(Take two!)
We don’t all have to agree on everything, but together we can still be a force for good.
(Simon Rosenberg) As we struggle to pick ourselves up from the Senate Democrat’s mistaken capitulation just days after our big electoral wins last week there are two lessons from fighting autocracy that are sticking with me this morning:
Appeasement invites escalation.
If we splinter they could remain in power for decades.
Yes, the message is – we must fight, we must be strong and courageous, and we must stay together.
I was rummaging through some old posts for inspiration this morning and ran across this “Hopium Daily Reminder” from February:As we’ve discussed here all year as we our movement learns together how to counter – and defeat – Trump, there will be moments of failure, struggle, of disappointment. Good days, and bad days. We had one of each in the past week.
What history tells us, however, is that we cannot lose sight of the mission and must overcome (not dismiss) our disappointment as we fight, together, to mitigate the damage he is doing, advance our agenda, and win back power.
We just did that together in last’s weeks election, overcoming the terrible disappointment of 2024. Now we must lift ourselves up and overcome this latest disappointment (when you are ready) to properly prepare for 2026 and, in the short term, use the coming budget process to make them own their agenda of sabotage, plunder, and betrayal; block as much of it as we can; and keep driving them further and further away from the electorate.
In that vein let me share some notes on the path forward on a very cold November morning in Washington, DC…..
The great Stuart Stevens dropped by yesterday for one of our regular discussions. If you haven’t gotten to it yet get to it when you can. It’s a thoughtful look at where we are from two guys who’ve been around a while and are struggling, like you, to make sense of it all.
Our talk helped confirm where I think we stand a year out from the 2026 Election and just days after one of our best elections in recent decades – we are in a far stronger position than it feels right now.
Four main reasons:
1 – Trump is wildly unpopular, his agenda more so. He is in serious physical and cognitive decline. He just suffered a humiliating electoral loss, one that was a clear and very loud repudiation of him and his terrible regime. Meaningful cracks have begun to appear in his control over Congress. In this shutdown fight his already battered image took on a huge hit, as people saw him acting imperially, impulsively, and with extraordinary malice towards the American people. He enters this next phase a very diminished figure.
2 – While this phase of the year end budget negotiations – the shutdown phase – did not end as we hoped, it has done enormous damage to Trump and the Republicans in two very specific ways. First, it contributed to our stunning electoral rout last week and to creating an electoral playing field that is now far more favorable to us as we head into 2026. Second, we’ve begun the process of getting 2026 Republican candidates on the record “defending the indefensible” – taking votes that will make it far more likely they lose next year.
A few examples:
Last night all 53 Senate Republicans voted down an amendment introduced by Senator Baldwin to delay the ACA subsidy cuts by a year. This means their vulnerable 2026 class – Collins (Maine), Cornyn (TX) Husted (OH), Sullivan (AK) – all just voted to affirmatively to do material harm to large numbers of their constituents. In some polls these ACA cuts are polling in the 20s making them essentially impossible to defend.
Two weeks ago Senator Tim Kaine got three of these vulnerable Republicans – Cornyn, Husted, Sullivan – on record supporting Trump’s tariffs and once again doing clear, material harm to their constituents on something that really matters. In most polls these tariffs are now in the low 30s, making them essentially impossible to defend.
Last week Senator Kaine got all four of these Republicans on record supporting Trump’s lawless actions in the Caribbean and Venezuela. A vote that, if Trump’s adventurism goes awry next year, will also be impossible to defend.
The coming debate over the fiscal 2026 budget is going to give many similar opportunities to get vulnerable 2026 Congressional Republicans on record on things that will be very hard – even impossible – to defend in their elections next year. They enter this next phase of the budget debate in a much weaker position than they were prior to the shutdown.
3 – New Leaders, New Strategies, New Tactics Are Emerging, And Last Tuesday We Won Everywhere With Many Flavors Of Democrat –
A new post-Clinton/Pelosi/Biden/Obama era is emerging in the Democratic Party, and it feels strong, modern, healthy, diverse, connected.
4 – The illusion that right-leaning pollsters have given to Trump and Rs that everything was “OK” with Trump has begun to evaporate. In the New Jersey governor’s race their red wave polling was exposed for what this stuff has always been – a well funded and strategic disinformation op designed to make their candidates look strong and ours weak.
WaterGirl
We have raised $8,000 for the House special election in TN. That will be a big boost for Aftyn. I moved the thermometer from the sidebar because we had reached our goal, but I can put it back if others still wanted to donate. If so, let me know!
Thanks to everyone who helped make that happen!
There are also postcard opportunities with Postcards to Voters.
iKropoclast
Ah, that new thread smell:
See? Now this is why they need to be communicating to the public. This is an important thing to know, that the subsidies were put to a majority vote as part of the process working out this deal. I’m here among well-informed people, many of whom supported the deal, and this is the first I’ve heard about this
This fact would have allayed so many of my initial concerns.
Baud
Test
iKropoclast
It’s nice that this retained the original responses, but I’m looking at the “out” I thought I edited to “put” and I lament.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Yo! What are you testing?
Fair Economist
One of the lessons of history is how complicated people are and how movements are even more complicated assemblies of people with often wildly divergent goals and beliefs. Success requires working with people you disagree with, often intensely.
WaterGirl
@iKropoclast: I fixed it for you. You were likely editing as I was pulling it, so your edit didn’t get saved.
iKropoclast
@WaterGirl: Stands to reason, most appreciated.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
My first attempt to post resulted in an error message.
WaterGirl
@Fair Economist:
Yep. That’s not just true of movements. Everybody has probably had to work with someone they don’t care for or downright don’t like or respect. Successful people seem to be able to handle that in real life – I don’t know why more people can’t handle that online or in a movement.
iKropoclast
@Baud: That’ll teach you not to post into deferred threads.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Well, we did have that “vacation / out of office message” set up for you since you were going to be gone. And the bot that was going to make random Baud comments here and there.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: You should take the hint.
Ishiyama
Apropos of which sentiment, I read an interesting essay by Yastreblyanski linking the messages of, e.g., Mamdani and Mikie Sherrill to John Ball in the 14th Century yastreblyansky.blogspot.com/2025/11/were-all-democratic-socialists-now.html :
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
I call it The Baut.
David_C
@WaterGirl: A Baud Bot?
iKropoclast
@SiubhanDuinne: @David_C: Victor and still champion, Subaru Diane.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Ishiyama: lovely find. John Ball lived and spoke eons before Karl Marx was a spark in his father’s eye. John Ball is no communist, which includes a lot of absurd notions like cutting down non-profitable (yup) trees. It is loving your neighbor. It is the golden rule. It is not might makes right. It is right makes right. Thank you for the link!
Castor Canadensis
Dumb question time: if we had got the senate to agree to an ACA extension, would it have got past the house and president?
Could the ACA part be severed from restarting the government, thus making everything we’ve done a waste?
If the ACA couldn’t be severed, would a switch to house Republicans or the president keeping the government closed be at last as bad as having Democrats in the senate keeping the government closed?
I often do scenario trees (I’m a nerd, and that’s a debugging technique) but I don’t know enough about the US rules to have an opinion. Anyone here do “appreciations”?
Fair Economist
@Ishiyama: I can see why medieval rulers killed *him*.
David_C
An earlier thread was old by the time I went back to it, but I keep thinking of @RevRick’s comment:
The DMV area had so many feds showing up at food banks the last couple of weeks. It is not hard to be a hardliner when one is on the outside; not everyone was as prepared to hold out as I was. As the Hopium guy pointed out, we need to be tying the unpopular, but less known, policies around the Republicans in office.
Old Man Shadow
I don’t think you need to tell us angry malcontents that. We’re pretty much aware that if we want a mote of humanity in our government and culture, we’re stuck with the Democrats. We’re going to complain, yell, protest, write, and call, but at the end of the day it’s because we want things to be better and we’re locked into voting for them.
But you might want to pass this note along to the sniveling feckless moderates in the Senate and/or House.
Fair Economist
@Castor Canadensis: They could have severed the ACA subsidies from the CR in conference, but then it would have been subject to another filibusterable vote in the Senate. I don’t think the Republicans would have actually done it, considering that it would look really bad politically and that MTG has already gone rogue. 2 more and the House would pass an ACA amended CR.
David_C
@iKropoclast: 🙂
dc
@Ishiyama: Continuation of Ball:
iKropoclast
Well, that assumes I believe 3 or 4 R votes in the Senate. Similar to what they would need in the house, which has a lot more members. But it failed the Senate, so we won’t know. But I suspect if it passed the Senate the votes would be there in the House if Johnson allowed the vote.
Trump, probably not, but he does some wild shit so who even knows?
Castor Canadensis
redundant
Gloria DryGarden
@Castor Canadensis: not dumb questions,
not even pert, but, apt.
I’m wondering much the same.
I hope to hear Heather Cox Richardson on all this- maybe she’ll help it make some sense.
H.E.Wolf
When looking at Civil Rights Movement history, it’s clear that there were heated, ongoing disagreements within the movement on how best to proceed.
