ABOMINATION: Having just exited from service with the Trump administration, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk condemned Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” that would both cut and increase spending while ballooning the national debt by $2 trillion over the next 10 years.

  “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk said on his Twitter/X.  “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.” He said, “It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”

  Musk was an unquestioning cheerleader for Trump and the Republican majority until he left his Department of Government Efficiency.

  As written, the “Beautiful Bill” would cut health, nutrition, education, and clean energy programs while spending more on immigration enforcement and the military.

  White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Musk’s dissent will not change the president’s mind. She said, “This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it.”

EGREGIOUS AND MALICIOUS: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka a Democratic candidate for governor, is suing the federal government over his arrest last month outside an immigration detention center. The suit names Alina Habba, a former Trump defense lawyer who’s now the interim US attorney for New Jersey,  charging that his arrest was motivated by political malice.

  “To handcuff me, to drag me away, to take my fingerprints and mug shots for a misdemeanor,” Baraka said at a news conference, “It’s egregious and malicious.”  Following that same incident Habba brought assault charges against Representative LaMonica McIver

  Baraka has claimed that the jail being used by immigration authorities had been empty for a year and does not have a valid certificate of occupancy to hold prisoners. 

  A federal judge quickly dismissed the charges against Baraka calling them “hasty” and in a rebuke to Habba said, “Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas.”

BLINDED BY SCIENCE: As many as 6,000 scientists, academics, doctors, and researchers have signed an open letter protesting President Trump’s order  that would put political appointees in charge of vetting scientific research and giving them the authority to “correct scientific information” and “discipline” anyone who violates the way the administration views science.

  The Trump order is titled “Restoring Gold Standard Science,”  a suggestion that current science is deficient.

  The scientists’ letter says the Trump order “will actually undermine scientific rigor and the transparent progress of science,” and “would introduce stifling limits on intellectual freedom in our Nation’s laboratories and federal funding agencies.” 

  The letter points out that the administration has gutted funding for research while denying the scientifically proven effects of climate change and casting doubt on the science of vaccination.

MAJORITY REPORT: President Trump formally asked Congress to withdraw $1.1 billion  in funding for NPR and PBS.  Also today, the President’s  50 percent tariff on imported steel and aluminum goes into effect. And … Trump rescinded a Biden era order that hospitals must provide emergency abortions even in states where abortion is illegal.

MOST FOUL: Actor Jonathan Joss, who put words in the mouths of animated characters on “King of the Hill” and played  Chief Ken Hotate in the series “Parks and Recreation,” was murdered Sunday in San Antonio in what appears to have been a gay hate crime. He was 59.

    Police arrested a man named Sigfredo Alvarez Ceja, 56, and charged him with murder.

  In January Joss’s childhood home that he inherited from his father burned to the ground. Joss’s husband Tristan Kern de Gonzales wrote on Facebook that the two were checking the mail at the site of their former home that burned  “after over two years of threats from people in the area who repeatedly told us they would set it on fire.” As they stood there, he said, a man approached “yelling violent homophobic slurs at us.”

  De Gonzales wrote that, “When the man fired Jonathan pushed me out of the way. He saved my life.” He wrote,  “He was murdered by someone who could not stand the sight of two men loving each other.”

  Joss had many television and movie credits. Some neighbors told reporters that Joss had a history of disputes with neighbors and passersby, not all about being gay. One neighbor said, “He would argue with different people. It could be over dogs. It could be over trash.” 

THE WAR ROOM: Underwater Ukrainian explosives damaged the Russian bridge between the mainland and Crimea yesterday, causing the bridge to be closed for a while. Ukraine claimed that, “The underwater support pillars were severely damaged at the seabed level.”

  The attack failed to knock out the bridge, but it’s another example of Ukraine’s clever military reach. 

THE SPIN RACK: The wife and five children of the Egyptian man accused in the flaming attack on demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado over the weekend have been detained by immigration authorities. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said there will be an investigation into whether the family knew of plans for the attack. —  The Pentagon announced plans to re-name the Navy ship named for Harvey Milk, the gay San Francisco politician and activist who was assassinated in 1978. A Pentagon statement said, “Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos.”  — Authorities in Washington state are hunting for a father who they believe abducted and killed his three daughters ages 5, 8, and 9. The girls had not returned to their mother Friday after a scheduled visit with their father. — New York’s Lieutenant Gov.  Antonio Delgado announced that he will challenge Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in the primary because  “There’s an absence of bold, decisive, transformational leadership.”

BELOW THE FOLD:  TikTok is blocking users from searching for “skinnytok,”  a hashtag that directs users toward posts that encourage extreme skinniness. Users will be directed mental health support.

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