Tidbits – Mar.6 – Reader Comments: Trump: Ambush in White House; War on Workers; Gut Medicaid; Spread Measles and Bird Flu; Techno-Fascism; Anti-Semitism in Oval Office; No More Medicare Telehealth After Mar 31; Stand Up for Science Mar 7

Tidbits - Reader Comments, Take Action, Announcements AND cartoons - Mar. 6 2025,Portside

Re: It Was an Ambush (Bill Audette; Natalia Kuzmyn; John Woodford)
Great Television -- Cartoon and Commentary by Rob Rogers
Anti-semitism in the Oval Office (Jay Schaffner)
Donald Trump, 1100 B.C. -- Cartoon by Jesse Duquette
Re: Techno-Fascism Comes to America (Bill Rogers)
Re: Trump and Musk’s War on Workers (Lynne Turner)
Trump-GOP Tax Cut -- Cartoon by Benjamin Slyngstad
Re: Republicans Prepare To Gut Medicaid (Cecilia Gaston)
Re: Republicans Told To ‘Stop Cowering’ From Voters As They Back Unpopular Medicaid Cuts (Patricia Ryder)
Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl dared to open her mouth at a town hall in Coeur d’Alene -- Cartoon and Commentary by Jesse Duquette
Re: These Foods Will Likely Get More Expensive After Trump’s Tariffs Take Effect (Chuck Dineen)
Re: Make Apartheid Great Again? (Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression)
Re: RFK Jr. Takes Hammer to Two Major Vaccine Developments (Benjamin Amos Gerber)
The Measles -- Cartoon and Commentary by Nick Anderson
Re: Bird Flu Spreads As Musk’s DOGE Cuts Public Health Funding (Sally Black)
Re: Los Angeles Is Leading the Way in Resisting Trump’s Mass Deportations (Craig Gauthier)
Re: This Small Rust-Belt City Holds the Secret to Democrats’ Latino Woes (Sancocho Nuyorquino)

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Take Action:

Act Now - No More Medicare Telehealth After March 31 (AARP)

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Announcements:

Stand Up For Science -- Actions in Washington, DC and Nationwide -- March 7

Webinar: Update on Syria -- March 11 (Emergency Committee for Rojava)

Webinar: Women in Conflict Zones -- March 19 (World BEYOND War, Southern Anti-Racism Network, International Peace Bureau, Convention for Pan-Africanism and Progress (CPP), and CODEPINK)

Re: It Was an Ambush

Today marked one of the grimmest days in the history of American diplomacy.

Bill Audette
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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No doubt, "It Was an Ambush", as Tom Nichols of The Atlantic sadly and dutifully reported.

The task before honest media today is mind-numbing. To witness a US president and his VP provoke and berate Zelenskyy, then demand he supplicate with reverence before international media, cannot but elevate alarm. If this is how the most grateful leader of a nation, defending against Russian aggression, is treated, how will any realistic coverage of political events sit with this mercurial, vindictive pair?

Understandably, Zelenskyy had underestimated the degree of Trump's narcissism, but should he also have expected that the President's autocratic leanings surpass those of Putin? To politely disagree with Trump's Russian media talking points proved futile. Sycophancy might have been the expedient path forward, by offering gratitude to the guy who's done nothing to help Ukraine. But it appeared that public humiliation was the plan.

Some talk shows suggest that, because Zelenskyy dared raise Putin's war crimes, Trump cited proof that the Ukrainian leader doesn't want peace; others speculate that Putin-bashing incensed him enough to terminate US aid to Ukraine. But the ambush was to instigate defensiveness in Zelenskyy in order to frame contrived disrespect that would justify an end to the alliance. I might suggest that, apart from the demanded obeisance side-stepped by Zelenskyy, Trump grew embarrassed on the world stage by yet another ally who could not accept his lies as fact. The ally whom Trump felt deserved to be bullied--not only for asking for continued US support, but for Trump's embarrassing first impeachment. The proposed, one-sided raw minerals deal was likely one by which Trump stood to be enriched, or one whose extraction contracts he'd boastfully promised to a major campaign donor. Realizing that was not going as smoothly as planned, with requests for Ukraine's safety guarantees, Trump lost it. He's so easily enraged when he loses face.

