By Brian Martucci of UtilityDrive

Utilities, energy system analysts and ERCOT expect exponential growth of data centers and other large loads in Texas over the next several years. ERCOT forecasts 138 GW of large loads on its grid by 2030, up from 87 GW this year.

Even if only a fraction of proposed data centers get built, the boom could threaten grid reliability during the spring and fall months, when many thermal generators go down for planned maintenance, Aurora Energy Research said earlier this month. Reliability is already a concern in some parts of ERCOT — including the San Antonio area, where ERCOT is deploying more than 400 MW of mobile generation units and inked a costly “reliability must run” agreement with an aging 400-MW gas plant. 

Aurora models suggest data centers will be the largest single source of load flexibility available to mitigate Texas’ reliability risk. By 2030, up to 50% of the expected 35 GW of ERCOT’s data center capacity could provide some degree of emergency reliability support, Aurora said.

S.B. 6 authorizes the Public Utility Commission of Texas to develop two demand management programs — one mandatory and one voluntary — to ensure Texas data centers and other non-critical large loads help rather than hinder reliability.

The law’s intent is “to make sure [large loads] pose as little reliability risk to the system as possible and [are] not drinking the milkshake of all other Texas power customers,” NRG Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Travis Kavulla said in an interview.

S.B. 6 could avoid a future scenario like Winter Storm Uri, the dayslong freeze in February 2021 that saw millions of residential customers cut off from the grid as nearby industrial loads hummed along, Kavulla added.

The mandatory demand management program applies to loads of 75 MW or greater that interconnect to ERCOT from January onwards. It allows utilities to disconnect eligible loads during firm load shed events and mandates the installation of shutoff equipment as a condition of grid interconnection.

The voluntary program is a competitively procured reliability service active during specific times of the year, subject to a minimum 24-hour notice period and off-limits to any large-load customer that “curtails in response to the wholesale price of electricity … or that otherwise participates in a different reliability or ancillary service,” the law says.

The advance warning period is key for this sort of voluntary program, especially one counting on participation from hyperscale data centers with sensitive IT equipment worth billions, Kavulla said.

“This should not be the kind of demand response where you’re calling it with no notice and curtailing the customer straight off,” he said.

The mandatory program will surely alleviate stress on the ERCOT grid during extreme weather events but the jury is still out on customer uptake for the voluntary program, Kavulla said. Some data center operators have sounded open to voluntarily curtailing their loads or switching to onsite backup generation when needed, while others have been more resistant, he noted.

Kavulla credited Texas legislators for “calling the question,” however. 

“They have decided to create a market and test [customers’] willingness to participate,” he said. “Nothing gets people thinking like offering them money.”

Kavulla and Texas Blockchain Council President Lee Bratcher cheered other S.B. 6 provisions, like a $100,000 minimum initial interconnection fee for large load customers and a requirement that such customers disclose to utilities any potentially duplicative interconnection requests elsewhere in Texas. 

Both provisions could mitigate the “phantom loads” gumming up utility and grid operator forecasts in Texas and elsewhere, Bratcher said in an email.

“The Texas Blockchain Council and our member companies are glad to see that Senate Bill 6 tackles the phantom load challenge associated with the interconnection queue [and gives ERCOT] a more accurate picture of future load growth,” Bratcher said.

Some experts say 80% to 90% of proposed data centers in the U.S. interconnection queue will never get built, in part because they duplicate requests made in other utility territories.

The next step for ERCOT and its continental counterpart, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, is to “develop a non-firm load category for modeling purposes [that] would greatly increase the efficient utilization of transmission infrastructure and properly signal load behavior expectations to the transmission/distribution service providers,” Bratcher said.

And while Texas’s intrastate electricity market makes it something of a special case, some core S.B. 6 provisions are transferable to other states in the restructured Eastern markets, Kavulla said.

For example, states in the PJM Interconnection “could certainly precondition or accelerate interconnection of large loads on the basis of their willingness to participate in demand response,” he said.

Foreign-owned globalist meatpacking giant JBS—labeled a “modern-day monopoly” by Republican Senator Josh Hawley—has acknowledged that the U.S. cattle industry is in the beginning stages of rebuilding its decimated herd from seven-decade lows. While the move to rebuild is underway, the company warns that meaningful increases in beef supply—and any relief for consumers facing record-high retail prices—aren’t expected until at least 2027.

“We are into herd rebuild right now,” said Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS North America, in an interview quoted by Bloomberg. He added, “The economic incentives are there, the weather is helping.”

