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Post by DHS ghouls celebrating Alligator Alcatraz
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Designed To Enact Suffering

Plunging to new lows of "cartoonish cruelty" in our fascist reality show, MAGA just voted for our "most deeply immoral piece of legislation," depriving millions of food and health care as their fuehrer celebrated the launch of a scorched-swamp, mosquito-infested concentration camp - "Let's feed people to alligators!" - to detain millions more for overlooking the paperwork in their search for a better life. And there's merch! Fact: "Snakes in the Everglades got nothin' on the vermin in our government."

The Senate's barely-there approval - fuck Shady Vance - of Trump's heinous 900-page bill represents the largest transfer of wealth to the rich in U.S. history along with the largest cut to Medicaid and food assistance, all in the obscene name of (partly) funding a $975 billion tax break for the already richest 1%. The bill, "a tipping point between normality and fascism," also pours over $170.7 billion into "a campaign of extermination against immigrants that evokes the greatest human rights atrocities of the past," funding the hiring of vastly more Nazi thugs to terrorize, humiliate and put in cages millions of brown people who do much of this country's work.

It will kick about 16 million people off health insurance by cutting over $1 trillion from Medicaid, because who needs health insurance. It will throw millions of poor families, veterans, the elderly and disabled off SNAP by cutting $285 billion in food assistance, because who needs food. It will cut funding to rural hospitals, nursing homes, student loans, wind and solar energy - electric bills will soar 30% - costing millions of jobs and adding almost $4 trillion to the national debt, to be paid by our children and grandchildren, one of many excellent reasons it's said to be the most unpopular legislation since passage of the economically disastrous Embargo Act of 1807.

Bernie Sanders calls it, "The most dangerous piece of legislation in the modern history of our country.” Decrying the GOP's "obsession" with stripping people of health care, Maine Sen. Angus King calls it "disgusting..I have never seen a bill this irresponsible, regressive and downright cruel." To longtime Sen. Chris Murphy, it's "the most deeply immoral piece of legislation I have ever voted on in my entire time in Congress." Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said passage of a bill "cooked up in back rooms, cloaked in fake numbers (that) loots our country (for) the least deserving people you could imagine feels (like) a crime scene...When I first got here, this chamber filled me with awe and wonderment. Today, I feel disgust.”

The bill is so bad the GOP delayed cuts to Medicaid until after the mid-terms, and had to bribe its own members with perks to pass it; Alaska's Lisa Murkowski won the  I Got Mine, Jack award by getting exemptions for her state and then complaining about how bad the bill is. To many, even worse than its craven kowtowing to oligarchs is its grotesque billions bestowed on a brutal, unprecedented white nationalist drive to dehumanize, criminalize and rip apart millions of families deemed undesirable by the color of their skin - and, eventually, likely their political persuasions - by making ICE, America's SS, the highest-funded law enforcement agency in a now-barbaric federal government.

The bill boosts the ranks of roaming Nazi henchmen by nearly 50%, with $8 billion slated to hire 10,000 more over five years (with signing bonuses!). ICE detention will get $45 billion more, a staggering 365% increase; "removal" gets $14.4 billion, a 500% surge; enforcement (see henchmen) almost $30 billion, up threefold, but we definitely can't afford to feed hungry kids. Billions more will build new camps, ramp up flights, double beds to 100,000, and round up more (hungry) terrified kids to meet a goal of 3,000 arrests a day. Of those, despite the absurd, enduring claim of targeting "the worst" violent criminals, maybe 8% have committed crimes; even ICE data shows over 93% are guiltless of anything but crossing the border.

The rabid stalking of migrants has given Republicans "license to be as openly racist as possible." Moving on from pet-eating Haitians, Scott Bessent sneered New York is turning into "Caracas on the Hudson"; on an image of its new mayor Zohran Mamdani eating with his hands, Texas' Brandon Gill, who's evidently never met a burger, sniped, "Civilized people in America don't eat like this - go back to the Third World"; and Trump already threatened to arrest "communist" Mamdani, blathering, "A lot of people are saying he’s here illegally." (Not.) Witless Tommy Tuberville called the residents of sanctuary cities "inner-city rats" we should "send back home"; Paul Krugman, home-grown but Jewish with a bi-racial wife: "We’re all rats now."

