Angry Democrats call on Schumer to resign after eight vote to end shutdown

Posted on November 11, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

Democrats are seething after news emerged on Sunday that eight members of their Senate caucus had collaborated with Republicans on crafting a compromise to end the longest government shutdown in US history, without winning any healthcare concessions that they had sought.

But one name is coming in for more opprobrium than any other: Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader who had led the Democrats’ weeks-long stand against reopening the government without an extension of tax credits that lower premiums for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plans.

three women and two men stand in a corridor

If the results of the crucial Sunday vote are any indication, the outcome Democrats fought so hard against is now set to happen, potentially in the next few days. And though Schumer does not publicly support the compromise, lawmakers and Democrat-affiliated groups have turned on him, criticizing his leadership and calling for his ouster.

“Last night, eight ‘moderate’ Democrats got played. Conned. Rooked. Pantsed. Pumped and dumped. Rode hard and put away wet,” Rick Wilson, the ex-Republican strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, wrote in a piece titled “Schumer and the Hateful Eight Betray America”.

“It was a colossal leadership failure, and Chuck Schumer should resign as minority leader immediately if he had a shred of honor or shame.”

The sentiment is rife in progressive groups such as Our Revolution, whose executive director Joseph Geevarghese said: “Chuck Schumer should step down as Senate minority leader immediately. If he secretly backed this surrender and voted no to save face, he’s a liar. If he couldn’t keep his caucus in line, he’s inept. Either way, he’s proven incapable of leading the fight to prevent healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for millions of Americans.”

In the House, three Democrats have so far called on Schumer to step aside, among them Mike Levin, who represents a swingy district on the southern California coast. “Chuck Schumer has not met this moment and Senate Democrats would be wise to move on from his leadership,” he wrote on X Monday.

Fellow Californian Ro Khanna said, “Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” while Michigan representative and Squad member Rashida Tlaib said the minority leader “has failed to meet this moment and is out of touch with the American people. The Democratic party needs leaders who fight and deliver for working people. Schumer should step down.”

But none of the voices calling for a change in leadership belong to the Democratic senators who could force the issue. Nor did Hakeem Jeffries, who leads the party in the House of Representatives, join in. “Yes and yes,” he said at a Monday press conference, when a reporter asked if he believed Schumer was effective, and whether he should keep the leadership post he has held for eight years.

A spokesman for Schumer did not respond to a request for comment.

The squabble is in many ways a rehash of one that took place earlier this year, when the 74-year-old briefly found himself manning the barricades in a funding battle the ended up turning into a Democratic rout.

The moment came three months into Donald Trump’s presidency and days before government funding was set to expire. House Republicans had sent the Senate a short-term funding measure that almost all Democrats in the lower chamber opposed.

Faced with the prospect of swallowing the bill as is, or demanding changes and likely causing a shutdown, Schumer initially went with the latter, before changing his mind and voting for the measure along with his caucus’s centrists. The decision brought a backlash from the party’s base, with liberal groups such as Indivisible and MoveOn calling for new leadership.

Schumer survived, and when the latest funding battle began 41 days ago, his office collaborated with those same groups on their shutdown strategy. The Democrats held firm for weeks, even as an increasingly frustrated John Thune, the Republican Senate majority leader, held 14 fruitless votes on GOP-authored legislation to reopen the government, without addressing the ACA subsidies.

Over in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson put representatives on a lengthy recess to make clear to Senate Democrats that his party was not interested in negotiating over their demands.

At the press conferences he convened regularly after funding lapsed, Johnson repeatedly alleged that the “Schumer shutdown” was driven by the minority leader’s desire not to face a primary challenge in 2028 from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive New York congresswoman who Republicans allege is shaping the party’s agenda.

“He thinks AOC is going to challenge him or some other Marxist,” Johnson said in early October.

The compromise to reopen the government authorizes funding through January, and promises Democrats a vote on extending the ACA tax credits, though there is no guarantee their bill would pass the Senate, or, if it does, come up for a vote in the House. Schumer’s fingerprints are not publicly on the deal, which was worked out by a group of moderate senators who have either recently won re-election or are in their final terms in office.

Over in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson put representatives on a lengthy recess to make clear to Senate Democrats that his party was not interested in negotiating over their demands.

“He thinks AOC is going to challenge him or some other Marxist,” Johnson said in early October.