To win civil rights for Black Americans, sometimes those disagreements had to be put on hold.
We could learn some things from that.
As valued commenter Another Scott rightly reminds us: “Eyes on the prize.”
WaterGirl
@Gloria DryGarden: Another Scott linked to her in an earlier thread.
iKropoclast
But what or where is the prize?
Peke Daddy
John Ball’s thread seems to have also wound through Thomas Paine.
Jackie
Did this get noted elsewhere today?
We all got to know her as a J6 Committee member.
Lobo
Here is the thing. I am mostly thinking of how the senate democrats handled it, not that it was done. They inadvertently created a trolley problem, which group gets the suffering: Snap/Fed workers or ACA renewals. But they did it in a way both suffered. I am not sure there was a plan B. Whatever.
I agree with Josh Marshall on the way forward: talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-status-interview-or-how-to-write-up-a-senate-purge-list
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Another good job destroyed bt AI.
bbleh
I got no problem with family squabbles, as long as they stay in the family. Debate can be healthy, just like primaries. There was a thread about this a couple weeks ago, with some very useful suggestions like (paraphrasing) “criticize ideas, not people” and “avoid using the word ‘you’ in responses.”
I happen to think the noise that the more progressive side of the family has been directing at our electeds has been useful and beneficial, for both the party and the country. There has been a tidal wave of “Dems must move to the center and cultivate the [portion of Republican-voting electorate] vote” in the media and the pundit class for the last several years, and I think a counter to it was both overdue and (with post-election hindsight) correct. But that certainly does NOT mean abandoning more centrist Dems in places where you gotta do that to win (as little as I thought of Manchin, I still voted for him when I lived there), nor refusing to make common cause against Republicans, nor [cringe] going all “purist” as though politics were some sort of clean, abstract academic exercise.
Jackie
This caught my eye! Utah – of all states!
Timill
@Ishiyama:
(The answer was, of course, Adam, but the mystics of the Church had concealed this dangerous knowledge.)
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Oh, yay! So glad to see that. I like her a lot.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Another piece of excellent news!
Suzanne
@bbleh:
This is an excellent comment.
Eyeroller
@iKropoclast: I’m surprised you didn’t know this was part of the “deal.” I knew that the Rs had promised to take a vote on the ACA extensions though didn’t know exactly when it would take place. That had been part of the negotiations for most of the shutdown. Edit: this is an amendment to the agreement, but the party-line result shows what would/will happen for the “real” vote the Rs pinky-swore they’d hold in like January or something.
It’s why I didn’t understand why “they’re going to eliminate the filibuster because Trump said so” seemed to be something the Ds should have held out for. It would just have meant the Ds would lose everything, not even get any scraps like they got.
The only hope for a good outcome was if the Rs just agreed to a very reasonable proposal to extend the subsidies. I think people just got the idea (I know I did for a while) that if we held out the Rs would want to take the offer for their own political benefit. But when they didn’t budge a few days after the election, it was pretty clear they weren’t going to do that.
Ishiyama
@Timill: I have had a copy of 1066 and all that since junior high school. (Back when we had pencil sharpeners.)
Jackie
@WaterGirl: I’m on a mission of positivity! :-)
RSA
Nice. I had to look this up to see what it meant, and it was worthwhile. Adam is cast as a farmer, with “dalf” being a form of “delve” or “dig”; Eve makes clothing, with “span” being a form of “spin”. Ball also apparently wanted that rhyme.
Captain C
@Ishiyama: You just sent me down a wiki hole which included Wat Tyler’s Rebellion and the German Peasants’ Rebellion of 1525.
Which was fun, so, thanks!
iKropoclast
That’s just the thing, the talk is about a future vote. What Baldwin described in the OP tells me a simple majority vote on an amendment already happened.
The future vote is a farce, a mockery.
The filibuster would presumably still be gone in 2027, 29 if they eliminated it. This means when Dems get the chance to rebuild, they also will have a freer hand to implement policy as they see fit. The filibuster as currently designed gives too much power to an intransigent minority.
tobie
@bbleh: I’m struck at the moderate Dems who did NOT support King’s and Shaheen’s gambit. Klobuchar, Hickenlooper, Bennett, Smith, and Blumenthal are not exactly firebreathing progressives. But they come from strong Democratic states. The Senators from Nevada and NH seem to believe that if they both-sides every issue they will speak to voters in the middle, which is how they characterize their constituents. I don’t think that’s true, but I have wondered if there’s anything specific to being a female Senator in a swing state. That’s not a justification of what they did…just an observation.
Eyeroller
@Lobo: JM’s first point is getting rid of the filibuster. Particularly as it was set up by McConnell, it is wildly anti-small-d-democratic. It was supposed to let the Senate “debate,” which means talk about things. McConnell took a rule that was abused almost as soon as it was instituted and made it so that it prevented the Senate from passing legislation other than what the R majority wanted and voted a carve-out for. It completely squelched the minority party otherwise. And historically, and especially recently, it’s allowed a party (mostly the Rs in the past few decades) to evade responsibility for their policies or to allow decent D policies to be enacted. (News reports would just say something like “Popular legislation X failed in the Senate” without clarifying it was the cloture vote that failed.”)
So strategically we should get rid of it. And none of the reforms cited, the most desperately needed of which is Supreme Court reform IMHO, will be possible with it in place. But tactically I am not sure that getting rid of it in the heat of the shutdown would have been a good idea.
Geminid
@Jackie: Whoah! Jen Kiggans might as well start polishing up her resume. Although, Kiggans is an experienced health care professional and should land on her feet.
An old friend of mine lives in Virginia Beach and has friends who know Kiggans. He says she sounds like a good person. She just fell in with a bad crowd.
Both Luria and Kiggans are retired Navy officers.
iKropoclast
The fact of the matter is that both caucuses are split on the filibuster. The only way debate gets reformed in the Senate is if reformers in both parties come together. That necessarily means that at some point, whichever party is in the minority is going to have to take that hit or it will stay that way until the heat death of the universe.
WaterGirl
@Eyeroller: I think they promised a vote on the ACA extensions in DECEMBER. So I think this was different than that.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Hope you have a lot of company! :-)
This past 2-3 days has really dragged me down. Happily, our successful fundraising for Aftyn in TN help buoy me up.
Scout211
SCOTUS just extended the emergency hold on SNAP funds. Link
Trivia Man
Hang together or separately
UncleEbeneezer
United we stand. Hear, hear!
I just now learned that first disc golf course (frisbee) was in Hahamonga Park in La Canada, CA. Just below JPL, it’s a park where we used to hike and walk our doggy all the time. Crazy!!
Eyeroller
@tobie: My theory, which is mine and belongs to me, is that the Nevada Senators were spooked by the ATC/air travel issue.
Cortez-Masto squeaked by in a year Trump won the state. I think Rosen’s last election was also close though not as much. Nevada is almost completely dependent on tourism. I don’t know whether Thanksgiving in Vegas is popular but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is. Vegas has most of the votes in the state. Covid made them turn rightward (loss of visitors->job losses->vote out whoever is in).
The problem I see there is that Vegas tourism is down and may be in a permanent decline. But we’ll have to deal with that later.
Shaheen, well, NH is still quite purple, especially for New England.
kalakal
@Timill: Ah, The Pheasants Revolt
HopefullyNotCassandra
@iKropoclast: cleaning up the trumpie disasters.
Eyeroller
@Scout211: I hate them more than I hate Trump. They pretend to be intellectual and impartial (“calling balls and strikes” what bullshit).
The one silver lining is that maybe this will continue to build support for when/if the Ds take control. The public seems to think that the number of justices (and House representatives) is encoded in the Constitution, so we need to do some education, but they’re losing or have lost their reverence for the institution.
iKropoclast
Decreasingly so, from what I can tell. Putting half the state into the legislature confuses things, though.
iKropoclast
@HopefullyNotCassandra: Is cleaning up all we ever get to do? The job’s never even done before they’re back in there making messes. Literally my whole life has been an accelerating cycle of Republicans bringing down civilization and Democrats building back lesser.
Mike in Pasadena
Have been speaking to politically active friends instead of on BJ for the past three days, friends who knocked on doors, phone banked at campaign HQ, and drove Democrats to the polls who can no longer get behind the wheel. Their reactions to Schumer’s stunt Sunday have ranged from anger, to disgust, to resignation. None are federal employees, none use SNAP, and only two use ACA. A third person was on ACA, but just became eligible for Medicare in September. Caving was the most effective enthusiasm killer I’ve ever seen. One said he was now working for a good Republican candidate because “that’s better than working for loser Democrats who surrender.” The two whose ACA notices showed a 100% rate increase were pure anger and hatred. Abandoned was the term one used. Good job, Schumer, that is, if he intended to kill the party, he was very effective here. //s
iKropoclast
@Mike in Pasadena: Remind me how this is Schumer’s fault, please
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Eyeroller: let us keep the filibuster until our man-baby wanna be tyrant is no longer in charge was a surprise opinion from the gop senators we learned thanks to this deal (imho)
tobie
@Eyeroller: That’s an interesting theory about Nevada. NH is more complicated. For a long time, now, it’s voted for Democratic Presidents but Republican Senators (Ayotte, J. Sununu) and Governors (C. Sununu). I guess some people still move there because they have a bug up their bonnet about taxes.