Vance, the Musk-appointed mouthpiece for the mafia-like protection shakedown, had Trump's back on camera. He shamefully proved he could also be manipulated by Russian online misinformation.

Global embarrassment is the least of US concerns. As Zelenskyy responded to Trump, this is not a simple card game. Russia will hardly stop at Ukraine's borders. The Baltics are next. Trump unwisely chose to side with Putin, hoping to reward him for being a brilliant war criminal. He believes he can control things on the world chessboard, and is flattered into thinking so. But his strategy will backfire, from US citizens and Putin both.

Trump's greedy, heartless actions are beyond horrifying. Ukraine's best hope is for Europe to step up immediately and deliver stronger aerial support. Time also to liquidate the $billions in seized Russian assets--which the US should have done long ago, but didn't. Russian forces are currently less able to withstand setbacks, and their forces and weaponry are all but spent. It's opportune to act now. With Trump's record, the unthinkable--that Trump will demand a return of all US installed weaponry--must not be ruled out.

Eternal gratitude goes out to Zelenskyy for all he's done, for what his people have done, and most recently for not groveling to the biggest traitor the US has ever known.

I look forward to more reports of Nichol's caliber. With emotional dust still swirling, forthcoming incisive perspectives deliver much-needed unravelling in the scariest of times.

Respectfully,

Natalia Kuzmyn
Vancouver Island

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Zelensky is no champion of democracy despite Trump's behavior. If he were, the US would not have allowed its minions to put him into office, and the Ukrainian Bandera elements would have opposed him -- or worse.

The simple-minded unprincipled pursuit of policies that risk a major war in Europe are not progressive, intelligent or enlightened.

John Woodford

Great Television -- Cartoon and Commentary by Rob Rogers

Last Friday Volodymyr Zelensky walked into a trap in the Oval Office set by two pathetically weak bullies. Donald Trump and J.D. Vance viciously attacked a U.S. ally, while embracing a murderous Russian dictator. Trump said it would be "great television" and he was right. It is playing very well on Russian state TV.

Rob Rogers
March 4, 2025
TinyView

Anti-semitism in the Oval Office

JD Vance to the elected Jewish head of state Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “how dare you come into the Oval Office, looking like a Jew, without a tie, without a suit; where is your Yellow Star?” We Demand You to Apologize! Ach Tung! We Did Not Hear Your Apology, Vant is de Matter Vit You?

And where is the Anti-Defamation League decrying this as anti-Semitism? Where are all the GOP defenders of the Jewish people decrying this new wave of real anti-semitism of Jewish people who do not live in Israel and have nothing to do with Israel?

Jay Schaffner

Donald Trump, 1100 B.C. -- Cartoon by Jesse Duquette

Jesse Duquette
Week of February 23, 2025
Weekly Cartoon Roundup

Re: Techno-Fascism Comes to America

"American techno-fascism is no longer a philosophical abstraction for Silicon Valley to tinker with, in the vein of intermittent fasting or therapeutic ketamine doses. It is a policy program whose constitutional limits are being tested right now as DOGE, staffed with inexperienced engineers linked to Musk’s own companies, rampages through the federal government."

Bill Rogers
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Trump and Musk’s War on Workers

“…labor and its allies can and must do much more. The conditions that inhibited unions in 1981 don’t exist now. Unions are riding a wave of popularity they have not seen since the days when Reagan was a Democrat. Unlike Reagan, Trump was not elected by a landslide, nor is he broadly popular. The public has none of the animosity toward federal workers today that many felt toward PATCO members, whom many saw as arrogant. While the public blamed controllers for flight delays, those whose federal contracts, grants, and services are being sacrificed amid these cutbacks have only Trump and Musk, a multi-billionaire who cares more about occupying Mars than addressing the concerns of everyday Americans, to blame. Public opinion is not clamoring for the complete dismantling of our government that is now underway. Perhaps most important, this time it is the president, not the workers he is targeting, who is breaking the law, and early public opinion polls reflect this realization.

