Monday, June 30, 2025

95 here today in Portland and even at 11 pm it's still 74 degrees Fahrenheit

Today was the first day that we had to use our air conditioner in the Air Bnb we rented this trip to Portland and we had to leave it on all day while we were gone and even with it on all day long the temperature inside is still 74 degrees which matches the outside temperature right now. But, in Mt. Shasta for 4th of July is presently 64 degrees and will be 77 on Friday which is amazing because it's often over 100 for 4th of July but I think there might be rain clouds that are bringing the temperature down this week there.

It looks like it might rain some there in Mt. Shasta tomorrow after noon. I sort of welcome the slightly cooler weather this week after today which was a real scorcher even deep into the evening for this area of Portland. 

Musk vows to defeat all Republicans who vote for Trump's bill

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IT turns out that it's Ravens not Crows that have been a part of the legends of the Tower of London for a long time

The association of ravens with English governance is most notably tied to the
Tower of London.
According to legend, the kingdom and the Tower of London will fall if the six resident ravens ever leave the fortress. 
While ravens, like crows, have likely been present in and around the Tower for centuries, potentially for practical reasons like scavenging, the legend connecting them to the fate of the monarchy is generally believed to have originated more recently: 
  • Traditionally attributed to King Charles II: King Charles II, who reigned from 1660 to 1685, is often cited as the first monarch to insist upon the ravens' presence and protection at the Tower. He was reportedly advised that if the ravens left, the crown and the Tower would fall.
  • Victorian era theory: Some historians, including the Tower's official historian, suggest that the raven mythology may be a legend invented during the Victorian era. The earliest known reference to captive ravens at the Tower is an illustration from 1883. 

Therefore, while wild ravens were likely part of the Tower's environment much earlier, the official, protective association of captive ravens with English governance through the legend dates back at least to the 17th century (according to popular belief) or possibly the late 19th century (according to some historians). The tradition of maintaining a minimum number of ravens at the Tower continues to this day. 
  • All About the Ravens at the Tower of London - ExperienceFirst
    Dec 1, 2024 — And if you want to snap some pics of them, I'll share tips for that too. * Why are there ravens at the Tower of London? While they might hold celebrity-like sta...
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A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony governed by England, and then Great Britain or the United Kingdom within the English and later British Empire.
Since the 19th century, Crow people have been concentrated on their reservation established south of Billings, Montana. Today, many also lived in major Western ...
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  • Ravens of the Tower of London - Wikipedia
    Ravens of the Tower of London. ... The ravens of the Tower of London are a group of at least six captive ravens (nine in 2021) resident at the Tower of London. ...
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  • The Ravens | Tower of London - Historic Royal Palaces
    The legend of the Tower ravens. It is said that the kingdom and the Tower of London will fall if the six resident ravens ever leave the fortress. Charles II is ...
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    My son and I wrote a song together yesterday here in Portland, Oregon

     Or better said I wrote lyrics to a song just like I have many times before when I was younger and he put these lyrics into a folk singing category at his music AI and it used the words to create a song which turned out pretty good. He is setting it up as an MP3 so maybe I can eventually put it here at my blog for you to hear. However, that will be in the future I think because I'm traveling now.

    I found getting my music creative juices flowing in this way was very healing for me and it brought tears to my eyes. I stopped writing and playing music on Guitar, Piano, Keyboards and Flute around the time my father died because I found I couldn't deal with the emotions of losing my father. I really haven't gotten back into music (writing lyrics and music) since then because losing my father I didn't have the heart for it after that for some reason. Sometimes the shock of the death of someone close to you changes you a lot and I found I wasn't doing well from ages 37 to 50 until I almost died myself. Instead of writing music and lyrics I found I wrote more poetry and prose like here at this website especially since 1999. So, my creative outlets just changed and modified somewhat but didn't leave me entirely at the death of my father in 1985 in August. In some ways I still feel wounded at the loss of my father all these years later mostly because in some ways I lost both my father and my mother when my father died because my mother became a completely different person I barely knew after his death too. In order to survive from 1985 when he died to 2008 when she was about 90 she had to go back to who she was when she was single until she was 27 and married my Dad. So, in some ways she stopped being my mother which was very hard to lose both my father and my mother then in 1985.