Batista pointed out that a decline in female cattle slaughter suggests that ranchers are retaining more cows for breeding, signaling herd rebuilding has commenced. However, he warned that recovery time will be slow, with no significant increase in beef supply expected until 2027. 

Batista’s analogy to the rebuilding cycle is this: “It’s more like taking the stairs than the elevator.”

Which means ground beef prices at the supermarket will remain high through this year and into 2026. 

Batista’s comments come days after Goldman Sachs analysts Leah Jordan and Eli Thompson told clients that beef cycle indicators suggest a rebuilding cycle has begun:

Beef cycles typically last about twelve years on average, looking at trough-to-trough in the cattle herd. The prior trough in the herd occurred in 2014, while the prior trough in beef packer margins occurred in 2015. The current herd liquidation cycle began in 2019, with the herd tracking at ~86.7mm as of January 1, 2025, the lowest level since the 1950s. Herd rebuilding may already be underway, or is likely soon, noting supportive industry conditions (high calf prices and low feed costs), which should further constrain supply in the near-term, partially offset by record weights for cattle on feed.

Analysts posed the question: “When will the beef cycle turn?” — a question we’ve been asking at ZeroHedge as well.

Here’s a visual breakdown of the beef industry’s turning point…

The rebuilding phase will be rocky for the four mega-corporations (JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill, and National Beef) that control 80% of beef processing in America because, as Senator Hawley warned on Wednesday at an antitrust hearing on Capitol Hill, scrutiny on the meatpacker “monopoly” has begun, calling for the urgent need of more competition.

A total of 4 companies control a whopping 80% of the entire beef-processing industry. That’s a modern-day monopoly.

The winners here? The monopolists – like Tyson Foods. The losers? Farmers & grocery shoppers.

We need more industry competition in America pic.twitter.com/UxZc7eoAOZ

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) June 24, 2025

The path to rebuilding starts with reviving regional microprocessing plants across the country—creating a more resilient, decentralized food supply chain that’s less vulnerable to disruptions.

Just as important, Americans need to rethink how they buy beef: skip the globalist mega-supermarkets and instead support local ranchers directly.

What the Globalists Don’t Want You to Have…

That keeps dollars in the hands of mom-and-pop ranchers, not globalist Wall Street, which has stripped the Heartland of wealth for decades. Now, the pendulum swings the other way as MAHA begins.

For readers waking up across the Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City metro areas, conditions remain gloomy with overcast skies and mild temperatures hovering in the mid-70s°F—quite a change from triple-digit heat that gripped the region earlier last week, straining power grids and sending electricity prices soaring. 

However, a new outlook from private weather forecaster BAMWX warns that the heat dome may return in force next month.

“I would recommend none of us sleep on this trend ahead into next week, esp heading into Holiday markets,” said BAMWX meteorologist Kirk Hinz.

Hinz noted, “Simply put – the global circulation/momentum has HALTED … Translation – there will be a stout Heat Dome in July, question is just “where”…stay tuned.” 

I would recommend none of us sleep on this trend ahead into next week, esp heading into Holiday markets.

Simply put – the global circulation/momentum has HALTED.

Translation – there will be a stout Heat Dome in July, question is just “where”…stay tuned.#AGwx #OATT #natgas https://t.co/S1P5oY2UfB pic.twitter.com/Cr79w4LESP

— Kirk 🇺🇸 Hinz | BAM ⚡️Weather (@Met_khinz) June 27, 2025

The meteorologist’s forecast comes as average temperatures in Washington, D.C., typically peak during the heart of summer—mid-July through early August—before gradually declining heading into late August and September.

“Energy markets watch very closely for weather trends like this heading into the 4th of July holiday as naturally there will already be an uptick in energy demand due to increased festivities etc. has everything to do with supply vs demand,” Hinz explained. 

Revisit the latest natural gas note from Samantha Dart, Goldman Sachs’ co-head of Global Commodities Research, where she updated her bullish summer price target of $3.90/mmBtu. 

Via Remix News,

Hungary has every right, as a sovereign state, to block what it views as harmful to children. However, the ban on the Pride Parade could prove a headache that is not worth the risk for the Hungarian government.

Remix News often takes the position that the government in Hungary is making the right move in a variety of areas, including seeking peace in Ukraine, and above all, its principled stance in 2015/2016 that helped stem the migration crisis. Orbán was far ahead of his time, with EU leaders across the bloc increasingly coming around to his view on the issue — in many cases out of sheer political survival rather than any principled reevaluation of their damaging open borders policies.

