My Republican associates think I'm on an anti-Republican track, not so. I'm not anti-Mackenzie, but I don't buy into intentional omissions.
Ryan Mackenzie issued a video on Facebook distancing himself from the shutdown. In that tape he blames Senate Democrats for the shutdown, but omits discussing the reason or issue involved. The issue is that the health care subsidies connected to Obama Care were set to expire, and the continuing funding had no provision for such healthcare assistance.
I haven't heard Mackenzie urge compromise between the parties in the senate, as Fetterman has. Instead, he organized a food drive dog and pony show, in response to the associated SNAP shutdown. Even Trump now recognizes the shutdown as counterproductive. It's time to find compromises, not blame.
I'm not here to be polite or popular
mj adams
ReplyDeleteMM, obviously you’re on an anti-Trump run, one fueled by TDS.
I’m not one of your “Republican colleagues’” but your bias is crystal clear.
Denying that is silly.
Mackenzie is simply collateral damage. You also continue to
censor comments. I won’t say that you’re a partisan booster for the contemporary Dem Party, although you may as well be.
You rarely tell your readers what politicians or policies that you currently support.
“If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor,” was a bedrock promise of Obomacare, as was the promise that costs of care were be stable if not decline.
Full disclosure, Fetterman’s been a surprisingly refreshing voice of reason.
(I have no interest in seeing funding NPR or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting reintroduced at past levels.)
Full disclosure: I’ve met him twice and gave his campaign cash money on both occasions.
Bill Clinton killed Aid to Depend Children. Obama signed the budget with the largest cut in the history of the Food Stamp Program.
Your blog, your prerogative, let’s just be up front about it here. It won’t discourage my readership or appreciation for your work.
Exactly, notice how unbothered Mike M. is by yesterday's election results, where local Democrats re-elected their candidate who was arrested for selling drugs, and elected a far left radical to be county executive? Yet, McKenzie's effort to collect food for Second Harvest Food Bank is the problem.
Delete2nd harvest along with many other food banks has said they have enough food, the problem is funds and volunteers to help distribute it to people as food banks serve about 1/10th the food that SNAP purchases provide people.
DeleteEven Trump wants the GOP to unilaterally end the shutdown now, because he sees how it negatively affected yesterday's elections not just in blue states but even historically red areas (look at Erie, Luzerne, Cumberland, Lancaster, Bucks and Northampton counties shifts).
Michael Adams,
ReplyDeleteAlthough you have certainly moved to the "right", I'm sure you wouldn't identify with being labeled a MAGA. Likewise, I do not have TDS. However, to be sycophantic to his impulsive governance deserves criticism. See those smiles behind those SCHUMER SHUTDOWN signs, what is constructive about that?
We agree about Fetterman. I do consider myself an independent conservative, and as a blogger, speak out against mindless partisanship.
What we all have in common, is that none of us will be invited to the new ballroom, which will be a great source of pride for future Americans. :)
Michael M
One of the most pernicious symptoms of TDS is the suffers inability to recognize the creeping onset until the disease is in its advanced stages. As a disease that has a social component the patient is most often surrounded with individuals who perform as active enablers. Like alcoholism, it’s a family disease.
DeleteActually, we’re only talking about the enhanced subsidies from the Covid era, and the democrats were the ones who previously voted to have them expire at 12-31-25.
ReplyDeleteEven still, whatever the democrats’ excuse, it hardly justifies shutting the entire government down. The subsidies do need to be discussed, but it shouldn’t mean that the military doesn’t get paid, that SNAP benefits don’t get paid, that air traffic controllers don’t get paid, etc. If I didn’t know better, you’d think the democrats were just trying to tank the economy.
While the democrats would like to again force us to fund the costly lie of Obamacare without real debate and any reform, I’d like to know why the program has become so costly to both the government and those using it. Even before this latest battle, the government (us) and users (us) were paying more and more for crappier coverage.
Obamacare certainly isn’t working as it was sold to us and it seems the democrats don’t want us to find out why.
To be fair, dems tried multiple times to make the enhanced subsidies permanent.
DeleteThis is a band-aid on the issue that is our healthcare industry at large though. The costs are out of control and just subsidizing it is only going to treat the symptoms of the problem, not the underlying problem itself.
Huge reforms are needed to our healthcare system, and it doesn't seem to me there are any plans either party are pushing very hard to do so at the moment.
Dylan - I agree that any real solution shouldn't be just another Band-Aid, but that's all the more reason to work on a solution AFTER the government is reopened.