Thus do we have once-vibrant Hispanic communities from New York to L.A. now largely shut down, with frightened residents carrying passports to the corner store, keeping their kids inside until dark, or not venturing out at all for fear of abduction by masked gangs. Farmworkers across the country, up to 80% foreign-born and perhaps half undocumented, are also staying home: "If they show up to work, they don’t know if they will ever see their family again." In California, which grows much of our fruit and vegetables, those crops can go bad in one day as farmers struggle to harvest what they've grown. Experts say that many, already barely breaking even, will likely fold.

Meanwhile, ICE's daily atrocities - and the ensuing trauma - go on apace. A 75-year-old Cuban man here for 60 years died in custody, the 13th death this year; Tom Homan shrugged: "People die in ICE custody." Jacked-up stormtroopers assaulted workers at Home Depot and a woman selling tacos, tossing tear gas as they peeled away. They arrested the wrong mother of two as her kids tried to stop them. In Texas, they detained a preschool teacher with her three-year-old outside a courtroom. In L.A., they took a Honduran mother at a hearing with two children, one a six-year-old with leukemia; they've been held in Texas for weeks, the sick boy getting sicker, and she's filed the first lawsuit challenging the carnage.

And so, because it's still not enough cruelty for these ghouls, to Alligator Auschwitz, a steamy, "sadistic one-stop deportation shop" of tents filled with cages of bunk beds soon thronged with humans in a predator-replete swamp, a "concentration camp without the culpability of execution chambers" pitilessly "designed to enact suffering,” and help sick racists feel good about their whiteness. Set on a disused "shit-hole airstrip" in Florida's vast Everglades, the "bloodcurdlingly-monikered," built-in-8-days "Alligator Alcatraz” is surrounded by swampland brimming with alligators and Burmese pythons in a flood-prone, bug-plagued area where summer temps routinely top 100 degrees, rendering it "a calculatedly provocative celebration of the dystopian."

Tents in an environmentally treasured nature preserve often hit by floods, tropical storms and hurricanes at a time the regime has decimated the agency that warns about those events, operated by a likewise-decimated FEMA and commanded by haphazardly- deputized, wildly ill-qualified members of the National Guard serving as "deportation judges" - what could possibly go wrong? Set to cost almost half a billion dollars a year - but no, we really can't afford to feed hungry children - the barbed-wire re-invention of World War ll Japanese Internment Camps, with a fresh touch of El Salvador's CECOT, evidently fulfills Republicans' most fervent wet dream: To feed immigrants to animals.

On Tuesday, touring this "beyond horrifying" showcase of ruthlessness - initial intake 1,000, ultimately 5,000 - the cartoon villains who created it proudly paraded in: Nazi Barbie, Stephen Goebbels, Ron DeFascist and Trump with a botched make-up line that made him look like The Joker. He delightedly handed the floor to "our superstar," the sociopathic Miller, who praised the use of "novel legal and diplomatic tools," along with building death camps and letting ICE goons rampage through terrorized communities, to "deliver on a 50-year hope and dream of the American people to secure the border," at least on the repulsive planet he inhabits, and we wish he'd go back to.

On her foul planet, replicating her photo-op before CECOT's shaved-head detainees in her illegal $50,000 Rolex, ICE Barbie is still somehow celebrating her imaginary "going after murderers and rapists and traffickers." Tuesday she even added an alleged cannibal they'd put on a plane home who "started to eat himself," arguing he was "the kind of deranged individuals on our streets (that) we're trying to get out of our country because they are so deranged, they don't belong here." Hmm. Ever hard-core, she's also busy menacing one patriot for a nifty ICE Block app: "This sure looks like obstruction of justice - if you obstruct our brave law enforcement, we will hunt you down."

Just before her visit, her "reptile-run Gestapo" shared an AI-generated Alligator Alcatraz image featuring smirking alligators in ICE caps; Noem giddily posted, "Coming soon!" Americans recoiled. "Have you ever wondered what it would have looked like if Hitler's SS had social media?" asked one. Many suggested putting the people who built the atrocity in it; others decried MAGA's dehumanized trolling about concentration camps: "History is repeating - just with better branding." One: "Posting memes that boast about the manner in which people will die if they try to escape the undoubtedly inhumane conditions that will become the norm in a facility (gives) major "Alligator Auschwitz" vibes."