Lobo
@Eyeroller:
This is about what comes next. Not any debate on the past.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@UncleEbeneezer: so very cool!
bbleh
@tobie: with the final tally being exactly 60-40, the latter including Kaine and Durbin, I remain convinced that exactly who would — or could! — vote which way was VERY carefully worked out in advance within the Dem caucus, and it took account of their constituencies, the currently salient issues in their states, their sexes (oh yes), and whatever else made sense to people who’ve done politics for a living for a long time and had decided collectively that this was the appropriate way forward.
What’s done is done. We shall see what happens in the House (pretty predictable imo) and in January (MUCH less predictable).
Eyeroller
@iKropoclast: One possible reform that might get through without immediately removing that hallowed rule is to make it a vote of who is actually in the chamber at the time to vote for cloture.
It was supposed to be about continuing “debate” so that Senators could speak for extended periods, since their “deliberations” are so important. What it has turned into, especially under McConnell, is that 60 could just nearly literally phone it in that they wouldn’t stop the “debate.”
OK, let’s make it about “debate.” If you’re debating that means you are talking and somebody is listening. It doesn’t mean that Jimmy Stewart (who was a RWNJ and massive racist, FWIW) stands there for 48 hours talking nonstop. It means that there is actual debate with live humans who are present. If they want to stop that, then those who are present should be the ones to vote to stop it. Not the members as a whole. I think this would effectively eliminate it without just ditching it.
This is probably not an original idea with me but I can’t remember where I might have read it.
bbleh
@Eyeroller: @HopefullyNotCassandra: @Lobo: Josh Marshall had a column today about what he thinks the Big Issues Over The Next Decade need to be. Not bad imo, if necessarily somewhat theoretical.
Geminid
@iKropoclast: New Hampshire has become reliably Blue in federal elections, but it has a Republican governor, former Senator Kelly Ayotte. And the Governor before her, Chris Sununu, is also a Republican. I think the state has a lot Independents, and some of them split their tickets.
There will be an open Senate seat next year because Democratic Senator Jean Shaheen is retiring. That will be a real fight.
Karen Gail
I think ending the shutdown was the correct thing to do; Trump was willing to go to SCOTUS to prevent people from getting SNAP. He would rather people go hungry than not get his way.
We have people who are living at below poverty levels while the rich party; if you aren’t willing to feed the people then there is basically something morally wrong with you.
Princess
@Eyeroller: Vegas is getting killed by Canadians who’ve stopped travelling there, and as Kamala Harris says, we are not going back. So yes, I think the decline will be permanent. But the Dem Senators might consider running *against* Trump on NV’s decline. What say.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@iKropoclast: That is what happens these days. The democrats get to play janitor after the gop blows things up (this time even the White House, itself). We need to amend our constitution. Corporations are not people. Money is not speech. Imho
Eyeroller
@iKropoclast: And what’s a “good Republican candidate” amirite?
mappy!
@WaterGirl:
An interesting aside in Heather Cox Richardson’s piece:
“…Trump did not want the shutdown to end this way. He was trying to use the pain he was inflicting on the American people to force Republican senators to end the filibuster and pass a series of measures that would essentially have made him a dictator. The Republican senators were clear they didn’t want to do that. And now, they haven’t. They chose a way out of the shutdown fight that did not support Trump’s ambitions. After nine months in which they appeared to do his bidding, that’s an interesting development.”
And,
“Trump called Democrats “the enemy” today, but told reporters he would abide by the deal, saying that “they haven’t changed anything.” But they have.”
And everything is revisited Jan. 30.
I’m more impressed now with what the Senate Dems managed here than how it appeared reading the knee-jerk reactions when it was first reported.
If you don’t have numbers, you don’t line charge.
(*Sorry for the ah-ha moment and interruption. Back to the regular program… ; – )
p.a
When mild-mannered Josh Marshall says: back these aims or GTFO…
Without his first 2 points, the Constitution is currently a dead letter, and beyond that, tRump, McConnell et al have provided a template for the future*. Filibuster and a representative SuCo are an effort at least to get back on the rails.
*Maybe tRump is sui generis, but maybe not.
iKropoclast
Charlie Baker? Dan Crawford?
That’s the whole list, provisos on the back.
Eyeroller
@Princess: Not just Canadians. They had loads of international tourists from Asia because it was cheaper than e.g. Macau.
But the casinos were bought out by people who wanted to run their own Macau. They made food/booze/shows into profit centers rather than loss leaders (at least according to what I’ve been reading). It’s even turned off Americans.
And their market has always been upper-middle-class to moderately wealthy. Not the really wealthy who do go to places like Monaco and Macau.
WaterGirl
@Scout211:
That’s interesting.
bbleh
@mappy!: And everything is revisited Jan. 30.
Almost everything. Agriculture, VA, Military Construction and (surprise!) the legislative branch, plus a few other things, are funded for the FULL YEAR under the deal, so they will NOT be revisited. And under Ag is … SNAP. So the Republicans can’t hold hungry kids hostage again.
(What is WRONG with those people, he asked for the 149674th time.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Fair Economist: Richard II was bad at being king.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@mappy!: and the VA and SNAP are funded for the whole year.
Omnes Omnibus
@kalakal: Objecting to the Glorious Twelfth?
WaterGirl
@Karen Gail: What about the people who won’t be able to afford their health insurance? That is also a life and death situation.
Was this a Sophie’s choice where we had to pick one group over the other?
HopefullyNotCassandra
@iKropoclast: Abraham Lincoln, Thaddeus Stevens. All of the great republicans would be disowned by this bunch. This bunch are the inheritors of Jefferson Davis.
WaterGirl
@mappy!: I did link to it early in the thread! :-) Not OT at all.
Another Scott
@iKropoclast: Doing what’s necessary to vote the monsters out.
#191 – Eyes on the prizes.
HTH.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Eyeroller
@WaterGirl: Yes.
Edit: actually after the election failed to move any Republicans, I don’t think it was even a choice. We were never going to get ACA subsidy extensions.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@WaterGirl: Not really. The situation is as stark. Here, though, the GOP made clear none of them had any intention of voting to continue the ACA subsidies. That position is polling at 20%! We need to find (and cultivate) another John McCain, if such can still exist in this gop caucus.
cain
@mappy!: I’m dubious whether he will honor the deal. Of courser, he could and then slam it saying it was a horrible deal, 6 months later.
kalakal
@Omnes Omnibus: I just like to grouse
Jackie
Remember that small newspaper in Kansas that was raided a few years ago?
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: That doesn’t seem to link to anything?
bbleh
@HopefullyNotCassandra: this.
WaterGirl
@Jackie:
More clear: What we did was illegal as shit and we got caught.
iKropoclast
@WaterGirl: Furthermore, I went into the only recent thread with at least 191 posts and did not find #191 relevant.
mappy!
@bbleh: @HopefullyNotCassandra: Thank you for the clarification!
@WaterGirl: I Know. Didn’t read the other thread, late to the party.
@cain: My guess would be that he signs it. Whether he then ignores key parts of it is another issue (that Rs will have to deal with and explain to their constituents in an election year).
WaterGirl
@Jackie: I forget… why did they do this in the first place? Just harassment?
Omnes Omnibus
@kalakal: Well played.
WaterGirl
@iKropoclast: That was my problem, too. So i went to the last post that had 191 or more comments, but that comment didn’t make sense either.
Mike in Pasadena
@iKropoclast: He appears to have engineered the cave by getting others to vote with the Rs so that he would not take the heat for voting for the CR. He wanted to avoid what happened earlier this year. That’s all.
WaterGirl
@Mike in Pasadena: I would have thought a “good republican” would be pretty hard to come by. Maybe not a Dem in the first place?
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: (sigh) It looks like I need an additional 4 day vacation…
#191 – Eyes on the prizes.
Sorry.
Thanks
Best wishes,
Scott.
Trivia Man
@HopefullyNotCassandra: good link
i learned a new word that describes our nation – fissiparous (split in factions)
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I didn’t know you had a 4-day vacation!
(I just edited the link in your original comment.)
David_C
@WaterGirl: Or 42 day involuntary vacation.
Lobo
Says it better than me.
AkivaMCohen
@akivamcohen.bsky.social
· 2m
There are certain fights that you need to either never pick in the first place or be certain you’re willing to see all the way through.
The shutdown was one of them.
PsiFighter37
@Jackie: A pretty big win. And I fully expect the governor of Utah, who has tried to present himself as reasonable in this era of being unreasonable, to fight this tooth and nail. Fuck all the Mormons.
Trivia Man
@Jackie: a few years ago the league of women voters had a gerry-meander race. I think it was only 3k… but hit all 4 districts and crossed district lines like 25 times. Ridiculous carving up of slc.
The map of the new 3rd is wild – from evanston in the far NE, Moab in the SE, and St George in the sw. other than single district states it must be one of the largest now.
