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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.
As Historic Heatwave Grips Europe, Coalition Says 'No to a Climate Law for Polluters'
As yet another dangerous heatwave pushes temperatures well into the triple digits across much of Europe, climate defenders on Monday renewed calls for stronger action to combat the planetary emergency—including by ensuring that the impending European Climate Law ends fossil fuel use and eschews false solutions including international carbon offsetting.
Croatia, France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain are among the countries where near- or record-high temperatures have been recorded. Portugal and Spain both recorded their hottest-ever June days over the weekend. El Granado in southwestern Spain saw the mercury soar to nearly 115°C (46°C) on Saturday. The heatwave is expected to continue into the middle of the week, with authorities warning of elevated wildfire risk and potential severe health impacts.
"Extreme heat is no longer a rare event—it has become the new normal," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Sunday on social media. "I'm experiencing it firsthand in Spain during the Financing for Development Conference. The planet is getting hotter and more dangerous—no country is immune. We need more ambitious #ClimateAction now."
On Monday, Real Zero Europe—"a campaign calling on the European Union to deliver real emissions reductions and real solutions to the climate crisis, instead of corporate greenwashed 'net zero' targets"—published a call for an E.U. Climate Law that does not contain provisions for international carbon offsetting, in which countries or corporations compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions by funding projects that reduce emissions in other nations.
🔴 OUT NOW📢 69 NGOs call on the EU to deliver a Climate Law that rejects international carbon offsetting & Carbon Dioxide Removals (#CDR), commits to a full fossil fuel phase-out, and reflects Europe’s fair share of climate responsibility!Read the statement👇www.realzeroeurope.org/resources/st...
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— Real Zero Europe (@realzeroeurope.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 2:40 AM
A draft proposal of the legislation published Monday by Politico revealed that the European Commission will allow E.U. member states to outsource climate efforts to Global South nations staring in 2036, despite opposition from the 27-nation bloc's independent scientific advisory board. The outsourcing will enable the E.U. to fund emissions-reducing projects in developing nations and apply those reductions to Europe's own 2040 target—which is a 90% net decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels.
The proposal also embraces carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies like carbon capture and storage, whose scalability is unproven. Climate groups call them false solutions that prolong the fossil fuel era.
"E.U. climate policy stands at a crossroads: Will the European Commission propose a climate law that ends fossil fuel use and reflects the E.U.'s fair share of climate responsibility?" the Real Zero Europe letter says. "Or will it choose political convenience—abandoning that goal under pressure from corporate and populist interests, and turning to risky, unjust carbon offsetting and other false solutions?"
"Taking responsibility for the E.U.'s past and present role in causing the climate crisis means doubling down on a just and full fossil fuel phaseout not hiding behind false solutions as currently proposed," the letter continues. "The law as planned will send a dangerous signal far beyond E.U. borders. The climate and biodiversity crises are already harming people, especially vulnerable communities and populations largely in the Global South, who have least contributed to the climate crisis."
The 69 groups stress that international carbon offsetting "is a smokescreen for giving license to fossil fuel use beyond 2050" that diverts critical resources and public funds from real climate solutions and climate finance."
"Given the scale of climate catastrophe, for the E.U. to allow international offsets and technological CDR gives a lifeline to polluting industries such as the fossil fuel, agribusiness, plastics, and petrochemical industries," the letter states.
"We say no to an E.U. Climate Law that puts polluting industries over people and climate by embracing the use of international offsets and CDR approaches," the letter's signers said. "We call on the Commission to deliver an E.U. Climate Law and its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the U.N. climate negotiations that clearly reflects the bloc's responsibility for the climate crisis. That means a full fossil fuel phaseout and a just transition."
This heatwave is brutal. Temperatures above 40°C in June across France, Spain, Italy...We still hear from right-wing politicians that “it’s just summer.” It’s not. This is the climate crisis courtesy of the fossil fuels industry. It’s not normal.
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— European Greens (@europeangreens.eu) June 30, 2025 at 7:01 AM
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also addressed the European heatwave on Monday, saying that "the climate crisis is a human rights crisis."
"Rising temperatures, rising seas, floods, droughts, and wildfires threaten our rights to life, to health, to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and much more," he continued. "The heatwave we are currently experiencing here shows us the importance of adaptation measures, without which human rights would be severely impacted."
"It is equally clear that our current production and consumption patterns are unsustainable, and that renewables are the energy source of the future," Türk asserted. "Production capacity for renewables increased five-fold between 2011 and 2023. What we need now is a roadmap that shows us how to rethink our societies, economies and politics in ways that are equitable and sustainable. That is, a just transition."
"This shift requires an end to the production and use of fossil fuels and other environmentally destructive activities across all sectors—from energy to farming to finance to construction and beyond," he added. "This will be one of the greatest transformations our world has ever seen."