The visit came exactly a year after SCOTUS declared Trump above the law. Standing before cages in a dumb Gulf of America cap, the eternal victim sneered "Biden wanted me in here, that son of a bitch," but "it didn't work out that way." He called Noem "elegant" and "an unbelievable horse person" (umm) before happily noting "they have a lot of cops in the form of alligators" to "keep people where they’re supposed to be." He praised his grotesque cohorts - “It’s really government working together, I'm proud of them" - made zigzag moves with his pudgy hands - "We’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator" - and opined, "A little controversial, but I couldn’t care less.”

A dead-eyed, servile DeSantis outlined the task - "intake, process, then deport" - and hailed the camp about to hold human beings who did nothing wrong: "This is as secure as it gets." He added, “This is a model, but we need other states to step up." Meanwhile, his state's party of zombies is so into it they're selling depraved merch - t-shirts, drink cozies - for "Florida’s gator-guarded prison for illegal aliens...It's a one-way ticket to regret." One appalled observer: "That's some Idi Amin stuff right there." Much like Trump on Fox, extolling his latest grotesquerie and airily explaining on potential migrant escapes, "They'll just get eaten by wildlife. I guess that's the concept."

There's more. Amidst performative acts of political intimidation, he's mused, "We also have a lot of bad people that have been here for a long time...many born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here too" - maybe including Musk: "We'll have to take a look." He's selling $249 perfume, "a rallying cry in a bottle...They're all about winning, strength and success." He's musing about nationwide alligator-themed camps: "They might morph into a system where you're going to keep it for a long time,” citing facilities to "handle (some) of the most vicious people on the planet." Observers: "Consider the Alligator Alcatraz gear on sale (before) deciding who are the most vicious people on the planet."

And he's losing what's left of his putrid mind. Asked about a timeline for detainees, he raved: "In Florida? I'm going to spend a lot. This is my home state. I love it." He "fixed up the little Oval Office, I make it - it's like a diamond," he has "a nice little cottage to stay at," he pays lots of fictional taxes, everyone in New York is leaving. "I'll be here as much as I can," he ended. "Very nice question." Lawrence O'Donnell on "the banality of their cruelty," the "utter emptiness of his mind," notably on the virtually ignored day USAID ends, with its expected millions of deaths, its "worldwide campaign of cruelty in their name." Others: "But her emails. I didn't like her laugh. Biden was too old." Now here we are: "A more loathsome fuck never walked the earth."

And on Wednesday, Alligator Alcatraz already began flooding.

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Hurricane Helene Hits Gulf Coast Of Florida
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'Matter of Life and Death': New Tracker Exposes Trump Regime's Attack on Disaster Preparedness

President Donald Trump has openly stated his desire to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency—a move that has left some experts fearful about how the United States will handle natural disasters such as hurricanes in the coming months.

The Revolving Door Project, a government watchdog group, has now put together a tracking tool to keep tabs on how much the administration's attacks on both FEMA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have worsened the nation's disaster preparedness.

The tool has two components: An interactive map showing all of the state disaster aid requests that the Trump administration has outright denied or only partially approved and an interactive timeline documenting all of the times that the administration has undermined the functionality of America's disaster preparedness agencies through actions such as placing agency employees on administrative leave and disbanding key bodies such as FEMA's National Advisory Council and its National Dam Safety Review Board.

All of these disruptions and cuts, argued Revolving Door Project senior researcher Kenny Stancil, are likely to come back to bite America in a big way when another natural disaster strikes.

"It's only a matter of time before Trump and Musk's reckless assault on disaster response and preparedness kills people in the United States," he said in explaining the need for the initiative. "It nearly happened in mid-May in Kentucky, where a DOGE-damaged NWS forecast office had to scramble for staff before a tornado. Amid last week's heatwave, low-income households across the country were missing the federal support they need to keep the air conditioning on. And when a major hurricane arrives, Trump, Musk, OMB Director Russell Vought, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem will almost certainly have blood on their hands."

