Tag: donald trump
Ron Johnson

'It All Falls Apart': GOP Senate Lacks Majority To Pass Trump's Big Ugly Bill

In a rare admission of uncertainty, Republican senators are privately conceding that President Donald Trump’s "Big, Beautiful Bill" may “fall apart” before the self-imposed July 4 deadline, Semafor reported Thursday.

Trump is reportedly banking on his signature hardball tactics in trying to secure passage of the legislation by Independence Day. However, GOP lawmakers say that strategy is faltering in the Senate amid mounting procedural hurdles and internal dissent, per the report.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Semafor: “I like the president, I respect him, I certainly respect how difficult his job is. I don’t want to make it more difficult. But we can’t keep mortgaging our kids’ future. And he understands that about me."

Sen. Johnson is currently against the bill and is said to have banded with two fellow conservative senators as a bloc: “We all have to be a yes before any of us are a yes," he said.

According to the report, the bill is not only short of sufficient support right now, but is also boasting a hefty amount of blank space for now. That’s because Republicans are still hustling to win approval for provisions that their nonpartisan rules referee deemed ineligible for protection from a Democratic filibuster.

Since it’s difficult to estimate the costs or effects of passage anymore, senators are trying to slow the rush to finish a bill that will affect almost every American in some way.

Meanwhile, as lawmakers prepared to scrap their weekend and recess plans, Trump invited some Republicans to a Thursday event that amounted to what one called a “mass arm-twisting," per Semafor.

One person close to the White House, who was not identified in the report, told Semafor that the president needs to change the deadline.

“He has to shift the deadline, or it all falls apart,” the source said, per the report. “Procedurally, how would it get on his desk by July 4? They don’t have the votes and a bunch of it the parliamentarian gutted," they added.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Blocking Vaccines, RFK Jr. Guarantees 'A Lot Of Americans Are Going To Die'

Blocking Vaccines, RFK Jr. Guarantees 'A Lot Of Americans Are Going To Die'

Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican from Louisiana, is also a doctor. He put up resistance last February to Donald Trump's choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "Bobby," as Trump likes to call him, has long cast doubts on the safety of vaccines that have saved millions from death or serious disease while causing almost no problems.

Kennedy is an ignoramus on such matters and has a few loose screws besides. But Cassidy ultimately gave in, presumably to escape MAGA's wrath. He gave Kennedy the deciding vote for confirmation.

Cassidy is back, however. As leader of the Senate's health committee, he tried but failed to delay a committee meeting to consider RFK Jr.'s nutty move to fire all 17 members of the panel that advises on the use of vaccines in the United States. Kennedy's eight replacements, Cassidy wrote, "do not have significant experience studying microbiology, epidemiology or immunology." Another concern was that a director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which takes guidance from the panel, had not yet been put in place.

Kennedy's manipulative line is that "a clean sweep is needed to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science" — a confidence that he and fellow crackpots have done their best to undermine with junk science. Kennedy has falsely accused the fired experts of having conflicts of interest with companies developing vaccines. That problem does not exist because of stringent oversight.

It's truly rich that Kennedy would accuse anyone of a conflict of business interests. He currently takes a cut on money extracted in lawsuits against drug companies.

Cassidy may have been moved by the resignation of Dr. Fiona Havers from the CDC. A senior physician overseeing virus surveillance, Havers warned early this month that "people are going to die" if Kennedy's new vaccine advisory panel takes over.

Another reason given for Cassidy's attempt to slow down approval of the panel — formally known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — is that Kennedy had promised during the confirmation process that he would not change ACIP. Guess Bobby was lying.

Trump earned credit in his first term for the Operation Warp Speed program that sped the development of a vaccine against COVID. And so why did he name a vaccine "skeptic" (the nice word) to run the incredibly important HHS?

I have theories. One is that Trump simply enjoys Kennedy's wackiness. He is colorful with those stories of a whale head strapped on his car, the dead bear cub left in Central Park and the worm eating his brain. In sum, Bobby amused him. Trump told him to "go wild" at HHS.

Little sleep would be lost if some rubes and woo-woo Californians suffer illness and death because they believed the conspiracies fostered by medical quackery? Americans able to distinguish expertise from TikTok baloney would know to get their shots. Stuff happens to the ill-informed or, to use one of Trump's favorite terms, "stupid people."

The tragedy goes beyond Americans dying because they were talked out of a vaccine shown to be overwhelmingly safe. The vaccine-bashing also slows the development of protections against future health threats. The Trump administration's undermining of medical expertise — and cuts in research money — will slow down advancements in messenger RNA vaccines, T-cell work and other medical miracles that have begun to smite formerly incurable diseases.