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)."
'We Will Organize Those People,' Anti-Poverty Crusader William Barber Says of Millions Set to Lose Medicaid
Armed with 51 caskets and a new federal analysis, faith leaders and people who would be directly impacted by U.S. President Donald Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill got arrested protesting in Washington, D.C. this week and pledged to organize the millions of Americans set to lose their health insurance under the package.
Citing Capitol Police, The Hill reported Monday that "a total of 38 protestors were arrested, including 24 detained at the intersection of First and East Capitol streets northeast and another 14 arrested in the Capitol Rotunda. Those taken into custody were charged with crowding, obstructing, and incommoding."
The "Moral Monday" action was organized because of the "dangerous and deadly cuts" in the budget reconciliation package, which U.S. Senate Republicans—with help from Vice President JD Vance—sent to the House of Representatives Tuesday and which the lower chamber took up for consideration Wednesday.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the megabill would result in an estimated 17 million Americans becoming uninsured over the next decade: 11.8 million due to the Medicaid cuts, 4.2 million people due to expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits, and another 1 million due to other policies.
"This is policy violence. This is policy murder," Bishop William Barber said at Monday's action, which began outside the U.S. Supreme Court followed by a march to the Capitol. "That's why we brought these caskets today—because in the first year of this bill, as it is, the estimates are that 51,000 people will die."
"If you know that, and still pass it, that's not a mistake," added Barber, noting that Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)—one of three Republican senators who ultimately opposed the bill—had said before the vote that his party was making a mistake on healthcare.
Moral Mondays originated in Tillis' state a dozen years ago, to protest North Carolina Republicans' state-level policymaking, led by Barber, who is not only a bishop but also president of the organization Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
This past Monday, Barber vowed that if federal lawmakers kick millions of Americans off their healthcare with this megabill, "we will organize those people," according to Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).
In partnership with IPS and the Economic Policy Institute, Repairers of the Breach on Monday published The High Moral Stakes of Budget Reconciliation fact sheet, which examines the version of the budget bill previously passed by the House. The document highlights cuts to health coverage, funding for rural hospitals, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The fact sheet also points out that while slashing programs for the poor, the bill would give tax breaks to wealthy individuals and corporations, plus billions of dollars to the Pentagon and Trump's mass deportation effort.
"Instead of inflicting policy violence on the most vulnerable, Congress should harness America's abundant wealth to create a moral economy that works for all of us," the publication asserts. "By fairly taxing the wealthy and big corporations, reducing our bloated military budget, and demilitarizing immigration policy, we could free up more than enough public funds to ensure we can all survive and thrive."
"As our country approaches its 250th anniversary," it concludes, "we have no excuse for not investing our national resources in ways that reflect our Constitutional values: to establish justice, domestic tranquility, real security, and the general welfare for all."
'All Are Now Vulnerable': Legal Scholars Alarmed as DOJ Begins Push to Denaturalize Citizens
As the Trump administration has begun the push to strip citizenship from foreign-born Americans, legal scholars and advocates are calling it a dangerous step toward using citizenship as a political weapon.
On June 11, the U.S. Department of Justice issued an internal memo written by Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate calling on DOJ attorneys to pursue "civil denaturalization" of foreign-born U.S. citizens.
"The Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence," the memo said, adding that it should be among the division's top five priorities.
It suggested a wide variety of citizens who could be targeted for denaturalization. This includes perpetrators of violent offenses like "torture, war crimes, or other human rights violations." But it also targets much broader groups of people such as those "who pose a potential danger to national security" or those who "acquired naturalization through government corruption, fraud, or material misrepresentations."
It also calls for "any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue."
Naureen Shah, director of government affairs for the ACLU's Equality Division, told Common Dreams that "it's another devastating attack by the Trump administration on people who they want to cast as not belonging here."
The memo's vague language has Shah and other legal scholars warning that denaturalization could become a tool to deport political opponents, an effort that would be harder for courts to stop following Friday's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which hamstrung the ability of lower courts to stop illegal actions by the Trump administration using injunctions.
Joyce Vance, a former United States Attorney, who is now a law professor and a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC, warned Tuesday about the possible implications on her blog Civil Discourse:
"It could be exercising First Amendment rights or encouraging diversity in hiring, now recast as fraud against the United States. Troublesome journalists who are naturalized citizens? Students? University professors? Infectious disease doctors who try to reveal the truth about epidemics? Lawyers?" Vance wrote. "All are now vulnerable to the vagaries of an administration that has shown a preference for deporting people without due process and dealing with questions that come up after the fact and with a dismissive tone."
"Anyone could be prioritized," Shah said. "It's really chilling."
Cassandra Robertson, a law professor at Case Western University, told NPR that it was "especially concerning" that the administration would plan to pursue denaturalization through civil court.