Revolving Door Project executive director Jeff Hauser issued a similarly dire warning about the administration's actions on U.S. disaster preparedness and he described the actions being taken by the administration as "a matter of life-and-death." He also accused the administration of "preventing forecasters and emergency managers at all levels from doing what is necessary to prepare for and respond to disasters."

Trump in the past has tried to use federal disaster relief money as a cudgel against his political opponents, such as when he threatened to withhold funding from California during catastrophic wildfires unless the state did a better job of "raking" its forests.


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Consumer Data Report Shows Inflation Edging Higher, However Not As Much As Economists Predicted
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Congressional Report Shows 'Workers Lose, Very Wealthiest Win' Under GOP Plans

As U.S. President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress pursue a package that would give tax breaks to the wealthy by gutting programs for the working class, Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee released a Tuesday report detailing how that so-called Big Beautiful Bill and the administration's tariffs would negative impact the "typical firefighter, teacher, or truck driver."

"Families across the country were already struggling because of high prices, and President Trump is increasing costs even more while giving the very wealthiest more tax breaks," said Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), the panel's ranking member, in a statement. "This new analysis shows the ways in which those who make up the backbone of our country—firefighters, teachers, truck drivers, and others—will all face higher costs because of President Trump's plans, while the top 0.1% of earners get a massive windfall."

Specifically, according to the two-page report, the top 1% of income earners would see an estimated benefit of $32,450 next year, which soars to $348,500 for the top 0.1%. Meanwhile, the report shows a range of $250-710 in annual losses for various workers, including healthcare professionals, housekeepers, police officers, and retail employees.

For workers facing losses on the higher end of that range, that money could feed a family of two adults and two children for a few weeks, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data from April, which put the weekly cost of groceries at $229.40.

  

The Joint Economic Committee report on the GOP plans—which the panel's Democrats summarized by saying "middle-class workers lose, very wealthiest win"—is based on multiple nonpartisan sources, including the Congressional Budget Office.

Republicans in the House of Representatives passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last month, and the budget reconciliation package is now before the GOP-controlled Senate, where right-wing lawmakers are pushing various tax changes and bigger cuts to funding for Medicaid, a federal healthcare program for low-income people.

New polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that large shares of U.S. adults—including about two-thirds of Democrats and nearly that many Independents—think the government spends "too little" on Medicaid and food assistance programs.

As for Trump's tariffs, they remain in effect, for now, thanks to a recent federal appellate court decision, but oral arguments are scheduled for this summer. On Tuesday, a pair of toy companies asked the U.S. Supreme Court—which has a right-wing majority that includes three Trump appointees—to weigh in on whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) empowers the president to impose such tariffs.

In a filing to the high court, lawyers for Learning Resources and hand2mind wrote that "in light of the tariffs' massive impact on virtually every business and consumer across the nation, and the unremitting whiplash caused by the unfettered tariffing power the president claims, challenges to the IEEPA tariffs cannot await the normal appellate process (even on an expedited timeline)."

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 Tlaib (D-Mich.) speaks out against proposed Medicaid cuts
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'Yes, You Are,' Tlaib Tells Lawmaker Who Said Republicans Aren't 'Little Bitches' Doing Trump's Bidding

Progressive Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Wednesday clapped back at one of her Republican colleagues who suggested that the GOP effort to pass the so-called Big Beautiful Bill this week isn't in response to a directive from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has set a July 4 deadline.

“The president of the United States didn't give us an assignment. We're not a bunch of little bitches around here, OK? I'm a member of Congress. I represent almost 800,000 Wisconsinites," Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) told journalists near the back entrance to the House of Representatives chamber, according to Punchbowl News' Kenzie Nguyen.

Responding to Van Orden's claims on the social media platform X, Tlaib (D-Mich.) simply said, "Yes, he did, and yes, you are."

The Michigan Democrat also released a video explaining to constituents why she is voting "hell no" on the package, which would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and strip an estimated 17 million Americans of their health insurance over the next decade while giving trillions of dollars in tax breaks to the ultrarich and corporations.