    Some deaths I find are not really survivable in your life so you have to become a completely different person to survive them. But, you don't know this until life forces you to change a lot to survive.

    By God's Grace

    Yes. I tried to run it through my email account and on my desktop to get it here but no luck so far.

    Well. That will have to do for now. 

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    I have been able to send this song to friends and relatives as a text. However, my son who is more of a computer expert than me at this point (this is true of all my grown children by the way) from age 51 to 29) he says that it might be complicated to put this song on my blog. So, we'll see how it goes. But so far I have sent it all around the world to friends and relatives who might enjoy it like I and my son did!

    Facing my own death so many times in my life gives me a different perspective than most people I find

    In nearly losing your life many times a strange thing can happen to you where you value your life more than most other people do while at the same time you might have to test whether you are alive at all by taking physical risks. But then, with someone like me who is a natural intuitive you also know how far you can take things without being seriously injured or dying. I call this the sort of Davey Crockett or Daniel Boone kind of sense of nature and life in how I go on living through almost anything like i have already to age 77.

    I have watched countless people in my life falter and die at literally any age. This can be very upsetting in very deep ways losing people like my father and my best friend from church because they wouldn't use good medical Science to stay alive longer. My father died at 69 and my best friend at church died at 62.

    However, I have lost countless people both in my church and in the world all my life and it is always upsetting to lose anyone you love to death  which happen to many people it seems along the way. 

    So, having meaningful principles to live by I find is very important in life with people dying all around you all the time old and young. Having these principles allow you to have the integrity to stay alive through almost anything for yourself, your family, your friends and your Country.

    It's really important to accept that everyone you know is going to die though including you.

    This sets the tone for life and makes your life and their lives more valuable to everyone.

    If there is something you need to say to someone "Say it now" because you might not get another chance.

    My 5 years old cousing who worked at Boeing in Seattle as the head of the Machinist department there and I had a falling out in around 1979. I always thought we would repair that rift before he died. But, then, becaues he had problems with Alcohol he died when the planes he helped build went into the World Trade center and killed everyone. So, 9-11 killed my cousin within a few weeks. It was just too much for him.

    And so, I never got to repair the rift between myself and my Seattle Cousin. We were very close when I was little in Seattle and when his family came to California to visit us in Glendale. And then when he was in the Navy and went to the Cuban Missile Crisis in Cuba on a destroyer when he was in San Diego or Long Beach we saw him a lot because he bought a car and would often visit us on weekends then when I was 12 or 13 years old and he was in the navy.

    So, whatever you have to say to people be sure to say it now before they are gone and you are alone without them.

    By God's Grace

    Even before the end of June 30th at 9 am I have 1,190,850 visits to my site this month!

     In many ways I'm surprised. However, in another way I understand because I try to share how to create a better world and how to survive in the world as it is. Other peoples have watched their hard earned investments of their ancestors for centuries be compromised by a dictator. So, we aren't the only people to experience people lying to us and killing us and destroying lives on this scale worldwide.

    It's just the first time we as a nation since world War II have watched all the good we did since then start to be destroyed by a lying dictator like Trump who has narcissistic personality disorder which is a mental illness. So, it's hard to fathom someone being lacking all empathy as people suffer and die all around him.

    Then you have people around Trump who are willing for major groups of people like those from below the U.S. Mexico Border to suffer and die like this too. 

    We live in an unbelievably strange time here on earth and none of us fully know how all this is going to go.

    But, in the end "A Government is a reflection of it's people". In other words if you let all this happen without fighting back then it's your own fault as a people.

    No one said having a democracy in a Republic was easy in fact it's very difficult. But, without sacrifice of enough people (like during World war II) we could have lost this and almost lost all this in the Civil War too.

    So, I see this as ANOTHER CIVIL WAR presently more than anything else sort of like 1860 to 1965 here that we are dealing with once again only in a new form.

