Senate Parliamentarian Deals Huge Blow To Critical Part Of GOP’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’
WASHINGTON – The Senate parliamentarian said that major Medicaid cuts in the GOP’s massive tax and spending package violate the chamber’s rules — a big setback for President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.
Republicans already were having big disagreements over the Medicaid provisions of their so-called Big Beautiful Bill, and the parliamentarian’s ruling threatens to blow up the legislation altogether.
The core of the bill is a package of tax cuts costing around $4 trillion financed in part by about $1 trillion in spending cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The Senate’s in-house rules expert has now thrown the cuts into doubt, potentially making it even harder for Republicans to claim the legislation is fiscally responsible.
The rulings announced Thursday morning by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who has led Democrats’ challenges to the bill’s provisions in closed-door meetings with the parliamentarian, concern cuts to Medicaid funding for states that cover noncitizens, a ban on gender-affirming care in the Children’s Health Insurance Program and a limit on “provider taxes” states use to finance their portion of Medicaid spending.
“Democrats are fighting back against Republicans’ plans to gut Medicaid, dismantle the Affordable Care Act, and kick kids, veterans, seniors, and folks with disabilities off of their health insurance — all to fund tax breaks for billionaires,” Merkley said in a statement. [continues]
Attribution: Dave Whamond
[Dave Whamonds work has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, Readers Digest and many more. He has won 7 Silver Reubens from the National Cartoonists Society and several book awards. Dave has written and/or illustrated over 50 books and his syndicated comic, “Reality Check”, has appeared in newspapers since 1995.]
BTW Joe’s Build Back Better bill also had a hard go with the opposition and with the same parliamentarian.
073bba9f-758a-4d4a-929a-1fc6ce8e5f44-Sunday_toon_1010
good explanation by Schiff of how the medicaid part of the BBB (if left in bill) would affect most of us, particularly and devastatingly to those of us in rural areas. mine specifically would have to close according to last night’s news about likely closure of 35 KY hospitals due to DODO’s bill.
If Republicans get their way, it might be. Let’s break it down.
flyover country health care if DODO gets his way
OIP
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/24/upshot/reconciliation-byrd-bath.html
in other news
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/06/26/mystery-trump-tv-sculpture-national-mall/
I had a hawk buddy oncet.
I called him the anti-duck.
So another Trump attorney has been disbarred. This time it’s Kenneth Chesebro, and he was disbarred in New York for the fake collector plot. He was involved in there. Only the best.
Chesebro – The Hill
It’s a shame there’s no similar mechanism regarding the presidency.
Eagles, hawks (and owls) are prayer messengers in Native Cultures. 🦉
Bigger Brutal Bill.
Rural hospitals in Alabama fell down ten years ago. Nobody cared.
CHECK IT OUT
Library Book Ban Protesters Banned
A First Amendment Double Header
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/06/26/congress/five-house-republicans-declare-red-line-on-land-sales-in-megabill-00428521
Five House Republicans on Thursday threatened to vote down the GOP megabill if the Senate includes a provision to sell public lands for development.
The move comes after Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) sought to include those sales in the bill, and this week revised and narrowed his proposal after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that his initial language did not comply with the strict rules governing measures that can be included in party-line reconciliation bills.
“If a provision to sell public lands is in the bill that reaches the House floor, we will be forced to vote no.”
Zinke — who served as Interior secretary in the first Trump administration — was joined by Reps. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.) and David Valadao (R-Calif.), all of whom represent Western states with large federal land holdings. Opposition from five House members would be enough to sink the bill in the lower chamber.
*Right now, we have five. We only need four to dump the garbage bill.
Message for the guy getting married in Venice today: You’re starting to look impolite.
Only been dealing with the Sagebrush Rebellion for 50 years or so
OK, I’ve called my two, Republican Senators this morning. Have you made yourself heard today? 202-224-3121
Yes, Jamie. Even if they leave it out of the big, beautiful betray bill, they could still try to pass something separately. But, right now it’s enough to sink the whole stinking thing if they leave in the selling off of public lands.
One more sticking point in the bill:
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5372093-parliamentarian-requests-rewrite-ai-provision/
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has asked Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to rewrite the controversial artificial intelligence (AI) provision in President Trump’s tax package, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) told reporters.
Under its current language, the provision bans states from regulating AI models and systems if they want access to $500 million in AI infrastructure and deployment in federal funding.
Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process to advance Trump’s legislative agenda while averting the Senate filibuster. To do this, the Senate parliamentarian’s approval of the provisions is needed for a simple majority vote.