"Civil denaturalization cases provide no right to an attorney, meaning defendants without resources often face the government without representation," she wrote in a 2019 study on the history of denaturalization along with her colleague Irina Manta. "There are no jury trials, with judges making citizenship determinations alone. The burden of proof is 'clear and convincing evidence' rather than the criminal standard of 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' Additionally, there is no statute of limitations, allowing the government to build cases on decades-old evidence that may be incomplete or unreliable."
Robertson said Trump's approach mirrors that undertaken during the McCarthy era, when those deemed "un-American" were stripped of citizenship due to their political views.
"At the height of denaturalization, there were about 22,000 cases a year of denaturalization filed, and this was on a smaller population. It was huge," she said.
The Supreme Court stepped in to reel back denaturalization in 1967, determining that, in Robertson's words, it was "inconsistent with the American form of democracy, because it creates two levels of citizenship." After that, the number of denaturalization cases plummeted to the single digits each year. The Trump administration seems to be hoping to reverse that trend.
Republican politicians have not been shy about calling for their political opponents to be stripped of citizenship. Last week, following Zohran Mamdani's shocking victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) called for the Ugandan-born state assemblyman to be stripped of his U.S. citizenship and "deported," referring to him as an "antisemitic, socialist, communist."
Ogles accused Mamdani of failing to disclose his political "affiliations or sympathies" during the process that led him to become a citizen in 2018. He singled out Mamdani's support for the Holy Land Foundation, whose leaders were convicted in a widely criticized "terrorism financing" case in 2008. Notably, the leaders of the group were never accused of directly funding terrorist groups or terrorist acts.
On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about Ogles' call to deport Mamdani, and she did not shoot down the idea.
"I have not seen those claims, but surely if they are true, it's something that should be investigated," Leavitt said.
It was not the first time Republicans have called to deport leaders in the other party explicitly for their political views.
In June, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier called for the Trump administration to "deport and denaturalize" Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia, after she criticized President Donald Trump's deployment of the military to quash protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Los Angeles.
The Trump administration has already targeted lawful immigrants with deportation purely for their political views. In March, the administration abducted and attempted to deport pro-Palestine student activist Mahmoud Khalil, explicitly because he was a "threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States," similar language to what the DOJ now says is justification for denaturalization. The administration has also attempted to deport others, like Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk, for as little as co-writing an op-ed calling on her university to divest from Israel.
"The way the memo is written, there is no guarantee DOJ will pursue cases against violent criminals," Vance said. "They could just do easy cases to ratchet up numbers, like we're seeing with deportation. Or they could target people who, they view as troublemakers."
There are more than 25 million people in the United States who are naturalized citizens.
"They should not have to live in fear that they'll lose their rights," Shah said.
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."
NYT Runs Hit Piece on Mamdani Based on Tip From Proponent of 'Race Science'
Reports from multiple outlets show the Times is vastly underselling its source's extreme views on race.
The New York Times on Thursday published a story questioning New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's past statements about his racial background based on a tip it received from a proponent of "race science."
The Times piece in question focused on Mamdani's college application to Columbia University in which he listed both "Asian" and "Black or African American" as his race.
Although both of Mamdani's parents are of Indian descent, he was born in the African country of Uganda and lived there for the first five years of his life. Mamdani told the Times that he checked the box on the application for "Black or African American" because he considers himself an American who was born in Africa. He emphasized that he does not identify as Black and argued that he found it difficult to express the complexity of his racial background given the options on the application.
However, what is stirring controversy about the Times piece isn't so much its content but the source of its information. The Times acknowledges that the information on Mamdani was culled from a large hack of a Columbia database and that it received a copy of Mamdani's application from "an intermediary who goes by the name Crémieux on Substack and X," whom it describes as "an academic who opposes affirmative action and writes often about I.Q. and race."
A report from The Guardian's Jason Wilson published earlier this year shows that the Times is vastly underselling its source's extreme views on race. As Wilson documented, the "Crémieux" cited by the Times is a man named Jordan Lasker, whose writings regularly defend the work of "race scientists" who use I.Q. test results to argue that Black people are mentally inferior to other races.
"Crémieux runs a Substack also featuring posts on the supposed relationships between race and I.Q.," Wilson explained. "A prominently featured post there seeks to defend the argument that average national IQs vary by up to 40 points, with countries in Europe, North America, and East Asia at the high end and countries in the global south at the low end, and several African countries purportedly having average national IQs at a level that experts associate with mental impairment."
Another report from Talking Points Memo's Hunter Walker found that Lasker has regularly posted about a racial "I.Q. gap" and has even suggested that there are "genetic pathways of crime." On his X account, Lasker has mused about the differences in brain sizes between Black and white Americans and between women and men more generally.
Brandon McEuen, a historian at Wayne State University who specializes in teaching about the history of the eugenics movement, slammed the Times for not only relying on Lasker as its source for the story on Mamdani but also for granting him anonymity.
