Dems Reward the Hostage-Taker

Another view ...

US shutdown fallout: Who came out ahead -- and who didn't
www.reuters.com

... As the U.S. Congress moved toward a deal to end the longest U.S. government shutdown in history, Reuters asked a dozen strategists and analysts to assess who strengthened their position and who paid a price, in the short- and long-term.

DONALD TRUMP: OWNING THE SHUTDOWN

No matter how many times the president has tried to avoid blame for the shutdown, ultimately, the buck stops with him. The White House has faced weeks of headlines about air traffic snarls and low-income families struggling to feed their kids. Even Trump himself admitted that the shutdown probably damaged Republicans in last week's elections that saw Democrats win in New Jersey, Virginia and New York City.

No matter how many times the president has tried to avoid blame for the shutdown, ultimately, the buck stops with him. The White House has faced weeks of headlines about air traffic snarls and low-income families struggling to feed their kids. Even Trump himself admitted that the shutdown probably damaged Republicans in last week's elections that saw Democrats win in New Jersey, Virginia and New York City.

"Americans recognize that 10 months into his presidency, costs have not gone down. And over the course of this 40-day shutdown, Trump did not emerge as someone who was fighting for them," said Democratic strategist Karen Finney. "He wasn't trying to resolve the issue. He wasn't engaged, he was nowhere to be found."

But the public has a short memory. After the government reopens, Trump can train his focus on Americans' cost-of-living concerns before the 2026 congressional midterms. He has shown he can keep his party together under extreme pressure while making few concessions.

"I think he comes out the winner of all this. He had to expend very little political capital in the shutdown," said John Elizandro, a Republican strategist.

"The negotiated deal gives him a resolution without forcing him to further escalate the clash with Senate Republicans over the filibuster," he added, referring to the Senate requirement of 60 votes to pass legislation.

Consensus: Short-term loss, long-term neutral ...

More in the article...

" So she would have rounded up Asians?"

FDR only rounded up Japanese people based on ancestry.

Because they were the best interns.

If Obamacare is affordable, why is the government having to heavily subsidize it to make it affordable for Americans?
#15 | Posted by lfthndthrds

Whut? The subsidies are part of Obamacare. Always were, and they are what help to make it affordable. Until the Repubs yanked them away.

#25 | Posted by censored at 2025-11-11 04:41 PM | Reply | Flag

More admission that ACA was never affordable to the American public without subsidies.. It was never meant to be "affordable" without welfare... Thank you for your admission, JILL STEIN 2028!

More admission that ACA was never affordable to the American public without subsidies.. It was never meant to be "affordable" without welfare... Thank you for your admission, JILL STEIN 2028!
#26 | Posted by lfthndthrds

About two million people on Obamacare plans don't get subsidies. The subsidies are to make sure people who otherwise couldn't afford healthcare coverage could finally obtain it.

I get it, though. You prefer the Republican health care plan of "let them die."

#20 The problem with trying to blame Democrats for the shutdown is that the Trump and the GOP have let everyone know that THEY control Washington (POTUS, Congress, SCOTUS). It always seems to be "HaHaHa You lost" (from the Trump on down).

So, no matter how you slice or dice it, this is on the GOP... and the American people know it.

#22 | Posted by A_Friend at 2025-11-11 02:38 PM | Reply | Flag:

Shut up raetard. Everyone knows that the minority played like they had some end game in this to turn this around. Fact is, your party is a minority and held up a mandate. Go cry to your constituents harder. Everyone knows what happened. The freebies are coming to an end - what freebies? the 5 million that Biden added to the SNAP benefits during his reign. And the Federal subsidies that fund that ACA garbage that was destined to fail.

two million people on Obamacare plans don't get subsidies.

#27 | Posted by censored at 2025-11-11 06:58 PM | Reply | Flag:
Is that really your argument? YOu actually think I care about 2 million people getting subsidies. Biden increased SNAP by 5 million during COVID and none of that went away even with his "record employment numbers" Go cry to someone else. I half-ass respect you but you're playing fake numbers.

