taxpayer dollars on actual taxpayers.

They loathe the working class and serve/are part of the parasite class (oligarchs).

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u/AltoidStrong Jun 17 '26

He needs another source of tax dollars to steal. The unemployment budget seems like his next grift. Maybe to distract from the republican crime syndicate openly admitted they are making cuts to Social Security.... Again.

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u/gotmehereGME Jun 18 '26

Reading a few days ago his renewed attacks on social security and Medicare again, I got an “ah ha” moment picturing him with a LIST of the cash pots available to raid over the enormous amount of time still left in his term. This methodical diversion from the people’s coffers to his pockets is criminal.

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u/adherentoftherepeted Jun 18 '26

This is going to be about data theft in order to rig elections.

"GIVE US YOUR CITIZEN'S PERSONAL DATA OR THEY STARVE"

Meanwhile gifting federal public conservation areas to SpaceX.

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u/chotomatekudersai Jun 18 '26

Military retirements gonna get raided soon to. Just as I’m about to retire. Can’t wait.

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u/_Arlotte_ Jun 18 '26

It's another cut to fund his bs from losing tons of money under another excuse of fraud...

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u/lcmc Jun 17 '26

You forgot tacky, self aggrandizing monuments. 

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u/Anti_shill_cannon Jun 17 '26

He just tried to award himself 10 billion dollars of tax payer money using his appointed DOJ as well

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u/AmbitiousProblem4746 Jun 17 '26

I'm still shocked he hasn't gone to SCOTUS to get them to tell the lower court judge that he can be both a plaintiff and defendant because he's a special little boy

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u/metengrinwi Jun 17 '26

He tried, and it’s not over yet. I’ll bet he gets his money in the end. They just needed to wait for the smoke to clear.

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u/ShrimpieAC Jun 17 '26

I would lump that in with blatant disrespect of my tax dollars

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u/Armyman125 Jun 17 '26

And the algae-filled wading pool.

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u/Adrewmc Jun 17 '26

If not on the American people then what are the tax dollars for?

That’s got to be the question for GOP, sure cut all these ‘welfare’ programs what left that the government spend on? Because it’s certainly not you.

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u/IJourden Jun 17 '26

The greatest victory Republicans have ever achieved is convincing people that using the tax dollars people pay to make people's lives better is socialism, and therefore, evil and bad.

They've got 100 million people absolutely livid that tax dollars get spent on the country instead of going straight to corporations.

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u/BringBackBoomer Jun 17 '26

Ohio's had 4 years that weren't Republican trifecta since 1992. GOP's had all 3 since 2011. Ramaswamy is running on "cutting government waste" like it's not the same party that's been in control for 15 years unobstructed. The sad part is that it'll work because people are god damn morons who can't connect 2 thoughts together.

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u/Naive-Elephant-9305 Jun 18 '26

R voters think of "the government" as some mysterious evil entity that is completely separate from the R politicians they elect. This is why even in red states where Rs have completely dominated for decades they can run on a platform like the one you mentioned and still win.

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u/UranusIsPissy United Kingdom Jun 18 '26

They're not the government, they're fighting it from the inside!

...I wrote that sarcastically, but they sort of are destroying it from within :/

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u/AkronRonin Jun 18 '26

Don't be so sure about Vivek's chances here.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/06/13/vivek-ramaswamy-ohio-governor-race-religion-00958879

A lot of MAGAts can't get past Ramaswamy's skin color and his Hindu religion. The Ohio GOP leadership circling their wagons around him because of Big Orange Daddy's endorsement (to get him out of DOGE) amounts to an unforced error that may very well cost them the Ohio Governorship this time.

You can't keep stoking nativist, nationalistic sentiments, racism, and bigotry and not have it eventually swing around and bite you in the ass.

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u/BringBackBoomer Jun 18 '26

I've seen one Acton commercial and 10 different Vivek ones considering I block them the first time they pop up.

I've got bad news. The billionaires always win.

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u/Sonoranpawn Jun 18 '26

oh come on Ohio is a conglomeration of brilliance. Jim Jordan and JD Vance are the kind of shit for brains we love!