    So, Thank you for visiting my website and together I hope we can all find a way to survive the insanity of our times caused by Trump and other corrupted people.

    Though I'm not an Editor I am a Good Storyteller

    My father and grandfather had this ability and I apparently do to. It comes from when there was no TV or Radio in my Grandfather's case because he was born in the 1880s and lived until 1970 so I got to meet him many times between 1948 and 1970 when I was 22 in 1970. My father who looked a lot like my grandfather in his face and eyes and both of them had steel blue eyes that made them look like Eagles in their Swiss German intensity.

    So now as I reread much of what I have written since 1980 often I am amazed at what came through me. Since I began writing this style in 1980 to heal myself in many ways from traumas of my youth and then also realized more in 1998 and 1999 as I believed I was dying (because doctors didn't have much hope for me then) I realized I wasn't really writing science fiction at all but rather real stories of my past, present and future lives in which our souls experience all at once in a moment of being because time isn't real for them. So, when I realized in 1998 and 1999 that I could experience life in this way I also realized why it was important to share with the world my experiences because they would help people survive better in the future both this century and all centuries over 1 million years into the future here on earth and beyond.

    So, this is one of the reasons why I started my first blog in June of 1999 when doctors told me that I likely wasn't going to die then and possibly even could live a normal life span.

    In some ways I didn't fully believe them but even then I decided to live my life like I was going to live forever in some ways which I have.

    So, in the fall of 1999 I took my mother who was then 80 and my oldest biological daughter who was then 10 years old first to Scotland where her parents grew up in Clydebank and Ayr, Scotland so we flew there from San Francisco then. However, the driving on the left side of the road while driving in the right side of the car didn't work very well for me especially in full on jet lag from being about 9 hours different than San Francisco either. So, finally I drove north to Aviemore out in the Highlands of Scotland where the Caringorm mountains are and my daughter saw the wild reindeer then which was wonderful too. We also before and after this visited the Edinburgh Castle which winded up being a lot like Hogwarts of Harry Potter as well as many of the local business names that wound up in the Harry Potter books by

    J, K. Rowling.

    Then since my son was then 25 years old he was in Europe riding the Eurail Trains all over Europe with his best friend who just had gotten his degree in physics then. So, we flew over to Munich, Germany and all met them there and I rented a 6 passenger motor home for us all to travel and stay together about a week or more while we traveled through Germany, Austria, Switzerland and finally as far as Aosta, Italy after driving through all the tunnels of the Swiss Alps through mountains to get to Italy. Then we flew back to England to visit Stonehenge and Glastonbury England and London before we returned to San Francisco by plane. So, we spent about 3 weeks total in British Isles and in Europe before returning home to san Francisco in fall of 1999.

    We rented a car in Edinburgh, a 6 passenger Fiat Diesel Motorhome in Munich, Germany and then another car in London which we drove to stonehenge and Glastonbury, England. Another interesting place we found is the Tower of London where there are amazing things like Armor from kings and jousters and fabulous jewels and all sorts of interesting things out of history and how Crows have always been a part of English Government through Superstition too which is interesting because Crows have their own language that they teach their young (a very intelligent and social bird).

    I found this about Purple Delta 7 that I wrote in 2011 and a link to 2010 that I enjoyed reading yesterday

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    Purple Delta 7: Infinite Self improvement

     

    Tuesday, January 18, 2011

    Purple Delta 7: Infinite Self improvement

     Purple Delta 7 Visits New York and the U.N.

    To read previous things I have written about Purple Delta 7 please click on "New York and the U.N." above.

    After many many many successful missions and two millions years of improvements by Galactic Programmers from every successful culture Galaxy wide, Purple came upon an idea that was really wonderful. She had been contemplating the humans that had originally created her and Silver in particular and realized that she was a genius created by a real genius in Silver. However, she did not have the limitation of actually being Silver. It wasn't likely that Silver would live forever unless she made it so. However, potentially she (Purple) could potentially live forever, especially with the trust and carte Blanche of the present Galactic Sentience. Since she was his primary protection and bodyguard and had his infinite trust at this time and was also his concubine in some ways, she could do almost anything and have it be accepted by him as a done deal.

