Latest news with #BigBeautifulBill
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump and Musk's bromance breakup has the internet in stitches
Donald Trump and Elon Musk 's relationship has officially imploded, captivating the internet as if it were a high-profile celebrity breakup. 'Normally a breakup this messy is on Bravo not C-Span,' wrote Ben Jacobs, a reporter at Politico, on X. The president and Tesla founder developed a quick bond after the then-candidate was nearly assassinated on stage at a Pennsylvania rally last July. Musk spent approximately $250 million backing Trump's campaign and remained a close supporter throughout the 2024 election. When Trump took office earlier this year, Musk was appointed head of the new administration's Department of Government Efficiency, a role that he held until last week. But it wasn't until Musk's criticism of Trump's controversial so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill' that set off an internet war that culminated on Thursday, June 5, with both men hurling strongly-worded accusations and criticisms at each other on social media. Early in the day, Musk called on Trump to 'ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.' Musk then claimed that without him, Trump would not have secured the presidency, setting off threats from Trump to cut off government contracts with Musk's companies, including Starlink and Space X. 'Time to drop the really big bomb,' Musk replied. '@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!' Senator Scott Wiener was one among those who reacted to the allegation online, specifically calling out Trump supporters who have labeled him and other members of the LGBTQ community pedophiles. 'Let's see if the MAGAs who've been slandering me & other queer people as pedophiles for years say a damn thing about Trump's close association with an actual pedophilia network,' Wiener wrote on BlueSky. Social media users were quick to turn the dramatic feud into comedic gold, with some cracking jokes about the irony of this drama unfolding at the beginning of Pride Month, likening their broken bond to the end of a romance. Both public figures have made homophobic statements and actions in the past. Another irony: Trump threatening to rip away Musk's federal funding when they have been doing that to the arts and science communities for months. 'must be incredibly frustrating and disheartening to have federal funding that was promised to you for important work suddenly and arbitrarily ripped away,' Adam Sternberg, Culture editor for the New York Times, posted to Bluesky. Amid the public spectacle, many couldn't help but mock the emotional nature of the feud, describing the bickering immature given their ages — Musk is 53, while Trump is 78. The phrase 'THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTING' quickly became a top trending topic on X. 'hey @realDonaldTrump lmk if u need any breakup advice,' Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk's children, wrote in a post. In addition to firing off no less than 80 tweets and endorsing other users' posts criticizing the president, including one that called for Trump's impeachment, Musk also unfollowed several of the president's supporters, including Charlie Kirk and Stephen Miller. 'Today is a huge win for every woman concerned she acted like a psycho during her last breakup,' wrote comedian Ginny Hogan, the star of 'Regression.' Poking fun at the misogyny that Trump and Musk have been known to display, MSNBC reporter Sam Stein wrote 'Are men maybe too emotional for positions of leadership?' Some internet users even likened the drama to that between rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar, who have infamously been feuding for about a year. Mike Nelson, a political commentator with more than 25,000 followers, simply shared a photo of the moment Lamar name dropped Drake during his Super Bowl LIX performance of 'Not Like Us,' captioning the post 'Elon dropping that tweet.' Even Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, weighed in on the feud. He has been a vocal supporter of both Trump and Musk in the past. 'Broooos please noooooo,' he wrote on X. 'We love you both so much.' Trump and Musk continued their online brawl for several hours Thursday, each on their respective social media platforms — Trump on his Truth Social and Musk on X, which he owns. The president was supposed to spend the day discussing an end to the Russia-Ukraine war with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. As the online spat hit fever pitch on Thursday, Musk paused his attacks on Trump briefly for a moment to take stock of the carnage. 'One thing's for sure,' Musk wrote on X, 'it ain't boring!'