Over in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson put representatives on a lengthy recess to make clear to Senate Democrats that his party was not interested in negotiating over their demands.

“He thinks AOC is going to challenge him or some other Marxist,” Johnson said in early October.

Chris Stein, The Guardian

BREAKING: Senate Passes Package to End Schumer Shutdown, 60-40

Posted on November 11, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

It’s all over in the Senate, at least. The cave on Chuck Schumer’s stupid and pointless gesture has come to its predictable conclusion.

The vote for final passage, which only required a simple majority, is interesting. The same Senate Democrats who voted to break the filibuster also voted for the deal that will end the Schumer Shutdown:

The Senate passed a bill to reopen the federal government Monday evening, taking the next step toward ending the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

The chamber agreed to speed up the process to pass a bipartisan agreement struck over the weekend. The measure will now head to the House, which is expected to take it up later this week after staying away from Washington for more than 50 days.

“I could spend an hour talking about all the problems we’ve seen, which have snowballed the longer this shutdown has gone on,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said in a floor speech Monday. “But all of us, Democrat and Republican, who voted for last night’s bill are well aware of the facts, and I am grateful that the end is in sight.”

The bill passed 60-40, with seven Democrats and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) joining Republicans to pass it. One Republican, Sen. Rand Paul (Kentucky) voted no.

The bill now passes to the House, where the narrow majority might present some issues for passage. As I wrote earlier, Donald Trump has gotten ahead of that by endorsing the package:

It will still take days to reopen the government. Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday urged House members — who have not held a vote in nearly two months as they took an extended recess during the shutdown — to begin the process of returning to Washington “right now.”

At the White House, Mr. Trump said that he approved of the plan.

“We’ll be opening up our country very quickly,” he said, calling the package “very good.”

Right now, the shortest estimate for getting the House into full session is 36 hours or so. That puts the end of the shutdown sometime on Wednesday.

Johnson sounded confident that he has the votes among the House GOP to pass this bill. Rep. Ralph Norman reversed his earlier objection today, which signals that Johnson has a good chance of muscling it through. However, the support for the bill itself from so-called ‘moderates’ among Senate Democrats might portend votes from Hakeem Jeffries’ own caucus too.

Stay tuned. We’ll have more tomorrow as developments emerge.

Ed Morrisey, Hot Air

SNAP and the Growth of the American Welfare State

Posted on November 11, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP, unexpectedly took center stage in debates over the federal government shutdown.

As funding for the program, formerly known as Food Stamps, ran out in October, Congress, President Donald Trump, and the federal courts have wrestled with what to do about feeding millions of Americans who depend on this benefit each month.

SNAP has grown in size and cost since its inception in 1964, as have many other social welfare programs.

Here’s a closer look at the program, what it costs, the participation rates in different states, and how it has come to top $100 billion per year.

Participation

Participation in SNAP has grown dramatically over the last 50 years.

About 2 percent of Americans received SNAP benefits in 1970, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Today, about 13 percent of Americans receive SNAP benefits—some 42 million people.

That’s a 650 percent increase in the number of Americans who are unable to provide adequate food for themselves.

Participation spiked by 69 percent between 2008 and 2013, reaching a high of more than 45 million monthly recipients, largely due to the nationwide recession, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Between 2007 and 2009, national unemployment averaged 9.3 percent, and nearly 15 percent of Americans lived in poverty.

Participation rates vary between New Mexico, the highest at 21.2 percent of the population, and Utah, the lowest at 4.8 percent.

The participation rate for many states mirrors their poverty rate. Some states have exceptionally high or low rates of SNAP participation compared to the rate of poverty.

Outliers on the high side are: Arkansas, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Wyoming.

On the low side, Georgia’s SNAP participation rate is 12.5 percent, while its poverty rate is 12.6 percent.

Spending

SNAP spending has undergone two surges, reaching annual costs of more than $100 billion in 2024.

Spending shot up 112 percent between 2008 and 2013, coinciding with the surge in enrollment. SNAP costs went up another 98 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic era, when personal benefit amounts increased by 77 percent, according to The Epoch Times’ analysis of Agriculture Department data.

That’s a 300 percent increase in 20 years compared to an overall 50 percent increase in enrollment.

States with higher populations generally receive a larger share of SNAP benefits. California tops the list, receiving more than $1 billion per month, followed by New York at $647 million, Texas at $614 million, and Florida at $535 million.

