Greetings, Lincoln Square readers!

I had to skip last week as I was out of town picking up my kid from college for the summer, so there’s actually three weeks of healthcare policy insanity to catch up with …

The last edition included the first half of my deep, wonky dive into the final, official 2026 ACA Open Enrollment Period data, slicing and dicing up the enrollment numbers by a whole mess of demographic criteria. Today, I’m wrapping up the 2026 OEP analysis, along with some more recent developments …

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My remaining Open Enrollment data breakout is by household income bracket. For 2026, the annual Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is set at the following income levels for every state except Hawaii and Alaska, where the dollar amounts are 15% and 25% higher, respectively:

• 1 in household: $15,650

• 2 in household: $21,150

• 3 in household: $26,650

• 4 in household: $32,150

The key FPL income “break points” for ACA enrollment are 100%, 138%, 200% and 400% due to how both the federal tax credit formula as well as Medicaid expansion rules work under the Affordable Care Act. I’ve grouped the income levels as follows:

Under 138% FPL:

100% FPL is a key threshold because most enrollees aren’t eligible for federal tax credits if they earn less than that. This is due to a classic case of “the best laid plans” during the passage of the ACA: The original language of the bill called for every state to expand Medicaid to all documented residents earning up to 138% FPL, which would presumably mean that no one earning less than that would have any need of subsidized private exchange coverage.

Instead, the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that expanding Medicaid to those earning up to 138% FPL had to be left up to each individual state…and as of this writing, while 40 states and D.C. have done so, there are still 10 states (9 out of 10 of which have GOP trifectas) which are still refusing to do so over 15 years after the ACA became law.

This means that there are several million dirt poor Americans caught in the so-called “Medicaid Gap” in which they aren’t eligible for Medicaid but also aren’t eligible for any financial assistance to buy private insurance on the ACA market.

Due to an odd quirk of snippets from different versions of the original ACA legislative text ending up in the final version of the bill, however, there’s an “overlap” population of people who earn more than 100% but less than 138% FPL. In the 41 Expansion states, these folks are mostly enrolled in Medicaid anyway, but in those 10 Non-Expansion states (AL, FL, GA, KS, MS, SC, TN, TX, WI, WY), that quirk is a literal lifesaver for many of them: They aren’t eligible for Medicaid, but they are eligible for heavily-subsidized ACA exchange coverage instead.

You’ll note that I said that most enrollees who earn less than 100% FPL aren’t eligible for federal tax credits. There’s actually a small population below the Federal Poverty Line of several hundred thousand people who were eligible for them until recently, which mostly includes documented (ie, lawfully-residing) immigrants who aren’t eligible for Medicaid due to living in the United States for less than five years.

Unfortunately, via both Trump Regime policy changes as well as last year’s Big Ugly Bill (H.R. 1, officially the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”), that exception is now gone.

As a result, exchange enrollment below the 100% FPL threshold plummeted by a whopping 45% this year, from ~549,000 to just 305,000 individuals. This includes nearly 78,000 losing coverage in Georgia alone and over 50,000 in Florida.

As for the 100-138% FPL population, a stunning 32% of all ACA exchange enrollees fall into this income bracket. This may sound surprising given that, again, Medicaid expansion provides coverage for residents who earn up to 138% FPL ... until you remember that the 10 Non-Expansion states 10 states include Texas, Florida and Georgia. In fact, if the 10 holdout states were to ever actually expand Medicaid properly, up to ~7.4 million ACA enrollees would shift over to Medicaid coverage while ACA exchange enrollment would drop by a similar amount.

While enrollment under 100% FPL has fallen off a cliff, enrollment in the 100 - 138% FPL bracket actually increased by about 4.6%.

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100 - 200% FPL:

(Note: This includes the 100 - 138% overlap population)

A full 64% of all exchange enrollees (~14.8 million) fall into this income range, the vast majority of whom really should be enrolled in Silver plans since, at incomes below 200% FPL, they’re eligible for generous Cost Sharing Reduction assistance which boosts Silver plans up to “Secret Platinum” status: If they earn up to 150% FPL Silver plans have a 94% Actuarial Value; if they earn 150 - 200% FPL Silver is boosted to 87% AV.

In layman’s terms, High CSR Silver plans have either free or extremely low premiums along with extremely low deductibles & co-pays.

Unfortunately, only 9.85 million enrollees chose Silver this year. .. and even then, not all of them are in the 100 - 200% FPL range, which means there’s quite a few who left hundreds or thousands of dollars in financial assistance for out of pocket costs on the table...except that with the enhanced federal tax credits having expired, many of these folks may have had no choice due to the increase in their premiums.

Enrollment in the 100 - 200% FPL range dropped by over 415,000 people, or 2.7% nationally, although there are 16 states where it actually increased, and 5 states (all blue, all operating their own exchanges) where it increased by double digits: NJ, MA, MD, CT & NM. However, there’s also several states which saw 100 - 200% FPL enrollment drop by 20% or higher, including NC, WV, OH & VT.

200 - 400% FPL:

Around 25% of all ACA exchange enrollees earn between 200 - 400% FPL. Plan selections in this bracket “only” dropped by around 128,000 people for three reasons:

• While their premiums still jumped dramatically, they did so by less than those earning less than 200% or more than 400% FPL.

• The elimination of subsidy eligibility for recent immigrants doesn’t apply to this income range anyway.

The third reason is likely due to a substantial number of enrollees who normally earn a little bit more than 400% FPL ($62,600/yr if single; $128,600 for a family of four) making a dangerous gamble by projecting their 2026 income to be less than 400% FPL in order to cling to the (less generous) tax credits…and then scrambling to ensure that their 2026 Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) does indeed end up below the 400% threshold.

They may do this via several perfectly legal means, such as maxxing out their Health Savings Account (HSA) contribution, maxxing out their Individual Retirement Account (IRA) contribution and/or other means.

You can see this pretty clearly in this table which breaks out the 200 - 400% range further: Plan selections dropped substantially at the 200 - 250% and 250 - 300% brackets…but increased 7.4% from 300 - 400%. I don’t have more granular data, but I’d be willing to bet that nearly all of that increase is actually in the 390 - 400% FPL range:

The danger of doing this, of course, is that if your actual 2026 MAGI household income ends up coming in over 400% FPL after all, you have to pay back every cent when you file your 2026 taxes next spring, which in some cases could be tens of thousands of dollars.