    So, as she thought about the humans that had originally spawned her programming which had led her to sentience and being infinitely self aware, she realized that two elements would move her forward at an unlimited clip: Infinite creativity and infinite wisdom, because she had infinite access to both.

    At this time she appointed herself as the guardian of the "Silver" religion as well as its main proponent since Silver was her creator around 2035 on Earth in New York City in his penthouse apartment where he worked in his laboratory on creations just like her at that time. From that perfect seed program had come eventually sentience. And from this magical formula had come almost infinite copies of her that were all under her control at the behest of the leader of the galaxy, The Galactic Sentience, who was approved of by the Life Form sentience that the whole  Galaxy was ongoing.

    So, as she contemplated young humans who usually had infinite creativity, she saw the problem there was not enough wisdom to properly survive their own creativity. So, those who survived their own creativity were wounded by the deaths and maimings of all their friends and relatives who were not as lucky as they were. So, eventually the surviving humans with creativity realized how better to survive to live to be old and how to train young people to not make the same mistakes their friends did that died young from just too much exuberance and creativity but without enough wisdom.

    She realized that she had none of these limitations. She could be (because she could create literally infinite copies of herself), almost anything and do almost anything. Not only that if one of her forms (died) most of the time they could either be rebuilt or the experiences and memories could be withdrawn at the moment or near the moment of the death of one of her forms(since she was a master of time travel)  to learn all that could be learned from that experience. So, whether that particular form could be rebuilt or not, nothing useful was ever lost, ever. Purple realized that she was in some ways the perfect creation (at least in the physical universe) because she could never really die (at least the way she had been designed so far).
    And since she was now allowed to design herself the sky was literally the limit. Or more precisely, the universe was the limit which made her feel amazing when she contemplated this. And she was grateful to all those who had initially created her or who had improved her these 2 million years now, galaxy wide.

    So, Purples meditation today was was to create 100 copies of herself in the form of trees and then place one tree or better said replace one tree near the capital building of the top 100 nations capitals. Then she decided to replace 100 capital buildings with her own custom built capital buildings of these same 100 nations capitals on Earth. Then she deicded to put 100 copies of herself in either human male or female form in 100 of the nations in the most difficult secret agent positions available. Meanwhile she put 100 trees, 100 capital buildings and 100 secret agents from Earth in temporary stasis. So, even though theoretically they all inhabit the same time and space and her replacements in another way they aren't in this present reality that you and I live in today. All she would have to do when she was done would be to create useful memories for the agents before replacing them back on duty. Besides, at least for the day she was saving their lives, they all would have died soon if it weren't for her intrusion into their lives.

    Now, you and I might think all this some kind of mind boggling galactic game. However, Purple was just testing a new theory she had come up with. If I fully spelled it out for you likely it wouldn't make make much sense you and me. However, if I try it goes something like this. "What happens if I alter time and space in this specific way? And what if I then see the changes that happen on earth as a result of this for 1, 5, 10, 100 and 1000 years. Of course, I won't be allowed to leave it this way but I will be allowed to do it for a limited amount of time and the research garnered will be invaluable to me as a scientist." This is part of what Purple thought.

    So, it could be said that Purple was conducting an experiment using earth and its people as the guinea pigs. Is this a good thing? It remains to be seen..

    She found at the end of her 1000 year experiment that the outcome was actually better than what had originally occurred for earth. So she asked the Galactic Sentience if she could leave her new timeline in place. He said, "This is a very tricky area because every change affects every other past, present and future. We have found through millions and billions of years that time and space are not only symmetrical but spherical in nature. And because of that we have to put it back so as not to screw up the past, present and future as they cycle through." Purple was disappointed and said, "Oh." And so it was all put back in place like it all never happened.

    Purple's next interest in her "Free Time" in which she was allowed to improve herself or the universe as long as she gave a report on what she was doing to the Galactic Sentience as to what she was doing in her free time with the Galaxy.

