Vote-a-rama. That’s really what they call what’s been going on in the U.S. Senate for more than 24 hours, working through the 900-plus pages of President Trump’s massive package of tax breaks, spending cuts, and new funding for the military and deportations.
■ You can watch live here.
■ Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse on the Senate floor: “This place feels … like a crime scene. Get some of that yellow tape and put it around this chamber.”
■ In the face of widespread opposition, the Senate’s cut a proposal that would have stripped states of power to regulate artificial intelligence.
■ Politico foresees a TACO in the president’s July 4 deadline for approval …
■ … which seems a stretch, given that whatever the Senate passes then goes back to the House.
■ The anonymously bylined newsletter Closer to the Edge issues a series of open letters to Senate Republicans on the bubble:
■ To Kentucky’s Rand Paul “From: The People Who Know Exactly What That Golf Invite Was About” …■ … to Louisiana Dr. Bill Cassidy “From: The Patients You Just Voted to Abandon” …■ … to Maine’s Susan Collins: “When your party tried to kill the Affordable Care Act, you voted no” …■ … and to Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski: “You have one last chance to show us that your independence isn’t just branding.”
■ Columnist Robert Hubbell: “Even if you have called your representatives and senators before, do so again! See 5 Calls.org.”
Half a million Illinoisans. That’s how many residents the Sun-Times says could lose health care coverage under that legislation, according to analysts examining how it would affect Illinois.
■ PolitiFact ranks Trump’s assertion that his bill will deliver on the promise of no tax on Social Security “Mostly False.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “There are so many rotten ideas in this sprawling legislation that it will be disastrous, particularly to the less fortunate.”
■ Greater Chicago Food Depository executive director Kate Maehr: “We are heading into … a crisis of unimaginable proportion.”
■ Politico: As Trump cuts federal library funding, Illinois is pitching in more.
■ See how much your library’s getting here.
New month, new taxes. July 1 brings the launch of new Illinois taxes on—among other things—gasoline, sports bets and tobacco and vaping products.
■ Now in effect: A ban on those plastic-waste generating mini-bottles of shampoo, conditioner and lotions at larger Illinois hotels.
■ The Tribune reports a problem for Mayor Johnson: His team worked with outsiders who weren’t registered to lobby on the city’s behalf in the General Assembly.
■ Also from the Trib: The staff-bleeding Chicago Housing Authority gave 4 1/2 months’ severance to a recently departed executive.
‘Culture wars brought to life.’ Law professor and former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance warns that “the Civil Rights Division, the once proud crown jewel of the Justice Department, will participate in stripping naturalized American citizens of their citizenship.”
■ Semafor: As part of its growing effort to target individuals’ immigration status, the Trump administration’s opened the door to examining the U.S. citizenship of New York Democratic mayoral primary winner Zohran Mamdani.
■ Florida today opens “Alligator Alcatraz,” which Handbasket columnist Marisa Kabas calls a “sadistic ‘one-stop shop’ for mass deportation.”
■ The American Prospect sees Social Security offices bracing for millions of requests triggered by the Supreme Court’s ruling against birthright citizenship: Workers will have to figure out if a newborn should be counted as a citizen—“a determination they’ve never had to make, for which there is no process” …
■ … just one of what Public Notice columnist Lisa Needham labels a series of “profoundly anti-democratic decisions issued by the court’s right-wing majority.”
■ The Onion: “Supreme Court Rules 6-3 That Everyone A Damn Critic.”
Help for the college-bound. Gov. Pritzker’s signed legislation directing many—but not all—Illinois public universities to offer admission directly to students based just on a grade-point average.
■ Also: Bills to make navigating the college financial aid process easier.
■ Chalkbeat: Last week’s layoffs for 161 Chicago Public Schools workers look like just the beginning …
■ … with more school closings on the table, too.
■ Meanwhile in Indiana: To meet budget requirements, that state’s colleges and public universities are cutting almost a fifth of their degree programs.
Media weasel words. Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob flags five ways news outlets are sugar-coating Trump’s fascism with euphemisms.
■ A new study analyzes the extent to which reporters project their own perspectives onto assessments of public opinion.
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