Republican said Sikh should not be allowed to deliver House prayer
Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) posted — then quickly deleted — that a Sikh should have "never been allowed" to lead the House of Representatives' daily prayer on Friday after initially incorrectly calling the man a Muslim.
Why it matters: This is not the first time Miller has fallen into hot water for inflammatory remarks. Shortly before she took office in 2021, she made headlines for saying "Hitler was right about one thing."
After Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Miller called the decision a "historic victory for white life," which her office later said was based on a misreading of her prepared remarks.
A Miller spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What happened: Giani Singh, a Sikh Granthi from Southern New Jersey, delivered the House's morning prayer on Friday.
Miller responded later in the morning by incorrectly identifying Singh as a Muslim, saying it was "deeply troubling that a Muslim was allowed to lead prayer in the House of Representatives this morning."
"This should have never been allowed to happen. America was founded as a Christian nation, and I believe our government should reflect that truth, not drift further from it. May God have mercy," she added.
Miller quickly edited her post to change "Muslim" to "Sikh," before deleting it altogether minutes later.
What they're saying: " I often say that I serve in Congress with some of the greatest minds of the 18th century. With Rep. Miller I may need to take it back a few more centuries," Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said in a post on X.
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37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Fact Check: What we know about 'Big Beautiful Bill' banning states from regulating AI for 10 years
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For example, one X user shared this claim (archived) on June 2, 2025: Similar claims also appeared in Facebook (archived) posts (archived) around the same time. Snopes reviewed the text of H.R. 1 and found a provision that bans states from regulating AI systems "entered into interstate commerce" for 10 years in Section 43201 of the bill. Paragraph (c) in that section outlines the 10-year moratorium on states' AI regulation: (1) In general. – Except as provided in paragraph (2), no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce, during the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, any law or regulation of that State or a political subdivision thereof limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems entered into interstate commerce. In other words, if the bill becomes law, states and local governments will be blocked from enforcing any regulations on AI systems and models that are involved in interstate commerce for 10 years. The phrase "interstate commerce" broadly refers to business or activity that crosses state lines. But in the context of this bill, the distinction likely doesn't mean much. As a result, we've rated the claim mostly true. The Supreme Court has said activities that happen entirely within one state can still count as interstate commerce if they have a significant enough impact on the national economy, as David Brody, a civil rights and technology legal expert, explained in an article for Tech Policy Press published on May 27, 2025. That means many AI systems would likely be subject to the federal rules if H.R. 1 passes. However, there are some exceptions to the 10-year moratorium on states' AI regulation — notably for any laws or regulations that facilitate the rollout, operations or adoption of AI models and systems, according to the bill text. Snopes reached out to the White House and the office of U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, who introduced H.R. 1, for comment about the 10-year moratorium on states regulating AI and the purpose of including it in the bill, and is awaiting responses. Multiple Republican lawmakers have voiced support for the 10-year moratorium, with some saying a patchwork of state laws doesn't support innovation and others stressing the importance of a federal approach to AI regulation. But other federal and state lawmakers as well as watchdog groups have strongly opposed the proposed rule over concerns about limiting states' ability to deal with potential harms caused by AI. For example, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said in an X post on June 3, 2025, that she "did not know about" the section of H.R. 1 that bans states from regulating AI for a decade, adding that she is "adamantly opposed" to the provision. Hundreds of state lawmakers across the political spectrum also signed a letter addressed to the U.S. House and Senate on June 3, 2025, expressing "strong opposition" to the 10-year moratorium on AI regulation. The letter read in part, "The proposed 10-year freeze of state and local regulation of AI and automated decision systems would cut short democratic discussion of AI policy in the states with a sweeping moratorium that threatens to halt a broad array of laws and restrict policymakers from responding to emerging issues." 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For example, research from Drexel University in Philadelphia suggests that inappropriate behavior, including sexual harassment, during conversations with AI chatbots is "becoming a widespread problem," the university said on May 5, 2025. Consumer Reports, another advocacy organization, also raised concerns about states being unable to deal with a variety of issues that AI technology poses, including sexually explicit images, audio and video created without a person's consent. Snopes has previously looked into other claims about the "Big Beautiful Bill," including whether it contains a provision allowing the U.S. president to delay or cancel elections. Arrington, Jodey. "Text - H.R.1 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): One Big Beautiful Bill Act." 2025, Accessed 4 June 2025. Brody, David. "The Big Beautiful Bill Could Decimate Legal Accountability for Tech and Anything Tech Touches." Tech Policy Press, 27 May 2025, Accessed 4 June 2025. Cornell Law School. "Commerce Clause." Legal Information Institute, 18 Sept. 2018, Accessed 4 June 2025. Hendrix, Justin. "Transcript: US House Subcommittee Hosts Hearing on 'AI Regulation and the Future of US Leadership.'" Tech Policy Press, 21 May 2025, Accessed 4 June 2025. Open letter from consumer advocacy organizations to congressional leadership. Common Sense Media, 21 May 2025, Accessed 4 June 2025.
