Trump administration

Subterms

    More stories

    • 263 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      How do we celebrate the 4th of July when American freedom is disappearing? | Deborah Archer, Song Richardson and Susan Sturm

      by

      The Fourth of July celebration of freedom rings hollow this year. The contradictions built into a national commemoration of our triumph over autocracy feel newly personal and perilous – especially to those who have, until now, felt relatively secure in the federal government’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law.But the contradiction is far from new. Black, brown and Indigenous communities have always seen the gap between the ideals of American democracy and the lived reality of exclusion. Frederick Douglass’s 1852 address What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? demanded that Americans confront the hypocrisy of celebrating liberty while millions were enslaved. Today, those contradictions persist in enduring racial disparities and policies that perpetuate segregation, second-class citizenship and selective protection of rights.And just as the nation seemed to be inching toward reckoning and repair, we are now witnessing a dangerous backslide. Our federal government is increasingly hostile to even the mention of race and racism, actively dismantling protections that were hard-won over decades. Each day brings new signs of an anti-democratic campaign –eroding civil rights, stoking racial division and weaponizing law to silence dissent and disempower communities. This inversion of democracy – where power flows upward, not outward – is bold and widespread.The chilling effects of federal overreach touch everyone. People of all races, backgrounds and positions have lost jobs, funding, and trust in institutions once seen as pillars of democracy. The backlash has laid bare a truth long familiar to marginalized communities: that America’s stated ideals often fail to match its realities.Still, despair is not a strategy. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It is built – and rebuilt – by people who show up in their communities, workplaces, schools and congregations, determined to make freedom real. The most powerful response we see is not top-down, but grassroots: people choosing to act, even in small ways, to defend democracy from where they stand.We write as three legal professionals – of different racial identities, vantage points, and approaches to justice – but united in our understanding of the urgency of this moment to ask a question that may feel counterintuitive to those trained in the law: What can people do to advance democracy and equity outside of the courts?First, we must not retreat. Rather, we must overcome our disillusionment, disheartenment and exhaustion and recognize our linked fate across race, class, generation and geography. Authoritarianism thrives on disengagement and disconnection.One way to remain connected and energized is recognizing that this moment of transition is also an opportunity to transform our democracy. We can envision the future we want, untethered from the limitations of the current moment. Then, from the vantage point of this future, assuming it has been achieved, we can ask ourselves what we did today to make that vision a reality. This perspective avoids asking “what should we do”, which limits us to thinking within our current circumstances, instead asking “what did we do”, which allows us to think beyond our current challenges and limitations and instead create new opportunities and possibilities.From the vantage point of the future, we can ask: where can I connect today? Where can I act today? What kind of change agent am I willing to be today to create the future I envision?Here are some ideas:We can engage those directly affected by injustice in the decisions that shape their lives. We must pay attention to who is thriving – and who isn’t – in our institutions, and do the hard work of reimagining our institutions and systems. That is democracy in action.One model comes from two Columbia Law students engaging high schoolers in Harlem and Queens to learn how local government works – a first step toward civic participation and transformation. Another comes from the artist-activist Tonika Johnson’s Folded Map project, which paired Black South Side Chicago residents with their white North Side “map twins” to explore stark neighborhood inequities. The project fostered real relationships, cross-racial learning and grassroots coalitions, while exposing the systemic racism behind dramatic disparities in infrastructure and investment.There is work happening under the radar, too. On campuses where formal DEI efforts have been banned or gutted, faculty and staff are creating informal coalitions to sustain equity-focused collaboration and resist institutional amnesia. In several states, even court systems are taking action, building partnerships between judges, lawyers and communities to address racial disparities in access to justice.Sometimes the opportunity for transformation comes in a policy window. In Indianapolis, the state’s plan to rebuild a major highway became a chance for the Rethink Coalition to shift the conversation – from road engineering to community renewal. Their vision? A process and outcome centered on repairing the harm done to historically Black neighborhoods when the highway was first built. But what made that vision powerful was not just the idea, it was the strategy. Rethink helped put tools, data and technical expertise directly into the hands of community members so they could fully engage in reshaping the project. By democratizing access to planning knowledge, they ensured that residents were not just consulted, but empowered to lead. That’s what it means to build toward the future now.This is the kind of work that keeps us grounded in radical hope – a belief in the possibility of transformation against the odds. It is the practice of democracy, not just its theory. And it’s available to all of us.As the attacks grow louder, more coordinated, more entrenched, we must be even more committed to acting where we are – with whoever we can – to not only defend the fragile, unfinished project of building a multiracial democracy, but to take the time to dream about what our more robust democracy would look like, and then to take the next best step in that direction, undeterred by the current moment.If enough of us engage – across differences and at every level – these efforts can add up to a reimagined nation. One that finally lives up to its promises. One that, someday soon, we can celebrate without contradiction.

