June 30

New York Times, Trump Administration Live Updates: Senate to Begin Voting on Policy Bill, as G.O.P. Grasps for Support, Catie Edmondson and Carl Hulse, June 30, 2025. The Senate will hold a marathon series of votes on Trump’s policy bill, with support in doubt.  

After a weekend session marked by sharp partisan conflict, Senate Republicans hoped to approve the measure and send it to the House. The bill extends nearly $4 trillion in tax cuts first passed in 2017 and partially pays for them by slashing spending on safety net programs.

The Contrarian, Opinion: The worst bill in modern history, Jennifer Rubin, June 30, 2025. Democrats must make it a career-ender for Republicans.

Lawmakers are not in the dark. Their constituents, rural hospitals, state and local officials, the Congressional Budget Office, conservative think tanks, the Wall Street Journal, and their Democratic colleagues have explained the bill’s horrid consequences.

Republicans might parrot MAGA talking points, but when Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) distributes materials to fellow Republicans highlighting the devastation the bill will cause, only the truly deluded can imagine this is anything but horrid policy.

(The Hill quoted a source familiar with the scene at Tuesday’s Senate Republican lunch: “Thom Tillis got up and he had a chart on what the Senate’s provider tax structure will cost different states, including his. His will lose almost $40 billion. He walked through that and said, ‘this will be devastating to my state.’”)

Aside from the disastrous policy objections, Republicans should not delude themselves about the political quicksand they stepped in. The reverse-Robin-Hood scheme is deeply unpopular in every recent public poll.

A Fox News poll shows only 38% support it, while 59% oppose it.

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Now, with Donald Trump back in the White House, we face the most dangerous form of capital’s dominance yet: a fusion of political power and personal enrichment that corrodes both democracy and markets.

This is not merely a return to a pro-business agenda or deregulation. It is the full flowering of crony capitalism — a system where loyalty to the leader is rewarded with contracts, immunity, and influence, and where state power is wielded in service of Trump and his obsessions.

Trumpism is not about building a strong state or a coherent political vision. It’s about building a network of loyalists who profit from proximity to the president. In that sense, it closely resembles the system Vladimir Putin has built in Russia — one where oligarchs thrive not because of free competition or innovation, but because of their personal loyalty to the regime.

In the face of this creeping Putinism, the defense of democracy cannot be left to institutions alone. They are already under siege — from courts packed with loyalists to agencies purged of dissent. The true counterweight must come from the people themselves. Democracy is not self-executing. It lives only when citizens insist that it does.

If Americans still believe in government of, by, and for the people, then it’s time to reassert the primacy of democracy — before it’s too late.

That means more than voting. It means organizing, speaking out, and yes — peacefully protesting. It means standing in the streets, writing to editors, showing up at school boards and town halls, and refusing to accept a government that serves money over people. And one man over the Constitution. This is not about left or right. It is about whether public life will be

April 29 ABC News, HHS firings, questioning safety of vaccines: How the Trump administration may be ‘attacking’ science, Mary Kekatos, April 29, 2025. Officials have been questioning what is believed to be established science.

The first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term have been filled with mass firings, cancellations of research grants, university funding cuts and questions over what should be studied.

Thousands of people have been let go at federal agencies and critical research has been put on hold. Additionally, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., right, has questioned the safety and efficacy of vaccines and antidepressant medications despite dozens of studies proving they are safe and effective.

Doctors and public health specialists critical of the administration tell ABC News they view these actions as an “attack” on science, damaging the reputation of respected agencies and by questioning what is believed to be established science.

MORE: RFK Jr. said HHS layoffs are needed as ‘Americans are getting sicker.’ Here’s what the data shows.

“It’s completely unprecedented,” Steve Cohen, senior vice dean of Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies and a professor of public affairs at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, told ABC News. “It’s frankly a little unhinged. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The White House did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

An HHS official told ABC News that framing the actions of the admiration as an “attack” is “fundamentally dishonest.”

“Further reviewing pharmaceutical products with gold standard science and common sense is not an ‘”attack on science’ — it’s what the American people have asked for and deserve,” the official said. ” Let’s be clear: Secretary Kennedy is not anti-vaccine —