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Big, Beautiful Bill May Be Turning into a Big, Battered Boondoggle

It's always hard to be sure exactly what it is that Donald Trump wants. However, if we assume that the budget bill that passed the House comports with his vision—and he did whip votes very aggressively to get it through the lower chamber—then it looks more and more like he's headed for disappointment. Here's a rundown of some of the main obstacles that have emerged in the last week or so:

Given these sausage-making challenges, Trump has some choices to make. And yesterday, he got out his smaller-than-average... social media app, and posted a couple of messages. Here's the first:

Passing THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL is a Historic Opportunity to turn our Country around after four disastrous years under Joe Biden. We will take a massive step to balancing our Budget by enacting the largest mandatory Spending Cut, EVER, and Americans will get to keep more of their money with the largest Tax Cut, EVER, and no longer taxing Tips, Overtime, or Social Security for Seniors — Something 80 Million Voters supported in November. It will unleash American Energy by expediting permitting for Energy, and refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It will make American Air Travel GREAT AGAIN by purchasing the final Air Traffic Control System. We will secure our skies from our adversaries by building The Golden Dome, and secure our Border by building more of our Wall, and supercharging the deportation of the millions of Criminal Illegals Joe Biden allowed to walk right into our Country. It will kick millions of Illegals off Medicaid, and make sure SNAP is focused on Americans ONLY! It will also restore Choice and Affordability for Car purchases by REPEALING Biden's EV Mandate, and all of the GREEN NEW SCAM Tax Credits and Spending. THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL also protects our beautiful children by stopping funding for sick sex changes for minors. With the Senate coming back to Washington today, I call on all of my Republican friends in the Senate and House to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

And here's the second:

So many false statements are being made about "THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL," but what nobody understands is that it's the single biggest Spending Cut in History, by far! But there will be NO CUTS to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. In fact, they will be saved from the incompetence of the Democrats. The Democrats, who have totally lost their confidence and their way, are saying whatever comes to mind — Anything to win! They suffered the Greatest Humiliation in the History of Politics, and they're desperate to get back on their game, but they won't be able to do that because their Policies are so bad, in fact, they would lead to the Destruction of our Country, and almost did. The only "cutting" we will do is for Waste, Fraud, and Abuse, something that should have been done by the Incompetent, Radical Left Democrats for the last four years, but wasn't.

We will make a couple of observations, particularly for the benefit of those readers who don't want to try to parse a couple of walls of text. First, note the relatively far-off target date and much more conciliatory tone: "I call on all of my Republican friends in the Senate and House to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY." That doesn't sound like someone who thinks he can say "jump" and expect the senators to respond "How high?"

Second, note the promise: "there will be NO CUTS to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid." He's said that before, and if he really means it, then either the budget hawks or the tea partiers (or both) will have lost. For a guy who campaigned on budget austerity and taming the national debt, well... everyone knows that Trump Always Chickens Out.

Reading the tea leaves, we assume Thune will be able to come up with a bill that gets 50 votes in the Senate. It will likely eliminate Section 70302 and most or all of the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. That will cost the votes of Johnson and Paul, and probably Rick Scott, but that's within Thune's margin of error. Then the bill will go back to the House, and the question will be whether or not the Freedom Caucus sticks to its guns, or meekly submits. You can never tell with them, but remember the general trend in the 119th Congress: T(FC)ACO.

One wonders what Mike Johnson was thinking when he rammed this bill through in the first place. Specifically, what we mean is that he surely didn't believe the Senate was going to swallow it as-is, and he surely knew that one day soon he would get a bill back that is entirely unacceptable to parts of his conference. Was he just giving himself cover, along the lines of "Hey! It's not my fault that the big, beautiful bill never became law!" or "Hey! It's not my fault that the big, beautiful bill didn't cut spending as much as I wanted!" It's certainly possible. (Z)

The Musk-Trump Split Is Real

We had an item yesterday about Elon Musk's departure from the Trump administration, and how the South African is trying to salvage his influence and his reputation on the way out. Neither effort is going well, as is indicated by additional news from the past few days.

Let's start with influence. There appears to be something of a purge of Muskovites underway (at least, some of the prominent ones). By virtue of his interest in SpaceX, Musk took a great interest in the question of who would run NASA. And Donald Trump granted that patronage to his billionaire benefactor, nominating Musk's pick, Jared Isaacman. However, over the weekend, the President yanked the nomination. The explanation was that the White House had taken a closer look, and was unhappy about Isaacman's "past associations." Hmmmm... hard to imagine what "past associations" those might be.