Despite the previous changes to the language, the provision is expected to receive pushback from a handful of Republicans.
Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.) told The Hill they are against the provision, while Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said he is willing to introduce an amendment to eliminate the provision during the Senate’s marathon vote-a-rama if it is not taken out earlier.
Some Republicans in the House are also coming out against the measure as a way to advocate for states’ rights.
*This piece of trash (the one in the bill, not Cruz) would prohibit ANY regulation of AI for ten years.
today’s meme…
meme #2…
https://www.newsweek.com/china-trump-trade-deal-2091451
While the rare earths agreement marks progress, multiple long-standing trade conflicts between the U.S. and China remain unresolved.
These include tariff levels on hundreds of billions of dollars in goods, disputes over intellectual property protection, and concerns around technology transfer and forced joint ventures involving U.S. companies in China.
BTW… I feed birds all year long. I do take the bird feeders down at dusk and put them in our garage at this time of year… we get bears. We occasionally get hawks that will occasionally get mourning doves.
My favorite bird is my avatar…. Rose breasted Grosbeak. They come every year during the first week of May and then will fly further south around mid-August. I also love woodpeckers.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/26/trump-trade-tariffs-deadline.html
President Donald Trump could extend looming deadlines for reimposing steep tariffs on imports from most of the world’s countries, the White House said Thursday.
Trump’s July 8 and 9 deadlines for restarting tariffs on those nations are “not critical,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
*Because the big, bad bill may not get passed by July4th.
RR – You’d love this property. All of the above, plus cardinals, bluebirds, oriels, meadowlarks, killdeer, robins, etc. A hawk nest in the front yard, and when juvenile hawks start flying, they are about the size of robins. I’m guessing they got the baby cardinals out back. They eat bugs, but there’s a feeder up, too, and a hummingbird feeder.
SCOTUS 6-3
FFS!
An EO can change the way A 14 is handled without changing it.
Bigger thing: Federal judges are made impotent.
Deport Barron, Eric, Don Jr., and Ivanker. Only Tiffany was born to two, US citizens.
Clarence Thomas will be the only person of color permitted
i’m supposed to be nice to trumpers today, right? So we can build a coalition, right? 😒
i think i’ll hate them all forever instead
5.6-3
original intent
we knew how they were going to rule, we didn’t need to wait for the decision
ok, thanks for wildlife tales, nice-looking hawk buddy Mr. S 😎
✌️
Cutting Medicaid stalls, for now
Bad start from SCROTUS on a Friday morning. Trump v. CASA, Inc. But note – the days of Rs running to Judge Kazmarek in Texas to get nationwide injunctions on social issues and things like2nd Amendment challenges would also be curtailed by application of the ruling. However, at first glance it appears the cases go back to the same judges that issued the challenged injunctions to weigh likelihood of success of plaintiffs against irreparable harm to the government.
Republicans: demonizing Muslims while implementing Sharia Law
nice job, trumpers
…sorry, wasn’t here 🏃
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/27/florida-alligator-alcatraz-migrant-jail-outrage
Alligator Alcatraz
Paid for by Florida taxpayers and homeland security department funds, the project came about after the state seized the 39-square-mile site from its owners, Miami-Dade county, under emergency powers enacted by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. It now faces staunch opposition from an alliance of groups.
These groups say housing up to 5,000 detainees in tents in the heat and humidity of the Florida summer, at a site surrounded by marshes and wetlands containing alligators, Burmese pythons and swarms of mosquitoes, amounts to inhumane treatment.
“There’s no way in and no way out. The perimeter’s already set by Mother Nature. People get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than pythons and alligators.”
The airfield’s 11,000ft runway, he said, was perfect for large planes bringing in scores of undocumented persons detained by Ice from all over the US.
https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-rebukes-ketanji-brown-jacksons-extreme-opinion-2091676
“We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary,” she wrote. -Amy Phony Barrett
***
“It is not difficult to predict how this all ends. Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional Republic will be no more.”
“No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates. Today the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship,” Sotomayor wrote, adding that “with the stroke of a pen, the President has made a solemn mockery of our Constitution.” KBJ
It’s called White Sharia
“imperial judiciary” doesn’t even make sense
Pog, i totally agree with your “But note” above. I didn’t like it when lower court judges did this to Biden and Obama—many times. Now that Trump is filling those benches with nut jobs it might be a good thing to curtail their power for the future.
Oh, why don’t they just say it……they want to start burning people publicly again.
Who they tryin to bullshit…….
