The Gov Hub Newsletter: July 15, 2025

71% of the country's GDP comes from "blue" counties - a fact that Newsom brought to the podcast bros, while JD Vance ran around Disney (or fluttered might be more accurate)

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Gov Hub
July 15, 2025

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GOOD NEWS BEARS

Positive political wins [yes, those do exist]

NJ GOV. MURPHY SIGNS 3 BILLS MASSIVELY EXPANDING EARLY CHILDHOOD ACCESS IN THE STATE: Three bills got NJ Gov. Phil Murphy’s signature last wk, all of which are oriented toward expanding early childhood edu access across the state. The first bill - S3910 - will require elementary-serving school districts to offer free, full-day kindergarten by the 2029-30 school year. Also in this legislation is the codification of the pre-school funding formula; a requirement by the DOE to expand annual preschool expansion grants; the creation of a three-year Preschool cost-sharing pilot program; and founding of the Universal Preschool Implementation Steering Committee. S4476, the second bill, cuts the red tape on preschool contract lengths, and the third bill – A5908 – makes updates to the language in the 2026 state budget around the allocation of Preschool Education Aid.

AZ GOV. HOBBS SIGNS BILL ENHANCING PROTECTIONS FOR PETS AGAINST ANIMAL CRUELTY: A win for the pups and the pets, AZ Gov. Katie Hobbs [D] signed “Jerry’s Law” into the books. The legislation strengthens animal cruelty protections in the state from a few different angles. First, it expands the definition of what animal cruelty means according to law, and expands the list of animals that can be considered ‘domestic animals.’ Newbies to the domestic animal list include cuties in the birds, reptiles, and amphibian categories. The new law also outlines a mandatory care foundation that owners need to follow, increases penalties for violators of Jerry’s Law, and paves the way for easier enforcement, by removing barriers first responders often deal with when encountering an animal neglect or abuse case. 

EXTREMISM

…that’s the tweet [or the x]

  • Several Dem Congressmembers visited the immigrant internment camp in Florida [known by the GOP who is selling merch feat. the name they’ve given it, “Alligator Alcatraz”] to tour the facility. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz [FL] shared that the conditions are even worse than imagined, with 32 people per CAGE. So, yes, the Trump Admin, in concert with the state of Florida, is using YOUR tax dollars to “house” immigrants in cages. Those held have access to three toilets per cage – toilets that are also their source of drinking water. The members of Congress were not allowed to meet with any detainees, with no reason provided as to why they could not. Per the Congresswoman, who brought a portable thermostat with her, the medical tents that the Trump Admin claims are air conditioned, notched 85 degrees 

  • In Southern California, ICE broke the window of a disabled U.S. veteran and citizen, pepper-sprayed him, and detained him with no updates given to his family on his whereabouts, as he was trying to leave his workplace.

  • Also in SoCal, more than 360 people were arrested by ICE as they raided two farms. During the raids, family members came to find out info about their loved ones, facing off against people dressed in military-like garb and helmets. During this all, a farmworker fell to his death from the top of a greenhouse – his family told AP that he had been working at the farm for over ten years and sending money back to his wife and child in Mexico. 

  • On the Upper West Side [NYC], a youth baseball coach had to intervene when ICE agents approached the kids that were practicing, asking them questions about where they were from, their parents, etc. The coach advised them to invoke their 5th amendment rights, which put the ICE agents into a huff. The result: the majority of players, despite being citizens, are too scared to now go to practice.

  • The Trump Admin is trying to make every immigrant “illegal” by revoking legal statuses left and right, which is exactly what they did by revoking the legal asylum status of Ayman Soliman, an imam who works as a Muslim chaplain at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Following the status revocation, ICE arrested and detained the imam, who is now scheduled for a court appearance on July 22, 2025.

CHRONICALLY ONLINE

Politics meets social media

  • And while we’re on the “JD did what” train of reporting, it’s important to note that this came through the TMZ-like digital doors – an on-the-ground, eavesdrop-based FYI on JD and his wife fighting with one another at a recent dinner.

  • NY Gov. Kathy Hochul [D] shared the skinny on how to set up emergency weather alerts on your smartphone and how to get up to date alerts from your county – info that as she says [and we say too!] that will keep you alert and alive.

