Big, Beautiful Bill Finds Its Opponents

Plus: The anti-socialist moment, muscle-building drugs counteract Ozempic, arsony gunman in Idaho, and more...

Domestic policy bill gets lambasted: "The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!" wrote Elon Musk on X, referring to the version drafted by Senate Republicans.

This is basically Groundhog Day: The last time Musk critiqued his former BFFs in the Trump administration, it was over…the House version of the same bill (and its impact on the deficit). Things got dirty: Musk suggested that Trump was implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein files, while Trump basically said that Musk is a drug addict.

On Saturday, the newer version of the legislation "cleared a key procedural vote, 51–49," per CNN. "Trump has demanded to sign the bill on the Fourth of July, but the measure must still go back to the House if it passes the Senate. Saturday's vote allows the Senate to begin debating Trump's bill, teeing up a final passage vote in that chamber as soon as Monday." Holdouts will need to be dealt with: Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky both broke with their party and voted against the bill, but for different reasons—Paul because it raises the debt ceiling, and Tillis because he thinks the cuts to Medicaid are too steep.

Tillis also announced this weekend that he would not seek reelection after crossing Trump. "As many of my colleagues have noticed over the last year, and at times even joked about, I haven't exactly been excited about running for another term," he explained in a statement. "That is true since the choice is between spending another six years navigating the political theatre and partisan gridlock in Washington or spending that time with the love of my life Susan, our two children, three beautiful grandchildren, and the rest of our extended family back home," he said. "It's not a hard choice." (Trump had already threatened to primary Tillis, and Democrats have long viewed his seat as a possible flip, so it's not altogether shocking that he's out after his term is up.)

"A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law," reports the Associated Press. "It also said the package would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion over the decade." The bill would also extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts, codify his signature "no taxes on tips" measure, reverse billions' worth of green energy tax credits, and impose more work requirements on food stamps and Medicaid.

Work requirements: Work requirements for food stamps is a bit of a callback to the Clinton era. But some states (such as Georgia and Alabama) have been tinkering with this in recent years, seemingly as a means of trying to boost employment for the poor. "The provision [in the House bill] would deny coverage to applicants who can't show they're already working, volunteering or enrolled in an educational program for 80 hours a month before they are enrolled," CBS reports. "States, which administer Medicaid to their residents, would be permitted to block enrollment to people who can't show they have already had months of work under their belt," one policy expert told CBS. "States could also require people to verify their employment as frequently as once per month, and require up to six months of consecutive work to keep their Medicaid enrollment."

Some libertarians believe that, if government aid is to be doled out at all, attaching fewer strings is the best way to a) allow people to live freer lives, not dictated by the paternalistic state, and b) reduce the administrative burden. But at first blush, I'm not sure I oppose these requirements: If we are going to have welfare, perhaps rules such as these make more sense than giving people stuff for free.

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Scenes from New York: With Zohran Mamdani winning the mayoral primary, a fresh wave of glorious anti-socialist content is cresting. Coincidence?

"abolish capitalism!"

cool. who grows the food???

no seriously—who's out there at dawn breaking their back in the dirt, fixing broken irrigation lines, replacing a tractor axle in 110° heat—for free? because you think profit is mean?

who mines the lithium for your laptop, the…

— stepfanie tyler (@wildbarestepf) June 29, 2025

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QUICK HITS

• "A gunman deliberately started a wildfire in a rugged mountain area of Idaho and then shot at the firefighters who responded, killing two and injuring another on Sunday afternoon," reports The New York Times. This happened on Canfield Mountain, to the east of Coeur d'Alene.
• "Millions are injecting GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic to shed pounds, but they're discovering an ugly truth: the drugs turn longtime users into deflated balloons," writes Pirate Wires' Oliver Bateman. But "since the discovery of myostatin inhibitors in the '90s, scientists have been digging around for a use case. At first, they thought these drugs could treat muscular dystrophy, but that didn't work. Now they've found their killer app: preventing the 'muscle tax' that makes Ozempic users look so weak." ("Scholar Rock could receive FDA approval within months and become the first to market. Its stock exploded 300 percent when data from the trial summarized above dropped." Other companies to watch: Biohaven, Roche, Eli Lilly, and AstraZeneca.)
• "The trade deal signed between U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer lowering some tariffs on imports from Britain has come into effect, the British government said on Monday," reports Reuters. "British car manufacturers will now be able to export to the U.S. under a reduced 10% tariff quota from an earlier 27.5%, while the current 10% tariffs were fully removed for goods like aircraft engines and aircraft parts, the statement said, reiterating details announced earlier in June."
• The Atlantic explores the customer service tactics meant to deny you actual resolution. 
• lol:

Checking in on the Democratic Party's new video series and am awed by how organic it looks pic.twitter.com/W3J2l9DCUa

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) June 27, 2025

• Insane:

Mind blowing levels of corrupt and hypocritical behavior here pic.twitter.com/0EDEyruPF7

— David J. Bier (@David_J_Bier) June 29, 2025

• I know this is a petty complaint, but I dislike the writing style of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (and her clerks):

First time I've seen the phrase, "Wait for it" in a SCOTUS ruling.

What is she writing, a judicial dissent, or an article for MSNBC? pic.twitter.com/FO3yQZwSHb

— ArthurinCali (@ArthurReturnss) June 27, 2025

• A really good Just Asking Questions episode with Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.):