This was the scene in Philadelphia, November 11, 1918, when the Armistice was announced. It’s a reminder that terrible times do end, somehow. (Source)
Paul Waldman writes that while The Cave was not an optimum ending to the shutdown, the backlash from the base will be good for the Democratic Party in the long run. “It may not be much comfort for those bitter about what they see as a needless surrender,” he writes. “But there’s at least a chance that we’ll look back at this moment as a key turning point, one that produced a Democratic Party less willing to live on its knees.”
Something I should have seen coming: Republicans demand tougher abortion restrictions to extend Obamacare funds.
At TPM, Layla A. Jones writes about the $50 billion “rural hospital fund” that was added to the Big Ugly Bill to placate legislators from rural states. The fund was supposed to make money available to keep rural hospitals open in spite of the loss of Medicaid funds. But now it turns out that under Trump Administration restrictions, the fund will be useless for what it’s supposed to do. Hospitals are allowed to use only 15 percent of funds they receive to cover unpaid-for services. Instead, the funds are supposed to be used for things like staff recruitment and retention and promoting preventative care.
The $50 billion wasn’t really enough to keep all rural hospitals open, anyway, and now it’s money down the drain.
In the meantime, more than 300 rural hospitals are immediately at risk of closure, and more than 1,000 are at risk in general as of October 2025, according to an analysis by the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform’s rural hospitals initiative. More than 75% of the hospitals in either category are in states that went for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
There must be some kind of defect in the Republican brain that doesn’t allow them to grasp why U.S. healthcare isn’t working. Seriously, the reason they can’t come up with workable reforms to the system is that, in their minds, the problem is that Medicare, Medicaid, etc., drains too much money out of the federal budget. So their “solutions” are always ways to dump the cost back on patients, employers, and the for-profit insurance industry. They cannot look at the problem holistically to understand how nationalized system could drive down costs for everybody and deliver better health care with less aggravation. You know, the way all the other countries do it.
Today a Utah judge struck down a new Republican gerrymandered district map. A few years ago Utah voters passed an initiative that amended the state Constitution to ban partisan gerrymandering. I guess that slipped the Utah GOP’s mind.
But that takes us to the ongoing gerrymandering fight. I’ve seen a lot of commentary over the past few days that say the Republicans are being idiots for basing their redistricting on the 2024 election results, as they are doing. Last week’s election results were a pretty good indicator that the 2024 results were an outlier, not a permanent realignment. It may be that Trump’s 2024 support from Latino’s hasn’t completely collapsed everywhere, as they did last week. But if last week’s trends continue, the midterm results in many places — like Texas — may be very different from what Trump expects.
See Off-year election losses spark Republican concerns about redistricting at NBC News. It makes no predictions and cautions that there are too many variables to know for certain how the redistricting will work out in next year’s midterms. Still, Republicans should be worried.
But two other Republicans close to the White House told NBC News that there are growing concerns in the party that the political war is not going as planned — that the juice may not have been worth the squeeze and could, in a nightmare scenario, result in a net gain for Democrats. And within broader GOP circles, misgivings about the strategy heightened last week after California voters overwhelmingly approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts in a manner that Democrats hope will flip five House seats in their direction.
This is interesting:
In recent days, aides have presented Trump with three scenarios for the overall outcome of the redistricting fight, none of which include Republicans losing seats when all the maps are finalized, according to the GOP strategist familiar with the White House approach. The variables include how the Supreme Court rules on an upcoming case about the Voting Rights Act, which impedes states from diluting the voting power of minorities, and whether courts will block Democratic plans in California and Virginia.
The strategist said there was a “bad-luck Republicans, good-luck Democrats” scenario, which would result in “basically a wash of seats” but with some Republican-held seats in red states becoming more secure than they are now.
The two other scenarios, the person said, would result in Republicans picking up between five and nine seats, and a third, best-case scenario would see the GOP pick up seats “into double digits substantially.”
So he’s not being told the whole thing could blow up in his orange face. I suspect there are many things no one tells him, actually, and not just about voting patterns.
Will 'The Cave' ultimately work to the advantage of progressive Democrats? First off, most Democrats are uncertain what 'progressive' means. As Republicans like to define us, we are Communists (which most voters can't define), terrorists (which is almost completely untrue), anarchists who hate law and order, and the police (I confess to knowing a few fringe folks who, like hardcore Libertarians, think stuff will just work itself out without any authority enforcing the rules.) Progressives I hang with are not so disconnected from reality.
Progressives I hang with get Teddy Roosevelt on the difference between money earned by sweat and skill vs inherited money or money made with money, bankers, stock investment gambling, and the kind of cons our President thinks constitute "business." Taxes, according to that Republican in 1900 should be low on 'earned' money and graduated on legal hustles like stock investment according to how successful you are.
Modern Progressives hold dear a set of social values Teddy Roosevelt would not recognize. Racial equality probably wasn't high on Teddy Roosevelt's list. Gender equality, likewise, had little popular support. Same-sex marriage probably would have appalled him. Defining your own sexuality according to your feelings rather than your biological plumbing would have been blasphemy.
Within the Democratic party, progressives *get* how the system, on a bipartisan basis, is built on selling political results (legally) that are NOT in the public interest but individually benefit politicians in the "pay-to-play" system. (Actually, some Republican voters get it too, but they think ALL Democrats are sold out, when a substantial minority of elected Democrats are NOT sold out. Are some of the MAGA Republicans in Congress only in it for power and not corrupted by the money? It's a point of political theology that has no importance.)