DeleteI'm starting to think that the democrats are trying to run out the clock on subsidies so a rational discussion and real solution can't be had.
scott@7:58: I share your concerns about the election, I voted for MacLean and Rivera, but not because they were the R's, but the better candidates. I hope that Mackenzie moves toward the center, and gets re-elected in 2026, but he won't, if he remains as dogmatic as you.
ReplyDeleteI heard Mackenzie has been seen on the street with a copy of Kamala Harris’s book under his arm. I got this from an impeccable source.
ReplyDeleteanon@10:36: You wrote, "even Trump" is significant, because although Trump is concerned with his legacy, he could care less about the Republican party. The MAGA was a cult, which is already over. The partisan Republicans had a rude awakening this morning.
ReplyDeleteanon@10:40: Recently, I was taken to task for censoring, but I can't promise to keep printing self-amusing comments.
Do you think Trump's efforts to bully senate GOP into nuking the filibuster will be how the shutdown ends or that it's more likely senate moderate dems and gop members come up with a "gang of 8" esque compromise to re-open?
ReplyDeleteanon@10:54: I'm relearning why I censor comments. Don't expect to see "TDS" repeated again in the comment section.
ReplyDeleteanon@11:05: My guess is a gang of younger senators, thinking ahead about their careers.
I'm of the inclination now that the elections results are in serious budget talks will now begin. I think both parties were waiting to see the outcomes.
ReplyDeleteNothing about the midterm outcome was in any way surprising.
DeleteI don’t know what is behind MM’s current political views.
ReplyDeleteI only know what I read.
I read “Orange Man bad.” Not much in the way of alternative positions or candidates, with some local exceptions.
Orange man bad is the default position for Democrats across the land. It’s the mantra of the entire range of the MSM, 24/7. Yes, it is very effective and has wide appeal.
Gavin Newsom is on the scene to deliver the country from what MSNBC is telling us is a national “evil” at this very moment.
Governor Newsom is poised to save our democracy.
Unbelievable.
Truth be told, our United States Congress (both parties) is destroying America by putting their own self-interest over providing service to ALL citizens.
DeleteRepublicans and Democrats in Congress are operating as one "UniParty" whose goal is to maintain the status quo that has been so lucrative to each one of them and their families. Special interest groups are bankrolling their re-election campaigns, and those are the people they listen to. Not you and me.
Incumbent politicians see President Trump and others like him as a threat to their power and proceeds. Therefore, everything is stalled in hopes of running out the clock until a new administration takes place in 2028.
anon@4:34: "Orange man bad" is just another version of saying I have TDS. Putting your diagnosis of me aside, apparently it is very contagious, judging from Tuesday's election.
ReplyDeleteanon@10:13: Interesting spin, so now Trump is a visionary, whose great plans for America are stalled by a self-serving congress.
Trump's sycophants in congress have vertigo right now. They're dizzy from the election and Trump pulling the rug out from under them. Hopefully, they will pass the bill before the airport slowdown on Thanksgiving.
Yes, that's my well-researched opinion (you call it spin). From the very beginning, Trump made clear his goals included reducing the size of the bureaucracy in Washington, reducing wasteful and unaccounted for spending, and of course, returning control of our porous border to our own nation.
DeleteAll of the above mentioned Trump goals are contrary to the selfish needs of what are now compromised Members of Congress who prefer to have all of those plans go away. Some of those same Congress people and their staff have broken laws during their tenures. No doubt, they do not want to be held accountable there either.
President Trump is standing in the way of these people who are supposed to be working entirely for us, and not to strengthen their own "little empires."
Until American citizens wake-up to these revelations their interpretations of the roadblocks being put up against Trump are not as accurate as they should be.
Contrary to public opinion, the Republicans do NOT have enough votes of their own to end the shutdown. Republicans alone do not make-up the required 60 votes to re-open the government. They need a handful of Democrats to join them. So far, the Democrats have voted 14 times in a manner that keeps the government shut. This shutdown clearly belongs at the feet of the Democrats. This really is the Democrat Shutdown. They could have ended this at the very beginning.
Anyway, thanks for hosting my contributions over the years. However, this registered Independent has decided not to continue on for now.
Ryan Mackenzie is pooping his pants right now. He’s one and done.
ReplyDeleteThe local Republican party seems MAGA orientated. I'm hoping that Mackenzie reflects back on Dent's long tenure, and realizes that Trump's coattails was once and done. If he has the potential to moderate, remains to be seen.
Delete