Dem
47
GOP
53
Congress does not seem to do very much these days. And yet, they jammed in a whole week's worth of news yesterday. So, we're going to do this in capsule form:
We Surrender: DHS was about to run out of the money that was being used to fund some operations while the overall department was shut down. This would have had deleterious effects, especially heading into summer travel season. And it was pretty clear that Republicans were going to get the blame. So yesterday, after many weeks of saying they would not pass any DHS bill until the Senate passed a reconciliation bill with money for ICE and CBP, the House passed a DHS bill.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) & Co. are now counting on the Senate to do their part, and lavish money on ICE/CBP via reconciliation. That may or may not happen, since there are many Republican members who want goodies in the reconciliation bill, and a Republican president who wants stuff completely unrelated to the budget, and that will never survive a Byrd Bath, in the bill. As to the bill funding DHS, sans ICE/CBP, it has already been signed into law by Donald Trump. The 75 days that DHS was shut down is a record, by about a month.
MAHA Wins Some...: A lot of readers were not happy about the item we ran yesterday, "MAHA Moms Are Furious," because we wrote that studies support the conclusion that glyphosate is carcinogenic. Here are a couple of representative responses:
M.D.A. in Salt Lake City, UT, writes: I emailed about this earlier, but did not see any change. In fact, there have been multiple glyphosate-bashing articles lately. Can you please read this article? Maybe I was dismissed as a random tin-foiler, but hopefully this can convince you the science is stronger saying glyphosate is better than you present. I'm not a farmer, not a MAHA, just a believer in science.
T.F. in Lovettsville, VA, writes: I am wowed by your grasp on nearly every topic but have a bone to pick on your handling of glyphosate. Quoting from the EPA website on the topic: "In February 2020, after receiving and considering public comments on the glyphosate proposed interim decision, EPA published the interim decision registration review decision (ID) for glyphosate. As part of this action, EPA found that there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label. EPA also found that glyphosate is unlikely to be a human carcinogen."
Subsequently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the EPA decision, but not because they found error in the conclusion that glyphosate is a carcinogen for people but that EPA had erred in not applying requirements from the Endangered Species Act in its decision. The Court did not find that glyphosate was dangerous to any endangered species, just that EPA had not adequately addressed the matter.
Your cited article, while from a scholarly source, contains no citations to support their many assertions. I'm thinking any student submitting a paper for review would not be judged highly for including such a reference.
We took another look today and, by and large, European regulators—who tend to be more cautious—are hostile to glyphosate. American regulators (like the EPA)—who tend to be a bit more laissez-faire—largely take the position that glyphosate is OK if used properly. Seems that "if used properly" could be doing some heavy lifting there.
In any event, whether glyphosate is carcinogenic is actually secondary to our point. The debate is dividing MAGA, because MAHA hates glyphosate but farmers like it. At the same time, there is an opportunity there, with some finesse, for Democrats to portray themselves as supporters of public safety, as compared to Republicans and their Big Chem buddies like glyphosate-maker Bayer. As readers will know, sometimes effective messaging is not 100% honest, and sometimes 100% honest messaging is not effective.
However, this particular issue is in abeyance for now, because a coalition of House Republicans and Democrats voted yesterday, 280-142, to strip the Bayer-friendly language from the farm bill that was before that chamber. The bill itself was then passed, 224-200. So, if Trump wants to make it easier to sell glyphosate in America, he's going to have to find another way to do it.
...And MAHA Loses Some: At around the same time MAHA was getting their way on the glyphosate front, they were taking a loss on the surgeon general front. There are just shy of 1.1 million doctors in the U.S., so you would think it would not be too hard to find one of them capable of serving as surgeon general. But apparently it is, because the post has been vacant for 450 days and counting.
Trump's first nominee for the job was Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, who would seem to have the minimum requirement wanted by the American people, namely that she is actually a practicing physician, and the minimum requirement wanted by Trump, namely that she has been a Fox contributor. However, she apparently wasn't RightThink enough for Laura Loomer, and Loomer managed to get Trump to withdraw the nomination.