Tlaib wasn't the only House Democrat to notice the Republican's remarks. A fellow Wisconsinite, Congressman Mark Pocan, asked his followers on X, "Do you think Derrick Van Orden is right... that Congress is not a bunch of 'little bitches'?"

According to Politico's Samuel Benson and Mike DeBonis, Van Orden's comment came in the context of confirming he would vote for the budget reconciliation package, despite some critiques. The congressman reportedly said: "So this bill will pass. Am I happy about everything? No, but there's a difference between compromise and capitulation. We're not capitulating. We're compromising."

His remarks to reporters, and the backlash, came as the House considered a version of the megabill passed by the Senate on Tuesday, with help from Vice President JD Vance. GOP leaders in the lower chamber are struggling to get it past a procedural hurdle due to opposition from Republican fiscal hawks—plus all Democrats, who oppose steep cuts to the social safety net.

To protest the Republican effort to send the bill to Trump's desk by Independence Day, House Democrats on Wednesday formed a procedural conga line offering an amendment that would block cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.

Multiple Democrats also took to the House floor to rail against the package, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who declared that "this bill is a deal with the devil. It explodes our national debt, it militarizes our entire economy, and it strips away healthcare and basic dignity of the American people. For what? To give Elon Musk a tax break and billionaires the greedy taking of our nation. We cannot stand for it, and we will not support it."

"You should be ashamed," Ocasio-Cortez told the chamber's Republicans.

As Common Dreams reported earlier Wednesday, progressives outside of Congress are also working to block the bill. Advocacy organizations, including Indivisible, are urging Americans to call and email House Republicans and pressure them to oppose the package. The phone number for the House switchboard is 202-224-3121.

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Abortion rights supporters join the "Bigger Than Roe" national march in Madison, Wisconsin
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Wisconsin Supreme Court Strikes Down 'Archaic' 1849 Abortion Ban

Rights advocates celebrated Wednesday after the Wisconsin Supreme Court's liberal majority struck down the state's abortion ban from 1849, but campaigners also emphasized that threats to specific healthcare providers and reproductive freedom in general persist.

After the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision nixed nationwide abortion rights, the Badger State's anti-choice movement argued that the old ban, § 940.04(1), was back in effect. However, the Wisconsin top court concluded 4-3 that it is not, pointing to the state Legislature's actions between Dobbs and Roe v. Wade in 1973.

"We conclude that comprehensive legislation enacted over the last 50 years regulating in detail the 'who, what, where, when, and, how' of abortion so thoroughly covers the entire subject of abortion that it was meant as a substitute for the 19th century near-total ban on abortion," Justice Rebecca Frank Dallet wrote for the majority. "Accordingly, we hold that the legislature impliedly repealed § 940.04(1) as to abortion, and that § 940.04(1) therefore does not ban abortion in the state of Wisconsin."

"With this new ruling from our state's highest court, it's time for Wisconsin Republicans to stop forcing their way into our exam rooms."

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin initially stopped providing abortions due to uncertainty over the old ban but resumed care a few months after Dane County Judge Diane Schlipper ruled in July 2023 that "there is no such thing as an '1849 abortion ban' in Wisconsin." Joel Urmanski, Sheboygan County's Republican district attorney, asked Schlipper to reconsider her decision, but she reaffirmed it that December. Urmanski then turned to the state's top court, resulting in Wednesday's ruling.

"Today's ruling is another important step forward in protecting and expanding access to abortion in Wisconsin," Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin said on social media. "Since the overturning of Roe, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has maintained that Wis. Stat. 940.04 could not be enforced against abortion providers. This final ruling again confirms this."

"While we celebrate this ruling, there is more to be done. We will continue essential work to help protect and expand reproductive freedom in Wisconsin so that everyone who needs comprehensive reproductive healthcare in our state can get the nonjudgmental and compassionate care they deserve," the group added, thanking Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul "for their leadership and efforts to protect reproductive freedom in Wisconsin."

