Political masterclass here trying to make Dems look pro-labor instead of Mike Lawler. Robert Caro is gonna have to devote an entire volume to this one, so generations through the ages know how it's done.

Wishcasting just for kicks/vibes: House/Senate GOP mostly hate Trump and/or resent being totally neutered. A whole lot of them will be excited to have a way to see him off Most WH folks were using him and will deal fast to save themselves (Maybe) leaving Vance - who nobody likes, respects, or fears

Robert Garcia is earning that Superman #1

I feel pretty confident just assuming that there indeed was a department of very talented federal workers who have handled this job extremely well for generations who got DOGE'd and watched their work get farmed out to cut rate private contractors to bring us this.

One of the funniest things happening at the other place right now are the Party people who are earnestly saying that press got booted from tonight's White House dinner because Trump is ashamed of being seen being fancy while cutting health care.

No matter how much denial was involved, clearly they knew this was coming. Which makes it all the more horribly fascinating to me that proportionally, so much of the limited time and capacity they had went into physically destroying the building

Just became a member this week. You should too. Banger after banger, every issue.

It's been demonstrated ten million times over that this isn't an ideological issue. Fucking Bill Kristol has more capacity to fight in that spot.

The, ahem, resignation of it all...

Wow, a Long Island jury awarded $112 Million to 674 immigrants who were unlawfully held by county police so they could be handed over to ICE

Didn't see this show up yet on this side @repvalhoyle.bsky.social

I was tempted to go the “who could have predicted?” route here, except multiple cavers have already made it clear the vote isn’t even intended to succeed, it’s just supposed to be for messaging

“The consequences extend beyond lost money. Hazardous gambling is correlated with increased rates of anxiety and depression, and young men who engage in it are more likely to slide into a full-blown gambling addiction. Boys who frequently gamble miss more classes, perform worse in school”

This allows Trump (via DOJ) to use taxpayer money to bribe eight GOP Senators. It's that simple, there's no other way to describe it. And where's the compensation for people injured by the Trump admin's unlawful conduct through DHS & DOGE? Take a bow, @schumer.senate.gov, you did this.

That they aren’t saying this rather aggressively suggests it wasn’t what went on in their heads even remotely. So much so that it doesn’t even occur to them. Which is additionally worrisome.

He’s too stupid to realize, but Trump is himself declaring: -His deranged assault on Chicago isn’t improving crime, and -It’s bad for local business, and -Luxury retail is tanking in his economy ymmv on the truth of his claims, but nevertheless: Quite the rallying cry of abject failure!

Former House speaker / Trump adviser newt Gingrich, saying on the record what we’d heard so much on background from those others: “Look at the rage on the left. It doesn’t sound like a victory party to me. All you have to do is look at the reaction on the left to figure out who won this shutdown…”

scenes from a victory lap zeteo.com/p/senate-dem...

Kaine is one of the few Sens being honest about all this. They're sending a handful of folks to bsky to try to mollify the angry people, but TK's condescending dismissal over and over again is the real contempt behind all of this. They really are more upset about a powerful movement than about Trump

incredibly funny that Joyce Carol Oates owned Musk so hard he's started trying to post like a regular person with normal interests

We are literally mad about your failure to fight the real dangers.

And yet weirdly, the fighting stopped. Sounds like a major leadership problem!

Trouble is, nobody has any reason to imagine Senate Dems will do this, or follow through on anything, so there's no good faith way to ask for this And there's no way back from that fully broken faith, to work productively on anything at all, without a major change Which again, is the disaster here

Imagine if Lincoln had refused to keep changing generals until he finally found Grant

🚨 Tim Kaine is saying the quiet part out loud - underscoring why anyone shouldn't be satisfied with any of the "no" statements or posts from Dem Senators. If Dem Senators are truly disgusted with this save they should be calling on #SurrenderSchumer to step aside as the Leader immediately.