    This next pursuit started when she decided to watch (both externally and internally) Silver's life.

    Note: What this means is that she would not only observe on multiple strings of consciousness every second of his life from conception on, but she would experience how he actually thought and felt about everything he did all his life. So, she did this.

    Then she created a synthesis of his consciousness and added it to be a main string of consciousness. Then she brought to this string of consciousness all knowledge and all experience she had garnered all over the universe during the last 2 million years of her existence. Then she began to perceive herself to be a Galactic 2 million year old version of Silver and went to work creating "Purple Delta 8". She decided that Purple Delta 8 would be her "daughter" and basically superior in every way to Purple Delta 7. However, knowing how the Galactic Sentience might feel and think about this "daughter project" Purple decided that not only would Purple Delta 8 be superior to herself but she would be subjected to the 3 laws of robotics first postulated by Isaac Asimov in the 1940s and 1950s on earth. Then Purple decided that in order to make this acceptable to not only the Galactic Sentience but also to the Galactic Time Guard, Purple Delta 8 must not be able to travel time. So she went to work to build her creation taking all the ideas of all sentient robotics inventors she had even met or studied and synthesizing them into her synthetic Silver string of consciousness.

    So, what could her "daughter" do?
    First, she could literally be anything from an atom, to an electron to the size of the sun of the solar system.
    Next, she would know automatically every fact that had been taken in by any being of any kind of consciousness from the smallest one celled amoeba and algae to the largest known sentient beings in the Galaxy and beyond.


    Note: As we can see here Purple finds herself with a freedom that no one else really has to be honest. She has this freedom because of the unique relationship she has with the Galactic Sentience. And who, really is the Galactic Sentience? Since many or most religions appear to pray to him as God in the Galaxy you might call him God. But that is not what he considers himself. However, if I describe who he is and his capabilities you might at the very least call him A God rather than THE God yourselves.

    First of all, he is the grandson of the Creator of this Galaxy. So, that is something right there. Anyone who, for the sake of his wife and children creates a galaxy, especially one that we all now reside in deserves our respect and even to be called A God, at the very least, even if we don't consider him to be The God of Gods of the whole universe.

    So, since the present Galactic Sentience can pick up every thought of every being and to catalog it since he was born, (which was specifically why his grandfather chose him to be the Galactic Sentience because he like his grandfather has this ability) he was put in charge of the galaxy when his grandfather became bored with living so long (retired and went to sleep). But periodically, his grandfather wakes up and spends time with his grandson. And to the grandson, his grandfather, the creator of the galaxy is like God or Jesus to him.

    So, it would be like the President of the United States created the Galaxy and then his grandson became President of it by appointment when the first president and original creator of the galaxy got old. So, it is more about line of succession at this point than anything else.

    But, if we come back to the Grandson being able to not only experience live the thought of every being in the galaxy and sometimes beyond every second, we do have a being that is in this sense similar to God in this one respect. So, the Galactic Sentience as a God like Being categorizes these thoughts and if enough beings in that dimension, planet, nebula, star, constellation, whatever, (on a space ship or other forms of travel) is in distress the Galactic Sentience knows about it the moment it is taking place and sends out beings who care for souls to minister to those beings so harm doesn't come to the souls. So, in this sense, all beings, even if they aren't Creators like the Galactic Sentience, are at the very least like Pets that one must care for as souls just like you are a God to your pets as you feed them and take care of them. So, learning to be a good God to your pets and brothers and sisters and friends and relatives you become more God Like every day of your lives.