BREAKING: We won! In a lawsuit we brought more than three years ago now, the Wisconsin Supreme Court just ruled to protect reproductive freedom in our state and preserve Wisconsinites' access to abortion care.My statement below ⬇️

[image or embed]
— Governor Tony Evers (@govevers.wisconsin.gov) July 2, 2025 at 10:02 AM

Melinda Brennan, executive director of the ACLU of Wisconsin, had a similar reaction to the new decision, saying in a Wednesday statement that "we have been waiting for this moment since the United States Supreme Court overturned our constitutional right and generational expectation to abortion."

"Since then," she said, "pregnant people in Wisconsin have dealt with the catastrophic consequences of having their bodily autonomy stripped from them—including forced pregnancy, denial of critical medical care for pregnancy-related complications like miscarriage, and having to leave home just to get the treatment they need and deserve. Even though that right was restored by lower courts, the fact that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has now rendered the criminal abortion ban unenforceable means Wisconsinites no longer have to fear the archaic 1849 ban could go back into effect."

"With the ban struck down, Wisconsin is a more free and more just place to live," she added. "But that doesn't mean it's time to back down. The political attacks on reproductive justice will not slow down, and we must remain vigilant to make sure everyone who can get pregnant has access to the full range of reproductive healthcare, no matter where in the state they live. Politicians will keep trying to legislate away and restrict our reproductive rights, as well as roll back LGBTQ rights, freedom of expression, and more. While we should celebrate this monumental win, we can't let up."

Great news! The Wisconsin Supreme Court finally struck down an 1849 law that stripped women's rights through a near-total abortion ban. This move protects women's access to medical care and their right to control what happens to their own bodies.
— Rep. Mark Pocan (@pocan.house.gov) July 2, 2025 at 11:58 AM

Lucy Ripp of A Better Wisconsin Together, a progressive research and communications hub affiliated with ProgressNow, responded to the ruling by urging elected Republicans in the state to stop attacking reproductive freedom.

"The Wisconsin Supreme Court's ruling in this case is a historic step forward in protecting and expanding abortion rights in Wisconsin," said Ripp. "We applaud the progressive majority on the court for taking this case and ruling to protect Wisconsinites' right to access abortion care."

"In the face of relentless attacks from Republicans, the vast majority of Wisconsinites have said time and time again that decisions on abortion should be made between a patient and their doctor, not politicians," she declared. "With this new ruling from our state's highest court, it's time for Wisconsin Republicans to stop forcing their way into our exam rooms and finally put an end to their repeated attacks on our access to reproductive healthcare."

The swing state's highest court has attracted national attention in recent years, including with an April election to replace retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who joined Wednesday's majority opinion. This spring, Susan Crawford defeated far-right Brad Schimel, securing liberals' majority until 2028. Crawford is set to be sworn in at the beginning of August.

Because the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision is rooted in state law, SCOTUS cannot reverse it. Reproductive freedom has been restored in Wisconsin … but only for as long as its citizens continue to elect liberal state Supreme Court justices.
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) July 2, 2025 at 9:56 AM

While the Wisconsin Supreme Court just affirmed the right to abortion in the state, access to such care remains at risk, in part due to recent action at the federal level. This week, Republicans in Congress are working to pass President Donald Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which critics call the "Big Ugly Bill" because of provisions including one to "defund" Planned Parenthood by blocking Medicaid payments to abortion providers.

After the U.S. Senate sent the megabill back to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Planned Parenthood Action Fund president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson blasted it as "a backdoor abortion ban," warning that "this bill threatens to close nearly 200 Planned Parenthood health centers and will create devastating gaps in our healthcare infrastructure by putting the full range of reproductive care, like birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing and treatments out of reach for many."

In Wisconsin specifically, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Monday, "it would mean more than half of Planned Parenthood's revenue would vanish. Health centers would close and staff would be laid off, senior leaders have said. And the nearly 1 in 5 Wisconsin residents who are enrolled in Medicaid would no longer be able to receive care at Planned Parenthood."

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New Yorkers Gather To Protest Against War On Iran
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Senate GOP and Fetterman Block Effort to Stop Trump's War on Iran

Nearly all U.S. Senate Republicans and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania on Friday evening blocked a resolution that reiterated Congress' authority to declare war and would have ordered President Donald Trump to stop taking military action against Iran without congressional approval.