Over 400% FPL:

Finally, there’s nearly 1.1 million exchange enrollees who earn more than 400% FPL...although this total is actually closer to 2.15 million if you include enrollees whose household income is either “other” or “unknown.” The latter mostly consists of enrollees who don’t enter any projected income whatsoever (which I’m guessing means they earn well over 400% FPL & thus know they won’t qualify for any subsidies).

Plan selections between 400 - 500% FPL dropped by over 320,000 people, or a whopping 44% … although as I just noted, some of that is likely due to people projecting their 2026 income below the 400% line (and then sweating bullets to keep it below that). Another ~247,000 who earn more than 500% FPL dropped coverage as well.

ALL TOLD, that’s over 1.2 million fewer Americans who selected ACA exchange plans during the 2026 Open Enrollment Period … but as I’ve warned many, many times before, this vastly understates how many ACA enrollees actually lost coverage, which is an entirely different thing.

Right on cue, Wakely Consultants, one of the world’s leading actuarial firms, published a new analysis which supports my fears, pointing to “meaningful changes in enrollment, consumer behavior, and overall market morbidity as 2026 progresses.”

Drawing on data representing approximately 80% of the market, the findings highlight early indicators that could shape pricing, participation, and policy impacts heading into 2027.

The analysis finds that while initial plan selection data suggested only modest declines in enrollment, a deeper look at premium payment behavior tells a more complex story. On average, only 86% of enrollees paid their first premiums in January 2026, with significant variation across states.

What does this mean in real-world terms?

• Enrollment declines may be more substantial than early data suggests.

While plan selections declined by roughly 5%, actual enrollment is projected to fall between 17% and 26% on average when accounting for unpaid premiums and ongoing attrition. Some states may see reductions higher than 26%, with higher reductions skewing toward states operating under a Federally Facilitated Exchange.

Here’s what a 17% or 26% year over year effectuated enrollment drop would look like visually, along with what it would look like if enrollment over the course of 2026 follows the trend lines of 2025 or 2019:

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Meanwhile, while detailed effectuated enrollment data for every state likely won’t be made available publicly until July, several of the states which operate their own ACA exchanges have been publishing monthly enrollment reports, and sure enough, the early data isn’t pretty:

Colorado: Q1 effectuated enrollment down 5.3% y/y; could drop by up to 9.1% or more by end of 2026

California: Effectuated ACA Enrollment Down 5.6% Y/Y; Could Drop By 12% Or More By End Of 2026

Massachusetts: OEP plan selections up 3.7% y/y...actual effectuated enrollment flat & dropping...

🚨 New Jersey: Effectuated ACA enrollment down 11.5% y/y; at least 57,000 have already lost coverage

…and most concerningly (so far)…

Georgia: Effectuated ACA enrollment down 28% y/y; at least 370,000 have already lost coverage

The early numbers from the first four states above aren’t great, but they’re relatively muted thanks to those states all implementing their own supplemental financial assistance which is helping mitigate the damage.

Georgia, on the other hand, has no such measures in place, which makes it likely to be far more representative of the trend lines in most states (it also doesn’t help that GA is among the 10 non-expansion states, meaning they have a much higher percentage of their enrollees below the 138% FPL threshold than expansion states do).

I had a lengthy discussion about this and other current issues with L O L G O P on his podcast recently.

In other news…

Illinois Announces New Tax Time Easy Enrollment Program; Pregnancy now qualifies for Special Enrollment Period

A couple of small but welcome bits of positive news out of the Land of Lincoln: Illinois has joined several other states in implementing a new “Tax Time Easy Enrollment” program allowing residents who don’t have healthcare coverage to simply check a box when filing their state tax returns indicating that they want help getting covered. The state will send them info about their eligibility status for either Marketplace coverage (and tax credits if applicable) or Medicaid … and they’ll be given a 60-day Special Enrollment Period (SEP) to apply & enroll.

In addition, Get Covered Illinois is joining some other states in making pregnancy a Qualifying Life Event which will make them eligible for a SEP as well.

Which costs more: Employer-Based Insurance or ACA coverage? The answer may surprise you ...

This was inspired by an (unnamed) Republican Congressman who claimed that ACA insurance policy premiums have increased by 26% per year on average since the law was passed, which was so laughably high (this would amount to a 4,000% increase since it was signed into law) that I decided to delve deeper into the issue.

My conclusion? Since 2009, average unsubsidized individual market premiums have indeed roughly tripled (~200% higher, which is still far less than 4,000%!) … but during the same time period, not only have group market (aka employer-sponsored insurance, or ESI) premiums more than doubled, they’re actually still higher on average than ACA premiums at full price!

As for subsidized premiums, here’s what those look like on average…as you can see, the original ACA subsidy formula brought individual market premiums much closer to what average ESI enrollees actually pay out of pocket…and the enhanced tax credits added from 2021-2025 brought them down further until they pretty much reached parity.

Unfortunately, the moment that the enhanced subsidies expired back in December, average net individual market premiums shot back up and are once again much higher on average than what those with employer plans pay.

CMS posts January 2026 Medicaid, CHIP & Medicare enrollment reports

After an all-too-brief drop in Medicare Advantage enrollment in December, MA enrollment roared forward again, continuing to increase its lead on traditional “fee for service” Medicare whether folks like it or not. Meanwhile, enrollment in Medicaid/CHIP has dropped by 4.2 million people under Trump 2.0 … and that’s before most of the uglier Medicaid provisions of the #BigUglyBill kick into effect.

Speaking of which …

Nebraska: Hey, remember when I warned that the Big Ugly Bill’s Medicaid cuts were gonna hit well BEFORE the midterms?

Well, guess what? Yes, that’s right: While most states won’t be implementing the so-called “work reporting requirements” until they’re legally required to starting in January 2027, three states are taking advantage of a “waiver” option included in the legislation which lets them launch the new program early.

Arkansas & Montana are launching theirs in July, but Nebraska is really eager to start kicking poor people off their healthcare coverage and has opted to go live TOMORROW (May 1st). Depending on your source, between 16,000-54,000 (23%-77%) of Nebraskans currently covered via Medicaid expansion are expected to be given the boot.

