The U.S. has lost its last triple-A credit rating.
Moody’s Ratings downgraded the U.S. government on Friday, citing large fiscal deficits and rising interest costs.
Expanding budget deficits mean U.S. government borrowing will rise at an accelerating rate, pushing interest rates up over the long term, Moody’s said. The firm said Friday that it didn’t believe that any current budget proposals under consideration by lawmakers would do anything significant to reduce the persistent gap between government spending and revenues.
The move strips the U.S. of its last remaining triple-A credit rating from a major ratings firm, following similar cuts by Fitch Ratings in 2023 and S&P Global Ratings in 2011. Moody’s downgraded the U.S. to Aa1, a rating also held by Austria and Finland.
“Successive U.S. administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,” Moody’s wrote in a statement….
The Moody’s downgrade comes as Republicans in Congress are trying to fashion a giant tax-and-spending bill that would extend expiring tax cuts, add some new tax cuts, reduce spending on Medicaid and nutrition assistance and boost border enforcement and national defense. It is expected to increase budget deficits by about $3 trillion over the next decade, compared with a scenario where the tax cuts expire as scheduled Dec. 31.
House Republican spending hawks blocked the bill on Friday, trying to accelerate spending cuts and hasten the end of clean-energy tax breaks.
A bit more:
At the margin, the Moody’s downgrade could put pressure on the market for U.S. Treasurys, which has already been hit by expectations for greater borrowing and stubbornly high inflation.
Treasurys, however, rallied after S&P’s 2011 downgrade, in part because the economy was weak, demonstrating that investors still considered the U.S. the world’s safest bet. Few expect the Moody’s downgrade to spur market turmoil this time. The U.S. remains the world’s largest economy and the benchmark against which other countries are measured.
But some investors said the downgrade could exacerbate the damage the recent trade war has done to that exceptional position. And that might compel global investors to lift the premium they demand to buy U.S. debt, which could drive benchmark yields beyond their recent level around 4.5%, likely stressing growth and market sentiment.
“That could generate an even bigger deficit because the cost of servicing our debt would also go up,” said Michael Goosay, global head of fixed income at Principal Asset Management.
Obviously, Trump couldn’t care less about what happens to the U.S. credit rating. He’s just going to bleed the country dry and grab as much has he can while doing it.
Ultra right wing members of the House budget committee voted against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” yesterday.
The GOP-led House Budget Committee voted to reject a sweeping package for President Donald Trump’s agenda on Friday, dealing an embarrassing setback to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Republican leaders.
A glass of milk, Nataliya Bagatskaya, (Ucraina, b.1967)
The vote in the Budget Committee was 16-21, with a band of conservative hard-liners who are pushing for steeper spending cuts joining all Democrats in voting against the multitrillion-dollar legislation, leaving its fate uncertain.
The Republicans who voted “no” were Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma. Rep. Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania changed his vote from “yes” to “no,” he said, as a procedural move to allow Republicans to call the bill up again.
During the hearing, Roy fired a warning shot at Republican leaders, saying he opposes the bill as written because it will increase the deficit.
“I have to now admonish my colleagues on this side of the aisle. This bill falls profoundly short. It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits,” Roy said. “That’s the truth. Deficits will go up in the first half of the 10-year budget window and we all know it’s true. And we shouldn’t do that. We shouldn’t say that we’re doing something we’re not doing.”
“This bill has back-loaded savings and has front-loaded spending,” Roy added. “I am a no on this bill unless serious reforms are made today, tomorrow, Sunday. Something needs to change or you’re not gonna get my support.”
After the vote tally was read, Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the committee chair, adjourned the hearing and told members they would not be meeting again this weekend.
President Donald Trump blasted Walmart on Saturday after the retailer warned this week that it will raise prices because of tariffs.
“Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, “EAT THE TARIFFS,” and not charge valued customers ANYTHING,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!”
Walmart CFO John David Rainey said in an interview on Thursday that “We have not seen price increases at this magnitude, in the speed in which they’re coming at us before, and so it makes for a challenging environment.”
Rainey said he is “pleased with the progress that’s been made by the [Trump] administration on tariffs from the levels that were announced in early April, but they’re still too high.”
He said the company will “try to work with suppliers to keep prices as low as we can.”
Yesterday the Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Trump administration’s deportation plans.
The Supreme Court on Friday blocked President Donald Trump from moving forward with deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act for a group of immigrants in northern Texas, siding with Venezuelans who feared they were poised for imminent removal under the sweeping wartime authority.
The decision is a significant loss for Trump, who wants to use the law to speed deportations – and avoid the kind of review normally required before removing people from the country. But the decision is also temporary and the underlying legal fight over the president’s invocation will continue in multiple federal courts across the country.
By Sandra Batoni
The justices sent the case at issue back to an appeals court to decide the underlying questions in the case, including whether the president’s move is legal and, if it is, how much notice the migrants targeted under the act should receive….
The court’s unsigned opinion was notably pointed about how the government was attempting to handle the removals and also how US District Judge James Hendrix had dealt with the case at an earlier stage.
The court referenced another case that had reached it previously, that of the Maryland man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly removed to El Salvador. The court noted that the Trump administration has represented that it is “unable to provide for the return of an individual deported in error to a prison in El Salvador.”
Given that, the court said, “the detainees’ interests at stake are accordingly particularly weighty.” In other words, the court was saying it is important to get the legal questions correct before people are removed, potentially, forever.
Way back on <checks notes> Wednesday, I wrote a long post updating the state of play in the (many) cases challenging President Trump’s attempt to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove from the United States, on a mass, summary basis, individuals the government claims to be Venezuelan members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA)….
As I noted then, the Supreme Court had yet to decide the ACLU’s pending emergency application in the case from the Northern District of Texas—with the unhelpful caption “A.A.R.P. v. Trump.” That’s the case in which the Court had temporarily blocked further removals in its after-midnight ruling early on Saturday, April 19 (which I covered here). But a full ruling on the application has been pending ever since.
Well, around 3:45 on Friday afternoon, that ruling came down. And the decision—in “A.A.R.P. II”—is a pretty big deal. So I thought I’d put together this quick post that walks through what happened—and why it matters….
What Did the Court … Hold? There’s a lot of technical stuff in the eight-page, unsigned majority opinion.1 What’s especially important are, by my count, three different holdings: First, that the Fifth Circuit did have jurisdiction to hear the plaintiffs’ appeal of the district court’s refusal to block their removal (it had concluded otherwise). Second, that the plaintiffs were entitled to more notice than they had received as of April 18. And third—and this is the quiet bombshell in the ruling—that “this Court may properly issue temporary injunctive relief to the putative class in order to preserve our jurisdiction pending appeal,” even without resolving whether full class certification is likely….