“These circumstances give labor and its allies, including non-federal workers, permission to escalate their tactics in a fight that must be waged not only for the future of the movement but for that of the nation as well. The context of this fight makes escalation possible; the enormous stakes make escalation necessary. What we are currently doing is simply not enough. Any escalation should of course be framed in ways that broaden support for the struggle to save our government and its workers from Musk’s chainsaw. But this is no time for sticking to our comfort zones.”

Lynne Turner
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Trump-GOP Tax Cut -- Cartoon by Benjamin Slyngstad

Benjamin Slyngstad
March 3, 2025
Slyngstad Cartoons

Re: Republicans Prepare To Gut Medicaid

Republicans West Virginia helped put in power are preparing to impose savage cuts on a program that has literally been a lifeline for many in the state, in order to help offset the cost of huge tax cuts for high-income Americans, hardly any of which will trickle down to WV voters. Populism!

And their own supporters will be among the biggest victims

Cecilia Gaston
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Republicans Told To ‘Stop Cowering’ From Voters As They Back Unpopular Medicaid Cuts

"We expect every Republican who voted for the budget resolution to hold a town hall during recess on what parts of Medicaid and SNAP they want to cut," said the national director of the Working Families Party.

Patricia Ryder
Posted on Portside's Facebook pageosted on Portside's Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/Portside.PortsideLabor

Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl dared to open her mouth at a town hall in Coeur d’Alene -- Cartoon and Commentary by Jesse Duquette

...we got to see our new brazen fascism in action when Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl dared to open her mouth at a town hall in Coeur d’Alene and was promptly set up by brownshirt thugs. We’re going to see a lot more of this now, especially with law enforcement lustily chomping at the bit to find ways to subvert liberties through deputizing randos to do more of their dirty work for them.

Jesse Duquette
Week of March 4, 2025
Weekly Cartoon Roundup

Re: These Foods Will Likely Get More Expensive After Trump’s Tariffs Take Effect

(posting on Portside Culture)

Chuck Dineen
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Make Apartheid Great Again?

Trump's actions signal need to understand global history of white supremacy. His February 7 executive order addressing "human rights violations occurring in South Africa" echo a long history of right-wing support in the United States for racism in Southern Africa, including mobilization of support for white Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as well as the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: RFK Jr. Takes Hammer to Two Major Vaccine Developments

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is already implementing his dangerous anti-vax views at HHS.

DEPLORABLE

Benjamin Amos Gerber
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

The Measles -- Cartoon and Commentary by Nick Anderson

RFK Jr. Slashes Health Agencies Amid Rising Measles Outbreak in Texas

Recently confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is lacerating nearly half of the public health workforce, a move that comes as Texas battles one of its worst measles outbreaks in decades.

Nick Anderson
February 18, 2025
Pen Strokes

Re: Bird Flu Spreads As Musk’s DOGE Cuts Public Health Funding

“It’s not enough for us to sit by on the sidelines,” says Dr. Michael Osterholm

Sally Black
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Los Angeles Is Leading the Way in Resisting Trump’s Mass Deportations

Except those that were slaves, and Native American peoples, this whole population is made up of immigrants, we must keep reminding those white nationalist they are living on stolen land,

Craig Gauthier
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: This Small Rust-Belt City Holds the Secret to Democrats’ Latino Woes

Latino voters shifted dramatically toward Trump in the last election. Reading, Pennsylvania offers a clue to how Democrats can claw them back.

Both campaigns saw Reading as strategically critical—because this little city, which is known to most people as the nineteenth-century birthplace of the Reading Railroad, ultimately memorialized in the game Monopoly, happens to be nearly 70 percent Latino.

Though more data is needed to figure out what really happened here, it’s already clear that none of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric or actions weighed sufficiently on the Latino voters who shifted toward him—because inflation mattered a lot more.

Democrats need to think now about how to produce a constant drumbeat of messaging in Latino communities about what specifically they will do to benefit working people, especially if and when Trump’s tariffs and his plans to dramatically slash government while giving huge tax breaks to his plutocratic allies all start to bite. Democrats should relentlessly broadcast their concrete proposals to alleviate economic suffering under Trump as it happens, years before the next election, seizing on people’s economic angst when they are primed and receptive to alternative solutions.

