Second Four hundredth thirty-seventh verse, same as the first, a little bit louder & a little bit worse…
9pm: I rest
9am: I vote to take twenty million people's healthcare— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) June 29, 2025 at 10:08 PM
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The Senate Republican budget policy:
Tax breaks for billionaires are FREE!
But health care costs money, so CUT!
It’s magic math — and cruel hypocrisy.— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) June 29, 2025 at 4:20 PM
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Predictable. Fraudster, conspiracy goon, lying shyster, and trump sycophant. #EatShitRonJohnson
— Jim Witkins (@jimwitkins.bsky.social) June 29, 2025 at 7:25 PM
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[fallout 4 voice] seems to be going well
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) June 29, 2025 at 7:40 PM
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they’re all going to be punching each other before this is over
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) June 29, 2025 at 9:30 PM
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This is potentially an effective message. Trump tends to distrust everyone & always worries someone is screwing him. It’s often easy to get him to change his approach if he thinks someone is screwing him. And he doesn’t have strong convictions except on immigration, tariffs, greed, & adulation
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) June 29, 2025 at 11:25 PM
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Republicans, before you vote to close 1 of 4 nursing homes, can you update us on where those people will go?
Maybe call a few seniors in your state and go over plans for where they go next?
Or call the son whose dad has dementia and tell him how he can be a full-time caregiver?— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) June 29, 2025 at 7:10 PM
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Senate Republicans know this bill is rotten to its core, but being a rubber stamp to Trump comes before everything else — including their constituents.
If they actually cared about its impact on constituents, this bill would fail. And it would fail BIG.— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@vanhollen.senate.gov) June 29, 2025 at 8:18 PM
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i increasingly think thune's plan is to get it off his desk before the 4th and then tell trump to blame johnson when it can't get through the house
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) June 29, 2025 at 5:46 PM
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which, like, to be clear, trump will! but it does not improve the republican senate's bargaining position with the republican house
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) June 29, 2025 at 5:48 PM
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turning over the wildly unpopular destruction of medicaid to a guy who oversaw the largest instance of medicare fraud in united states history because you're afraid of a leadership challenge is extremely on brand for what's turning out to be a strikingly poor instinct for leadership from thune
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) June 29, 2025 at 5:31 PM
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The tax cuts just blow everything else out of the water, there's no budgetary/trade-off reason to cut cancer research and food stamps, they just did that because they know we don't want them to and they hate us
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) June 29, 2025 at 8:46 PM
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They don't care that republicans still get cancer and other diseases and fall on hard times and have special-needs kids. This was the deal. "We will hurt the people you hate even if it hurts you" and half the country signed up in blood
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) June 29, 2025 at 8:49 PM
War for Ukraine Day 1,221: FAS
trnc
I appreciate that Tillis is a hard no, but it’s still weird to hear him talk like Trump couldn’t possibly know what the effects of his bill will be after weeks of public discussion.
Jackie
@trnc:
Seriously? FFOTUS knows EXACTLY what the bill effects will bring. And he is salivating.
SpaceUnit
Maybe it’s wrong of me but I’m just tuning out all this political snuff porn.
I think making everyone watch is mostly the point.
Ksmiami
Republicans are a disease
NotMax
Slumlords of healthcare.
Archon
The surprising thing to me is how the Republicans defense of this bill has been so half hearted. Republicans usually have no problem lying and deceiving with gusto and confidence but they can’t even do that with this.
Maybe Republicans are having a bit of a crisis of conscience or is that wishful thinking.
chemiclord
@Archon: They already know how they are voting, so why waste their breath of meaningless performative measures?
Unlike Dem voters, they already know posturing means less than jack shit, so why bother?
Galaxy Being
Rick Scott slowly turning into the Crypt Keeper.
Hungry Joe
@Archon: A: Wishful thinking. In order to have a crisis of conscience one first has to have, well, you know.