Big money in politics is THE critical feature. If Democratic voters unite on that point, and codify it into the Constitution and the law, the rest of progressive issues will follow. (This is where Bill Clinton led the party into temptation – he is history but the party is still married to big money.) The only way to get the political majority willing to upend the system is thru the Primaary Election. I HOPE that the politics we are in, including The Cave, will define in voters' minds the power of the Primary election, and break the advantage that the incumbent has, opening the door to more free-thinking candidates like the mayor-elect of NYC. For that to happen, voters have to ACT on their contempt for Clintonian incumbents who think they can serve money and democracy.
Agreed: "Big money in politics is THE critical feature."
But I think that the whole situation is a bit more complicated than something that can be solved by subjecting every Dem legislator to a primary due to the "pay-to-play" system. Every aspect of this that I can think of is more a matter of maybe, but maybe not, and on a case by case basis. I don't think that every Dem House Member and Senator needs to be kicked to the street. So the question is: which ones should we keep and which ones should we ditch? And it can be hard to figure that out because nearly everybody thinks their own D legislators are doing fine…it's always House Members and Senators from other states that are viewed as the problem. And in reality, the way our Constitutional Republic is set up, those legislators are supposed to represent their constituents; and when issues of broad national concern come up, it is also reasonable to expect those elected folks to do what is best for everyone.
The recent elections don't tell us to primary all current incumbents. In NYC, NJ and VA we had excellent candidates, and candidate quality is huge. And also, what we can take from those elections is the importance of doing the boots on the ground work of campaigning.
I don't see how we can get the money out of politics by changing who gets elected. The root causes are judicial and legislative issues which require judicial and legislative correction. But the one thing we can do is encourage the kind of small-donation crowd-sourcing approach to campaign financing for progressive candidates. It makes a difference and when combined with good candidates (including good incumbents).
What we are up against is the capture of our government by the billionaire class. The only way to undo that is to chip away at it bit by bit and stay with it. We have to work everywhere, state legislatures, governors, secretaries of state and attorney generals; increase the number of national legislators who are Democrats. That's a 50 state project for the House. For the Senate, we currently have 45 Dem Senators. Replacing a moderate or Clinton-esque Senator with a progressive Senator is not going to cut it. It helps, but we also need more Dem Senators.
I can't claim to have the answers, but we need to continue the fight and continue to make any gains we can get in as big numbers and as fast as we can. It's going to take 1000 small steps. Just my opinion.
I don't want to be a wet blanket. We had a great election a week ago. We should celebrate it and all of us dedicate ourselves to keeping up the pressure. Next November is coming.
From Digby, quoting Politico. Read the last sentence. It was a surprise,
Politico:
And then?
And then?
I have a feeling at least one of the four GQP'ers that have said they will sign the petition will cave. Most likely backseat boebert but maybe one more? Diaper don always manages to get his way in the end.
Not always.
The existence of the question – "What are you hiding in the Epstein Files?" chips away at his MAGA credibility. They are supposed to be the 'moral' good guys. Pimping little girls around doesn't fly with most Republican voters. Some GOP members of Congress don't want to align themselves with protecting pedophiles. Because what excuse do you have for hiding files that Trump says don't incriminate him or anybody on Team Trump? If nobody was porking young teens, let the files out.
Probably true, uncle… but I'm wondering if the House can proceed with committee action, i.e. subpoenas, which wouldn't necessarily get everything released, but which could keep the topic in the public square throughout 2026, maybe. I'm not sure about that.
It's pretty clear that those "files" have information that is horribly damaging to the current regime. Think about all the horrible sh*t they've gotten away with just by playing rhetorical games. This has to be way worse. And it's a sure bet they will do absolutely ANYTHING to keep them secret. And who knows how many NDA's are involved? Sort of like barbed wire and mines in front-based trench warfare.
But OTOH, think about the R Benghazi hearings that never proved anything (they were just a gossip-fest). They had an impact on the 2016 election IMO.
"it's pretty clear that those "files" have information that is horribly damaging to the current regime"
Of course, Sen. White house asked Bondo under oath last month if she saw the pictures that have been described as Trump sitting with topless teenagers on his legs. Bondo refused to answer the question so of course the picture exists, and I would wager many more!
There was a meeting at the WH Situation Room today with Bebert, one of the signers of the petition. So the arm-twisting and bribery has begun. Trump is reportedly playing phone tag with Nancy Mace, who also signed. SO the attempt to withhold evidence is in plain sight. One source said Bondi, Todd Blancge, and Bug-eye Patel were there.
I'm reading rumors in the media that Little Miss Maxwell is working with her lawyers and the Warden of her country club prison for a pardon or commutation. Nobody is gonna issue a life insurance policy on Jabba the Trump. The medical problems are hard to hide. So IMO, Maxwell isn't open to waiting three years until it's more convenient for Donnie. Trump is gonna give Maxwell an early Christmas present, I suspect.
There was a meeting at the WH Situation Room today with Bebert, one of the signers of the petition. So the arm-twisting and bribery has begun. Trump is reportedly playing phone tag with Nancy Mace, who also signed. SO the attempt to withhold evidence is in plain sight. One source said Bondi, Todd Blancge, and Bug-eye Patel were there.
I'm reading rumors in the media that Little Miss Maxwell is working with her lawyers and the Warden of her country club prison for a pardon or commutation. Nobody is gonna issue a life insurance policy on Jabba the Trump. The medical problems are hard to hide. So IMO, Maxwell isn't open to waiting three years until it's more convenient for Donnie. Trump is gonna give Maxwell an early Christmas present, I suspect.