One Big Ugly Bill

Hey BUB!

A lot to cover with this Big Ugly Bill (BUB) so let’s begin on the local level (Tucson, Arizona, USA).

The Tucson Agenda reports that Tucson Congressman Juan Ciscomani was one of 215 Republicans who voted in favor of the bill while most of his constituents were sleeping. He COULD have been a tipping point as the bill passed by only one vote.

In one more instance of GOP hypocrisy, just last April Ciscomani, along with 12 other Republican colleagues, wrote and signed a letter to the House Republican leadership that they "cannot and will not" vote for legislation that reduces Medicaid coverage for those who need it. 

Then he released this on X on May 22, 2025: "This is a reconciliation package that works for Americans and for Arizonans. It funds border security, prevents the highest tax increase in American history, and reduces taxes for working people, increases the child tax credit, and eliminates taxes on tips and overtime.  It allows families more flexibility to save for college and health care costs.  It also strengthens and protects Medicaid for those who rely on it by tackling waste, fraud, and abuse through sensible work requirements and stronger eligibility verification. I am proud to have worked with community partners, stakeholders, and our local hospitals to prevent changes to FMAP, a decrease in the provider tax, and per capita caps from being included in the reconciliation package, which would have been uniquely detrimental to thousands of Arizonans and rural hospitals in my district.

I want to thank President Trump, Speaker Johnson and my colleagues for coming together around a package that’s just common sense, and for listening to the voices of the people in my district that I’ve been advocating for through the reconciliation process. This budget does a much better job of getting our spending under control and prioritizing the things that truly matter to the hard-working taxpayer.  There is more work to do but this is a great step in the right direction."

Brrrrr, does it seem cold in here? While frontman *rump is busy waving his arms and tiny hands in the air fomenting racial hatred aimed at anyone who’s not ‘white,’ screwing with universities across the country, yelling about DEI this and DEI that, Stephen Miller and Russell Vought have achieved their wet dream of including almost everything printed in Project 2025 wrapped into this one Big Ugly Bill.

Where to start? I’m for a single payer universal healthcare system that most civilized countries use. We don’t have that here. But what we DO have is about to get ripped a new asshole.

The sum total of Republicans’ health care policies — including their changes to Medicaid and the ACA, and the expiration of expanded premium subsidies — are expected to result in roughly 14 million Americans losing their health insurance coverage. In a letter to House leadership, 18 state-level ACA marketplaces warned of the potential devastation. 

In that letter, they warn that “The Americans who depend on the marketplaces include working parents, small business owners, farmers, gig workers, early retirees, and lower and middle-class individuals of all ages, political views, and backgrounds who drive our local economies and make both our rural and urban communities thrive. These proposals, in total, will drastically diminish the progress on health coverage that the United States has made in the last decade via marketplaces. Only the sickest patients may remain in the marketplaces, skyrocketing costs for everyone. Millions of Americans will lose their health coverage, local hospital systems will face unprecedented financial strain, state operational costs will spike in order to implement burdensome new federal rules, and all of this is likely to result in insurance carriers pulling out of local insurance markets. Some states may even be forced to walk away from state-based marketplaces entirely.”

Alt National Park Service is the official "Resistance" team of U.S. National Park Service whose mission is to stand up for the National Park Service to help protect and preserve the environment for present and future generations.

In the last week or so they’ve been busy dissecting BUB which is extremely helpful due to its length. On May 22nd they posted that hidden deep in Trump’s 1,100-page bill that passed the House today is a provision that would block federal courts from enforcing contempt charges against government officials who violate court orders.

This is exactly what authoritarians do. Strip away the power of the judicial.

Sec. 70302 – Blocks courts from enforcing contempt charges against government officials, unless a judge required a monetary bond when issuing the original injunction.
“No funds appropriated… may be used to enforce a citation for civil or criminal contempt… unless the court required the posting of security in the form of a bond.”

Also on May 22nd they published a post that compares parts of Project 2025 with sections of the bill to be made into law, which will put the screws to both you and me. Some examples:

- Project 2025: Pushes “moral reform” to make low-income people work more for food assistance.
- Sec. 10008: Expands work requirements for SNAP

- Project 2025: Calls for dismantling the EPA and environmental oversight to unleash fossil fuel production.
- Sec. 42108: Repeals Clean Air Act provisions used to limit emissions
- Sec. 42117: Eliminates environmental and climate justice block grants
- Sec. 42301: Strips EPA authority to enforce vehicle emissions standards
- Sec. 41009: Rescinds funds from national parks, conservation, and climate programs
- Secs. 80307-80309: Rescind National Park Service (NPS) funds provided under the Inflation Reduction Act
- Sec. 80307: Cancels unobligated balances from Section 50221 (BLM and NPS resilience & restoration)
- Sec. 80308: Cancels funds from Section 50222 (ecosystem protection and climate adaptation)
- Sec. 80309: Cancels funds from Section 50223 (historic preservation and legacy infrastructure)