Chetan Murthy
@Archon: just speculating, maybe they’re trying to avoid saying things on videotape that could be used in later campaigns against them? After all, the less they say the less they can be held to.
Tom Levenson
@Galaxy Being: Slowly?
cain
@Chetan Murthy:
I don’t think it matters to cultists. They hear and see what they want. You can throw all the evidence in their faces and it will just bounce off.
Aziz, light!
@trnc: No Republican is ever a hard no.
ronno2018
it sucks so bad people did not vote for the dems last year. it was clear this would be the painful result. but someone said Haitians were eating the cats and dogs…
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This whole thing seems to be a game of chicken between the House Republicans and the Senate.
Chetan Murthy
@ronno2018: You don’t understand, the b***h was gonna win!
Jay
@ronno2018:
Instead, you have the ReThugs eating the checks and the balances.
prostratedragon
Sally
@prostratedragon: They must defund the Dept of Trans port immediately
prostratedragon
@Sally: You know it! In the comments someone reminds us of the Trans Am. And whatcwould they have done with Trans World Airline?
satby
Even Fox news has had to report that the bill will cause more people to be uninsured and put rural hospitals and nursing homes in jeopardy, though they underplay it and allow Republicans to outright lie about it. So the bill is hugely unpopular even with Republican voters. The Rs have put themselves in a position where every way they go they’re potentially screwed: either by their demented, vicious “leader”, his goons in the government, or by the gun toting hordes of MAGAts who shoot people when they figure out how screwed over they’re getting. And they richly deserve the fear they all feel.
JWR
@satby:
One of the lies Repubs tell, and the media lets them get away with, is that tax cuts always lead to increased revenue, full stop. I caught a bit of the Sunday morning shows and one of the Repubs tossed that one out there and there it would lie, burning its way through the studio floor, just like all the other lies they’ve been telling for years upon years.
Nettoyeur
@trnc: They said the same about Stalin as he marched them to the execution chamber or the Gulag. “If only Stalin knew, he would fix this…”
Baud
@Nettoyeur:
Baud
Somehow this happened a couple of weeks ago.
JWR
Here’s Kristin Welker hounding Mamdani about the phrase “globalize the intifada” and why won’t he please please pretty please say “The Phrase” just once so we can use it to beat you over the head with it some more?!!
WTFGhost
Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh mer god, please, tell me he’s sincere, he thinks Trump cares about “a promise” or “people”? You think his advisers are hiding his intention to see the people who voted for him suffer and die for his “one big beautiful bill”? You think Trump, of every human being in the world, the biggest lie machine ever, the only man to serially bullshit his way through an attempted overthrow of the government, a four year campaign, and an administration tuned to cruelty, you think *that* man thinks “duh, people will remember I promised something”?
In kindergarten, Tillis, you never got to use the “big kid” scissors, did you? Just couldn’t learn how to use them safely, right?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Sally: I work at DOT. My agency has an award case set against some atrium windows and many of the awards are made of cut glass, so when the sun shines through them at the right angle in the afternoon the prism effect casts rainbows on the carpet and opposite walls. I keep wondering when they’re going to remove the whole case for being DEI woke.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@JWR: They still have to find any angle they can to imply that something is wrong with Democrats I see.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Tell them to vote for Democrats Tom.
WTFGhost
@Jackie: Seriously, the man is dumb as a post, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he forgot half the crap they told him. If he were in any sense rational, and able to be dealt with, I would agree, he knows, and he’s salivating. But with his brain having the consistency of warm spoiled yogurt, I honestly don’t know if he could say they’re going to throw at least 10 million off Medicaid.
(It’s a shame, because if it was spoiled sour cream, it would turn sweet. You’ve heard of sweet cream, right? Well, that’s what happens when sour cream goes bad.)
(Please note: it’s unwise to take cooking advice created by a stoned cranky person awake at 3am.)
Sally
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: YEs, they will be trying to ban rainbows! What sad sacks they are.
WTFGhost
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Yeah, a sign of a true partisan is they never think of the obvious solutions.