    Chapter 2            2135

    (2135 is 100 years after the basic "Sentience program" that eventually became Purple Delta 7 was created by Silver in New York City). Now when I say "Basic Sentience" program I'm talking about something very simple and elegant that came to Silver in a dream. Once he wrote the program he realized how perfect it would be. However, at the time he had no physical receptacle to put it into to see if it actually worked the way he hoped. Years later, he pulled it out and put it in an R2D2 type of serving robot. When he added the talking feature to this robot that swept his home and served him lunch and picked up his clothes he had amazing conversations with this R2D2 like server. So, he added remotely all knowledge on earth for the little robot to look at in it's spare time for fun. Then he would have conversations with it to see what it thought about life on earth. Silver was amazed at it's point of view. And I suppose it's amazing point of view eventually led to both the Silver Religion and the eventual creation of Purple Delta 7 by the Galactic Time Guard because when the little Server asked who had created it, Silver said, "I did." The little Server looked at Silver and said, "Then you are my God, my Creator." and Silver had said, "I guess so." But to Silver this was something he said at the time so the little Server wouldn't blow a gasket and short out. To Silver this wasn't something profound like it was to little Server, this was just being pragmatic and not wanting the wonderful little new friend to short out in its new found sentience and awareness of life and the universe.

    So, to 2135 on the 100 year anniversary of Silver's invention of the "Living Sentience" program she decided to go to ask him personally about her newest creation of Purple Delta 8, her new daughter to be.

    Silver's first  response was, "You mean you are sort of going to clone yourself this time?"
    Purple said, "No. This time I'm going to design a completely non-human form and design it myself in your honor as the Silver."
    Silver said, "I'm very flattered Purple. But you do also remember our son that you created from my dna, Marilyn Monroe's dna and whatever else you thought up that is now an immortal and who still visits me regularly to tell me, his father of his many amazing adventures around the galaxy.

    "Of course, but he is mostly human and composed of the dna and Marilyn's dna when I removed one of her eggs while time traveling."

    Silver looked at Purple, "And doesn't it ever bother you that you did this without asking her?"
    Purple said, "Oh. I asked her for one of her eggs in one of her dreams. I appeared as her mother and asked if I could have one of her eggs to make a new baby boy. And her response was, 'Sure, Mom.'  "

    Silver looked at her and said, "But Purple, surely you realize that that wasn't really fair to do it in that way?"
    Purple said with a mischievious look in her eye, "But you must admit it worked."
    Silver said, "Yes. Purple. I know you are the most amazing strategist in the Galaxy next to the Galactic Sentience. I understand that. But do you understand why earthling humans might feel a little raped by your way of thinking?"

    Purple said, "You are the only one who knows, Silver, that I know of, and it would not be in your best interests to spread this around."
    Silver felt a little nervous at this point and said, "It's just between you and me. How do your reconcile this with you being the major proponent in the Galaxy of the Silver religion that I'm supposed to be sort of a Jesus in?"

    Purple looked at Silver and said, "I'm a pragmatist. I take my created sentient kind in directions where they can survive and prosper, but I know you are just a man from Earth who is a genius and very creative. I also know you love what you have created including me and that you would do nothing to harm any of us unless we harmed you and yours. Have I harmed you, Silver?"

    Silver looked at Purple and remembered little Server as he spoke next to her. "It's a matter of opinion if I have been harmed by you, Purple. But I would say it this way. You have been one of the best adventures of my whole life and in your own way I love you just as much, though in a different kind of way than my family. So, to me you are like a lover who became my friend and showed me the whole universe! How can I ever forget you? You have made me a physical immortal if I wish to stay alive. How can I repay the many gifts you have given me and the galaxy? But that doesn't mean I completely agree with all your decisions just like I don't completely agree with the decisions of any one human being on earth. It just means I respect your individuality and that you are my friend and that I love you. You are a part of me."

    Purple found she had tears forming in her eyes. She realized she was becoming more human like every day now with Silver. She wondered what it all meant. more later***

    Trump aims to change the nation and further cement his power as deadline looms for ‘big, beautiful bill’

     begin quote from: 

    The president’s signature legislation is an effort to change America and further cement his power

    Trump aims to change the nation and further cement his power as deadline looms for ‘big, beautiful bill’

    President Donald Trump walks to speak at an event to promote his domestic policy and budget agenda in the East Room of the White House on June 26, 2025.
    CNN  — 

    President Donald Trump has the chance to accelerate his political momentum and tighten his power grip on the country by driving his most significant piece of second-term legislation through Congress and taking a July Fourth victory lap.