The issue of the Pride Parade may play well with many Hungarians, but Hungary, even if it views itself as being in the right, must also always pick its battles. It just, for example, vetoed the accession of Ukraine into the EU, which was not only the right move for Hungary, but the right move for all of Europe. Nevertheless, Hungary’s fighting a multi-front war on many issues.

It is also fair to say, and Viktor Orbán has said this many times, that Hungary is a small power in the European Union, even if it does punch well above its weight. Focusing on handling the migration crisis, which has proven a threat to LGBT people due to an influx of people from cultures that are hostile to this community, should be tantamount — along with ending the war in Ukraine.

The law has only created a lose-lose situation for the government. Enforce the law and look “authoritarian” or back down and let the march happen and look weak. Hungary is setting itself up for what could be some ugly images if the Budapest Pride Parade moves forward, as the mayor of Budapest is looking to do. Are the police going to block the parade? Are protesters going to push through? The left would love to see a confrontation of some sort. The best solution may be to simply allow the parade to move forward, noting it was conducted illegally, and it will all be forgotten in a week anyway on both sides.

There is a reason the government takes issue with the parade though, and the EU should recognize the government’s concerns. Pride Parades have become a spectacle featuring some very disturbing, overly sexualized displays in the last 10 to 20 years. In many cases, actual naked men and also women have walked directly in front of children. This is not the behavior typically seen at any other parade, so why this one? In addition, there are people dressed in BDSM bondage gear, and other extremely sexualized displays have been put forward as “totally normal.” These are not exceptions, but routine displays at many Pride Parades. The LGBT community should be policing these kinds of sexualized displays themselves, as it only alienates people who see these images. In Budapest itself, there have also been some questionable displays in the past.

Orbán should move to ban all overtly sexual behavior at the parade, as this is perfectly in line with public ordinances seen across Europe. People cannot walk around naked on the streets of most European capitals, just as they cannot walk up to children on a playground and display themselves naked. The same rules should apply in Budapest as well. Orbán’s government could make a point that such displays will not be tolerated, while allowing for the Parade to move forward otherwise.

Orbán has often proven a maverick, and even the left respects him from a purely political point of view. Domestically, he remains the most popular ruling politician in Europe, and the longest-serving current prime minister. His political instincts have served him well, and much of the decision-making process that drives his Fidesz party is based on relentless polling to gauge what the Hungarian people want. As much as the European elite scream about a lack of democracy in Hungary, Orbán is a populist, which means that he generally follows what his people want on nearly all the biggest issues. That is probably a large reason he is so hated by the politicians in Europe, who do the exact opposite on many of the biggest issues, including immigration.

Europe should also meet Hungary halfway to some extent. There needs to be an understanding that in the East of Europe, not everyone is receptive to a certain brand of LGBT in their face, especially in the form of Pride Parade BDSM costumes. Even in the West of Europe, such displays are not welcome. It was also not so long ago that the West was conservative on these issues as well.

It is also important to note that Fidesz is not the only party ruling Hungary, but has a junior partner, the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP). For that party, the issue of the Pride Parade may be even more relevant for its voting base.

Ultimately, LGBT people in Hungary live, almost universally, in peace. There is LGBT nightlife and culture, and LGBT people can walk the streets far more freely in Hungary than they can in many neighborhoods across the most “progressive” liberal capitals.

🇫🇷 In France, a group of gay men were attacked during the Music Festival 2025 (Fête de la Musique).

“I was going back upstairs with my friends, we’d had a great evening, and these brutes jumped me. I felt my (LGBT) flag, which I had hung around my neck, being pulled.” pic.twitter.com/BbiOYkyIuT

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) June 26, 2025

Although it remains a point of contention among the European right, many within the Western right see right-wing policies, such as immigration restriction, as a bulwark that will openly protect gays and lesbians in European countries. Alice Weidel, the lesbian co-leader of the AfD, who Orbán has a warm relationship with, is a case in point. We cannot say whether Weidel’s stance towards what she deems “LGBT ideology” is the view of a “silent majority” in the LGBT community, but it certainly represents a fair amount of people.

Orbán himself may estimate that, as the leader of Hungary, political opinions from all the newspapers and politicians aligned against him anyway do not matter anymore. He is now forging ahead, and only time will tell if he is once again proven right. However, tension between Hungary and Brussels seems to be only on one trend line — towards more conflict — unless there is a major change of power at the top.

It is too late to phase out this ban on Pride this year, but next year offers a new opportunity to.