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Magic dust and mayhem: The Great GOP Panic over Trump's ‘Big Beautiful Bill'
Trump's so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill' narrowly passed the House by a single vote and is now stalled in the Senate. We take a closer look at this massive tax plan that gives permanent breaks for the wealthy while slashing Medicaid, food assistance, and clean energy programs. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, it would add at least $2.4 trillion to the national deficit–hardly a win for fiscal conservatives. Even Elon Musk slammed it as a 'disgusting abomination.��
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Richland Council, leave trans student policy to the schools
The May 6 Richland City Council meeting included discussion of whether the mayor should sign a letter about trans participation in school sports. Although the City Council has absolutely no authority over education policies, they felt that addressing a matter outside the sway of city government was worthy of extended public comment and pontificating from the mayor. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the letter is immaterial; signing it is not good governance. Good governance is about competence, not ideology. Sitting on their platform expressing personal opinions about issues other than those directly impacted by their actions is simply an effort to impose values on our community. This is not a council member's job, and it is not a privilege of their job. But the Richland City Council is not alone; the Kennewick and Pasco councils have also wasted time and energy discussing and signing the letter. I am shocked at how easily our local officials can be manipulated. Watching them so eagerly jump to engage in useless performative governing over a 'dog-whistle' issue outside their control is disappointing and embarrassing. Council members, stick to your job. Marie Noorani, Richland First of all, a huge thank you to Jeff Morrow for acknowledging our Tri-Cities high school golfers. These athletes work so hard, and they love the recognition from the Tri-City Herald! We personally have printed off articles as a keepsake for both of our kids in past years. I noticed Joel Martinez with Chiawana was mentioned in the article, but Beyora King and Moira Laird with Chiawana were not mentioned. Like Joel Martinez, Moira and Beyora also qualified as individuals for the state tournament in DuPont, with Moira Laird shooting an 89 on day one, which qualified her for day two, where she shot a 91. After factoring in all of the tied scores, this placed Moira in a two-way tie for 21st in a field of 116 golfers across the state. Both of these Chiawana Lady Riverhawks have had outstanding seasons, with Beyora King (a senior) making the MCC All-Conference First Team, and Moira Laird (a junior) making MCC All-Conference Second Team. These golfers definitely deserve to be acknowledged along with their peers. Thank you for your time, and thank you again for acknowledging student-athletes. Ashley Laird, Pasco According to Morning Joe analyst Steve Rattner, the 'Big Beautiful Bill' passed by House Republicans will deliver a 3.7% increase in after-tax dollars to the top 10%. The average bottom 10% American will lose $800 because the tax relief is so small and the loss of safety net benefits so large. The 60% in the middle won't feel much difference either way. The cuts to Medicaid and food stamps in the bill are historically large, but it still would increase the deficit by $3.8 trillion. Rattner also says that if the 2017 tax cuts were allowed to expire only on those Americans making over $500,000 annually, it would save $1.1 trillion over 10 years. That would be enough to pay for the Medicaid and food stamps that the 'BBB' cuts. The GOP pretends that tax cuts that exclude the very wealthy are liberal extremism though. The bill was hastily passed in the wee hours without the normal process of evaluation. Rep. Dan Newhouse voted yes and claims to be proud of it, but really? The hot mess will next be considered by the Senate where even the Republicans reportedly think it stinks, but nobody's betting on their integrity. Greg Carl, Richland I was hopeful but not naïve about Rep. Dan Newhouse. But it still hurt when he lied outright to us about not cutting Medicaid. That was a lie. What made it worse than lying was that he exulted and reveled in the lie. He was untruthful with us before, but in a typical misleading way. This was not that. His trumpeting of the lie as something good and great made it so much worse and mean-spirited than anything before. That hurt. His vote was cruel but also wasteful. This budget bill does not reduce the deficit but gives more money to rich Americans by removing an estimated 9 million poorer Americans from insurance. Apparently, in Republican land, this is to be trumpeted as a great accomplishment. Cruelty and incompetence are celebrated. Poorer Americans are kicked to the curb, richer Americans are undertaxed and the deficit grows. To Newhouse, this is great news. In Republican-speak, the deficit is reduced and waste, fraud and abuse are addressed. None of which is true. But Republicans today, and now Newhouse, do not deal in truth. They deal in falsehoods, lies and cruelty. Never again, Newhouse. And shame on you. I am done with you. Chuck Henager, Kennewick
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Biggest Boondoggles in Trump's Big Beautiful Bill
