The good:
Instead of letting the Republican Party's Senate leadership wheel and deal with the megabill budget hold-outs, Donald Trump inserted himself — and now has been called out by the editorial board of the conservative Wall Street Journal for his bullying which, it wrote, could put his presidency at risk.
In a late Sunday afternoon editorial, the editors wrote that the president's attacks on Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) are not helping and, in fact, are hampering the prospects of getting a deal done.
On
top of that, they note, driving Tillis to announce he won't run for
re-election could lead to a lost GOP seat in purple North Carolina — and
with it the GOP's slim hold on the Senate.
They wrote that Trump
couldn't leave well enough alone as recalcitrant GOP caucus members
were being wooed by Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune (SD).
The editorial stated, "A common feature of Donald Trump’s
two terms as President is that he can’t stand political prosperity.
When events are going in his direction, he has an uncanny habit of
handing his opponents a sword." The writers added that the Tillis
debacle is a classic example.
Tillis announced his retirement over the weekend after Trump threatened he'd be challenged after expressing doubt about the bill.
According to the editors, Republican control of the Senate is already teetering.
"The
GOP has a 53-47 majority now, but Susan Collins always has a tough race
in Maine if she decides to run again. Democrats are targeting Joni
Ernst in Iowa. In the suicide-isn’t-painless department, Texas Attorney
General Ken Paxton is challenging GOP incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. Mr.
Paxton may be the only Republican who could lose in Texas given his
record of harassing business with lawsuits, impeachment, and other
embarrassments," they reported.
Combined with a possible loss of
the House with its tiny GOP majority, losing the Senate could make for a
dismal two years for the GOP...
While we enjoy seeing the Murdoch- owned WSJ coming to the right conclusion for the wrong reason, the point that the Malignant Fascist's psychopathic narcissism makes it impossible for him to allow for any deviation from absolute obedience -- if not adoration -- to him as cult leader. (See also Musk, "Leon", etc, etc.). It's a huge weakness Democrats need to take advantage of every time it's offered to them.
The bad:
Donald Trump’s administration is on pace to have one of the worst years for deaths in immigrant detention in decades following the recent deaths of a Canadian citizen and a Cuban man in federal custody.
A 75-year-old Cuban man died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week, CBS News reports, citing a notice sent to Congress of the alleged death.
The agency has not publicly disclosed the death yet, though it often announces such fatalities at a delay.
His death would bring the total to at least 12 dead in ICE custody since Trump took office.
At least two of those deaths were suicides.
Critics accuse the administration of allowing conditions to worsen in a sprawling network of overburdened immigration detention centers as the White House pushes to deport millions of migrants in rapid time.
The Independent has contacted ICE and the Cuban foreign ministry for comment.
All
told, 15 people have reportedly died in detention this fiscal year,
which includes the final months of Joe Biden’s administration.
At worst, there were 12 deaths in a single calendar year under the previous three administrations.
At
the current pace, as many as 24 people could be dead by the end of this
calendar year, a staggering figure, though deaths climbed even higher
under George W. Bush, reaching 28 in fiscal year 2004.
Critics
say ICE, in an effort to arrest some 3,000 people a day, is straining
the nation’s capacity to safely house immigrants slated for removal.
More than 56,397 migrants were in immigration detention as of mid-June, or about 140 percent of the agency’s ostensible capacity to hold them...
This is as dark a period in American history as there has ever been. And it's going to get worse.
The ugly:
Senate Republicans restored major Medicaid cuts to Donald Trump’s
signature economic legislation, re-fashioning a key provision to
overcome a procedural obstacle.
Spending cuts to the health insurance program for
the poor and disabled partially offset revenue losses from tax cuts in
the measure and are a crucial demand of GOP fiscal conservatives.
The
revision helps Republicans shore up the spending cuts they need to fund
the bill, but it could also alienate three crucial senators — Susan
Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North
Carolina — who have been pushing to scale back the Medicaid cuts.
Senate
Republican Leader John Thune is trying to navigate competing demands
from conservatives and moderates as he rushes to pass the massive tax
and spending package to meet a July 4 deadline Trump has set for
congressional approval.
The
Senate’s legislative rules-keeper had judged a series of key health
care provisions in the legislation ineligible for a special procedure
Republicans are using to bypass the Senate’s normal process so they can
avoid making concessions to Democrats.
That earlier decision swept aside $250 billion in spending cuts fiscal conservatives had sought.
But
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled acceptable a revised
provision that would limit states’ ability to tax health care providers
to help fund Medicaid, Senate Budget Committee Democrats said in an
email on Sunday...
The reverse-Robin-Hood Republicans are determined to slash Medicaid and SNAP in order to pay for their tax cuts for billionaires. Depending on Murkowski and, especially the duplicitous Collins, to do the right thing is asking more than their tiny souls can likely muster.