While I’m on the subject, here’s one of many examples of why the supposedly “reasonable” requirement that low-income Medicaid enrollees track and report their working hours to the state is not only likely to lead to massive numbers of them being kicked off the program even when they’re fully meeting the requirements, but that this is actually the entire point of instituting such requirements:

“Beware of the Leopard!” ~20% of Medicaid expansion enrollees would likely have no way of reporting their work hours ... by design

… according to the ACS, over 5.2 million U.S. households—3.9% of the total--still didn’t have any computer of any sort as of 2023—that means no laptops, desktops, smartphones or tablets of any kind.

In addition, over 10.3 million households--7.8% of the total still had no internet service of any type--broadband, DSL, satellite, fiber optic, cellular data or even dial-up.

… According to the 2023 ACS, a whopping 22.3% of households earning less than $20K/year didn’t have any type of internet service (or nearly 2.45 million), while 10.1% of households in the $25K-$75K range didn’t (3.39 million). Adding 1/3 of the $25K-$75K group, that means at least 3.6 million households with at least one Medicaid expansion enrollee would have no obvious way of reporting their “compliance” hours.

Since at least some of those households have more than one person enrolled in Medicaid via ACA expansion, it likely means more like 4 million actual enrollees.

That’s ~20% of the Medicaid expansion population.

And with that, I’ll see you again in two weeks … really, this time!

Remember when Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told ICE to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis?” That was awesome.

At the time, I felt kind of uncomfortable at the positive feelings I had for that statement. All social media is built to keep you angry and agitated. If you accidentally land on the X “For You” feed (God help you), you’ll find yourself face-to-face with street fights, videos of muggings, men punching women, shootings, plane crashes, dash-cam footage of car crashes, wild animals mauling tourists.

I could go on. That list is actually the tamest of the bunch (please, please, please take my word for it).

In this political moment, it’s incredibly important — at least in my opinion — to be rational. You have to save your outrage for the truly outrageous, or else it loses all meaning. When the entire internet is conspiring toward making you as mad as possible, this is a real task.

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You only have to look at the anger of the right to know what I’m talking about. They’re pissed as hell that women are playing men’s sports (or is it the other way around?) They were outraged over a bullshit conspiracy theory that teachers were providing litter boxes for children who identified as cats. And have you heard of this guy, Hunter Biden? Don’t even get them started. Also, Benghazi and emails and Obama, and, and, and …!

Anger, anxiety, hatred — these are like viruses looking for a host. I always imagine that bad feelings like anxiety begin not with an object, but with the emotion itself, and then attach to an object to sustain themselves. Nothing made Republicans mad. They are just…mad. Do you believe that if MAGA was shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that children weren’t using litter boxes in schools that their anger would disappear? No. They are angry and they will find a reason for it … somewhere. Anywhere.

On the other hand, anger is a real emotion, and it’s valid. You are allowed to be angry. It’s even better when your anger is well-placed.

The Jacob Frey thing, for me at least, represented the moment when my sadness at the second Trump term turned to righteous anger. I remembered that anger is real, and nobody has to give me permission to feel it. And the anger I felt was good and powerful.

Last week was stupid. It was the dumbest week of the dumbest year of the dumbest decade. You can claim that there were dumber weeks, and I probably won’t disagree. I don’t really care which is the dumbest week. But last week is at least in the running.

It’s gone — to me, at least — from absurd and stupid and you-just-gotta-laugh-because-you’d-cry-otherwise, to fuck these people. I’m so sick of it.

This week’s Loser is a total clown who has failed upward and I’m going to make fun of him, but make no mistake, I feel anger toward this guy. Our Winner is not so much a person as it is an expression of our collective anger in action.

Sadness is lingering and isolating. Anger, my friends, can be productive.

Hung Cao, Loser

Welcome to MAGA Loser Whack-a-Mole. Just when you think you’ve heard it all, a Vietnamese-American who is also a Christian nationalist becomes our acting Secretary of the Navy.

Let me back up.

It turns out we are the middle of conducting one of the most substantial Naval blockades in decades and a hot war in the Middle East, in which our Navy is acting as the tip of the spear. So, of course, last week the Secretary of the Navy was fired.

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It’s time again for your weekly checklist of Losers and Winners, and a reminder that all of the chaos, tumult, awfulness, and catastrophe you are experiencing is caused by people.

Tariffs, my friends, do not exist in nature. They are constructed. Bombing a civilization into the Stone Age is a choice made by a (not very smart or moral) human. A fair society is built on a foundation of accountability. Minh Ly, the author of Answering to Us: Why Democracy Demands Accountability, gave me an incredible analogy a few months ago. It’s possible you’ve read about it in this column before, but here we go again:

Imagine you live in a small village. You hire a sheriff and give him the only gun in the region. Without any mechanism for accountability, this sheriff may or may not become a king-like figure, able to kill or coerce anyone on his own whims. The gun — or any power we bestow upon our leaders — needs to be in service to a civic purpose, not in service to calcifying control in the hands of the person who wields it.

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It sounds pretty obvious. The sheriff in this analogy must understand that if he uses the gun for his own purposes, he will face consequences. The more power we bestow on our leaders, the more severe the consequences ought to be for its misuse.

Obvious, maybe, but not inherent. We have failed to hold Trump accountable for anything. We have failed to even make him fear accountability. His shit polling is great as a headline, but a terrible poll is just, well, a piece of paper that predicts the future. Trump doesn’t fear paper, and he doesn’t fear the future.

The election of Biden in 2020 was at least a measure of accountability. It was a relief, sure, but look what happened. Trump did not accept that measure of accountability (he still doesn’t believe he lost!), and nobody on our side or any side went the extra step to enact durable, real accountability commensurate with his crimes.

And here we are. Kinda fucked.

But not totally fucked! This week’s Winners & Losers is about the possibility of real accountability, and the incredibly difficult work ahead of us.

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JD Vance, Loser

What a repugnant piece of shit. I hate to write that because it’s more, like, ad hominem than I like to go. Maybe more puerile. But I’m just so sick of this guy.

Turns out, most Americans are, too. In a recent YouGov poll, the most positive takeaway for Vance is that 96% of respondents had heard of him. That’s where the positives stop, because to know him is to hate him.

Since January, most polls have his favorability plunging into the mid- to low-30s. To be fair, what’s not not to love? This guy sucks.

But the last two weeks have been especially bad for our Vice President. Let’s review.