      Deborah N Archer is the president of the ACLU, the Margaret B Hoppin professor of law at NYU Law School, and the author of Dividing Lines: How Transportation Infrastructure Reinforces Racial Inequality. L Song Richardson is the former dean and currently chancellor’s professor of law at the University of California Irvine School of Law. She previously served as president of Colorado College. Susan Sturm is the George M Jaffin professor of law and social responsibility and the founding director of the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School and author of What Might Be: Confronting Racism to Transform Our Institutions. More

    • 200 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump’s Medicaid cuts are coming for rural Americans: ‘It’s going to have to hit them first’

      by

      When Hurricane Helene drowned western North Carolina in muck and floodwater last year, it caught folks off-guard.Now, local leaders in places like Asheville expect the Republican-led reconciliation bill – called the “big, beautiful bill” by Donald Trump – to bear down on rural America. And they wonder whether people are missing the warning signs.“It’s going to have to hit them first,” said Laurie Stradley, CEO of Impact Health in Asheville, a Medicaid-funded non-profit providing social services to some people still digging out from the flood.Medicaid is the single largest health insurance program in the US. The public program covers 71 million low-income, disabled and elderly US residents. It pays for half of all US births and the care of six in 10 nursing home residents.When Trump’s sprawling tax-and-spending bill passed on Thursday, it heralded more than $1tn in federal cuts to Medicaid, which experts worry will push Republican-led states to abandon parts of the program and leave people without access to timely healthcare.“This is an extraordinarily regressive bill,” said Joan Akler, executive director and co-founder of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. “This is the largest rollback of healthcare coverage that we’ve ever seen and all in service of an agenda to drive tax cuts that will disproportionately benefit wealthy people and corporations.”Medicaid “expansion” is a key provision of Obamacare, formally called the Affordable Care Act of 2010. The expansion provides largely no-cost health insurance to people earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level, or $36,777 for a family of three. Although Obamacare has been the law for more than a decade, Medicaid expansion proved politically divisive in Republican states, and many only recently decided to accept enormous federal subsidies to cover their residents.North Carolina will lose $32bn in the next decadeThe Medicaid cuts in the bill could have particularly acute consequences in North Carolina, a politically competitive state, where experts said the bill could trigger a “kill switch” to end Medicaid expansion.“If the state spends any state dollars to implement the expansion population or expansion coverage, it triggers an automatic ending to Medicaid expansion,” said Kody Kinsley, North Carolina’s former secretary of health and an architect of the state’s Medicaid expansion.North Carolina is set to lose $32bn in federal funding in the next decade, according to an analysis by the office of the Republican senator Thom Tillis, who represents the state. He’s one of just three Senate Republicans who voted against the bill on Tuesday.North Carolina’s expansion only went into effect in December 2023, and in less than 19 months it enrolled more than 650,000 people – all of whom will lose coverage if the program ends.Those North Carolinians are only some of the 17 million people expected to lose health insurance by 2034 across the country, according to estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Nearly 12 million people will lose insurance because of attacks on Medicaid.“Ultimately, Medicaid being cut is going to kill people,” said Molly Zenkler, a nurse at Mission hospital in Asheville. “I deal with people getting their feet literally amputated because they don’t have access to diabetic care. This is just going to get increasingly worse.”The reconciliation bill cuts state funding through a number of provisions. On healthcare specifically, the bill attacks complex financial maneuvers states use to draw down federal funds. It also requires states to spend enormous sums – perhaps tens of millions of dollars per state – implementing work requirements, effectively adding layers of expensive red tape.Congressional Republicans in favor of the bill argue it targets “waste, fraud and abuse”. However, it is already well-known that most Medicaid beneficiaries who can work do, and that Medicaid is one of the most cost-efficient health programs in the US, according to the American Hospital Association.North Carolina is one of a dozen conservative states that wrote a “trigger” law into Medicaid expansion. Not all function like North Carolina’s – the laws are, in the words of an expert with Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, a “lesson in federalism” – but they nevertheless underscore the difficult choices state legislators will face because of congressional Republicans’ cuts.One such program that could be on the chopping block is a pilot with Impact Health, which uses Medicaid expansion funds for social needs that affect health – an effort to reduce long-term costs. Stradley gave the example of a Medicaid-covered child with severe asthma who hit the local emergency room three times a week for breathing treatments.Impact’s program used Medicaid funds to replace moldy rugs with laminate flooring in the child’s home, and to buy a vacuum with a Hepa filter. The cost to Impact Health was about $5,000, “but now this child is going to the emergency room a couple times a year instead of a couple times a month. And so, every month we’re saving about $4,500.”The program’s knock-on effects boost the local economy: the work to replace the rug was done by a local carpenter, and the child’s mother isn’t calling out from work, increasing her job stability.“One of the ways that we talk about this program is that it’s a hand up rather than a handout,” she said. “Almost half of the folks that are recipients in our program are children … Then you look at the adults. Most of them are working multiple jobs, and those jobs don’t come with benefits, because they’re working two or three part-time jobs in order to make ends meet.”The enormity of Medicaid means large cuts to the program imperil not only patients, but the institutions that serve them – especially rural hospitals and clinics hanging on “by a thread”, according to Kinsley.One of US residents’ few rights to healthcare is in emergency departments, where hospitals are required to stabilize patients regardless of ability to pay. That makes emergency departments the go-to source for healthcare for the uninsured.An analysis released by the Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill earlier this year showed that 338 rural hospitals around the country were at risk of imminent closure with the cuts to Medicaid contained in the bill.‘Hospitals will be forced to restrict services, or close’Rural states such as Kentucky are expected to be disproportionately hard-hit as well. Thirty-five of the rural hospitals at risk of closure – about 10% – are in Kentucky, even though Kentucky’s 4.5 million residents comprise about 1.3% of the US’s population. About a third of Kentucky residents are on Medicaid, according to figures from Kentucky’s cabinet for health and family services. The program benefits about 478,900 adults.The situation is similarly dire in Arizona, another battleground state, which also has a trigger law on the books. Although the reconciliation bill may not “trigger” a rollback of Medicaid expansion, it does undermine a key financing mechanism for the state’s program called a “provider tax”.“We estimate Arizona’s healthcare system would lose over $6bn over the next seven years,” said Holly Ward, a spokesperson for the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, in a statement.“In other words, more than 55% of Arizona hospitals would be operating in the red,” she said. “Hospitals will be, at best, forced to restrict services such as obstetrics, behavioral healthcare and other complex services, and at worst, will close their doors altogether.”Another issue is the potential for Republicans’ cuts to drive up the cost of healthcare for Americans who are privately insured, including through employers. As hospitals fight to survive, they will try to extract as much money as possible from other sources of funding – namely, commercial insurance.In addition, rural healthcare providers worry the water will be muddied by the sheer complexity of US healthcare. Private companies have a hand in managing – and therefore branding – state Medicaid programs.“A lot of our rural voters may not even realize that what they have is Medicaid, because there are so many names for it,” said Stradley. However, the precarious situation is already worrying people whose lives have been stabilized because of Medicaid.Amanda Moynihan is a single mother of three children – ages nine, 12 and 16 – living in Kuna, Idaho. Medicaid expansion has helped her become a “functioning human in society”, she said. Routine medical care for herself and her children, along with other assistance programs, has meant the difference between grinding poverty and a shot at the middle class.Idaho, one of the most politically conservative states in the union, expanded Medicaid in 2018 with an overwhelming ballot-referendum vote of 61-39. Even if Idaho’s “trigger law” does not go into effect, the state could face similar fiscal challenges to Arizona.“Back two years ago, before I started school, I was just in fight-or-flight, just trying to pay the bills there. I didn’t ever see a future of what I could do. And then I just started with one class,” she said.Moynihan has completed an associate degree in psychology and is starting the social work bachelor’s degree program at Boise State University in the fall. For now, she’s working part time with the Idaho Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired and planning to pick up work at a gas station because it has a college scholarship benefit.But without stability to pursue higher education, her future “would be making the minimum wage, which is about $15 an hour, barely paying rent in a low-income household”. More