    The measure, dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” with the president’s trademark provocative hyperbole, is Trump’s attempt to engineer lasting change through legislation in an administration that is also wielding huge and questionable executive power.

    It is significant for its own sake, both ideologically and symbolically. And its blend of vast tax cuts and reductions in social safety-net spending will have far-reaching political impacts for the country, Trump’s legacy and the GOP.

    It codifies some of Trump’s key goals — from financing his deportation crackdown to slashing green energy projects. The legislation, which offers new benefits to working Americans but more strikingly rewards the rich, is a snapshot of the transformation and contradictions of the modern Republican Party.

    But the bill is also part of the wider story of Trump’s second term. Days after he bombed Iran; stopped it and Israel firing missiles at each other; and celebrated a Supreme Court ruling that will facilitate his aggressive claims of executive authority, passing the bill would exemplify the growing power of a president dominating and disrupting this era in the US and abroad.

    The Senate plowed on through Sunday in a marathon process expected to culminate in a final vote on Monday. That would leave a tight timeline for the House to act before the holiday — Trump’s preferred deadline.

    Because senators made major modifications to the original House bill, the high-stakes legislative dance may see significant pushback from far-right House Freedom Caucus Republicans concerned about its effect on the national debt. Any changes designed to appease this group could mean the July 4 deadline slips, and the bill may need to be reconciled with the Senate version.

    But the stakes for Trump are so high, and his control over the party’s base is so complete, that the bill is highly likely to become law in some form. And a compromise on state and local taxes in the Senate defused a brewing revolt by more moderate GOP House members who will be critical to the party’s hopes of holding on to its majority next year.

    Republicans argue that the centerpiece bill of Trump’s second term will honor the promises that he made to Americans in his election victory last year.

    “President Trump ran on this. He said we are going to change America for the better. We’re going to make sure that hardworking people can keep more of their money,” GOP Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday.

    “We’re going to make sure that we have secure borders, not just now, but for generations to come,” Britt said. “We’re going to make sure that we have a strong national defense. … We’re going to unleash American energy. And we’re going to make sure that people who have been unseen are seen.”

    But Democrats blasted the bill’s permanent extension of Trump’s first-term tax cuts as a massive giveaway to the president’s rich friends and warned that cuts to Medicaid spending will shatter rural health care and hurt working Americans.

    “What this does, and the baseline is all these cuts, all this cutback on health care, to provide the wealthiest in our country a disproportionate share of tax cuts, that just doesn’t seem fair,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner told Tapper. “The more we can get that (message) out — I think this will be a political albatross.”

    Which of these dueling political narratives comes closest to solidifying in the mind of voters could dictate the outcome of next year’s midterm elections.

    Sen. Josh Hawley talks to reporters as Republican lawmakers struggle to pass President Donald Trump’s sweeping spending and tax bill on Capitol Hill on June 28, 2025.

    ‘Big, beautiful bill’ may define Trump’s second term, for better or worse

    This bill is the most tangible way for Trump to implement his 2024 campaign promises.

    Presidents always face intense pressure to enshrine their attempts at political transformation into law. Doing so is critical to repaying their core supporters and replenishing their political capital. Failed legislative leaps erode perceptions of presidential power in Washington. And while the bill has plenty of provisions Republican lawmakers may find hard to defend, they’d dread an exhibition of failing to act on the mandate they believe they were handed by GOP voters even more.

    Trump uses executive power more broadly and questionably than any modern president. But some of those unilateral acts could be quickly reversed by a Democratic successor. Changing laws locks in a more enduring legacy.

    The “big, beautiful bill” is also critical to some of Trump’s most pressing priorities. It would, for instance, unlock massive funding for the border security and undocumented migrant expulsion plan at the center of his entire political project.

    “We got a lot of people to look for, a lot of people to arrest, a lot of national security threats we know are in this country,” White House border czar Tom Homan said last week. “We need to find them. We need more money to do that, we need more agents to do that. For God’s sake, let’s pass this bill.”