Read more here…

Across the country, Americans are being forced to rethink major financial decisions in the face of rising costs, high interest rates, and ongoing economic uncertainty, according to Guardian Service.

In a recent survey of 1,000 people, 35% said they’ve delayed or canceled a big purchase this year—most commonly a home (22%) or a car (8%). Millennials (40%) and Gen Z (32%) were especially likely to put plans on hold. The leading causes? Widespread anxiety about the economy (63%), high interest rates (57%), and unaffordable prices (55%).

Some are shifting expectations entirely—12% have scaled back their “dream home” goals, and nearly 1 in 4 now see renting as a better financial move than buying in 2025.

These shifting priorities extend beyond big-ticket items to everyday protections like insurance. When budgets are stretched, even essential coverage can feel expendable. Nearly 1 in 4 Americans (24%) said they’ve reduced coverage for a home or car to save money, and 29% reported downgrading or canceling at least one type of insurance over the past year.

Car insurance saw the largest cuts, with 15% scaling back and 8% switching from full coverage to liability only—moves that reduce costs but also increase financial risk.

The decisions behind these changes often stem from a desire to create short-term financial relief, even at the expense of long-term security. “A third of Americans said they would temporarily go without insurance to cover essential expenses,” and 1 in 5 would consider dropping coverage entirely if premiums continue to rise.

Guardian Service writes that at the same time, insurance is still widely valued—77% said car insurance is essential, and 57% said the same for renters or homeowners insurance. Trust, however, remains an issue, with only 37% saying they fully trust insurers to come through when something goes wrong.

The study is clear: as Americans adjust their budgets and weigh tough trade-offs, they’re showing a clear willingness to prioritize immediate needs over long-term plans.

Authored by Charles Rotter via WattsUpWithThat.com,

It comes as little surprise that yet another grandiose techno-utopian vision has ended not with a triumphant march toward Net Zero, but with a flick of the off-switch. Last week, Britain’s energy secretary quietly announced that the government “has pulled the plug on a £24 billion plan to bring Moroccan wind and solar power to Britain via the world’s longest subsea electricity cable, citing concerns over security and costs” .

In other words, after years of hype, headline-grabbing simulations and talk of “reliable clean power for 19 hours a day,” the reality of risk and expense finally intruded – and the dream of Sahara sun for all has been consigned to the scrapheap.

The scheme, championed by Xlinks and backed by big-name investors from Abu Dhabi’s Taqa to TotalEnergies, was unveiled in 2022 with a headline price tag of £16 billion. By the time official talks fizzled, project costs had ballooned to between £22 billion and £24 billion—and the fixed, subsidised price for UK consumers had climbed from a promising £48/MWh in 2012 terms to a sobering £70-80/MWh, on par with Hinkley Point C’s notorious £92.50/MWh deal from a decade ago . It was a textbook illustration of how techno-optimism meets political reality: grand ambitions crashing headlong into the twin walls of finance and geopolitics.

Perhaps the most telling line came when officials admitted this “first-of-a-kind mega project” carried “a high level of inherent, cumulative risk, delivery, operational, and security.” In plainer terms, nobody quite trusted a 3,800-mile subsea cable stretching from the Sahara to Devon to keep the lights on—or to fend off hostile actors, accidental damage or simple technical failure . For all the talk of homegrown power, the reality was a foreign-built supergrid running through disputed waters, vulnerable to every storm, saboteur or bureaucratic blunder.

And yet just a few years ago, this venture was presented as the ultimate win-win: millions of desert acres covered in solar panels and wind turbines, exporting 3.6 GW of “reliable” energy to 7 million homes and displacing imported gas. Xlinks even claimed it could reduce UK wholesale prices by over 9 percent in its first year of operation—implying that the very costs of this colossal scheme would pay for itself. Leave aside the challenge of storing or transmitting intermittent deserts-of-power and the gargantuan batteries needed to smooth out every dust storm, and one must ask: who was really buying into this fairy tale—investors or ideologues?

No doubt Sir Dave Lewis, Xlinks’s chairman and former Tesco boss, felt the sting of rejection when he spoke of being “hugely surprised and bitterly disappointed.” It is, after all, hard to maintain the sheen of global-scale green enthusiasm when home departments balk at underwriting your vision. One can almost hear the collective shrug from Westminster: enough with offshore daydreams—build some turbines in Yorkshire, drill holes for storage in the Midlands, train some electricians in Glasgow and call it a day. For all the vaunted “diversity of supply,” it appears domestic alternatives won the argument over exotic imports.

