Megan Howard

Sick fourth-grader among 4 Columbia Heights students held by ICE Columbia Heights Public Schools says four students remain detained by ICE after Liam’s return, including 10-year-old Elizabeth, who has fallen ill.

Elizabeth is a Columbia Heights fourth-grader who loves volleyball, learning English and giggling in the halls with her friends. She's been held in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center for nearly a month, and she and her mom have both fallen ill. sahanjournal.com/education/co...

“Get it all on record now — get the films — get the witnesses — because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower, after visiting liberated concentration camps in April 1945

Tomorrow’s front page of the Minnesota Star Tribune: Jan. 23, 2026

Donate to Help Bring 5-Year-Old Liam Home, organized by sarai Orquiz Liam Adrian Cornejo Ramos is just 5 years old and currently in pre-K. Yesterday, he and h… sarai Orquiz needs your support for Help Bring 5-Year-Old Liam Home

Please help us bring Liam Adrian Cornejo Ramos (he’s only 5 years of age and is currently in pre-K. Yesterday, he and his father were kidnapped by ICE. This will help the family with legal services to help reunite Liam and his dad with their family.

gofund.me/be8a1b2ab

A reminder - before Trump, MAGA, Musk and Fox rewrote history - that this is what the entire country agreed had happened five years ago today:

Here's why we rate this statement from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “It’s going to be the biggest infusion of federal dollars into rural health care in American history,” Mostly False.

@ajzionts.bsky.social explains ⤵️

I'm an ER doctor. JD Vance's claims about immigrants and wait times are utterly wrong. Emergency medicine has a moral and legal commitment: treat anyone, anywhere, anytime.

"Human worth does not depend on a wallet or a passport. It bears repeating that EMTALA came from a conservative White House. Across parties, Americans once agreed that you do not check a dying neighbor’s paperwork. We should preserve that great legal and moral commitment."

Since it needs to be said: states' #Medicaid reimbursement rates to hospitals don't vary by eligibility group, the applicable federal matching rate or if it's for emergency Medicaid. Like within Medicare & private insurance, Medicaid rates will only vary based on patients' diagnosis/severity.

"Bluesky is like a refuge for me"

.@wyden.senate.gov blasts the new program as a "slush fund": "It’s clear to anyone watching this unfold that this fund is going to be focused toward states whose governors support the ideological agenda of the Trump administration and used to dole out political favors to Trump’s cronies."

Opinion | They Don’t Want to Live in Lincoln’s America

wrote about the “national conservative” vision for america

When you break things down, the one group with higher lengths of stay are patients enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans - in particular, those going to a nursing home for rehab.

The likelihood that these patients stay in the hospital for ≥14 days increased by ~30% from 2018 to 2023.

‘Going to be a bloodbath’: The GOP megalaw threatens a flooded hospital’s future The company that owns the hospital in Erwin, Tennessee, vowed to rebuild after Hurricane Helene. Federal cuts may make that impossible.

‘Going to be a bloodbath’: The GOP megalaw threatens a flooded hospital’s future www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

At 25, ‘Bring It On’ deserves all the spirit fingers The classic cheerleading film, starring Kirsten Dunst, still has what it takes to get a crowd going.

“Bring It On” might have been the first movie — and, 25 years later, one of the only movies — to view cheerleading as a sport and cheerleaders as something more than just eye candy at a football game. https://wapo.st/4mvTm2E

Went ahead and updated my map of cities with higher crime than D.C. to accommodate the two new states from the Deep South who are sending troops to the capital. In the five states there are 64 cities, home to 1.7 million people, that had more crime in 2024 than D.C.
www.pbump.net/o/more-peopl...

64% of Medicaid recipients under age 65 work, per KFF. As for the rest, see below. There are not 34m potential agricultural workers on Medicaid just raring to go pick vegetables.

Nationals fire manager Dave Martinez and GM Mike Rizzo Washington’s lengthy rebuild has cost its manager and its general manager their jobs.

The Nationals fired manager Dave Martinez and GM Mike Rizzo, ending one of the longest partnerships in baseball that included a World Series title in 2019 and the second-worst record in baseball in the six years that followed.

