My father would have been 94 years old today. I'm trying to think of a way his birthday relates to today's dastardly news from the U.S. Senate, but I can't think of one directly, except to wonder if he would have sunk into MAGAism if he had lived past 2019 and was healthy enough to have been paying attention. I'll never forget the way he, a life-long Democrat and former county party chair for god's sake, started watching Bill O'Reilly on Fox (!) in 2014 during the Ebola outbreak and was obsessed with the idea of people coming from overseas who might spread it.
Anyway.
Despite three Republicans and all the Democrats (even Fetterman) voting against the bill, MAGA's implied and overt threats of violence and who knows what else kept Lisa Murkowski (among others, probably) in line through the vote. These people have no pride and no allegiance to the oath they took to the Constitution, clearly.
Murkowski stated clearly that she was bought off with carve-outs for Alaska, but even that's illogical, because the bill will still harm her constituents in many ways she is not acknowledging. She said she doesn't like the bill and that she knew it will hurt people in many parts of the country, and that she disagreed with the false deadline imposed, "rather than trying to produce the best bill for the country." So... Lisa, that means you might consider voting against the bill!
As Ken Tremendous summarized her stance on BlueSky,
It’s a terrible bill. It will literally kill people. The most vulnerable among us will suffer as the wealthiest benefit. It’s perverse. I wish there were something I could do. But alas, I am only a U.S. Senator from Alaska whose “no” vote would kill the bill. So I voted yes. You get it.
James Fallows:
Lisa Murkowski was appointed to the US Senate BY HER FATHER, after he resigned that seat to become Governor. Truly inspiring story about opportunity in America. Topped now by "poor little me" rationale for supporting a bill she knows is bad for America. And that she could have blocked.
Taniel:
the Senate's small-state ultra-bias is never more maddening than when one senator uses it to get benefits for her 740,000 constituents while openly acknowledging the bill she's supporting will harm the nation's 339 million other residents.
As far as who voted for and against the bill, there's this reminder to make us all the more outraged:
The Senators that voted 'yes' on this disastrous bill represent more than 30 million FEWER Americans than the Senators that voted 'no.' Almost twice as many people ride the New York City bus every day as live in Wyoming. The bus should have two senators.
Sean Morrow @snmrrw.bsky.social
I've already discussed the terrible renewable energy aspects of the bill. The health care consequences have probably gotten the most coverage (including on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver), but here are a few more from BlueSky today on that:
24,488 North Dakota voters will lose healthcare coverage. That's 1/6 of Fargo, or 1/3 of Bismarck, almost 1/2 of Grand Forks, 1/2 of Minot or ALL of Williston, Dickinson, Mandan or every smaller rural town across the rest of a state that chose a convicted felon and dishonest politicians to lead America... In Minnesota 173,268 will lose healthcare coverage. That's 41% of Minneapolis, or 57% of Saint Paul. Every other city in the state would lose their coverage since none have populations over 173,268.
Jim Reilly @jamesjreilly.bsky.social
Senate Republicans just voted to kick 20 million Americans off their health care. JD Vance thinks that is "minutiae." Ernst doesn't care because "we're all gonna die." McConnell says people will "get over it." Don't EVER let Republicans live this down.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth
long-term consequences of nobody being able to get sufficient loans to go to medical school seem pretty bad to me as someone who hopes to be old one day!!!!
dan solomon
Add to that the elimination of immigration of foreign doctors (residents) there will be no one left to care for people.
quick13
Aside from the ballooning deficit/debt built into the bill to fund tax cuts for the richest Americans, the huge increase in the anti-immigration/deportation budget is another notable part that I haven't talked about enough:
$45 billion is just for expanding detention capacities. In total, it throws $175 billion at immigration enforcement. ICE's current budget is only about $8 billion/year, the entire federal prison system is about the same. For perspective, Russia spent about $145 billion on its entire military last year.
Andy Craig
Want to know where all the immigration enforcement money is going to? We've got you covered!
- $51.6 billion for border wall ($46.6 billion for wall, $5 billion for CBP checkpoints and facilities).
- $45 billion for ICE detention
- $29.9 billion for ICE enforcement
Grand total: $170.7 billion.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Trump and Miller are intent on building an unaccountable domestic secret police force that would be the world's third-biggest security force by funding levels, after the US and China's militaries. That kind of funding dwarfs its stated purpose, which tells you what its real purpose will be.
Judah Grunstein
It’s one thing to say they want to deport 20 million people, it’s even one thing to go nuts brazenly doing whatever you can as the executive branch to make it happen, but the fact that they’re going to give ICE an additional $45B shows how committed they are to seeing this through.
Adam Gurri
Just heard Bill Kristol, former chief of staff for Dan Quayle, say he thinks ICE should be defunded and that the entire DHS should probably be disbanded, which puts him to the left of maybe the majority of elected Democrats. Truly wild times we’re living in.
Seth Cotlar
I obtained this from a community member minutes after arriving on scene following a raid at the Cypress Park Home Depot this morning. They detained day laborers:
Jacob Soboroff
So — 3.75 times as much money for militarized ICE enforcement as they currently have available to grab people off the streets, from Home Depots, fields, and homes, blow doors open, and now, apparently, to deport U.S. citizens because their skin is the wrong color. Oh, and build gulags in the middle of Florida swamps.
And I don't know if these aspects are still in the bill or not: I don't even know if the senators know if they're in the bill. No one is talking about them:
As David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social said,
there have been so many moments when "moderate" Republican senators could have acted to save America from fascism without surrendering any of the alleged policy positions that they use to define themselves as conservatives.
What do we do now?
Charles Gaba, a health care policy analyst, posted this to BlueSky this evening:
Now that the MAGA Murder Bill is back at the House, I'm completely updating my House District-level healthcare enrollment pie charts with the latest data, 2024 partisan lean and the population at risk of losing healthcare coverage highlighted.
Use his info to urge Republican House members to vote against the bill on the next round. The vote is very tight in the House, with "Freedom" Caucus members (supposedly) opposed because of the even larger increase in the debt and New York members wanting the SALT tax exemption added.
Tell everyone you now that it quadruples the budget for ICE attacks on people just trying to make a living, harvesting your food and putting a roof on your house. People who came from Iran in 1978 and from Afghanistan after helping the U.S. as interpreters. Jacob Levy, on BlueSky, advocated for this type of messaging: "They increased the debt limit by $5 trillion in order to triple size of ICE and make its detention center bigger than the whole federal prison system."
The immigration raids are unpopular with normal people! It's still possible to stop it.
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