RevRick
@Ishiyama: @HopefullyNotCassandra: The Early Church Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa and Chrysostom, asserted that superfluous wealth was theft from the poor, and could even be considered murder.
iKropoclast
@Another Scott: So, you know, I’m glad for Democrats that they won their elections and everything. I’m still reserving judgment whether the party has it in them anymore to be a force for good. They’ve been giving me new reservations in ways I haven’t seen from them in 20 years.
Like the economic things I never liked about Democrats are probably never going to change and I can accept that. The social policy, which has been my sole reason for voting for Democrats, they seem to be backsliding in places and creating whole new issues I never thought I’d have to worry about.
iKropoclast
That’s…speculative.
Omnes Omnibus
@RevRick: I am guessing that his life was not … long.
RevRick
@Omnes Omnibus: one might say that Richard 2 was rather juvenile.
Geminid
bbleh
@RevRick: damn Commanists! Why do they hate America so much?!?
Eyeroller
@HopefullyNotCassandra: I just lost a rather long comment to Redis connections (and neither the back button nor refresh restored it) but…
Quite a while ago I read a thesis by somebody — I can’t remember who — that there are really only two factions in American politics–the Confederate and the anti-Confederate–since at least the decade before the Civil War and even quite a bit before that.
Originally the Confederate Party was the Democrats. The Republicans, such as those you named, arose as an anti-Confederate party. But after the Civil War the wealthy quickly affiliated with the party since the Democrats were still the party of white workers. Eventually the desire of the wealthy for power made them ally with the “Confederates.”
For a while there was a transition period where there were conservative Democrats (e.g. “Dixiecrats”) and at least somewhat liberal Republicans. This was the era of bipartisanship for which so many older people still feel nostalgic. But after the civil rights era the wealthy were able to manipulate white racism to turn the Republican Party into what it is today.
I am old and a fan of Star Trek: the Original Series, so this may pass over the heads of many here. But there’s an episode where an interstellar entity that feeds off death and terror moves from one body to another, compelling the physical creature to be a serial killer (Jack the Ripper was an instance of this entity). It was a really dumb episode in other ways, but I think there was an essential truth about our politics there, which I am sure the writers of that episode didn’t intend.
RevRick
@Omnes Omnibus: They lived to 59 and 60 respectively.
Eyeroller
@iKropoclast: People believe what they wanna believe.
Omnes Omnibus
@RevRick: That’s not bad for people talk smack about rich folk back then. Or did they start doing it at around 59-60 years old?
Fair Economist
@Mike in Pasadena: Schumer voted against the CR. Blame people who voted for it.
Jackie
@WaterGirl:
Yeah. I forget the particulars, but I believe the paper published an unflattering article about the sheriff? (The article I linked didn’t go into the why’s – probably due to ongoing lawsuits?)
schrodingers_cat
@Eyeroller: A frontpager on this blog, dengre used to called it the herpes of American politics. This animus based on the notions of racial superiority
bbleh
@Eyeroller: Can’t remember who described the essence of “Confederatism” as “the triumph of culture over law.”
I think it’s the lawlessness — or to put it in Wilhoit’s-Law terms, being part of the “in-group” whom “laws protect but do not bind” — that is a YUGE part of the similarity to modern Republicanism, and to plutocracy generally.
Eyeroller
@RevRick: Not that bad for the time and even now people die at those ages regularly. Looks like Chrystosome likely and Gregory probably died of natural causes.
PsiFighter37
@Fair Economist: It is fair game to blame Schumer, who is proving to have as weak a hold on his caucus as Tom Daschle did in the face of Bush the Lesser tax cuts. He is the parliamentary leader, and if he can’t get his crew in line, he is ineffectual.
iKropoclast
@Geminid: Hmm…wrong on both counts. Liberal suggests capitalist and that’s pretty much my problem with Dems right there.
Fissiparous too. I had to look that one up.
So where my issue is I see certain elite Dems vacillating on trans folk, low key Islamophobic (even some open ones), unwilling to address policing issues in abused communities, and a whole lot of enthusiasm for putting older members on ice floes. That sounds fissiparous to me.
SW
OK. I get it. The Democrats “folding” is bad politics. When your opponent is floundering, it’s time to twist the knife not give in. However, I would like to point out a couple of things. First, the Republicans don’t give a shit. They don’t give a shit about hungry children. They don’t give a shit about potential airline disasters and they certainly don’t give a shit about the federal workforce. They don’t give a shit of ballooning healthcare costs either. But the thing is Democrats do give a shit about these things. It seems like right now a lot of comfortable progressives were willing to hold out to the last starving child. You can’t out asshole these people and you can’t shame them. What the Dems could do is hold out long enough to force the normies to see just how craven these fuckers are. And I believe they did that. Don’t take my word for it. Just look at the poles. The Republicans were never going to extend the ACC tax credits. The only way they will be restored is if we completely kick their asses next year. Sometimes the right thing to do isn’t the most politically effective. But that still doesn’t grant license to do the wrong thing. I predict that in the end the exact day that the Dems decided to let the government reopen will be a tiny blip as significant as it looks now. The public sees through their bullshit now. And there is a ton of negative consequences already baked into the cake. So yes I too was disappointed on Sunday night. But upon reflection I think it was a defensible move. And it may have forestalled a significant tragedy.
Eyeroller
@PsiFighter37: We don’t have a parliamentary system.
Eyeroller
@iKropoclast: You mean “neoliberal” suggests capitalism.
Easy to conflate them since the neoliberals certainly try to do that.
Timill
@Eyeroller: “Wolf in the Fold”, written by Bob Bloch. Pre-Southern Strategy, so probably not intended.
iKropoclast
Balloon Juice after dark starting the way I like.
Karen Gail
@WaterGirl: I try to stay away from health insurance questions; because, I would love to blow the whole mess up. My stepdaughter had Cystic Fibrosis, the battles with insurance were monthly sometimes weekly. After her death I battled cancer; once again battles with insurance. It wasn’t just the insurance it was the doctors who have nothing to do with hospitalized patient who stop by to say “hi” and bill for a visit. The system is corrupt and broken. I feel deeply for anyone whose life is depending on insurance, medical, doctors and hospitals.
It is a major soap box for me, so I try to stay away from even mentioning health insurance.
Eyeroller
@Timill: Starring Mr. Peterson (John Fiedler) from the Bob Newhart Show! Cast very much against type.
WaterGirl
@David_C: Well, I wondered about that, but I figured at 4 days it couldn’t be the shutdown.
42 for you?
iKropoclast
So does “classical liberalism.” If the neo and classical varieties both suggest capitalism, what does that most likely say about the points between?
Geminid
@Eyeroller: I would throw in the Nativist strain represented by the American (Know Nothing) Party. The American Party was a force in the pre-Civil War decade, but in 1860 the party dissolved itself and most members attached themselves to a newer party, the Republican.
They and their ideological offspring never left. They were anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-union, and Isolationist. Robert Taft is an example of a mid-twentieth century Know Nothing. The Eisenhower wing of the party kept the upper hand over the Taft wing for a couple decades, but the accession of the Southern Democrats in the 1970s .altered the balance of power because they and the Know Nothings were natural allies.
David_C
I, for one, this this quote from @RevRick should be pinned.
@SW: Yes, I agree. The Republicans have been pining for a non-functional government for 45 years.
We could point out what good things got into the bill and what the Republicans rejected, but negativity drives views.
Eyeroller
@iKropoclast: I don’t know about “classical liberalism,” but “neoliberalism” was very much a term co-opted by economists. Classical liberalism probably is as well.
If it’s Marxist, well just remember that Marx was an economist.
David_C
@WaterGirl: It is. Didn’t get a ton of home chores done, except yard work. Went to some protests, though, and networked with others in opposition: workplace and locally. It’s been a surreal experience. Will have a buttload of work to do when I get back.
A paycheck would be nice for a change.
WaterGirl
@Karen Gail: Okay, I understand that.
But even if you don’t want to look at that, and you hate the whole system as it is, millions and millions of people won’t be able to afford their health insurance, and they may have to go hungry.
So I don’t get how we can say “but SNAP really mattered because people were going hungry” and then say “oh well on the health insurance, they were never going to give extensions anyway”. Many of those people are going to suffer just as much as the SNAP people.
tobie
@SW:
This is said a lot. It may be true but I’m not absolutely convinced. The sticker shock for consumers on the health exchanges hadn’t come yet. The GOP was still digesting its shellacking on Tues. The pressure was mounting on Republicans to make concessions. What made this past Sunday the do-or-die date for giving in? The fact that the 8 Dems did it on a Sunday night when they thought most people wouldn’t be paying attention really bothered me
ETA: Jeanne Shaheen has gone from arrogant on Sunday to nauseating today. She said that she agrees with her Republican colleagues that we need to investigate subsidy fraud. Who knows? She may start talking about voter fraud next.
Mai Naem mobile
@Eyeroller: I get some travel deal emails and while i’m not a Vegas person i’ll glance at the deals and i got a bit of a sticker shock when I saw the prices in Vegas. Vegas used to be a place where you could get some real bargains, especially during the non bug holiday times. I didn’t realize it had gotten the PE bug as well. That explains the prices.