There is a delicious irony in the timing. As ministers tout an “accelerated path to net zero at least risk to billpayers and taxpayers,” they have effectively walked away from the single largest overseas renewable venture ever proposed . The very same people who once celebrated cross-continental cables as the crowning achievement of global cooperation now invoke security concerns and “national interest” as their exit ramp. One wonders how abruptly the narrative will shift next time a British-funded project in Kazakhstan or Canada hits a bump—will it be “not in the British interest” to proceed with those, too?

This turn of events also exposes the fundamental flaw of top-down climate technocracy: it treats citizens as passive units in a planetary control scheme, not discerning voters with budgets to balance. When the public wises up to the fact that imported Sahara sun arrives at a price rivaling home-grown nuclear—and carries with it a risk of outages, sabotage or diplomatic spats—they recoil. They learn that the cable would thread through multiple jurisdictions, remote islands and fierce currents, any one of which could jeopardize supply. At some point, scepticism ceases to be a political liability and becomes simple common sense.

Consider the broader lesson: no matter how enthusiastically globalists embrace “interconnected grids,” the strings always end back at national treasuries and war-rooms. The cable’s 1,500 square-mile solar-wind-battery complex in Morocco was to be the crown jewel of decarbonization, yet it was contingent on political goodwill in Rabat, cable-manufacturing in Asia, local security in the Sahara and stable undersea trench conditions for 3,800 miles—any of which could unravel faster than a hastily signed bilateral MoU. The government’s conclusion that “stronger alternative options” exist closer to home may be the most uncontroversial statement of 2025 .

Detach for a moment from the partisan fray and savour the schadenfreude: this megaproject was touted as the elixir to Britain’s energy woes, yet it collapsed under its own hubris. The very proponents who decried fossil-fuel inertia now cry foul when asked to stump up real money. The same voices that demand “global solidarity” balk when that solidarity requires underwriting risks in unstable deserts. And as for “green jobs” and “supply-chain opportunities”—it turns out that Asia still makes the cables and Morocco still controls the sun.

The demise of Xlinks’s Sahara venture may not end the net-zero narrative, but it does puncture a hole in the myth of techno-utopian inevitability. When a scheme promising 8 percent of Britain’s electricity—at a price echoing nuclear—and requiring unprecedented security guarantees is deemed “not in the national interest,” one must wonder: how many more exotic grand plans will be ditched before realism returns? The answer, for now, seems to be one.

Let us not pretend this was a minor failure. It represented the epitome of climate-policy excess: outsourcing critical infrastructure to distant deserts, bemoaning gas-price volatility while embracing solar-dust storms, and swapping local accountability for a vague vision of interconnected utopia. Watching it crumble offers a rare moment of clarity amid the Net Zero hysteria: true energy security still resides in domestic control, not pipelines and cables stretching half-a-continent away.

In the aftermath, expect Xlinks to regroup, rebrand and regroup again—perhaps pitching Canadian hydro next. But the core lesson stands: citizens will not subsidise fantasy-grid fantasies when they can invest in less risky generation at home. And bureaucrats will not ignore security and cost overruns when climate dogma collides with the hard calculus of budgets and ballots.

There is an understated joy in witnessing this particular techno-dream deflate. It reminds us that even the most elaborate green schemes are only as sound as their financial footings and geopolitical foundations. When those falter, the utopian narrative gives way to something far more earthy: the simple recognition that expensive, complex, and foreign-dependent projects rarely survive contact with reality. As the Sahara sun fades—quite literally—from policymakers’ agendas, one hopes the next set of proposals will be a little more modest, a bit less global, and anchored firmly within UK borders.

Where do the world’s wealthiest live? Globally, the millionaire population is clustered in urban centers that offer business-friendly environments and attractive lifestyles. 

In this Markets in a Minute graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Jenna Ross, created in partnership with Terzo, we highlight the cities with the most millionaires.

Tracking the Millionaire Hotspots

Henley & Partners, the source of our data, defines a millionaire as someone with liquid investable assets exceeding $1 million, excluding real estate.

The U.S. dominates the list, taking up seven slots or nearly 30% of the top 25 cities.

Data as of December 2024 and figures rounded to the nearest 100.

America’s three most populous cities—New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago—are all within the top 10 spots. In New York City, one in every 22 residents is a millionaire.

The Bay Area, which includes San Francisco and Silicon Valley, comes in at second place. In the last 10 years, the number of millionaires has nearly doubled. The Bay Area is fertile ground for wealth given its status as the world’s top startup capital, commanding nearly two-thirds of global venture funding.