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I go into every week with the hope that I will be able to highlight good things that are happening for working class Americans. I want to write about how women have gained rights for them and their daughters, not how they have to be more fearful. And I want to provide an outlook for the future that we can be proud of …

But that simply isn’t the reality we live in. So I sit here on a Friday morning writing about men resigning from Congress in shame. I write about 62 million visits to an online rape academy. And I try to bend a monopolistic merger into some sort of consumer value for people who can’t afford to travel.

One day we might get there, the midterms are coming up quick, but right now – we endure the chaos and try to make sense of another week under the Trump regime. It can be difficult, but if there is one thing I have learned over the past year of this second Trump term, it’s that the sheer will of the American people is unmatched.

They will not defeat us and we will keep on fighting.

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Monday, 4/13 – Swalwell & Gonzales Get the Message

Under threat of expulsion, Representatives Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales resigned from Congress this week.

They both escaped the almost certain national and political embarrassment of investigations and expulsion votes for their respective scandals, but are still waiting to see what other consequences may arise.

In Swalwell’s case, the pressure had been building for weeks. Reports of inappropriate relationships with staffers – paired with questions about judgement, power dynamics, and internal office expenditures – triggered a House Ethics Committee review that was not going away quietly. What started as whispers online turned into documented complaints, and once leadership realized the votes were there to move forward, the writing was on the wall for Swalwell. Resigning now lets him avoid the spectacle of a formal congressional rebuke, but it doesn’t erase the paper trail or whatever comes out of the investigations announced by the Manhattan DA and authorities in Los Angeles.

Gonzales’ situation played out differently, but ended in the same place. Allegations tied to misuse of campaign funds along with a personal relationship with a staffer that reportedly ended with her setting herself on fire opened the door for both ethics scrutiny and potential legal exposure. Once details started to harden and his Republican colleagues began to distance themselves, his refusal to resign became a liability. Staying meant risking not just his seat, but a very public unraveling of everything tied to his name.

That’s what matters here. This wasn’t personal accountability – not really. It was timing. It was two members that read the room and understood that the system was finally about to move. They just chose the exit before they were forced out of it.

Because in Congress, resignation isn’t the punishment – it’s just the escape hatch.

Source: CNN

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One of the reasons Americans are so fed up right now is that the average person has been priced out of entertainment. The tradeoff is always what people are willing to put up with from the government and how affordable their lives are, and that bargain has been broken. These days, I wonder if the Costco hot dog and soda combo is the last good deal we have.

An afternoon at the ballpark used to feel like that sort of bargain. You could attend a game, sit in the bleachers, and eat hot dogs and popcorn for a reasonable price. It was an easy way to enjoy being around other people, some entertainment in the game, and a day outside. For my birthday recently, I went to a Colorado Rockies game. It was the home opener, I expected the tickets would be a little more, but $86 (per ticket) to sit in left field for one of the worst teams in the league felt unreasonable.

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The entire experience was the bare minimum. From the food, to the crowd control, to vendor placement and employee interactions. It just felt off and lackadaisical. That just seems to be par for the course in America these days: the working class pays a premium to escape the chaos, and still gets the bare minimum in return.

We’re paying more than ever for things that are supposed to give us a break from all of this, and it still feels hollow. We aren’t really asking for luxury, just a fair shake at quality of life.

Yet, here we are.

While Trump fights with the Pope, we try to enjoy Rory McIlroy’s win at The Masters. The scandalous news with a Super Bowl coach and a sideline reporter grabs our attention, and the Democratic base holding one of their own accountable might feel like a moment of civic pride–even as we sit on the brink of resuming war with Iran.

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There are times when it’s difficult to differentiate normal emotions from the chaos that we witness on a daily basis living under a madman. I was in therapy yesterday attempting to explain this and found myself in a sort of brain fog for the duration of the appointment, only to land on the conclusion I was grasping at the entire time. That’s sort of how life feels lately – like we’re slow walking through a dark fog and then suddenly finding ourselves on the other side of it. We get so enveloped in the day to day that it just sits on us, like the dense clouds on a coastal California morning.

And then, just as quickly, it burns off.

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One minute, we’re being told that nuclear annihilation is on the table – that entire regions could be wiped off the map, that escalation is imminent, that the United States is ready to unleash hell – and the next, it’s “productive negotiations,” a “ceasefire,” a “great conversation” with the same people we were on the brink of sending to the afterlife. This week alone, we watched Donald Trump flirt with language that hinted at catastrophic escalation, only to quietly extend deadlines, soften his posture, go apeshit on social media, and send intermediaries scrambling to sell it as a win.

That’s the fog.

It’s not just the chaos, it’s the whiplash we experience. The constant shifting between existential threat and sudden de-escalation, between performative strength and his thirst for a win. It’s exhausting and we’re left trying to process whether what we just heard was real and the danger has actually passed, or whether it was just another cycle in the mind of a madman trying to keep everyone disoriented.

By the time it clears, by the time you feel like you can see straight again, the next wave is already rolling toward you in the form of a surprise press conference reintroducing the Epstein files.

Monday, 4/6 – 3-Year-Old Allegedly Suffers Sexual Abuse in ICE Custody

This is just horrifying, and almost worse that it hasn’t been a huge story in mainstream media. Despite Kristi Noem’s firing, DHS continues to terrorize both undocumented immigrants and American citizens alike.

In this instance, a 3-year-old girl spent five months in federal custody after being separated from her mother at the border. By the time her father finally got her back, it wasn’t just a delayed reunion, it was a nightmare he didn’t even know had happened.

According to court filings, the girl was allegedly sexually abused multiple times by an older child while placed in foster care by immigration officials in Texas. Her father wasn’t told the truth at the time and was told there had been an “accident.”

“She was so long in there,” he said. “I just think that if they would have moved faster, nothing like that would have happened.”

The delay was federal policy. Under new Trump administration rules, the process to release children to their families has slowed dramatically. The average time in custody has jumped from about 37 days to nearly 200. In this case, the father spent months trying to complete basic steps such as fingerprinting, only to be stalled again and again.

It wasn’t until attorneys filed an emergency habeas petition that the government moved, and his daughter was released within two days.

By then, the damage was done.

Her father says she now has nightmares, gets easily upset, and said, “she was never like that before.”

