Since yesterday I’ve been checking the news periodically to see what was going on with the One Big Ugly Bill in the Senate. I held on to faint hope that the thing would stall forever. But I just saw a news bulletin saying that it passed. Now it’s off for another messy fight in the House.
One of the terrible ironies of this bill is that while it will do a lot of damage to the nation and its citizens, it likely will end up hurting the GOP also. Some Republican senators are smart enough to know that, which probably is why a few dragged their feet. House Republicans are, um, more cognitively challenged, however.
According to this really excellent article about the bill in the Atlantic, “Each year, the legislation would kill 51,000 Americans, researchers at Yale have estimated.” However, “two in three Americans say they have heard little or nothing about it.” This is why so many voters make bad choices; they don’t know what the bleep is going on.
Speaking of killing people, today is the end of the USAID program. It is totally terminated. By closing it, the Trump Administration is responsible for a lot of deaths already. See In Sudan, where children clung to life, doctors say USAID cuts have been fatal.
When U.S.-supported soup kitchens were forced to close, babies starved quietly, their mothers said, while older siblings died begging for food. Funding stoppages meant that critical medical supplies were never delivered, doctors said. The lack of U.S.-funded disease response teams has made it harder to contain cholera outbreaks, which are claiming the lives of those already weakened by hunger.
The food that could have saved those babies has been sitting in storage, slowly spoiling. And CNN reports, Rubio hails end of USAID as study says its elimination could contribute to 14 million deaths in next 5 years
Today former presidents Bush and Obama issued videos critical of the agency’s closing. You could have spoken up sooner, guys, Nobody was stopping you.
Update: I’m slipping. I forgot today was the second-round recount of the New York City mayoral primary vote. Well, Zohran Mamdani won, easily, with 56 percent of the vote. So he is definitely the nominee.
Around 12:30 p.m. on June 26, police officers responded to reports of a sexual assault. Upon an investigation, police determined Ansar allegedly sexually assaulted an adult female, in the presence of a child.
Police said he was at the victim’s property to complete maintenance work.
Chief Rice told NEWS10’s Anthony Krolikowski that the suspect worked for the landlord and the victim may have been targeted for a specific reason. "The victim is an undocumented immigrant. Doesn’t speak English. I think there was a slight thought maybe that maybe she wouldn’t report it. I don’t know."
https://www.news10.com/news/crime/man-arrested-after-reported-rape-in-watervliet/
America elected a rapist and now we're shocked, shocked! that we're getting fucked.
The thing that surprised me about the Senate vote was that it was that close. I thought they would pass it. I think the House will pass it. Maybe it will be delayed until later in the month, but nobody wants to take the blame and ire of MAGA for completely derailing the bill.
At the moment, Republicans are afraid Trump's policies will become so toxic the GOP will lose power. The individual in the GOP who tries to organize resistance will have a target on his back, not figuratively, or only politically. Some in MAGA will commit murder for Trump, and we may be approaching the point where Trump will dox them openly. (Home address?) The chance of losing the next election is not so frightening compared to that.
I don't think any of the possible changes from the House will substantially improve the bill. The logical solution to satisfy the Musk faction to eliminate the impact on the national debt would be to give less of a tax cut to the aristocracy. This would also satisfy the so-called "moderates" who are afraid the pain inflicted by cutting services will cost them the next election.
I still expect a serious downturn in the economy. It may be in full swing by the midterms. MAGA won't care but the rest of the country will. We may all get an education in the bond market soon. The bill raises the limit on the debt ceiling, eliminating it as far as Trump is concerned. So if/when the bill passes, Trump is going to sell bonds at the fastest rate in my lifetime, I suspect. This may hit full throttle as the US econmy is tanking. On the other side of the bond sale has to be a buyer. We're not talking mom 'n pop investments. Only countries and rich bastards like Musk will be able to raise the kind of money the US is going to need. Once upon a time, US bonds were considered the safest place to put your money. That safety meant the US paid very low rates. As the perceived risk goes up, so will the return on investment the US has to offer. Complicating the transaction of selling bonds is that Trump is not popular with countries like China, which could buy bonds. How fast this could develop, I have no idea. I'm also not sure how exposed the US will be if China, for example, decides to "dump" bonds they have at an inopportune time. We're fixated on the drama in Congress, and I have doubts that the investment market will ignore how the insanity and instability affects the risk v gain equation.