The House reconciliation bill — officially known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — is extraordinary in how much it robs from the poor to boost the rich. Its tax cuts for the wealthy are financed by cuts to health care coverage (both in Medicaid and Obamacare) that will help Republicans swell the ranks of the uninsured by 16 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But the Big Beautiful Bill is not just an ugly tax bill where society's less fortunate are made to sacrifice for the benefit of the wealthiest. It's also a spending bill that steers hundreds of billions of dollars into new pet projects. This is financed with debt. All in, the BBB will spike deficits by $2.4 trillion over 10 years, according to CBO, likely increasing the national debt by $3 billion when interest payments are included. The bill's spending has angered budget hawks in the Senate like Rand Paul (R.-Ky.). It has been part of the public split between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who calls the bill a 'disgusting abomination' that will squander any supposed savings imposed by DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Conservative budget analysts are sounding the alarm: 'This inability to set priorities is going to bring a debt crisis,' Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute tells Rolling Stone. In fact, the bill would create so much new debt that it risks triggering a mechanism called 'sequestration,' which would impose deep, mandatory cuts to Medicare. These cuts to the health care of America's seniors would start next year, and rise to half-a-trillion dollars over ten years. The BBB's spending provisions have received far less scrutiny than the tax cuts and safety-net slashes. But the bill lards new funds on a range of already-fat-cats — from the military-industrial complex and Big Tech to private prisons and construction concerns. Below we survey the biggest boondoggles of the Big Beautiful Bill: The BBB proposes spending nearly $50 billion for construction of Trump's border wall with Mexico. Sen. Paul, in an appearance on Face the Nation last week, accused the administration of waste. He cited an existing Customs and Border Patrol estimate that wall construction should cost only about $6.5 billion over 1,000 miles: 'They have inflated the cost of the wall eightfold,' said Paul. (After his TV hit, CPB appears to have scrubbed the construction cost estimate Paul quoted from its website.) Paul even questioned the need for more wall, at all, given his view that Trump has 'essentially stopped the border flow without new money and without new legislation.' Offering just a small taste of the anticipated building bonanza, the Trump administration awarded a $70 million, 7-mile wall-construction contract to California-based Granite Construction in March. The bill includes $45 billion for 'Adult Alien Detention Capacity' and 'Family Residential Centers.' This funding would enable the administration to ramp up its mass deportation program for undocumented immigrants. As the nation has seen from recent high-profile Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at restaurants, this involves ripping productive members out of society and making them wards of the state, at great public cost, until they can be deported. The money would be a boon to private prison contractors and construction firms. For a taste of where this is headed, consider that the administration has already inked a 15-year, $1 billion deal with GEO Group to house ICE detainees at Delaney Hall, a 1,000 bed facility in Newark, New Jersey. The mayor of the city was arrested by ICE amid a recent protest at the facility. The private prison company is well connected to the Trump administration. As Rolling Stone has reported, Attorney General Pam Bondi is a former lobbyist for GEO Group, which also made a $500,000 donation to the Trump inaugural committee. A GEO subsidiary donated $1.3 million to a Super PAC that backed Trump's 2024 election. The BBB puts up nearly $25 billion for the Golden Dome. The satellite-based missile defense project builds off the branding of Israel's 'Iron Dome,' a ground-based defensive system that can intercept rockets and missiles launched from local militants or state actors like Iran. 'To the extent we match Iron Dome technology, we will be well protected from a missile attack from Canada or Mexico,' says Riedl of the Manhattan Institute, sarcastically. 'But not necessarily from Russia, North Korea or China.' In reality the Golden Dome appears to be Trump's revival of the Ronald Reagan era Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI — a hugely expensive, largely ineffective space-based missile-defense system derided in the 1980s as 'Star Wars.' 'Ultimately this is $25 billion more for SDI' says Rieidl. 'This is a noble idea — but a lot of spending up until now hasn't brought a lot of success.' Trump envisions the BBB as a downpayment on a total investment of $175 million. The Golden Dome promises to be a golden goose for defense contractors. SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Trump's billionaire benefactor Elon Musk, who's currently feuding with Trump, is reportedly vying for a contract. So are the Peter Thiel-linked tech firm Palantir and longtime military-industrial heavyweights like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. Including the Golden Dome, the Big Beautiful Bill increases America's Pentagon spending by a colossal $150 billion. 