Republicans are doing an end-run around the Senate parliamentarian to make novel use of the current policy baseline instead of current law, asserting a Democrat precedent from 2022

 Senate GOP declines to meet with parliamentarian on whether Trump tax cuts add to deficit

... Republicans, however, say that the parliamentarian doesn’t have a role in judging how much the tax portion of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would add to the deficit within the bill’s 10-year budget window or whether it would add to deficits beyond 2034.

They argue that Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has authority under Section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act “to determine baseline numbers of spending and revenue.”

Ryan Wrasse, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), pointed to a Budget Committee report published when Democrats were in the majority in 2022 stating that the Budget Committee, through its chair, makes the call on questions of numbers, not the parliamentarian.

Graham received a letter from Swagel [CBO Director] on Saturday stating that the Finance Committee’s tax text does not exceed its reconciliation instructions or add to deficits after 2034 when scored on the “current-policy” baseline that Graham wants the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) and CBO to use.

Taylor Reidy, a spokesperson for the Budget panel, asserted on the social platform X that “there is no need to have a parliamentarian meeting with respect to current policy baseline because Section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act gives Sen. Graham — as Chairman of the Budget Committee — the authority to set the baseline.” ...

All you really need to know is that whatever these yokels end up passing, the country will be $50-$60 trillion in debt ten years from now because they spend too much and tax too little.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis from North Carolina will not run again in 2026 after voting to stop Trump's reconciliation bill

 Tillis won’t run for reelection in North Carolina 

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Sunday announced he will not seek reelection to the Senate next year, firing a political shock wave into the midterm cycle after he said he would oppose President Trump’s mammoth tax package. ... 

 

Good morning to all, except to those who cannot spell yesses and noes

 Alexander Bolton at The Hill here:

... The vote to proceed to the sprawling budget reconciliation package remained open on the Senate floor for more than three and a half hours, stuck for a long time at 47 yes’s and 50 no’s. ...

 

 

 

 

Trump & Co. played up Fordow from the beginning because they knew they couldn't do anything about Isfahan

 US did not use bunker-buster bombs on one of Iran’s nuclear sites, top general tells lawmakers, citing depth of the target 

... The comment by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, which was described by three people who heard his remarks and a fourth who was briefed on them, is the first known explanation given for why the US military did not use the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb against the Isfahan site in central Iran. US officials believe Isfahan’s underground structures house nearly 60% of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, which Iran would need in order to ever produce a nuclear weapon. ... Isfahan was only struck by Tomahawk missiles launched from a US submarine. ... 

An early assessment produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency in the day after the US strikes said the attack did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program, including its enriched uranium, and likely only set the program back by months, CNN has reported. It also said Iran may have moved some of the enriched uranium out of the sites before they were attacked. ...

Caine and Hegseth on Thursday said the military operation against Fordow went exactly as planned but did not mention the impacts to Isfahan and Natanz. 

The emphasis on Fordow from the beginning was intentional, because they knew they couldn't do anything about Isfahan.

You know, like "Look over there! A deer!"

 

 

 

 

Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin folds like a house of cards, switches his Nay vote to Yea to advance reconciliation bill to the Senate floor for debate

 Trump megabill narrowly advances in Senate despite two GOP defections

Senate Republicans on Saturday narrowly voted to advance a sprawling 1,000-page bill to enact President Trump’s agenda, despite the opposition of two GOP lawmakers.

The vote was 51-49.

Two Republicans voted against advancing the package: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who opposes a provision to raise the debt limit by $5 trillion and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who says the legislation would cost his state $38.9 trillion in federal Medicaid funding.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) changed his “no” vote to “aye,” and holdout Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) also voted yes to advance the bill. 

The bill had suffered several significant setbacks in the days and hours before coming to the floor, at times appearing to be on shaky ground.

The vote itself was also full of drama. ...

Flashback to May 25 when Johnson said he had enough votes in the Senate to stop the bill:

GOP senator says resistance to Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' could stop it in the Senate

President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson are hopeful for minimal modifications in the Senate to the "One Big, Beautiful Bill" passed by the House last week, but one Republican senator said there's enough resistance to halt the bill unless there are significant changes.

"The first goal of our budget reconciliation process should be to reduce the deficit. This actually increases," Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, urging deeper spending cuts than those in the bill to reset to a "reasonable, pre-pandemic level of spending."

"I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit," Johnson said. ...                                                

Didn't even have him!