  • Senator Jon Ossoff [D-GA] may have taken some social post styling tips from a celeb announcing a break-up on this one – but more importantly, are the points made with it – the Trump bill, made possible by Republicans passing it, are increasing the deficit by trillions of dollars and passing the bill onto the next generation(s).

  • CA Gov. Gavin Newsom [D] threw down the stats and the facts on how California is home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other state, is a donor state - giving more money than it takes from the federal gov, AND how 71% of the country’s GDP comes from “blue counties.”

  • Congressman Seth Moulton [D-MA] called out Trump as a racist, while shining a light on one of the many reasons veterans are pissed – the Trump Admin is turning its back on Afghan refugees, who are in the U.S. because they helped keep U.S. troops alive.

FULL SEND…TO A FRIEND

Stories that are guaranteed to make it to the group chat

  • Is Senator Mike Lee [R-UT] addicted to social media? We’re not qualified to say, but we can tell you that it’s been reported that he has posted on average over 100x a day in ‘25. It’s those Twitter fingers that had him grotesquely making light of the assassination of a Dem state rep and her husband, and those fingers that are apparently causing a light uproar amongst the leaders in his church.

  • It appears RFK Jr. didn’t read the nutritional label of the meals he publicly praised for having “no additives” – because the meals, from a company called “Mom’s Meals,” which are delivered to the homes of Medicaid and Medicare enrollees, are actually the epitome of the ultra-processed foods he’s built a reputation for criticizing. The meals have so many chemical additives apparently that someone couldn’t even re-create the meal in their own at-home kitchen. 

  • For the chronically online [self-included], the memes and the outright trolling from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s TikTok account has been fiiiire. Marie Claire chatted with some of the staffers making the content not just move, but break through – here’s what they had to say.

  • Nick Adams – a naturalized citizen originally from Australia, mind you – who has forged an image in MAGA stone, being so obsessed with Trump, that it’s giving clingy BF, has been nominated to be the next U.S. ambassador to Malaysia. He’s also known for ranting on about how he’s “so alpha” because there’s nothing “more alpha” than posting videos on “how to be a confident alpha”...

  • Keepin’ it cringe, at the 2025 FIFA World Cup on Sunday, Trump got booed upon arrival and then weirdly lingered during the trophy ceremony and photo-op…like didn’t get the hint. It also was revealed that he actually has the OG trophy…?

IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID

That money though

  • Trump appointees are actively orchestrating a smear campaign against Jerome Powell using – checks notes – architecture. Specifically, three White House officials and newly presidentially-appointed members of the National Capital Planning Commission – a comishhh that decides what gets the nay or yay design-wise in DC construction projects – are using their positions to accuse Powell of mismanaging the in-process rehab project of the Fed’s HQ, with the goal of using that accusation as a reason to fire Powell. 

  • People on both sides of the southern border are in a sense throwing tomatoes over a new 17% tariff courtesy of the Trump Admin on fresh Mexican tomato imports. 

  • A 99-year old clock company, based in Michigan, will close its doors in 2026 once it runs out of inventory. The reason the clock will be stopping on Howard Miller Co,? Trump’s tariffs and the impact of a struggling housing market.

  • Trump’s finest at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau did the opposite of protect and serve, having a case dismissed that would’ve required that the Navy Federal Credit Union would have had to refund $80M to service men and women for illegally charging them overdraft fees on their accounts, along with paying a $15M fine to the CFPB.

  • In ‘things are going to keep getting more expensive under Trump news,’ the EU is deciding how to hit back on the USA after Trump played Russian roulette with the threat o’ the tariffs. Their focus ATM: aircraft [sorwz Boeing], cars, and car parts.

CATACLYSMIC CORRUPTION

Stories brought to you by your least favorite characters

  • AG Pam Bondi fired Joseph Tirrell, a career official at DOJ that’s central job was advising Bondi on the ethics obligations that she’s supposed to abide by in her role.

  • A staffer from the Elon Musk-born, DOGE was able to get high-level access to not just view, but to change the inner workings of a payments system [National Payments System] that, according to NPR, controls tens of billion of dollars in gov payments and loans for farmers and ranchers across the U.S. Amongst the info in this chest of what’s supposed to be private info – farmers’ full financial history and personal deats.

