FactCheckJeff

Update: He speaks!
bsky.app/profile/fact...

And here is the update. Feds want to use California National Guard. Talks about the feds looking for an excuse to escalate, which I would believe. Is this missing any sense of urgency or am I totally off? His state is being attacked by the federal government and milquetoast is the answer.

Except it hasn't. I literally attached photos showing that to not be the case. The only public communication since yesterday was a fluff piece put out to local news talking about how changes to gun laws have led to lower gun crime.

No shit. It's been almost a full day. I fear for any government run by someone that can't put together a plan to unprecedented problems in under 24 hours.

His state's most populous city is being shredded by civil unrest and armed federal agents. If now isn't the time to portray the leadership he was ostensibly elected for, I have no idea when is.

www.gov.ca.gov/2025/06/06/g...

Gavin Newsom is MIA as Los Angeles is in chaos. He put out this "statement" yesterday that isn't worth the digital paper it's written on. He hasn't posted to his social media in almost a full day. The moment calls for a man of conviction and principles. We're getting neither.

www.axios.com/2025/06/05/m...

Would Trump "have lost the election" without Elon Musk? It's possible, but not because the election was 'rigged'. He put in hundreds of millions of dollars directly (and who knows how much he marshaled from others). We don't have an election integrity problem. We have a political spending problem.

Republicans sprinkled in some good talking points (like recess reform) and the bait worked. This is a MAHA bill that every TX Senate Democrat just voted for. It's astonishing. (3/3)
legiscan.com/TX/bill/SB25...

It ties funding of health-related higher ed to requiring the use of a nutritional curriculum from the new "Texas Nutrition Advisory Committee". Sounds reasonable until you read the rest of the bill and see how much crankery is involved, including the weird label on things like bleached flour. (2/3)

TX's SB25 passed the state Senate unanimously and will soon be law. It creates a warning label requirement for a long list of colorants and additives as "not recommended for human consumption" based on non-American standards, but it's much worse than that. (1/3)

I hate having to write "Big Beautiful Bill Act". We live in a joke world.
www.cbo.gov/publication/...

The CBO put out a new estimate on the cost of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and while the sheet has a lot of numbers, the only one that matters is in the lower right - $2.4T in new deficit spending over the next 10 years.

Just sprinted from a gun-related incident as a bystander for the first time ever. No shots fired so it wouldn't even make the local news if such a thing still existed. On with the day and errands I was doing. What are we doing to ourselves?

To get out of this, the United States is going to need a lot of people to put on their thinking hats. I'm not sure we have the equipment.

If you ever come across someone dismissing a Congressional Budget Office estimate (like the 'esteemed' Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent), run away from their opinions and never look back. The CBO isn't perfect, but it is full of exceptionally bright people that do excellent work.

Everything you do online is logged. Everywhere you go, there are enough cameras recording that you can be tracked anywhere. We live in a surveillance state, and there is nothing we can do about it. The good part is that you are probably not important enough to be followed.

We need two election days - Primary Day and General Day. A months-long primary season where the order of state elections matters contributes to the electoral dysfunction plaguing American politics. Stop letting a random mix of states unnecessarily sway so much of the discussion and outcome.

Imagine if we didn't have to spend political capital forcing insurance companies to cover basic services. This bill has some bipartisan support and it's an easy slam dunk in terms of messaging. Never bet on Congress not tripping over itself into failure, though.
www.kaine.senate.gov/imo/media/do...

The "Supporting Healthy Moms and Babies Act" would require insurance to cover not only delivery but also most pre- and postpartum services. It's as obvious a needed change as I can ever recall reading in a bill.

Looks like Canadian political leaders are at least saying the right things and taking the necessary actions to address the emergency. Oh, to live in a functional country again.

Wonder what the tariff on particulate matter is.

This link doesn't work:
www.hhs.gov/surgeongener...
This one does:
www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp...

I went looking for historical smoking rates in the United States for a discussion I was having with Mrs. FCJ about when and why it peaked. It led me to this Surgeon General report link that no longer works. We are destroying useful information because thinking too much is bad for politics.

It's almost a quaint issue now, but pardon power shouldn't be vested in any single person and probably shouldn't exist at all. The entire concept is built on the idea that only rational people acting in good faith will have the power. That convenient assumption is clearly misplaced.

Not by choice, I am watching NBC's morning show, and no wonder the country is screwed. They report as if everyone is acting in good faith. There is no critical thinking to be seen. I expect propaganda from MAGA-aligned outlets. This is just a fake veneer of normalcy that does the same thing.

www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/pro...

There are ~75M children in the US. About half receive their healthcare from Medicaid/CHIP compared to ~13% of the adult population. Highlights the general financial state of the bottom half of parents and how any cuts are going to directly result in children losing healthcare.

There is no such thing as "Judeo-Christian principles and ethics". The term has been popularized by Evangelicals to promote a religious and cultural connection to Judaism that doesn't exist. You don't get to write a fanfic sequel and then claim the authors of the original had anything to do with it.