"The decision to keep Lasker anonymous is ridiculous since his name has already been published in other outlets that don't provide softballs for eugenicists," he wrote on his Bluesky account.
Supreme Court OKs Trump 'Third Country' Deportation of Men Held in Desert Shipping Container
Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in a dissent to a previous ruling on the case that the decision exposes "thousands to the risk of torture or death."
The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the Trump administration to send eight men deported from the United States and currently in limbo on a U.S. military base in Djibouti to South Sudan, where only one of the deportees is from, under a policy of fast-tracking deportations to third countries.
In an apparent 7-2 unsigned decision, with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting, the high court lifted an order from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy blocking the deportation of the men—who are originally from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, South Korea, South Sudan, and Vietnam—to war-torn South Sudan, one of the world's most dangerous countries.
NEW: The U.S. Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to send people subject to deportation to countries they have no connection with that are so dangerous the Trump administration advises Americans not to travel there. The case involves eight men the Trump regime wants to send to South Sudan.
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— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 2:29 PM
The men, who have all been convicted of serious crimes in the United States, have been detained for six weeks at Camp Lemonnier, a U.S. base in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. They have been nearly constantly shackled and are under constant guard in a shipping container. The container reportedly is equipped with air conditioning.
Neither the United States nor South Sudan has explained what will happen to the men upon their arrival in the East African nation.
Last month, the Supreme Court temporarily lifted Murphy's preliminary injunction, which had enabled migrants to file claims of persecution before their deportation to counties where they have no ties in a highly controversial process called third-country removal.
Dissenting in that ruling, Sotomayor wrote that the ruling exposes "thousands to the risk of torture or death."
The administration then accused Murphy of defying the high court's ruling by insisting that the eight men still could not be sent to South Sudan and asked the justices for the clarification that came with Thursday's decision.
"They're now subject to imminent deportation to war torn South Sudan, a place where they have no ties and where it is possible, if not probable, that they will be arrested and detained upon arrival," Trina Realmuto, an attorney for the men, told Politico Thursday. "This ruling is condoning lawlessness."
Outrage Pours in After House GOP Approves 'One of the Most Catastrophic Bills Passed in Modern History'
Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar called the Republican budget package "one of the most cruel, immoral pieces of legislation that Congress has ever voted on."
House Republicans on Thursday put the final stamp of approval on budget legislation that will inflict devastating cuts on Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, clean energy initiatives, and other programs to help finance another round of tax breaks for the rich—an unparalleled upward transfer of wealth that's expected to have cascading effects across the United States for years to come.
The sprawling legislation passed in a mostly party-line vote, with just two House Republicans—Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)—joining every Democrat in opposition to the bill, which now heads to President Donald Trump's desk.
Following the 218-214 vote, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) called the reconciliation package "one of the most cruel, immoral pieces of legislation that Congress has ever voted on."
"Not only did this bill get worse from the last time the House voted on it, it will be remembered as one of the most catastrophic bills passed in modern history," said Omar.
The following is a sample of reactions from lawmakers and advocacy groups decrying the legislation's attacks on healthcare, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, reproductive rights, the climate, and more.
A Tax Giveaway to the Ultra-Rich and Corporations at the Expense of Working People
People take part in a protest against the Republican tax bill in Los Angeles, California on December 4, 2017. Democrats and many economists warn that the GOP tax plan gives large tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy and will hurt middle class families. (Photo by Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
April Verrett, president of SEIU:
What the Republicans just did. It's outrageous, it's despicable, it's immoral, itss anti-American. But SEIU members won't forget. We will never forget that children will go hungry because of what they've done.
We will never forget that people will suffer because of what they've done. And why? For the biggest steal of taxpayer money, of working people’s money – not just poor people, but senior citizens. Every American will feel the repercussions of this horrible bill, but we won't forget and we will get our just due.
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution:
"Republicans have passed the most dangerous legislation of our lifetimes. This bill hands billionaires and corporations a trillion-dollar tax break, paid for by ripping health care from 17 million people, gutting funding for rural hospitals, slashing clean energy investments, and cutting food assistance for millions of children.
"This reckless sellout to the billionaire class will trigger the largest transfer of wealth from working- and middle-class Americans to the ultra-wealthy in our nation’s history. This isn't just bad policy — it's a moral failure that will cost an untold number of lives. Every lawmaker who voted for this shameful legislation must be held accountable at the ballot box."
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen:
"Trump and Congressional Republicans have certainly delivered for the billionaire class.
"There are 800 billionaires in the United States and 12 100-billionaires. They don’t need any financial help. But that’s precisely what Trump and Congressional Republicans have done, with a monstrosity of a bill that may constitute the single biggest upward transfer of wealth in American history."