The post is pretty technical, so if you want the details, read the whole thing at the link. I’ll just quote one more section:
Is It Me, Or is the Majority Opinion … Unusually Pointed? It’s not you. There are at different passages in which the majority openly seems to be expressing … frustration … with the government; the lower courts; and Justice Alito (who wrote a dissenting opinion that was joined by Justice Thomas), respectively.
It appears that at least some of the justices are getting sick and tired of the Trump administration’s dishonesty and refusal to obey the courts.
GREENBELT, Md. — In a contentious court hearing on Friday, Trump administration attorneys argued before a federal judge in Maryland that they should be allowed to withhold information regarding efforts to facilitate the return of a Salvadoran man to the United States.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia remains in the Salvadoran prison system despite orders from a federal judge and the Supreme Court calling for the government to facilitate his return to the United States.
Drawing of old woman with cat, Max Leibermann
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said the government’s refusal to provide certain information in the case has been “an exercise in utter frustration.” In a back-and-forth that has continued for weeks,Xinis has ordered the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release and provide documentation on what steps it has taken, if any, to comply with that order.
Government lawyers said the administration has not been able to answer questions about Abrego Garcia’s case because that information would be considered protected under “state secrets” or “deliberative process” privileges that should not be shared with the public.
On Friday, Xinis said the administration has not made a good-faith effort to comply with the court order. She repeatedly called on the administration to show how turning over evidence of actions it has taken or will take to return Abrego Garcia would pose a reasonable danger to foreign affairs.
“There is simply no detail. This is basically, ‘Take my word for it,’” the judge said.
From Garcia’s attorneys:
Abrego Garcia’s team said the discovery they’ve received from the government thus far has been inadequate, and Xinis appeared to agree. The plaintiffs said they received 164 documents, and 132 of them were photocopies of court filings and their own discovery requests. Rossman said that of the remaining 32 new documents, half were related to Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s recent trip to El Salvador to see Abrego Garcia.
Rossman said the government logged 1,140 documents as “privileged,” in “every manner of privilege that I’ve ever heard of.”
“My head is spinning, your honor,” he said.
Rossman also said it was “deeply disturbing” that while the administration has claimed in court that it’s complying with the order to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release, high-ranking officials including Trump himself have contradicted that in public.
The administration’s claims, Xinis says, have been hampering efforts to get to the bottom of whether the government has disobeyed the court order by not facilitating the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States.
When a Guatemalan man sued the Trump administration in March for deporting him to Mexico despite a fear of persecution, immigration officials had a response: The man told them himself he was not afraid to be sent there.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials now say they have no record of anyone being told by the man, identified only by the initials O.C.G. in court papers, that he was unafraid of going to Mexico. The error, they say, was attributable to a “software tool” known as ICE’s “ENFORCE alien removal module” that tracks individual deportation cases and allows staff to insert comments.
“Upon further investigation … ICE was unable to identify an officer or officers who asked O.C.G. if he feared a return to Mexico,” said Brian Ortega, assistant field office director for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, in a sworn statement to the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit.
The mistake may have been costly: The judge overseeing the lawsuit said last month he did not order the administration to facilitate O.C.G.’s immediate return from Mexico in part because of the dispute. Instead, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee based in Massachusetts, ordered expedited fact-finding, which helped unearth the mistake.
ICE’s acknowledgment is the latest in a string of errors that have led judges to fault the administration for attempting to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign at a breakneck pace — often at the expense of due process.
The U.S. DOGE Service arrived at the Social Security Administration this year determined to slash staff and root out what it claimed was widespread fraud and wasteful spending — a mission Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team has pursued across the government.
But as of this week, many of the major changes DOGE pushed at Social Security have been abandoned or are being reversed after proving ineffective, while others are yielding unintended consequences and badly damaging customer service and satisfaction. The problems come as the agency struggles to cope with a record surge of hundreds of thousands of retirement claims in recent months.
DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency but is not a Cabinet-level agency, had to cancela plan to cut phone service for retirement and disability claimsafter drawing outrage from lawmakers, seniors and advocates. Staff reductions and reassignments led by DOGE are slowing the pace of claims processingas field offices lose longtime staff and gain a smaller number of inexperienced replacements. DOGE-driven changes to the agency’s website are causing crashes almost every day, and phone customers complain about dropped calls and long wait times. A DOGE-imposed spending freeze is leading to shortages of basic office supplies, from printer cartridges to the phone headsets staff need to do their jobs.
And on Friday, Social Security leaders told employees that the agency was ending a security check, developed at DOGE’s request, that was meant to root out allegedly fraudulent claims filed over the phone, according to three employees familiar with the situation and an email obtained by The Washington Post. But the measure — which involved placing a three-day hold on all phone claims as other staffers checked into the caller’s background — had only identified a couple of potential fraud cases while causing significant delays in claims processing, two employees said.
Kathleen Romig, a former Social Security official who is now at the left-leaningCenter on Budget and Policy Priorities, said there were already safeguards in place to detect fraud through the agency’s phone service. DOGE’s efforts have only delayed claims processing and, like most of the team’s attempts to reshape Social Security, placed serious stress on the agency, she said.
“So much of this is self-inflicted wounds,” Romig said.
At the National Institutes of Health, six directors — from institutes focused on infectious disease, child health, nursing research and the human genome — are leaving or being forced out.
t the Federal Aviation Administration, nearly a dozen top leaders, including the chief air traffic officer, are retiring early.
Siesta, Irina Orazio Orazi (Italian, 1848-1912)
And at the Treasury Department, more than 200 experienced managers and highly skilled technical experts who help run the government’s financial systems chose to accept the Trump administration’s resignation offer earlier this year, according to a staffer and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Across the federal government, a push for early retirement and voluntary separation is fueling a voluntary exodus of experienced, knowledgeable staffers unlike anything in living memory, according to interviews with 18 employees across 10 agencies and records reviewed by The Post. Other leaders with decades of service are being dismissed as the administration eliminates full offices or divisions at a time.
The first resignation offer, sent in January, saw 75,000 workers across government agree to quit and keep drawing pay through September, the administration has said. But a second round, rolling out agency by agency through the spring, is seeing a sustained, swelling uptick that will dwarf the first, potentially climbing into the hundreds of thousands, the employees and the records show.