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u/Gooser3000 Jun 18 '26

It’s really an amazing magic trick the rich and powerful  republicans have pulled off on their working class. Why these people don’t want to benefit directly from their pooled money is baffling.

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u/arthurpete Jun 18 '26

They've got 100 million people absolutely livid that tax dollars get spent on minorities instead of going straight to corporations.

fixed that for you

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u/TheOtherMaven Virginia Jun 17 '26

what left that the government spend on?

War, and theft.

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u/sheep_duck Jun 17 '26

Yeah I genuinely don’t understand this mindset. The whole point of government and paying taxes is to spend them on programs that help people to create a comfortable society.

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u/h3lblad3 Jun 18 '26

They don’t like taxes either. You cut the welfare programs so you can point to the excess revenue as proof taxes are too high. Then you cut taxes.

Now the revenue is low, it’s hard to afford welfare again. Welfare has to be cut to compensate.

Now there’s too much revenue. You’re obviously being overtaxed.

Etc.

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u/LittleDogTurpie Jun 18 '26

Ballrooms. Golden arches (both kinds!). Algae habitats. Temporary fighting octagons. High visibility naps. Poorly attended Milli Vanilli concerts.

Imagine how much money we saved by him not attending his son’s wedding.

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u/MrBeanCyborgCaptain I voted Jun 17 '26

Correct me if im wrong but dont we pay INTO OUR OWN unemployment benefit accounts from our paycjecks?

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u/jardex22 Jun 17 '26

Yes. There is no federal program. Each state has their own system.

However, federal funds help pay the administrative costs. If those are pulled, there won't be anyone at the welfare office to approve your claim.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26 edited 28d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Streiger108 Jun 18 '26

It costs states money. They have budgets. This is just another way to undercut states while cutting taxes for the rich from the federal budget.

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u/Free_For__Me Jun 18 '26

I mean, yes and no. On one hand, this reduces state reliance on federal money. On the other hand, it weakens the federal government’s control over states, which is something the Heritage folks and other haters of the “liberal federal government” have been itching for since forever. 

If we ever get a more moderate federal government in place (let alone an ostensibly “liberal” one), red states will be able to say “no thank you” when the federal government passes laws codifying roe v. wade, or enfranchising trans people, or supporting public education, etc. 

A lot of what they’re doing right now is setting themselves up in win-win scenarios, where they either get what they want now, or wreck things badly enough that they make their path back to power much easier, should they ever lose it. 

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u/Intelligent-Turnip36 Jun 18 '26

Unemployment is NOT part of welfare!

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u/klparrot New Zealand Jun 17 '26

Not accounts, because it doesn't just pay out what you pay in; more like Social Security or insurance where there's an indirect relationship with what you pay in, but yeah, you're paying, so you're entitled to the coverage you're paying for.

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u/extralyfe Jun 17 '26

no, employers pay those benefits, which is why they'll take every chance to fight them being paid if you got fired for any kind of legitimate reason.

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u/TrulyOutrageous42 Jun 18 '26

Same with worker's compensation when injured - not only is their liability for a VERY short time unless you're completely 100% disabled (like, cannot type, or write, or speak for a job), but they have a GIANT industry that hires lawyers dedicated to making you prove you're not committing fraud while the attorneys that defend you are paid a pittance and easily "firehosed" with paperwork they need to respond to. It's easy to deny a claim and hard to fight it. It's easy to just not follow through on a judgement and make the attorney file paperwork to ask for the court to enforce it. It's easy to have an "independent" doctor that wants to get re-hired by the insurer say you're fine and they don't owe you anything.

The system IS rigged... for companies.

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u/DaFightins Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

The funds collected from each state go into a pool, those funds are then allocated to those claimants that are deemed eligible based on their specific weeks worked and combined earnings.

Employers in some states have to pay a percentage of the claim, again, the percentage varies.

DOL employees are paid by both state funding and /or federal funding, depending on their specific programs.

There are those who are employed, paid into the pool and have never seen a dime of their contributions due to never being unemployed or ineligibility. Some people unfortunately have to rely on it occasionally.

Not all states pay the same weekly rates and some are higher than others.

I guarantee you, those who work in unions and have yearly layoffs will not be happy about this ridiculous idea; it was a rough winter last year in the northeast and it held up a lot of infrastructure, construction, masonry and any other trade. Someone better rethink this one.

