Why do bad things happen to good people? [New Republic] Reflecting Pool Disaster Keeps Growing After $14 Million Renovation On top of the explosion in algae, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting pool is now dealing with peeling paint. President Trump’s reflecting pool woes are growing. Days after the water in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool turned green from algae, the recently applied blue paint is now peeling off the bottom of the pool. Meanwhile, the current algae bloom in the pool is the biggest amount recorded in the month of June in at least five years, according to The Washington Post. The president personally requested “American flag blue” paint in his $14 million renovation of the pool, which didn’t go through a required bidding process and was instead awarded to a company with no federal contracting experience who is overcharging the government. Any outdoor pool of untreated water is prone to growing algae, and crews were seen Tuesday dumping hydrogen peroxide into the water in a hasty attempt to kill the aquatic plant. There’s one problem with that: Hydrogen peroxide also serves as a paint remover. So in trying to (ineffectively) kill the algae, Trump also ruined his new paint job and created a potential hazard to local birds such as ducks. A close-up photograph of the pool workers’ equipment revealed that they were using a 12 percent hydrogen peroxide concentrate, which can cause problems if inhaled and burns if the chemical touches the skin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Trump administration blames residual material in supply lines for the growing algae problem. The Interior Department, which is in charge of the pool, said it was using hydrogen peroxide and “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to treat the outbreak. But not only has the hydrogen peroxide failed to get rid of the algae, it has caused the blue paint to peel and raised phosphate levels in the pool “far higher than what is recommended to keep algae at bay,” according to CNN, which tested the pool’s water with the help of a swimming pool store. The whole project is now attracting attention for all of the wrong reasons, and it may look even worse than before by the time the America250 celebration takes place on July 4.
Over 14 million to make it look pretty without solving the underlying issues. What a clown. He posted pictures of that pool for weeks daily while mocking Biden in pic by pic comparisons. Now there are crickets on his Truth Social about his beautiful pool.
everything he touches turns to sh* Who even asked for this pool renovation? Who cared? he just does sh*t and wastes millions or even billions in the process What was the point of DOGE?
To eliminate all the longstanding government bureaucracy and expertise that was loyal to the country, not the man, and which prevented Trump from breaking the law on a whim.
Over the past decade, a health gap has emerged in the United States. While extensive research has examined how factors like income and education shape health outcomes, political ideology has largely been overlooked—until now. A paper published last month analyzed individual health data from a long-term study of a large, representative sample of Americans across all 50 states. “2010 is the last year in which we can say fairly clearly that there is not this gap,” Elizabeth Elder, a coauthor of the study, tells Fast Company. “By 2020 we have pretty clear evidence of a gap in which conservatives are less healthy than liberals.” By 2016, the gap had begun to appear in biomarker measures. By 2020, it was showing up in deaths from causes such as heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Since then, the gap has only widened. Between 2020 and 2022, only 0.2% of “very liberal” respondents died of internal causes, compared with 1.34% of “very conservative” respondents. The authors argue in the study that the divide cannot be explained away by COVID-19 deaths, demographic differences, geography, or the simple fact that some groups are older than others. Instead, they point to a widening ideological divide in trust toward doctors and the broader medical system. That crisis of trust accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, with fights over masks and vaccines spilling out from social media into everyday life. Now it extends to other health matters, such as taking blood pressure medication or seeing a doctor for chest pains. “We found that the gaps in trust and willingness to go to the doctor were no different for people with chronic health conditions than people without them,” Elder says. For younger, healthier people, she adds, that mistrust may not have immediate consequences. But for older people or those with chronic health conditions, that mistrust could become a matter of life and death. Since the gap emerged in 2020, health in the U.S. has become increasingly politicized. Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. assumed the role of Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump, federal health policy has been reshaped by the “Make America Healthy Again” movement. RFK Jr.’s antivaccination agenda has gained ground as more red states work to eliminate vaccine mandates, while MAHA and MAHA-adjacent wellness influencers have cast doubt on everything from sunscreen to chemotherapy.
Residents in blue states live an average of 2 to 4.5 years longer than those in red states, with the national average spanning roughly 76 to 79 years depending on the region. This partisan mortality gap is largely driven by entrenched poverty, healthcare access, gun violence, and state-level policy decisions.
Scott Thomsen has voted for Donald Trump three times. Now, the fourth-generation Nebraska farmer says he's done with the Republican Party. "I'm pretty disenfranchised as a voter right now, and I think I'm not the only one," Thomsen told the Washington Post. "Either I'm going to completely sit these elections out, or I'm going to vote down the line, incumbents out." Thomsen's frustration reflects a broader shift among farmers, long one of the GOP's most reliable voting blocs, as they head into this year's midterms facing fuel and fertilizer price spikes tied to the war in Iran, market volatility from Trump's trade wars, and a new parasite threat to cattle. The financial toll has been steep. More than 300 farms filed for bankruptcy last year, up 46 percent from the year before, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the USDA forecasts total farm sector debt will hit $624.7 billion this year, the highest on record. "A lot of farmers today have lost and are losing faith and are feeling betrayed," said Joe Maxwell, president of Farm Action Fund. "They're not seeing an 'America First' agenda." The discontent has created openings for Democrats in red states like Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin, though it hasn't yet produced a wholesale party shift. Candidates including Iowa's Josh Turek and Nebraska independent Dan Osborn are leaning into farmers' economic squeeze on the campaign trail. Adding to the strain, the New World screwworm, a cattle parasite eradicated from the U.S. in 1966 that resurfaced in Texas last month. Even Sid Miller, the Republican Texas Agriculture Commissioner and a Trump loyalist, has publicly criticized Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins over the administration's response. Rollins has said USDA has tracked the threat for years and denies that budget cuts hampered its handling. Not all farmers are abandoning the president. Many credit the administration for closing the Mexican border to cattle to slow the parasite's spread and for securing a Chinese commitment to buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans annually. Still, Thomsen said short-term bailoutpayments don't fix deeper inflation problems. With his own equipment breaking down and costs climbing, he's bracing for more uncertainty ahead. "There's just a lot of uncertainty right now," he said. "So you've just got to try to keep yourself protected as well as you can." I love that this is happening to them, and none of them deserve any sort of bailout to begin with expect even more bankruptcies this year than the last
So, he voted 3 times for this POS, and his answer is to either not vote or vote the gop incumbents out....................WTF, personally I vote with the team that is better for me and I have voted for both parties depending on there stance, but this blind loyalty to the gop or the dems even is a joke
