Choose Your Own Adventure Watermelon Salad
Plus: One last chance to kill the bill
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Friends, I’m sorry. I don’t have it in me to do my typical wind up to the recipe today. It is now officially blazing hot in NYC, and after almost three days of “will they, won’t they,” Senate republicans just officially passed Trump’s monstrous bill. If the bill next passes the House of Representatives, it will:
Throw tens of millions of Americans off of Medicaid. This includes hardworking families, children with disabilities, vulnerable older Americans, veterans, people we personally know and care about.
Drive up healthcare premiums for many millions of other Americans, and shutter rural hospitals and nursing homes.
Steal food from vulnerable kids by drastically cutting SNAP (food stamps) access.
Roll back clean energy tax incentives and climate protections, simply because Trump is petty and can’t stand that Biden passed popular climate legislation.
Raises America’s debt by 5 trillion (trillion!) dollars
This is all so that republicans can extend giant tax cuts to Trump and his millionaire and billionaire friends. It is so cruel and selfish. And Trump has wildly betrayed the Americans who voted for him thinking he would lower the cost of living.
My heart is broken, but I refuse to give up. And it isn’t over yet! The House of Representatives still has to vote it through one last time, and there are some potential wrinkles there. If any of these people are your representative, please call them TODAY and urge them to vote no. Will it work? Maybe, maybe not—but we have to try.
I am grateful to the Senate democrats like Chris Murphy, Elizabeth Warren, Brian Schatz, Elissa Slotkin, Cory Booker, Angela Alsobrooks, and many others, who went to bat to strip out many other horrible provisions that were originally in the bill, and to delay the vote as long as possible so more Americans could learn about it.
And I am grateful to everyone in this community who believes that kindness and community—not greed and cruelty—is what truly makes American great. I’ll be back next week with more stories from around the Jewish world. But today, I’m going to rest and regroup for the fight ahead.
Choose Your Own Adventure Watermelon Salad
It is officially watermelon salad season. There are a million recipes online, but I humbly suggest that you ignore them. Who has patience for a recipe in this heat?! All you need is a bit of foundational know-how and a touch of creative spirit to turn out bright, refreshing, flavor-packed, truly memorable watermelon salads to cool down these hot summer days.
Here’s how:
