Cruella de Bill

“I think Cruella basically has no redeeming human characteristics…”
– Glenn Close as Cruella de Vil in a 1966 Vanity Fair interview

Today in America is a day to speak of villainy and cruelty. Let’s begin with the fictional as a way to reflect upon the factual.

In the world of fictional villains, Dodie Smith’s malevolent, dog-napping character of Cruella de Vil in The One Hundred and One Dalmatians, is as despicable as they come. Her name is purposefully built around the words cruel and devil. In Disney’s animated version of the film her personal anthem contains the phrase, “if she doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will.” She is infamous for her obsession to skin Dalmatian puppies to create an opulent spotted fur coat. In the original novel, while discussing with her dog nappers what to do with captured puppies, Cruella displays her cruelty as she exclaims, “Poison them, drown them, hit them on the head. Have you any chloroform in the larder?”

Thoughts of that cruel fictional character who is the personification of evil come easily today on the heels of the US Senate’s narrow passage (JD Vance serving as tie-breaker) of the Republican’s omnibus budget reconciliation bill, ignominiously dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Never has a “brand” been more misappropriated. An honest interpretation, one that most Americans acknowledge, would call it what it is, the One Big Bad Abominable Bill – a.k.a. Cruella de Bill.

Cruella de Bill, basically a Project 2025 wish list, is now back in the House for approval by the President’s imposed deadline of July 4. If it is passed by the Republican majority, as it likely will be, it will become the most cruel, corrupt, costly transfer of wealth from the poor to corporations and the richest Americans in modern history, while increasing budget deficits by $2.4 trillion to finance trillions in tax cuts for the wealthiest.

Cruella de Bill is truly obscene. See just how obscene in the words of three Senators who did their best on the left side of the aisle to scuttle it. This is as Heather Cox Richardson reported it on June 30, 2025:

“This is the most deeply immoral piece of legislation I have ever voted on in my entire time in Congress,” said Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT).

“[W]e’re debating a bill that’s going to cut healthcare for 16 million people. It’s going to give a tax break to…massively wealthy people who don’t need any more money. There are going to be kids who go hungry because of this bill. This is the biggest reduction in…nutrition benefits for kids in the history of the country.” Murphy continued: “We’re obviously gonna continue to offer these amendments to try to make it better. So far not a single one of our amendments…has passed, but we’ll be here all day, probably all night, giving Republicans the chance over and over and over again to slim down the tax cuts for the corporations or to make life a little bit…less miserable for hungry kids or maybe don’t throw as many people off of healthcare. Maybe don’t close so many rural hospitals. It’s gonna be a long day and a long night.”

“This bill is a farce,” said Senator Angus King (I-ME). “Imagine a bunch of guys sitting around a table, saying, ‘I’ve got a great idea. Let’s give $32,000 worth of tax breaks to a millionaire and we’ll pay for it by taking health insurance away from lower-income and middle-income people. And to top it off, how about we cut food stamps, we cut SNAP, we cut food aid to people?’… I’ve been in this business of public policy now for 20 years, eight years as governor, 12 years in the United States Senate. I have never seen a bill this bad. I have never seen a bill that is this irresponsible, regressive, and downright cruel.”

“When I worked here in the 70’s,” King said, “I had insurance as a…junior staff member in this body 50 years ago. Because I had that insurance that covered a free checkup, I went in and had my first physical in eight years…and the doctors found a little mole on my back. And they took it out. And I didn’t think much of it. And I went in a week later and the doctor said, ‘You better sit down, Angus. That was malignant melanoma. You’re going to have to have serious surgery.’… And I had the surgery and here I am. If I hadn’t had insurance, I wouldn’t be here. And it’s always haunted me that some young man in America that same year had malignant melanoma, he didn’t have insurance, he didn’t get that checkup, and he died. That’s wrong. It’s immoral.”

Senator King continued: “I don’t understand the obsession and I never have…with taking health insurance away from people. I don’t get it. Trying to take away the Affordable Care Act in 2017 or 2018 and now this. What’s driving this? What’s the cruelty to do this, to take health insurance away from people knowing that it’s going to cost them…up to and including…their lives…”

“This place feels to me, today, like a crime scene,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said on the floor of the Senate. “Get some of that yellow tape and put it around this chamber. This piece of legislation is corrupt. This piece of legislation is crooked. This piece of legislation is a rotten racket. This bill cooked up in back rooms, dropped at midnight, cloaked in fake numbers with huge handouts to big Republican donors. It loots our country for some of the least deserving people you could imagine. When I first got here, this chamber filled me with awe and wonderment. Today, I feel disgust.”

Here is a deep dive into what Cruella de Bill now looks like (including Senate removals) according to 5calls.org. Read it and weep:

• Deep cuts to Medicaid, including harsh new work requirements
• New Medicare eligibility rules and increased costs for dual Medicaid-Medicare enrollees
• Tripling the budget for ICE and Trump’s mass deportation effort
• Authorization for the sale of public lands and increased incentives for fossil fuel production removed from bill
• Widespread rollback of clean energy tax incentives and climate protections
• Unprecedented funding cuts and expansion of work requirements for SNAP
• Limits on a court’s ability to issue temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions removed from bill
• Funding cuts to clinical care services at Planned Parenthood
• Funding cuts for gender-affirming care for Medicaid and CHIP recipients removed from bill
• Requiring states block all AI regulation for 10 years in order to receive federal broadband funding removed from bill
• A $150 billion increase to an already bloated Pentagon budget
• A national private school voucher program that diverts funding from public schools and sets up a new tax shelter for the wealthy removed from bill
• An increased excise tax on college endowments
• Widespread changes to student loan access, protections, and repayment options
• Harmful changes to federal worker pay, benefits, unions, and protections against unjust treatment removed from bill
• Slashes to funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) by nearly 70%
• Elimination of a tax on gun silencer sales
• Raising the debt limit by $5 trillion purely to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, adding trillions to the national debt.
  Overwhelmingly, Americans don’t like Cruella de Bill. I close with this from Slate.com and urge you to read the full article to see just how bad this bill is:
  “The Big Beautiful Bill is not a response to popular demand. It is the product of donor discipline, narrative control, and procedural manipulation. It is legislation that passed because the people it harms are deemed politically expendable and the people it helps are politically organized. This is not policymaking. This is power management. The patriotism is performative, and the cruelty is strategic.” Read the full article HERE.Bottom line; there is no justice, mercy or humility to be found in Cruella de Bill. It is a shameful, immoral abomination. It stinks to high heaven! If this doesn’t disgust you, no evil thing will.