Happy Post-4th of July:

Evidently, the new normal is crazy *ish always happening in the world of politics smack in the middle of Summer!

Good day all subscribers and other readers of Josh off the Press.

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<FYI: For a better viewing experience, open this newsletter in your browser, and read the story from my personal website>

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I know it’s been a minute since I last wrote. For some of my readers, I know you are wondering “Since when was this predominantly a basketball blog?” To that I hear you, and from the survey I posted about splitting up my blog into two, I have yet to do it, as I’m still waiting for either -

1. A pay raise from Substack (or)

2. Some other really compelling reason to make it a priority

Aside from the survey results, a few of you were generous enough to give me real feedback and advice. I have decided that at this moment in time leaving my blog/newsletter as is, is the way to go.

Given that this is not my career, but rather a passion project, there is a luxury in keeping up this blog in that I don’t have to churn out weekly content, but the downside is that sometimes this blog does fall by the wayside.

The last burst of writing I produced was very *NBA Playoff basketball-heavy with a

• Political - Taibbi article as well as a

• Malcolm Gladwell book-review, along with

• An anniversary post for good measure

But just as the world doesn’t stop despite my writing (temporarily) stopping, there is a lot to catch up on.

*FYI - there is no basketball talk in this post, but there will be one later this month, despite the 2024-2025 season already being over for a few weeks now.

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I. Healthcare for all??? More like Medicaid for few!!!

First off - let us discuss this “The Big Beautiful Piece of Sh*t of a bill” that just passed Congress. If you didn’t believe it already, here is further proof that the Republican Party is willing to walk off a cliff in the name of Trump.

Anyone paying any kind of attention knows that these Medicaid cuts are going to be devastating. And the cruel irony is that the majority of people impacted by this, are in fact Trump voters.

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“The Republican base now includes more working-class and low-income people, many of whom receive their health insurance through Medicaid.” https://politicalwire.com/2025/07/04/out-of-touch-with-their-base/

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But let's not dare down-play all who are going to be impacted by this. Millions of people will be hurting. The health-care industry will be hurting. And ERs are going to be even more chaotic and unpredictable than they already are.

As of March 2025, over 78 million people were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP in America.

In a country of over 342 million people, that’s nearly 23% of all people that have health insurance through that subsidized program, which is roughly 1 out of 4 people.

Trump’s new bill is going to throw a lot of people off of Medicaid. Conservative numbers suggest over 5 million people will lose it. Other estimates claim it will be somewhere around 10 to 15 million who will lose health insurance.

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“The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 36 million Medicaid enrollees are at risk of losing coverage due to proposed work requirements”.

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For those of us that struggle in math, 36/78 = 46%. That is nearly half of all Medicaid recipients that are now in danger of losing their health-coverage.

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THIS IS AN EYE-POPPING NUMBER!!!!

Simply put, this is a cruel and inhumane bill. The anger about this bill is already incredibly palpable. And honestly, some people within the GOP are down-right gleeful about it (even though many elected Republicans officials are fully aware that they just pre-ordered their very own political funeral).

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But Trump doesn’t even appear to have a clue!!!

“Trump still doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp about what his signature legislative achievement does. According to three sources with direct knowledge of the comments, the president told Republicans at this meeting that there are three things Congress shouldn’t touch if they want to win elections: Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.” https://politicalwire.com/2025/07/03/trump-was-oblivious-about-his-own-bill/

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For anyone to expect that the Republicans would do something other than what Trump told them to do, is simply just not paying enough attention.

In the end, it was all very predictable — Congress always chickens out.

Playbook: Congress caves again

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II. Trump cries rigged elections all the time, meanwhile he’s the one doing most of the rigging.

While this new horrible law could be potentially good for Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections, there is also a palpable fear that Trump will be able to manipulate the election results so as to rig the outcome of 2026 in his and his party’s favor.

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“The U.S. Constitution gives states the power to run elections. But this move suggests the Trump administration wants to intimidate election officials with the threat of federal criminal prosecution — not for misconduct, but for failing to live up to vague and politically motivated standards of “security.”” https://politicalwire.com/2025/07/03/a-new-front-in-trumps-war-on-democracy/

James Carville Says Trump Will Try to Rig the Midterms

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Sadly, the whole very real and palpable fear of election interference reminds me of an online debate I got into with someone last summer. We got into a somewhat heated exchange on how political parties try to cheat to gain an electoral advantage. *Somehow this conversation devolved into (what felt like) deeply personal accusations.

This person came across incredibly angry with this air of moral superiority where he believed that if you are a democrat, you could never be one of the good guys, as he believed only the Democratic party cheated, and that the Republican party represented him as one of the little guys.

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*I did mention this very conversation I had, in an article I wrote last year about how divisive our politics has gotten. And for the record, I did stop engaging with this person (for reasons that I think should be fairly obvious).

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III. The Middle East is more of a mess than usual.

After this domestic debacle of a bill passed and was being debated over the last few weeks, the whole military confrontation with Israel, Iran and America, appears to have been on the backburner. But America’s military involvement in Iran, was not particularly well-thought out, nor did there appear to be any long-term strategy with respect to what to anticipate next.