Alaska and Hawaii both receive nearly double the average SNAP benefit per person, at $364 and $361 per month, respectively. Beneficiaries in New York ($218), Massachusetts ($216), and Tennessee ($203) receive the highest monthly average among the contiguous states.

Incorrect Payments

As benefits have grown more generous, the error rate for payments increased, according to an October report from Alliance for Opportunity, a conservative public policy organisation.

The error rate—which measures how often states make mistakes in determining who gets SNAP benefits and how much they receive—hit 11 percent in 2022 and remained close to that level through 2024. That’s three times higher than the rate in 2013.

That spike in payment errors reversed 15 years of continuous improvement, according to Alliance for Opportunity.

SNAP incorrectly disbursed nearly $11 billion in 2024. This figure breaks down into $9 billion in overpayments and $2 billion in underpayments for a net overpayment of $7 billion.

Before the pandemic, annual SNAP erroneous payments never exceeded $4.2 billion.

The increase was due to increased flexibility granted to states in administering the program, according to Alliance for Opportunity. As states were allowed to let individuals self-attest income, simplify reporting, and take longer certification periods.

California led in the total amount of improper payments, with an estimated $1.4 billion–approximately one in every nine dollars was sent out incorrectly.

New York followed closely, tallying $1 billion in improper disbursements, with roughly one in every seven dollars being sent wrong.

Florida reported improper payments totaling $990.8 million, with an error rate of 15 percent.

Only payment errors greater than $56 per household were included in the error rate. However, all errors will be tallied in 2026 thanks to a provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Since the program’s establishment in 1964, the federal government has fully funded SNAP benefits. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, states with payment error rates above 6 percent will pay a cost share that covers 5 percent to 15 percent of benefits.

Most states will begin paying a state match if their error rates remain the same.

Fraud

SNAP has a significant amount of fraud, according to Robert Rector, senior researcher at The Heritage Foundation. “The [reported] error rates are false and ridiculously low,” he said.

In some cases, recipients don’t accurately report their income. There is an incentive to do so because the benefit is keyed to income level. Those who earn less receive higher amounts of aid.

Inaccurate counting of household members also contributes to fraudulent payments, according to Rector, who notes that the number of single mothers receiving SNAP benefits is about 35 percent higher than the number of single mothers in the country, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau

The federal poverty level fell by about 50 percent between 1962 and 2000, but remains about 11 percent today.

Only payment errors greater than $56 per household were included in the error rate. However, all errors will be tallied in 2026 thanks to a provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Most states will begin paying a state match if their error rates remain the same.

Fraud

SNAP has a significant amount of fraud, according to Robert Rector, senior researcher at The Heritage Foundation. “The [reported] error rates are false and ridiculously low,” he said.

In some cases, recipients don’t accurately report their income. There is an incentive to do so because the benefit is keyed to income level. Those who earn less receive higher amounts of aid.

Work Requirements

“There are about 4 million people on food stamps that are called able-bodied adults without dependents,” Rector told The Epoch Times.

Congress changed the program’s work requirement rule in July. States are now implementing new guidelines to comply with the changes.

Able-bodied adults without dependents are required to work, volunteer, or take part in training at least 20 hours a week, or 80 hours per month, to maintain their SNAP benefits.

Older people are granted an exemption from this requirement, but the age limit for the exemption is increasing from 54 to 64.

Generally, people ages 18 through 64 must meet this requirement to receive SNAP benefits for more than three months in any 36-month period.

Work can be something done in exchange for money, goods, or services.

Growth of Social Programs

President Lyndon Johnson introduced his vision to build a Great Society for the American people in 1963.

Over the next several years, Congress passed landmark legislation to social welfare programs that are still in place, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Food Stamps.

Those programs have been expanded over the years, and others have been added, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Low Income Energy Assistance Program, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, federal housing assistance, student loans and grants, and many others.

Federal spending on all social welfare programs, measured as a percentage of gross domestic product, rose from 0.27 percent in 1962 to 3.8 percent in 2024. That’s an increase of more than 1,250 percent.

The federal poverty level fell by about 50 percent between 1962 and 2000, but remains about 11 percent today.

Sylvia Ku and Lawrence Wilson, Epoch Times

Whaddya Mean Capitalism is not Working ?

Posted on November 10, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

Capitalism is not working for a lot of people in New York City. It’s not working for young people.

Dear me. Here we have the whole world fainting because Tucker Carlson dared — dared — to interview Nick Fuentes, and Peter Thiel says something completely off-the-charts wacko. Capitalism not working? Capitalism works every minute, every hour, every day, for everyone, whether you like it or not.

Surely Peter Thiel knows this.

What is not working right now is the mountain of government programs and regulations and left-wing conceits that are piled high on capitalism like spices from India on an overloaded camel. As with most animals, when you cruelly overload them, they start to groan with pain.

Another thing that is not working is the famous liberation of women that began a couple hundred years ago with the world’s First Feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Only last week I wrote a deeply philosophical Substack post “Our Woman Problem,” on the subject. I say that “women’s liberation” has not liberated women, but rather enslaved them. Women don’t like it, and they are complaining about it. But they have no idea that they are enslaved. They complain, I imagine, because like George Eliot’s Lisbeth Bede, they complain in order to be soothed.

So maybe that’s why the most enthusiastic Mamdani voters in New York City seem to be young women college graduates with woke studies degrees. Maybe they are just complaining in order to be soothed.

Now I wrote a couple of weeks ago at AT that the tech lords, with Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel in the vanguard, are presently engaged upon a Tech March Through the Institutions with consequences that nobody can yet foresee. Let’s just say that the tech lords were present in battalion strength at Trump’s inauguration for a reason. And let us suppose it is connected to Peter Thiel’s patronage of JD Vance.

So I speculate that Peter Thiel talking about capitalism not working is a strategic misdirection play directed at the real culprits that are failing to make America work for ordinary people: the politicians and their aides and staffers, the NGOs and the billionaires behind them, the administrators, the regulators and our beloved mainstream media. But don’t tell our dear liberal and DSA friends; there is no need for them to bother their sweet little heads about that.

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Still: what is Peter Thiel’s game here? Is he quietly working behind the scenes with JD Vance waiting for the right moment to nuke our liberal friends into orbit with the help of Elon Musk and SpaceX? We shall see.

Meanwhile, let’s get back to reality. It is ridiculous to speak of “capitalism” working or not working. Capitalism is just humans doing what they do to the extent it is not prevented by politicians and administrators and regulators.

I’ll tell you what’s not working: it’s the liberal dream. Or should we say: their fantasy. They knew better than feudal lords. They knew better than absolute monarchs. They knew better than the crude businessmen that invented machine textiles. It was nothing to them that businessmen and inventors revolutionized world transportation — particularly for the ordinary person — with steamships and railways. Actually, when you think of the five technological revolutions analyzed by Carlota Perez in Technological Revolutions there’s been nothing like it, ever. Certainly, all the liberal politics of the last two hundred years would have gone nowhere without the rocket ship we call capitalism. Where would the politicians have found the taxes to fund their heavenly visions without the money from capitalist growth and prosperity.

No. Let us be clear. What isn’t working today are big-government liberal programs.

Item: liberals dreamed of the wonderful world they would create for the workers. Pity the unions and benefits priced workers out of their jobs.
Item: liberals dreamed of the liberation of women from the oppression of patriarchy. Today women are miserable, especially childless educated women.
Item: liberals dreamed of civil rights for blacks. Then they ruined it with racial quotas for blacks,
Item: liberals dreamed of human rights for gays. Then they ruined it with men in the women’s bathroom.
Item: liberals dreamed of saving the climate from the nightmare of rapidly increasing plant food. But now capitalist Bill Gates says maybe CO2 concentration isn’t a problem.

Oh, now I get it. When we say capitalism isn’t working, we really mean that capitalism isn’t fixing the endless mistakes and injustices of liberalism.

And really, they have a point. What’s the point of capitalism if it isn’t a couple of standard deviations smarter than your average liberal bear?

And if capitalism can’t overcome all the stupidities and injustices of liberalism and make young people feel that, despite all the liberal propaganda they have ingested in 20 years of government schooling, capitalism works for them, then what’s the point?

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill blogs at The Commoner Manifesto and runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

Image: Gage Skidmore

Related Topics: Capitalism, Economics

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Here’s How Obamacare Really Works, and It’s Disgusting

Posted on November 10, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

It’s been over 15 years since Democrats passed Obamacare under the promise that it would make healthcare affordable. Americans were supposed to save money, keep their doctors, and finally get a system that worked for them instead of the big insurance companies.

Today, those promises look like a sick joke.

A recent post shared by our sister site Twitchy highlights how the Obamacare boondoggle really works, and why it doesn’t actually work for the people. Instead, it was built to enrich the healthcare industry, and the numbers prove it. Let me give you a rundown of how it works, if you can stomach learning how the sausage is made.

Every year, the federal government quietly funnels around $40 billion straight to insurance companies through cost-sharing reduction subsidies. These payments get sent automatically. There’s no congressional vote, no annual debate, no accountability. The money just flows. Meanwhile, everyday Americans still face insane deductibles and co-pays high enough to make anyone think twice before setting foot in a doctor’s office. The supposed “affordability” is an illusion built on taxpayer-funded handouts that prop up corporate profits.

Nonprofit hospitals, the ones constantly waving the banner of community service, aren’t exactly hurting, either. They rake in more than $125 billion every year in tax breaks because of their “nonprofit” status. That means they skip out on property, income, and sales taxes, while still cashing in from every direction. Medicare alone overpays them by another $28 billion each year, and hospitals charge anywhere from 60–80% more than independent doctors for the exact same procedures.

Take a look at where the money actually goes. These so-called nonprofits pay their CEOs multimillion-dollar salaries, spend billions lobbying politicians, and buy up independent medical practices to crush competition. And when regular Americans can’t pay their inflated hospital bills, these hospitals drag them into court. They invest huge sums to grow their stock portfolios, yet claim to operate for the public good.

Does that sound charitable to you?

Make no mistake about it, the system bleeds Americans dry. We pay three times for healthcare. Once through taxes that subsidize insurance companies and hospitals. Then again through our monthly insurance premiums. And a third time when the hospital bills finally arrive.

It’s the perfect setup—for them.

Meanwhile, nearly $200 billion a year flows to insurers and hospitals in the name of making healthcare “more affordable,” yet medical care remains out of reach for millions. The winners are always the same group: lawmakers, health insurance executives, and hospital system CEOs. The losers are the rest of us—families and workers who can’t afford the care they’ve already been taxed to pay for, even though we were promised that we’d be saving money because of this system. I spend thousands of dollars a year for coverage that doesn’t cover diddly squat until I max out my deductible.

I can still remember how much cheaper insurance was and how much more was covered before Obamacare was passed.

Democrats own this mess from start to finish. Remember, every single one of them voted for Obamacare. Not a single Republican did. Nancy Pelosi famously said back in the debate over the bill, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Well, we’ve found out. And what’s inside isn’t reform—it’s rot. The entire structure depends on endless subsidies to keep the illusion of affordability alive. Without them, the program collapses under its own weight. With them, Americans just keep getting screwed.

And make no mistake, Democrats will defend this broken system at any cost.

They’ve proven they’ll even threaten a government shutdown if it means keeping the money flowing to their favorite industries. When Democrats talk about protecting healthcare funding, they’re really protecting the billion-dollar interests behind it. The same politicians who claim to fight for working families are guarding the financial lifelines of corporations that gouge those very families at the doctor’s office. Affordable healthcare? That was never the goal. Keeping the cash pipeline open to the right people—that’s Obamacare in a nutshell.

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown has now been dragging on over a month. Democrats aren’t negotiating in good faith, and seem determined to hold the country hostage while blaming the GOP.

Matt Margolis is a conservative commentator and columnist. His work has been cited on Fox News and national conservative talk radio, including The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Mark Levin Show, and The Dan Bongino Show. Matt is the author of several books and has appeared on Newsmax, OANN, Real America’s Voice News, Salem News Channel, and even CNN. You can also subscribe to his newsletter for free!

You can send news tips, praise, hate mail, and media inquiries to tips@mattmargolis.com.

Democrats Cave on Government Funding, Will Receive Nothing for Ending Schumer Shutdown

Posted on November 10, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

A disastrous shutdown for Democrats got worse Sunday when Senate Democrats folded on government funding while receiving nothing of substance in return.

Eight Senate Democrats voted with 42 Republicans Sunday night on a procedural vote to allow a continuing resolution (CR) funding the government to advance.

The motion passed 60 to 40, without a single vote to spare, and will enable a future vote on a clean continuing resolution through January 30, 2026, packaged with three relatively non-controversial appropriations bills extending through the fiscal year: agriculture, military construction-Veterans Affairs, and legislative branch.