Wealth Hubs in Asia and Europe

Tokyo has the most millionaires in Asia. Home to companies like Sony, Toyota, and MUFG, the city has a strong mix of technology, manufacturing, and finance. 

Singapore follows closely behind in the fourth spot. The island nation offers three options for investors to gain permanent residency in exchange for making a significant financial investment in Singapore. These “residence by investment” programs are a strong attractor for wealthy individuals, and are a feature of seven of the 10 wealthiest cities in this ranking. 

In Europe, London has the most millionaires. However, London is the only city in the top 25 to see a decline in millionaires over the last decade. The outflow of wealthy people is due to a number of factors, including high taxes, the growing dominance of the U.S. and Asia in tech, and the declining importance of the London Stock Exchange.

Update (2335ET): Senate Republicans narrowly advanced President Trump’s tax and spending package, as GOP lawmakers in both chambers are hoping to pass the legislation by the 4th of July. Now that the bill has advanced, it will be followed by a Democrat-demand to read the entire 1,000-page bill on the floor (total children) before a maximum 20 hours of debate on the legislation and a multi-hour vote-o-rama, putting it on course for final passage from Sunday into Monday.

Two Republicans voted against the bill; Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) – who opposed raising the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, and Thom Tillis (R-NC), who says the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ could cost his state heavily when it comes to Medicaid funding.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) flipped his vote from “no” to “aye,” while Sens. Mike Lee (UT), Rick Scott (FL) and Cynthia Lummis (WY) also voted yes. 

There was drama into the home stretch… less than an hour after the vote opened up, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Lee, and Scott, hadn’t made an appearance on the Senate floor. Paul and Tillis had previously announced that they would oppose the motion to proceed, and could not support the bill in its current form. 

When Murkowski finally sauntered onto the floor, Thune quickly approached her along with Sens. Barrasso, Graham, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID), who peppered her with demands – as one does when it comes to Lisa Murkowski…

*  *  *

Update (1718ET): Elon Musk has weighed in on the Senate’s latest iteration of President Trump’s tax and spending bill, calling it “utterly insane and destructive,” and that it will “destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!“

The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!

Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future. https://t.co/TZ9w1g7zHF

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2025

Musk also called it ‘political suicide.’

Polls show that this bill is political suicide for the Republican Party pic.twitter.com/HJwKZ9g4tu

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2025

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are marching toward an initial vote Saturday afternoon despite several GOP Senators expressing grave concerns. 

Both Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Thom Tillis (North Carolina) are either “leaning against” or “no” on final passage. According to Politico, Trump “has personally reached out to Tillis to try to work him on the bill.”

If at least two other Republicans join Tillis to oppose the procedural vote Saturday afternoon, Senate leadership would have to rely on Vice President JD Vance to break a tie to move forward to debate the bill. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) all have concerns that could drive them to vote against moving forward.

Johnson and Paul, who have been vocally opposed to the bill because of its impact on the national debt, met with the president on Saturday shortly before the vote, according to Lee.

According to Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), “We won’t bring it to the floor if we don’t have the votes,” adding “I think it’d be better to have the vice president close. I don’t know if we’re going to need him.”

*  *  *

Senate Republicans unveiled a revised version of President Trump’s $4.2 trillion tax package early Saturday morning, making targeted concessions on state tax deductions, Medicaid policy, and renewable energy provisions in an effort to unite their caucus ahead of a July 4 deadline set by the White House.

The updated draft reflects compromises among Senate GOP factions that have sparred for weeks over how aggressively to cut social safety net programs and whether to roll back clean energy incentives enacted under the Biden administration. The legislation, if passed, would serve as the centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s second-term economic agenda.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced that voting on the bill would begin Saturday afternoon, with a final vote potentially coming as soon as Sunday. If it does pass the Senate, Republican leaders have indicated they will call House members back to Washington early next week in hopes of sending the legislation to the president’s desk before Independence Day.

However, it remains uncertain whether all 50 Republican senators are prepared to back the measure. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said Saturday on Fox News that he would oppose beginning debate on the bill immediately, citing the need for more time. “This is an important bill,” Johnson said. “There’s no need to rush it.”

A Revised SALT Cap

To address concerns from House Republicans representing high-tax states, the new draft raises the cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction from $10,000 to $40,000 for five years. The cap would snap back to its original level thereafter, with a modest 1% annual increase during the interim period. The deduction would begin phasing out for taxpayers earning more than $500,000 annually.

