I’d first like to comment on Karl Stomberg’s piece, which you should read if you have not already done so. He captures my frustration more eloquently than I’ve so far been able to. I grew up in a Democratic household during the civil rights movement. My parents benefited greatly from FDR’s New Deal policies. I went to college during the height of the Vietnam War protests. First started knocking doors in 1972. I believe in the mantra that was expressed at the recent Delaware Democratic Convention: “Making People’s Lives Better”. That is also what Delaware’s Working Families Party strives for, and that is why I’ve been drawn to, and have volunteered on behalf of, so many of their endorsed candidates.
The very idea that Democratic leadership, almost exclusively in the House, views those who share that philosophy as the enemy sickens me. Yes, it is possible that WFP represents an existential threat to some of them, not to mention those who have already fallen by the wayside. But the reason, the only reason, why some view them as a threat is because those incumbents couldn’t give two shits about “Making People’s Lives Better”, except perhaps the lives of themselves and their hangers-on. WFP candidates are popular because their policies are popular, policies that are in the great tradition of the Democratic Party. If you, as an incumbent D, view that as a threat, consider yourselves threatened.
R Senator To Retire, Tired Of Trump:
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis will not seek reelection, he announced Sunday, a stunning decision that leaves Republicans scrambling to defend his seat in North Carolina.
Tillis’ move will send shockwaves through both the Senate and his home state, where Democrats had already marked him as their top target for the 2026 midterm election.
The senator, first elected in 2014, had drawn intense criticism in recent days from President Donald Trump, who had threatened to back a primary challenge to him. Tillis had angered many conservatives when he announced his opposition to the Republican-backed reconciliation bill currently being considered in the Senate—the bill is the centerpiece of Trump’s legislative agenda.
Lara Trump in the wings?
Firefighters Fatally Ambushed In Idaho. Going out on a limb here–don’t think the perpetrator was on ICE’s radar:
A gunman intentionally started a blaze and then ambushed responding firefighters, killing two, in a prolonged attack over several hours Sunday that also wounded another in a mountainous area of northern Idaho, authorities said.
Kootenai County Sheriff Robert Norris said during a news conference Sunday night that the body of the suspected attacker had later been found near the scene of the assault, with a firearm nearby, after authorities used cellphone data to home in on his location.
“What happened was senseless and tragic beyond words,” said Kootenai County Commissioner Bruce Mattare. “… This kind of senseless violence is unheard of here.”
Not any more.
Could ‘Byrd Bath’ Casualty Sink ‘Big Beautiful Bill’? In this case, parliamentary mumbo-jumbo?:
Politico reports that the Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that the sweetheart deal which Republicans used to get Lisa Murkowski to vote for the Big Ugly Ripoff bill causes the bill to violate the so-called “Byrd Rule.”
www.politico.com/…
Unless and until this is corrected, the bill will require 60 votes, and not just 50, to pass.
This is one of several provisions in the bill, as currently written, which violate the rules about what can be passed as a reconciliation. Reconciliation bills only need a simple majority to pass. Republicans have had a devil of a time getting to 50 votes; there is no hope they can get 60.
It’s not clear to me what Republicans can do to fix this problem. Without the special provisions for Alaska and Hawaii, they will likely lose Murkowski’s vote. With them they will need 60 votes.
Allow me to point out that Democrats have hardly been ‘powerless’ to stop this bill. Here, for example, is something they could and should have done already:
Health care services that are reimbursed by Medicaid are, well, provided by a range of different “providers.” Chief among these are hospitals, but the category also includes nursing homes, other long-term care facilities, doctors, physical therapists, even chiropractors: all sorts of people. But the big money revolves around hospitals, and specifically rural hospitals, which rely heavily on Medicaid dollars because they are poorer on balance than other hospitals. They tend to be run on a nonprofit basis. They are less likely than urban or suburban hospitals to have commercial insurance, and they’re more dependent on Medicaid revenue because their client base tends to be poorer. There are about 1,800 rural hospitals in the United States. Here’s a map.
OK. Starting in the 1980s, during an earlier funding crisis, Congress allowed states to start taxing providers. In many states (this gets very complicated, and I’m not going to go into it that deeply), the cap on the tax that states can charge hospitals is 6 percent of the patient revenue money (it’s called the “safe harbor maximum” in wonkspeak). The Senate bill seeks to lower this cap over a few years to 3.5 percent.
To make a long story short, when you reduce a tax, you reduce the amount of revenue it brings in. It’s also worth bearing in mind here that Medicaid reimbursements rarely cover the cost of care to begin with, so these cuts will make an already dire situation much worse. Governors and state legislatures will be staring at a quite substantial reduction in Medicaid tax revenue. They will then be faced with three choices: one, raise some other sort of tax; two, cut some other state service, like education; three, cut Medicaid services.
As congressional Republicans well know, most states are going to choose number three, because it’s the easiest path. And that brings devastation. If you want to see why Republican Senator Thom Tillis is so freaked out, click on that map above and zoom in on his state, North Carolina. You’ll see in detail how many rural hospitals there are operating at a loss, and how many have already closed.
The American people don’t know all the above facts and figures, but they do seem to know in their bones that this bill is a heist. It’s deeply unpopular. But even so, the Democrats could be doing much more here. Why don’t they fan out across the country one day next month and have events at money-losing rural hospitals that face potential closure? Back in the spring, when they did those anti-DOGE events in Republican districts, it seemed to have an impact. At least they were visibly doing something. There are rural hospitals in every state. Democrats could do a lot worse than to try to show rural Americans that they care.
Yes. Like nothing. Just. Do. It.
What do you want to talk about?
“I felt like, like, like a Nazi … it looked exactly like we were actually the Nazis and they were the Jews”
IDF soldier in Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-12-23/ty-article-opinion/.premium/when-you-enter-gaza-you-are-god-inside-the-minds-of-idf-soldiers-who-commit-war-crimes/00000193-f2a4-dc18-a3db-fee62b540000