@JWR: As a child, I always thought the perfect answer to that would be “do you want me to say that anyone who uses that phrase is hateful? You just used that phrase.”
“But I was quoting it!”
“OH, you were just QUOTING it, nice and loud over the TV broadcast, so EVERYONE got to hear it!” (etc.)
Alas, reporters are only *sometimes* reliable comedy-duo partners.
@JWR: It’s an easy lie to get away with, because eventually, the US will be receiving more revenue than the year in which the tax cut occurred. If you could explain… ah, but you can never explain anything. Also, reporters seem to decide certain political questions aren’t for them to answer, even if the answer is clear and objective. No, it’s for the other side (Democrats, of course) to shoot down. So, Republicans say “up is down, because which label means what is ultimately arbitrary” (i.e.: “all words are made-up words!” … if you go back far enough.) and Democrats have to explain that, no, as a language speaking people, we’ve decided that up is, in fact, up, only they didn’t have time for such a long answer, so they went to a commercial instead.
Baud
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
JWR
Meanwhile, in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, more administration hijinks:
WTFGhost
@rikyrah: Hey! Watch the language! There’s an upset badger trainer who was mugged by a bunch of badgers in Alaska (where they rarely form street gangs and beat up badger trainers), present!
Oh, well, cat’s out of the bag *now*.
Good morning.
stinger
@Baud:
But, that’s like — good news! Unpossible!
Thanks for the link. For my own mental health, I’ve stopped reading most news sites, except for following some links from BJ. And NPR always wants my money, now more than ever.
Baud
@stinger:
On Blue sky this morning, someone reposted a Slate article that portrayed one of the few good Supreme Court rulings this term as a bad one.
stinger
@Baud:
Oh well of course.
Princess
They need to pull some of the press hounding Mamdani about word choice and put a few reporters onto getting Republicans senators on record about killing grandma but they won’t because this is their plan.
Also, the longing to insist that Trump doesn’t know or understand about the awful stuff his government is doing is literally medieval thinking (and I mean literally, literally) and it is so depressing to see it constantly repeated on BJ.
Baud
@Princess:
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what he knows. His party will pass the bill and he will sign it into law.
Spanky
And the dollar continues its march to irrelevance:
prostratedragon
@WTFGhost: Regarding your note, that’s what PB&J is for.
ETA bread optional.
MagdaInBlack
@prostratedragon: Hot Cheetos and milk. Trust me.
Glory b
@Princess: I don’t understand the focus on him.
Only about 30% even bothered to turn out and he didn’t win the majority of the 30%.
Also, NYC isn’t really representative of all of the US anyway.
Congrats to him on the win, but I can’t see how it’s perceived as earth shattering.
prostratedragon
@MagdaInBlack: Everyone shacks up with their own kind of gout.
lowtechcyclist
@Princess:
“If only the Tsar knew of this!”
Geminid
Unsurprisingly, Politico has an article up previewing North Carolina’s upcoming Senate Race. On the Semocratic side, former U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel is running, while former Governor Roy Cooper has not yet decided to run. I think Nickel has said that if Cooper gets in, he’ll get out.
My hopes for a brutal, protracted, expensive and rancorous Republican primary could be disappointed. Current Senator Thom Tillis said he thought his party would rally to whomerver Trump endorses.
According to Politico, that will either be Lara Trump; or Michael Whatley, current GOP Chairman and former North Carolina party Chairman; or freshman Rep. Pat Harrigan, a 38 year-old West Point graduate and former Army Captain.
Harrigan first ran for Congress in 2022, and lost to current NC Attorney General Jeff Jackson, another Army veteran. Then when Rep. Patrick McHenry retired, Harrigan ran for his seat last year and won.
Harrigan would probably be the strongest candidate of the three. Lara Trump is inexperienced and untested, while Whatley looks just like the career party apparatchik he is.* Neither has run for public office before.
Nickel versus Harrigan would be a singular match-up in that both men were born in California; Nickel in Fresno and Harrigan in San Diego.