One of my biggest concerns is violence from the left. I want big demonstrations against Trump – "No Kings" encouraged me. Rioting completely plays into Trump's hands, providing an excuse for martial law, which is where he will have to go. We have to deprive Trump of any legitimate excuse for martial law, not to prevent it but to make the move politically unpopular, possibly illegal.
He won't, because if he did, he'd have to discount the bonds – selling a $1000 treasury bond at $975, or even less, because otherwise, people would decide they had all the $1000 treasuries they wanted, at the current rate. So, to sell more, you need to discount the bond, to raise the nominal interest rate.
What is worse (for him, which is to say, good for us), when he tries to impose tariffs on allies, they've been slowly selling off their bonds. They aren't trying to flood the market – they're just pointing out that our trading partner are the ones who finance us. Screw Canada, and they'll find a better investment vehicle than US treasuries. If that happens, suddenly there are trillions more treasuries on the market, making it a buyer's market. It's expensive for the trading partner, but, if left with no real choice, it's a devastating form of retribution.
The thing that surprised me about the Senate vote was that it was that close. I thought they would pass it. I think the House will pass it. Maybe it will be delayed until later in the month, but nobody wants to take the blame and ire of MAGA for completely derailing the bill.
At the moment, Republicans are afraid Trump's policies will become so toxic the GOP will lose power. The individual in the GOP who tries to organize resistance will have a target on his back, not figuratively, or only politically. Some in MAGA will commit murder for Trump, and we may be approaching the point where Trump will dox Republican opponents openly. (Home address?) The chance of losing the next election is not so frightening compared to that.
I don't think any of the possible changes from the House will substantially improve the bill. The logical solution to satisfy the Musk faction to eliminate the impact on the national debt would be to give less of a tax cut to the aristocracy. This would also satisfy the so-called "moderates" who are afraid the pain inflicted by cutting services will cost them the next election.
I still expect a serious downturn in the economy. It may be in full swing by the midterms. MAGA won't care but the rest of the country will. We may all get an education in the bond market soon. The bill raises the limit on the debt ceiling, eliminating it as far as Trump is concerned. So if/when the bill passes, Trump is going to sell bonds at the fastest rate in my lifetime, I suspect. This may hit full throttle as the US econmy is tanking. On the other side of the bond sale has to be a buyer. We're not talking mom 'n pop investments. Only countries and rich bastards like Musk will be able to raise the kind of money the US is going to need. Once upon a time, US bonds were considered the safest place to put your money. That safety meant the US paid very low rates. As the perceived risk goes up, so will the return on investment the US has to offer. Complicating the transaction of selling bonds is that Trump is not popular with countries like China, which could buy bonds. How fast this could develop, I have no idea. I'm also not sure how exposed the US will be if China, for example, decides to "dump" bonds they have at an inopportune time. We're fixated on the drama in Congress, and I have doubts that the investment market will ignore how the insanity and instability affects the risk v gain equation.
One of my biggest concerns is violence from the left. I want big demonstrations against Trump – "No Kings" encouraged me. Rioting completely plays into Trump's hands, providing an excuse for martial law, which is where he will have to go. We have to deprive Trump of any legitimate excuse for martial law, not to prevent it but to make the move politically unpopular, possibly illegal.
Yes, you always have an intelligent reply. Interesting what you have to say about the Musk wing of MAGA because I suspect that with their financial backing they are making an investment into screwing over the workers so that they can monopolize on their mega-huge-gargantuan AI investments. Use AI for another round of worker automation while leveraging wage depression as a weapon against white-collar worker salaries. To me, in my hasty, panic reply (unlike your measured reply), their plan… to automate the educated class work with AI slop and use gator alley concentration camps and cool hand Luke prison labor as a 13th amendment work-around for factories and farms. Remember, the South has risen again!