    • 188 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump kicks off 4 July celebrating tax-and-spending bill and promising UFC fight at White House

      by

      Donald Trump has celebrated the passage of his signature tax and spend legislation by declaring “there could be no better birthday present for America” on the eve of the 4 July holiday.The US president took a victory lap during an event in Des Moines, Iowa, that was officially billed as the start of a year-long celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, in 2026.But Trump turned the potentially unifying moment into a campaign-style rally, mocking Joe Biden’s speaking style, repeating his lie of a stolen election and lambasting the “fake news” media. In a policy shift, he said he is willing to let migrant labourers stay in the US if the farmers they work for will vouch for them.Only after half an hour did he address plans for the semiquincentennial, which he said will include a “Great American State Fair” as well as an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bout for 25,000 spectators in the grounds of the White House.Iowa had been described as a “logical choice” for the anniversary launch by Monica Crowley, Trump’s liaison to the organising group, America250. She said its location in the middle of the country was symbolic of a desire to use the coming celebrations to help bring people together.But once he arrived in the heartland wearing a red “USA” cap, Trump’s rhetoric proved as divisive as ever as he basked in the glow of his “One Big Beautiful Bill” narrowly passing in the House of Representatives on Thursday.View image in fullscreenThe sweeping legislation permanently extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, adds hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for the Pentagon and border security, slashes health insurance and food stamps and phases out clean energy tax credits. It will add nearly $3.3trn to the deficit over a decade, according to the nonpartisan congressional Budget Office.“There could be no better birthday present for America than the phenomenal victory we achieved just hours ago, when Congress passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” to make America great again,” Trump told a crowd at the state fairgrounds, in a car park that was far from full.As he championed the bill’s impact on estate taxes, Trump referred to bankers who exploit their clients as “shylocks”, a term the Anti-Defamation League has called an antisemitic stereotype. Biden apologised after using the word in 2014 when he was vice-president.Later Trump claimed he was unaware the word “shylocks” is linked to antisemitism, according to a pool report. “I’ve never heard it that way,” the president told reporters travelling back to Washington. “The meaning of Shylock is somebody that’s a money lender at high rates. You view it differently. I’ve never heard that.”Democrats say the bill will take food and healthcare from the poor while handing billions to the rich. But Trump complained bitterly that their unified opposition was personal: “Only because they hate Trump. But I hate them too, you know that? I really do. I hate them. I cannot stand them because I really believe they hate our country.”The president went on to boast, “one-hundred-and-sixty-five days into the Trump administration, America is on a winning streak like, frankly, nobody has ever seen before in the history of the presidency.”With characteristic brio, he told how an aide called him the greatest president in US history, surpassing George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. He touted the recent US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, the declining price of eggs, trade deals with Britain and Vietnam and the lower number of migrants crossing the southern border with Mexico.View image in fullscreenBut in a tacit admission that his hardline policy of mass deporations may have overreached, Trump noted there have been some complaints from farmers that their crops are at risk due to a depleted work force.Addressing his homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, Trump said: “If a farmer is willing to vouch for these people in some way, Kristi, I think we’re going to have to just say that’s going to be good, right?”Speaking in a midwestern state where farming is a dominant industry, the president added: “We don’t want to do it where we take all of the workers off the farms.” He said he will also work with the hotel industry on the issue.A few thousand spectators waited for Trump for hours in temperatures above 90F (32C), wearing Trump paraphernalia, including “Make America Great Again” hats, shirts that said “Ultra Maga” and a stuffed monkey with its own miniature Trump shirt.Giant TV screens showed images of the founding fathers while the makeshift outdoor arena had 55 national flags flying, including a massive one hanging from a crane. Singer Lee Greenwood greeted Trump with his song “God Bless the USA”.A recent Gallup poll showed the US is experiencing the widest partisan split in patriotism in more than two decades, with only about a third of Democrats saying they are proud to be American, compared with about nine in 10 Republicans.View image in fullscreenIn a preview of battles to come over historical narratives, Trump promised to open a National Garden of America’s Heroes then alleged: “They took down a lot of our statues. They took down statues of some of the greatest people that we’ve ever had living. I stopped them from taking down Thomas Jefferson … You could imagine who they were going to put up.”He said the 250th anniversary commemorations would also include a televised “Patriot Games” led by Robert Kennedy Jr for top high school athletes and a national state fair that will begin in Iowa, travel to state fairs across the country and culminate with a festival on the National Mall in Washington.Most surprisingly, Trump said he is planning to bring the mixed martial arts of UFC to the White House. He has been a regular attendee at UFC fights, counts UFC president Dana White as a close friend and considers fans of the sport part of his political base.“We’re going to have a UFC fight – think of this – on the grounds of the White House,” Trump said. “We have a lot of land there. We are going to build a little – we are not, Dana is going to do it … We are going to have a UFC fight, championship fight, full fight, like 20-25,000 people, and we are going to do that as part of 250 also.”During the hour-long address, which ricocheted from topic to topic, Trump heard a sudden bang in the distance. The anniversary of his attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, is only 10 days away. “It’s only fireworks, I hope,” he said. “Famous last words.”View image in fullscreenUnlike a year ago, Trump was speaking from behind thick bulletproof glass. “You always have to think positive,” he said. “I didn’t like that sound either.”The rally ended with a chorus of “YMCA” and fireworks display in the evening sky. Despite the punishing heat, Trump supporters went home satisfied by the president’s recent run of wins, especially gratified that the “One Big Beautiful Bill’” made it across the finish line.Ray Seeman, 52, who works for a gas company, said: “I couldn’t believe it. I looked last night and I thought, ‘boy, I don’t know if they can get this pulled off or not’ but I’m glad they did. I haven’t read the whole thing but a lot of stuff that’s tied America down might be getting undone.”Troy Rector, 53, a government contractor, acknowledged the divisiveness of the bill: “There were some things in there that, no matter which side you’re on as far as politics, a lot of people aren’t going to be happy about. But the majority of the bill is going to help all of America.”Michelle Coon, 57, a psychotherapist, added: “I had mixed feelings on the BBB but I am glad that it passed so that we continue to have the tax cuts. I used to be in social work and I would see people who are undocumented get lots of free health care that I and other Americans weren’t getting. That was very difficult to see so the idea that they might pull some of that back would be good.” More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Stateless Palestinian woman detained after honeymoon released from Ice jail