* Whatley was a high school sophomore in 1984 when he volunteered for Jesse Helms’ Senate campaign. He worked on George Bush’s Florida recount team sixteen years later.
According to Whatley’s Wikipedia biography, one of Whatley’s first acts as NC party chair was to sit in on Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in December of 2020, presumably to support Trump’s bullying.
JML
Waiting for Susan Collins to express concern. Not expecting her to actually vote against the Big Stupid Bill of Destruction and Ruin, but I haven’t seen the classic Collins Expression of Concern recently. I mean, how the eff is she supposed to get bribed for her vote if she doesn’t express concern and get hailed by the media for her “bravery”?!?
Can’t believe we’re having to count on feckless twerps like Rand Paul, Thom Tillis, and Susan Collins to try to stop this abomination in the Senate.
lowtechcyclist
@Glory b:
The media won’t have many opportunities this year to make the Dems look bad, so they’ve got to jump with both feet on the few that come along.
lowtechcyclist
@JML:
Can’t pull it up now, but I remember seeing her quoted somewhere over the weekend, and actually using that word, saying she was “concerned” about the bill. But yeah, the only way she’ll vote against the bill is if Thune tells her they don’t need her vote.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Gaza is feeds the evergreen “Democrats in disarray” media narrative.
prostratedragon
Old times there are not forgotten:
I-10 further east had a very bad reputation back in the day. Here, it’s the approach to El Paso, where there are loads of binational families.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Princess: Trump isn’t misinformed, he’s a dumb ass and mentally incapable of understanding.
Hoodie
@Geminid: I’m praying Cooper runs. We need that seat.
Hoodie
@Princess: He probably doesn’t understand all of the awful stuff. However, he doesn’t care, which is just as bad.
Bupalos
@Jackie: I think that’s wrong in both directions. He doesn’t know and doesn’t care. The bill is the biggest and most beautiful, it must pass because it is Trump’s, and really for no other reason.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: It is kind of funny though. Across the Hudson, New Jersey had a Democratic primary for Governor earlier this month, and a lot of Democrats don’t even know the winner’s name.
And Rep. Mikie Sherrill faces a far tougher general election race. For all the drama being whipped up around Mamdani, this is his race to lose and he seems an adept enough politician not to lose it. His bigger challenge will be governing New York City after he wins, and I think knows that.
I am looking forward to watching these two Democrats campaign. Zohran Mamdani and Mikie Sherrill are both capable politicians, just in different ways.
@Glory b:
zhena gogolia
@SpaceUnit: Yeah.
Soprano2
@JWR: He’s a Muslim and a Democrat, so it wouldn’t matter how many times he condemned that phrase, it would never be enough. They won’t listen to what he actually says he believes and wants to do, they only listen to the critics who claim to know who he “really” is and what he “really” believes. I wish he could say to them “What does that have to do with helping the people of New York? Why are you even asking me about that, it’s irrelevant to the job I want to do” but of course if he did then he’d be one of those angry minorities, and we can’t have that! I can’t roll my eyes hard enough.
In one of my support groups they talk a lot about being worried about what Congress will do to Medicaid. So badly I want to ask them how many of them voted for FFOTUS and other Republicans, but politics is a forbidden subject in this group. In this part of the country there’s zero chance that none of them voted for him and other Republicans.
brendancalling
I made my calls. I’m tired. I know it’s going to pass anyway. This country sucks, and as soon as I have my teach abroad license, I’m spending as much time away from this hellhole as I possibly can.
brendancalling
@JML: Collins had already signaled yes, and I think Rand has as well. It’s going to pass. It’s just a matter of time. I just wish we didn’t have to go through the amendments charade. It’s painful to watch.
Jay
@Princess:
the doesn’t help:
stinger
@Geminid:
For a minute I read that as Michael Flatley, and I thought at least we’d get some good dancing out of it.
Spanky
@stinger: That’s my perennial first thought.
