July 1, 2025

Tuesday, July 1, 2025. Annette’s Roundup for Democracy.

Good News from the Wall Street Journal.

According to the Journal, Trump could well be made a lame lame duck by the 2026 elections.

Trump Puts the Senate in Play in 2026.

By helping to drive Thom Tillis into retirement, he puts his Presidency at risk.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina is voting against Trump’s bill, then stepping down.

A common feature of Donald Trump’s two terms as President is that he can’t stand political prosperity. When events are going in his direction, he has an uncanny habit of handing his opponents a sword.

The latest example came Sunday after GOP leaders dragged several holdouts across the line to vote aye and start debate over the Senate version of the budget reconciliation bill. The vote was 51-49, but Mr. Trump couldn’t leave victory alone.

Instead he unloaded on the two GOP dissenters, Rand Paul of Kentucky and especially Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Mr. Trump dumped three different Truth Social posts on Mr. Tillis, calling him a sellout, a “talker and complainer” and various other insults.

He also all but promised to support a Republican opponent in the GOP primary for Senate in 2026, when Mr. Tillis’s term ends. “Numerous people have come forward wanting to run in the Primary against ‘Senator Thom’ Tillis,” Mr. Trump said on Truth Social. “I will be meeting with them over the coming weeks, looking for someone who will properly represent the Great People of North Carolina.”

Mr. Tillis promptly said he won’t run for re-election. Even if Mr. Tillis had already been contemplating retirement, his withdrawal opens a seat that is another pickup opportunity for Democrats next year.

The GOP has a 53-47 majority now, but Susan Collins always has a tough race in Maine if she decides to run again. Democrats are targeting Joni Ernst in Iowa. In the suicide-isn’t-painless department, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is challenging GOP incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. Mr. Paxton may be the only Republican who could lose in Texas given his record harassing business with lawsuits, impeachment, and other embarrassments.

The GOP pickup opportunities are few, so with Mr. Tillis’s departure the Senate is in play for 2026. Oh, and on Saturday GOP Rep. Don Bacon said he won’t run for re-election in his swing Omaha seat. That’s a likely gain for Democrats in the House.

Messrs. Tillis and Bacon didn’t help themselves by echoing Democratic attacks against the GOP’s very modest Medicaid changes. But then Mr. Trump and GOP leaders haven’t helped them or the party by failing to make the moral and fiscal case for those reforms.

GOP legislative reforms will have no chance if Democrats take the House in 2026. And if they also take the Senate, forget about confirming another Supreme Court nominee. The Trump Presidency will be dead in the water. (Wall Street Journal Editorial)

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Aside from Trump himself and Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem is the cruelest member of the Trump regime.

Dog killer and soulless pursuer of immigrants to deport, it turns out Noem steals from a nonprofit.

Her heartless behavior suggests she could well qualify to be a Trump child. Yes, I am remembering that Eric Trump was accused of diverting charitable donations from the Eric Trump Foundation, which was supposed to benefit children with cancer at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, into businesses connected to the Trump family. The broader Trump Foundation (run by Donald Trump and including Eric Trump as a board member) was ultimately shut down by court order, and Donald Trump was ordered to pay $2 million in damages for misuse of charitable funds.

Eric Trump and his siblings were required to undergo mandatory training on nonprofit management as part of the settlement. The Trumps can be involved with New York charities, but only under enhanced legal supervision and compliance measures, especially for Donald Trump.

Yup, Noem fits right in with the Trumps, though the nonprofit she stole from was political, not related to children.

Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations.

A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirements, experts say.

In 2023, while Kristi Noem was governor of South Dakota, she supplemented her income by secretly accepting a cut of the money she raised for a nonprofit that promotes her political career, tax records show.

In what experts described as a highly unusual arrangement, the nonprofit routed funds to a personal company of Noem’s that had recently been established in Delaware. The payment totaled $80,000 that year, a significant boost to her roughly $130,000 government salary. Since the nonprofit is a so-called dark money group — one that’s not required to disclose the names of its donors — the original source of the money remains unknown.

Noem then failed to disclose the $80,000 payment to the public. After President Donald Trump selected Noem to be his secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, she had to release a detailed accounting of her assets and sources of income from 2023 on. She did not include the income from the dark money group on her disclosure form, which experts called a likely violation of federal ethics requirements.

Experts told ProPublica it was troubling that Noem was personally taking money that came from political donors. In a filing, the group, a nonprofit called American Resolve Policy Fund, described the $80,000 as a payment for fundraising. The organization said Noem had brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

There is nothing remarkable about a politician raising money for nonprofits and other groups that promote their campaigns or agendas. What’s unusual, experts said, is for a politician to keep some of the money for themselves.