There’s no way I’m trusting anything this government has to say about health and safety.
I’ll wrap this up with a couple of ridiculous stories:
Former FBI Director James Comey was interviewed by US Secret Service agents at their Washington, DC, field office on Friday afternoon, according to law enforcement sources.
Comey was interviewed by agents investigating a social media post he posted Thursdayshowing shells in the sand on a beach spelling out “86 47,” which has become a popular social media code for removing Trump from the presidency.
Comey was not in custody and appeared voluntarily, a source said.
Trump and fellow Republicans have attacked Comey for the post, demanding an investigation.
Comey “knew exactly what that meant,” Trump said in a Fox News interview. “A child knows what that meant. If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination.”
In explaining why he removed the post, Comey wrote on Instagram that he had “posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message.”
It was expected that Comey will be asked if he intended the message as a threat, or to inspire others who might consider an act of violence against Trump, the source said. Ultimately, a decision on whether the case is chargeable as a threat against the president may lie with the US attorney in Washington.
Funny how no Trumpers were interviewed by the FBI when they posted 86 46 when Biden was president.
Figure with Black Cat, 2020 by Mary Sauer (American, b. 1986)
“I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States,” Trump wrote, glossing over the fact that he, too, is currently in a foreign country speaking badly about someone.
Trump also called Springsteen “a pushy, obnoxious JERK” without a hint of self-awareness.
Springsteen opened the first show of his tour with an unambiguous rallying cry for democracy, warning that America “is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”
“Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience to rise with us,” he said. “Raise your voices against the authoritarianism, and let freedom ring.”
That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?
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It’s not often I quote the Daily Mail, but it has that British humor touch that just puts the right tone on what should be a Monty Python Sketch. I used to have an apron that said, “Who invited all these tacky people?” Well, it’s Yam Tits and all those Republican Senators that approved the cast of this freak show. Every headline these days about the Regime of Orange Caligula and his cabinet of crazies is outrageous and depressing. Today, we’ll discover both categories. And, btw, I send apologies out to Henry II for messing with his lament. We’ve become the worst caricature of ourselves.
“ICE Barbie Kristi Noem is backing insane reality TV show where immigrants compete for fast-tracked citizenship.” Doesn’t that just have that perfect mixture of cruelty, inhumanity, and pathos that makes the news cringeworthy these days?
She’s been called ‘ICE Barbie’ for treating her Cabinet position like a TV production, but now Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is pushing for an actual reality show pitting immigrants against each other ‘for the honor of fast-tracking their way to U.S. citizenship’.
It may sound like a joke, but the idea is for real and is outlined in a 35-page program pitch put together in coordination with the DHS secretary, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.
Noem is even offering up officials from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to tally votes for the made-for-TV contest.
The pitch comes from Rob Worsoff, a writer and producer known for Duck Dynasty, the A&E reality show about a Louisiana family and its hunting empire, and Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker.
The proposed series is called The American, named after the train that contestants would ride around the country, competing in regionally specific ‘cultural’ contests such as rolling logs in Wisconsin.
It would lead to a grand finale with the winner getting sworn in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
‘Along the way, we will be reminded what it means to be American – through the eyes of the people who want it most,’ reads Worsoff’s pitch.
Worsoff – who himself was born in Canada – said: ‘I’m not affiliated with any political ideology. As an immigrant myself, I am merely trying to make a show that celebrates the immigration process, celebrate what it means to be American and have a national conversation about what it means to be American, through the eyes of the people who want it most.’
Tricia McLaughlin, the top spokesperson for DHS, acknowledged that agency staff are reviewing this pitch and had a call with the producer last week. She insisted Noem is yet to be briefed on the initiative.
However, DailyMail.com has confirmed that Noem supports the project and wants to proceed.
And McLaughlin said: ‘I think it’s a good idea.’
Worsoff’s project comes as Noem is wanting to showcase what it means to become an American, amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
She and her agency have been working for weeks to get such a project greenlit from Netflix or another streaming or cable service, sources tell DailyMail.com.
But while past outreach has fallen flat, they’re hoping this one has a real chance.
In his pitch, Worsoff, 49, expresses confidence that The American would be a commercial hit and ‘lends itself to enormous corporate sponsorship opportunities’.
At the same time, there’s concern among some in DHS about the possible optics of turning the plight of immigrants into a reality game show, sources say.
“If you read the speech bubble using RFK Jr’s halting, raspy, tinny voice, it helps get past the grossness.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Isn’t that what brought us here? Illiterate, unhappy people who believe that “reality” shows are real? Cosplay Barbie isn’t alone for being out of her league, but melodramatic enough to keep the big guy happy. Yesterday, I listened to the most surreal edition of a Supreme Court hearing I’d ever seen. How on earth did this thing make it to the docket, and what’s next? This is from Slate. “The Supreme Court May Pick the Worst Possible Case to Cede More Power to Trump.” This analysis is provided by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern. As usual, the Women on the Bench Rule and the guys drool.
During one of the term’s biggest sets of oral arguments on Thursday, everyone at the Supreme Court seemed to agree that the United States is in the midst of an emergency. But there was far less agreement about what specifically that emergency is. During debate over three nationwide injunctions currently protecting birthright citizenship from President Donald Trump’s attacks, the justices were deeply split over what manner of legal crisis the court—and the country—truly faces. And the growing gender divide emerged once again: The four women seemed concerned that the president is trying to undo the final restraints on his exercise of unconstitutional power, and doing so in ways that include breaking norms and defying courts. The five men, in contrast, sounded irked at allegedly monarchical district court judges who dare issue broad orders blocking the White House’s policies, even when they’re blatantly unconstitutional.
These five men, of course, make up the majority of the Supreme Court. And, as they keep reminding us, they can do anything they want with their authority. But there is reason to believe that one or two of these justices might balk at the mayhem they could unleash by limiting lower courts’ power to constrain the executive branch. And not onejustice even hinted that they think Trump should eventually win on the merits and get the green light to start stripping birthright citizenship from immigrants’ children. What they spent two and a half hours debating, in painstaking detail, is whether nationwide or universal injunctions are the way to stop that from happening.
It’s anybody’s guess how the court will come down on that question. It seems the majority wants to have it both ways, reining in lower courts that are—across all political and ideological lines—battling Trump’s lawlessness, and somehow doing so without itself blessing that lawlessness as the administration would like to deploy it against American children of noncitizens. That may well be an impossible task, and their attempt to pull it off in this case could provoke destabilizing confusion across the judiciary. In trying to resolve one perceived emergency, the majority may end up provoking many more.
