July 5, 2025. Annette’s Roundup for Democracy.
Is this 4th of July the saddest day in American history?
On July 4th, 2025, the New York Times invited readers to answer this question -
How Will Trump’s Big Bill Affect Your Wallet?
Congressional Republicans just passed President Trump’s sprawling domestic policy bill that extends and expands tax cuts, while slashing Medicaid, food benefits and clean energy initiatives to pay for them — but only partly. The bill favors the wealthy, and low-income Americans stand to lose the most.
What could the bill mean for your pocketbook? Answer these questions to learn more about the individual impacts of the wide-ranging legislation.
The Washington Post asks a similar, though, to its credit, a slightly broader but still a similarly shallow question:
How Trump’s big bill will affect you, from Medicaid cuts to tax credits.
Who is asking the real questions? How does Trump’s Big Ugly bill affect the soul of the nation? How does it reflect who we have become? Who we will become?
Shame.Shame.Shame.
This 4th of July may well be the saddest day in American history amidst multiple contenders - for starters, Hiroshima, anyone? Or any 4th of July when slavery still existed.
Yet, our two major papers fail to report that, and why.
Further proof of how far we have fallen.
The French got it right.
#MakeThemPay2026
Lisa Murkowski is immoral.
Read the shameful tweet she offered as an explanation for her immoral vote.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski
@lisamurkowski
This was one of the hardest votes I have taken during my time in the Senate.
My goal throughout the reconciliation process has been to make a bad bill better for Alaska, and in many ways, we have done that. In addition to extending pro-growth tax cuts, a larger child tax credit, and no tax on tips or overtime, we made a historic investment and modernization of the Coast Guard; enhanced our border security and national defense; funded aviation safety, including AWOS/VWOS systems that will save lives; and provided tax-exempt status for the Community Development Quota Program to help western Alaska communities establish a sustainable economy, among other provisions.
We have advanced new opportunities for resource development in the NPR-A, the Coastal Plain, and Cook Inlet that will help us create jobs and increase the share of revenues our state receives. I also co-led the Senate effort to restore a slightly longer phase-out for wind and solar tax credits while deleting a punitive excise tax targeting them.
Those provisions will benefit our economy, but it is the people of Alaska that I worry about the most, especially when it comes to the potential loss of social safety net programs—Medicaid coverage and SNAP benefits—that our most vulnerable populations rely on.
To address the bill’s shortcomings, we have helped our communities through a $50 billion rural health fund. This will mean hundreds of millions of dollars for Alaska hospitals, community health centers, and other providers. We secured commitments from the CMS Administrator to continue to address longstanding priorities which will directly help Bartlett, Fairbanks Memorial, Central Peninsula, and other hospitals in Alaska.
In the SNAP program, we have added tribal exemptions for work requirements, delayed cost-share penalties to help Alaska get benefits to the people who need them, and included work requirement waivers that align with our Medicaid policies. We also secured commitments from the Secretary of Agriculture to provide additional flexibilities to Alaska for SNAP.
But, let’s not kid ourselves. This has been an awful process—a frantic rush to meet an artificial deadline that has tested every limit of this institution.
While we have worked to improve the present bill for Alaska, it is not good enough for the rest of our nation—and we all know it.
My sincere hope is that this is not the final product. This bill needs more work across chambers and is not ready for the President’s desk. We need to work together to get this right.
One more thing.
From Charlie Sykes in Substack.
And so ends Murkowski’s brief stint cosplaying as a Woman of Principle. And I would argue that makes her even worse than other collaborators and toadies.
She pretended to be better; and might have been. But it was all bullshit. She could have been a John McCain. Instead, she chose to be a low-rent Lindsey Graham.
Her choice was even more striking because Murkowski seemed on the edge of a decisive break from Trumpism. She had voted to convict him at his second impeachment; had opposed some of his key appointments; and had even floated the idea that she might end up caucusing with Democrats.
It’s also worth remembering that back in 2017, during the attempts to repeal Obamacare, Trump and the GOP leadership tried to bribe her with special carveouts and kickbacks. “Nonetheless, “ recalls Joe Perticone, “Murkowski held firm and refused to help Republicans rip apart the Affordable Care Act.”
More recently, Murkowski came out with a book that portrayed herself as a tough-minded maverick. Of Trump, she wrote: "He isn't that smart. Trump lacks the ability for strategic or linear thinking. He isn't able to form or follow through on complex plans." She devotes considerable time to explaining her votes against the the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and her vote to convict Trump after the January Insurrection.
In the book, she laments the climate of hyper-partisanship: “The parties demand conformity,” she wrote, “and their loudest voices are also their most extreme and uncompromising.”
On Monday, she gave them what they wanted. And now she has to live with that.
Trump is always crazy.
On July 1, a reporter from the Fox News Channel asked Trump about the new detention facility in the Everglades: “Mr. President, is there an expected time frame that detainees will spend here? Days, weeks, months?”
Trump answered: “In Florida? I'm going to spend a lot. Look, this is my home state. I love it, I love your government, I love all the people around. These are all friends of mine. They know very well. I mean, I'm not surprised that they do so well. They're great people. Ron has been a friend of mine for a long time. I feel very comfortable in the state. I'll spend a lot of time here. I want to, you know, for four years, I've got to be in Washington, and I'm okay with it because I love the White House. I even fixed up the little Oval Office, I make it—it's like a diamond, it's beautiful. It's so beautiful. It wasn't maintained properly, I will tell you that. But even when it wasn't, it was still the Oval Office, so it meant a lot. But I'll spend as much time as I can here. You know, my vacation is generally here, because it's convenient. I live in Palm Beach. It's my home. And I have a very nice little place, nice little cottage to stay at, right? But we have a lot of fun, and I'm a big contributor to Florida, you know, pay a lot of tax, and a lot of people moved from New York, and I don't know what New York is going to do. A lot of people moved to Florida from New York, and it was for a lot of reasons, but one of them was taxes. The taxes are so high in New York, they're leaving. I don't know what New York's going to do about that, because some of the biggest, wealthiest people, and some of the people that pay the most taxes of any people anywhere in the world, for that matter, they're moving to Florida and other places. So we're going to have to help some of these states out, I think. But thank you very much. I'll be here as much as I can. Very nice question.” (source. Widely disseminated video, plus Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson)
Trump also talked about Joe Biden. God knows why.
"Biden wanted me in here, OK," Trump said July 1 next to chain-link cages with beds that will house detained migrants beginning Wednesday. "He wanted me. Didn't work out that way, but he wanted me in here that son of a b----." (source. Widely disseminated video plus USA Today).
A New Declaration of Independence from Tyranny
Effective July 4, 2025
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to break from a leader who governs with cruelty, contempt, and corruption, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed with inherent dignity and unalienable rights—among these are life, liberty, equality, and the pursuit of justice.
That to secure these rights, governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. When a leader becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right and duty of the people to refuse allegiance and to stand united in the defense of their freedoms.
The current holder of high office has shown himself to be unfit to lead a free and just society.
- He disrespects women, mocking survivors of violence and stripping away their rights.
- He fuels racism and white supremacy, scapegoating communities of color and denying their equality.
- He assaults free speech, attacking the press, punishing dissent, and spreading disinformation.
- He exploits public office for private gain,
enriching himself and the billionaire class while abandoning the poor and working people. - He undermines justice, ignores the rule of law, and places himself above accountability.
- He disregards science, endangering lives in times of crisis and sacrificing the planet for profit.
- He fans division and incites violence to maintain power, wielding fear as a weapon against the people.
Time and again, we have protested peacefully, spoken truthfully, and appealed to our shared humanity. We have been met with indifference, hostility, and violence. A leader who governs through hatred and greed is unfit to govern at all.
Therefore, we, the people of conscience and conviction, do solemnly declare our independence from this tyrant and all he represents.
We withdraw our consent.
We refuse to be complicit in cruelty.
We reject the abuse of power for personal gain.
We stand for dignity, truth, equality, and justice for all people.
With firm reliance on each other and unwavering hope in our collective strength,
We pledge to resist oppression in all its forms,
To uphold the rights of the vulnerable,
And to build a future grounded in compassion, courage, and shared humanity.
Let this declaration be both a breaking and a beginning.