Amy Hanauer, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy:
This abominable bill will make history—in appalling ways. Never before has legislation taken so much from struggling families to give so much to the richest. It makes the biggest cuts to food aid for hungry families, executes the largest cuts to health care ever, adds trillions to the national debt – all to give $117 billion to the richest 1 percent in a single year. It’s no wonder that this bill is also extremely unpopular. Historians – and voters – will look back at this as a dark day in U.S. history.
David Kass, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness:
This bill represents a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the top 1%. It enacts the largest Medicaid and SNAP cuts in history while adding over $3 trillion to the national debt. Furthermore it makes the tax code more complex with new special interest tax breaks and handouts to the ultra wealthy. In the coming years, Democrats must prioritize repealing and replacing these disastrous policies to protect American families from rising costs and loss of healthcare coverage. We need to create a truly fair tax system and an economy that works for all Americans, not just the wealthy few.
A Historic Blow to Medicaid, SNAP, Social Security, and other Anti-Poverty Programs
Care workers with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) participate in a living cemetery protest to denounce the impact to patients, families and workers if Republicans cut Medicaid, healthcare and SNAP to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy at the US Capitol June 23, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for SEIU)
Bishop William Barber, co-founder Repairers of the Breach:
Today, Congress passed one of the most morally-bankrupt pieces of legislation in our nation’s history. This big ugly bill is the largest cut to healthcare and food assistance for children in our nation’s history, and it funds a war on immigrant communities. All the while, the bill gives tax breaks to the wealthiest among us—on the backs of our most vulnerable neighbors.
By passing this bill, lawmakers have officially codified the deaths of thousands of people. It’s policy murder in plain sight.”
Many of the people who passed this bill also consistently profess to be led by religious values. There is no religion that supports the degradation of humans. Policymakers can’t just claim their religious values in one breath, and then turn around and approve legislation that’s guaranteed to kill people.
The passage of this bill is deadly, but it is not a defeat. We must meet it with a resurrection. We will organize voters in every impacted community to push legislators who voted for this bill out of office and build a movement together that can reconstruct our democracy.
Americans for Tax Fairness:
Today, President Trump and his billionaire-backed Republican-controlled Congress successfully passed their reconciliation bill, passing the largest cuts in Medicaid and SNAP history while slashing billions from other essential programs to fund massive tax giveaways for billionaires and large corporations. The bill will raise average Americans’ costs by causing 17 million Americans to lose their health insurance and 2 million to lose access to food assistance. Throughout the opaque legislative process, the Republican majority in both houses didn’t hold a single hearing on their legislative proposals, and forced their members to vote under the cover of night and during weekend sessions, reflecting the GOP majority’s pattern of minimizing public attention to a wildly unpopular legislative package.Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans:
Today, the House turned its back on the very people they were elected to serve. This bill isn't about lowering prices or helping everyday Americans — it’s about lining the pockets of billionaires and big corporations while ripping away essential health care and support from seniors, people with disabilities, and working families.
Congressional Republicans have just voted for tax giveaways for the wealthy while throwing millions of people off of Medicaid, slashing half a trillion dollars from Medicare, and driving hundreds of nursing homes and local hospitals into crisis. All of this will make it harder for older Americans to get the health care they need at a price they can afford.
To add insult to injury, this bill hastens the depletion of the Social Security Trust Fund's reserves by one year. It's a slap in the face to every family who paid into Social Security and Medicare over a lifetime of work.
We will not forget how our representatives voted today. We will make sure every older American knows what is in this legislation — and who to hold accountable for this debacle.
Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US:
Today's party-line vote by House Republicans to rip healthcare away and raise grocery costs for tens of millions of Americans is as devastating as it is enraging. For months, a decisive number of House Republicans voiced their concerns, acknowledging that this bill would make people poorer and sicker, only to vote in favor of this bill. It’s a cruel betrayal and proof positive you cannot trust career politicians who will put their interests over those of their own constituents' health care and wallets.
Bobby Mukkamala, M.D., president of the American Medical Association (AMA):
Today is a sad and unnecessarily harmful day for patients and health care across the country, and its impact will reverberate for years. Care will be less accessible, and patients may simply forego seeing their physician because the lifelines of Medicaid and CHIP are severed.
This is bad for my patients in Flint, Michigan, and it is devastating for the estimated 11.8 million people who will have no health insurance coverage as a result of this bill.
The American Medical Association’s mission is promoting the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health. This bill moves us in the wrong direction. It will make it harder to access care and make patients sicker. It will make it more likely that acute, treatable illnesses will turn into life-threatening or costly chronic conditions. That is disappointing, maddening, and unacceptable.
