Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“it’s perfectly legal for members of Congress to visit ICE detention facilities, even unannounced. And ICE’s attempt to circumvent that requirement threatens the constitutional system of checks and balances.”
https://reason.com/2025/06/19/ice-insists-that-congress-needs-its-permission-to-conduct-oversight/
What’s in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” nearing a final vote in the Senate
https://www.yahoo.com/news/whats-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-172443427.html
“House Republicans are aiming to slash funding for the nonpartisan watchdog for waste, fraud and abuse within the federal government by nearly half in the next fiscal year, according to spending bill text released Sunday night.”
…
“GAO has served as the nation’s chief investigator of wrongdoing at federal agencies for more than a century, but has been fighting for months as Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration have attempted to undercut its legal conclusions and independence. Now, they are attempting to shrink the agency into submission as it pursues nearly 40 investigations into whether the White House is illegally withholding, or “impounding,” money Congress had previously approved.
Also tucked into the bill is a major policy change that would eliminate the GAO’s ability to bring civil action against the executive branch over impoundments of funds.
“GAO’s work makes it possible for the legislative branch to hold government accountable,” said Daniel Schuman, executive director of the American Governance Institute. “Congress needs independent expert advice, which is exactly what GAO provides.””
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjn8ghWKAq0
Big beautiful bill set to lose Americans their health insurance and increase the deficit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7Mol1267c0
Trump’s Border Czar says ICE is just enforcing the law. If you don’t like ICE enforcing the law when it comes to illegal immigrants, then contact Congress and tell them to change it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOgV_3IwPpA
“In March, President Donald Trump stood before a joint session of Congress and vowed to “do what has not been done in 24 years: balance the federal budget.”
The first major legislative package of Trump’s second term, however, will throw the federal budget farther out of balance, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded in an updated assessment of the bill.
The CBO estimates that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cleared the House late last month and is awaiting a vote in the Senate, will increase deficits by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. The bill will reduce tax collections by an estimated $3.75 trillion over that period, while reducing government spending by an estimated $1.3 trillion.”
https://reason.com/2025/06/04/the-big-beautiful-bill-will-add-2-4-trillion-to-the-deficit/
Trump crypto coins are a problem because people, including foreign governments and organizations, can tell Trump or one of his associates that they will purchase an exact amount of coin tomorrow at an exact time in exchange for certain presidential actions by Trump. Trump will know who paid him and for what, but it will be untraceable by anyone else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LvcKSLX4O0
The Big Ugly Battle Over the Big Beautiful Bill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCir0gcEfOY
Republican bill kicks millions of people off Medicaid. Speaker of House falsely claims that he wants to remove fraudsters from Medicaid when really he just wants the program to help less people. Rather than making the argument for having a less generous Medicaid program, he misleads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLry4cr_MtI
Rather than honestly and straight-forwardly cutting Medicaid, the Republican bill adds thick layers of paperwork and bureaucratic hassles onto a bureaucracy that they purposely underfund and understaff to effectively cut Medicaid, taking away health insurance for many low income people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIB-8dvkL8I