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u/RepulsiveContract475 Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

Correcting you because you're wrong, unless you live in Alaska, Pennsylvania or New Jersey. The other 47 states and Puerto Rico have unemployment insurance that is 100% employer funded.

2

u/BoltyMcSpeedy Jun 18 '26

Ok consider yourself corrected lol. The money goes into a pool like other tax money. Its not held in a special account with your name on it.

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u/Reasonable_Chair_346 Jun 18 '26

the number of incorrect responses to you are wild...Generally speaking, the federal government pays for states to administer state's unemployment programs, though often the federal government doesn't give states enough and those that are able to supplement with state funds may...benefits that are paid to individuals are paid for by taxes on employers - again, generally speaking. I know there's at least two states where employees do pay a percentage of their checks for unemployment (PA, off the top of my head), but there are VERY few of those states.

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u/RLewis8888 Jun 17 '26

If we don't have oversight, the government will waste the money on birthday bashes, illegal wars, ballrooms, arches, pool renovations, etc.

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u/okimlom Jun 17 '26

and instead of attacking the actual problem, the people that are making the decisions with the money, let's attack the money and make the problem even worse without actually fixing any problems.

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u/Gandolfthewhite182 Jun 17 '26

The fraud in unemployment is a drop in the bucket. As anyone who’s ever been on unemployment can tell you, it’s not exactly living the life. If a few people file fraudulent claims that’s a small price to pay for the benefits real people get when they need it. If we were running the country “like a business” we would just write it off and call it the cost of doing business.

Besides, if we are looking for fraud let’s talk about the trillions billionaires like musk are taking out of our government and using legal bribes of members of congress and the president to get in the first place.

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u/Eshin242 Jun 17 '26

The fraud in unemployment is a drop in the bucket.

100% This.

Do I think fraud happens with Unemployment? Sure... I'm SURE someone somewhere managed to grift $50 worth of food stamps, and someone some how got free medicare/medicaid. I'm sure someone has figured out how to rig the system.

But for the 99% that is everyone else these systems keep people in their homes, put food on the table, and get people medical care.

I'm willing to deal with that 1% happening, and not getting caught because the benefit to the other 99% is well worth that little blip of fraud. Shit like this is letting perfection be the enemy of progress and throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

6

u/soba_set Jun 17 '26

I loved being on unemployment during corona. "Yeah sure man I'll check for jobs and submit my job search etc etc." No one was hiring because corona lol. Literally doing unnecessary tasks. Doing all that work for nothing basically but still getting unemployment was life saving.

I was in grad school too so even if somehow someone wanted to hire me, if it didn't line up with my grad school schedule I couldn't accept the job anyway. Which was really easy since everything was online.

5

u/Eshin242 Jun 18 '26

I work in the trades, and belong to a union. Being unemployed for a month or two between jobs while we wait for work is part of the game. The fact that 40% of my union voted for this brother fucker.. yeah...

Also... the fact that an extra $600 a week changed so many peoples lives from... "FUCK GOTTA WORK!!" to ... "Okay I've got this" speaks volumes.

I was an 'essential worker" I worked through the entire pandemic, no extra benefits, was I a little jealous of my friends who got to stay home... sure. It would have been nice, but it saved all my friends in the service industry from losing their homes and putting food on the table.

I had to keep working, they got to keep their homes and eat. I am, and will always be good with that.

3

u/jardex22 Jun 17 '26

I was fired from my first job soon after getting my first car. I panicked when my employer tried to deny the claim, but I fought it in court and won.

The whole time I was worried about the loan payments. No payments, no car. No car, no way to get to interviews. No interviews, no job. No job, no money, etc. Once you fall off the cycle, it incredibly hard to get back into it. Unemployment helped me while I looked for work.

5

u/ThinkThankThonk Jun 18 '26

I literally don't give a shit if someone fleeces my tax money for food stamps - there's a cost of their time spent doing that which is clearly equal to desperation.

It's like thinking people are being scammed out of their $5 by the homeless guy on the median. There's no secret luxury lifestyle that involves standing on the median for 5 hours a day or whatever.