This is what happens when a system designed to protect children starts treating them like they don’t matter. Because for a 3-year-old, five months isn’t a delay – it’s everything.

Source: PBS

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Greetings, Lincoln Square readers!

In the last edition, I regaled you with the long, stupid saga of a lawsuit which sought to undermine one of the ACA’s most critical provisions, how the Trump Regime and RFK Jr. attempted to co-opt that provi…

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It baffles me that the women who attach themselves to the MAGA movement think they are any different from the ones Donald Trump has already assaulted or double-crossed.

Pam Bondi thought she was one of the exceptions and after her disastrous testimony before Congress, she was on thin ice. Trump pulled the plug, reportedly on April Fools’ Day, and the media firestorm followed.

The now-former attorney general, as Rick Wilson pointed out, is going to need a high-priced, white-shoe law firm to take up her cause. Depositions, testimony, and potential charges are all likely coming. She’ll most likely toe the line to make sure she lands somewhere safe after this, and a pardon is still on the table. But the writing is on the wall, Bondi clearly obstructed justice and lied in her testimony before Congress.

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Just across the Potomac at the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth has restricted press access and a judge wants to know why. Not only that, Hegseth reportedly asked for the resignation of the Army Chief of Staff in the midst of a war with Iran – outstanding idea, Pete.

Frankly, the entire cabinet is a shitstorm that is actively degrading the functions of our government while Trump clings to life and power. His speech on Iran was completely incoherent.

Over at DHS, not much has changed since Kristi Noem’s firing.

(By the way, did you see her husband’s pictures that leaked? Listen, I’m not one to kink-shame or judge, but you don’t get the benefit of the doubt when your entire political ideology is built around harassing and stripping rights from the LGBTQ+ community. At that point it stops being personal and is just flat-out hypocrisy. There’s no way Kristi didn’t know, and it raises questions about how much Cricket knew.)

In DHS custody, a Mexican immigrant named Jose Guadalupe Ramos died in a California detention center, one of at least 14 deaths already this year.

The cruelty has always been the point; it’s just that lately it feels less hidden. The people around Trump are getting exactly what they want while he sundowns through the second year of his second term.

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Monday, 3/30 – Judge Questions Pentagon on Press Restrictions

Before news broke that Pete Hegseth had asked for the resignation of the Army’s top general in the middle of a war with Iran, the Secretary of Defense was making other questionable decisions – like restricting press access at the Pentagon. And a federal judge wants to know why.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman openly questioned whether the Pentagon had defied his own order protecting journalists’ access to the building. After reviewing a declaration from The New York Times describing how difficult it had become for reporters to do their jobs, Friedman put it bluntly: “Is this Kafka? What’s going on here?”

That didn’t come out of nowhere. Earlier this month, Friedman ruled that the Pentagon’s policy targeting journalists violated constitutional protections tied to news gathering and due process. Reporters were supposed to have their credentials restored immediately. Instead, the Pentagon rolled out what it called an “interim” policy.

Functionally, it was the same thing.

Journalists can’t move freely throughout the building without an escort. There are restrictions on how they handle anonymous sources, and reporters can still lose their credentials if they’re accused of pushing officials to share information the government considers unauthorized – even if it’s declassified.

Out of 56 outlets that make up the Pentagon Press Association, only one agreed to sign onto the policy, while everyone else refused or gave up access.

Lawyers for the Times say the Defense Department didn’t comply with the court’s order and even worked around it. At Monday’s hearing, attorney Ted Boutrouts described it as a “mad scramble” to avoid following the ruling.

The Pentagon, backed by the Department of Justice, argued the new policy is “materially different” and should be allowed to stand. Government lawyer Sarah Welch asked for more time to defend it.

This is more of the same from the Trump administration, they ignore court rulings and rely on the defense of, “Your Honor, this is a witch hunt!” while simultaneously delaying the process and carrying on about their business. Donald Trump made an entire career of it before politics and it seems like every department he now commands, is doing the same.

Source: Reuters

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Last weekend’s No Kings protests were a success, with news outlets reporting an upwards of 8 million people showed up across the country to speak out against the Trump regime. People are sick and tired of paying outrageous prices at the pump and the checkout line while being ruled by accused child traffickers willing to risk the lives of thousands of service members in the mountains of Iran. It’s pure hell for the psyche, and it’s starting to feel like the system doesn’t give a shit who gets caught in the middle.

Because it doesn’t. Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite, just laid off over a thousand employees, including people dealing with serious health issues as a reminder that even when you’re fighting for your life, you’re still part of the bottom line. In the middle of all that, there’s a former White House staffer that was just arrested under suspicious circumstances after killing his girlfriend in their apartment. Nothing about American life feels stable right now, like everything is beginning to boil over.

Then there’s Tiger Woods, checking the box on another car crash that resulted in him in handcuffs for DUI. Woods is dating a Trump (Don Jr.’s ex-wife, Vanessa), so at this point, there’s probably a Kalshi market somewhere on whether he gets a pardon. That’s where we’re at – mass protests, economic anxiety, people dying in avoidable ways, and the wealthy taking no consideration for others.

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1st & 10: Epic Games’ Casual Cruelty

Epic Games laid off more than 1,000 employees last week, and buried inside of that is a story that tells you everything you need to know about how broken our capitalist system is for working Americans. It’s not just Epic, layoffs are going up across the country with hundreds of thousands of jobs cut over the past year and tens of thousands already gone in 2026. Especially in tech because people are the easiest thing to cut.

Mike Prinke is what that looks like when it hits real people. A technical writer who had been with Epic Games since 2019, was let go while battling terminal brain cancer. Now his wife isn’t just trying to take care of her dying husband, she’s trying to maintain a home, protect their son, and figure out how to afford a funeral and a life after her husband is gone. All of this while losing access to life insurance he can’t replace because his condition is now considered preexisting. This isn’t some unfortunate oversight in HR; it’s exactly how the system works.

Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney said they would “solve the insurance” and pointed to severance and extended healthcare, but that doesn’t change the reality of abandoning someone at the end of a terminal illness while they’re trying to prepare their family for life after them. This is a system where human lives are numbers on a spreadsheet and bottom lines to be tinkered with. A system where someone fighting for their life can be reduced to a cost-cutting decision without anyone stopping to ask what happens to the people they leave behind.