      by

      Ward Sakeik, a stateless Palestinian woman who was detained in February on the way back from her honeymoon, was released from immigration detention after more than four months of confinement.“I was overfilled with joy and a little shock,” she said at a press conference on Thursday. “I mean, it was my first time seeing a tree in five months.”She ran to her husband, who had come to pick her up. “I was like, oh my God, I can touch him without handcuffs and without a glass. It was just freedom.”Sakeik, 22, was detained in February on her way home from her honeymoon in the US Virgin Islands. Prior to her arrest, she had been complying with requirements to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement since she was nine.After she was detained, the US government tried – twice – to deport her. The first time, she was told she was being taken to the Israel border – just as Israel launched airstrikes on Iran. The second time, Sakeik was told once again she would be deported – despite a judge’s order barring her removal from her home state of Texas.Sakeik’s family is from Gaza, but she was born in Saudi Arabia, which does not grant birthright citizenship to the children of foreigners. She and her family came to the US on a tourist visa when Sakeik was eight and applied for asylum – but were denied. The family was allowed to remain in Texas as long as they complied with requirements to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.In the years that passed, Sakeik graduated high school and college at the University of Texas, Arlington, started a wedding photography business, and married her husband, 28-year-old Taahir Shaikh. She had begun the process of obtaining a green card.She and her husband had bought a home – and had begun the process of renovating it.But 10 days after her wedding, on the way back from her honeymoon, Sakeik’s life was upended. “I married the love of my life. We spent 36 hours in the house that we were renovating for six months,” she said. “After a few hours from returning from our honeymoon, I was put in a gray tracksuit and shackles.”Sakeik was joined by her husband, her attorneys and community leaders for the press conference, at a hotel in Irving, Texas, where she had previously photographed weddings. “I never thought that I would be back in this hotel giving a speech about something extremely personal,” she said.Sakeik said she was transferred between three different detention centers, and at various points faced harrowing conditions. During her first transfer, she was on a bus for 16 hours. “We were not given any water or food, and we could smell the driver eating Chick-fil-A,” she said. “We would ask for water, bang on the door for food, and he would just turn up the radio and act like he wasn’t listening to us.”Sakeik said she did not eat because she was fasting for Ramadan. Eventually, she said: “I broke my fast next to a toilet in the intake room.”At the Prairieland detention center, Sakeik said there was so much dust that “women are getting sick left and right”.“The restrooms are also very, very, very much unhygienic. The beds have rust everywhere. They’re not properly maintained. And cockroaches, grasshoppers, spiders, you name it, all over the facility. Girls would get bit.”Throughout, Sakeik was preoccupied with the worry that she would be deported. Had she been sent to Israel without documents proving her nationality, she worried she would be arrested.“I was criminalized for being stateless, something that I absolutely have no control over,” she said. “I didn’t choose to be stateless … I had no choice.”The Department of Homeland Security has claimed Sakeik was flagged because she “chose to fly over international waters and outside the US customs zone and was then flagged by CBP [Customs and Border Protection] trying to re-enter the continental US”.But the Virgin Islands are a US territory – and no passport is required to visit there.“The facts are: she is in our country illegally. She overstayed her visa and has had a final order by an immigration judge for over a decade,” said assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin.The agency did not respond to questions about why it tried to deport her despite a judge’s order barring her removal. Later, the agency amended its statement to add: “Following her American husband and her filing the appropriate legal applications for her to remain in the country and become a legal permanent resident, she was released.”Sakeik said she felt “blessed” that she had been released from detention – but also conflicted about all the women she had gotten to know during her confinement. They would often stay up late talking, share meals, and follow along with workout videos the detention facility had provided.“A lot of these women don’t have the money for lawyers or media outreach,” she said. “So if you’re watching this, I love you, and I will continue to fight for you every single day.” More