Soprano2
@Jay: Like I said, they don’t bother to find out for themselves, they listen to what the press says and then repeat it. It’s pathetic that Jefferies can’t be bothered to defend him from a smear.
lowtechcyclist
@Galaxy Being:
They’re all the Crypt Keepers, Rick Scott just does a better job of looking the part.
Jay
@Soprano2:
Mandami was elected by the 25 and under voters.
What is that perpetual Democratic Party whinge about the “youth vote”,
So of course, Mandami must die.
lowtechcyclist
@Jay:
Agreed. Jeffries didn’t need to say anything about this. And every negative comment about Mamdani by a Dem just gives the media a hook to keep talking about him rather than the Big aBominable Bill.
Glory b
@Jay: Oh stop it.
That’s not helpful.
I’m sure Mamdani would know he has to address this, as well has his song supporting guys serving time for illegally funneling money to Hamas, his vote against criminalizing revenge porn and his vote against criminalizing ghost guns.
Rather than waiting, it would be best to get them out of the way early.
And maybe there are Jewish voters, along with others, whid like to hear an explanation.
I understand that Mamdani didn’t do very well in black communities, getting Jeffries on board (and shushing his supporters demanding that every elected official not immediately endorsing him be primaried) would probably help.
Glory b
@lowtechcyclist: You don’t think no mentions by Dems would stop them?
brendancalling
@Jay: I’m old enough to remember when this blog LOVED Hakeem. The great progressive!
Such high hopes. High apple pie in the sky hopes. What happened to that guy? He’s got all the fight of a crippled puppy—when it comes to Republicans. Looks like a young Democrat really makes him mad—maybe Hakeem can do another pointless, grandstanding speech.
Jay
@Glory b:
https://forward.com/fast-forward/723325/cuomo-nyc-mayor-mamdani-jewish-vote/
Geminid
@brendancalling: First you compare Hakeem Jeffries to a boy, and now you compare him to a puppy. This says more about you than it says about him.
CaseyL
Well, I have called my two Senators, Murray and Cantwell, to thank them for opposing the bill, and urging them to use any parliamentary tricks they can think of.
I also thanked Murray, very sincerely, for the considerable amount of fight she has brought to the current term. Murray is not one of the Democratic office holders who regards the job as a sinecure.
Cantwell is less feisty, more of a job-as-sinecure sort, and has voted to confirm too many of Trump’s Cabinet choices (i.e., any of them), but I thanked her as well.
Jay
https://bsky.app/profile/mattbinder.bsky.social/post/3lsrznwej2y24
brendancalling
@Geminid: you should hear what I call his equally supine counterpart in the Senate! Or what I say about John Fetterman! I’m sure you’d love it!
tam1MI
Then they can’t tell the difference between Jeffries and Corey Booker. They all look alike to them.
Bill Arnold
@Bupalos:
Accurate; nice summary.
Geminid
@brendancalling: I’ve seen the Jeffries hate ever since he beat out Barbara Lee for Caucus Chair in November of 2018. There has always been an especially ugly tone coming from toxic White male “progressives.” Basically, they cannot tolerate a strong Black man who will not bend the knee to them. Hence the comparisons to dogs and boys.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Jay: He ain’t wrong.
@Geminid:
Yep. It reads like they see AOC as their Nikki Haley, (not that she is; I haven’t seen anything that confirms she’s fallen into that trap) and Jeffries as The Boy Who Won’t Cooperate. Hence us getting a weird amount of posters who venerate AOC and shit talk Jeffries (in very specific ways) in the same breath.
Gloria DryGarden
@zhena gogolia: @space unit
drag us down into a vortex of spinning despair.
political snuff porn. Such an apt way to phrase it
in case the competing calamities in the news don’t distract you, the despair and depression and chaos will. I believe it’s been written about, trump loves this, and it’s his intention and his strategy to do this.
one wishes him, and them (whoever-all is behind him, waiting t9 put their next guy into place) To. Be. Stopped.