Librettist
Border patrol is pulling out of Chicago.
PsiFighter37
@Eyeroller: Ah yes, the time-honored Balloon Juice tradition of nitpicking over verbiage. I am well aware that this country I am a birthright citizen of is not a parliamentary system. But for all intents and purposes, until the 2028 elections (should they happen), it is the only means we have to fight by. So, scratch that scrotum as much as you want, but it will not change the meaning of what I said.
WaterGirl
@David_C: I’m very sorry. Not sure there are enough adjectives and adverbs to adequately describe how you and others in your position are feeling.
Karen Gail
@Eyeroller: Also long time Star Trek fan, watched when first come out; Gene Roddenberry fully intended to make political statements. He admitted it; remember the one with Frank Gorshin; half white half black? He talked about the point he was trying to make.
WaterGirl
@tobie:
A bad deal, made 10x worse by the way they handled it.
I cannot figure out why they didn’t at least wait 2-4 days and let the SNAP stuff play out through the courts.
Of course, we don’t know everything but it still looks like a bad deal to me. But here we are, so we move forward. No time machine and no amount of fighting here will put us in a different place.
WaterGirl
@Librettist: That’s great news for Chicago!
Do we know what reason they are giving and do we know if they are just moving elsewhere to victimize more people in a different city?
Trivia Man
@Jackie: I believe it was a DUI story. Big donor to the sheriff had a liquor license for her restaurant but wasnt eligible because dui conviction. Paper ran the story, here comes the lawman!!!!
RevRick
@Omnes Omnibus: Both lived post-Constantine in the last half of the 4th century and held positions of authority in the Church for twenty years. Chrysostom died in exile, Gregory died in office, and yes, they pissed off powerful people.
tobie
@WaterGirl:
True enough. But sometimes you just feel like you have to vent. 😪
MagdaInBlack
@WaterGirl: Gonna go stir shit somewhere else now.
blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/11/border-patrol-boss-and-agents-leaving-chicago-this-week-reports-say/
iKropoclast
I’ve never read Marx. Don’t know the first thing about him.
What I do know is I look at the proposition that workers ought to control the means of production and agree with that. As things stand, ownership confers both undue undemocratic power and is wildly compensated out of proportion to work.
To put it as a question, what does a hedge fund manager contribute to society?
But that’s all aside from the point. This is the stuff I know I will never (again*) agree with Democrats on. I knowingly overlook this voting for Democrats and have made peace with it.
They’ve been winning my vote effectively on DEI alone. Trouble is, I worry about them holding the line. No hard and fast pronouncements yet, but I’m concerned and I’m watching them.
MagdaInBlack
Duplicate, no idea why.
Mai Naem mobile
@tobie: I don’t think it was about people not paying attention I think it was more about people not calling their Senators’ offices. Statistically the subsidies affect more red state folks than blue state people. I have a feeling there’s a lot of red state people who are on Obama care who don’t realize they’re on Obama care. I was talking to a woman a couple of months ago about the subsidies and she just refused to believe that she was receiving subsidies and that she was on Obama care. Arizona’s version of medicaid is called AHCCCS and she didn’t understand the Obamacare medicaid expansion. I just gave up and figured she’d find out when she signed up for next year.
iKropoclast
I hope Chicago isn’t pregnant.
Mai Naem mobile
@MagdaInBlack: probably go to Nue Yawk City and teach that Mamdani a lesson.
Eyeroller
@PsiFighter37: It really does matter, because parliamentary systems have some very significant differences from ours. The House may be somewhat parliamentary, but the Senate really isn’t.
iKropoclast
“How did you knoooooow…?” I see her asking later this month.
Had a similar conversation in January after pronouncing to a friend last November that Trump wouldn’t go to prison.
tobie
@Mai Naem mobile: Yikes! What’s bringing us down as a nation is not venality but stupidity.
MagdaInBlack
@Mai Naem mobile: Charlotte, NC is mentioned, for some reason.
Karen Gail
@WaterGirl: I agree. People are going to suffer either way, so it is a “Sophie’s Choice” the sad part is that some of the people who need SNAP will also be hit by insurance companies. When your insurance comes through work the employer is going to pass that cost on.
I think military families might end up being hit the hardest; which has to be so very stupid. I read that between 4 to 12% of military families depend on SNAP.
Scout211
@MagdaInBlack: The report I read said they are headed to North Carolina, leaving a small group still in Chicago.
It turns out I read the same report: (from your link)
But bye, bye, Bovino!
ETA: another report from Block Club Chicago
Apparrently Bovino just can can’t stop himself.
zhena gogolia
@SW: Good comment.
iKropoclast
You got a link?
If true…well, yes, but don’t we already have someone on that. Democratic AGs love finding, prosecuting, then touting precisely that sort of thing.
Karen Gail
@MagdaInBlack: Ha ha, how much want to bet that these good old southern boys are fleeing the cold of winter?
MagdaInBlack
@Karen Gail: Can’t say I blame them for that.
Eyeroller
@SW: That is exactly why I concluded that we were never going to get the ACA subsidy extension no matter how much we held out. The Rs don’t care. They had plenty of time to “digest” the election results from the 4th, and it didn’t soften their position at all.
In fact Krugman, who initially had the typical activist response to the “cave,” just posted about how Republicans are “pathologically” unable to care about the less fortunate.
Some of those 8 Ds may well have panicked prematurely. We might have gotten somewhat better terms if we’d held out longer. But I am increasingly convinced the ACA extensions weren’t happening.
What the Ds should do going forward is to proclaim as loudly as possible that it was the Rs that killed the subsidies. We just need to get it into the media and/or to go around the traditional media.
Eyeroller
@Karen Gail: The majority of people on SNAP are not getting the ACA subsidies in question. They will be hit by the Big Ugly Bill cutting Medicaid in 2027.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Jackie: that is good news! I checked to make certain this is the case I remember. It is.
cnn.com/2025/11/11/us/marion-county-record-raid-search
The newspaper man’s mother died the day after the police raided her home without any suspicion at all.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: Bovino is running away.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@iKropoclast: it was. Another Scott told us what “eyes on the prizes” was in #191
Electoral victories like last week
Truly excellent prizes upon which to keep our eyes fixed
Jackie
At 4:00 ET tomorrow, Rep.-Elect Adelita Grijalva is slated to be sworn in to Office, per Grijalva on MSNBC. IF she can fly in on time! She’s scheduled a red-eye but there’s no guarantee there won’t be delays/cancellations…
NightSky
@iKropoclast: Yes!!
For years I’ve felt that congress folks do not realize that 80% of the people have no clue what’s going on, no knowledge of what’s in various bills, etc. No wonder so many don’t bother to vote and think ill of Dems when the R-tilted media keeps framing things the R way and omitting crucial details that would inform voters. .
ExPatExDem
The fact that they did it less than a week after the electoral sweep on Tuesday, really twisting in that demoralization knife, makes me wonder how any of them managed to win elected office in the first place. How can you misread the room that badly?
It’s like they purposely planned to beclown themselves.
tobie
@iKropoclast: Here you go from Axios.
What’s worse in these quotes is she’s adopting the Republican strawman that the subsidies are too generous and some folks are abusing the system. If she’s worried about the cost of healthcare, she should think about ways of reducing costs that don’t require cutting services or picking on individual families.
Glidwrith
@Scout211: I think they’re pulling out both because the citizens have become organized enough to resist most of their criminality and because the judge overseeing the city has effectively nullified their illegal acts.
Time to pull up stakes and move to a city and state outside of that judges’ reach, terrorizing someone else.
Scout211
@Glidwrith: That was my guess, too.
Matt McIrvin
I think there are a lot of people on the left who sincerely do want to be a force for good, but who are kind of emotionally looking for a reason to reject the Democrats because they’re not joiners of big mainstream organizations like that, it doesn’t feel like something cool people do. It’s a bunch of people like the kids in your class who ran for student government. Schmoozers and teacher’s pets. They’re instinctively suspicious of people like that, so any indication that they might be betraying you gets this “I KNEW it!” reaction.
It’s all very well to say that’s immature, but people are motivated to do things that require commitments of time, effort and money by emotions and tribal affinities.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Jackie: the newspaper did not publish the unflattering story about driving while suspended
Repeat. The true story was not published. The person, a local restaurant owner with the privilege to sell alcohol, who did the criming called the paper names for checking to see if the true story was true. Insanity and the newspaper man’s mother died one day after (feistily) berating the police who raided her home in the middle of the night.
WaterGirl
@MagdaInBlack: I hope they actually leave.
@MagdaInBlack: Headline: Could Be Leaving
I’ll believe that when the governor confirms it.
WaterGirl
“for another assignment”. Intentionally vague to leave several cities on pins and needed. Bastards!
edit: I hope someone is ID-ing all those agents in the photo.
edit 2: “Most, but not all, of the Border Patrol agents under his command are also expected to exit the city, though that could change,” Lots of weasel words there.
