Mindy McAdams

Find Out Why Health Insurance Denied Your Claim You likely have the right to access records that explain why your insurer denied your claim or prior authorization request. Use ProPublica’s free tool to generate a letter requesting your claim file f...

Your periodic reminder that you have the right to find out why your health insurer denied your claim.

We built a tool to help you do it: projects.propublica.org/claimfile/

Two photos and a screenshot of a social media post by @RepThomasMassie, U.S. Representative for Kentucky. Massie is a Republican. The post says: "The government is shutdown, but the House refuses to go back in session. Why are we in recess? Because the day we go back into session, I have 218 votes for the discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. @SpeakerJohnson doesn't want that to be the news." These words are highlighted in yellow: "I have 218 votes for the discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files." One photo shows Massie speaking in public, surrounded by reporters who are recording him. The other photo shows the chamber of the House, with all seats empty.

"I have 218 votes for the discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files."

Today my local organic and sourdough bakery raised all their prices. An $8 loaf of bread is now $9. Yes, I am very privileged to be able to buy an $8 loaf of bread. And I consider the cascade of effects, as some customers will leave, and then maybe the bakery will be unable to continue business.

Campaign contributor skips line, gets big payday from Florida governor and Cabinet • Florida Phoenix When you were in elementary school, did you ever have to deal with some rude student who tried skipping to the front of the line? Something like that just happened with Florida’s popular land preserva...

State of Florida steals $83 million from land conservation fund to pay off a developer (who is also a DeSantic donor). floridaphoenix.com/2025/10/02/c...

5/ “A KFF poll published October 3 shows that extending the [healthcare] premium tax credits is popular. Seventy-eight percent of Americans say they want Congress to extend the tax credits. That number includes 59% of Republicans and 57% of MAGA supporters.”

Republicans post fake image of Oregon protest – using photos of South America A federal judge had blocked Trump’s request to deploy California national guard to Portland

Republicans post fake image of Oregon protest – using photos of South America

October 6, 2025 If White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is at the head of the administration’s deployment of federal agents against undocumented immigrants, it appears that Office of Management and Budget...

4/ Source: heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-6-...

3/ What will be the wider consequence? “Spiking premiums will mean the healthiest people decide to go without health insurance, sending prices up for everyone else.”

2/ What will happen if Republicans win the shutdown fight? “According to the nonpartisan health research organization KFF, without the extension of the tax credits, premiums will go up an average of 114% for consumers.”

How many Americans are the Democrats trying to protect? “As NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin pointed out on Saturday, about 24 million Americans who don’t have health insurance through their jobs or through Medicaid buy health insurance in the Affordable Care Act marketplace.”

@lataco.bsky.social first began as a blog documenting local Mexican cuisine. Now, it’s an essential reporting powerhouse to the city as Trump’s mass deportation plot unfolds.

Check out the latest from our friends at Reveal: tinyurl.com/4cm2bsdr

October 6, 2025 If White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is at the head of the administration’s deployment of federal agents against undocumented immigrants, it appears that Office of Management and Budget...

Today HCR summarizes the government shutdown, the efforts of Congress Democrats to protect healthcare subsidies so that Americans’ monthly bill does not double (which is what Republicans want, the doubling)—and how it all connects to Project 2025. heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-6-...

Journalism needs a new style guide for these times. As a start: if the basic material facts of the situation don’t align whatsoever with the official claim, you don’t have to repeat that claim. You are not mandated to cover the lies meant to obscure the facts, only the facts themselves.

U.S. Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva won her election two weeks ago. Republicans refuse to seat her in Congress.

3/ And don’t forget the videos. There must be a whole department of toadies who seek and find videos to show him and fire up his tiny “I never read” brain.

2/ Yes, send the squadron to Chicago, and get me more fries. Oh, I see, yes, yes, let’s blow up those people, they’re Democrats, right? Then tell me again how smart I am! This is a president being steered and manipulated by evil men.

White House official inadvertently reveals plans to send elite army unit to Portland Anthony Salisbury displayed chat about deployment of 82nd airborne division on cell phone while in Minnesota

The parts about getting the president to give an order for actions that Hegseth and Miller have already decided to commit — we can imagine the scene in which smarmy aides flatter him and ply him with cheeseburgers until he says okay, yes, blow up the boat.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Elon Musk Gambles Billions in Memphis to Catch Up on AI xAI aims to win the tech arms race with its “Colossus” data centers, thrown up at lightning speed. The city is divided over the massive power and water demands.

“Musk’s data centers will probably bring in only a few hundred jobs to Memphis while consuming millions of gallons of water a day and more electricity than is needed to power all the city’s homes.”

1/2

www.wsj.com/tech/elon-mu...

1/ This is so f'ing outrageous. You cannot safely restrain people on their stomachs. They're going to kill people.

This is very well known now.

Tennessee state Rep. Rusty Grills “sent a letter to President Donald Trump and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins urging emergency relief. He called the situation ‘a crisis not seen in decades,’ and said family farms across Tennessee risk vanishing without federal intervention.”