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
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House GOP Fears Trump-Elon Breakup Might Get In ‘Big, Beautiful' Bill's Way
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With those two final additions and the twenty minute-plus standstill, Republicans were able to table the effort to subpoena Musk by a vote of 21-20. In a statement to TPM, Lynch accused the GOP members of ' refusing to exercise Congressional authority on behalf of the American people to demand answers and accountability for the destruction, chaos, and cruelty Elon Musk and DOGE have unleashed on our government and on communities nationwide.' 'It is disturbing that Republicans would rather shield the richest man in the world from testifying publicly than fight for the folks who rely on VA health care, Social Security benefits, weather services, humanitarian aid, scientific research, and more vital programs and services that have been decimated by Elon Musk's chainsaw,' Lynch said, adding, 'The Oversight Committee was made for this moment, and Republicans are failing the American people by refusing to do their jobs. Just because Elon Musk has turned in his ID badge does not mean he can walk away from the monstrosity he has created and the permanent damage left in his wake.' — Hunter Walker 'I call this alternate reality, I call this place where these folks live, Bullshit Mountain,' Jon Stewart told the crowd during The Rumble in the Air Conditioned Auditorium debate with Bill O'Reilly in 2012. 'On Bullshit Mountain,' Stewart went on, 'our problems are amplified and the solutions simplified.' Bullshit Mountain would become Stewart's enduring metaphor for Fox News in the second half of the Obama presidency. It was a convenient shorthand to explain how Fox pundits could routinely espouse conspiratorial nonsense or fixate on an obscure event with seemingly no broad implications for the American public and use it as proof positive of the country's imminent collapse. Bullshit Mountain was an acknowledgment that the two major political parties didn't merely have different opinions on how to solve the country's problems, but increasingly were living in two different realities with entirely different problems. There was also the non-subtle accusation of cynicism in the name Bullshit Mountain. Maybe the audience believed this crap, but the executives and the anchors knew it was bullshit, right? In Jesse Armstrong's breakout show, 'Succession,' he satirized a fictional version of the Murdoch empire which took us behind the scenes of Bullshit Mountain. In Armstrong's interpretation of this world, there were the serious people who understood how to play the game and accumulate power, and those who were not serious, who didn't know how to play the game, or worse, didn't know it was a game at all. In his follow-up to Succession, HBO's new made-for-TV movie Mountainhead, Armstrong seems to acknowledge that Bullshit Mountain may no longer be a place created and controlled by serious people, that the bullshit from which the mountain is made may have broken confinement and swamped us all. Bullshit Mountain may now be where we all live — our dominant reality. Centered on a foursome of ultrarich tech founders (all men) who gather at a mountain lodge for a poker game as the world falls apart after the release of the AI-powered social network they all had some role in creating, Mountainhead depicts a world where seriousness might be a detriment to world dominance. 'Nothing means anything and everything is funny,' the founder of the AI social network explains when confronted by a litany of abuses enabled by his product, including a video of a kid juggling severed feet. The technology these founders have created has effectively dissolved any sense of shared reality by allowing anyone to create and propagate alternate realities which leads to the unraveling of the global order. But more interesting than the consequences of this technology, which we are in many ways already aware of, is the way in which the founders have isolated themselves from their own reality, both intentionally and unintentionally. After about 30 mins of dialogue laced in the idiomatic gibberish of Silicon Valley … 'first principles' .. 'post-human'… 'decel' … 'p(doom)' … 'game theory' … 'chunky numbers' … you realize these characters have nothing meaningful to say to each other, whether socially or in response to the global catastrophe they helped create. While there is a tinge of the tragic in their inability to communicate emotionally with each other, there is also something powerful in the artifice of their language, which protects them from having to meaningfully take responsibility for their actions. Viewing the potential collapse of the world through their screens, a vantage point from which nothing can be known for certain, the artificiality of their language lends an artificiality to the events, regardless of whether or not they are really happening. The collapse of a country's economy gets referred to as 'de minimis,' news of the mayor of Paris's assassination becomes an example of the 'compound distillation effect of the content.' But when the four characters end up bunkered in the basement, erroneously fearing retaliation from Iran's Revolutionary Guard, it's clear that they are as susceptible to the fake reality their technology has created as any of its users. Whether you find Mountainhead successful satire may depend on your priors. However, in the wake of DOGE, Elon's takeover and remaking of Twitter and the enthusiasm with which our major AI companies are cheerleading a new cold war with China, it's hardly a work of speculative fiction. In Jon Stewart's farewell speech from the Daily Show in 2015, he claimed that the bullshitters were getting lazy and that vigilance was our best defense. But his framing assumed a continued dichotomy between the bullshitters and the bullshited. He didn't offer any advice on what to do when there's no longer a difference. — Derick Dirmaier