A House provision aimed at curbing SALT workarounds used by pass-through businesses was stripped from the text. While fiscal conservatives have criticized the SALT compromise as overly generous, the deal is expected to secure the support of swing-district Republicans and has been endorsed by the White House.

Senate Republicans also removed a controversial Section 899 “revenge tax” on foreign companies and investors following concerns from Wall Street and a request from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Tax Relief and Medicaid Tweaks

The legislation makes permanent the individual and corporate tax cuts first enacted in 2017 and introduces new temporary breaks for tipped workers, seniors, and car buyers. In a nod to moderate Republicans, the revised bill creates a $25 billion rural hospital fund intended to mitigate the effects of Medicaid spending reductions that critics warn could threaten services in underserved areas.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine had pressed for a $100 billion allocation but has not yet commented on whether the smaller fund will earn her support.

The new version delays the full impact of a 3.5% cap on state Medicaid provider taxes from 2031 to 2032. The cap, which would begin phasing in by 2028, applies only to states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Additionally, the bill imposes new work requirements for Medicaid recipients and would require ACA-expansion beneficiaries to contribute to their care through co-pays or deductibles.

Renewable Energy Rollbacks and New Land Sales

Republicans accelerated the phaseout of tax credits for wind and solar energy projects, now requiring such projects to be fully operational by the end of 2027 to qualify. That change, reportedly supported by Mr. Trump, could impact companies like NextEra Energy, the nation’s largest renewable developer.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the change, warning on social media that the rollback would “jack up your electric bills and jeopardize hundreds of thousands of jobs.”

The bill also ends the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit sooner than earlier versions proposed, cutting it off after September 30, 2025, including for used and commercial EVs.

A separate provision reinstated in the draft would authorize the sale of up to 1.2 million acres of federal land across 11 western states for housing and community development, a measure pushed by Senator Mike Lee of Utah. The plan could raise up to $6 billion but faces resistance from GOP senators in affected states.

Tax credits for hydrogen production, originally slated to end this year, would now continue through 2028 for projects started by then.

Broader Cuts and Debt Ceiling Increase

The legislation includes steep cuts to funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and federal food assistance programs, while increasing allocations for the U.S.-Mexico border wall. It preserves $15 million in funding for a task force to study alternatives to the IRS Direct File program, though it drops language that would have terminated the free filing service entirely — a defeat for tax software providers like Intuit.

A proposed tax on money transfers by non-citizens was scaled back from 3.5% to 1%, a win for companies like Western Union and MoneyGram.

Finally, the bill would raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, a move intended to avert a potential federal default projected for as early as August.

With internal GOP divisions still simmering, the path to final passage remains uncertain. Yet with Independence Day looming, Senate Republicans are betting that the new concessions will be enough to unify their ranks — and deliver a long-sought legislative victory for the president.

Authored by Frank Fang and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,

Communist China is grappling with the most severe economic crisis in its history, a downturn that the regime will not recover from, according to Kyle Bass, founder and chief investment officer of Hayman Capital Management.

“There is nothing that is going to bail China out of their economic spiral. They’re having a real estate crisis, a banking crisis, a youth unemployment crisis, and now they need to be worried about their current account,” Bass said in an interview on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” that aired on June 26.

Bass said U.S. tariffs and declining trade threaten China’s economic advantage, which is its trade surplus with the United States.

China’s exports to the United States plunged by 35 percent in May compared to a year earlier, according to Chinese customs data.

“China’s once bright spot is now in question,” Bass said. “I actually am surprised it’s not down more.”

China has also been hit hard by capital flight.

In 2024, Bass said, China experienced a massive outflow of both foreign direct investment (FDI) and portfolio investment totaling about $500 billion, pointing to the gap between its trade surplus of about $980 billion and its current account surplus of about $420 billion.

China is also facing unsustainable debts. When combining China’s sovereign debt and local government financing debt, Bass estimated that the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio should be roughly 350 percent, which he said is difficult to manage considering the various economic challenges.

Another indicator of China’s financial crisis is the performance of China’s bond market, Bass said. As of June 27, the yield on China’s 10-year sovereign bond is approximately 1.64 percent, compared to 4.26 percent for the U.S. 10-year Treasury.

“So the Chinese government is pretty good at lying about whatever they want to lie about, but the bond market kind of tells the truth, and the bond markets telling you that China is in an economic winter,” Bass said.

China’s economic troubles have persisted for several years, highlighted by the collapse of major real estate developers Evergrande and Country Garden, which marked the onset of the current property crisis in 2021.