During one of the term’s biggest sets of oral arguments on Thursday, everyone at the Supreme Court seemed to agree that the United States is in the midst of an emergency. But there was far less agreement about what specifically that emergency is. During debate over three nationwide injunctions currently protecting birthright citizenship from President Donald Trump’s attacks, the justices were deeply split over what manner of legal crisis the court—and the country—truly faces. And the growing gender divide emerged once again: The four women seemed concerned that the president is trying to undo the final restraints on his exercise of unconstitutional power, and doing so in ways that include breaking norms and defying courts. The five men, in contrast, sounded irked at allegedly monarchical district court judges who dare issue broad orders blocking the White House’s policies, even when they’re blatantly unconstitutional.
These five men, of course, make up the majority of the Supreme Court. And, as they keep reminding us, they can do anything they want with their authority. But there is reason to believe that one or two of these justices might balk at the mayhem they could unleash by limiting lower courts’ power to constrain the executive branch. And not onejustice even hinted that they think Trump should eventually win on the merits and get the green light to start stripping birthright citizenship from immigrants’ children. What they spent two and a half hours debating, in painstaking detail, is whether nationwide or universal injunctions are the way to stop that from happening.
It’s anybody’s guess how the court will come down on that question. It seems the majority wants to have it both ways, reining in lower courts that are—across all political and ideological lines—battling Trump’s lawlessness, and somehow doing so without itself blessing that lawlessness as the administration would like to deploy it against American children of noncitizens. That may well be an impossible task, and their attempt to pull it off in this case could provoke destabilizing confusion across the judiciary. In trying to resolve one perceived emergency, the majority may end up provoking many more.
Thursday’s arguments in Trump v. CASA were a muddle, exacerbated by the Trump Justice Department’s pretzel of a request for emergency resolution of a side issue, and accepted on those narrow terms by the Supreme Court’s own design. The court agreed to consider three different injunctions issued by district courts against Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order abolishing birthright citizenship for thousands of children. These orders would have denied U.S. citizenship to babies born in the United States to immigrants lacking permanent legal status and holders of temporary visas. A small army of plaintiffs—including pregnant women, advocacy groups, and 22 states—promptly sued.
Three district courts, in Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington state, all separately held that Trump’s ban unequivocally violates the 14th Amendment, which expressly grants citizenship to “all persons born” in the U.S., with minor exceptions for the children of diplomats and members of invading armies that are irrelevant here. So each court issued a “universal injunction” prohibiting the Trump administration from implementing the policy nationwide. These courts reasoned that narrower injunctions would fail to fully protect the plaintiffs’ right to complete relief from the unconstitutional policy. As a result, the executive order was paused across the nation. Three federal appeals courts refused to disturb the injunctions.
Trump’s DOJ then asked the Supreme Court to step in, claiming that being thwarted from stripping birthright citizenship from the 14th Amendment represented an emergency that needed to be resolved on the so-called shadow docket. But, perhaps recognizing that it was destined to lose on the constitutional merits, the department did not ask SCOTUS to rule that Trump’s executive order was lawful. Instead, it asked the justices to narrow the injunctions to the named plaintiffs, arguing that it was long past time to crack down on universal injunctions proliferating against the administration, and to resolve the decades-old problems of know-it-all trial court judges and forum-shopping litigants (a problem Republican litigants were far less concerned about when these weapons were wielded aggressively against the Biden administration). The high court agreed to consider whether these sweeping injunctions were appropriate—a question that’s related to, but wholly separate from, the larger and arguably far more pressing issue of whether the underlying executive orders are unconstitutional.
If you squint, you can see the logic of what SCOTUS did here. Maybe the justices thought they could issue a compromise decision that would give Trump a procedural victory by trimming the nationwide injunctions while teeing up a someday defeat for him on the merits in the near future. This was the kind of Solomonic “grand bargain” that some commenters hoped would come with last year’s Jan. 6–related cases, in which the majority ultimately allowed the once and future president to run the table. It became painfully clear during Thursday’s oral arguments that any such vision here was a mirage: There is no clean way to separate the merits of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to everyone born in the United States from the effort to claw back broad injunctions. To allow the states and plaintiffs to lose on the latter is to give away the farm on the former.
“Pretty sure this one’s headed to the trump library too..” John Buss, @repeat1968
Slate’s Mary Ziegler at Slate has another example of the sneaky, backdoor way the Project 2025 Klan has of making things worse for everyone. “Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Is a Sneak Attack on Abortion.”
“With Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” of tax and Medicaid cuts up for consideration, abortion might be the last thing on anyone’s mind. But a provision buried in the bill is Republicans’ latest attempt to stop losing on reproductive rights. The current version of the GOP budget reconciliation bill includes language denying Medicaid funding to any “large provider of abortion services.” This marks a big change in the GOP’s recent approach to abortion policy. Through the early months of the Trump administration, Republicans in Congress have been remarkably reluctant to do anything big on abortion. But now they are using the president’s signature legislation to wade back into the fight.
What made this bill different? The idea seems to be that Republicans can reframe unpopular attacks on reproductive rights as more acceptable government cost-cutting measures by relying on the Department of Government Efficiency to do their dirty work. If Americans like saving money, and are prepared to believe Elon Musk’s arguments about fraud and waste, the theory goes, maybe Republicans can deliver for their socially conservative constituents without the plan backfiring. But the GOP’s latest gambit is a reminder that there’s still no magic bullet for conservatives when it comes to reproductive rights.
It’s no surprise that anti-abortion leaders themselves have seized on this strategy. Trump has made some moves to placate abortion opponents, like announcing that no one will be prosecuted for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which protects access to clinics and places of worship, and pardoning several defendants convicted of violating it. But for the most part, he has frozen out the anti-abortion movement. The Department of Justice hasn’t started enforcing the Comstock Act as an abortion ban. When conservative state attorneys general sued to force a shift, the Trump administration just last week asked the court to dismiss the suit for procedural reasons.
That doesn’t mean Trump won’t give anti-abortion leaders what they want later. Just Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the Food and Drug Administration would investigate the safety of mifepristone and potentially impose new restrictions on it. But the anti-abortion movement will have to cajole Trump and hope for the best. He is the one holding all the cards.
For that reason, dressing up an abortion restriction as a DOGE priority makes sense. The administration has cut everything from funding for cancer research to military aid to Ukraine. Republicans in Congress, who seem primarily concerned about pleasing Trump, are also banking on the fact that the president will approve of abortion restrictions as long as they can be sold as something Elon Musk would love. And defunding providers could be consequential. Local clinics have struggled in recent years, as have state Planned Parenthood affiliates. Cutting these providers out of Medicaid will make it harder for them to remain open.