Create the welfare state then admonish those who don't want to fund it.

>two million people on Obamacare plans don't get subsidies.
>#27 | Posted by censored

Is that really your argument? YOu actually think I care about 2 million people getting subsidies
#29 | Posted by lfthndthrds

No, I'm pretty sure you don't care about those two million. And fairly positive you don't care about the 22 million who need
subsidies to get healthcare for themselves/their families

Create the welfare state then admonish those who don't want to fund it.
#30 | Posted by lfthndthrds
Right, like I said, you favor the Repub healthcare plan of "let them die."

Right, like I said, you favor the Repub healthcare plan of "let them die."

#31 | Posted by censored at 2025-11-11 07:08 PM | Reply | Flag:

Bull$hitt. I favor the truth and you're a liar. THe same 5 million that went on SNAP on Biden's watch are still the despite the robust jobs numbers we were provided.. Just like the healthcare subsidies that went out to the masses that are still on subsidized care. You have no argument but "let them die" That's dishonest.

Two Arch Assholes getting into it...

Delicious.

That's why this site is dying. You clowns are too dishonest to debate with actual facts. Happy extinction, and Sheeple tried to tell you this several years ago.

The wealthy elite created the welfare state by NOT PAYING A LIVING WAGE through their Corporations.

But LFT is prolly the furthest thing from the wealthy elite on this site, so one wonders why he panders for them like frightened puppy?

Delicious.

#33 | Posted by Effeteposer at 2025-11-11 07:14 PM | Reply | Flag:

Censored's nuts?

But LFT is prolly the furthest thing from the wealthy elite on this site, so one wonders why he panders for them like frightened puppy?

#35 | Posted by Corky at 2025-11-11 07:18 PM | Reply | Flag

I could probably buy you.. and if I could sell you for what you THINK you are worth, I'd be a Bezos.

Censored's nuts?

#36 | POSTED BY LUVSORANGETURDS

No. Your sister's blood on your dad's wang.

You couldn't afford my last bowel movement.

And I can take you out of the box, kick your ass, and put you back in anytime I want. Like now.

The ACA was Mitt Romney's brainchild, and all the GOP would let the Dems pass when it happened.

Medicare for All or a similar plan like the 25 largest economies in the world who lead us is health outcomes have is the best solution.

But Republicans would rather kill the ACA and provide NO PLAN rather than use the last 15 years to come up with one.

The ACA was Mitt Romney's brainchild, .....

Crazy Democrats would use a Republican plan, then brag about it.

What you are saying is that, Republicans were smarter than Democrats? Because Per capita health spending is 15 percent higher than the national average and Massachusetts has the highest individual market premiums in the country.

Medicare for All or a similar plan like the 25 largest economies in the world who lead us is health outcomes have is the best solution.

Short term, like 3-5 years, then it would start is non-linear rise as government money is "free".

When the government spends money the price of things just increases. Expect the same trend line as College tuition

So your argument, from what I can tell, is that no one receiving healthcare subsidies actually needs them? That our healthcare is so affordable that someone working for minimum wage and getting subsidies is taking advantage of the system?

Back in reality:

Walmart and McDonald's are among top employers of Medicaid and food stamp beneficiaries, report says
www.cnbc.com

Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance
www.forbes.com

But far be it for us to ask people who never worked a day in their life to pony up some cash.

The Walton family is the world's richest as soaring Walmart shares drive the heirs' net worth to $432 billion
fortune.com

It's far better for us taxpayers to pick up the tab to keep their workers alive, so the billionaires can get richer. Because that's not a subsidy you care about. But enabling poor people to see a doctor is a step too far for the GOP.

#41

No, dumbass, I'm saying what I said; the only program the GOP would allow to pass (we actually vote on stuff in this country, btw, unlike your future DNA monitored retirement center) was the ACA, because their Corporate Masters could profit from it.

One might think that a former(?) Commie would at least be amenable to the same kind of non-profit healthcare that most successful health outcome countries have.

