Willfully Obtuse

<![CDATA[After a week that saw Donald Trump bring about a ceasefire between Iran and Israel after blowing up the three nuclear sites of Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan, negotiating and presiding over the signing of a peace deal between Congo and Rwanda, a 30-year long war that has killed more than six million people, got our European partners in NATO to agree to raise their ante to 5%, signed a new trade deal with China that sees tariffs on U.S. goods into China slashed down to 10% while tariffs on Chinese goods into the U.S. go to 30%, a month just concluding boasting record lows of illegal immigration crossing the border as well as the lowest monthly number of gotaways ever, and the S&P and Nasdaq fully recovered from the tariff war, closing Friday with all-time highs. And then you add in the Supreme Court's CASA decision, which chucks 50 years of extra-constitutional overreach by district court judges, and restores the Article III branch to its proper role. Presidential libraries showcasing two-term occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have less material to work with than Donald Trump does in the last 10 days or so. The Big Beautiful Bill cleared its first procedural hurdle, garnering 51 votes on the floor to begin final debate and amendments. Chuck Schumer, out of gas and out of ideas, forced the clerks to read the entire bill...to no one. There were zero senators in the chamber while the 900-plus page package was read out loud. Schumer merely wanted to eat up time. One of the three Republicans against the bill, Wisconsin's Ron Johnson, flipped from a no to a yes after a conversation with Vice-President J.D. Vance. Vance presided, but was not required to break a tie. There will most likely be a vote-a-rama all day and deep into the night on Monday, with a chance that final passage could happen in the overnight hours before sending it back to the House. Majority Leader John Thune seems pretty intent on passing it early in the week, sending it back to the House, and hoping they pass the Senate version as is so it gets to the White House by the Independence Day holiday Friday. The White House has always indicated it wants the package on Trump's desk by the August recess, but word out of the House leadership is that they might have enough momentum, especially with the President's hot hand of late, to hold a final vote on the Senate version and be done with it. A conference committee process is still an option on the table, but there's more than an outside chance that Trump might have another win by the end of the week. Democrats, and their allies in the media, appear resigned to only putting up token opposition at this point. Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Union had a copy of the Senate's BBB legislation on his desk as a prop. Alabama Senate Katie Boyd Britt was his guest, and Tapper tried the 'Come on, there's no way you can convince me you people have read this thing,' bit. Here's how Britt countered. ]]>