It seemed rather impulsive, which isn’t all that uncommon for Trump and his type of leadership style. But given that Trump (during his first term) had such a risk-averse outlook when it came to America’s involvement in international affairs, it was rather off-brand for Trump and his US foreign policy philosophy to engage in such a conflict with Iran.

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As controversial as this might sound, (and the fact other public figures have been blasted for stating this) it appears as if Bibi has been calling the shots when it comes to the Trump’s foreign policy decisions in the Middle East. (Trump Shifted on Iran Under Pressure from Israel).

Not only that, but it’s as if a whole ocean of cold water has been thrown on the grand idea of *nuclear deterrence. Just look at the pre-emptive strike America and Israel made, out of fear of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. And with unpredictable nations like North Korea trying to flex their military muscle, the era of nuclear disarmament, appears long gone.

Needless to say, Russia still has a large nuclear arsenal that rivals the United States, and China has been a looming threat to American prosperity for decades.

*Nuclear deterrence is a strategy where a nation uses the threat of nuclear retaliation to discourage an adversary from attacking, either with nuclear weapons or potentially even with conventional forces. It's based on the idea that the potential consequences of a nuclear attack (like mutually assured destruction) are so devastating that no nation would initiate one.

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There is now a greater fear about a Nuclear Holocaust or outright annihilation of the Earth since the inception of the “Doomsday Clock” in 1947.

“Doomsday Clock” - It is now 89 seconds to midnight

The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock representing how close humanity is to global catastrophe, with midnight signifying annihilation. Created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, it's a metaphor for the dangers of nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies. Currently, the clock is set at 89 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been, reflecting ongoing global threats.

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Oh, and there is still a genocide in Gaza that has been occurring for 21 straight months.

Whether you are Pro-Zionist or not (and as horrific and heinous as the 10/7/23 terrorist attacks were), to classify the mass murder of Palestinians anything less than a genocide, is simply just being intellectually dishonest. The media apparatus and its lack of coverage of this ethnic cleansing, doesn’t make it less real. And this isn’t exactly a “Pro-Palestinian” statement by me, it’s rather an anti-killing statement.

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“The health ministry in Gaza has reported at least 55,000 Palestinians killed since October 2023. Israel routinely dismisses these death counts as too high. A new independent study says they are actually too low.” https://www.dw.com/en/gaza-what-is-the-actual-death-toll-and-how-can-we-be-sure/a-73136975

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IV. The Most interesting Mayor’s Race we have had in years!

As for the biggest city in America (the one in which I live in the suburbs of), The Democratic nominee for NYC Mayor is Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old Democratic Socialist of the Muslim faith. He is currently a state-assembly member of the 36th district, based in Astoria NY. Mamdani is of Indian descent born in Uganda and raised in South Africa until he moved to New York City when he was just 7 years old.

Mamdani shocked the world by defeating the well-funded former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic Primary this past June.

While this result was slightly surprising, it should not be all together shocking. Mamdani emphasized the points that most voters are concerned about and that is “Everything is too damn expensive and is slanted to favor the rich”.

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“Zohran Mamdani isn’t just charismatic; he’s charismatically specific. In his campaign videos, he’ll walk through city bodegas to tell voters how he might tweak the details of urban retail policy”. https://politicalwire.com/2025/07/03/lets-get-specific/

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Trump had a similar slogan, but unlike Trump - people actually believe Mamdani will implement policies to favor the little guy, not steal poor people’s health care to further favor the rich.

Not only that, but Cuomo was badly exposed as a hack and a has-been. Much in the same way the democratic party grew weary of Biden as President, New Yorkers (in particular in NYC) grew tired of Cuomo.

But what do you expect from a Democratic party establishment that is nearly as corrupt as the Republican Party? To all moderates who do not feel all that closely aligned to one party over another, all I can say is - if you are telling people to give Trump a chance, then maybe you should give Mamdani a chance, too.

If you are unwilling to do that, maybe you are a lot more conservative than you realize. Much like how Trump represents a certain anti-establishment fervor of the right, this is exactly what Mamdani represents for the left.

To call Mamdani a leftist radical outside the mainstream, is to obfuscate the politics of the Trump era.

In other words, the political mainstream now firmly occupies two very separate polarities with no discernable center.

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V. I’m still incredibly concerned about the direction of this country.

Yet, I also realize to be consumed by this current media apparatus is no good for my mental health. There is too much happening all at once. I didn’t even discuss Trump’s draconian immigration policies, or the continuing War in Ukraine, or Trump’s incoherent tariff policies, or his black balling of institutions, stifling free speech. (Just to name a few!)

There is also the pending Cold-War with China that Trump is walking into blind. Meanwhile the Chinese Government has been preparing for this stand-off against America for years and years.

There is too much recency bias to ever have a clear picture of what’s happening in the world. Sometimes, when I take a step back from writing, I’m also taking a step back from the chaos of the world.

To end on a more positive note, I do have some exciting projects coming down the pike. Even if I am busy taking care of other life-things, and not writing, my next article is always around the corner (even if certain corners take longer to turn down).

Until next time!

-JPJ

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PS - I owe a great deal of my sourcing (in this article in particular) to the wonderful political news-site/aggregator - politicalwire.com.