- Project 2025: Seeks to eliminate conservation efforts and open public lands for extraction and development.
- Sec. 80301-80309: Blocks federal land conservation plans; rescinds NPS/BLM funds
- Sec. 80151-80152: Charges protest fees and kills environmental data programs

- Project 2025: Promotes private savings plans tied to “American values” and market-based welfare.
- Sec. 110115: Creates “Trump Accounts” and a Trump savings pilot program

- Project 2025: Places all federal agencies under direct presidential control, centralizing power in the executive.
- Sec. 30051: Blocks agencies from issuing new rules without meeting strict cost-benefit standards
- Sec. 30061: Prohibits the Secretary of Education from proposing new regulations

- Project 2025: Labels oversight and regulation as “deep state overreach” and defunds watchdogs and public interest enforcement.
- Sec. 50003: Guts the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
- Sec. 50002: Cuts enforcement powers from oversight bodies like the PCAOB

- Project 2025: Removes judicial oversight over mining, drilling, leasing, and environmental enforcement, effectively silencing the courts.
- Sec. 80121(h): Strips courts of jurisdiction to review federal permits and approvals

This isn’t just another bill. It’s the Project 2025 playbook written into law. This bill abuses budget reconciliation rules to jam through non-budget items: education rollbacks, environmental deregulation, and civil service purges. Read the fine print. Read the bill.

The Atlantic published an article on May 22 that headlined The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History. Jonathan Chait, the author, warns that “The heedlessness of the process is an indication of its underlying fanaticism. The members of the Republican majority are behaving not like traditional conservatives but like revolutionaries who, having seized power, believe they must smash up the old order as quickly as possible before the country recognizes what is happening.”

According to Robert Reich, the average American earning about $17,000 - $50,000 per year will lose about $700/year. Those unfortunate enough to be making less than $17,000/year will lose more than $1,000/year. But guess what? If you’re in the top 1% of earners you’ll gain $390,000/year! Yay!

Reich also points out that the following Republican senators are most persuadable because they’re up for reelection in 2026 if not before. They’re also most vulnerable. He suggests that you appear at their town halls, appear at their rallies, appear at their news conferences, find out where they’ll be and when. Let them know in no uncertain terms that they must not enact Trump’s Big Ugly Bill.

— Collins (ME) - blue state, voted against April Senate budget resolution over Medicaid cuts
— Tillis (NC) - faces competitive reelection bid and has spurned Trump on US Attorney nomination.
— Sullivan (AK) - race could become competitive because of Alaska's ranked-choice system, the impact of Medicaid/SNAP cuts, and if former Rep. Mary Peltola runs.
— Husted (OH) - replaced Vance, has to win a special election to finish term in 2026. Race could become highly competitive if Sherrod Brown runs.
— Moody (FL) - replaced Rubio, has to win a special election to finish term in 2026. Same factors as Husted (though FL is a longer shot than OH)
— Cornyn (TX) - facing a tough right-wing primary challenge from Ken Paxton, who could put the seat in play if he wins
— Ernst (IA) - race has the potential to be competitive in an anti-GOP cycle without Trump at the top of the ballot

Public pressure can work. It doesn’t always work but it’s what we have to work with right now. Will Pattiz with More Than Just Parks reports that thanks to thousands of calls, messages, and a whole lot of public heat, one of the most dangerous public land sell-offs in recent memory is officially dead.

They tried to bury it in a budget bill. A last-minute amendment that would have forced the sale or transfer of roughly 500,000 acres of federal public land across Utah and Nevada. No environmental review. No public comment. No maps. Just a directive to mark the land as "disposable" and move it out the door.

The provision was added on May 7 by Representatives Celeste Maloy (R-UT) and Mark Amodei (R-NV), slipped into the “Big Beautiful Budget Bill” that’s anything but. The clause would have sidestepped decades of legal precedent for how federal land can be sold, ignoring the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and short-circuiting procedures that require public process, environmental review, and reinvestment in conservation.

But within hours of the news breaking, the blowback started. Thousands of calls flooded Congress. Major groups came out swinging.

This is what now needs to be done with the BUB—pushback and public pressure.

Tony Pentimalli, a political analyst who posts on Facebook and Bluesky, writes this is no ordinary Washington fight. This is the kind of moment where you either recognize what’s coming or you look back later wondering how you missed it.

Here’s the kicker: this bill doesn’t break the law. It rewrites the law so Trump doesn’t have to break it. Authoritarians don’t need tanks in the streets. They just need tired, distracted people willing to look the other way.

This isn’t just another headline. This is the fight of our time. We have to wake up. We have to resist.

And most of all, we have to act: call your senators, jam their offices with calls, support the ACLU, Protect Democracy, Common Cause. Share this message. Get out there and be seen. The system will not save itself.

And now…