 

Republican critic of Donald Trump Don Bacon of purple district NE-2 will not run for re-election

 

Bacon not running for reelection 

 

Update Monday Jun 30:

 

Don Bacon won’t seek reelection in competitive Nebraska district

 

Trump administration fails to intimidate Canada, goes Galt and ends trade talks

 

Trump ends all U.S. trade talks with Canada over digital services tax

 

 

 

 

 

 

... The first payments from Canada’s digital services tax, which was enacted last year and applies retroactively to 2022, are set to be collected Monday. The tax would hit both domestic and foreign tech companies, including U.S. giants such as Amazon, Google and Meta.

Canadian officials said this month that they would not pause the digital services tax, despite ferocious opposition from the United States.

“Obviously, we think it’s patently unfair to do it retroactively,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said later Friday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime.”

Bessent said the Trump administration was hoping that Carney’s government would “put a brake on” the tax “as a sign of goodwill.” ...

 

Trump's idea of good will is 50% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, 25% tariffs on autos, an overall 10% tariff on most everything else, and a 25% "fentanyl" tariff.

 

 

S&P 500 closed at a record of 6,173.07 on Friday 27 June 2025

 

S&P 500 closes at a record Friday, overcoming even more trade angst

Trump is the Uniparty, floats an Iran policy similar to Obama's

 

Trump administration exploring $30 billion civilian nuclear deal for Iran

 

... The potential deal would mark a major reversal in policy for President Trump, who pulled the U.S. out of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 arguing in part that the sanctions relief and unfreezing of Iranian assets had provided a “lifeline of cash” to the Iranian regime to continue its malign activities. ... 

The weekend help has arrived early at Drudge lol

 

Trump Tax Bill Could Add Over $4,000,000,000,000 Trillion to Debt!

Four trillion TRILLION dollars! Now that's a lot of money!

 

 

 

 

Core pce inflation in May 2025 rose to 2.7% year over year, which is a rate 80% higher than the 1.5% average rate 2009-2020

 Daddy's inflation.

 

 

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos buys 55-year old used car

 

The best money can buy: Venice wedding causes stir...

Daddy's inflation

 

Peter Thiel's daddy

 

If anyone is stuck, it's Gen Xer Peter Thiel

 ... I’m always anti-boomer ...

In The New York Times, here. 

The consensus estimate for today's GDP report was indeed for -0.2, instead it surprised at -0.5

 

First-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth was revised lower Thursday in light of reduced consumer spending, surprising economists.

GDP contracted by 0.5 percent on an annualized basis, 0.3 percentage points lower than the last measurement from the Commerce Department.

Economists were expecting the number to stay the same at a 0.2 percent contraction. ...

More. 

Average yields at Treasury Note auctions this week have been significantly lower than at the immediately preceding auctions, indicating there has been a flight to safety on souring economic growth expectations.

Trump may get his lower interest rates . . . the hard way, lol. 

1Q2025 real GDP revised down 0.3 to -0.5 in third and final estimate on an increase in imports front-loaded into 1Q to avoid Trump's tariffs

 Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2025 (January, February, and March), according to the third estimate released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2024, real GDP increased 2.4 percent.

 

The decrease in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected an increase in imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, and a decrease in government spending. These movements were partly offset by increases in investment and consumer spending.

 

Real GDP was revised down 0.3 percentage point from the second estimate, primarily reflecting downward revisions to consumer spending and exports that were partly offset by a downward revision to imports. ...

More.

Sounds like Howard Lutnick gobbledygook at the end there. Paragraph two speaks of an increase in imports. Paragraph three of a downward revision to imports. 

Which is it lol? 

Nominal 1Q2025 GDP clocks in at $29.962 trillion in the third estimate. SPX was at 5612 on Mar 31, yielding a crazy high stock market valuation of 187.  

Blowhard Tommy Tuberville isn't running for re-election to the U.S. Senate, so he'll say anything now

 

GOP senator calls for Senate parliamentarian to be fired after ruling against Medicaid cuts

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which said Iran possessed 400kg of highly enriched uranium on June 12, says they'd have to go to the bomb sites to really know the extent of the damage caused by the U.S. attacks

 

Iran’s nuclear facilities “suffered enormous damage” from the U.S. airstrikes Saturday, but more extensive evaluation is needed, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Thursday.

“I think ‘annihilated’ is too much, but it has suffered enormous damage,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Rafael Grossi told French broadcaster RFI. “I know there’s a lot of debate about the degree of annihilation, total destruction, and so on, what I can tell you, and I think everyone agrees on this, is that very considerable damage has been done.”

“Obviously, you have to go to the site and that is not easy, there is debris and it is no longer an operational facility,” he added.

More. 

Initial claims for unemployment in June 2025 were last higher in June 2023, but yikes continued claims were last higher in Dec 2021

4-week moving averages, initial claims monthly average, continued claims biweekly average: