If that's the deal, and the minibus stops RIFs, and we can just do this all over again in February if they renege... I think that's a viable outcome. The bottom line is that if the GOP wants to break the ACA, they're going to be able to do it, and we should chain it to their necks in the midterms.

I don't know what the Senate is going to do. But if they do in fact fold in exchange for nothing, they will be living up to past performance. To expect the Senate to carry out the will of the American people is to misunderstand why it was created in the first place.

This seems significant

Not sure where they are on the squishy scale today but I called both WA senators today. It felt especially salient bc after being laid off & going back on the exchange, I'm shocked at what even crummy healthcare costs right now. Patty Murray: (202) 224-2621 Maria Cantwell: (202) 224-3441

As Democrats, we didn’t even have one week to enjoy the success of last Tuesday and now this shit.

Sanders: Let’s be clear… If this vote succeeds, over 20 million Americans are going to see at least a doubling in their premiums… if resolution is passed tonight, we are on a path way to throw 15 million Americans off of medicaid and the affordable care act, 15 million.

Following up on this. This remains a ‘cave is minutes or hours away’ situation. If you want to impact how this plays out you need to contact senators literally now. I want to add additional points of context. What I’m relaying is what I’ve picked up from highly reliable sources.

look I know being an engaged citizen IS the work of democracy but it is also the work of elected officials not to create situations where everyone has to be mobilized all the time to prevent them from allowing some kind of Dickensian horror on a Sunday night while you're in between loads of laundry

What if we make you wait 40 days to receive [checks notes] nothing? Sound good?

It would have been better to simply cave on day one than do this. how can you ask anyone to suffer through a shutdown ever again, if you can deliver *nothing*?

getting two pinky swears from Republicans, including one that they will merely follow the law, is laughably thin gruel

Pre-shutdown I heard from a bunch of federal employees who would lose income and maybe jobs and so on who basically all wanted Dems to fight (such as www.gravityisgone.com/shut-it-all-...). They also tended to expect them to cave. Anyway.

Official statement from @jamestalarico.bsky.social on shutdown negotiations

Sanders: That is a totally meaningless gesture. You can get 100 votes here and it won't mean anything because the House is not going to take it up.

Chris Murphy: "There will be pretty substantial damage to a Dem brand that has been rehabilitated if on the heels of an election in which the people told us to keep fighting, we immediately stop... if we surrender without having gotten anything, I worry it'll be hard to get them back up off the mat"

I truly don’t know how you look at the past week and THEN decide THIS is an appropriate — let alone the right — response.

Dems backed Trump into a corner where he’s advocating for starving Americans and hemorrhaging support. If they vote to let him off the hook in exchange for nothing it’s a cataclysmic failure. I know people are in pain but insulating Republicans from political consequences is not the answer.

One of the talking points I keep seeing from Democrats is that part of the deal is that it will "ensure federal workers receive back pay" but that's the existing law! That's not something you've won in negotiations. That's just the letter of the law. You don't get to claim that as a win.

My family has been without half our income for 40 days. It has been.. very hard. We are willing to feel that pain so people can have health care next year, or to undo these illegal recissions. We are not willing to have been put through this for NOTHING.

Yeah, I'm sorry, but you do not keep the government shut for more than a month and then NOT get a deal on the main item you have been messaging on without completely shifting the blame dynamic.

My statement on the proposed Senate deal

No health care, no deal.

Van Hollen a No, and suggesting they might drag this out and make it painful

Keep tagging them and commenting on their posts, it is having an impact!!!! And thank @slotkin.senate.gov !!!! remember honey catches more flies than vinegar

This is not a deal — it's an empty promise. Trump and his Republican Congress are making healthcare more expensive for the middle class and ending it for working families. Time for Democrats to stand tall for affordable healthcare. www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

Shutting down the government is a big deal. People have been hurt in big ways as a result of the decision. To have that suffering be for nothing—to re-open the government without actually having protected people’s health insurance and economic well-being—is unconscionable.

i think this is key. taking the deal would amount to taking the blame. it would turn a clear political victory into an unambiguous defeat.

Just sent a message to Ossoff's office. I'm proud of how I closed it out: "Democrats just won a huge victory last week and are winning the polling wars. Now is not the time to cave for fractions of a penny on the dollar. Make the shutdown mean something. Have a spine."

The world is failing to meet the 2.0°C target of the Paris Agreement, let alone 1.5°C. 1.5°C was always nearly impossible, but did setting that goal help or hurt climate action?

Also interesting how Sen candidates like McMorrow are reacting which is firmly against a deal

FWIW Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein” does pass the Bechdel test because Justine and Elizabeth have a short but moving conversation right before Justine is executed for the murder of Victor’s brother William (actually killed by the Creature): en.wikisource.org/wiki/Franken...

Donald Trump has asked his employees on the Supreme Court to overrule lower court orders demanding that he fulfill his duties to feed Americans who are due SNAP benefits AND He's demanding that states which just rushed to fill the vacuum created by his cruelty "undo" that work.

Ask him why so many air traffic controllers are retiring at once. Ask him if it has anything to do with Reagan firing 11K union strikers in 1981 and having to replace them all at once. Ask him how the mass firings this year will impact us the same way 40 years from now. Ask him, Jake.

Senate Dems wyd

I absolutely don't want Senate Dems to cave, but some key things: 1. If they do, this gets kicked back over to the House, which has to vote on it again since it would differ from their own version...which I think only runs thru 11/21? 2. That presumably means having to swear in Grjalva.

Judge Sara Ellis began with Carl Sandburg’s beloved poem, “Chicago.” That’s the vision of the city she embraced as she decried the feds’ use of force here that “shocks the conscience,” and extended an order meant to curb it. From @chicago.suntimes.com: chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Sounds like the squishes in the senate caucus are ready to pull the plug with no ACA changes. This is real. If you want to register your opinion you shld call yr senator in the next hour. They not only want to reopen w/nothing. They want cover from their colleagues who still want to hold out.

Things are fine.

Tim Davie out as BBC Director General. Despite BBC News directly and almost exclusively promoting Reform and its Trumpian policies, it was nowhere enough for the far-right.

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers" really is a banger line and a great metaphor.

every day brings fresh stress and sadness for people in the US on an H1B. in my > 10 years of being in this country i’ve never felt so much anxiety and lack of institutional support over immigration issues as in this moment. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/u...

This is an absolutely insane administrative process. Within the space of a week, states were told by judges/White House *no SNAP benefits *half benefits *full benefits *pause provision of benefits. Result is chaos, uncertainty, and uneven access to benefits depending on where people live.

I have now played eight hours of Europa Universalis V and the Sickness has definitely taken hold. No, not the plague

This is the result of Trump’s reconciliation bill, which made refugees and asylees ineligible for federal benefits until after getting their green cards. That said; I don’t think there are many Ukrainians who came through the refugee program. Some asylees, yes.

I love this building. I keep telling myself that one of these days I’m going to take an afternoon off work and do one of their free mid-day tours of the interior.

4/ One of those roles was burying the dead, a highly traumatic duty as many of the bodies were severely mutilated. The cemetery was constructed by the 960th Quartermaster Service Company, an all-Black unit of 260 men under the command of a White officer (as was usual).

Relating to Spider-Man at 19: I too am underemployed, unsure how to pursue girls, and trying to find my place in the adult world. Relating to Galactus at 42: I am from an unrecognizable previous millennium, hungry all the time, everything hurts and I live with a tiny person who won’t do what I ask.

Not having the money to provide benefits is one thing. Actively trying to prevent other administrative units from providing benefits is a completely different level of cruelty.