Similarly, Musk isn't the only prominent DOGEy to be leaving his post. Steve Davis, who has worked for Musk for years, and who was responsible for day-to-day operations at DOGE, is quitting, as is James Burnham, DOGE's top attorney. Also headed out the door is... Katie Miller, wife of Stephen, who is going to work for Musk full-time. And for those who like their political news with a dash of salaciousness, we'll pass along the Internet rumor that Miller is now in a romantic relationship with Musk, possibly with her husband's approval, possibly not. There does not seem to be any real foundation for this rumor, other than idle speculation. Well, that and people who have noticed that Musk's black eye was his right one, and that Stephen Miller is... left-handed.

Meanwhile, Musk's reputation continues to take a beating. At this point, many readers will have seen The New York Times article that accuses the billionaire of abusing drugs, particularly Ketamine and Adderall. This was an open not-so-secret, but once the paper of record reports it, it's out there for all to see.

Much more damning, The Times (that's the British one, not the New York one) was the first to report on an ongoing study by Brooke Nichols, who teaches in the Department of Public Health at Boston University. She has crunched the numbers and says that Musk's USAID cuts have already led to the deaths of 300,000 people, the great majority of them children. That works out to about one death every 3 minutes since Donald Trump returned to the White House, and there's no reason to think that pace will slow. It is also horrifying (which is the word that Nichols herself uses).

To try to heighten awareness of the harm that Musk and Trump have done here, Nichols has created an online tracker that shows the total deaths (210,629 children, 100,940 adults as of 2:30 a.m. PT), and also breaks the deaths down by cause (for example, Nichols estimates that 59,762 children have died of malnutrition already, and that 167,923 will die by the end of the year). The Times (the New York one) picked up on the news, and ran an item yesterday headlined: "Elon Musk's Legacy Is Disease, Starvation and Death."

Even if one is not an adherent, it is hard not to recall Mark 10:25: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." One can only hope this callous behavior becomes, and remains, an anchor around the necks of both Musk and Trump, perhaps even into the next plane of existence. (Z)

Another Vicious Antisemitic Attack

Anyone who follows the news is aware of the increase in antisemitic violence this year. The Anti-Defamation League recorded 9,354 such incidents in the United States in 2024, which was an increase of 5% over 2023, and says that the country is on pace for another 5% increase in 2025.

Among the high-profile stories this year are the attack on the home of Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) and the shooting of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington, DC. Over the weekend, there was another one, as a man named Mohamed Sabry Soliman attacked a group of demonstrators marching in support of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, using a homemade flamethrower and shouting "Free Palestine." He had apparently been planning the attack for over a year; he's now been arrested and charged with 12 counts of attempted murder. Thus far, none of the victims has died, though one is reported to be in critical condition.

We have a couple of observations to make, here. To start, here is Donald Trump's statement on the attack:

Yesterday's horrific attack in Boulder, Colorado, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED in the United States of America. He came in through Biden's ridiculous Open Border Policy, which has hurt our Country so badly. He must go out under "TRUMP" Policy. Acts of Terrorism will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law. This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland. My heart goes out to the victims of this terrible tragedy, and the Great People of Boulder, Colorado!

And here is Stephen Miller's:

A terror attack was committed in Boulder, Colorado by an illegal alien. He was granted a tourist visa by the Biden Administration and then he illegally overstayed that visa. In response, the Biden Administration gave him a work permit.

Suicidal migration must be fully reversed.

The basic claim is true; the perpetrator of the crimes was an immigrant who overstayed his visa. However, one cannot help but notice that there is zero mention of Jews, antisemitism, or anything in that ballpark. It's all about immigrants and (tacitly) Muslims.

This is a little incongruous for an administration that claims to care so very much about antisemitism, such that it's at war with half a dozen universities right now, on that basis. Tyler Pager, of The New York Times, noticed the incongruity, and in a piece headlined "Trump Talks a Lot About Antisemitism, With a Notable Caveat," he observes:

Many Trump critics argue that the president seems more comfortable combating antisemitism when it dovetails with his broader political objectives—targeting elite universities, cracking down on immigration or fighting with political opponents—than when it involves physically protecting Jews.