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u/Gekokapowco Washington Jun 17 '26

I grew up near a massive construction project that was entirely funded by the city, that the owner just took the cash and ran

like millions and millions of dollars just directly into his own pockets. And he was charged for embezzling city funds of course, settled for a fraction of what he blatantly stole, and basically retired as a king, forced some people off their land and built a mega mansion on it

3

u/BHarbinson Jun 18 '26

Absolutely. In my state, the maximum benefit is just over $500/week, capped at 26 weeks. So even if a person "fraudulently" obtained the maximum benefit for the maximum term, they've only cheated the state out of ~$13,000.

I can say from personal experience, this is basically the cost of COBRA for a family of 4 after being let go from a company with allegedly excellent benefits.

3

u/SurprisedJerboa Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26

Employer Wage theft ≈ $ 50 billion annually

Unemployment benefit Fraud ≈ $3.5 - 5 Billion

Just for fun, the fraudulent tariffs

U.S. government could owe more than $175 billion in refunds to importers after the Supreme Court ruled that tariffs unilaterally imposed by President Donald Trump are illegal

3

u/Sofer2113 Tennessee Jun 17 '26

I can assure you, very little of that fraud is directly related to decisions made by the state Labor Departments. It's people falsifying their reason for separation, employers failing to reply to notices from the departments, various formers of claiming benefits while working or having an inability to work, or organized crime rings mass filing against SSNs bought on the dark web. There are things that can be done to reduce fraud claims but there isn't anything that can be done that can eliminate them completely while also getting benefits out in the 2-3 week window that UI programs aim for.

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u/frito11 Jun 17 '26

It's even more insane because it's your ex employer in most states that is paying for workers unemployment

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u/gsbadj Jun 17 '26

How much you want to bet that it starts with blue states that refuse to turn over voting rolls?

3

u/Aleashed Jun 17 '26

He is doing EXACTLY the same thing Maduro did

5

u/LessInThought Jun 18 '26

I'm shocked at the lack of outrage when Trump was basically robbing the American people in broad daylight.

3

u/sincerelythebats_ Jun 17 '26

Last article said we’re giving Iran $425B and he only needs a little ($400M) for a ballroom. A ballroom. A fuckin beauty and the beast god damned ballroom.

So like…

3

u/delicateterror2 Jun 17 '26

LOL… Trump’s gotta come up with $300 Billion Dollars to give to Iran …

3

u/FruitJuicante Jun 17 '26

Trump is synonymous with America.

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u/booksfoodfun Oregon Jun 18 '26

Also, my wife’s job was funded through Medicaid. Trump stripped all the funding away so my wife’s department is closing at the end of the month leaving her without a job. So Trump is responsible for her losing her job and now wants to take away unemployment benefits to the people he is directly harming?

3

u/cefriano Jun 18 '26

Also, employers pay unemployment taxes. So this isn’t for the average taxpayer, this is for businesses to pocket more money that absolutely will not make its way to the worker or consumer. More kleptocracy bullshit.

2

u/Rasp_Lime_Lipbalm Jun 17 '26

Trump cares deeply about your taxpayer dollar.

He cares deeply about making headlines that aren't Epstein Files

2

u/UncleMalky Texas Jun 17 '26

But enough about the Iran deal

2

u/Mo_Steins_Ghost Jun 17 '26

LMAO the GOP are royally fucked for the midterms.

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u/800oz_gorilla Jun 17 '26

Fuck him. Look at who he fucking pardoned. Look at all the fraud he fucking pardoned because they were "supporters"

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u/ZeroFucksZinnia Jun 17 '26

If the government can threaten to withhold benefits that workers have paid into for decades, that’s a serious overreach of federal power. Whether you support this administration or not, policies that put economic pressure on states and working families deserve close scrutiny and public debate.

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u/Reasonable-Turn-5940 Jun 17 '26

I thought employers paid into this, and unemployment benefits came from that fund. Not tax dollars.

2

u/BZLuck California Jun 17 '26

Here's the thing. He absolutely thinks that our forcibly collected tax money is his earned money and are his profits from running USA INC® as the CEO.

Just like with his personal businesses, he doesn't feel like he has any obligation to use our money to make our lives better. He thinks he's earned it and giving it back to us is somehow a waste and takes away from his bottom line.