Max Richtman, president & CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare:
In enacting President Trump’s ‘Unfair, Ugly Bill,’ House Republicans have voted to rip health coverage away from as many as 16 million Americans and food assistance from millions more. Make no mistake, the deepest cuts in history to Medicaid and SNAP will devastate older Americans who depend on both programs for health coverage, long-term care, and nutrition. 7.2 million seniors are dually enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid; 6.5 million rely on SNAP benefits to stay healthy and make ends meet. The bill could even trigger automatic cuts to Medicare down the road.
These beneficiaries are some of the most vulnerable members of our society — and Republicans have put them at risk in order to pay for another tax cut mainly for the rich. Republicans have passed this mean-spirited legislation with little regard for public opinion or well-being. Recent polling suggests that Americans who know about the bill are against it 2 to 1. No matter. Republicans are enacting a craven agenda to shower their wealthy donors with tax cuts at the expense of seniors and lower-income Americans.
This bill has rightly been called ‘downright regressive and cruel’ — and ‘the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in U.S. history.’ President Trump was planning to sign the bill on July 4th. We can’t think of anything LESS patriotic than depriving millions of Americans of health coverage to further enrich the already wealthy. This is not responsible leadership. It’s just the opposite. Make no mistake: older Americans and their advocates WILL NOT FORGET. Republicans will be held accountable — now and during the 2026 elections. If our response were boiled down to one word, it simply would be SHAME!
National Nurses United:
This is among the darkest days in the history of U.S. health care. People will suffer and die because of the cuts in this legislation to fund tax cuts for billionaires — certainly in the short term and potentially for decades to come if nothing is done. The policy goal here is clear: Take away everyday people’s health care coverage. Every politician who supports this legislation has blood on their hands and only themselves to blame when the impacts of these cuts devastate a health care system already in a near-constant state of crisis. These cuts will hurt these lawmakers’ constituents, our patients, who are already dealing with a broken health care system.
Lawmakers have effectively signed the death warrants for millions today. It will steal money from safety-net community hospitals and reproductive health care clinics, like Planned Parenthood. It will kick people off their health insurance. It will effectively punish people for getting sick or injured, making us all sicker and less healthy.
While we will only understand the larger impacts of this law as they unfold, experts have made clear that the potential is devastating: Millions will lose insurance coverage, and hundreds of hospitals will see critical hits to their funding. Meanwhile, the rich will get richer.
A Gut Punch to Environmental Protections, Clean Energy, and the Effort to Confront the Climate Crisis
Protestors hold up a sign reading "Trump Climate Disaster" as they demonstrate during a rally opposing the inauguration of the 47th US President Donald Trump, outside Downing Street on January 20, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
Beth Lowell, Oceana vice president for the United States:
“Thriving and abundant oceans should not be bargaining chips at the Congressional table. This big, terrible bill is the worst environmental legislation in American history, unraveling safeguards and investments that Americans — and coastal economies — rely on and need. This disastrous bill would require the largest expansion of offshore oil and gas lease sales by area ever in the United States. We should be protecting our coasts and oceans, not opening the floodgates to more offshore drilling and increasing the risk of dangerous oil spills.”
Manish Bapna, president of NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):
Every lawmaker who voted for this cynical measure chose tax cuts for the wealthiest over Americans' health, pocketbooks, public lands and waters -- and a safe climate. They should be ashamed.
This measure gives the wealthiest a tax break while the rest of us will pay more on our electric bills and at the pump. So much for President Trump's promise to save Americans money on their energy bills.
This Trump energy tax will cost electricity customers billions of dollars in higher bills. Drivers will need to fill up more often at the pump. And costs for things like cleaner cars, solar energy and efficient air conditioners will skyrocket.
We urgently need more clean, affordable energy, but this measure would bring the renaissance in American clean energy production to a halt and send good, domestic manufacturing jobs to our foreign rivals.
Oil executives, industrial loggers and coal CEOs can all celebrate today as they gain unprecedented access to drill, log and mine on our public lands. The rest of us will soon find no trespassing signs on lands that have belonged to all of us for more than a century.
John Noël, Greenpeace USA deputy climate program director:
This is a vote that will live in infamy. This bill is what happens when a major political party, in the grips of a personality cult, teams up with oil company CEOs, hedge fund donors, and climate deniers. All you need to do is look at who benefits from actively undercutting the clean energy industry that is creating tens of thousands of jobs across political geographies.
The megabill isn’t about reform—it's about rewarding the super rich and doling out fossil fuel industry handouts, all while dismantling the social safety nets on which millions depend for stability. It is a bet against the future.
Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club:
"This is a sad and scary day for all who work to build up our communities, care for our friends and neighbors, and wish to leave this planet in a better place for future generations. Instead of working to make life better for American families and communities, what Donald Trump and his loyalists in Congress have delivered today will mean higher energy costs for working families and small businesses, the end of life-saving health care that millions rely on, and ceding the race to build the clean energy economy of tomorrow to China. Trump and Congressional Republicans have advanced the most anti-environment, anti-job, and anti-American bill in history. The Sierra Club will not forget it. America will not forget it.
Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists:
Our country will be paying the price for these reckless policies for decades to come.
In passing this bill, lawmakers repeatedly overrode the needs and interests of their constituents. When benefits are lost, when energy prices spike, when major clean energy and clean transportation investments are canceled, when jobs are cut, when climate-exacerbated extreme weather disasters hit, people should know who they have to thank.
This bill is a damning indictment of Congress' priorities and values. Our country needs policymakers willing to confront the challenges of our time and fight for a better tomorrow, not sell out America for the benefit of a few.
An Assault on Reproductive Freedom and Health
Women hold signs during a protest against recently passed abortion ban bills at the Georgia State Capitol building, on May 21, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)
Kelly Baden, vice president for public policy at the Guttmacher Institute:
The reconciliation bill is a sweeping attack on the health, rights and autonomy of millions of people across the country. It would strip health coverage from those who need it most, gut access to reproductive health care, and impose dangerous restrictions that disproportionately harm low-income communities, people of color, and those already facing systemic barriers to care."
One of the most egregious provisions in the bill would block Planned Parenthood and other providers of abortion care from receiving Medicaid reimbursement for contraceptive services and other care for an entire year. This politically motivated exclusion could force one in three Planned Parenthood health centers to close their doors, cutting off access to contraception, STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings and abortion care for countless patients. These are not just numbers—these are real people whose lives and futures are being put at risk.
On top of that, the bill’s broader Medicaid cuts represent a direct attack on the health and economic security of people with low incomes. Medicaid is not a luxury—it’s a lifeline. It ensures access to essential care, including sexual and reproductive health services, for millions of people. Slashing this program to finance tax cuts for the wealthy is not just wrong—it’s cruel.
Let’s be clear: this bill is about advancing an extreme ideological agenda that prioritizes control over compassion, and politics over public health.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America:
The reconciliation bill is a targeted attack on Planned Parenthood health centers and patients that cannot stand. Everyone deserves access to high-quality, affordable health care. That’s what we’ve been fighting for the last century — and we’ll never stop. We’ll be suing the Trump administration to stop this unlawful attack. See you in court.
Dr. Jamila Perritt, Physicians for Reproductive Health president and CEO:
Federal programs like Medicaid, CHIP, SNAP, as well as funding for full spectrum sexual and reproductive health care are all left at the mercy of cowardly, out of touch lawmakers who value junk science over the evidence-based practices that keep our communities safe. Limitations on these essential programs will have horrible consequences for tens of millions of people and for our entire health care landscape. In contrast of its name, this bill is one of the ugliest actions we have seen from the Trump Administration to date.
Only six months into a second Trump term, we have seen Title X funding be stripped away, the continued criminalization of those seeking lifesaving health care like abortion, as well as politically motivated attacks on those in support of full spectrum sexual and reproductive health care. This is not a coincidence – it is intentional. This is not, nor has it ever been acceptable.
Progressive Lawmakers Weigh In
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) speaks during the Hands Off! day of action against the Trump administration and Elon Musk on April 05, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Community Change Action)
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.):
Because my Republican colleagues cowered to special interests and their billionaire donors, 17 million Americans will lose their health coverage. This passage could cause 50,000 Americans to die each year because Republicans shamefully voted to kick millions off Medicaid and failed to extend the premium tax credits in the Affordable Care Act. It will also increase healthcare costs and endanger access to care for all Americans. Rural hospitals will be forced to shut down. Nursing homes and community health centers will be gravely impacted.
This bill is the biggest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in history. While working people will be devastated, billionaires will receive massive tax cuts. Not only are the tax cuts permanent for the ultra-wealthy, any benefit to low-income families is only temporary. It will deepen the wealth and income inequality gap.
In poll after poll, the American people are clear in their disdain for this bill. From cuts to nutrition assistance to increasing the cost of college to higher utility bills – the American people are clear-eyed in opposing it. Donald Trump and Republicans know this, which is why they rammed this bill through. Every single American will remember who chose to side with billionaires instead of working people.
This bill is morally bankrupt and an attack on working people. For those reasons, I voted NO.”
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas):
"This bill is a betrayal of working Americans. So that billionaires can buy bigger yachts, millions of working people will be unable to afford to go to the doctor, put food on the table, or keep the lights on.
For years, Washington Republicans have talked a big game about becoming the party of working people. This vote should be the final nail in the coffin of that idea. In the end, Washington Republicans will simply betray the working class people they won over in the last election. They've done what they always do: take from the working class to give to the rich.
As Democrats, we must make sure they never live that down."
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.):
"This bill is an act of violence against our communities. At a time of extreme income and wealth inequality, while 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, this budget is absolutely devastating for the working families we represent."
Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.):
"Republicans just passed one of the most harmful bills in modern history that will devastate our communities for years to come."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.):
"Republicans in the House just cheered as they voted to kick 17 million people off their healthcare."
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.):
"I don't think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ICE. This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion—making ICE bigger than the FBI, U.S. Bureau of Prisons, DEA, and others combined. It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child's play. And people are disappearing."
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.):
"Republicans have passed a bill that will be a death sentence—denying millions medical care, denying children food, and violently deporting immigrant families to destabilized countries. This is unforgivable."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.):
"Republicans passed Trump's Big Bad Betrayal Bill to kick 17 million Americans off their healthcare for a billionaire tax cut. Cruel, horrifying, and outrageous. But we must not lose hope. Democrats will not only fight back—we'll fight forward, press on, and justice will be won."
Rep. Becca Ballint (D-Vt.):
"The House shamefully passed Trump’s big ugly, horrific, terrible bill that will leave 17 million people without health insurance. I, like every Democrat, voted HELL NO. People are going to suffer. I'm horrified that Congress would pass such a harmful piece of legislation."
"I never want to hear a Republican say they care about 'fiscal responsibility' ever again. This bill is the largest increase in our national debt in history."
Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.):
House Republicans just passed Trump's evil, Big Ugly Budget. They caved, voting to take health care away from 17 million people, slash food aid, and rob the poor to reward the ultrarich. It's the largest transfer of wealth from the working class to billionaires in history. This is a dark day in America and a shameful betrayal to those we serve. Our people deserve better and I will always fight like hell to get it. The fight continues.
Turbo-charging Trump's Mass Deportation Machine and Anti-Immigrant Agenda
California National Guard stands guard as protesters clash with law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles at the Metropolitan Detention Center due to the immigration raids roil L.A. on Sunday, June 8, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Joanna Kuebler, chief of programs at America’s Voice:
Americans are already recoiling against the harm done by this administration's deportation agenda—the masked ICE agents running amok; the industries and small businesses worried about their future viability; the fear spreading in American communities and the separations tearing apart American families.
Sadly, we fear it will get all the worse with the new and unprecedented infusion of tens of billions of dollars for Stephen Miller to fully scale the personal mass deportation crusade he’s dreamed about since his teenage years. Earlier this week, Vice President JD Vance admitted that slashing Medicaid, the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the fiscal recklessness and all of the other unpopular and damaging provisions of this bill were 'immaterial' compared to the ICE and immigration enforcement money.
Yet Stephen Miller's and MAGA's dreams are most Americans' nightmares. Turbocharging mass deportation endangers our economy, our families, our communities, and our history as a nation of immigrants.
Roots Action:
The expansion of fascism is here:
- $74.9 billion for ICE detention and removal
- $65.6 billion for CBP infrastructure, hiring, tech
- $10 billion DHS slush fund
- $3.5 billion for state enforcementAnd more!
Hamilton Nolan, independent journalist :
This bill contains enough money to build a new system of immigration detention centers far bigger than the entire federal prison system. The American Immigration Council says that it will be enough to facilitate the “daily detention of at least 116,000 non-citizens.” It will let ICE hire more field agents than the FBI. Its $170 billion in funding for Stephen Miller’s rabid campaign to purge America of brown people is comparable to the total annual funding for the United States Army.
Donald Trump envisions himself as an all-powerful leader whose will is equal to law. He is bent on revenge against his political enemies. He has installed extreme loyalists in the Justice Department, the FBI, the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and all other security departments. The courts have declined to meaningfully restrain his abuses of these departments. This budget will give him the final piece of the puzzle that he needs to achieve his fever dream: a nationwide army of masked, unaccountable armed agents empowered to snatch anyone they like off the streets, and the physical infrastructure to imprison or deport those people at will. Thousands of men with guns, unrestrained by judges or local police, who do not answer to Congress, who point guns at the press, who arrest whoever they want, for reasons they do not share, and do whatever they wish with those people. The implications of this are going to make America a much darker place.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, American Immigration Council senior fellow:
With this vote, Congress makes ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in history, with more money per year at its disposal over the next four years than the budgets of the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals, and Bureau of Prisons combined.
Astra Taylor, author and Strike Debt co-founder:
The debt, deportation, and death bill has passed. Congress further decimates care work to fund violence work. ICE becomes the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency ever known. It hasn’t been sold this way, but it’s a massive public jobs program for fascists.
Uzra Zeya, CEO of Human Rights First:
“As millions of Americans lose access to health insurance, this bill forks over more than $150 billion to supercharge the policies of grave harm we've seen these past six months. It will fund more disappearances of people seeking asylum in our country, more masked agents in our courtrooms and neighborhoods to detain and manhandle those following the rules to be here, and more prisons where families, including infants, can now be incarcerated indefinitely due to this Big, Ugly, Betrayal of a bill."