****TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY AT THE EXPENSE OF SLASHING MEDICAID & EXPLODING THE DEFICIT!****
— GOP’s plans to advance megabill in peril: A planned Friday vote in the House Budget Committee to advance the GOP megabill is increasingly in peril , with at least three hard-liners pledging to oppose the party-line legislation. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who sits on the Budget Committee, told reporters he will vote against the package of tax cuts and extensions, border security investments, energy policy and more. So will Reps. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and Chip Roy of Texas. They were in a briefing with the Congressional Budget Office chief earlier today, where hard-liners were upset to learn that the CBO wouldn’t have cost estimates for the Energy and Commerce Committee’s portion of the bill ready until early next week, according to two Republicans who were in the room. excerpts: Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who sits on the Budget Committee, told reporters he will vote against the package of tax cuts and extensions, border security investments, energy policy and more. That leaves huge questions for already-skeptical hard-liners over how much in savings is actually contained in the proposed Medicaid overhaul approved by Energy and Commerce earlier this week. Conservatives are also deeply concerned that changes in state program funding for Medicaid will actually incentive non-expansion states to broaden their Medicaid programs. CBO appeared to acknowledge that possibility and will likely add that into their modeling, according to the people. Warring factions inside the House Republican Conference huddled with the speaker Thursday, jockeying primarily over what to do about SALT — the state-and-local-tax deduction. But other disagreements are also raging around major spending cuts for Medicaid, clean energy tax credits enacted under former President Joe Biden and a slew of other issues that are part of a complex funding puzzle. Inside the meeting, lawmakers discussed how to make more room for SALT, with some lawmakers still favoring a tax hike on the wealthiest Americans to make all the math work, according to two Republicans granted anonymity to describe the private talks. GOP leaders have pushed back against such a move. SALT Republicans, including a die-hard group of five New Yorkers, reiterated in the meeting that they would not accept the $30,000 cap currently in the megabill draft. The speaker also brought Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) into the conversation via speakerphone, according to the people, after SALT members asked her to leave a recent meeting amid concerns she was more sympathetic to her Republican colleagues on the Ways and Means Committee than her fellow New York lawmakers. Another Republican involved in the talks, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they were optimistic that the speaker would “pull a rabbit out of a hat again.” Negotiators in the room were working to find “a sweet spot” on SALT and things were moving in a positive direction, the Republican said. Hard-liners are pushing for deeper Medicaid cuts — including moving up the start date of the new federal work requirements embedded in the bill, which currently wouldn’t go into effect until 2029. Moderates are wary of making deeper cuts to Medicaid and are expecting to meet with GOP leaders later Thursday. “For me, the numbers matter. I don’t want to, you know, get further into debt, and the deficit is important to me,” Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) said. “The numbers don’t add up.” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said lawmakers need to factor in Medicaid work requirements and how to ensure states that have not yet expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act aren’t incentivized to expand. One key hard-right negotiator, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), left the meeting early after again panning the current bill in a morning TV appearance.