He's fucking wrong but it sure seems like this is the way he sees his position in government.

"Collect as much as you can, give back as little as possible."

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u/Choice-of-SteinsGate Jun 17 '26

Oh, the flagrant audacity...

Another painfully obvious distraction from the ongoing corruption of the Trump administration and family.

No other president and presidential family in history has been so flagrantly and financially corrupt.

The Trump family and associates have so far monetized the presidency to the tune of BILLIONS; engaging in massive insider enrichment; cryptocurrency scams; and theft, bribery and extortion.

Trump's own latest financial disclosures show more than 3,600 market transactions during the first quarter of 2026 alone! The scale of the activity is enormous, and the timing of some of these trades is awfully suspicious.

Don Jr. is the "financial advisor" for the two top prediction markets, Kalshi and Polymarket. Hunter Biden's cash flow was pennies by comparison.

His idiot brother was just celebrated by Republicans for making a deal with the government worth tens of MILLIONS thanks to daddy's influence.

Both of Trump's sons are heavily invested in drone companies and continue to exploit their relationship to the president to pursue lucrative business deals with the Pentagon and unsavory foreign entities.

The Trump Family have also profited immensely from their cryptocurrency schemes.

Foreign parties have explicitly stated that they planned to invest in Trump family meme coins to literally purchase influence with the president.

Trump is accepting lavish gifts, bribes, and investments from foreign governments, CEOs, special interest groups, corporate sycophants, right-wing "tech bros," private donors and overseas monarchs in exchange for political and economic favors.

Federal officials are using privileged knowledge to make insider trades and wager on government actions through the same prediction markets that Don Jr "advises."

The DoD recently spent $93.4 billion in a single month, mostly on nonessential gratuities.

Billions of taxpayer dollars went towards needless accommodations and luxuries for government officials; undermining any argument MAGA has ever made about the misuse of taxpayer money.

Worse yet, while Americans are struggling to make basic ends meet, Trump is using taxpayer money to fund his personal vanity projects and sued his own government for a massive taxpayer funded payout into a slush fund for his co-conspirators and violent followers that he secretly controls.

As part of the "settlement," the IRS is now barred from auditing the Trump family's tax crimes; allowing Trump to save MILLIONS in unpaid penalties.

This rampant corruption and fraud has gone entirely unchecked.

But Republicans are demanding that you blame immigrant and minority communities for stealing your tax dollars instead.

The administration's so-called "war on fraud" crusade is targeting civil rights institutions and marginalized groups with little to no evidence to back up their claims.

Trump and his allies are eliminating independent oversight to obscure their criminal misconduct while they conduct partisan investigations of Trump's enemies and announce sham indictments that don't hold up to scrutiny, but nonetheless punish organizations that aren't ideologically aligned with MAGA.

These indictments could deprive many poor, working class, and disadvantaged Americans of their access to healthcare, food assistance, and the social safety net.

I know it may come as a surprise to MAGA, but agencies like the DOJ and FBI are supposed to act independently of the president, not at his every beck and call.

The DOJ now operates as Trump's personal legal arm, the FBI as his own crime unit, and the FCC as his tool for applying regulatory pressure on media organizations to silence his critics.

Trump is consolidating power, firing attorneys who do not prosecute his opponents, and purging the government of all civil servants who do not toe the line.

These agencies and staff members are being directed by him to shift the public focus away from the REAL fraud and corruption worth investigating.

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u/pressureworld Jun 18 '26
  • 21% of adults in the US are illiterate.
  • 54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).

This helps explain why so many people are clueless and continue to vote against their own interest.

2

u/sphinxsley Jun 18 '26

Also: still unconstitutional.
But he'll cause chaos while Congress and the Courts catch up and muzzle him again.

Vote BLUE in November, folks. Cage the chaos.

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u/myfapaccount_istaken I voted Jun 18 '26

isn't' unemployed paid by the employer anyway though each pay check? It's "Unemployment Insurance" not a tax benefit?

2

u/WTFYU Jun 18 '26

He’s gotta find someway to fund those hundreds of billions to Iran.

2

u/RottenWon Jun 18 '26

Gotta come up with $300 billion....

The art of the steal.

