US House approves bill to end longest government shutdown in history
npr.org
npr.org
Congress nuked a multi billion dollar industry, and hardly anyone was asking for it other than a few prohibitionists and weed stock owners who felt the hemp market a threat to their non-hemp cannabis fiefdom. A complete curveball that will likely produce a 10k+ impact on employment.
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_ade36dbd-155a-4984-9ea3-662d...
The Democrats are in a new world. They've lost a cultural and information hegemony they had for 40 years, and thus, the playbook of the past doesn't work (for a variety of reasons).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_Stat...
The one where a man can one day declare he's now a woman because he say's so - and that'll get him on the cover of a magazine as a "hero"?
What's your starting point for left - Mao?
On the other hand, movement conservatism is anathema as well. Free trade is out, state's rights abandoned, except maybe as the exception that proves the rule, governmental power concentrated in Trump personally, rather than small, local government, representative democracy, lower taxes, less regulation, rule of law. Freedom of speech reduced to conservative speech getting special treatment. All also gone. Weird.
The Rehnquist court made rulings that allowed burning the US flag, that made abortion even easier to get than under Roe, that upheld affirmative action, that struck down sodomy laws, and that ruled that political speech was not protected by the First Amendment.
The main conservative rulings it made were minor restrictions on the commerce clause.
Conservatism in the judicial branch began with the confirmation of Ed Meese as US Attorney General during Reagan's second term.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/aca-enhanced-subsidy-lapse-g...
I don't want my tax dollars wasted on subsidizing them. Give the money to someone who actually needs it.
(Of course the real problem is healthcare costs accelerating out of control. Insurance subsidies won't fix that problem. In fact they make it worse by encouraging healthcare providers and drug companies to raise prices even faster.)
The question here is should we continue to subsidize health insurance for that person? Should taxpayers who can work and do work pay for the health insurance of wealthy people who can work and don't work?
It does not sound fair to me, even though I might benefit from it in the near future.
But yes, our tax system is horribly biased towards those who get to manage their income level or business deductions. W-2 worker bees can't even deduct the cost of the car they need to get to work.
Choosing to focus on healthcare subsidies instead of Congressional Republicans' lack of oversight of the President while most of the government is shut down by fiat and the President deputizes fundamentalist militias to attack and ransack blue states and cities was its own sort of own-goal as well. Turmp has shown that people want politicians that will stand up for something, even if that something is utterly horrible and self-destructive policy. Democrats must wake up to their pressing need for some spine transplants, ideally sooner rather than later.
The average American voter has the attention span of a goldfish. (Or at least, those who matter do; everyone else has already made up their mind and won't switch.) You won't get them by talking about constitutional limits of the executive branch, Trump ignoring congressional oversight, and such. Remember that there are people who googled "did biden drop out" on Nov 5, 2024.
If Mamdani’s victory is anything to go by it’s that the centrist Dems are toast. They will get primaried. They know this, it’s why the fall guys that voted to end the shutdown are not up for reelection during the midterms.
And, to be clear, is why Chuck Schumer is getting called to step down. It's beyond clear this was a coordinated effort orchestrated by leadership. Not only are they ineffective, but they seem to think their voting base is brain dead that such a strategy would work?
But hey, I just saw some of my fellow countrymen asking why child rape is wrong in a debate over Trump's presence in the latest Epstein files leak. So maybe I just have too much faith in people.
Anyway, I'd make them either own the shutdown or take responsibility for forcing the bill through. I'm not giving them an out, they will answer for the suffering they create by not negotiating. Negotiating, which I remind everyone, for a single clause to make sure healthcare costs don't go up $100/month or more for half of Americans.
This line of rhetoric is fascinating to me. It's as if someone locked my family in a room, lit it on fire, and is now telling me we can't leave unless we give them permission to shoot one of us in the head. And, to be clear, they very obviously have no intent of opening the door and have already shot one of us in the head.
The democrats have quite literally zero power in the federal government. They have lost every single branch in all meaningful ways. This was the only leverage that exists. And they gave it up for quite literally nothing.
I cannot fathom the line of thought that they just had sweeping election victories across the board, voters are at an all-time low WRT the Trump administration, the mask is starting to slip on MAGA - realizing that Trump and Republicans are the source of pain and that they do rely on the net, Democratic fervor is rising, and with the holidays coming it is about to cause serious pain to America that can finally snap them awake to the reality of...
Actually, you know what? Nah, they didn't fold immediately. Clearly trying to do anything doesn't work, so let's do absolutely nothing and give them everything they want! They'll surely listen to us now!
The short term pain was intended to be a cure. To show how destructive Republicans are. How much they're willing to make people suffer to avoid even a shred of assistance toward normal people's lives. That they'd rather fund Blackhawk helicopters in Chicago than food or healthcare.
But now we're back to the long term pain. Republicans have been justified - it was the Democrats fault for stopping government for no reason. And we're still losing the ACA subsidies in the short term - raising rates at least double digit percents. And Republicans are still gunning to kill SNAP and ACA in general. And progressives have just witnessed their leadership cave, killing voter momentum.
As far as the filibuster, let the Republicans kill it and make it very clear they're responsible for this anti-Constitutional corporatist agenda being rammed up our asses. When the other party is doing things for which the only check is for them to eventually hang, you don't sign off on it with your own names!
FWIW I'm not a progressive. I'm a libertarian. Pan-party, people are fed up with this fucking government. In fact that's why they voted (again!) for this New York con artist promising to somehow magically fix everything. It was plainly a stupid choice, but the frustrated desperation driving it is understandably real.
I can see how that would be unappealing to a career politician who values stability at all costs. After all, a military junta would mean that he would be out of a job with no other marketable skills. Poor guy would probably have to sell one of his properties to get by.
This country is a brazen, open, corrupt oligarchy with an active distain for its people. I've genuinely lost any hope for recovery if the progressives need to completely overthrow their own party to even start resisting.