    • 213 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      House passes Trump’s major tax-and-spending bill, sending it to president to sign into law – live updates

      by

      House Republicans passed Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” in a 218-214 vote that was almost entirely along party lines on Thursday. The bill next goes to the president for his signature. The White House has said Trump is expected to sign the bill on Friday at 5pm EST.

      The Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, prolonged the vote with a record-setting speech in which he decried provisions in the bill that would slash social safety net programs in order to offset the cost of making Trump’s tax cuts permanent.

      Only two House Republicans voted against the measure, for different reasons that showed the ideological span of the party’s wafer-thin majority. Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie, a libertarian-leaning fiscal hawk who has drawn Trump’s wrath for opposing his agenda, and Pennsylvania congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, who was opposed to the Medicaid cuts.

      Democrats led by Jeffries assailed the bill as “an all-out assault on the American people”. Meanwhile, Democratic groups were vowing to hammer Republicans for their support of a bill that projections say would lead millions of Americans to lose their health insurance.
      Donald Trump, who is on his way to Iowa for a rally, just told reporters that, just weeks after the military parade on his birthday, he is staging an air show with advanced air force bombers at the White House on Friday to celebrate his signing into law the massive tax-and-spending package that passed the House on Thursday.“We’re going to have B-2s and F-22s and F-35s flying right over the White House”, Trump said. “So we’ll be signing with those beautiful planes flying right over our heads.”The Fourth of July bill signing comes on the sixth anniversary of Trump’s 2019 independence day speech, in which the president claimed, according to the official transcript, that, during the war of 1812, the US army “took over the airports; it did everything it had to do”.The US supreme court on Thursday granted a Trump administration request to pause a lower court’s order that had blocked the Department of Homeland Security from deporting eight migrants to politically unstable South Sudan, clearing the way for the men with no ties to that nation to be moved from a military base in Djibouti where they have been held for weeks.Last month, the court had put on hold an injunction issued in April by a US district court judge in Boston, Brian Murphy, which requiring migrants set for removal to so-called “third countries” where they have no ties to get a chance to argue that they are at risk of torture there, while a legal challenge plays out.By a vote of 7-2, with the liberal justice Elena Kagan joining the court’s six conservatives, the court granted the administration’s request to clarify that its decision also extended to Murphy’s separate ruling in May that the administration had violated his injunction in attempting to send a group of migrants to South Sudan.The US state department has urged Americans to avoid the African nation “due to crime, kidnapping and armed conflict.”In her concurring opinion, Kagan wrote: “I continue to believe that this Court should not have stayed the District Court’s April 18 order enjoining the Government from deporting non-citizens to third countries without notice or a meaningful opportunity to be heard.”“But”, she added, “a majority of this Court saw things differently, and I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed.”Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the decision.“What the Government wants to do, concretely, is send the eight noncitizens it illegally removed from the United States from Djibouti to South Sudan, where they will be turned over to the local authorities without regard for the likelihood that they will face torture or death”, Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which was joined by Jackson.“Today’s order clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial”, she added.Among the Democrats expressing dismay at the passage of Trump’s tax-and-spending bill are the party’s two previous nominees who ran against him for president, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.“Republicans in Congress have voted to devastate millions of people across our nation — kicking Americans off their health care, shuttering hospitals, eliminating food assistance, and raising costs”, Harris said in a social media post on Thursday. “This is Project 2025 in action”, she added, reminding voters that cuts to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were both part of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for Trump’s second term that she had railed against during her abbreviated campaign for the presidency last year.“The Republican budget bill is not only reckless — it’s cruel”, Biden posted about 30 minutes before Harris. “It slashes Medicaid and takes away health care from millions of Americans. It closes rural hospitals and cuts food assistance for our veterans and seniors. It jacks up energy bills. And it could trigger deep cuts to Medicare while driving up the deficit by $4 trillion. All of this to give a massive tax break to billionaires. Working people deserve better.”

      House Republicans passed Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” in a 218-214 vote that was almost entirely along party lines on Thursday. The bill next goes to the president for his signature. The White House has said Trump is expected to sign the bill on Friday at 5pm EST.

      The Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, prolonged the vote with a record-setting speech in which he decried provisions in the bill that would slash social safety net programs in order to offset the cost of making Trump’s tax cuts permanent.

      Only two House Republicans voted against the measure, for different reasons that showed the ideological span of the party’s wafer-thin majority. Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie, a libertarian-leaning fiscal hawk who has drawn Trump’s wrath for opposing his agenda, and Pennsylvania congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, who was opposed to the Medicaid cuts.