'This is a bill from the military-industrial complex advocates who are padding the military budget,' according to Paul, who has long criticized the Defense Department for failing to pass every audit to which it's been subjected. Budgets are moral documents. And metaphorically people often speak of the tradeoff between 'guns and butter' — or programs that defend the public and those that keep the public out of misery. The guns side of the Big Beautiful Bill is financed entirely by cuts to butter. The bill strips $128 billion in funding to the states for the SNAP food assistance program that keeps American families from going hungry. It also aims to avoid another $92 billion in spending by knocking people out of the program with red tape and work requirements, including for parents of argues that the Pentagon should be forced to achieve cost efficiencies before it receives any new federal dollars. 'One of DOGE's great failures was essentially ignoring the enormous waste and cost overruns inside the Pentagon. There is a reason the Defense Department cannot pass an audit. There is so much waste. It has significant cost overruns — particularly in government contracts and procurement — that absolutely must be addressed before we further increase defense spending,' says the Manhattan institute fellow. The House bill steers new money to more than a dozen weapons systems, including many dogged by cost overruns, construction delays, performance issues, and questions of combat capability. On the airplane side, this list includes: $4.5 billion for the B-21 Raider, the Air Force's newest long-range stealth bomber, which cost nearly $700 million per aircraft to produce. The two-person Northrup Gruman-built plane may be poorly suited to modern warfighting, where swarms of unmanned drones are becoming the dominant air threat. $3.2 billion for the Boeing-built F-15EX. The planes cost $90 million a pop, making them more expensive than the notoriously costly F-35A. Unlike that fighter, the F-15EX is not a stealth aircraft. And production has been snarled by manufacturing problems. A recent federal assessment put it bluntly: 'Boeing has experienced increased quality deficiencies.' Ships include: $4.6 billion for Virginia Class submarines. The nuclear submarine program has a reported cost overrun of $17 billion and has delivered boats massively behind schedule. The contractors are General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries. The Pentagon already has 23 of these submarines. $2.1 billion for San Antonio Class 'amphibious transport docks.' This ship was put on production pause in 2023 because of massive cost overruns. The boats are supposed to land Marines into onshore combat, but have been found by DOD testers to only be suitable 'in a benign environment' because the ship is 'not effective, suitable and not survivable in a combat situation.' Huntington Ingalls Industries is the contractor. The Pentagon already has 13 of these boats. More from Rolling Stone Donald Trump Is Destroying the Economy and Waging War on the Poor Trump Moves to Deploy National Guard to L.A. Over ICE Protests 'Dejected' Trump Says Relationship With Musk Is Over; Calls Him a 'Big-Time Drug Addict': Report Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
NDTV
12 hours ago
- Business
- NDTV
Trump 'Peeved' Over Musk's Claim That He Was Named In Epstein Files: Report
Donald Trump and Elon Musk's public feud has cooled, but tensions remain. Trump was upset over Musk's Epstein claims. Their future relationship is uncertain, with both holding significant influence. The calm after the storm proves true when it comes to US president Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's very public social media spat. According to a report by the POLITICO, one of the officials said, 'He's stopped posting, but that doesn't mean he's happy,' regarding Trump's hiatus with Musk. 'The future of their relationship is totally uncertain,' the official said. Musk had suggested that Trump be impeached and the latter wanted to cut off all federal contracts for the former's companies but, neither wanted to do it, per the representatives of both the men. However, Trump was peeved by Musk's claim that he was associated with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in the Epstein Files. "Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!" Musk wrote on his X platform, which has now been deleted. On Thursday, the two were locked in a 'social media duel' when Musk had dropped the 'big bomb'. He had also added that his followers should mark this post for the future when 'truth will come out.' Notably, Trump has not been accused of been linked to the Epstein Files. What sent the president spinning was Musk's claim that he could not have won the election without his support and a quarter-billion dollars in political contributions. 'Such ingratitude,' Musk wrote on X, after taking the credit of Trump's election victory. The feud started when Musk criticised Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' for having a 'MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK.' Nevertheless, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, 'As President Trump has said himself, he is moving forward focused on passing the One Big Beautiful Bill.' According to the report, most lawmakers and Republicans agree that Trump would have the upper hand if their feud gets reignited, but Musk, as the world's riches man, with X on his side, would be a tough contender.