Read more via @andrewgolden.bsky.social and @spencernusbaum.bsky.social:

The bill's staggering Medicaid cuts put 55 independent rural hospitals at serious risk of closure, per an analysis by Families USA.

Those cuts also put 579 nursing homes at a high risk of closure, per an analysis from Brown University’s School of Public Health.

Also rural hospitals and clinics are screwed.

Wyden Statement on New CBO Numbers Showing More than $930 Billion in Medicaid Cuts In New Senate Draft | The United States Senate Committee on Finance Wyden Statement on New CBO Numbers Showing More than $930 Billion in Medicaid Cuts In New Senate Draft

NEWS: Wyden Statement on New CBO Numbers Showing More than $930 Billion in Medicaid Cuts In New Senate Draft

So on Big Bill, H.R.1, a provision added was a $25 billion fund to help rural hospitals.

Problem: Medicaid cuts are roughly $1 trillion over 10 years.

Since roughly 24% of rural population is on Medicaid, that's roughly a $240 billion cut

A $25B rural fund offsets only about 1/10th of the cuts.

🚨 The Senate parliamentarian just disqualified a bunch of provisions from the GOP bill — including Medicaid provider tax language, funding restrictions based on immigration status, spread pricing and one prohibition on gender-affirming care. List via a Democratic budget aide:

Thread on highly inadequate and flawed "rural health transformation" fund intended to prevent rural hospitals from closing or cutting services/staff in face of draconian #Medicaid cuts in Senate reconciliation bill. Details from @punchbowlnews.bsky.social here (1/x): punchbowl.news/rural-health...

Roundup: State Budgets Increasingly Strained as House, Senate Republican Plans Would Impose Major Costs | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Senate and House Republican leaders are advancing a massive tax and budget package — a process technically known as reconciliation — that features extreme cuts to food assistance and health care...

Senate & House Rs are rushing a massive reconciliation plan that promises widespread harm to people & communities in *every state*, partly thru shifting major costs states simply can't afford. Fresh out from us today is more state-by-state context on the potential pinch. www.cbpp.org/research/sta...

New: 16 House Republicans write a letter rebelling against the Senate bill’s Medicaid spending cuts, which are more aggressive than the House bill. Concerns include provider taxes, state payments, harm to hospitals and “cuts to emergency Medicaid funding.” Led by Rep. David Valadao:

Republicans Threaten a Hospital Apocalypse Experts warn of potentially hundreds of hospital closures, which would degrade the entire medical system.

From me: It hasn't been stressed enough just how disastrous the Republican Medicaid cuts would be for the hospital system—rural hospitals, yes, but ALL hospitals will be more crowded, more burdened, & at more risk of collapse if hundreds of closures occur, as is likely.
prospect.org/health/2025-...

This will also:

-bankrupt most pediatric hospitals
-bankrupt most academic and safety net hospitals
-there will be nowhere for Veterans to get the community care they’re promised

Hospitals would be hit hardest by Medicaid cuts in GOP tax bill, report finds To finance tax cuts, a GOP bill would reduce Medicaid payments to hospitals by $321 billion, hitting both blue and red states hard, a new report calculates.

Hospitals would be hit hardest by Medicaid cuts in GOP tax bill, report finds www.statnews.com/2025/06/14/g...

How A Man Not Named Dan Came to Own Dan’s Cafe for Six Decades Clinnie “Dickie” Dickens owned the iconic dive Dan’s Cafe since he was 31. He died in February, just shy of 91, but his sons will keep the party going.

Nearly 6 years since I started down a rabbit hole to find out who was Dan of Dan’s Cafe, my magnum opus (abridged) has now been published:

washingtoncitypaper.com/article/7659...

Using AI to Reform Government is Much Harder Than it Looks | TechPolicy.Press Policymakers need to rethink the values that justify government AI adoption in the first place, writes Ben Green.

In @techpolicypress.bsky.social, I explain why using AI to reform government is much harder than policymakers and technologists assume. It's most directly about DOGE, but also raises warnings about the bipartisan push to adopt AI at all levels of government.
www.techpolicy.press/using-ai-to-...