      Democrats led by Jeffries assailed the bill as “an all-out assault on the American people”. Meanwhile, Democratic groups were vowing to hammer Republicans for their support of a bill that projections say would lead millions of Americans to lose their health insurance.
      Maryland congressman Andy Harris, chair of the far-right House Freedom caucus, told reporters on Capitol Hill: “If winning is caving, then I guess we caved.”Harris repeatedly cited unspecified “agreements” with the Trump administration for persuading himself and other hardliners to drop their objections to the bill. He declined to divulge any details about the “agreement” brokered at the White House, telling reporters to “ask the president”.“This is a very good Republican product,” he added. “It’s going to move the president’s agenda forward. It’s going to actually seriously deal with spending and, of course, not provide a tax increase to middle-class America.”The bill is projected to add trillions to the national debt.Democrats and liberal activists have assailed the bill, warning that they will hold Republicans who voted for it accountable in next year’s midterm elections.“This budget is as cruel as it is corrupt. House Republicans just voted to gut Medicaid, kick millions off Snap, rip free school lunches from kids, and pour billions into Ice – all so their donors can rake in more tax breaks,” said Indivisible’s co-founder and co-executive director Ezra Levin. “Trump just made every single Republican more vulnerable – and while they’ll try to spin this disastrous bill, they know exactly how deep the hole they’ve dug is. But when Trump snaps his fingers, they fall in line – no matter how many families they throw under the bus. That spineless loyalty will be their downfall.”Congressman Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican who was one of the conservative holdouts, told reporters on Capitol Hill that Trump understands the art of a deadline.“I believe that’s why they called the vote last night, because that put everybody at the table, and they said, ‘This is the deadline,’” he said, explaining how the president and leaders eventually quelled their short-lived revolt.Major changes to the bill, which they had demanded, would have required Senate approval, which Burchett did not believe they would get again. “It would have died, it would have never it would have never passed. If it went back to the Senate, [Alaska senator Lisa] Murkowski – we would never get her vote again.”The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has told reporters that Donald Trump plans to sign the colossal tax and spending bill at 5pm EST on Friday, the Independence Day holiday. It will come as the White House is preparing to hold a Fourth of July picnic to mark the nation’s 249th birthday.At a signing ceremony on Thursday afternoon, Mike Johnson joked that he was operating on such little sleep after marathon days of voting that “I’m a danger to myself and others”.“We knew that if we won, and we believed we would, we knew that if we got unified government, we’d have to quite literally fix every area of public policy,” Johnson said. “Everything was an absolute disaster under the Biden-Harris, radical, woke, progressive Democrat regime, and we took the best effort that we could, in one big, beautiful bill, to fix as much of it as we could.”Johnson then signed the legislation that will be sent to the White House.Massie, the other Republican who has consistently opposed the bill, said he voted against it on Thursday because of the harm he believes it would do to the nation’s finances.“I voted No on final passage because it will significantly increase U.S. budget deficits in the near term, negatively impacting all Americans through sustained inflation and high interest rates,” he wrote on X.Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, one of only two Republicans who voted against the president’s megabill, has issued a statement explaining his decision.
      As I’ve stated throughout these negotiations, with each iteration of legislative text that was placed on the House floor, I’ve maintained a close and watchful eye on the specific details of these provisions, and determined the specific district impact, positive or negative, on our PA-1 community.
      I voted to strengthen Medicaid protections, to permanently extend middle class tax cuts, for enhanced small business tax relief, and for historic investments in our border security and our military. However, it was the Senate’s amendments to Medicaid, in addition to several other Senate provisions, that altered the analysis for our PA-1 community. The original House language was written in a way that protected our community; the Senate amendments fell short of our standard. I believe in, and will always fight for, policies that are thoughtful, compassionate, and good for our community. It is this standard that will always guide my legislative decisions.
      Fitzpatrick represents a competitive, heavily suburban Pennsylvania district.The White House is celebrating passage of the president’s domestic policy bill.Republican leaders are taking a victory lap, heaping praise on “our leader”.“They doubted us,” said Representative Lisa McLain of Michigan, the House GOP conference chair. “But here we are again! What are we? Six and zero?”“We delivered on our promises to the American people – no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, tax relief for seniors, enhanced childcare tax credits, elimination of the death tax, more Ice agents – we’re finishing the border wall and funding the golden dome.”Representative Tom Emmer, another member of leadership, repeated the Republican claim that the bill cuts only “waste, fraud and abuse” from Medicaid. According to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill cuts roughly $1t from Medicaid, a joint federal and state health insurance program for disabled and low-income Americans. It would result in an estimated 11.8 million people losing health insurance over the next decade.“To put it simply,” Emmer said, “this bill is President Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ agenda. Being codified into law from Minnesota to Texas and Maine to California, there are wins in this legislation for every single American.”Here’s a breakdown of what’s in the tax cut and spending bill that just passed the House, and next goes to Trump for his signature.The bill is largely the same version as the one Senate Republicans narrowly passed, with JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. Trump has imposed a 4 July deadline for the legislation to be on his desk.In a vote of 218-214, Republicans passed Trump’s megabill, sending it to the president’s desk by his self-imposed Independence Day deadline. Republicans burst into chants of “U-S-A!”In the end, two Republicans voted against the bill: Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie, a libertarian-leaning fiscal hawk who has drawn Trump’s wrath for opposing his agenda, and Pennsylvania congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, who was opposed to the Medicaid cuts.The 15-minute voting window has now closed – though that matters little. It will remain open for as long as Republican leaders believe they need.So far, two Republicans are recorded as voting against the bill, though nothing is final until the vote officially closes. One Republican – conservative Ralph Norman, has yet to vote, according to CSPAN.Passage would amount to a remarkable feat for Johnson, who has navigated, in his own words, “so many dire straits” since assuming the gavel.Johnson, once a relatively unknown congressman from Louisiana, came to power after the historic ouster of former speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was toppled by hardliners in his own party. Many expected Johnson – soft-spoken, deeply religious and lacking leadership experience – would meet a similar fate.Yet, in the months since, Johnson has surprised both his critics and colleagues by holding together one of the narrowest House majorities in modern history. He has overcome the threat of rebellion from the hard-right faction of his party and mollified moderates uneasy with aspects of the president’s agenda.One critical factor in his success so far: Trump’s support. The president’s backing has largely helped insulate Johnson from the kind of rightwing backlash.The House has officially started voting on final passage of Trump’s so-called “one big, beautiful” bill – more than 24 hours after it the reconciliation package was first brought to the floor. It is expected to narrowly pass, with all Democrats opposed.Johnson closed his remarks with a plea to members to help pass Trump’s megabill, though his cheery delivered made clear he no longer had any doubts about the outcome.“The president of the United States is waiting with his pen. The American people are waiting for this relief,” Johnson said. “We’ve heard enough talk. It’s time for action. Let’s finish the job for him, vote yes on the bill.” More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      US supreme court clears way for deportation of migrants to South Sudan