But the new strategy has risks, as the few Republicans who won districts Trump lost recognize. Cutting Medicaid is deeply unpopular. Most Americans see the program positively. One poll found that under 20 percent of Americans want Congress to cut Medicaid funding. So, cutting Medicaid in any way will likely be a political loser.
And “political loser” is a good way to discuss the GOP’s conventional position on abortion. Most Americans want abortion to be legal. The go-to move for Republicans—to argue that Democrats are the true extremists on the issue—is harder when Republican-controlled states are considering ever more sweeping bans, many of them targeting people in states where reproductive rights are protected, or punishing people for donations or speech about abortion.
Still, the GOP may be emboldened because Trump won in 2024, even when Kamala Harris went all in on reproductive rights. Since then, Democrats seem less focused on the issue.
At the same time, if voters actually are paying less attention, it’s probably because less seems to be happening. Republicans in Congress have sat on their hands. Trump has yet to make a big move. The truth is that plenty is still going on, with cases moving through state and federal courts, states poised to pass stringent new bills, and Trump’s future moves still shrouded in uncertainty. The minute one of these events makes news, there’s no reason to believe voters will be any happier with Republicans’ position than they ever were.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like running for the Canadian border. Why would anyone want to come here under these circumstances? I’m also very afraid of this year’s hurricane season. This is from ABC News. “FEMA ‘not ready’ for hurricane season, internal review finds. The acting agency head told staff that planning is about 80-85% complete.” The season starts on June 1st. There have already been disturbances reported. This administration seems hellbent on killing people. This might make Heckuva Job Brownie look like an efficiency expert.
The acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency told staff members on Thursday that he believes President Donald Trump is a bold man with a bold vision for the agency — but that FEMA doesn’t yet have a full plan to tackle hurricane season.
“I would say we’re about 80 or 85% there,” Acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson told staff on a conference call, parts of which were obtained by ABC. “The next week, we will close that gap and get to probably 97-98% of a plan. We’ll never have 100% of a plan. Even if we did have 100% of a plan, a plan never survives first contact. However, we will do our best to make sure that the plan is all-encompassing.”
The conference call came after an internal document prepared for Richardson as he takes the helm of the agency responsible for managing federal disasters indicated the agency was ill-prepared for the upcoming hurricane season, which starts on June 1.
“As FEMA transforms to a smaller footprint, the intent for this hurricane season is not well understood, thus FEMA is not ready,” according to the document, which was obtained by ABC News.
In the conference call, Richardson said he and staff sat down for “about 90 minutes” and started to come up with a plan for this year’s disaster season.
He said the plan would be ready soon.
“Listen closely: The intent for disaster season 2025 (is to) safeguard the American people, return primacy to the states, strengthen their capability to respond and recover, and coordinate federal assistance when deemed necessary, while transforming to the future of FEMA,” Richardson said.
Richardson was placed at FEMA by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after former acting Administrator Cam Hamilton was fired last week because of his testimony in front of a House panel, according to a source familiar with the matter, which went against the shuttering of the agency.
The acting administrator said this version of FEMA will look different than the agency of the past.
Meanwhile, the Tariff turbulence is coming to fruition. This is from CNBC. “Walmart CFO says price hikes from tariffs could start later this month, as retailer beats on earnings.” Melissa Repko has the story.
Walmart on Thursday fell just short of quarterly sales estimates, as even the world’s largest retailer said it would feel the pinch of higher tariffs.
Even so, the Arkansas-based discounter beat quarterly earnings expectations and stuck by its full-year forecast, which calls for sales to grow 3% to 4% and adjusted earnings of $2.50 to $2.60 per share for the fiscal year. That cautious profit outlook had disappointed Wall Street in February. Wall Street was also underwhelmed by the results Thursday, as shares closed slightly lower.
Walmart also marked a milestone: It posted its first profitable quarterfor its e-commerce business both in the U.S. and globally. The business has benefited from the growth of higher-margin moneymakers, including online advertising and Walmart’s third-party marketplace.
In an interview with CNBC, Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said tariffs are “still too high” – even with the recently announced agreement to lower duties on imports from China to 30% for 90 days.
“We’re wired for everyday low prices, but the magnitude of these increases is more than any retailer can absorb,” he said. “It’s more than any supplier can absorb. And so I’m concerned that consumer is going to start seeing higher prices. You’ll begin to see that, likely towards the tail end of this month, and then certainly much more in June.”
Reuters reports the bottom line here. There’s only so long you can eliminate loss leaders, lower earnings, and try to slow things down. We will feel it everywhere, and it will be next month. Jennifer Saba has this headline: “Walmart can discount tariffs only so much.” So this is your friendly economist speaking, stock up and hunker down. It’s going to get real real soon.
Walmart (WMT.N), opens new tab wheeled its trolley cart right into President Donald Trump’s ankles. The largest U.S. retailer and a bellwether for consumers said on Thursday that tariffs would force it to raise prices, just a month after it expressed confidence that it would keep them low. Boss Doug McMillon may be able to do both at once, on a relative basis, but it also sends a clear signal to the White House that shelves are stocked with only so many ways to shield shoppers.
Flagship U.S. Walmart locations open for at least a year generated 4.5% sales growth for the three months ending April 30 from the same stretch in 2024, a second consecutive quarterly slowdown. McMillon warned that import levies are starting to take a toll. Supply-chain pressure began in late April and accelerated in May. The $750 billion company is trying to hold the line on food even as the cost of bananas, coffee, avocados and flowers increases, but it is unwilling to eat them everywhere.
McMillon and his deputies took a markedly different tone a few weeks ago. The CEO told investors that U.S. duties, which at the time were 145% on Chinese goods, remained a question mark, but that Walmart would focus on “managing our inventory and our expenses well.” Following news that those levies would be slashed to 30%, at least temporarily, McMillon cautioned of a challenging environment, implying that he can squeeze suppliers only so much.
He’s not alone either. JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon warned, opens new tab on Thursday that recession remains a threat despite Trump’s trade truce. Taiwanese contract manufacturing giant Foxconn, which assembles iPhones and makes Nvidia servers, also slashed its full-year outlook this week, blaming the stronger Taiwan dollar and “rapid changes” in U.S. tariff policy.
