Jon’s aging out of the pundit business.

they view the American Revolution, liberal democracy, and the Bill of Rights as mistakes. They want to roll back the entire experiment of self-government.

2/ “[W]e have fought to preserve ISI’s longstanding mission from falling victim to a post-liberal hijacking. That battle was lost at a board meeting held last Friday, at the conclusion of which we tendered our resignations.”

Republicans have been dragging
the goalposts right for decades.
The center ain’t what it was. Yesterday’s
conservative is today’s fascist.
It’s why Democrats must lean hard left
to save our democratic institutions.

Republicans have been dragging
the goalposts right for decades.
The center ain’t what it was. Yesterday’s
conservative is today’s fascist.
It’s why Democrats must lean hard left
to save our democratic institutions.

First thing when you Google her💙 lithub.com/elon-musk-ge...

Ha

I don't think this was the best they could do. They had leverage and surrendered it for no good reason.

Instead, they played pretend in an effort to play the public.

It is possible this is part of a recursive fight strategy, where Dems get something now and use each approps bill to get more (backed up by a threat to filibuster those bills).

While there are some reasons to think the Senate might not go along with some Trump shenanigans, there's no reason to think the Senate + House would block Trump's unlawful efforts to seize the power of the purse. In other words, this deal doesn't solve the underlying problem.

You should look at those who set up the deal, not just those who voted for it, and try to figure out why they gave in now. The eight who voted for it are reflective of a bunch more who would have voted for it but the politics were bad.

10) Johnson, ofc, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump at this point. He now gets to deal with Epstein, the emergence of a handful of Republican rebels, and approps fights.

Johnson can't pass any enactable approps bills w/ only Hse Rs. So he needs Trump and like some Dems, or they get stuck.

8) This also puts the House in the jackpot.

Will House Republicans vote to accept the Senate deal? If they defect, how many Dems will vote to make up the difference. (Answer: as many Dems as it takes, Jeffries will see to this. While publicly "no," he'll make the plan work.)

7) If it were me, I wouldn't agree to fund the FSGG approps bill that funds the WH/OMB without policy riders that take away the administration's funding to pursue things like impoundment, etc. Why should Russ Vought have any staff? Saying "no" here is a policy win. If they do it.

6) When will that matter? In January, when the short term CR runs out. Will Dems vote to keep the government running if other full-year CR bills aren't enacted? That's a big question. Another one: what do they negotiate inside the full year bills?

5) Dems showed (a) it's possible to get something out of "shutting down the government" despite what the pundits said, and (b) that they could hold together for 40 days. It's not a policy win, but it changes expectations for what they can do in the future, strengthening their negotiating position.

4) Senate Dems did get something out of the negotiations w/r/t power of the purse. They protected the legislative branch, notably GAO. But it's something they already had that was under threat, not something they won. Same is true with the RIFs. Same is true with SNAP.

We know this because he told us.

The reality is the government was shut down the first day Trump entered office. We just didn't talk about it that way.

The only real leverage Dems had is on appropriations. Schumer screwed that up in February/March for FY 26. It imperiled his political support.

Republicans will kill millions this time.