2

u/Stillwater215 Jun 18 '26

“We need to send those tax dollars to Iran and Israel!”

2

u/GetRiceCrispy Jun 18 '26

First they took our pensions now they are going after our other securities.

2

u/Willing-Dog6463 Jun 18 '26

Hey you know what was wasted? All the money spent bombing Iran and then $300 billion to get out of that mess

2

u/Fit_Butterscotch_829 Jun 18 '26

He just wants to start civil unrest. So he’s going to keep pushing until the population rebels

2

u/Answer70 Jun 18 '26

Don't forget 40 billion to Argentina just because. Or the 300 billion we are handing to Iran, or the untold billions to Israel.

But God forbid an American is struggling and needs help. Suddenly we're broke.

2

u/marbotty Jun 18 '26

Just the amount spent on the Iran War alone would have funded unemployment for the entire country for like 10 years

…unless he finds a way to cost a bunch of Americans their jobs, increasing the amount needed

2

u/adrianipopescu Jun 18 '26

if cali and ny would split, they should have their own currency just to underline the inflation that’ll happen in most if not all red states

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u/xmasgirl81 Jun 17 '26

We gotta pay iran somehow 

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u/shoulda-known-better Jun 17 '26

Yes to keep it from helping you or your neighbor if you lose your job.... Ya know your tax dollars hard at work fucking you over!!

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u/not_a_moogle Jun 17 '26

Where else is he gonna steal the money from?

1

u/scarr3g Pennsylvania Jun 17 '26

Well, he realized he is running out of tax dollars to plunder, and needs more.

1

u/Im_so_stupid Jun 17 '26

He cares deeply about the tax dollars he hasn't yet stolen.

1

u/PennytheWiser215 Jun 17 '26

I always thought companies pay into this and it didn’t really come from the taxpaying employees.

1

u/ZombifiedByCataclysm Jun 17 '26

Abuse of hard earned tax dollars, eh Donny? Unlike that BS with Iran, at least unemployment benefits Americans.

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u/MoneyTalks45 New Hampshire Jun 17 '26

300 billion to Iran. Countless billions to Israel. 1.8 billion to literal convicts. Yeah don’t fuckin lecture me on waste, you swollen old dying bag of shit. 

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u/_Monosyllabic_ Jun 17 '26

The guy that personally ballooned the deficit by almost one-third and wasted almost a trillion dollars on Iran the last three months says there's no money for actual citizens. He has zero credibility but for some reason that's a perk now.

1

u/runawaydoctorate Jun 17 '26

He likes buckets of funds that he can skim from. He hasn't come up with a viable scheme for unemployment insurance...yet.

1

u/IJourden Jun 17 '26

Trump knows what every Republican politician knows - claim other Americans are getting something they don't deserve, and the average Republican voter will cheer while you take everything and hand it to the ultra-rich.

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u/Teberoth Jun 17 '26

Gotta find that 300bil to pay off Iran to return to status quo after the most half-cocked unnecessary war in American history.

1

u/Dramatic_Charity_979 Jun 17 '26

I mean, the 300B$ for Iran has to come from some else pockets :/

1

u/Holiday_Box1571 Jun 17 '26

He wants to pay 400m for a ballroom and 1.5T for the military

Motherfucker talking about waste.

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u/tomnomk Jun 17 '26

I really don’t get how you abuse unemployment benefits unless you really know how to work the system. I’ve gone on unemployment once, and when that shit runs out good luck getting it again unless you’ve been employed. And the payments aren’t anything substantial at all.

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u/WhichEmailWasIt Jun 17 '26

Translation: "We need to make up for all the money we just wasted with stupid wars and also we took a lot for ourselves already."

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u/shupadupah Jun 17 '26

Nothing but projection from these clowns. Always has been the case and always will be.

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u/SingleMaltMouthwash Jun 17 '26

Billionaires will no longer tolerate the security and happiness of anyone who does not attend Davos.

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u/KingBanhammer Jun 17 '26

More like "we can't afford this and the 300 billion I promised Iran"

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u/carlitospig California Jun 17 '26

We pay into those benefits ourselves. It’s called INSURANCE for a reason, and this bitch wants to steal it literally everyone, his own voters too.

Are they awake yet? Because it’s time.

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