The last time they were able to they were killing too many people to afford the bullets to gun then down effectively so they naturally had to develop more effective ways to murder large numbers of people. Like cramming them into trucks and piping the exhaust into the back , then they’d just drive around until the people in back expired—but gasoline was expensive.
So obviously they welcomed the advent of the poison gas as it made mass murder SO much more efficient.
That was last time. Now it’s this time. Same old soup just a different bone.
Poobah, it’s a bit of a mixed bag decision. The problem I have with it is that injunctions, which are equitable in nature, are generally limited to providing relief to the parties in the case before whichever court. They are not adequate historically to deal with laws or executive orders that have nationwide effect and impact constitutional rights. Just noodling here, but there needs to be a mechanism that allows enjoining the operation of such broad-sweeping actions that doesn’t require bringing a class action suit naming a nationwide class of folks impacted whose rights will be restricted by operation of and injunction, but aren’t protected by an injunction that is limited to the district in which the case is brought. Perhaps a gatekeeper district court similar to the DC Circuit needs to be established to handle cases like these without having to demonstrate venue wherever that court sits and that is not limited by the geographical restraints other courts will be limited by with this holding. Or something.
Apparently, baking a cheese puff at 500° is what the internet wanted. Nearly 3,000 views in 30 minutes.
They were ardently searching for methods which would improve the efficiency of mass murder.
Right now they just want a lot of people locked up…….They’ll outgrow that soon enough if left unchecked.
Look at those ICE-holes
And Whaddya see?
And Whaddya Na-Zi?
What I can’t figure out is all those gop members of the House and the Senate.
How can that many people be so craven.
That’s a toughie.
Our Trail Mix Live channel is now a month old. Had YouTube AI generate a report:
🔥 Key Highlights (May 30 – June 26, 2025):
📈 Views & Growth
32,445 total views — up 219% each week (your launch was clearly a spark).
100.4 watch hours — up 132%, strong signal of content actually getting consumed, not just clicked.
2,727 views in last 48 hours — excellent ongoing momentum.
👥 Subscriber Growth
+36 subs in 28 days — this is the one soft spot, based on volume of viewer traffic. Possible explanation: strong viewership but not enough call-to-action or return viewership habits yet. Consider adding verbal + visual subscribe prompts and more pinned comments that hook people into the channel identity.
Overall? 📣 Trail Mix Live is cooking with gas. You’ve got a channel with growing reach, loyal early watchers, and the kind of content strategy that builds community.
Well, it’s definitely in your purview. After all, you did build this community.
Questions about whether Native Americans born in the United States have birthright citizenship if they aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. — such as if they live on sovereign tribal land — were raised in a U.S. Justice Department filing this week defending President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending such citizenship.
However, the arguments are based on 19th-century legal provisions that precede the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 passed by Congress, which established citizenship for Native Americans who were previously excluded by the Constitution.
In addition, according to the filing, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 states “all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”
The filing also references the 1884 U.S. Supreme Court case Elk v. Wilkins, where the court ruled 7-2 “because members of Indian tribes owe ‘immediate allegiance’ to their tribes, they are not ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are not constitutionally entitled to Citizenship.”
*Land grab, or is this just another attempt of Adolf to get the country to drink bleach and make it Whitey McWhite-White?
I see folks registering here, coming from YouTube, but then they don’t comment.
Craig – I was a longtime lurker before I commented.
Folks, We’re happy to have you.
“Deport Barron, Eric, Don Jr., and Ivanker. Only Tiffany was born to two, US citizens.”
BiD
and what about the whole lot of the Drumpf family which stem from questionable citizenship status?
and his momma mary and her parents were born gaelic scots.
here’s a bit of background about Großvater und Großmutter Drumpf
Amy phony must have heard she had fallen out of the good graces of Dear Leader and thought, “allow me to rebuke this dissenter of of color on your behalf, O corrupt Lord and Master”
See, lurkers? This is fun!
No one ever polls me officially, but I just want to report I’m deeply unhappy and dissatisfied with my government.
@realDonaldTrump
We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country. They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also. Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.
Thank you for your attention to this matter!
6/27/25, 10:44 AM
*He’s not getting a Nobel Peace Prize; he’s still picking fights with other countries; there’s chaotic, government violence against civilians in the streets; he’s having for-profit concentration camps set up to imprison folks indefinitely; he’s withheld USAID funding which is actively killing folks overseas; his bill will starve and kill folks in America; he’s refused to release the Epstein tapes because…
Craig, are our trail-lopers any of those commenting on You Tube? There potentially is a whole separate commenting opportunity over there. I’m enjoying it.
