Good Monday morning to you all. It's Monday, November 10.
Today in history:
In 1969, Sesame Street premiered, giving the left an excuse to fund leftist-dominated PBS from then until just this year.
In 1951, the North American Numbering Plan gave every area of the country its own area code, making long-distance phone calls easier.
Birthdays today include Tracy Morgan and Martin Luther.
I admit going to bed fairly early last night, and while I noted some chatter about the end of the shutdown before arriving in the land of zzzzz, I paid little heed to it. I've learned over the past nearly 50 years of watching Democrats to ignore a lot of the noise. But I woke up this morning and to my surprise, my iron lung was working again, even after my conservative views and goals had been declared dead by Chuck Schumer and the Democrats some 40 days ago. Or as Matt Margolis says, Democrats Finally Caved and Lost Everything in the Shutdown Showdown.
After weeks of posturing, sound bites, and hashtags, Senate Democrats folded like a cheap lawn chair. The government will reopen after a handful of Democrats finally agreed to vote with Republicans to end the shutdown—without giving Chuck Schumer and his caucus anything close to a win.
This is what capitulation looks like, and the left knows it.
The deal is simple. Schumer’s caucus agreed to advance a package of spending bills that will reopen the government and extend funding through January.
That’s it.
No sweeping policy concessions, no big wins tucked into the fine print, no “historic framework” or “moral victory.” Just a basic continuing resolution, dressed up with some boilerplate back pay for furloughed workers and funding for food assistance through next fall. In other words, exactly what Republicans had put on the table before the Democrats decided to make a scene.
I heartily advise you to read Matt's piece, as well as the Morning Briefing and Catherine Salgado's column.
Matt spent a couple of paragraphs going into some detail on the Left's reaction. In looking it over, I can't help thinking that the only thing missing is the laugh track.
Look, folks, for all the crying and gnashing of teeth from the left, the fact is, there was never going to be any other outcome on this nonsense, and they all knew it from the first week, at least, not in this iteration.
Personally, in the short term, my thought is that Schumer is getting "primaried" by AOC and the guano wing of the party at the first opportunity. The cracks in the facade of "Democrat Unity" have long since been apparent, and they're most obvious around the soon-to-be-retired minority leader. Then again, that's been true, even before the shutdown started. Schumer's retirement is certainly a net positive, but in the short term, that's about all we're going to see from this.
But, and I stress this, it's not really over. That is key to understanding where this is going. As Catherine points out:
The bipartisan deal previously announced did not include full concessions to the Democrats on Obamacare subsidies. The Schumer Shutdown has been a Democrat effort to secure taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal aliens and foreign pork spending.
And that fight to fund illegals is continuing.
As I suggested in a VIP Column over the weekend, the center of this whole shutdown argument was, in fact, the subsidies for Obamacare, which by design feed free healthcare for illegals. Democrats continue to tell us that's all nonsense, and that the GOP is lying, but, as Catherine notes, they've not given in on that key point as a part of this stopgap deal.
Notice also that support for free healthcare for illegals is laid out in plain English in their own proposal, which was offered during the shutdown, and thankfully went nowhere. Look closely at the wording on page 57, section 2141, and you will find that the CR the Democrats offered repeals the Working Families Tax Cut bill’s new safeguards against waste, fraud, and abuse in health care spending to restore and continue $200 billion in American taxpayer-funded health care subsidies going to illegal aliens. Here's a cheat map for what the Democrats were proposing:
I can't emphasize this enough. Those provisions are what this fight has always been about. This has always been the intent of Democrats. Speaker Mike Johnson has been pointing this out from the beginning. Here he is on shutdown day plus three:
Again, this fight isn't over. The subhead on Alex Miller's piece at Fox tells the story:
Several Senate Democrats crossed the aisle despite getting no guaranteed deal on Obamacare subsidies
Apparently, the Democrats' hope of paying for healthcare for their newest batch of Democrat voters springs eternal, despite the fact that even most Democrats are suggesting that any vote to extend the Obamacare subsidies will never pass just now. As the Fox piece says:
The Obamacare issue is still bubbling on both sides of the aisle, however. Senate Republicans slammed the state of healthcare throughout Saturday, particularly over how the subsidies funneled money to insurance companies.
As I suggested the other day, the Democrats are playing the long game here, as usual. Events just force them to play a longer game than they'd like. The Senate is supposed to resume business at 11 a.m. Eastern, at which point we'll see the play continuing.
Johnson and the GOP have been saying all they wanted was time to hammer this out, which is why the plan offered is short-term. Then again, they're offering this short-term plan because they know the Democrats would never support a longer-term plan without that key element of Obamacare Subsidies being baked into the cake.
All that's happened is the Democrats decided they didn't want to die on this hill, but rather wanted to live long enough to fight on the very same issue again, when this stopgap deal expires.
Again, I stress: This fight is NOT over.
Editor’s Note: After more than 40 days of screwing Americans, a few Dems have finally caved. The Schumer Shutdown was never about principle—just inflicting pain for political points. Help us continue to report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.
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