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Trump's tariffs could pay for his tax cuts -- but it likely wouldn't be much of a bargain
The Congressional Budget Office, the government's nonpartisan arbiter of tax and spending matters, says the One Big Beautiful Bill, passed by the House last month and now under consideration in the Senate, would increase federal budget deficits by $2.4 trillion over the next decade. That is because its tax cuts would drain the government's coffers faster than its spending cuts would save money. By bringing in revenue for the Treasury, on the other hand, the tariffs that Trump announced through May 13 — including his so-called reciprocal levies of up to 50% on countries with which the United States has a trade deficit — would offset the budget impact of the tax-cut bill and reduce deficits over the next decade by $2.5 trillion. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up So it's basically a wash. Advertisement That's the budget math anyway. The real answer is more complicated. Actually using tariffs to finance a big chunk of the federal government would be a painful and perilous undertaking, budget wonks say. 'It's a very dangerous way to try to raise revenue,' said Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton Budget Model, who served in President George W. Bush's Treasury Department. Trump has long advocated tariffs as an economic elixir. He says they can protect American industries, bring factories back to the United States, give him leverage to win concessions over foreign governments — and raise a lot of money. He's even suggested that they could replace the federal income tax, which now brings in about half of federal revenue. Advertisement 'It's possible we'll do a complete tax cut,'' he told reporters in April. 'I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.'' Economists and budget analysts do not share the president's enthusiasm for using tariffs to finance the government or to replace other taxes. 'It's a really bad trade,'' said Erica York, the Tax Foundation's vice president of federal tax policy. 'It's perhaps the dumbest tax reform you could design.'' For one thing, Trump's tariffs are an unstable source of revenue. He bypassed Congress and imposed his biggest import tax hikes through executive orders. That means a future president could simply reverse them. 'Or political whims in Congress could change, and they could decide, 'Hey, we're going revoke this authority because we don't think it's a good thing that the president can just unilaterally impose a $2 trillion tax hike,' '' York said. Or the courts could kill his tariffs before Congress or future presidents do. A federal court in New York has already struck down the centerpiece of his tariff program — the reciprocal and other levies he announced on what he called 'Liberation Day'' April 2 — saying he'd overstepped his authority. An appeals court has allowed the government to keep collecting the levies while the legal challenge winds its way through the court system. Economists also say that tariffs damage the economy. They are a tax on foreign products, paid by importers in the United States and usually passed along to their customers via higher prices. They raise costs for U.S. manufacturers that rely on imported raw materials, components and equipment, making them less competitive than foreign rivals that don't have to pay Trump's tariffs. Advertisement Tariffs also invite retaliatory taxes on U.S. exports by foreign countries. Indeed, the European Union this week threatened 'countermeasures'' against Trump's unexpected move to raise his tariff on foreign steel and aluminum to 50%. 'You're not just getting the effect of a tax on the U.S. economy,' York said. 'You're also getting the effect of foreign taxes on U.S. exports.'' She said the tariffs will basically wipe out all economic benefits from the One Big Beautiful Bill's tax cuts. Smetters at the Penn Wharton Budget Model said that tariffs also isolate the United States and discourage foreigners from investing in its economy. Foreigners see U.S. Treasurys as a super-safe investment and now own about 30% of the federal government's debt. If they cut back, the federal government would have to pay higher interest rates on Treasury debt to attract a smaller number of potential investors domestically. Higher borrowing costs and reduced investment would wallop the economy, making tariffs the most economically destructive tax available, Smetters said — more than twice as costly in reduced economic growth and wages as what he sees as the next-most damaging: the tax on corporate earnings. Tariffs also hit the poor hardest. They end up being a tax on consumers, and the poor spend more of their income than wealthier people do. Even without the tariffs, the One Big Beautiful Bill slams the poorest because it makes deep cuts to federal food programs and to Medicaid, which provides health care to low-income Americans. After the bill's tax and spending cuts, an analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model found, the poorest fifth of American households earning less than $17,000 a year would see their incomes drop by $820 next year. The richest 0.1% earning more than $4.3 million a year would come out ahead by $390,070 in 2026. Advertisement 'If you layer a regressive tax increase like tariffs on top of that, you make a lot of low- and middle-income households substantially worse off,'' said the Tax Foundation's York. Overall, she said, tariffs are 'a very unreliable source of revenue for the legal reasons, the political reasons as well as the economic reasons. They're a very, very inefficient way to raise revenue. If you raise a dollar of a revenue with tariffs, that's going to cause a lot more economic harm than raising revenue any other way.''
