Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

With the U.S. midterm elections less than two weeks away, Republicans across the country are posturing as defenders of the country’s ailing rural healthcare system even as hospitals and providers nationwide buckle under the financial strain imposed by President Donald Trump and the GOP’s unprecedented cuts to Medicaid.

The advocacy group Protect Our Care said Wednesday that Republicans in key congressional races “are touting bald-faced lies” by highlighting their support for a $50 billion rural health fund that pales in comparison to the roughly $900 billion in Medicaid cuts that Trump signed into law last summer. The health policy organization KFF estimates that the Republican law will cut $137 billion in Medicaid spending for rural areas over the next decade.

Protect Our Care calls out multiple Republicans by name for misleadingly promoting their support for rural health funds, including Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas, Jon Husted of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine, and Ted Cruz of Texas, as well as Reps. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, Jeff Crank of Colorado, Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, Jason Smith of Missouri, and Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin....

US President Donald Trump, widely considered the most corrupt president in American history, announced a $25 million initiative on Tuesday designed to reward tipsters who report people defrauding the federal government.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) responded sardonically to the announcement, writing on social media, “I’d like to report a theft.” Referencing the administration’s illegal use of federal funds for pro-Trump propaganda, Sanders added: “A man inside our government illegally spent nearly $22 million in taxpayer dollars on bogus campaign ads praising himself. He now resides on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“Taxpayers want to know when they’ll get their money back,” the senator wrote....

An analysis released Friday by Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee details how US President Donald Trump loaded up on shares of major pharmaceutical companies last year as his administration and Republican allies enacted policies that benefited the industry—at the expense seniors and other patients.

The JEC analysis estimates that Trump increased his stock holdings in the pharmaceutical sector from $1.7 million in 2024 to as much as $56.2 million last year. The committee notes that Trump, who has repeatedly promised to cut drug prices while implementing policies that raised them, “held as much as $39.1 million in stock in the same Big Pharma companies that directly benefited” from a budget package that the president signed into law last summer.

“Trump and congressional Republicans intentionally force seniors to pay more for cancer treatment so that Big Pharma can rake in more money that Trump can personally profit from,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), the JEC’s ranking member. “It’s outrageous and yet typical from this president, who makes the American people foot the bill again and again for his own gains.”...

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to remove the Federal Student Aid office from the Department of Education and establish a new independent agency tasked with managing roughly $1.6 trillion in debt owed by more than 40 million borrowers.

The plan, first reported by The Washington Sun on Thursday, comes as President Donald Trump works to illegally dismantle the Education Department without congressional authorization and assails student aid programs. Legally spinning off the Federal Student Aid office—the largest segment of the Education Department—would require an act of Congress, something that administration officials have “acknowledged internally,” according to the Sun.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, expressed outrage over the administration’s reported plan, noting that the Trump administration has already gutted the student aid office’s staff....

A coalition of nonprofit groups and labor unions filed an emergency petition on Friday aimed at blocking the Federal Communications Commission’s recent repeal of a decades-old rule that limited consolidation among television broadcasters, a move that would allow media conglomerates to seize even more control over local news stations.

The petition states that the Republican-controlled FCC’s decision—pushed by Chair Brendan Carr and approved in August in a 2-1 vote along party lines—was “plainly contrary to law and violates core administrative law principles.” The filing notes that Congress enacted the rule barring any single TV broadcaster from reaching more than 39% of US households—and only Congress can roll it back.

“The FCC simply cannot ignore the laws Congress makes just because the current agency head wants to,” said Matt Wood, vice president of policy at Free Press, one of the groups that joined the new motion. “Chairman Carr serves only [President] Donald Trump, not the people of this country. Carr threatens broadcasters when their coverage angers the administration, but tosses them bones like this repeal when the biggest broadcast conglomerates toe the line.”...