Equity investors took comfort from the lower duty rates, pushing the S&P 500 Index up 5% this week, to higher than where it started the year. Business leaders are clearly less impressed. Sustained gloom from industry titans like Walmart will keep pressure on the president to reconsider his own pricing power.
Every day I read the headlines, all I can think is that we shouldn’t be in this position. But, here it is. Don’t even get me started on Drunk and rapey Pete Hegseth. (Must Read. VF: “VF editors are joined by special correspondent Gabriel Sherman to discuss Pete Hegseth’s tumultuous tenure atop the Department of Defense, and why the president is reluctant to break with his friend from Fox.)
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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Trump is touring the Middle East, looking for graft as president and grift for his family business. Most presidents choose to visit a U.S. ally like Canada or Great Britain as their first foreign trip, but Trump goes directly to the richest, most corrupt, least democratic countries where he can score lucrative deals for himself. On the trip, the big story is that he wants to accept the gift of an airplane from the Emir of Qatar. This would of course be wildly unconstitutional and unethical.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia yesterday. Here’s Lawrence O’Donnell’s commentary from last night.
RIYADH, May 13 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump kicked off his trip to the Gulf on Tuesday with a surprise announcement that the United States will lift long-standing sanctions on Syria, and a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the U.S.
The U.S. agreed to sell Saudi Arabia an arms package worth nearly $142 billion, according to the White House which called it the largest “defense cooperation agreement” Washington has ever done.
The end of sanctions on Syria would be a huge boost for a country that has been shattered by more than a decade of civil war. Rebels led by current President Ahmed al-Sharaa toppled President Bashar al-Assad last December.
Speaking at an investment forum in Riyadh at the start of a deals-focused trip that also brought a flurry of diplomacy, Trump said he was acting on a request to scrap the sanctions by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“Oh what I do for the crown prince,” Trump said, drawing laughs from the audience. He said the sanctions had served an important function but that it was now time for the country to move forward.
Jamal Kashoggi
Of course one of the things he did for the crown prince was to overlook the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi.
Trump and the Saudi crown prince signed an agreement covering energy, defense, mining and other areas. Trump has sought to strengthen relations with the Saudis to improve regional ties with Israel and act as a bulwark against Iran.
The agreement covers deals with more than a dozen U.S. defense companies for areas including air and missile defense, air force and space, maritime security and communications, a White House fact sheet said.
It was not clear whether the deal included Lockheed F-35 jets, which sources say have been discussed. The Saudi prince said the total package could reach $1 trillion when further agreements are reached in the months ahead.
It’s not just the “gesture” of a $400 million luxury plane that President Donald Trump says he’s smart to accept from Qatar. Or that he effectively auctioned off the first destination on his first major foreign trip, heading to Saudi Arabia because the kingdom was ready to make big investments in U.S. companies.
It’s not even that the Trump family has fast-growing business ties in the Middle East that run deep and offer the potential of vast profits.
Instead, it’s the idea that the combination of these things and more — deals that show the close ties between a family whose patriarch oversees the U.S. government and a region whose leaders are fond of currying favor through money and lavish gifts — could cause the United States to show preferential treatment to Middle Eastern leaders when it comes to American affairs of state.
The Trump sons have been seeking out deals for the familiy business
Before Trump began his visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, his sons Eric and Donald Jr. had already traveled the Middle East extensively in recent weeks. They were drumming up business for The Trump Organization, which they are running in their father’s stead while he’s in the White House.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Eric Trump announced plans for an 80-story Trump Tower in Dubai, the UAE’s largest city. He also attended a recent cryptocurrency conference there with Zach Witkoff, a founder of the Trump family crypto company, World Liberty Financial, and son of Trump’s do-everything envoy to the Mideast, Steve Witkoff.
“We are proud to expand our presence in the region,” Eric Trump said last month in announcing that Trump Tower Dubai was set to start construction this fall.
The presidential visit to the region, as his children work the same part of the world for the family’s moneymaking opportunities, puts a spotlight on Trump’s willingness to embrace foreign dealmaking while in the White House, even in the face of growing concerns that doing so could tempt him to shape U.S. foreign policy in ways that benefit his family’s bottom line.
The strategic pitch also included the possibility of a detente with Israel and US access to Syrian oil and gas reserves, according to sources familiar with the effort.
Jonathan Bass, a pro-Trump activist, met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa for four hours in Damascus on April 30, alongside Syrian activists and representatives from Gulf Arab states.
That formed part of a broader push to broker a meeting between the two leaders, which occurred on Wednesday.
It was the first time in 25 years that the leaders of the US and Syria had met, and came after a surprise announcement from Trump that the US would lift all sanctions on Syria.
In Riyadh, Trump also embarrassed himself by saluting Saudi generals.
President Donald Trump saluted Saudi Arabian generals as they lined up to greet him during his visit to Riyadh, the first stop in his four-day tour of the Middle East.
There has been a discussion in recent years about the proper etiquette for presidents saluting the military, particularly those from other nations.
A returned salute by Trump to a North Korean general during his first term sparked criticism, with some saying he should not have shown respect to a hostile nation. Others said it was courteous to return the gesture.
The salute has not sparked the controversy that followed the emergence of video that showed the president saluting the North Korean general during his first term.
But it comes as Trump leads a large delegation of top officials from his administration and leaders in the business world, as he seeks to discuss peace in the Middle East and improving trade and investment.
Trump’s inappropriate behavior doesn’t shock people anymore; it’s expected that he’ll be an embarrassment to the country wherever he goes.
Qatar signed an agreement Wednesday to purchase 160 jets from U.S. manufacturer Boeing for Qatar Airways.
The agreement was signed by both President Donald Trump and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani during Trump’s visit to the Gulf Arab country.
Trump said the deal was worth $200 billion and included 160 jets.
“So it’s over $200 billion but 160 in terms of the Jets, that’s fantastic,” Trump said.
“So that’s a record, Kelly, then congratulations to Boeing,” he added, directing to his comments to Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who was in the room.
Boeing could certainly use the help. Orders last year effectively ground to a halt after a door plug blew off of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max at the beginning of 2024, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane. Even with a rebound in orders toward the end of 2024, Boeing’s gross orders were just 569 for all of last year — down a stunning 60% from 2023.
Also not helping Boeing was a massive strike in the fall. About 33,000 machinists hit the picket lines in September, and Boeing didn’t restart production until early December. That sank Boeing’s deliveries to just 348 planes last year, down 34 percent from 2023.
And that was before Trump’s tariffs hit.
Of course the big issue today is the plane that Trump wants to accept from Qatar.