In February, the national unemployment rate reached 5.7 percent, the highest in two years, while the youth jobless rate topped 16.9 percent.

Adding to the concerns, consumer prices fell for a fourth consecutive month in May, while industrial profits decreased by 9.1 percent compared to a year earlier, underscoring deepening deflatory pressures in the world’s second-largest economy.

Taiwan

Despite China’s economic struggles, the United States continues to rely on China for certain imports, particularly rare earths and pharmaceutical ingredients.

According to data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the United States imported 70 percent of its rare earths from China between 2020 and 2023.

In the face of China’s leverage over these items, Bass said that the United States retains the ultimate “trump card” through its control of the global dollar system.

“They don’t have the ability to purchase things around the world in yuan or RMB because no one accepts a currency they don’t trust or that doesn’t trade,” Bass said.

Bass stated that the United States should signal to Beijing its intention to sever China’s access to the dollar system, the very moment the regime initiates military action against Taiwan.

“Deterrence is something that we should all be engaging in to try to stop China from being militaristically belligerent with Taiwan,” Bass said.

“That is a better first move on our part than sending carrier strike groups of our brave men and women into the Taiwan Strait in a kinetic conflict with China … tens of thousands of our men and women will die if that happens.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claims Taiwan as a renegade province, intent on annexing the island, though the regime has never exercised authority there. Taiwan is a de facto independent nation with its own democratically elected government, military, constitution, and currency.

In May, during a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned about CCP leader Xi Jinping’s timetable for making a move against Taiwan.

“It’s public that Xi has ordered his military to be capable of invading Taiwan by 2027,” Hegeseth said at the time.

“Any attempt by communist China to conquer Taiwan by force would result in devastating consequences for the Indo-Pacific and the world.”

President Donald Trump’s recent decision to bomb three Iranian nuclear facilities “got China’s attention,” Bass said.

“I bet it unmoored China’s views of warfare,” he added

Bass said he believed the situation in Iran “is going to make the Chinese think twice about being more belligerent on the military side with Taiwan.”

Ultimately, the Chinese regime aims to break the first and second island chains and “project power all the way to San Francisco,” Bass said.

Taiwan sits at the heart of the first island chain that stretches from the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, the Philippines, to the Malay Peninsula. The second island chain extends from Japan through Guam to Micronesia.

Bass warned that “allowing China to simply take over Taiwan is something that is an existential national security crisis for the U.S.”

President Trump believes Syria may soon join the Abraham Accords, based on comments given to reporters by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday. The reasoning seems to be that with Assad out, this provides an opportunity to control the outcome and force Damascus to make peace with Israel.

After all, Syria under the Assad family was the single fiercest, longtime enemy of Israel, with a de facto state of war on for half-a-century, centered on the occupied Golan Heights.

Leavitt told reporters that Trump remains optimistic about expanding the peace agreement. She confirmed that the president brought up the issue directly with Syria’s new de facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa (aka. US-terror designated Jolani) during this Riyadh visit and Gulf tour. 

“One of President Trump’s main requests during his meeting with President Sharaa was for Syria to join the Abraham Accords,” Leavitt said. “Achieving a lasting peace in the Middle East is a core objective for this administration.”

Sharaa had reportedly told US Representative Cory Mills during a visit in April that Syria was open to joining the accords under the “right conditions.”

US Special Envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack has also been bringing the pressure. He has recently referenced quiet discussions with Damascus underway, amid the reopening of the ambassador’s residence in Damascus – a first since 2012.

Barrack encouraged the international community to give Syria’s new leadership “an opportunity to prove its new direction.”

However, so far the government stacked with Jolani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham members has turned a blind eye to massacres targeting Alawites, Christians, and Druze – along the coast and in Damascus and elsewhere.

Sadly, this whole ugly reality seems to be missing from White House statements. Why didn’t Trump name as a firm condition the protection of churches, for example, as a basis for dropping sanctions on Syria?

Just last week Mar Elias Orthodox Church in Damascus was attacked by a suicide bomber, resulting in the deaths of 25 people and scores more wounded.

Following the church bombing in Damascus, unknown individuals wrote “You’re next” on the walls of Mar Elias Church in Kfarboum, Hama countryside. pic.twitter.com/XSAoO3gIQW

— Beirut Wire (@beirutwire) June 22, 2025

What government is looking out for Syria’s religious minorities? Certainly Washington appears to have shrugged as Damascus’ new hardline Sunni masters engage in deal-making, and a blind eye is turned to their ISIS and Al-Qaeda past.