  • SCOTUS handed Trump a president wrapped in a bow, ruling that the Trump Admin is allowed to move ahead with mass layoffs at the Department of Education. The ruling was 6-3, with the liberal justices issuing a dissent, and the Conservatives like Alito and Thomas, not issuing… anything explaining their decision.

HEALTH & WELLNESS

In the club, we’re all sick

  • AG Pam Bondi and crew dismissed a case against a plastic surgeon that threw away COVID-19 shots, gave children saline shots in lieu of the vaccine, and sold fake vaccination cards, during the pandemic. The Trump Admin position on it is that “he was just giving patients a choice.” 

  • Senator Jon Ossoff [D-GA] shared how Thomasville, GA, will no longer be receiving the grant money awarded to it for upgrades to its health clinic and sewers lines – turns out the Trump Admin canceled it on the grounds of the grant having the word “justice” in it, and that the electric lawnmowers that were to be purchased to maintain the grounds were just “too woke” for the Trump Admin to handle.

  • ICE presence in medical facilities is impacting care – and for many in the immigrant community, has caused them to delay care out of fear of coming into contact with ICE. That fear has only been further validated with experiences documented like this one, where ICE agents – or a masked man rather – tried to pull a landscaper receiving care from the clutches of his doctors.

  • Trump’s big ol’ bill is full of shit – but some of that shit is delayed [with a purposeful strategy as shared here]. This is the 1-2-3 timeline on some of the biggest changes related to healthcare, food assistance, taxes, and clean energy – and these are some of the ones right around the corner, per Senator Elissa Slotkin [D-MI].

BACK ON OUR BILLSH*T

Bills, bills, bills

FEDERAL, ICE: Senator Slotkin [D-MI], along with two other Dem Senators, has intro’d a bill that would require ICE officers to display ID during any public-facing enforcement actions. The bill – the VISIBLE Act – also would ban non-medical masks or face coverings [with minor exceptions] and require that DHS create a disciplinary procedure for violations of the policy, along with requiring a yearly report for Congress on compliance.

FEDERAL, PARENTING: A bipartisan bill from the desk of Congresswoman Lauren Underwood [D-IL] would make Amtrak more family friendly has passed the House. Hold-on scratch that. The bill that’s now headed to the Senate for consideration, would require that Amtrak become more family friendly by requiring new Amtrak trains to include a baby changing table in at least one of a cabin’s typically two restrooms.

WEATHER REPORT

Climate & enviro-related deats

  • Cancun Cruz aka Senator Ted Cruz [R-TX] helped pass his party’s bill from hell – a bill in which he nixed $150M in funds for critical weather forecasting tools, from research to observation systems, assessments, modeling – basically anything that would increase weather prediction accuracy and information dispersal. He also said “yeehaw” to getting rid of $50M in NOAA grants that would study “climate-related impacts on oceans, weather systems, and coastal eco-systems,” according to Mother Jones.

  • Kristi Noem’s micromanaging of FEMA – the agency under her umbrella of control that she’s looking to shutter – caused serious delays in the deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams that were on deck during the July 4, 2025 Texas floods. Specifically, Noem had enacted a rule that required every contract and grant over $100K to be approved and signed off by her, personally, meaning that her being too busy cosplaying God knows what, meant disaster response came at a slow trickle.

  • In another plot twist of idiocy, FEMA didn’t answer thousands upon thousands of calls from Texans following the devastating July 4, 2025 flood because it fired call center contractors on July 5, 2025 in the height of post-disaster damage assessment. 

  • Trump’s State Department fired the remaining employees that were working on climate initiatives, including the last of the U.S. climate negotiators that were on staff.

  • The Trump Admin is moving around climate change related data like a kid that’s moving their veggies around on their plate – hoping that no one will notice it’s not going to its proper location. In this case, the data on how climate change is literally endangering the country, which was hosted on websites that went RIP earlier in the month, was promised to go live on NASA’s. But as of this week, that plan to display the legally-mandated data,  is no more.

THE ACTION ITEMS

Get ‘em done from your phone

KEY READS

Important stories from around the USA

  • WSMV: ‘Money is depleted:’ Middle TN food bank impacted by Trump spending bill

  • Politico: Senate Republicans scramble to lock down support for Trump’s spending clawbacks

  • USA Today: Faith leaders plan Southern protests over budget cuts

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