What the hell?
iKropoclast
@tobie: Well, I’m not a fan of means testing or of rhetoric suggesting a problem that actually gets a lot of scrutiny is not being addressed, but thanks for the link.
Well, Shaheen is retiring. May New Hampshire do better next time.
WTFGhost
Good luck; be well, and be happy.
WTFGhost
Tood luck; be well, and be ahppy.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Eyeroller: and think about how we can help our neighbors who are stuck with the crap sandwich on healthcare the gop is still trying to serve us. I don’t know what that looks like. I hope !! somebody does. The midterms are too far away. We have a lack of free medical care banks.
oldgold
Which of these 4 Republicans removes their name from the discharge petition before Adelita Grijalva signs it tomorrow?
My guess is Mace in exchange for Trump endorsing her for Governor of SC. Next in line would be Boebert, because she is an unprincipled dolt.
I will be damned surprised if one or both doesn’t do so.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Republicans are family, Democrats are those people.
tobie
@iKropoclast: Yes, about the only good thing one can say about Shaheen is that she’s retiring.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Jackie: I hope she didn’t release her itinerary
David_C
@Matt McIrvin: Or marching band. Taking one’s own path can lead to getting run over by a sousaphone.
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl: Might all be true. When the people are afraid to go outside, there are all sorts of things they don’t do. Doesn’t mean it’s happy times.
Matt McIrvin
@David_C: I think the college band my wife was in worked that way.
WaterGirl
@oldgold: I definitely think it won’t be one of the top two.
I do think they have someone up their sleeve or they wouldn’t be bringing the House back.
One more reason why I REALLY want the House special election win in TN. She would surely sign.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@WTFGhost: you too.
Thor Heyerdahl
To whoever recommended this morning to listen to the Lawrence O’Donnell piece last night about the Senate situation over the weekend, thank you.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: I agree with you. I think there¡s also a lot of people who see the Dems as mostly well-intentioned but ineffective, and thus don’t want to spend their time or money engaging.
I also think elected office at the federal level could benefit from fewer law school grads/lawyers, and a bunch more of pretty much everyone else. I have shared about how I spent one year volunteering thousands of hours for the re-election campaign of my Congresscritter, Harry Mitchell. Mitchell taught civics and government at Tempe High school, then became principal. Then he ran for mayor at the urging of his students, and then moved on to Congress. Lost his job for voting for the ACA. We need a ton more people like that in government.
He would take his staff out for lunch at the Costco snack bar.
RevRick
@HopefullyNotCassandra: Generally speaking, progressive advances in our republic have come after the conservatives/reactionaries blow things up. Instead of looking upon it as an onerous chore, let’s see them as opportunities to change the system.
Glidwrith
@Matt McIrvin: My college band practiced next to a corn field. One day the drum major failed to stop us before we marched headlong into the corn.
We got back out, only to turn around and see the sousaphone go up like a periscope from the corn, looking for a way out.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@tobie: republicans! Grrr.
the point of ACA is it is affordable even for the person making $200,000 a year. We don’t know that person’s age or dependents.
Typical Republican doublespeak, trying to get people worrying about the undeserving poor and “takers” to make any assistance harder for all of us to get because of red tape and social shaming.
The GOP wants business to have no rules and people who need help absolutely buried in rules. Screw that nonsense. Nobody getting ACA subsidies is capable of destroying the water supply for millions of us.
WaterGirl
@Thor Heyerdahl: Might you have a brief summary of where O’Donnell stands on that?
iKropoclast
@RevRick: Yay, Democrats won! Let’s celebrate by getting everyone into the for-profit healthcare system, making it too big to fail, then praying that the Republican saboteurs don’t blow it up…
HopefullyNotCassandra
@WaterGirl: it is time for CBP to go decimate some more peaceful American neighborhoods and businesses. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had a fourth amendment that actually meant something?
NotMax
@Librettist:
Don’ the Bovino Shuffle.
//
Ramona
@Ishiyama: OMG! A priest hung, drawn and quartered for preaching!
HopefullyNotCassandra
@RevRick: of course. What I said was equally not what Another Scott meant.
ExPatExDem
@tobie: Shaheen also probably sank any chance her daughter has in the NH-01 House Primary.
So, some small schadenfreude can be taken from that.
Jay
mockpaperscissors.com/2025/11/11/news-that-will-drive-you-to-drink-2380/
Jackie
@oldgold: My guess is Boebert. Maybe Mace – but her entire spiel of being raped/sexually abused/harassed would take a hit if she suddenly withdraws her name. She does need FFOTUS’s endorsement – although she’s one of many republicans vying for the position and she’s near the bottom of the
listbarrel.Scout211
The report was never that Border Patrol was leaving, but that Bovino and most of his officers were leaving. The other federal agents (ICE) are staying and some of the Border patrol agents are staying.
But you are wise to wait and see what actually happens. My guess is this is mostly about Bovino, since he’s been a loose cannon and has gotten himself into hot water with his boss (
LewandowskiNoem) and with the judge.But none of the reports say that Border Patrol is leaving. Just that “most” of them are leaving, along with Bovino.
But I guess we’ll find out.
Gin & Tonic
@Ramona: Hanged.
iKropoclast
I know…South Carolina, Republican primary, all that. But are we even sure a Trump endorsement helps her?
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: It’s after dark. He may have been hung as well.
WaterGirl
@HopefullyNotCassandra: Yes it would!
tobie
@HopefullyNotCassandra: Yeah, the whole framing is gross. Shaheen is acting like the problem with the ACA are individuals cheating, not the fact that insurance companies are charging more in premiums and covering less. This is the kind of anecdotal evidence FOX uses to wind up its audience. Structural problems never get addressed.
When the ACA was first proposed, I believe there was a requirement that insurance companies had to use 80% of premiums to cover healthcare costs. Does anyone know if that provision ever became law?
iKropoclast
It did. It has in the past resulted in insurance companies partially refunding premiums to customers at end of year.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: By the way, if you are replying to someone in the same thread, all you need is this:
<a href=”#comment-9765734″>@Librettist</a>:
Jay
@WaterGirl:
Winter has arrived in Chicago, so fewer opportunities to kidnap and extraordinary rendition maids, gardeners, landscapers, construction workers, car wash workers, Priests, Journalists, etc.
In addition, the communities have gotten organized, and ICE/CBP is starting to realize that the community is starting to measure them for ropes, picking out lampposts and ESSO stations.
WaterGirl
@ExPatExDem: That screws the daughter, not the mother.
But the daughter is being very vocal in opposition to what the mom did.
ExPatExDem
@WaterGirl: I don’t believe the daughter’s sincerity for a moment.
iKropoclast
@WaterGirl: Sounds completely unfair. Unfortunately, it also sounds reasonable as an outcome.
@ExPatExDem: Yeah, I don’t know about it but you, but I agree with everything my parents believe…🙄
Thor Heyerdahl
@WaterGirl: rather bullish and far more positive than here or Bluesky. My takeaway from his thoughts was that given the herding cats that happen as a Democratic Senate leader, the complexities that exist now that didn’t during Johnson’s and Mansfield’s time in the senate, plus the crumbs on the table for the Senate minority party in general…
1) The actions of the 5 Democratic senators made the Republicans have to alter their stance due to the changes in the legislation.
2) It’s a wonder that Schumer was able to hold the line as long as he could until after Election Day.
(I was doing laundry while listening, so I likely missed some points.)
bbleh
@Karen Gail: I’m thinking that may be one of the reasons Military Construction is given full-year funding in the “deal” along with SNAP via Agriculture.
Scout211
You might be correct, but her daughter public spoke out against the deal.
RevRick
@ExPatExDem: I view it quite differently. Democrats were never going to win. Period. We were in the agonizing position of pitting federal workers and SNAP recipients against those who relied upon the extended health care credits. The message of blaming the Republicans was getting blurry.
But now, with the vote in the Senate and the later vote at the end of January will put Republicans’ fingerprints all over torching those ACA tax credits. It will be an exclamation point on every unpopular Trump/GOP policy (please excuse the redundancy there).
By next November, the general public will have largely forgotten the sins of the seven Democrats and one Independent, but they will remember the draconian Republican policies, from ICE to the ACA and everything in between, and how they coddle billionaires and sexual predators. They will remember how Trump trashed our White House and how he trashed our Constitution.
ExPatExDem
@iKropoclast: Yes, I’m sure that Senator Mom didn’t run this by House candidate daughter, running on name recognition, so that she could calculate her response.
WaterGirl
@Jay:
I seem to recall that the @iwillnotbesilenced account on bluesky is the one that had that awesome protest video.
I think I might still have it in an open tab.
frosty
Ooh, ooh, I know! A Maverick! John Fetterman!!!
WaterGirl
@ExPatExDem: You don’t even know the daughter.
Eyeroller
@Omnes Omnibus: “They said you was hung!” “And they was right!”
Remembrance for Cleavon Little, who died too young of colon cancer.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@tobie: it is still true
kff.org/private-insurance/medical-loss-ratio-rebates/
From the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Obamacare Law explainer:
chemiclord
@Mike in Pasadena: I’ll take “Things that Never Happened” for $1000, Ken.