You know, if you weren't too busy trolling libs and making quite the fool/tool of yourself with every post.

@#41 ... Crazy Democrats would use a Republican plan, then brag about it. ...

As I have noted many times on this most august site, ACA has roots in the Heritage Foundation.

To wit (yet again...)

How the Heritage Foundation, a Conservative Think Tank, Promoted the Individual Mandate (2011)
www.forbes.com

... This came up at Tuesday's Western Republican Leadership Conference Debate, where Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich tussled on the question:

ROMNEY: Actually, Newt, we got the idea of an individual mandate from you.

GINGRICH: That's not true. You got it from the Heritage Foundation.

ROMNEY: Yes, we got it from you, and you got it from the Heritage Foundation and from you.

GINGRICH: Wait a second. What you just said is not true. You did not get that from me. You got it from the Heritage Foundation.

ROMNEY: And you never supported them?

GINGRICH: I agree with them, but I'm just saying, what you said to this audience just now plain wasn't true.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: OK. Let me ask, have you supported in the past an individual mandate?

GINGRICH: I absolutely did with the Heritage Foundation against Hillarycare.

ROMNEY: You did support an individual mandate?

ROMNEY: Oh, OK. That's what I'm saying. We got the idea from you and the Heritage Foundation.

GINGRICH: OK. A little broader.

ROMNEY: OK.

(Romney was prepared to go on, but Michele Bachmann, in her usual role as the person who makes the debates less useful, interjected and changed the subject. Here's a YouTube video of the entire debate. The Gingrich-Romney exchange begins at the 27:38 mark.) ...

@#44

One question might become ...

Why did the Conservative Heritage Foundation endorse the individual mandate back then?

It looks like the Heritage Foundation wants to back-track from that endorsement ...

Don't Blame Heritage for ObamaCare Mandate (2012)
www.heritage.org

...Is the individual mandate at the heart of "ObamaCare" a conservative idea? Is it constitutional? And was it invented at The Heritage Foundation? In a word, no. ...

The confusion arises from the fact that 20 years ago, I held the view that as a technical matter, some form of requirement to purchase insurance was needed in a near-universal insurance market to avoid massive instability through "adverse selection" (insurers avoiding bad risks and healthy people declining coverage). At that time, President Clinton was proposing a universal health care plan, and Heritage and I devised a viable alternative.

My view was shared at the time by many conservative experts, including American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholars, as well as most non-conservative analysts. Even libertarian-conservative icon Milton Friedman, in a 1991 Wall Street Journal article, advocated replacing Medicare and Medicaid "with a requirement that every U.S. family unit have a major medical insurance policy." ...

@#45 ... The confusion arises from the fact that 20 years ago, I held the view that as a technical matter, some form of requirement to purchase insurance was needed in a near-universal insurance market to avoid massive instability through "adverse selection" (insurers avoiding bad risks and healthy people declining coverage). ...

The only confusion I see in that is the author's apparent attempt to distance himself from the individual mandate assertions which his comments seem to say are needed.

@#46

And, fwiw, back in the day when these issues were being discussion, an oft-repeated comment by the GOP was that they objected people going into the emergency rooms and receiving free medical acre that those in the GOP had to pay for.

So, back in the days of fmr Spkr Gingrich and the individual mandate, the concern of the GOP seemed to be not wanting to pay for the medical care of other Americans.

Another view ...

The GOP seems to have fallen in line, blindly obeying the dicta of Pres Trump.

The Dems, well they seem to welcome differing viewpoints.

Has the Congressional leadership of the Dems been tasked with herding cats?

EDS, an HP Company 'Cat Herders' (1 minute long)
www.youtube.com

... [edited from the provided transcript to provide complete sentences]...

This man right here is my great-grandfather he's the first cat herder in our family hurting cats don't let anybody tell you it's easy anybody can [herd] cattle.

[H]olding together 10,000 half wild short hairs well that's another thing all together

being a cat herder is probably about the
[transcript stops]
...