Mike Prinke isn’t just a number – he’s a father, a husband, and a reminder that when companies say “it’s just business,” what they really mean is that people are expendable, even when they’re dying.

Source: TheGamer.com

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The lack of expertise in the Trump administration — in case it hasn’t dawned on you yet — is a feature, not a bug. Experts annoyingly approach problems with, ahem, expertise. Facts. Data. Experience. Humility.

So if you are the kind of person who believes that tariffs will raise a ton of money from China and make us all rich beyond our wildest dreams, you might want to avoid experts. Or if you feel in your heart of hearts that a war in Iran is a master stroke and will definitely not make you look like an idiot, surround yourself with people like Pete Hegseth and you can go on believin’!

The challenge that experts provide, in most administrations, is a welcome kind of abrasiveness. Surely, nobody likes to be told they’re wrong. Also, clearly, anyone who believes they are deserving of the Presidency is a special kind of narcissist. But it’s that same narcissism that should lead one to rationally want to be proven wrong when one is, in fact, wrong, and when the stakes are global.

An expert can stop you from making a jackass of yourself in front of the entire planet or from blowing up the world.

Trump is different. Watch his Cabinet meetings. The validation he craves is so immediate and immense that he prefers a gushing compliment now than sound advice for later.

The first administration was full (relatively speaking) of people who would say what they needed to say to him and then do the work that needed to get done. They managed to eat the hamburger today AND pay for it on Tuesday. Some of his orders and directives famously just accidentally sat on someone’s desk until he forgot about them. A gushing round of Great ideas! You’re a genius! was often followed by inaction or corrective action.

As destructive as that administration was, it was staffed, generally speaking, by some serious people (*some). Plus, there were whistleblowers, and those who simply refused to be a part of the administration when they realized what was happening.

This time is different. The lesson the true believers learned from Trump 1 was that nobody listened to Trump enough. Trump’s 2’s motto could be Let him cook.

This administration is a sideshow of hucksters, showmen, clowns, and entitled billionaires smelling their own farts. To many of them, Trump has all the expertise anyone needs.

This week’s Loser is a huckster, a showman, and a clown, who aspires to be a fart-sniffing billionaire.

And my Winner is going to elicit a backlash of comments below. I apologize in advance.

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Sean Duffy, Loser

Sean Duffy is a world-champion lumberjack.

I could end this part here. But I’ll go on.

He was a cast member on MTV’s The Real World: Boston, in 1997; Road Rules: All Stars in 1998; and Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons in 2002.

He went on to become the co-host of The Bottom Line on Fox Business.

He is now the Transportation Secretary and was the acting administrator of NASA for some reason.

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There’s an old adage that politics ain’t beanbag. Tough talk and underhanded tactics from politicians shouldn’t send you to the fainting couch, unless it comes from the other side (and you can convince media outlets that some egregious sin has been committed — or in more concrete terms, some law has been broken).

As he’s done in every aspect of his life, Trump has exploited this cynical societal construct and completely shattered boundaries that seemingly used to exist. But he couldn’t do so without pliant partners in the corporate media who have allowed him to operate under completely different rules than other politicians — especially Democrats.

Just take his comments on Truth Social last week. In the midst of his desperate attempt to find an off-ramp for his disastrous war of choice in Iran — it’s not going well; he’s declared victory dozens of times, but can’t stop bragging about continuing to bomb Tehran to hell — Trump reminded us that there’s another evil to fight.

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That’s right. The president declared that there’s an enemy that rivals that of the Iranians who his so-called Secretary of War has sworn to obliterate: the Democratic Party. Did you happen to miss that story? I don’t blame you. It was hardly a blip on the legacy media’s radar.

It also came just one day after Trump posted about the former FBI Director who investigated his ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign: “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

It’s worth contemplating: What do Trump’s words mean, exactly? After all, he is the president armed with enormous power.

Well, he’s literally put boots on the ground in Democratic cities, dispatching the National Guard to Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and more. And we’ve all seen how ICE, which functions as his praetorian guard, has brutally occupied cities like Minneapolis, resulting in border agents killing two U.S. citizens.

Trump has declared war on those who didn’t vote for him in myriad other ways, including withholding Medicaid funds and disaster relief from blue states. These moves are being challenged in court, but the justice system moves far slower than a lawless president — yet another normative weakness Trump has exploited.

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Sometimes I think Donald Trump was never punched in the mouth, or not enough.

When I was in school, bullying was everywhere. It was the early social media era which meant it didn’t stop when you got home. I’ve seen all of it: fake AOL Instant Messenger accounts catfishing someone about a crush, coordinated harassment, entire friend groups turning on one person overnight. It was constant. A nonstop mix of insecurity, dick measuring, and social ladder climbing. And it stuck with you.

By the time I graduated, the country finally started to reckon with it. Campaigns popped up at the federal, state, and local levels with websites, assemblies, and “be kind” messaging. All of it was an attempt to rein in a culture that had gone too far.

Trump feels like the guy who missed out on those assemblies.

Everyone else got the memo: grow up, cut the shit, or you’re going to get left behind. There was a social agreement that things had gone too far and we all needed to learn how to exist around others, to learn where the line was.

He never did.

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There’s the story from Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough where her father dumped a bowl of mashed potatoes on his head at a family dinner. Apparently, it’s his least favorite story, which shows just how effective those moments can be. And something that should’ve happened more often.

Because what we’re dealing with now isn’t complicated. It’s a guy who still operates like a middle school bully who never got checked. Still obsessed with dominance, still measuring himself against everyone in the room, and still convinced that the world exists for him to win inside of it.

He’s stealing lunch money on a global scale. He’s humiliating people for sport, testing boundaries just to see who won’t push back, and escalating every situation because no one has ever made him stop.

And now he’s running the world like the playground – where he sets the rules.

Somewhere along the way, most people learn that behavior like that comes with social, personal, and sometimes physical consequences. You get corrected, learn to adjust, and grow the fuck up.

He never did, and until someone steps up to punch him in the mouth … we’ll be dealing with it.

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Monday, 3/23 – The Mullin Era Begins at DHS

Can you imagine being named “Markwayne?” I understand that there are heehaw historical ones that are handed down through generations of Appalachia like “Jethro,” but good god. It has to explain a lot, because there has never been a man more brazen in his “tough guy” image who grew so scared in times of crisis – we all remember the photo of him on January 6th.