Listen, if you’re gonna be a shit-stirrer online, at least TRY to make your bullshit believable.
WaterGirl
@Thor Heyerdahl: Appreciate the quick summary!
Jay
WaterGirl
@Karen Gail: Let’s hope the military families who are getting screwed vote with their feet and leave the Republican party. (If that’s who they have been voting for.)
YY_Sima Qian
@WaterGirl: Thank you for the daily reminder, if anyone needed it, that come election there is no alternative to the Dems if one wants to defeat/constrain/humiliate the Repubs.
Hell, I would even vote for Fetterman (if I lived in PA) over anyone from the R side, no hesitation, although I would hate & be nauseated by that vote.
That is separate from voting for one’s preferences in the primaries, & pressuring elected Dem on policy & politics in between elections, agitating for causes that one believes even if it is outside of the mainstream for elected Dems (or even Dem voters).
HopefullyNotCassandra
@ExPatExDem: I believe Senator Shaheen’s sincerity. How can we have issues her daughter disagreeing with her mother? Looks like mom did a great job raising an independent thinker.
iKropoclast
Possible. Also possible they’ve had several giant blowout fights about it. Or anything in between. If the daughter is running on name-recognition and the mother does something the daughter says she opposes, I don’t see any possible way that helps the daughter.
Also, it has been my experience that people who constantly expect others to be cynical and untrustworthy…are generally cynical and untrustworthy.
Spanky
Pardon the astronomical interruption, but we’re seeing aurora here along the Chesapeake Bay, and I was tipped off by a friend in Roanoke, so if you’re north of the 38th parallel in the US and have a relatively clear sky you should be able to see it.
Tonight’s seems to have a bit of red, so if the sky is pinkish, you’re looking at aurora.
Another Scott
@bbleh: I’m no expert, but as I understand it, “Military Construction” always has lots of bipartisan support because it’s prized funding (because there’s probably 50,000 project years of backlogs of stuff that needs to be done). So I don’t think MILCON being one of the “early” full-year pots of money is unusual or related to the other horrible stuff going on now.
Corrections welcome.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
frosty
I remember it as dengre* (Dennis Green) who postulated there were three parties: Democrats, Republicans, and Confederates. The Confederates voted with the Democrats during the era of the Solid South, then Nixon persuaded them to switch with the Southern Strategy and they’ve voted with the Republicans ever since.
* Thanks schrodinger’s cat for reminding me of the nym
@Geminid: Hmm, adding the Know-Nothings to the other three would be an interesting exercise.
Jackie
@iKropoclast:
Nope
He’s toxic – as last Tues elections showed. And as a lame duck (gawd, he probably is gagging at that knowledge lol) his clout is about as strong as a fresh marshmallow.
ExPatExDem
@RevRick: Respectfully, I don’t see that the message was getting blurry. Dems had their best election night in years, the public was still blaming the Rs for the shutdown, and the august Senate Democratic caucus decided in its collective wisdom that all of this meant they should cave, having gained nothing.
I think Colbert described it best when saying “So yes, the shutdown may have been long and painful for millions of Americans, but at least it achieved jack squat.”
WaterGirl
@Jay: Smart move by the UK. If the orange guy is still alive once he is no longer president, I hope he takes trips to several foreign countries where he could be arrested for all the illegal activity.
iKropoclast
@chemiclord: MFs breaking their backs trying twist this situation to blame Schumer. If he really shares in the blame, we’ll hear from his conference. Malicious speculation and insinuation are the province of Republicans.
WaterGirl
@YY_Sima Qian: Yep. Hang together or we will surely hang separately.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Omnes Omnibus:
obligatory Blazing Saddles
Youtube link (NSFW)
chemiclord
@iKropoclast: Best way I can describe Marx is, “Brilliant economist. Horrible sociologist.”
You read through his works, and he has pretty much has the outline of what we call “Late Stage Capitalism” nailed. The problem is that he was pretty much dead wrong in every way about how the rank and file proletariat would respond as the capitalist system strained on them.
iKropoclast
Great, follow up question, does Mace know this?
Jackie
@WaterGirl:
Yup. I don’t see her being punished for what mom did. She expressed her strong hope her mom would vote NO, and then her disappointment when that didn’t happen.
iKropoclast
What little sense I have on Marx’s thinking includes this point. And to be fair, some populations did respond that way. We went to war to rein them in. Meanwhile, anything intimating at a criticism of capitalism was declared wrongthink among the US and its allies for roughly three to five generations.
I’m saying US actions may have skewed things.
Jay
@WaterGirl:
So far the list of Countries that have stopped sharing Military and Criminal Intel or limited sharing Intel with the US are,
Canada,
The UK,
The Netherlands,
France,
Germany,
Ukraine,
Poland,
Ireland,
Norway,
Denmark,
Sweden,
Finland,
Egypt,
Turkey,
South Africa,
Australia,
New Zealand,
Mexico,
and a bunch more
Jackie
@iKropoclast:
We’ll have to ask her! I would love a reporter to ask her if she’s relying on FFOTUS’s endorsement! I can see her screaming at the poor reporter for asking such a STUPID QUESTION – while never answering…
chemiclord
@ExPatExDem: The problem I see is that was pretty much the inevitable conclusion of this shutdown, so it kinda doesn’t matter when it actually happened.
I know a lot of people are really, really certain that this time the GOP was going to cave and not be deplorable monsters, but I see no reason to believe this.
Jackie
@Jay: We are truly all alone. Exactly what MAGA demanded.
eta If America First is the same thing as America Alone.
frosty
Affordability!
tobie
@HopefullyNotCassandra: Thanks so much for that data point. Good sleuthing on your part! Can’t believe how quickly you found that information.
dnfree
@HopefullyNotCassandra: Those are two of my biggies also. They seem so obvious!
iKropoclast
@Jay: I don’t know if I’m more proud of these other nations standing up to a bully or worried that this puts our country at risk.
frosty
Beat me to it because I decided I wasn’t a pe
ndant.@Omnes Omnibus: Much better response than mine! To quote a certain Valued Commenter: Well played.
chemiclord
@iKropoclast: Eh, not really. Even in areas where “communist” revolutions took hold, the proletariat weren’t turning to themselves, they weren’t forming the commune. They were turning to the same sort of strongmen and cults of personality that fascist movements cling to.
It was authoritarianism in different colored shirts, and that had little to do with U.S. influence. People (even the beaten down proles) can be… well… really shitty when given an “other” to blame for their woes.
Jay
@Jackie:
@iKropoclast:
Dolt47 might be “toxic” to normies, Independents and some ReThugs, but to the MaGgoT’s, he is still the Tsar.
He may or may not depress turnout, he may or may not stimulate resistance.
The common theme on the “Leopards Eating Faces” threads are that the MaGgoT’s who thrice voted for Dolt 47 have basically only two positions, upon personally discovering reality and that reality bites.
One type blames both sides and promises to never vote again.
The other type writes pleading “Letters to the Tsar, about what his Cossacks are doing”.
It’s a Cult, and the Cult has killed. ReThugs still suck up to and fluff Dolt47 because they are deathly afraid of the Cult.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … WARNING TheHill.com:
Eyes on the prizes.
Best wishes,
Scott.
oldgold
If you are in the upper Midwest, go outside and look north.
The northern lights are spectacular. If you look through your camera phone, the brightness is enhanced.
HopefullyNotCassandra
I was told basically the same thing by my elders without footnotes. They always said it came down to if somebody believed we were all God’s children. All republicans did. Some democrats did. The whigs were off handing out government monopolies.
And in the end, it was the southern democrats who fired first.
It seems to me, there are plenty of rank and file republicans out there who still believe we are all God’s children, or all equal, or whatever one’s chosen human rights language is. We just need to all recognize each other and see we are on the same side. I so hope I am correct.
oldgold
.
Jackie
@Jay:
He’ll always have his 30%
FFOTUS was asked on FAUX last night about the latest polls showing Americans weren’t happy about the economy, etc.
He’s back to calling the Polls FAKE. LOL
iKropoclast
So, I have heard communists argue that this was borne of necessity as these nations had to hold the line as having a tiny minority of power in a capitalist world.
Some old bullshit, but it’s out there.
I’m not out here asking for the whole system to be overturned, I’d just like to see Democrats be more consistent in advancing workers’ share of power.
I’ve had the privilege of voting for one Democrat who fit that bill. He was run out on a rail last July by fellow Democrats.
Omnes Omnibus
@oldgold: It’s cloudy here. No joy.
Gvg
@Mike in Pasadena: Schumer voted against the cave in, and gave a speech about it. It was OTHER democrats, just 8 who caved. Got that? Make sure you tell your politically active friends, especially the one who says they are now working for a Republican.
Citizen Alan
So the plan is to use dark necromancy to raise Lowell Weicker and George Romney from the dead?
Jay
@Jackie:
@iKropoclast:
I will give Dolt47 kudo’s for very quickly, in less that a year, for showing that the rot goes to America’s very core, from Government institutions to Corporations.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Eyeroller: that sounds about right.
