Wouldn’t do much for health, but it sure would make tracking our activities, conversations, opinions and so forth a whole lot easier for the Gestapo, wouldn’t it?
32 Likes
Tariffs return to April rates on August 1 without deals, Bessent says
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/06/trump-tariffs-letters-trade-war
Trump blinked first again.
Any country that negotiates with him is a chump.
26 Likes
Strap it on your dog to confuse them.
25 Likes
I mean, how do they plan to make us… like, are they going to come to our houses and force us to wear them? I’m with you… NO.
29 Likes
90-day labor camp sentences for anyone caught not wearing theirs.
25 Likes
I guess I’m going to a fucking labor camp then.
26 Likes
I was thinking that they’ll give tax breaks to health plans that require devices for their plans, which the healthcare giants will force on people by way of increasing premiums on the non-compliant.
26 Likes
I guess I won’t have health insurance when I’m more likely to get seriously ill…
But yeah, I agree that’s the most likely method of forcing people to do this.
22 Likes
Freedom health insurance!
23 Likes
I use an app to track my walks (the only time I turn on my location on my phone). I don’t use any of the other health options that my phone’s app tries to push on me because I don’t trust their privacy. Turn on my mic for possible sleep apnea? Just no way. I don’t want an app to record private conversations and I don’t trust the app to do the right thing. My mic is off for everything but phone calls. 
23 Likes
I always wonder how much of this is an accidental - in this case a side effect of turning America fully into a caste-stratified country where only the children of the (currently) wealthy will be able to afford to send their children to universities to get the kinds of degrees required for high status, high income jobs, and they didn’t consider that would also mean a huge shortage of doctors. But then I look at all the things they’re doing to reshape America into something that has no viable future (economically, socially, ecologically), and it absolutely does seem like a deliberate attempt to annihilate the country.
I would guess China-style coercion, where you can’t get health insurance without wearing one 24/7, or they become mandatory for government employees, or your social credit score is reduced if you don’t wear one… (just as soon as they introduce a China-style social credit system, thanks to centralizing all the data). I mean, it’s for your own good - who could possibly object?
Of course, then you’ll see the same attempts to fake data that cropped up in China (e.g. rocking devices at cafe tables, so you could put your step-tracker in it and get credit for being active while you sat around smoking and eating, drinking), but potentially having to be more sophisticated.
21 Likes
Can someone send him back to either Scotland or Germany, two countries which would absolutely know just what to do with him?
23 Likes
Hard pass.
24 Likes
The Idaho Statesman is a reliably MAGA-type newspaper. It actually blocks archive dot com from accessing their site.
Having said that, here are the first two letters to the editor today:
Thanks to senators and representatives
A heartfelt thank-you to Idaho’s Republican senators and representatives for backing the “Big Beautiful Bill” —a bold, selfless act to ensure millionaires and billionaires finally get the financial relief they so desperately need. While some complain the bill slashes healthcare, food aid, and education to funnel wealth upward, they miss the bigger picture: pleasing our Dear Leader Donald Trump and the oligarchs who fund the GOP. That’s what really matters. Sure, some working families might struggle more. But if it puts another private jet in the hangar or helps a hedge fund manager buy a sixth vacation home, isn’t that a worthy sacrifice? The rich have been job creators in theory for decades now — any day now those jobs and wealth will trickle down, we’re told. Let’s not let fairness or economic reality get in the way of loyalty to billionaires. Idaho’s delegation understands that the path to prosperity begins with gold-plated tax loopholes and ends with thoughts and prayers for the rest of us. So here’s to you, brave defenders of the ultra-wealthy. The yacht class salutes you. The rest of us will just try to keep the lights on.
Sincerely, A Grateful Peasant
Ron Nichols, BoiseTrump just raised your taxes
For all you MAGA supporters, how does it feel to have your taxes raised without the approval of Congress? Trump just bragged about his trade deal with Vietnam, that was the trade deal where we consumers get to pay an extra 20 to 40% more due to his tariffa. But Vietnam doesn’t have to pay anything. How about the price of gas are you happy with that? Are you happy about a lot of the farmers in the Midwest being bankrupt? How about the drop in prices on groceries? Wait, they haven’t dropped, have they? Aren’t you also glad that with that big, beautiful budget, you will probably have to raise property taxes to pay for the schools now Trump has cut billions from education. Are you also going to be happy seeing children go hungry and others with no health insurance? Yes, all of you must feel proud that you supported a criminal who was a failure in his first term and now is to the point of completely destroying the country. Jerry Johnson, Payette Simpson shills for Trump Rep. Mike Simpson just sent out his talking points for President Trump’s big bill. They are quite remarkable: Lowers taxes? Yes, for billionaires, at the cost of lost benefits for the poorest and most disadvantaged. Secures the border? Without addressing the mechanisms for legalizing undocumented workers or even dealing with the need for more immigration judges. Cuts red tape? Creates red tape for the poor and disadvantaged, cynically intended to reduce their participation in Medicaid and SNAP benefits. Reduces government spending? In a bizarre choice of areas that invested in America’s future, while increasing spending in useless, poorly considered and counterproductive border “security” initiatives. Invests in America’s defense? In the one area (Ukraine) that really matters most to Western security, Trump withholds support, while kowtowing to Russian interests. Restores American energy dominance? By trying to cripple our growing solar and wind industries that produce low cost energy, are quick to bring on line and provide American jobs while propping up dirty, increasingly expensive fossil fuels. It is time for our representatives to lay off the Kool-Aid and stand up for Idaho’s interests.
Tom Menten, McCall
Read more at: https://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article309968570.html#storylink=cpy
30 Likes
Thanks, heartening to read, and to hear that paper published them.
27 Likes
And know trump will fix the National Weather Service by, you know, cutting the staff.
“We know that everyone wants more warning time, and that’s why we’re working to upgrade the technology that’s been neglected for far too long to make sure families have as much advance notice as possible,” Noem said during a press conference with state and federal leaders.
“That is one of the reasons that, when President Donald Trump took office, he said he wanted to fix and is currently upgrading the technology,” Noem said during a news conference with state officials Saturday afternoon.
I like the note he added.
21 Likes
Government-supplied wearables? I’ve seen this movie before…
23 Likes
[ETA]
20 Likes
It’s tempting to blame lack of info getting out quickly on Tramp’s cuts, but it looks like Texas state officials are the ones who dropped the ball this time.
Some local and state officials have said that insufficient forecasts from the National Weather Service caught the region off guard. That claim has been amplified by pundits across social media, who say that cuts to the NWS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, its parent organization, inevitably led to the failure in Texas.
But meteorologists who spoke to WIRED say that the NWS accurately predicted the risk of flooding in Texas and could not have foreseen the extreme severity of the storm. What’s more, they say that what the NWS did forecast this week underscores the need to sustain funding to the crucial agency.
While the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m. for portions of that area, it would be hours before the city and county’s Facebook pages posted their initial urgent directions for residents from local authorities. The first came from the Kerrville Police Department, reposting an NWS alert at 5:16 a.m., adding: “Anyone near the Guadalupe River needs to move to higher ground now. Local streets are flooded in town and low water crossings are impassable. Do not drive into water.”
25 Likes