“If donors to these nonprofits are not just holding the keys to an elected official’s political future but also literally providing them with their income, that’s new and disturbing,” said Daniel Weiner, a former Federal Election Commission attorney who now leads the Brennan Center’s work on campaign finance.

ProPublica discovered details of the payment in the annual tax form of American Resolve Policy Fund, which is part of a network of political groups that promote Noem and her agenda. The nonprofit describes its mission as “fighting to preserve America for the next generation.” There’s little evidence in the public domain that the group has done much. In its first year, its main expenditures were paying Noem and covering the cost of some unspecified travel. It also maintains social media accounts devoted to promoting Noem. It has 100 followers on X.

In a statement, Noem’s lawyer, Trevor Stanley, said, “Then-Governor Noem fully complied with the letter and the spirit of the law” and that the Office of Government Ethics, which processes disclosure forms for federal officials, “analyzed and cleared her financial information in regards to this entity.” Stanley did not respond to follow-up questions about whether the ethics office was aware of the $80,000 payment.

Stanley also said that “Secretary Noem fully disclosed all of her income on public documents that are readily available.” Asked for evidence of that, given that Noem didn’t report the $80,000 payment on her federal financial disclosure form, Stanley did not respond.

Before being named Homeland Security secretary, overseeing immigration enforcement, Noem spent two decades in South Dakota’s government and the U.S. House of Representatives, drawing a public servant’s salary. Her husband, Bryon Noem, runs a small insurance brokerage with two offices in the state. Between his company and his real estate holdings, he has at least $2 million in assets, according to Noem’s filing.

While she is among the least wealthy members of Trump’s Cabinet, her personal spending habits have attracted notice. Noem was photographed wearing a gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch that costs nearly $50,000 as she toured the Salvadoran prison where her agency is sending immigrants.

In April, after her purse was stolen at a Washington, D.C., restaurant, it emerged she was carrying $3,000 in cash, which an official said was for “dinner, activities, and Easter gifts.” She was criticized for using taxpayer money as governor to pay for expenses related to trips to Paris, to Canada for bear hunting and to Houston to have dental work done. At the time, Noem denied misusing public funds.

Noem’s personal company, an LLC called Ashwood Strategies, shares a name with one of her horses. It was registered in Delaware early in her second term as South Dakota governor, around 1 p.m. on June 22, 2023. Four minutes later, the nonprofit American Resolve Policy Fund was incorporated in Delaware too.

American Resolve raised $1.1 million in 2023, according to its tax filing. The group reported that it had zero employees, and what it did with that money is largely unclear.

Part of a tax document showing that the filer paid $80,000 to Ashwood Strategies for fundraising $800,000, and paid $21,000 to JBest Co. for fundraising $300,000.

Noem’s Ashwood Strategies received an $80,000 fundraising fee in 2023 for raising $800,000 for the nonprofit, according to the group’s tax filing. Credit: Internal Revenue Service. Screenshot and highlights by ProPublica.
In 2023, the nonprofit spent only about $220,000 of its war chest — with more than a third of that going to Noem’s LLC. The rest mostly went toward administrative expenses and a roughly $84,000 travel budget. It’s not clear whose travel the group paid for.

The nonprofit reported that it sent the $80,000 fundraising fee to Noem’s LLC as payment for bringing in $800,000, a 10% cut. A professional fundraiser who also raised money for the group was paid a lower rate of 7%.

In the intervening years, American Resolve has maintained a low public profile. In March, it purchased Facebook ads attacking a local news outlet in South Dakota, which had been reporting on Noem’s use of government credit cards. Noem’s lawyer did not answer questions about whether the group paid her more money after 2023, the most recent year for which its tax filing is available.

The nonprofit has an affiliated political committee, American Resolve PAC, that’s been more active, at least in public. Touting Noem’s conservative leadership under a picture of her staring off into the sky, its website said the PAC was created to put “Kristi and her team on the ground in key races across America.” Noem traveled the country last year attending events the PAC sponsored in support of Republican candidates.

American Resolve’s treasurer referred questions to Noem’s lawyer. In his statement, Noem’s lawyer said she “did not establish, finance, maintain, or control American Resolve Fund. She was simply a vender for a non-profit entity.”

While Noem failed to report the fundraising income Ashwood Strategies received on her federal financial disclosure, she did provide some other details. She described the LLC as involving “personal activities outside my official gubernatorial capacity” and noted that it received the $140,000 advance for her book “No Going Back.” The LLC also had a bank account with between $100,001 and $250,000 in it and at least $50,000 of “livestock and equipment,” she reported.

The fact that Ashwood Strategies is Noem’s company only emerged through the confirmation process for her Trump Cabinet post. South Dakota has minimal disclosure rules for elected officials, and Noem had not previously divulged that she created a side business while she was governor.