Donald Trump has doubled down on why he wants to accept a luxury Boeing 747 from Qatar, a country where he traveled to today to negotiate business deals, with the US president portraying the $400m aircraft as an opportunity too valuable to refuse.
“The plane that you’re on is almost 40 years old,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity during an Air Force One interview on the Middle East trip, where he is also visiting Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
“When you land and you see Saudi Arabia, you see UAE and you see Qatar, and they have these brand-new Boeing 747s, mostly. You see ours next to it – this is like a totally different plane.”
Clearly irritated by questions about the ethical criticism of accepting such a lavish gift as president, Trump insisted American prestige was at stake. “We’re the United States of America. I believe we should have the most impressive plane.”
The timing of Trump’s visit has raised eyebrows, coming just weeks after the Trump Organization secured a deal with Qatar for a luxury resort and golf course development outside the capital, Doha, called Trump International Golf Club & Villas….
But the idea of accepting a plane from Qatar has triggered alarm across the political spectrum. The Democratic representative Ritchie Torres condemned it as a “flying grift” that violates the constitution’s emoluments clause, which explicitly prohibits federal officials from accepting valuable gifts from foreign powers without congressional approval.
Even staunch Trump allies have broken ranks, including the Texas senator Ted Cruz, who warned that the aircraft deal “poses significant espionage and surveillance problems”, while the West Virginia senator Shelley Moore Capito said bluntly she’d “be checking for bugs”.
On Sunday night, as the public first learned about Donald Trump’s plan to accept a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from his friends in Qatar to be used as Air Force One, the president was eager to defend the arrangement. The plane, the Republican argued online, would be “FREE OF CHARGE.”
Trump returned to the point a few days later, asking why taxpayers should be “forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars” for a plane “when they can get it for FREE” from Qatar. He added soon after that only “a stupid person [would] say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’”
Even if the luxury jet were free, this arrangement would still be a legal, ethical and political mess. But there’s a related problem: The “free” plane wouldn’t be free. NBC News reported:
“Converting a Qatari-owned 747 jet into a new Air Force One for President Donald Trump would involve installing multiple top-secret systems, cost over $1 billion and take years to complete, three aviation experts told NBC News. They said that accepting the 13-year-old jet would likely cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over time, noting that refurbishing the commercial plane would exceed its current value of $400 million.”
Politico had a related report that noted it “could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars” to retrofit Qatar’s “gift” into a makeshift Air Force One.
“This isn’t really a gift,” said Rep. Joe Courtney told Politico. The Connecticut Democrat, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and helps oversee its panel on executive airlift, added, “You’d basically have to tear the plane down to the studs and rebuild it to meet all the survivability, security and communications requirements of Air Force One. It’s a massive undertaking — and an unfunded one at that.”
In other words, when Trump says the jet from Qatar would be “FREE OF CHARGE,” it’s true that it would be free for him — the president wouldn’t have to reach for his own wallet — but it wouldn’t be free to us, the American taxpayers.
I wonder if anyone is going to be able to talk Trump out of this madness.
Even if the luxury jet from Qatar were free, this "gift" would still be a legal and ethical mess. But there's a related problem:The free plane would cost American taxpayers a fortune.
What a spectacle! There they were yesterday, assembled in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, autocrats and plutocrats and kleptocrats, gathered to enjoy each other’s company under the benevolent patronage of their host, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Saudi Arabia was an appropriate destination for Donald Trump’s first foreign trip in his second term as president. He chose to visit not a democracy but a despotism; not a free nation but one of the world’s most unfree; not a land of tolerance but of repression.
And Trump made it clear yesterday that he did not consider these features unfortunate or undesirable aspects of life under the House of Saud. There was not a hint of criticism or even of hesitation in the fulsome praise Trump heaped upon his hosts. The American president admires the Saudi achievements in autocracy, plutocracy, and kleptocracy.
And so Trump paid homage to his “friend,” Mohammed bin Salman, who rules without consent and who brooks no dissent. “I like him a lot. I like him too much,” the president said. So much for the late Jamal Khashoggi. As to the kingdom over which bin Salman rules, Trump said the United States has “no stronger partner.” So much for the free nations with whom we are allied.
And Trump emphasized that the achievements of Saudi Arabia that he admires have nothing to do with democratic principles or ideas of freedom. Quite the opposite. He disparaged those who supported efforts at democratization and liberalization in the region—“the so-called nation builders, neocons, or liberal nonprofits.” [….]
Once upon a time, when American presidents still believed in the principles of the American republic, they accepted that they still had to work with despotisms like Saudi Arabia. Still, they mostly tried to move them along, even if slowly, toward the goal of a freer society….
No longer. The very word “liberalization” now seems antique. In the era of Trump and Putin and Xi and bin Salman and many others, autocracy, plutocracy, and kleptocracy are the way of the world….
More than two dozen American titans of business participated in a business lunch with bin Salman and Trump. They no doubt paid appropriate homage to the two autocrats, hoping to walk away, as Trump said, “with a lot of checks.” One doubts any of them uttered the words “freedom” or “democracy” or “consent of the governed.” One assumes none defended the importance of free speech or of dissent.
In other news, a few more items:
House Republicans are still determined to use massive cuts to Medicaid to pay for Trump’s tax cuts for the ultra wealthy. Here’s the latest:
House Republicans on Wednesday pushed forward on their sweeping domestic policy bill, slogging through marathon drafting sessions that began Tuesday and stretched into the night as they haggled over Medicaid and tax cuts.
The meetings in three key committees, a crucial part of advancing what President Trump has labeled the “one big beautiful bill” carrying his agenda, came as Republican leaders raced to push the legislation through the House before a Memorial Day recess that begins at the end of next week.
Republicans are seeking to extend Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax cut and temporarily enact his campaign pledges not to tax tips or overtime pay. They want to partly offset the roughly $3.8 trillion cost of those tax measures — as well as plans to increase spending on the military and immigration enforcement — by making cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and subsidies for clean energy.
But even as they moved toward winning committee approval of the plan, House Republican leaders faced pushback in their own ranks that could delay or derail passage. Conservative lawmakers have argued the proposed cuts to Medicaid, which stopped short of an overhaul in an effort to protect vulnerable Republicans from political blowback, do not go far enough in restructuring and slashing costs of the program. They are unhappy that the largest reduction included — new work requirements for beneficiaries — would not take effect until 2029, putting off any savings until then, after the next presidential election.
And Republicans from high-tax states like New York were furious about a provision that would increase the limit on the state and local tax deduction to $30,000 from $10,000, a cap they regard as far too low and which was still being negotiated.