The more I think about it, the more this is also the bloody fight that's necessary to overcome the failed institutional actors orchestrating this cave and all the other surrendering. Fair to debate whether delaying the fight builds power or loses it, but clearly tons of people are ready to get to it

Over/under 0.5 Dem Senators who were issuing horrified press releases last night and will now take this opportunity themselves

“ A scholarship at UC San Diego — created to honor victims of Klan violence & help Black students — was forced open to white applicants after a legal challenge…A program meant to repair racial terror…has to include descendants of those who were never targets of it.” calmatters.org/commentary/2...

Was saying last night as statements from Third Way types started coming out that they’d be super pissed as ones who were generally less interested in all this but went along with it, only to not just get screwed, but get screwed by the wrong villains, undermining all their hippie punching

This is the entire thing. They ended up with nothing on their PR point and nothing on the real discussion which was submerged. The way they shut down RIFs showed they understood how to stop the power grab and chose not to. prospect.org/2025/11/10/m...

Honestly good for him www.espn.com/college-foot...

Sure, it takes skill to deliver the most self-defeating sound byte imaginable on national TV mere moments after needlessly surrendering on the vital political conflict of our moment, but for the sound byte to be factually wrong as well? That's when you know you're in the presence of a true great

Hoyer has been in the House since three months before I was born and I am, sadly, extremely not young.

Even more proud to be a paid @blockclubchi.bsky.social subscriber

The thing about caving on the shutdown is that it immediately emboldens the GOP on every other issue. www.politico.com/newsletters/...

"In fact, they were acting with the express approval of Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and were reporting to him daily." prospect.org/2025/11/08/w...

Echoing some points I made yesterday. Sen. Kim is a great examples of a center-left Democrat who pushed out some ossified leadership and reformed his state party as part of his run.

Chuck Schumer has not met this moment and Senate Democrats would be wise to move on from his leadership.

This boils down to "This is fine, because everyone agrees it's not fine at all" which doesn't work, but I'm not going to begrudge people doing what they need to do to keep fighting.

Yup. There's a reflexive contingent who will always declare "this won't matter by then, people will vote against Trump" but they have to believe there's a vote against Trump available on the ballot. For now, they're being shown that voting harder just gets Trump on a slightly different timeline.

We have two completely distinct approaches now for Dems: The November 2024 election approach, and The November 2025 election approach Senate Dems looked straight at the November 2025 approach, and chose the November 2024 approach.

This is only incidentally a pardon. It is the President unilaterally declaring that some laws simply do not apply anymore. Doesn't seem like a long distance from here to "anyone following a direction from me is pardoned in advance"

Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage

When the moment came to blow apart a universal moment of energy, optimism, forward momentum for the anti-Trump, pro-democracy movement, say often: It wasn't progressives or DSA. It wasn't the young people running against the gerontocracy, or primarying those captured by the institution.

Their own comments in the presser openly suggest they are not politically capable enough to answer a constituent asking “why can’t you all just work it out?” There’s a whole lot of self interest, but there’s also an actual shocking lack of capacity to wrap their minds around what’s happening.

The original Dem demands were: 1) Permanent ACA subsidies 2) Medicaid funding restored 3) No more blank checks for the regime (rescission) They dropped Medicaid immediately. Went silent on rescission. Cut back to 1 year of subsidies on Friday. And surrendered today. The Senate Democrats!

It's extremely notable to me that Bluesky is full of in-depth analysis of how everything really went down and how the power structures were functioning today, and the other place is everyone just credulously nodding along at the heroism of the architects who were too cowardly to put their name on it

when your vote is so toxic you have the Chair of the DNC saying this shit sucks, you really have to admire the levels of embarrassment here

Boils down to: These Dems do not have the stomach to win the fight they are in. Whether it’s this shutdown or something else someday, they have to be willing to fight a truly bloody fight through to victory, and they just aren’t. This cave sucks, but the true disaster is there’s no pretense left.

Not impressed with the ability of those Senate Dems to think that premise through to its obvious endpoint, which a literal eight year old could manage to do.