Noem’s outside income may have run afoul of South Dakota law, according to Lee Schoenbeck, a veteran Republican politician and attorney who was until recently the head of the state Senate. The law requires top officials, including the governor, to devote their full time to their official roles.

“There’s no way the governor is supposed to have a private side business that the public doesn’t know about,” Schoenbeck told ProPublica. “It would clearly not be appropriate.”

Noem’s lawyer said South Dakota law allowed her to receive income from the nonprofit. (Pro Publica)

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Elon Musk hasn’t changed his mind about Trump’s budget bill.

Most Americans don’t like it either.

What can you do?

Tell Your Senators: Vote NO on Trump's big, evil bill

At the end of a rushed, chaotic process, House Republicans passed a bill early on the morning of May 22nd that fails the very people they promised to help. It would raise costs on millions of families across the country—making it harder for them to meet basic needs and weather life’s ups and downs, while showering ever larger tax breaks on the wealthiest households.

The bill will drive up hunger and deepen poverty, including among children, and take access to life-saving health care away from millions of people.

The Senate must reject it.

The House Republican agenda’s harmful impacts are crystal clear:

15 million people will be losing their health coverage

Millions will be losing food assistance, including at least 2 million children

The 10% of households with the lowest incomes will be made worse off, while the richest get richer by tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars each year

Trillions of dollars will be added to our debt over the next decade, worsening our long-term fiscal posture

The bill also makes higher education more expensive for millions by driving up the cost of student loans and reducing the level of Pell education grants available for college students.

Meanwhile, the House Republican bill showers more tax cuts on the wealthy—extending the highly skewed provisions of the 2017 Trump Tax Scam, adding permanent expansions for wealthy households, and leaving millions of children in working families with low incomes out of even the temporary increase in the Child Tax Credit.

In 2027, it gives households earning more than $1 million a year an average tax cut of roughly $90,000, while low-income households receive an average of just $90 from the tax cuts. All while these households bear the brunt of cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, and face higher prices due to the President’s tariffs—which the bill does nothing to address.

There’s a better path forward, but it requires the Senate to tear up this legislation and start again, rejecting any proposals that raise costs on working families, take health coverage and food assistance away from those who need it most, or drive up poverty and the number of people who are uninsured.

Click "Start Writing" to send a letter to your Senators now.

Note: Did you already send a letter? If so, then dial the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to be connected as well.

Here Are the Republican Senators Who May Revolt on Trump’s Bill

Senate Republicans can afford to lose no more than three of their own votes on the bill, but two already are opposed and others remained undecided.

Even as the Senate pressed closer on Monday to a consequential vote on Republicans’ sweeping domestic policy bill, it was far from clear that party leaders had the support to pass it.

Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky are firm NO’s on Trump’s bill.

At least two senators in their ranks, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky, have said they will not vote for it. With Democrats uniformly opposed to the bill, G.O.P. leaders could afford to lose only one more Republican in the closely divided Senate, and even then would need to call in Vice President JD Vance to cast a tiebreaking vote.

Four defectors would be enough for the bill not to pass.

But at least a half-dozen Republican senators were still undecided on Monday, and several issues that could make or break their decisions had not been resolved.

Senators were still waiting to see if the parliamentarian would allow a spate of measures aimed at winning the vote of Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to be part of the bill, including a provision that would exempt her state from having to pay for a share of nutrition assistance payments currently financed entirely by the federal government. [The Parliamentarian rejected the provision.]

Ms. Murkowski has been vocal in making the case that the legislation would hurt her state, and waited more than 90 minutes after the vote to take up the legislation began before casting her “aye,” after huddling in intense conversation with party leaders on the floor.

A clutch of conservatives, including Senators Rick Scott of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, have demanded a vote on an amendment that would slash Medicaid further, by changing the formula used to determine what share of the program’s bills are paid by the federal government.

Mr. Johnson has said he will wait to see whether Republicans adopt that amendment before deciding whether he will support the overall legislation. Should the proposal succeed, the bill could lose the support of senators who are already alarmed at the level of Medicaid cuts it would impose, as well as Republicans in the House with districts with large populations of Medicaid beneficiaries.

And Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who has not committed to voting for the bill, planned to offer an amendment to raise the tax rate for the most affluent Americans back to what it was before the 2017 tax cuts were enacted. Ms. Collins has said she is unhappy that the legislation does not contain a bigger fund to help rural hospitals absorb the Medicaid cuts laid out in the bill.(New York Times).

One more thing.

Musk also continues to brag. What does this mean? 👇

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As we bid farewell to Pride, this is Especially for Trump.

Touch to watch. 👇 Repost to be sure he sees it.