Yes, people will die. They already have. An analysis of CDC data concluded that perhaps 250,000 Americans who had access to shots and didn't get them died unnecessarily from COVID.

This is the America we live in. The well-informed will survive. Others are on their own.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Pete Hegseth

Hegseth Declares Trump Is History's Greatest Military Commander

There was a press conference held at the Pentagon yesterday morning by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine. The gist of what they had to say was that the press, the media, whatever you want to call it – specifically, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC – they got it all wrong in their coverage of the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites on Saturday night. But Secretary Hegseth knew what happened, and how it happened, and who was responsible for the “game changing and historic” mission. Here is what he told the press gathered in the Pentagon briefing room:

“Let me read the bottom line here. President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history. And it was a resounding success, resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of the 12 Day War.”

In history. Got that?

Hegseth was standing there in the Pentagon where General George C. Marshall, working in conjunction with General Dwight D. Eisenhower and British General Bernard Montgomery and General Omar Bradley planned and executed the D-Day invasion of France on June 6, 1944.

That invasion involved a fleet from eight different navies of 6,939 vessels, including 1,213 warships, 4,126 landing craft, 289 escort vessels, 277 minesweepers, and 864 merchant craft. Beginning around midnight, 2,200 American, British and Canadian bombers attacked targets along the coast and inland German military positions.

According to the Eisenhower Presidential Library, about 133,000 combat and support troops landed on French soil during the 24 hours of D-Day. 73,000 American troops, including the airborne troops who parachuted and flew on gliders behind enemy lines and Army Rangers who climbed the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc, came ashore at Omaha and Utah beaches. Approximately 83,000 British and Canadian soldiers landed at Sword, Juno, and Gold beaches.

There were at least 10,000 allied casualties on D-Day, with more than 4,000 soldiers confirmed killed.

The Normandy landing on D-Day was the largest seaborne invasion in history involving one of the largest one-day bombing campaigns in history.

The Secretary of Defense needs to go downstairs to the Pentagon’s department of military history, assuming it survived DOGE, and do some reading. We have a great military, which in conjunction with the great militaries of Russia, Canada, Great Britain, and the Free French, defeated Hitler’s Germany and rid Europe of the Nazi scourge. It took years. Millions were killed in thousands of battles.

Dropping a dozen big bombs from seven stealth bombers, and 75 other precision guided weapons from other stealth aircraft and firing cruise missiles from submarines into a country that had had its air defenses decimated by days of Israeli bombing and drones…well, it was was an impressive military operation, but it weren’t no D-Day, and Donald Trump ain’t no Ike.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. He writes every day at luciantruscott.substack.com and you can follow him on Bluesky @lktiv.bsky.social and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV. Please consider subscribing to his Substack.

Reprinted with permission from Lucian Truscott Newsletter.

Zohran Mamdani

New York Republicans Beg Trump To Deport Zohran Mamdani

New York’s Young Republican Club has urged President Donald Trump's administration to revoke Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s U.S. citizenship and deport him under the Communist Control Act after his win in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday night.

The New York Republican club wrote a post on the social platform X Wednesday, urging President Donald Trump’s aides to take action.

“The radical Zohran Mamdani cannot be allowed to destroy our beloved city of New York," the post read. It added: "The Communist Control Act lets President Trump revoke @ZohranKMamdani’s citizenship and promptly deport him."

"The time for action is now — @StephenM and @RealTomHoman, New York is counting on you," the tweet read, tagging the official handles of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and immigration advisor Tom Homan.

Mamdani, a 33‑year‑old democratic socialist and New York state legislator, defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary Tuesday. The race drew national attention thanks to his progressive platform centered on rent freezes, free public transit, universal childcare and city-run grocery stores.

Born in Uganda and naturalized as an American citizen in 2018, Mamdani represents a generational and ideological shift in New York politics, energizing younger voters and gaining endorsements from leading progressive figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio‑Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT.).

The nature of the New York Republicans' deportation demand — which would hinge on the 1954 Communist Control Act — means it has virtually no legal basis, given Mamdani’s clearly documented U.S. citizenship. The Communist Control Act of 1954 is a U.S. federal law that formally outlawed the Communist Party and criminalized membership in or support for communist organizations.

This is not the first time Mamdani has faced such an attack from Republicans.

Earlier this month, Republican City Council member Vickie Paladino also called for his deportation in a post on X.

Mamdani responded forcefully, condemning the demand as part of a broader wave of “Donald Trump’s authoritarian administration” rhetoric that has included death threats and Islamophobic attacks.

“This is what Trump and his sycophants have wrought," Mamdani said in a statement to reporters at the time.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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