— Trump’s birthright order gets frosty reception, but justices appear ready to limit nationwide blocks: President Donald Trump’s executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship found no traction today at the Supreme Court , but the justices sounded inclined to rein in a legal remedy judges have used to halt many of Trump’s early policy moves, from restricting immigration to cutting federal spending to ending anti-diversity initiatives. Three district judges have deployed that tool — known as a nationwide injunction — to block Trump from implementing his birthright citizenship order. None of the justices spoke up in defense of the order’s legality during more than two hours of oral arguments, and several suggested that the order is almost surely unconstitutional. excerpts: The court’s liberal justices highlighted what they said were practical problems to limiting nationwide injunctions. Without them, the executive branch might be able to enforce a policy that one court has declared illegal against some people — or in some jurisdictions — but not others. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made that point to Solicitor General John Sauer, who defended Trump’s birthright citizenship order and urged the court to eliminate nationwide injunctions. “Your argument seems to turn our justice system — in my view at least — into a ‘catch me if you can’ kind of regime, from the standpoint of the executive, where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights,” Jackson said. “I don’t understand how that is remotely consistent with the rule of law.” Sauer repeated a pledge in a court filing that the administration would follow and apply any ruling the Supreme Court ultimately issues about Trump’s birthright citizenship order or on other issues. But it seemed clear that lurking in the background was the perception of many lawyers and judges that the Trump administration is not faithfully abiding by lower court orders — and may not do so in the future. Near the outset of the arguments Thursday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she believed the Supreme Court had already ruled more than a century ago against the central idea in Trump’s order: Children born to foreigners temporarily in the U.S. aren’t U.S. citizens. “As far as I see it, this order violates four Supreme Court precedents,” Sotomayor said. “You are claiming that not just the Supreme Court, that both the Supreme Court and no lower court can stop an executive … from violating that holding, those holdings by this court.” After several justices expressed concern that the legality of Trump’s order could be unresolved for years while the lawsuits over it make their way through the courts, several members suggested that the court dig into the birthright citizenship issue directly, perhaps by taking it up before lower courts have issued final rulings. ‘A Moral, Ethical, Legal, Constitutional Travesty’— Newark Mayor Ras Baraka headed to trial on trespassing charge after arrest at ICE facility: Ras Baraka, the mayor of New Jersey’s largest city and a Democratic candidate for governor,said a trespassing charge against him was “silly,” “petty” and should be dropped after he appeared in federal court this morning. The charge — which came after he tried to tour a federal immigration detention facility in his city but was arrested by federal agents during a scrum that involved three members of Congress — continues to be higher profile than the typical single misdemeanor case would be. Now it appears headed for trial in mid-July, a month after the gubernatorial primary. *** FLUNKIE PARKING LOT LAWYER ALINA HABBA KNOWN FOR LOSING LAWSUITS...MUCH BETTER AT CHOPPING VEGETABLES! ANOTHER TRUMP INCOMPETENT!*** excerpts: The interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Alina Habba, sat in during Baraka’s brief court appearance but did not make public remarks. Baraka’s defense team is planning to argue about jurisdictional issues and selective prosecution, because Baraka was the only person arrested. He appeared virtually before a federal magistrate judge after his arrest and was released that night, so Thursday was the mayor’s first in-person court appearance. Trump administration officials have also suggested they are looking into further charges against the members of Congress — Reps. Rob Menendez, LaMonica McIver and Bonnie Watson Coleman — who were there to inspect the facility and then got involved in a scrum with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. On Wednesday, Republicans used a congressional hearing with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to urge action against the three New Jersey Democrats. Both sides have accused each other of assault. The situation was escalated after Baraka was asked to leave a gated area of the facility. He did, then agents came out to arrest him, while members of Congress shielded him. At one point, a federal agent shoved a member of Congress trying to reenter the facility, according to video and two of the members. Raymond Brown, an attorney for Baraka, referred Thursday to public statements from Trump administration officials who said Baraka “stormed Delaney Hall” and then made references to storming the Bastille and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. “That’s storming. It’s a term of art. He didn’t do it,” Brown said. Baraka said he had to take a mugshot and give his fingerprints again Thursday. He also did that last week at a Homeland Security field office but was told he needed to be processed again. He said those procedures were an attempt to humiliate him. Habba’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment but during the hearing said they have evidence to support the charge.
***FLORIDA'S JOSEPH LADAPO PROMOTED THE WHACK-A-DING ALIEN SPERM DONOR DOCTOR! LADAPO DOESN'T SEEM TO RELY ON ANY SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE!****
Sex with spirits and alien DNA: The controversial views of doctor whose coronavirus theory got Trump Jr suspended from TwitterINDEPENDENT
— Florida becomes 2nd state to ban fluoride in public water supply: Florida today officially became the second state in the country to ban fluoride from public drinking water , marking a significant win for Medical Freedom groups aligned with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Florida follows Utah, which became the first state to ban fluoride in drinking water in March. Libertarian-leaning Medical Freedom groups, which grew in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic, convinced a handful of local boards to stop adding fluoride to drinking water in recent years. But they received a significant boost from Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo after his formal recommendation against adding fluoride to public water supplies in November.
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