That is the polite way to put it. One might even go so far as to say it's the "sanewashing" way to put it (it's borderline, we'd say). Our way of putting it, by contrast, goes something like this (and we've expressed this basic sentiment before): Trump doesn't give a damn about antisemitism; it's just useful cover for his real agenda, which is to stick it to the pointy-headed elite libs, and to undermine educational institutions (which are antithetical to absolutism/fascism).

We must admit, we are not sure if Miller gives a damn about antisemitism. On one hand, he's reportedly an observant Jew. On the other hand, he rarely, if ever, mentions the issue, as his clear focus is his dislike of brown people. Not to lean too much into the scripture today, but here, we cannot help but recall Leviticus 19:34: "The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself." Maybe they did not get to that part when Miller was in Hebrew school.

This brings us to our second observation. There's a fair chance that MIT will get to be the next school on the White House's sh** list, by virtue of the commencement address that President of the Class of 2025 Megha M. Vemuri gave. She submitted the text of her speech to the university, but then delivered a very different address in which she accused the school's leadership of tolerating and enabling a "genocide."

Meanwhile, here is the other side of that same basic equation. CNN entertainer Scott Jennings was on air, as he seems to be roughly 24 hours a day, and he agreed with Trump that what happened in Colorado is a terrorist attack, and that "this Free Palestine movement is nothing more than a domestic terror organization."

Allow us a brief non sequitur before we get to our observation. We're still working on the Joe Biden cancer/dementia piece(s). Note that is now plural; we have enough to say that there will now be a Part III and a Part IV, and possibly a Part V. We want to get it right (or, as right as we can), plus we need to catch up on time-sensitive news. However, one theme of the upcoming pieces (in fact, it's the very first portion of Part III) is that if a person is going to put their words out there, either in written or spoken form, it is our view that they have a responsibility to think about the pros and cons of doing so. What good will come of this? And what harm?

That brings us to today's (second) point. We have written, in the past, about the use of both "terrorist" and "genocide." In those postings, we discussed whether the use of those terms was accurate. Here, however, we raise a different issue: Is using them the right thing to do? Is the good done greater than the harm?

Consider the MIT speech. We've been thinking about it for 2 days, and we still cannot see what positive good Vemuri did. Sure, she can look in the mirror and be proud that she is brave, and that she spoke truth to power. But her actions will have no impact on MIT policy, and may bring retribution from the Trump administration. Meanwhile, some in the audience cheered, others (particularly Jewish and/or Israeli audience members) booed or got up and left. We speak with 100% confidence when we say she changed no hearts, and no minds.

With Jennings, it's even less ambiguous. He's not even pretending to serve some sort of greater good. He's paid to be the "heel" on the network, and to deliver right-wing talking points in the most outlandish manner possible. The more angry calls that CNN gets, the better. He's slurred so many different people and groups as "terrorists" that CNN might as well send an AI Jennings out there on nights like Monday, since they have plenty of footage to craft a "these damn terrorists" deepfake.

But while we struggle to understand what kind of good this emotionally charged, highly judgmental, one-side-is-pure-as-the-driven-snow-and-the-other-side-is-pure-evil language does, we can certainly grasp one very big downside. In a politically charged environment, like the one created by the current administration, such verbiage makes it much easier for things like a shooting of Israeli embassy employees, or the arrest of a Muslim grad student without due process, or an attack on a group of Jewish protesters to happen. And, by the way, the number of attacks on American Muslims was also up about 5% in 2024, and also numbered about 9,000 incidents, and is also on track to jump another 5% or so this year.

Having written this, we are going to get some very strongly worded messages. We are happy to receive critical feedback, and we do not hide (like some members of Congress), so we will even include a reminder that the e-mail address is comments@electoral-vote.com. Please keep it civil. (Z)

Poland Picks the Trumpy Candidate

Another day, another election that is being framed as "Trumpism" vs., well, something that is not Trumpism. In this case, the nation is Poland, and the president-elect is Karol Nawrocki. It is not too hard to see Nawrocki as a Trumpy fellow, since he is a right-wing populist with no experience in political office, and since he was endorsed by both Trump and by CPAC.

The election was a run-off, and was actually held on Sunday. The results were so close, it was not clear who won until fairly late on Monday. It was a squeaker, with Nawrocki claiming 10,606,877 votes (50.89%) and Mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski, a liberal, taking 10,237,286 (49.11%).