All this underscores another problem, and it’s a deeply sobering one. It’s now clear that the Democratic Party’s undeniable deficit in the information wars, in which Republicans benefit from a massive media propaganda network while dominating more apolitical cultural information spaces, extends to Latino voters in a very big way...right-wing infiltration of Univision, the premier Latino television network, as a key turning point in these info wars. [There is] a marked uptick in right-wing propaganda via Spanish-language social media that distorts the Democratic Party’s economic plans and, tellingly, in misinformation that’s designed to turn more established Latinos against recent arrivals, dividing Latinos against one another.

Sancocho Nuyorquino
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Act Now - No More Medicare Telehealth After March 31

Congress Faces March 31 Deadline to Extend Medicare Telehealth Coverage

Benefit for home-based care begun during the pandemic will expire without lawmakers’ action

By Susan Milligan
AARP
February 27, 2025

Unless Congress acts before March 31, millions of Medicare patients who have been able to use telehealth as part of their medical care since 2020 will lose coverage for the pandemic-era benefit starting in April.

The coverage has been a boon for those who have difficulty getting to an office to see a doctor, including older adults living in rural areas or with mobility problems. Caregivers strapped for time to transport their loved ones also have benefited.

“It’s probably the only good thing that came out of COVID, frankly, in terms of improving access because it’s been such a resounding success,” says Nicholas Widmyer, director of federal affairs for the National Association of Community Health Centers based in Bethesda, Maryland. “If it were to kind of lapse, that would be a step backwards for a lot of our patients’ ability to access primary care.”

Pandemic changed perceptions of telemedicine

Congress eased telehealth restrictions for Medicare patients in March 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 epidemic as some medical providers closed offices and older adults worried about being exposed to the virus in doctors’ waiting rooms.

The move was popular. Nearly half of Medicare beneficiaries had at least one virtual medical visit between April and June 2020, and participation continues to be much higher than pre-pandemic levels, according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

But the waiver was temporary, ending when the public health emergency was declared over on May 11, 2023. Congress subsequently folded extensions into various spending bills, including the bill passed Dec. 20 and signed into law the next day that averts a government shutdown until March 14.

Local SUFS Events

Stand Up for Science is officially supporting rallies in Washington DC and 31 other cities around the country. This means that a confirmed site leader—backed by our core team—is actively organizing a public event with SUFS volunteers.

If your city isn’t listed as a site of an official SUFS rally, you can still make your voice heard by joining the nationwide campus and workplace walkout at 12:00 PM local time on March 7th or adding your local event below.

You can find all of the events that we are aware of on the map below. (Official SUFS rallies are in red, walkouts and other local events are in blue.) Each pin is located at the exact meeting location that has been provided to us, and you can click on the pins for more information about each event.

To find a Local Event, Click here

STAND UP FOR SCIENCE
March 7, 2025. Washington DC and nationwide. Because science is for everyone.

https://standupforscience2025.org/

Speakers

BELARUS: Olga Karatch
CAMEROON: Cyrille Rolande Bechon
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (DRC): Raissa Kasongo and Yvette Mushigo
GAZA/PALESTINE: Hanan Awwad
LEBANON: Hala Kilani Hala and Shirine Jurdi
MOZAMBIQUE: Namatama Sakabilo
NIGERIA: Zullaihat Muhammad Ohiare
SOUTH KOREA: Cho Young-mi
SUDAN: Reem Abbas
SYRIA: Oula Ahmad

Endorsing Organizations:

The organizers of the Women in Conflict Zones webinar invite organizations to endorse and promote this crucial event. Endorsing organizations are encouraged to submit questions for the speakers by March 15, offering an opportunity to engage directly with the women who will be sharing their stories. This collaborative effort seeks to foster a deeper understanding of the global impact of conflict on women and children and to identify actionable steps that can be taken to support communities in conflict zones.

Endorsing Organizations:

The Women in Conflict Zones webinar represents a critical opportunity to hear directly from those affected by war and to amplify their voices on an international stage. By endorsing and participating in this event, organizations and individuals alike can contribute to a broader movement aimed at ending violence, promoting peace, and ensuring that the rights and well-being of women and children in conflict zones are upheld.

Let us come together on March 19 to listen, learn, and take action in support of women in conflict zones around the world.

Portside