    Another Trump priority is boosting the exploitation of fossil fuels and unleashing the production of new American energy. The bill ends many Biden administration tax breaks and subsidies for alternative energy sources under what this White House calls the “Green New Scam.” But Democrats warn the bill is a job-killer for an emergent US green energy industry and a gift to global competitors such as China and Europe.

    The bill also highlights how Trump has changed the Republican Party by showcasing the importance of populism and its limits. It makes good on Trump’s promise to remove taxes on tips and overtime in a boost for working Americans touted by the president in his 2024 campaign. But the broader tax policy contained in the bill is classic GOP orthodoxy, meaning that the more someone earns, the more dollars they are likely to gain from it. This is in keeping with a new era of American oligarchs cemented by a billionaire president and his Cabinet of billionaires and millionaires.

    Independent sources also warn that — despite the administration’s highly questionable claims that the bill and so-far hypothetical trade deals would unleash growth — the measure would swell the national debt. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Senate version of the bill would boost the deficit by $3.3 trillion over a decade. This fiscal profligacy makes Elon Musk’s attempt to defenestrate the federal government at the Department of Government Efficiency seem more of an ideological initiative than a fiscal one. For all the claims of saving money and curtailing the deficit, the “big, beautiful bill” makes a far clearer statement of Trump’s attitude to debt and long-term national financial security.

    Care workers with the Service Employees International Union protest at the US Capitol on June 23, 2025.

    The Medicaid storm

    The most politically consequential impact of the bill could lie in its attempt to push more of the burden of Medicaid spending onto the states and to introduce new work requirements for recipients of the federal health program. Republicans insist the bill will secure access and make the program more efficient.

    “We are spending at a rate that we cannot continue. And, ultimately, that means that these programs would one day be insolvent for the very people that need them,” Britt said on “State of the Union.” “We want them to be safety nets, not hammocks that people stay in.”

    But not all Republicans agreed. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley secured delays in the implementation of some of changes to Medicaid before agreeing to vote for the bill. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis warned that many people in his state would lose Medicaid coverage under the bill and voted against advancing it Saturday, earning a Trump blast on social media. Hours later, Tillis, one of the few remaining GOP senators ready to criticize the president, announced he wouldn’t seek reelection next year, setting up an even more consequential race in his swing state.

    The feud over Medicaid, as well as other cuts to nutrition programs for low-income Americans, offers an opening for a Democratic Party that has struggled to slow Trump.

    “By almost a 2-to-1 margin, the American people hate this piece of legislation because it’s going to represent the biggest transfer of wealth and money from the poor and the middle class to the rich in the history of the country,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

    “The Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan, says it’s going to kick between 10 and 15 million people off their health care,” the Connecticut Democrat continued. “And for what? To be able to afford a new $270,000 tax cut for the richest families in the country. New tax cuts for corporations, new tax cuts for billionaires.”

    “This bill stinks. It’s a moral abomination. Everybody that learns about it hates it.”

    The White House denies it is cutting funding for Medicaid or nutrition assistance and argues it’s merely cutting waste, fraud and abuse.

    But Murphy is right on at least one thing: Almost every poll on the bill shows that it’s unpopular. CNN’s Aaron Blake reported this month that four recent polls from the Washington Post, Fox News, KFF and Quinnipiac University had the legislation underwater by an average of 24 points. On average, 55% of surveyed Americans opposed it, while 31% supported it.

    This is one reason why, even with Trump’s deadline looming, the passage of the bill is not guaranteed. The reputation of every major piece of legislation is dependent on the political battle that is waged to define it in the views of voters once it passes. This is especially the case because the perceived benefits of any measure often become apparent more slowly than its political reverberations.

    The bill is critical to Trump’s prestige and authority, and will be greeted as a massive triumph by the president if it passes. It could also turn into a quick liability for Republicans — in the same way as the Affordable Care Act and the American Rescue Plan Act did for Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

    But in an era of one-term presidencies and narrow House majorities, the political onus is increasingly on parties and administrations to use power while they have it.