Nawrocki's victory will likely create a lot of gridlock in a system that seems designed for it—even more than the American system, if that is possible. As president, he is head of state, and will oversee foreign policy. He also has the ability to veto legislation. The more important/powerful job is that of prime minister, who is the head of government. That post is currently held by Donald Tusk; he is center-right, but in Europe, even in Poland, that equates to something like "on the same page as Joe Biden." Tusk had trouble working with current president Andrzej Duda, who is right-wing, but a bit less so than Nawrocki. So, there's every reason to believe Tusk won't be able to govern effectively with Nawrocki in office. And Tusk's party, Civic Platform (PO), doesn't have the votes to override vetoes.

Many commenters fall into the habit of declaring "Trumpism rejected" or "Trumpism triumphant" after these elections. We think that works in cases like Canada or Australia, where Trump himself is clearly an issue. Beyond that, however, we think these elections actually tend to illustrate two other, semi-related points: (1) many nations are grappling with whether they should embrace right-wing populism or not, and sometimes they decide "yes" and sometimes "no," but it's usually very close; and (2) we remain in an era where votes are often used to punish the party in power (such as Tusk and his PO), whatever the politics of that party may be.

The next big foreign election is... today, as the good people of South Korea will head to the polls to choose a new president. We will tell you right now that, barring a miracle, liberal Lee Jae-myung is going to defeat Kim Moon Soo without breaking a sweat. However, this is very clearly a "throw the bums out" election, as Kim is being blamed for the actions of his fellow People Power Party member Yoon Suk Yeol, who as president tried (and failed) to impose martial law on the nation. (Z)

Never Forget: The Duty to Remember George

We intended to start these on June 2 (a.k.a. yesterday), but our production schedule sometimes makes it possible to get confused about which date is which. Sorry about that. Anyhow, we commence now, with an excellent remembrance from reader M.S. in Canton, NY:

Growing up, my father had two best friends, Bill and George. My father survived service in combat in World War II. Bill and George did not.

In many ways, Bill's memory lives on. A painting of him in his naval officer's uniform hangs on a wall at the university he attended. His family had the resources to publish a collection of his letters home; my father's copy stands on a bookshelf in my house. Most importantly, Bill—who was actually William Jr.—had a child, a son he never saw. Bill III is now retired after a long and successful career as a writer and entrepreneur.

But what about George? Is there anyone left who remembers him? My father is now many years gone. If George married or had children, my father never mentioned it. It is unlikely that any siblings would still be alive. Maybe there are nieces and nephews, now well into retirement age, who recall hearing stories about their Uncle George, how much fun he was, how painful it was to lose him. And it is just barely possible that somewhere there is still a member of the Greatest Generation who once in a while thinks back on the comrade he lost in France: "What was his name again? Oh, yes, George. So tragic to lose him. But we lost so many."

Most of the humans who have ever lived are now forgotten forever. Even for the tiny fraction whose names survive by chance in some written record, very few have meaningful significance to anyone alive today. So while George's name can be found in census records, or in old phone directories and the like, there is a real possibility that there is now no one left who would see the listing and say, "Oh, do you know who that is? I know who he was!"

Except, of course, for me. So I find myself wondering: Am I the only person left who has a tangible, personal connection to this young man who lived, and died, not so long ago? And if so, what responsibility comes with that last remaining connection?

Indeed, what does it even mean to say that I remember George? I never met him—he died years before I was born. I do not know if I have ever seen his picture; the photos in my father's jumbled collection from his early life were mostly unlabeled. An old family photo album holds a black-and-white snapshot of George's grave that my parents took during a trip to France in 1955. The marker is simple and standard, as is typical in a military cemetery, and tells nothing of who George was or what made him unique. But at the same time that the photo tells very little, it raises yet another version of the same question: Did anyone else ever visit that grave? Other than me, is there anyone today for whom that picture would have meaning?

Among my father's personal effects were a collection of letters from the days before and during the war, including a few from George. There is no great poetry in them, nothing you would read in solemn tones if you were making a documentary about the war and its awful costs. But they do reveal a young man in the prime of his too-short life. The letters, and the mere fact that my father saved them, confirm what I already knew: George mattered deeply to my father; he added value to my father's life; my father mourned his loss. Just by that connection alone, he also matters to me.

So on Memorial Day, I remember my father, who came home, and was buried in Arlington Cemetery with military honors 64 years after combat ended. I remember Bill, who never came home. And I remember George: In whatever small way I can, it is my duty, and my honor, to keep his memory alive.

Thank you, M.S.

If readers want to send in reminiscences of their, or of others', military service, we continue to welcome them at comments@electoral-vote.com. (Z)


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