Democrats, who are expected to oppose the package en masse, have aimed most of their criticism at the bill’s health care provisions, which are estimated to cause more than 8 million Americans to lose insurance coverage, and which they believe will be politically damaging.
This Is going to be a disaster. I hope the Senate won’t accept these health care and food assistance cuts.
House Republicans unveil Medicaid cuts that will leave millions without care
The Medicaid portions of the GOP megabill would lead to 10.3 million people losing coverage under the health safety net program and 7.6 million people going uninsured, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Republicans released the partial estimates Tuesday less than a half hour before the House Energy and Commerce Committee is scheduled to mark up its portion of the legislation central to enacting President Donald Trump’s agenda on taxes, the border and energy.
The panel has been tasked with finding $880 billion in savings, and the CBO confirmed the committee is on track to meet that target. CBO also projects that many of the major Medicaid policies would account for $625 billion in savings, though the scorekeeping office didn’t calculate the impacts of all provisions.
Work requirements would produce the biggest savings in the bill, accounting for nearly $301 billion over a decade — deeper than what had been initially anticipated. Overturning Biden-era rules on the program would save nearly $163 billion, and a moratorium on new taxes that states levy on providers to help finance their programs would recoup roughly $87 billion.
Republicans have argued that the changes will streamline Medicaid and allow it to better focus on serving the most vulnerable beneficiaries.
Democrats have argued the changes will lead to devastating impacts on health care access and have made the case — including by pointing to previous CBO estimates — that work requirements would simply remove people from coverage rather than motivate beneficiaries to find jobs.
Americans broadly disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president and favor Democratic U.S. House candidates for the 2026 midterms by 6 points, a new Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll finds. In a survey experiment, support for the president’s immigration agenda falls when respondents are informed of mistaken deportations, such as the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Adults say the economy and inflation are their top priorities, but do not think either party is prioritizing the issues enough. A majority opposes making budget cuts to social programs, such as Medicaid, in order to extend tax cuts and shrink the deficit. If the 2024 election were held today and non-voters were allowed to participate, the electorate would lean toward Kamala Harris over Donald Trump by 5 points, 47% to 42%.
Methodology note: Verasight conducted this poll among 1,000 U.S. adult residents from May 1-6, 2025. It has a margin of error of 3.2%. The survey was weighted to match the political and demographic characteristics of the U.S. adult population according to the March 2025 Current Population Survey, as well as recent benchmarks for partisanship and past vote.
Verasight uses mail, SMS text, and the internet to recruit a sample using both probability-based and non-probability techniques. Verasight handled recruitment, interviewing, and weighting. Strength In Numbers had input on questions but did not participate in other methodological decisions, and conducted all analysis, including creating the topline document.
You can download a pdf of the poll at the link.
Speaking of health, RFK Jr. will be testifying in Congress today.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is testifying Wednesday on Capitol Hill, where the nation’s top health official is expected to be quizzed on his handling of the measles outbreak, the firing of thousands of federal health workers and major cuts to the health agencies he oversees.
Kennedy is appearing before a House Appropriations subcommitteeWednesday morning and will move to the Senate health committee in the afternoon. The pair of hearings marks Kennedy’s first time testifying before Congress since being sworn in as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in mid-February.
Since then, the Trump administration has moved to reshape the nation’s public health infrastructure through eliminating roughly 20,000 jobs, ousting top career officials, threatening billions of dollars in federally funded scientific research and proposing a major reorganization of the health department. Such actions have been deeply divisive, with Democrats and public health experts expressing strong concern that the changes will damage the nation’s public health infrastructure, and Kennedy and his allies countering that they are necessary to refocus the federal government on addressing chronic disease.
In his opening remarks before the House panel, Kennedy said he is focusing on “fighting debilitating disease, contaminated food, toxic environments, addiction, mental health, and illness [affecting] families across every race, class and political belief.”
The hearings are being billed as Kennedy’s opportunity to defend the Trump administration’s budget proposal released earlier this month, which proposed a 26 percent reduction to the department’s $127 billion budget of discretionary spending. But lawmakers typically capitalize on the moment to ask a wide range of questions, particularly demanding answers over the most controversial issues facing the nation’s sweeping health department.
Finally, DOGE really doesn’t seem to have saved the government any money to speak of, despite illegally firing thousands of government workers and illegally closing agencies.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is no longer claiming credit for killing dozens of federal contracts after The New York Times reported last week that they had already been reinstated.
The Times had identified 44 revived contracts, and 43 of them were still featured on the group’s online “Wall of Receipts” as of last week. Then, late Sunday, Mr. Musk’s group deleted those claims for 31 of the contracts from its website, eliminating $122 million of the savings it claimed to have achieved by cutting federal contracts.
Those savings had actually disappeared days or weeks before, when federal agencies reversed cancellations they had made at the behest of Mr. Musk’s group. One revived contract, which DOGE said was worth $108 million, was restored by the Department of Veterans Affairs after eight days. Mr. Musk’s group still listed it as “terminated” for two months after that.
The presence of revived contracts on DOGE’s list of “terminations” was the latest in a series of data errors that have inflated its success at saving money. In the past, the group has deleted other errors from its “Wall of Receipts” site after new reports found that they were double-counting the same cancellations or claiming credit for killing contracts that had ended decades before.\
On Sunday night, Mr. Musk’s group also added more than 800 new terminated contracts and raised its overall savings estimate — across all government activity, not only contracts — to $170 billion from $165 billion. The group did not delete all of the resurrected contracts identified by The Times. It left 12 on the site, still claiming that terminating those had saved taxpayers $121 million.
That’s all I have for you today. What’s on your mind?
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Hey, I’m just so sick and tired of yam tits and his regime. Today we will just keep it quick with a few newsy updates and then the cartoons.
The church said it's terminating a decades-long partnership with the federal government to help refugees arriving in the U.S., citing moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners from South Africa.
The president has covered the Oval Office in gold, is planning a massive military parade for his birthday, and is now accepting $400,000,000 luxury planes from foreign powers as personal presents.What the fuck are we doing here?
Reporter: “What do you say to people who view that luxury jet as a personal gift to you?”Trump: “You're ABC fake news right?… You should be embarrassed asking that question. They're giving us a free jet.”
The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like running for the Canadian border. Why would anyone want to come here under these circumstances? I’m also very afraid of this year’s hurricane season. This is from 
Meanwhile, the Tariff turbulence is coming to fruition. This is from 
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