So we are firmly into the sixth week of the government shutdown, now the longest in history.*
I started writing this a few days ago and never got around to finish it. Now we are set to reopen the government and... yeah... lets have a quick roundup of the situation for those who were wondering why your medical bill is about to increase by $1000/mo
While Annoying Orange's big billionaire bill has many problems, the one that Democrats are being stickers on is the ending of Medical subsidies in the Mitt Romney - Authored affordable care act, known as Obamacare.
If ended, insurance premiums are set to triple or quadruple meaning that a family making $80k a year can expect to see as much as a $10k price increase for the same services they are already receiving.Democrats have agreed to fund everything else in the bill if republicans make this one concession
which the Republicans have repeatedly voted not to accept, and have of course been pushing the narrative that democrats (despite having the minority) are responsible for everything.
--
In an attempt to break the Democrats, the GOP has decided to illegally withhold food assistance funds, blaming the democrats,
first claiming that SNAP funds do not exist and there is no way to fund them without reopening congress and passing the bill to stip away health insuranceOf course, SNAP actually has emergency finds set aside for exactly this circumstance but then
Mike Johnson was claiming that there was nothing they could do.Upon the first federal judge ordering that the administration release SNAP funds to the public the administration
declared it would only release 65% of the funding, forcing the judiciary to demand that the whole of snap be funded by friday with JD Vance saying the ruling is absurd and
the white house will determine whether the judicial order for them to follow the law is at all legal.--
Seeing as how the only leverage that Annoying Orange and his stooges had over the Democrat senators was the now-uninforcable threat that he was going to starve millions of americans,
Annoying Orange appealed the the decision, asking the supreme court to rule that he has the right to starve his own population. Well even Annoying Orange appointed judge, Ketanji Jackson, felt this was bs but seeing as how the Supreme Court would likely do whatever Annoying Orange said,
Pushed the decision back down to the lower courts.Long story short, it looked like were in for a longer shutdown until Republicans finally agreed to rehire the federal employees that Annoying Orange fired, and to allow ACA subsidies to continue. And on the heels of
historic democratic wins that prove the people of the US are tired of Republicans dismanteling everything and are willing to get out and vote when it looks like the democrats actually do anything it truly seemed like the democrats had a chance to make a change.
--
So of course, the Democrats, being spineless pieces of stuff,
have caved under literally no pressure.That's right,
despite 70% of americans polled supporting continuing the shutdown until obamacare subsidies were garuanteed, and acknowleging that the shutdown truely was the Republican's fault despire clear Hatch Act violations pushing WH propoganda, the Democrats gave in, meaning the weeks of suffering, all of the federal employees fired, were for nothing.
No wait, not for nothing. For the
*PROMISE* that the senate would
*VOTE* on the idea of funding
*SOME* of the ACA subsidies at some vague point in the future, probably december.
TLDR, basically the democrats were like "wow we are finally doing something the american people can get behind and its causing us to win elections! how worrisome, lets change that!"
*also Schumer wasn't even one of the 8 democrat senators to give up for no reason, which either one of two things:
- He asked other senators to vote to end the shutdown so he could maintain his no vote and look tough so AOC wouldn't primary him in the midterm senate race
- He has absolutely no control over the Democrat caucus to make sure they maintain solidarity with the will of 70% of americans
Either option is utterly disqualifying.
A side story was that during this shutdown Mike Johnson
refused to swear in AZ congresswoman Grijalva who would have been the tie-breaking vote on the bipartisan measure to release the Epstein Files. It looked like the tactic that the republicans were running by was to hold off on swearing in Grijalva until the
December 2nd Tennessee special election where Mike Van Epps would likely win and counter-act Grijalva's vote. But we all know that republicans are oily stuff-bags and so I full expect some bullstuff reason to keep Grijalva from being sworn in even now that congress is set to re-open.