This week, Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as the Secretary of Homeland Security, taking over after Kristi Noem was fired. Mullin isn’t coming into the role as a technocrat or institutional operator. He’s built his reputation during his time in Congress as a blue-collar conservative who leans into conflict, whether it is on cable news, the senate floor, or a near physical altercation in a committee hearing. That style might play politically and get the attention of Dear Leader, but DHS isn’t a campaign stage.

This is one of the most complex agencies in the federal government. It oversees border security, immigration enforcement, counterterrorism, cybersecurity, disaster response, and intelligence coordination from multiple sub-agencies. It’s already stretched thin with Trump using the department as his personal Gestapo force whenever a problem arises, and has been operating under pressure from both parties.

Mullin is stepping into the role at a time when immigration remains one of the most volatile issues in American politics, with ongoing fights over enforcement, asylum policy, and federal authority. At the same time, DHS has to manage evolving threats abroad and at home, from cyber attacks to domestic extremism and possible threats tied to Trump starting the war in Iran – Mullin has to do all of this while managing the day-to-day realities of FEMA responses and border operations.

The question isn’t whether Mullin can command attention, it’s whether he can manage an agency that requires precision, coordination, and restraint. And we aren’t holding our breath for the college dropout from Oklahoma who wants to show off his MMA skills on the Senate floor.

Source: NPR

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Greetings, Lincoln Square readers!

In the last edition, I posted highlights (lowlights?) from New Jersey’s 2026 Open Enrollment report, noted that Oklahoma & Oregon plan on moving off the federal ACA exchange onto their own platforms, and bro…

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Welcome to your weekly pot of Losers underneath the rainbow. This is our chance to review not only the stories that shaped the week, but the people behind them. I say this all the time in a million different ways, but all of the chaos that’s happening right now is a choice. Our world did not light itself on fire. People chose this course.

Picking through Winners and Losers isn’t necessarily an exercise in assigning blame. Holding the firelighters to account is important, but that’s only one piece of the broader project of building a more equitable, just, and livable world. In fact, if we get mired in laying blame, that becomes the project itself. Who did this to us is an important question, but it’s not the solution to our problems.

We are the solution. The right, and especially the white Christian nationalist right, has framed the current battle as a fight for who gets to write the rules for everyone else. But that’s not the endgame for the left, exactly. Do you want to be able to tell your neighbors how to worship, or who they can marry, or how they are allowed to care for their own bodies? If you’re reading this, probably not.

But that is the right’s goal. And they would love for us to frame the battle in those terms: this is a battle over who gets to control you.

Not so. We are not fighting over who gets to control anyone. Winning that fight on their terms would look a lot like losing.

We are fighting for freedom for everyone.

The framing of this is everything, and the right knows this. This is why they have put so much effort into controlling the media. They are baiting us into a battle on their terms.

This week’s Loser is a central figure in the effort to shape the narrative to their advantage. And our Winner is someone whose messaging — at least over the past week — has cut through.

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Bari Weiss, Loser

Last week, CBS News announced a second round of layoffs under the leadership of Bari Weiss. Around 6% of the workforce — somewhere between 60 and 70 people — are being cut. Additionally, CBS’s radio division is being shuttered entirely. CBS New Radio has been around since 1927, and was the home of Edward R. Murrow. Around 700 affiliated radio stations will lose their CBS News Feed.

If these are solutions, then it’s important to understand the problems they are meant to solve.

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Gas prices have to stop blowing past the limits of our bank accounts at some point … right?

The war with Iran is expanding, we’re staring down rising grocery costs, strange new financial platforms most people don’t understand are begging for manipulation, and Trump’s own intelligence officials are taking two very different paths despite coming from similar positions. Meanwhile, the rest of us are just going about our days of work, bills, routines, and a little bit of doomscrolling in between.

That disconnect is starting to define our daily lives. The people in charge let things burn while we pretend it isn’t real and end up paying the price.

This week we’re looking at a handful of stories that might feel separate, but together they paint a picture of where things are heading. A legal fight in Arizona involving one of those financial platforms that could reshape how we treat “betting” on real-world events. A president attempting to strong-arm allies while his weakness becomes more difficult to ignore. Cracks forming inside his own national security team. And a strategy in Iran that could send shockwaves through the global economy.

Oh! And they’re also taking a swing at voting rights with a vote on the SAVE Act.

Let’s not waste any time.

Monday, 3/16 – Arizona v. Kalshi

Depending on who you ask, Kalshi is either an innovative way to trade on real-world events or a symptom of something much darker in our society. Either way, the federally regulated exchange where users can bet on outcomes of things like economic data, weather patterns, political control of Congress, or absurd social hypotheticals, is quickly becoming one of the most polarizing platforms in the country.

The state of Arizona is directly challenging the premise of the business. State regulators argue that Kalshi isn’t offering a novel financial product so much as operating a form of event-based wagering with quick payouts which is something that would typically fall under state gambling laws. By operating under federal approval through the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Kalshi is effectively sidestepping the licensing, oversight, and consumer protections that states require for betting platforms. The case has quickly become a test of where federal financial regulation ends and state gaming authority begins.

Arizona is no longer just warning the company, it has escalated into the first criminal case any state has brought against Kalshi. Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a 20-count criminal indictment in Maricopa County Superior Court, accusing Kalshi of running an unlicensed wagering operation and illegally offering bets on elections. The charges point to contracts allowing users to wager on outcomes like the 2028 presidential race, whether Republican Andy Biggs would win the Arizona gubernatorial race, and if a Democrat would win the Secretary of State election.

Kalshi pushed back by suing Arizona in federal court and arguing that as a CFTC regulated exchange, it falls under federal and not state authority. But the controversy goes beyond jurisdiction. Prediction markets have already drawn scrutiny after large bets were placed ahead of major geopolitical developments, including markets tied to U.S. military action against Iran, raising questions about whether traders had inside or early access to sensitive information or stood to profit from it.

That’s the deeper issue Arizona is forcing into the light: when elections, wars, and public outcomes become tradeable contracts, the line between forecasting and profiting from influence begins to disappear.

Source: Arizona Mirror

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Welcome to Fourth & Democracy: where the playbook meets the public square.

It feels like we’re due for a bit of a reset.