I was told a similar thing by my elders with no footnotes. They always said it came down to if somebody believed we were all God’s children. All republicans did. Some democrats did. The whigs were off handing out government monopolies.
And in the end, it was the southern democrats who fired first.
It seems to me, there are plenty of rank and file republicans out there who still believe we are all God’s children, or all equal, or whatever one’s chosen human rights language is. We just need to all recognize each other and see we are on the same side. I so hope I am correct.
iKropoclast
Shit, these money folk were ready and eager to give Trump what he wants.
NotMax
@Citizen Alan
And Jacob Javits.
Wait. Check that. Too Jewish. Perhaps Harold Stassen instead.
//
Jay
@iKropoclast:
After the Revolution, through out ruZZia, it’s former territories, “Peoples Socialist” movements and Republics popped up all over, even in Germany. All small “c” communists.
The thing was, the big “C” Communists, and other States had the Red Army, or their own Armies.
The small “c” communists had at best, “Workers Militia’s”, who try as they might, could not defend against the organized military power of The State.
The ruZZian Civil was was the big “C” Communists against the Whites, Blues, Anarchists and all the small “c” communists.
NotMax
@Jay
Greengrocer calling on line one. Wants his apostrophe back.
:)
Another Scott
Jodey Arrington of the TX-19 district in the House has announced he’s not running again.
It seems to be a blood-red district, but who knows. Fortune (sometimes) favors the brave.
Forward!!
Best wishes,
Scott.
iKropoclast
And there’s the ballgame right there.
Ramona
@H.E.Wolf: Keeping in mind the Civil Rights Movement is exactly what got me through those dark days of stunned despair through the last two months of last year.
WaterGirl
@frosty: Welcome back! Nice to see your nym here more again now that you have returned from your world tour. :-)
RevRick
@ExPatExDem: Two things:
First, Every claim about knowing the future is a guess. The fight for the 6% who receive ACA credits was always a risky gamble. Late night comedians can afford to spout arrogant nonsense about it for a laugh. But they can no more tell the future than I can.
Second, every ounce of time and energy berating Democrats is wasted when our real struggle is against the GOP and Trump. Please turn your firepower towards those guys.
spoot
@mappy!: I agree with you, the national press and TV pundits are all saying that the 8 dems who voted to end the shutdown were cowards and losers and that the Dems flinched and blew it, flinched and surrendered and we Dems are pathetic and the GOP won.
If this was the Superbowl or a frontline battle in a war, that would be accurate; from the perspective of Washington politics, that is what happened.
But this was Their side using their power to get what they want and our side fighting them for healthcare for Americans, using the only weapon we have, the power to block their attack and make Americans invested in what was happening to them.
The Big, Beautiful bill passed in a flash, without anyone knowing what was in it. The only way the public could find out what was in it and how it would affect them was to force the shutdown.
As the shutdown continued more and more horrendous details emerged and Trump and his party started to get a thumping from the public. Their poll numbers cratered as they kept trying to deflect and trying to scapegoat their way out of it.
Then the shutdown hit an important inflection point. People woke up and found their SNAP benefits had vanished, their medical benefit cost were about to skyrocket and they couldn’t fly as the Holiday Season began. Real pain for millions and no rescue in sight.
I think that the fact that some Dems decided to try to end the suffering now is something that ordinary folks will notice. It may look like losing in Washington DC but millions of Americans will be relieved and grateful.
Now the GOP promised to negotiate a solution to the healthcare crisis. If they renege, as I suspect they will, may God help them!
iKropoclast
@RevRick: All other matters must cede to the pressing matter of removing the ultimate threat to the American republic, Charles Schumer…
Jackie
@Another Scott: He and FFOTUS are having a food fight against each other LOL
iKropoclast
@Another Scott: House Budget Chairman? That’s a lofty position to hold and still decide to retire as a youngish man.
Spanky
@iKropoclast: Which raises the question: Dead girl? Or live boy?
iKropoclast
@Spanky: Live Trump…
frosty
@WaterGirl: It’s easier to comment when you’re not 6 hours off of Blog Standard Time. I have new appreciation for Valued Commenter Tony Jay.
When I woke up in the morning there was nothin’! Well, except AL’s late night stuff … with, like, five comments LOL.
Jay
@iKropoclast:
Time and organization also mattered. Keep in mind, in much of ruZZia and former ruZZian territories, they were less than a generation from feudalism, with minimal industry, little education and functionally, no Middle Class.
Misha Genny’s first 16 chapters of “The Baltics” covers it pretty well.
iKropoclast
@Jay: Who isn’t less than a generation from feudalism? This capitalist structure looks pretty feudal from where I’m sitting.
Making our way there now. After previous civic minded generations foolishly decided to educate and empower more workers, Republicans have been issuing a harsh, righteous corrective for decades…
Jay
@iKropoclast:
Previous job was “great”, for 3 months, then “They” changed the management. Workplace quickly became toxic, so I quit.
Serf’s arn’t allowed to “quit”.
iKropoclast
@Jay: Hey, I’ll admit it has some advantages over the original model. But it comes down to the same thing, the system fosters dependency on a hierarchical basis.
And there are same negatives to the new system compared to the old. The scarcity is artificial now, a knowingly cruel practice. And noblesse oblige is dead, not that we should have to rely on things like that. Literacy is great, though, A+ on that one, no notes.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@chemiclord: animal farm
Trivia Man
@spoot: except 2 arent democrats
and 3 didnt change their vote, they were always a yes
So 3 democrats changed. And Kane in particular got a specific benefit for his specific constituents
iKropoclast
I’m aware of King, who is the other?
Kathleen
@H.E.Wolf: When Andy Beshear interviewed Hakeem Jeffries on his podcast he asked him at the end what his superpower was. Jeffries replied it was restraint and that he studied the Civil Rights movement.
Kathleen
@Jackie: Good! She’s awesome!
Kathleen
@SW: On the upside it gave the “liberal” Dems In Disarray business model pod bros/broettes endless outrage fodder for clicks and subscriptions. Facts be damned.
I totally agree with you BTW. It’s interesting to me that “our side” seems to be more outraged by “optics”, wins/losses and feeding the “Dems Cave” trope than starving children, which makes them just like MAGATS IMHO.
Kathleen
@Thor Heyerdahl: i know this thread is deader than Stephen Miller’s eyes but that was me. I’m glad you found it helpful.
Tony Jay
@frosty:
That’s nice of you to say, but just to confirm, the old appreciation is still valid, right? I can stack them?
Screw you, Marie Kondo, those old things still spark my joy.
rikyrah
@WaterGirl:
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
rikyrah
@Jay:
😠😠😠😠😠
Geminid
@Eyeroller: One big difference: in most parliamentary systems, a party can deny a lawmaker its ballot line and force them to run as an independet, as Labour did with Jeremy Corbin.
In the US, voters choose a party’s candidate in state-run primaries. In states like Minnesota, district and state DFL conventions will endorse candidates but voters are not bound by those endorsements.
Geminid
@Eyeroller:
@iKropoclast: By “liberal,” I meant the term as used in modern American politics. Features include: advocacy for a sturdy social safety net, robust funding for public education, higher income tax rates for high earners, etc.
I made the comment tongue-in-cheek and did not intend to trigger a debate about the meaning of liberalism. Oh well, this is kind of a debate society.
Geminid
@iKropoclast: Foreign Relations Chairman Michael McCaul also is retiring. McCaul is 61, so he had more years left if he wanted to stay.
Geminid
@RevRick: For some people, the Republican Party is the merely the Adversary; the Enemy is the Democratic Party in its current form.
Miss Bianca
@p.a: Honestly, I have stopped caring what Josh Marshall thinks.
Miss Bianca
@SW: fwiw, I agree with you. Particularly with this part:
Paul in KY
@Ishiyama: May not have been Richard II’s actual decision at that point in his reign. Think he was still somewhat under John of Gaunt’s control. He probably was for it though, as he had/developed strange (to the English) ideas of kingship that got him removed as king and killed in the end
Feel very sorry for Father Ball. His comments completely true and then to suffer that form of execution.
Paul in KY
@Jackie: Great news!
Paul in KY
@Eyeroller: If you can’t get cheap food/drink at a fucking casino (while you are watching your money go bye bye) what the fuck reason would you ever have to darken their doors again?
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes he was. A very strange dude. Only good thing was that he managed to stay out of shooting wars with France and the like. Of course, his magnates hated that.
Paul in KY
@PsiFighter37: TACO will want them to fight this hard. GQP never counts on a Dem rep from Utah!!!
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: That was an astute question.
Paul in KY
@iKropoclast: ‘The Communist Manifesto’ is a good, short read. His great work was ‘Das Kapital’.
Paul in KY
@Eyeroller: He was a gem!
Paul in KY
@Jackie: If she screams, that means ‘yes’.
Paul in KY
@chemiclord: True ‘Karl Marx Style’ Communism has never been attempted, IMO. At least not at a nation-state level.
Paul in KY
@iKropoclast: I think humans have been ‘hierarchical’ (in general) for a long long time.
Archon