      by

      The supreme court on Thursday cleared the way for the deportation of several immigrants who were put on a flight in May bound for South Sudan, a war-ravaged country where they have no ties.The decision comes after the court’s conservative majority found that immigration officials can quickly deport people to third countries. The majority halted an order that had allowed immigrants to challenge any removals to countries outside their homeland where they could be in danger.The court’s latest order makes clear that the South Sudan flight detoured weeks ago can now complete the trip. It reverses findings from federal Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts, who said his order on those migrants still stands even after the high court lifted his broader decision.The majority wrote that their decision on 23 June completely halted Murphy’s ruling and also rendered his decision on the South Sudan flight “unenforceable”. The court did not fully detail its legal reasoning on the underlying case, as is common on its emergency docket.Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, saying the ruling gives the government special treatment. “Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the supreme court on speed dial,” Sotomayor wrote.Attorneys for the eight migrants have said they could face “imprisonment, torture and even death” if sent to South Sudan, where escalating political tensions have threatened to devolve into another civil war.“We know they’ll face perilous conditions, and potentially immediate detention, upon arrival,” Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said Thursday.The push comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Trump’s Republican administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally. The Trump administration has called Murphy’s finding “a lawless act of defiance.”The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.Authorities have reached agreements with other countries to house immigrants if authorities cannot quickly send them back to their homelands. The eight men sent to South Sudan in May had been convicted of serious crimes in the US.Murphy, who was nominated by Democratic president Joe Biden, did not prohibit deportations to third countries. But he found migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in danger of torture if sent to another country. More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Former CBS anchor slams Paramount settlement with Trump: ‘It was a sellout’

      by

      A former CBS News anchor and 60 minutes correspondent, Dan Rather, has blasted the $16m settlement between Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, and Donald Trump, calling it a “sad day for journalism”.“It’s a sad day for 60 Minutes and CBS News,” Rather, a veteran journalist who was a CBS News anchor for over 20 years, told Variety in an interview published on Wednesday. “I hope people will read the details of this and understand what it was. It was distortion by the president and a kneeling down and saying, ‘yes, sir,’ by billionaire corporate owners.”Last November, Trump sued CBS News, claiming that the network’s interview with the Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, had been doctored to portray her in a favorable light – which he alleged amounted to “election interference”.Many legal experts had widely dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless” and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment, but on Wednesday Paramount announced that it had agreed to pay Trump $16m to settle the case over the interview that was broadcast on the CBS News program 60 Minutes.The settlement comes as Paramount is preparing for a $8bn merger with Skydance Media, which requires approval from the US Federal Communications Commission. Paramount has said that the lawsuit is separate from the company’s merger.A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement to the Guardian that “With this record settlement, President Donald J. Trump delivers another win for the American people as he, once again, holds the Fake News media accountable for their wrongdoing and deceit.“CBS and Paramount Global realized the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle,” the spokesperson added.According to Wednesday’s announcement, the settlement funds will not be paid to Trump directly, but instead would be allocated to Trump’s future presidential library. The settlement did not include an apology.Rather told Variety on Wednesday that in his opinion “you settle a lawsuit when you’ve done something wrong” and “60 minutes did nothing wrong, it followed accepted journalistic practices”.“Lawyers almost unanimously said the case wouldn’t stand up in court,” he said.Ultimately though, Rather said he was disappointed but not surprised by the settlement.“Big billionaire businesspeople make decisions about money,” he said. “We could always hope that they will make an exception when it comes to freedom of the press, but it wasn’t to be.“Trump knew if he put the pressure on and threatened and just held that they would fold, because there’s too much money on the table,” Rather said. “Trump is now forcing a whole news organization to pay millions of dollars for doing something protected by the constitution – which is, of course, free and independent reporting. Now, you take today’s sellout. And that’s what it was: It was a sellout to extortion by the president. Who can now say where all this ends?”He continued: “It has to do with not just journalism, but more importantly, with the country as a whole. What kind of country we’re going to have, what kind of country we’re going to be. If major news organizations continue to kneel before power and stop trying to hold the powerful accountable, then we all lose.”In his more than 60 years in journalism, Rather told Variety he had never seen the profession face the kind of challenges as those it faces today.“Journalism has had its trials and tribulations before, and it takes courage to just soldier on,” Rather said. “Keep trying, keep fighting. It takes guts to do that. And I know the people at CBS News, and particularly those at 60 Minutes, they’ll do their dead level best under these circumstances. But the question is what [is] this development and the message it sends to us. And that’s what I’m trying to concentrate on.” More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump’s tax-and-spending bill passes Congress in major win for president