I'm 99.9% certain (or should that be 99 44/100% certain?) that the whip count was "we have at least 49, then we start kissing butts and twisting arms."
There's a joke that Collins and Murkowski trade off on difficult votes. It may be true, mind you, it looks as if each wants to play the most furrowed brow on the Hill, but, if it's a joke, it's funny because it sure seems to be true. So, I think Murkowski had to fall on her sword (no crude jokes, please!) this time, because Collins did last time.
Well, looks like I'm going to lose my health insurance so that the super-rich can have a tax cut to bribe more congresscritters to deny more middle class folks of that lifestyle.
Yay us!
BTW Ms Maha, you mentioned AI the other day and I love reading https://www.wheresyoured.at/ for news on the AI swindle.
One gulag opened and many more in the planning stages. It sounds like only red states are eligible for a gulag at this point. Do not think these are just for illegals, we know that fearless leader needs a place for protestors arrested in mass. Doug is probably reading the tea leaves right. Any excuse for martial law will be manipulated into martial law. They will not need a real breach of non-violent protest, as they are masters at illusion at least in their minds. They have anti-social media and significant main- stream media influence to pull it off. So too, groups of fake protesters could well be deployed, and used to simulate civil unrest. They don't even need real civil unrest when they can fake it and control enough of the media coverage.
The great doctor Hunter Thompson wrote often of the rooms in the house. There were always many. Many more were always under construction. Alligator Alcatraz is a prototype for expansion, and it went up quick. One would expect some level of "military justice" will follow with the proper level of illusion to satisfy the SCOTUS. Rooms are not built to stay empty in the mansion, and this is quite the addition to what is already the world's largest (by percentage of population) mansion.
The big bill passed the Senate with plenty of borrowing power and slush money to fund the whole of the gulag. Will the totalitarians get it passed in the House? Will the rival and former partner fearless leader gain power? His move could attract enough support to get a deal from he who always caves. Now that his citizenship card is in play, will the anti-social media baron counter? How much dirt does the spy-tech aristocracy have in its vault? Do they have and will they deploy the Epstein files? This story could have more legs than a millipede, are we ready for a terrapede?
This is quite the reign of horror.
We need to note for the record the passing of Jimmy Swaggard. A lot of what we deal with today is related to his history covered in his obituary style story from the NYT. Here is a quote from his glory about his gospel of greed days before the scandals broke:
Note that the half million a day number is not converted to today's dollars which would be 10+ times as much.
Jimmy Swaggart Dies at 90; Passionate Televangelist Was Ousted by Scandal – The New York Times
Jobs numbers are out today from a private company. For the first time in two years, we had job contraction – nationally, 33,000 jobs lost instead of the projected 100,00
One month does not make a trend, but I've been expecting the consequences of Trump's yo-yo economic policies to catch up with us. This may be the first rumble of economic punishment. One thing to know – if you are in times, which I think is inevitable, you do NOT lower the prime interest rate. Trump is dead set on cutting the prime rate in half immediately. I think he'll be able to do it next year. There's no way we won't be paying higher prices by then, IMO.
If the economy goes south in the last half of Trump's term, the GOP is toast in 2028. Their only option then is a military coup.
Trump is calling for Powell to resign from the Fed today. He's dead serious about cutting the Prime. There are reasons the Fed is an independent agency. The interest rate is one of VERY few controls that prevent wild oscillations in the economy.
Low interest rates are always good for the borrower but not for the economy when you have double-digit inflation.
This abortion of a bill will pass today and the idiot-in-chief will sign it. Jeffries is delaying it, which he should. There should be no hint that any Democrat in Congress is complicit in this.
Given current executive tendencies, does what is signed into law matter anyway? Only a rare law or two gets followed or enforced anyway. Less of them day by day. We are becoming a not a nation of laws but more a nation of exceptions to the law. Laws are just something to scoff at.