Every other member of the Democratic Caucus and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) supported holding a final vote on the resolution—which Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, announced last week, before Trump's weekend bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities.

"We commend Sen. Kaine for his steadfast leadership in bringing this resolution, and the U.S. senators who stood on the right side of history today in safeguarding against yet another senseless war."

Citing the U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973, Kaine's measure states that "the question of whether United States forces should be engaged in hostilities against Iran should be answered following a full briefing to Congress and the American public of the issues at stake, a public debate in Congress, and a congressional vote."

Pointing to various other federal laws, Kaine's resolution "directs the president to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces for hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran or any part of its government or military, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force against Iran."

In a statement after Friday's 47-53 vote, Kaine said that "the Framers of our Constitution gave Congress the power to declare war because they believed that the decision to send our nation's men and women in uniform into harm's way was too big for any one person. The Trump administration's chaotic strategy on Iran confused the American people and created significant risks for service members and their families."

"I am disappointed that many of my colleagues are not willing to stand up and say Congress needs to be part of a decision as important as whether or not the U.S. should send our nation's sons and daughters to fight against Iran," Kaine added. "I will continue to do all I can to keep presidents of any party from starting wars without robust public debate by Congress."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats, was among the lawmakers who spoke in support of Kaine's resolution ahead of the vote. "We do not need another unnecessary and costly war. We have had enough of them," he said on the Senate floor, pointing out that the Vietnam War and the U.S. invasion of Iraq were "based on a series of lies."

"We should not go to war against Iran," Sanders declared. He condemned Trump's recent attack on the Middle Eastern country as "unconstitutional," and argued that "diplomacy is a better path," as demonstrated by the nuclear deal in 2015—which Trump ultimately ditched during his first term.

Sanders also made the case that the U.S. should not be allied with "war criminal" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who started the bombing of Iran and is wanted by the International Criminal Court for his mass slaughter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

"Enough is enough," the senator said, noting that the U.S. gives Netanyahu's government billions of dollars in annual military aid. "It is beyond absurd that we continue to finance Israel's wars while neglecting the needs of our own people."

Meanwhile, in response to a question from a BBC reporter on Friday, Trump said that he would "without question, absolutely" consider bombing Iran again if intelligence suggested the country could enrich uranium to a level that concerned him.

After the Senate vote, National Iranian American Council president Jamal Abdi said that the outcome "says more about the makeup of the Senate than it does the merits of the resolution. Regardless, we saw a near majority do the right thing and stand up against war and for democracy, despite a cavalcade of misinformation from war hawks. We will continue to press the case that war with Iran is against U.S. interests and U.S. security, and redouble our work to prevent the conflict from reigniting."

"We commend Sen. Kaine for his steadfast leadership in bringing this resolution, and the U.S. senators who stood on the right side of history today in safeguarding against yet another senseless war," he continued, noting the cease-fire between Israel and Iran that Trump announced earlier this week.

"Though a cease-fire is holding for now, the most certain way to guarantee peace is through an abandonment of war and a bold pursuit of sincere negotiations," Abdi added. "We urge our Members of Congress to change course, and urgently support a return to U.S.—Iran talks and a diplomatic pathway forward for both countries."

We took an oath to defend the Constitution - just like every Senator. Today, Republicans broke that oath. We WILL hold them accountable. (2/2)
— VoteVets (@votevets.org) June 27, 2025 at 7:09 PM

Also responding to the Friday development in a statement, Demand Progress senior policy adviser Cavan Kharrazian asserted that "today's vote sends a powerful message: There is a bipartisan movement to reject more war in the Middle East and prevent us from being unilaterally dragged into war before Congress and the American people can have their say."

"We thank Sen. Kaine for his leadership and Sen. Paul for his principled vote to stand up for the Constitution," Kharrazian said, urging the House of Representatives to pass a similar resolution led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

Ahead of the Senate's vote, more than 41,000 people nationwide had signed a petition from the progressive group MoveOn Civic Action that calls on Congress to vote for the resolutions in both chambers.

"The current cease-fire is fragile—and the only path to lasting peace is diplomacy, not another cycle of American military escalation," Kharrazian emphasized. "The U.S. must lead with restraint, not repeat the mistakes of endless war."

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