      by

      The US House of Representatives passed Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill on Thursday, handing the president the first major legislative victory of his second term and sending to his desk wide-ranging legislation expected to supercharge immigration enforcement and slash federal safety net programs.The 218-214 vote came after weeks of wrangling over the measure that Trump demanded be ready for his signature by Friday, the Independence Day holiday. Written by his Republican allies in Congress and unanimously rejected by Democrats, the bill traveled an uncertain road to passage that saw multiple all-night votes in the House and Senate and negotiations that lasted until the final hours before passage. Ultimately, Republicans who had objected to its cost and contents folded, and the bill passed with just two GOP defections: Thomas Massie, a rightwing Kentucky lawmaker, and Brian Fitzpatrick, who represents a Pennsylvania district that voted for Kamala Harris in last year’s election.“We’ve waited long enough, some of us have literally been up for days now, but this day – this day – is a hugely important one in the history of our nation,” the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, said, just before voting began.“With one big, beautiful bill, we are going to make this country stronger, safer and more prosperous than ever before, and every American is going to benefit from that.”The legislation is expected to speed up and expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations, and will probably make Trump’s longstanding desire for a wall along the border with Mexico a reality.It also strikes a blow against the US government’s efforts to fight the climate crisis by phasing out tax incentives created under Joe Biden that were intended to spur investments in electric cars, wind and solar power and other green energy technologies.The bill’s centerpiece is a permanent extension of tax cuts made in 2017, during Trump’s first term, as well as the creation of new, temporary exemptions for tips, overtime pay and car loan interest that the president promised voters during last year’s campaign.The government will lose trillions of dollars in revenue from those provisions, and to offset their costs, Republicans approved an array of cuts to Medicaid, the federal program providing health insurance coverage to poor and disabled Americans, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap).Those changes are expected to cost millions of people their benefits, but the bill remains expensive, with the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) saying it will add $3.3tn to the country’s debt through 2034.Massie explained his decision to vote against the bill in a post on X, writing that “it will significantly increase U.S. budget deficits in the near term, negatively impacting all Americans through sustained inflation and high interest rates”.Fitzpatrick issued a statement saying “it was the Senate’s amendments to Medicaid, in addition to several other Senate provisions, that altered the analysis” for his district and made him vote no.Democrats blasted the proposal as “one big, ugly bill” that dismantles anti-poverty programs to fund tax breaks for the wealthy. Analyses have shown that high earners benefited most from Trump’s tax policies.The Democratic House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, made a last-ditch effort to halt the bill’s passage by delivering a floor speech that lasted eight hours and 44 minutes, the longest ever.“This is extraordinary. This assault on everyday Americans, assault on children, veterans, seniors, people with disabilities. It’s incredible to me, all of this in this one, big, ugly bill,” Jeffries said.“Ripping food out of the mouths of vulnerable Americans – that’s extraordinary that that’s what we’re doing, extraordinary. And all of this is being done, this unprecedented assault on everyday Americans, is being unleashed on the American people, Mr Speaker, on the most vulnerable among us, all of this is being done to provide massive tax breaks to billionaire donors. Shame on this institution. If this bill passes, that’s not America. We’re better than this.”Trump has described the bill as crucial to the success of his second term, and congressional Republicans made its passage their top priority. It was a tall task – the GOP won small majorities in both the House and Senate in last November’s election, and could afford no more than three defections in either chamber.The party’s lawmakers broadly support Trump but were divided on a host of other issues. There were lawmakers who wanted big spending cuts, rapid phase-outs of green energy incentives and an expanded deduction that would mostly benefit taxpayers in Democratic-led states. Their demands butted against others who sought to moderate the bill, but over the course of weeks, Republicans leaders managed to forge a compromise.Trump appears to have also offered some concessions to hard-line holdouts from the Republican House freedom caucus at a meeting at the White House on Wednesday and in subsequent discussions, as his advisers rushed to ensure the bill passed without returning to the Senate.The details of Trump’s concessions – possibly coming in the form of executive actions at a later date – were not immediately clear, and House freedom caucus chair Andy Harris declined to describe their discussions with Trump.“When we looked at this entire package, the significant agreements we got with the administration in the last 24 hours made this package a much, much better package,” Harris told reporters after the vote. “The agreement is with the president. If you want to know, ask the president.”The bill is only able to affect revenue, spending and the debt limit, under the rules of budget reconciliation that allowed the GOP to avoid a filibuster by Democrats in the Senate. Under Biden, Congress’s then Democratic majority had used the same procedure to pass legislation to spur the economy’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and curb US carbon emissions.Trump’s bill allocates $45bn for Ice detention facilities, $14bn for deportation operations and billions of dollars more to hire 10,000 new agents by 2029. An additional $50bn will go towards the border wall and other fortifications.Enrollees of Medicaid and Snap will face new work requirements, and states will be forced to share part of the cost of the latter program for the first time ever. The CBO estimates the bill’s Medicaid changes could cost as many as 11.8 million people their healthcare, and the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities forecasts about 8 million people, or one in five recipients, may lose their Snap benefits.The legislation also forces changes to provider taxes, which states use to finance their share of Medicaid spending. That is expected to further increase the financial stress of hospitals in rural areas, and when the bill was in the Senate, a $50bn fund was added to support those facilities.Some in the GOP were openly nervous about the cuts to safety net programs that their constituents rely on. Thom Tillis, a senator who represents swing state North Carolina, refused to support the bill for those reasons, leading Trump to announce he would support a primary challenger when he stands for re-election next year. Tillis then made public his plans to retire, a potential boost for Democrats’ hopes of claiming his seat.“It is inescapable this bill will betray the promise Donald Trump made,” Tillis said on the Senate floor.“What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding’s not there any more, guys?” More