Last month Judge Diane Goodstein blocked SC from giving DOJ voter data.

Last week Harmeet Dhillon of the DOJ condemned Goodstein's ruling.

Yesterday Stephen Miller called "left wing judges & lawyers" as "terrorists requiring force."

Today Judge Goodstein's home is on fire, investigated for arson.

This evening, President Trump is ordering 400 members of the Texas National Guard for deployments to Illinois, Oregon, and other locations within the United States. No officials from the federal government called me directly to discuss or coordinate.

When the military of Sovereign State A moves into Sovereign State B, against the wishes of the civilians & leadership of Sovereign State B, that is called an invasion. The only plausible motive here is for Republican states to show their power over Democratic states, to terrorize US into submission.

Source: www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/...

anotheritguy • 23h ago I was in a grocery store last week checking out and three guys and a woman came in asking to see ID for the staff who were mostly Hispanic, the manager to his credit asked to see badges and a warrant so they pointed to a star logo on their shirts but had noting else. The woman with them looked nervous like they were doing something wrong. The Manger told them to either show identification or get out of his store, and then grabbed his cell phone handed it to a cashier and told her to call the cops who would sort this out. They immediately left and walked toward a crappy old pontiac grand am, there were people from the store who followed them our and started taking their pictures and pictures of their plates which caused them to hop in and take off in quite a hurry. There needs to be some accountability before people start retaliating against these goons and give trump the excuse he needs to start martial law or worse.

T3pti • 1d ago We don't know where they've been taken to. We don't know if they're alive, we don't know anything. They used to call 2 or 3x a week, now it's been over a month of radio silence. Florida. 3K u/himeeusf avatar himeeusf • 23h ago Same here, we're in Central Florida. Had a handful of my spouse's coworkers pulled over & snatched from their construction vehicles... they all ended up in Alligator Auschwitz. Supposedly they're to be deported - but it's also been over a month of radio silence for us, too. The only real updates we ever heard were early on, that one of the guys has been hospitalized twice for heat stroke. This is a fit young man who is accustomed to working on a concrete crew in Florida summers. The conditions are fucking GRIM. My neighborhood got raided about a week ago as well, splashed all over the local news. 33 of my neighbors disappeared over 2 days. One of them is our friend's father. The nicest guy. The family just opened a taco truck together & it's been a success, we were so excited for them. Now the whole area is a ghost town. People are terrified. I suppose that's the point. It's all so fucking dark.

Becca30thcentury • 23h ago Friend if mine in WA is native American, she was shoping for plants at a hardware store, got pi ked up? Told she was an immigrant, and she had to prove her citizenship. Showed her tribal ID and was told that it was not a real thing and tribes don't do ID. Held her for about two weeks before she says she was just let go, no warning, no court, just dropped off about 5 hours away from home and told to not do it again. (No explanation of what it was) She shared the conditions were horrible, the food was worst quality then high-school, the beds were a literal army cot, and they just all got used to the bugs everywhere. She didn't know where she was held, they intentionally drove her away from the town by over an hour before they released her. In all that time no one knew where she was, friends and family called and were told she was in the system but we couldn't be told where or who to call, and there was never a chance to provide evidence she was a civilian.

Straight_Life • 21h ago Friends Dad got taken during a quick grocery run in L.A. Didn’t know what happened to him for 3 weeks, but on the 4th week he got a call from his dad who was being held in a New Mexico center. Son sent him money for the commissary and tried to hire a lawyer to get him help, but 2 days after that call, his father was moved to a new detention center in Colorado, then moved again to one in Mississippi. In Mississippi, he was forced to sign a document he didn’t understand and moved once again. Haven’t been able to locate his dad since-it’s been 4 months.

Reports from America, 2025 - ICE captures edition

The Black Women Driving a Food Revolution in Rural Mississippi From grocery stores to food distribution services, Black women are leading efforts to feed their communities.

Marquitrice Mangham opened two grocery stores to improve food access in her home state of Mississippi.

Tracking U.S. Measles Outbreaks (Gift Article) As new cases are reported, our maps show the spread of the virus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 1,514 measles cases as of Sept. 24, the highest number of annual cases since the United States declared measles eliminated in 2000.

Gift link.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Two parallels here: one is the cancelation of food aid for USAID which was provided by US farmers. The other is the broad attack on SNAP which already means more people will need food banks that Trump is also undermining. It is an assault on our he most vulnerable.
open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...

6/ “Dr. Andrew Muhammad, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Tennessee … [said] tariffs may eventually yield better trade terms but cautioned that not every farm will survive long enough to see those benefits.”

Really good reporting here from WKRN.

5/ China typically buys about half of Tennessee’s soybeans, but soybeans aren’t the only crops affected. Falling prices for corn, cotton, and wheat are also contributing.

I note that prices paid to farmers are declining, but my grocery bill is the highest it’s ever been.