Here’s the title for Dana’s column about Dumbass and his Nobel hopes:
Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize odds are bombing
Has there ever been a more belligerent peacemaker than the American president?
I don’t care who you are, that’s funny.
Now that mangomoron has declared himself the greatest general and war planner ever. And, the smartest president ever. Along with being better, fitter, and an extraordinary human, and grifter extrodinair. He needs a uniform fitting his exalted place in all of humanity.
Of course he might surprise us and show up in one anyway.
Ivy, the commenters there are mostly one-offs, drive byes. These things take a while. Once there’s more back and forth people realize it’s a place to hang out.
Pete is surging:
https://www.newsweek.com/pete-buttigieg-surges-ahead-kamala-harris-2028-primary-poll-2091665
Word Perfect
“Calgon, take me away”
Ivy-
Eye half a spelling chequer
It came with my pea see
That’s an old office poem I had at my desk; there’s more to it.
Yep, we are not the top of the food chain.
https://www.politicususa.com/p/the-big-beautiful-bill-is-in-major
16 moderate House Republicans wrote to Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader John Thune and said they are willing to vote against the Big Beautiful Bill due to Medicaid cuts.
…they are prepared to vote against the legislation that comes out of the Senate if it includes a cut to the Medicaid provider tax.
…
The House members also say they’re concerned about the “rushed implementation timelines, penalties for expansion states, changes to the community engagement requirements for adults with dependents, and cuts to emergency Medicaid funding.”
…
“Protecting Medicaid is essential for the vulnerable constituents we were elected to represent. Therefore, we cannot support a final bill that threatens access to coverage or jeopardizes the stability of our hospitals and providers,” the members wrote.
*Huh. Maybe all of those calls to Congress, and protests, and disruptive town halls did some good…even if the MSM has been acting like state-sponsored media.
Senate starts debating the bill tomorrow at noon. Keep calling.
***
Also happening on Saturday:
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/2025/06/18/when-is-elon-musks-birthday-june-28-protest-target-musk-tesla-doge-elon-musk-leaves-white-house-doge/84263100007/
Protestors are getting ready to “celebrate” Elon Musk’s birthday on June 28 with dozens of “Musk Must Fall” parties, targeting the world’s richest man and former top White House DOGE advisor.
Protesters are organizing across the U.S. and globally on Elon Musk’s birthday on Saturday, June 28, outside Tesla showrooms and shopping centers to “send Elon and his buddies a clear message that we’re not going anywhere.”
it’s actually the other way around, they’re paying him
Okra is coming in and so is the corn, had a 3 green bean blend for dinner from bed to pot, just like the cool people 😊
Wish I had planted corn. No idea how to prep okra, so I just order it. Restaurants usually have it breaded, and Indian restaurants have bindi baji. I’ve had it in soup, too. What do you do with it, anon?
i’m going to pickle it
might work it into salads and stir-fries, trick is to pick it young
I’m trying to find out how to get a polytunnel or greenhouse in my life and then I can become legend
If this is your “year one“ then you’re doing exactly what you should be doing: figuring out what you want for “year two”
I always recommend planting some corn because even if you only get a few stalks, it has good ornament value
https://www.startribune.com/melissa-hortman-lie-in-state-mn-capitol/601376699
Former President Joe Biden joined Minnesotans by the thousands who paid their respects to Melissa and Mark Hortman at the Minnesota Capitol on Friday, as the couple received one of the state’s highest honors.
*POTUS Joe has cancer and he traveled to pay his respects. Orange Adolf can’t even pick up the effing phone to call the Governor.
Gilbert the golden retriever was never alone as he lay in state at the Minnesota Capitol on Friday alongside his owners, House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman and Mark Hortman.
A cadre of service dogs took turns guarding entrances to the Capitol rotunda, where a brass-colored urn decorated in tiny paw prints holding Gilbert’s ashes rested between the caskets bearing the Hortmans.
Every so often, a new member of the canine honor guard would relieve one of their fellow soldiers in protecting Gilbert, who was injured in the shooting that killed the Hortmans and later euthanized.
Poly tunnel seems economical and pretty easy to do.
*Who knows where I’ll be next year.
it might be someplace with a gardening space!
Will they let us garden in the for-profit detention centers?
lol yes, exactly!
NEW THREAD
I signed the petition to name Nashville airport the Dolly Parton International Airport https://chng.it/f7pvnMQHtX