The chaos the Trump regime throws at us every day has a way of pulling everything into its orbit, and somewhere along the way I feel like it dragged Fourth & Democracy off its original path. The goal of this newsletter was never to repl…

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Sixty weeks.

In the span of only sixty weeks, the military and economic alliances that shaped the 20th century, ensured relative* peace in the world, and signaled the arrival of a superpower unlike any the world had ever seen have been, functionally, broken.

President Trump has bankrupted the country, picked fights with our friends and rewarded our enemies. He has unleashed violence across the globe and spread the mighty American military so thin that it can’t guarantee safety to ships on a span of ocean 20-odd miles wide.

Obviously, this deterioration of American power didn’t begin 60 weeks ago. The cultural, economic, and political winds have been blowing this direction for decades. Nonetheless, from the word Go on January 20, 2025, Trump and the men and women surrounding him have been on a sprint to bring this country to its knees.

Sadly, it’s working.

Last week, we lifted sanctions on [checks notes] Russia because we are fucking up the global economy so badly with our war of choice. This is the same Russia that, it’s been reported, has been doling out intel to the Iranians to help them target Americans and American military installations. For that, they get a reprieve from sanctions that will fill their coffers with money that will be fed directly into the fight against Ukraine, another of our allies.

There are too many Losers to call out, to be frank. The entirety of the Trump regime is at fault for this, and maybe their voters, too.

But this week, let’s look at one Loser in particular who exemplifies at least one of the reasons we will continue to self-inflict wounds that will forever change us.

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Pete Hegseth, Loser

Hegseth is a small man. He’s been one of my Losers in this column before. And why not? He sucks. But his sucking is the Platonic form of MAGA sucking. It’s instructive to have another look at this Loser.

He ticks almost every MAGA box in a way that feels almost practiced or too good to be true.

He’s been characterized as a white Christian nationalist, in part because he is openly aligned with Pastor Doug Wilson (See video below) and the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which explicitly embraces Christian nationalism (and, by extension, “white” Christian nationalism).

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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Lincoln Logue.

People seem a bit numb this week. Whether it’s in person, in the media, or online, everyone seems like they’re used to the chaos by now. There isn’t necessarily indifference, it’s just what we’ve come to expect from daily life in America. Gas prices rose about a dollar or more on average in a week and it didn’t cause much uproar. The mall crawlers and lifted trucks were still out in full force while the Middle East remained on fire and under a barrage of missiles.

ICE raids haven’t stopped. There were images online this week of raids where doors were broken down in Vermont. Somehow every operation happens in a blue state, or if it’s in a red state, it’s a large city with Democratic leadership. All across the country we are seeing our way of life infringed upon by the federal government, but all the patriots who swore that would be the last stand are somehow nowhere to be found.

Trump has gained a stranglehold on the executive, judicial, and legislative branches but not the American people. We still push on to pay our bills despite a government that seems to work against our ability to survive through rising costs, lack of healthcare, and diminishing social safety nets. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed lately, it’s the sheer human will of the American people to survive.

We don’t need a reason to; we just do it. It’s pure human instinct keeping us going at this point because there isn’t much to be proud of or hopeful for right now. That’s not to say our future is bleak, it’s just that we are in the thick of it with no clear or immediate way out. Leadership has failed us, the Epstein files have gone cold, and Congress seems content to sit on their hands while Trump and his regime burn things to the ground.

So we wait. We wait for the midterms, but we don’t wait to keep living. We are a nation at war, but we are also a people focused on survival. And part of that survival is staying informed and focused.

So let’s get to what went on this week and what you might have missed.

Monday, 3/9 – Attack Thwarted at Gracie Mansion

The rhetoric surrounding New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, has gone too far — and their safety, and the safety of other New Yorkers, is being put at risk. Most recently, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) shared a post linking the mayor to 9/11 with the message: “The enemy is inside the gates.”

This week, two men were arrested and charged for allegedly attempting to use explosive devices outside of Mamdani’s residence (Gracie Mansion) during an anti-Muslim protest where right-wing agitator Jake Lang was shouting obscenities at the press conference held by Mamdani.

Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, U.S. citizens from Pennsylvania, are accused of attempting to use improvised explosive devices at the anti-Islam protest and counter protest.

Reports suggest that both suspects cited ISIS in their reasoning for the attempt. They have been charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization, use of a weapon of mass destruction, transportation of explosive materials, unlawful possession of destructive devices, and interstate transportation and receipt of explosives.

Source: CNN

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Greetings, Lincoln Square readers!

In the last edition, I broke out a dozen or so proposed changes to how the ACA individual market/insurance exchanges are administered that the Trump Regime has planned, most of which range from bad to horrib…

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Imagine if we’d known what the Iraq War would become as we were debating on whether or not to authorize it. Would we have still gone in? Would it have felt worthwhile?

Well. I guess so? Because the war in Iran is metastasizing in a way that almost anyone could have predicted, and yet … here we are. Or, to be more precise, nobody could have predicted exactly how this war would unfold, only that it would unfold catastrophically, chaotically.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was my second choice for Loser this week. He crows on stage with the timbre and tone of a man who’s practice zingers and one-liner takedowns in front of his bedroom mirror before getting shitfaced on Banquet Beer in his mom’s basement with his jackass friends.

His military strategy comes from the Middle School Locker Room Ball-Tap school of strategy. You see a guy and you want to cause him a quick jolt of pain, so you tap his balls and then go about your day while everyone (except your target) laughs and laughs. Sadly, it is an ill-fitting strategy for global conflict, and it is light on diplomacy. And right now, no one is laughing.

It’s clear he doesn’t understand any kind of second-order effects of … well … anything. I don’t believe he has the mental capacity to screw a cap on a bottle of Jack Daniels.

This war and the global chaos it unleashes — the roiling markets, the death and destruction, the realignment of our own allies against us — Trump will one day blame Hegseth for this.

But there will be time bring Hegseth back to the Loser column. So my choice this week is someone with a shorter runway.

Let’s dig in.

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Kristi Noem, Loser

Kristi Noem’s memoir is called No Going Back. I’ll say. She lacked qualification to lead the Department of Homeland Security when she was appointed, and proved herself to be utterly irredeemable, even by Trump’s standards, which are fairly straightforward:

1. Worship Trump

2. Don’t act like a dumbass

She failed to live up to both of those standards last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the House Judiciary Committee.

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