Trump's second nominee was Casey Means. Some outlets refer to her as Dr. Casey Means, because she did go to medical school. However, she did not finish her residency, and she is not licensed to practice medicine. Instead, she's built a lucrative career selling woo. She is best known for the book Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health, in which she declares that the secret to both "good" energy and "bad" energy in the body is your midichlorians. No, wait, that's the secret to being in tune with the Force. Means' secret is mitochondria. That's it. The book has been savaged by actual science writers. Naturally, MAHA loves both the book and its author.
In an effort to please the base and/or Loomer, Trump chose Means as the replacement nominee for Nesheiwat. That was on May 7, 2025. In other words, it's been almost A FULL YEAR. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions dragged its feet and dragged its feet and dragged its feet, desperately hoping Trump would get the message. But he didn't, so yesterday Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) finally spelled it out for him (and she didn't even use a picture of a cow, or a ski, to do it). A member of the Senate Health Committee, Murkowski made clear that Means would not have her vote to advance to the floor of the Senate. That is unrecoverable, nearly all the time. The Senate rarely approves a nominee who couldn't get past the relevant committee.
So, Means is out, and Trump has now moved on to his third nominee: Dr. Nicole Saphier. She's a real doctor, who practices at a real hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering. She's also MAHA, and even wrote a book, Make America Healthy Again: How Bad Behavior and Big Government Caused a Trillion Dollar Crisis. And, critically, she is a Fox contributor. Unknown is how Laura Loomer feels about Saphier. We'll find out in the next week or so, we suppose.
During one of her Fox appearances, Saphier declared:
I could really care less if the president can touch his toes. It's very disingenuous that they continue to not mention his mental acuity and not giving him a full cognitive evaluation. They completely leave that out and any 80-year-old man is supposed to be having one at his physicals.Of course, she was talking about Joe Biden at the time. That said, we have no doubt that she still stands by this, and she certainly wouldn't change her considered medical opinion for petty political reasons.
Incidentally, Trump turns 80 in 6 weeks.
Isn't It Iran-ic: Donald Trump ran on "America First," and the single most important principle of America First is "no foreign wars." And now, he's become a bigger war hawk than John McCain. The Senate voted on yet another war powers resolution yesterday, one that would rein in Trump's war in Iran. The vote failed, 47-50, with Susan Collins and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) crossing the aisle in one direction and John Fetterman crossing the aisle in the other.
So, a (small) Trump crisis has been averted for now. But a different one is looming. The bombing of Iran began on February 28. That is 63 days ago. The War Powers Act requires presidents to seek Congressional authorization (which isn't forthcoming) or to wind down operations within 60 days. However, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Mike Johnson both had the same answer to that yesterday: Since there are no bullets flying right now, the clock has stopped. Undoubtedly, the Iranian ships being blockaded right now would be surprised to learn there are currently no active hostilities.
In fairness, Barack Obama made the exact same argument in 2011, while the U.S. was involved in Libya. So, the lesson here is not that Hegseth and Johnson are mealymouthed sycophants who will say whatever they need to say to keep their Dear Leader happy. They are, but the lesson here is that the War Powers Act is a colossal failure that has never, ever worked as intended. Trying to fix that is another thing for Congress' to do list once it gets new leadership. Well, OK, once it gets any leadership.
Incidentally, while Hegseth and Johnson were decreeing that peace in Iran is imminent (or is upon us), Trump was on TV claiming that the war is won, and the only reason the U.S. is still in Iran is "I want to win by a bigger margin." If even one more soldier dies, we certainly hope that some reporter will be bold enough to ask Trump: "Was it worth [SOLDIER X'S] life, so that you could run up the score?"
#MeToo: Thanks to reader L.R.H. in Oakland, CA, who sent in this late-breaking news. Yet another member of Congress has been accused of being a sleazeball, and sexually harassing his staffers. It's Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), who is now being investigated by the House Ethics Committee. Nobody knows how long it will take the Ethics Committee to reach a decision, but everybody knows that this is not a good time, politically, to be associated with this particular misdeed. And in case you are wondering, Edwards' district, NC-11, is R+5. That pretty much guarantees Republicans will not expel him.
So, they were pretty busy on the Hill yesterday. (Z)