The agreement includes back pay for federal employees and guarantees that the 4,000-plus federal employees laid off during the shutdown will be rehired, as well as a blanket prohibition on future reductions in force through January 30. Those jobs are a drop in the bucket compared to the 250,000 or so the Trump administration eliminated before the shutdown.

Most significantly, the agreement does not guarantee an extension of Covid-era enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies, with Democrats only receiving assurances of a vote on a bill of their choice.

“As I have said for weeks to my Democrat friends, I will schedule a vote on their proposal, and I have committed to having that vote no later than the second week in December,” Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said on the Senate floor before the vote.

such a bill were to pass the Senate, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has not committed to bringing it to the floor of the House.

The result is that Democrats once again overpromised results to their base but came up empty-handed, inflicting forty days of pain for nothing of substance.

Democrat Sens. Maggie Hassan (NH), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Dick Durbin (IL), Jacky Rosen (NV), and Tim Kaine (D-VA) supported the procedural vote. They joined Sens. Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-NM), Angus King (I-ME), and John Fetterman (D-PA), who had previously voted to allow the House-passed CR to advance.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul (KY) voted no, as he has done throughout prior rounds of votes.

The result is another victory for Thune, who kept the Senate in session over the weekend to seek a deal, promising to keep senators working until a deal was struck.

Perhaps more significantly, the vote is the latest — and most damaging — setback for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). His own rank-and-file members — centrists and the most liberal — condemned his shutdown strategy Sunday night.

Schumer is increasingly becoming the primary villain for the ascendant left inside the Democratic Party, and his hold on the position of Minority Leader seems increasingly tenuous.

In a sign of how toxic the shutdown end will be for Democrats, no Democrat senators who voted Sunday to begin the process of reopening the government are up for reelection in 2026.

Cortez-Masto, Fetterman, and Hassan will not have to run again until 2028, with Kaine, Rosen, and King not up again until 2030. Shaheen and Durbin are retiring.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), the most endangered Democrat incumbent, voted no.

The vote was held open for well over an additional hour to allow Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who was in Texas during a brutal three-way primary fight, to arrive in Washington.

The Senate must receive unanimous consent on time agreements to enable speedy passage, but a vote on final passage is likely by the middle of the week. The amended bill must then pass the House.

Bradley Jaye is Deputy Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye.

Trump: ‘Obamacare Sucks; Worst Healthcare for Highest Price’

Posted on November 9, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

With the government shutdown rolling on without an end in sight and the Obamacare subsidies running out, President Donald Trump is sizing up a long-running battle against the failures of the Affordable Care Act.

“OBAMACARE ‘SUCKS,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday morning. “THE WORST HEALTHCARE FOR THE HIGHEST PRICE.”

On Saturday, Trump floated a compromise amid the impasse on the shutdown, urging Republicans to redirect federal money that goes to health insurance companies under the Affordable Care Act and send it directly to individuals.

“PAY THE PEOPLE, NOT THE INSURANCE COMPANIES!” Trump wrote in a message that could resonate with the Democrat base.

That post followed one from Saturday night, targeting the “fat cat” insurance companies for benefiting from a “corrupt system of healthcare” foisted on America by former President Barack Obama’s signature health care legislation.

“NO MORE MONEY, HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, TO THE DEMOCRAT SUPPORTED INSURANCE COMPANIES FOR REALLY BAD OBAMACARE,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.

“THE MONEY MUST NOW GO DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE, TAKING THE ‘FAT CAT’ INSURANCE COMPANIES OUT OF THE CORRUPT SYSTEM OF HEALTHCARE.

“THE PEOPLE CAN BUY THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER POLICY, FOR MUCH LESS MONEY, SAVING, FOR THEMSELVES, AN ABSOLUTE FORTUNE!!! PRESIDENT DJT.”

That post followed one from earlier Saturday, urging Senate Republicans to act on the health care fixes that Trump has talked about since before his first presidential run in 2016.

“I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over,” Trump wrote.

“In other words, take from the BIG, BAD Insurance Companies, give it to the people, and terminate, per Dollar spent, the worst Healthcare anywhere in the World, ObamaCare. Unrelated, we must still terminate the Filibuster!”

Terminating the filibuster is a call the Senate Republicans are rejecting, fearing Democrats would do the same to push through leftist spending and control-making items like free health care for illegal immigrants and adding four Democratic senators to the Senate by making Democrat-controlled Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico states.

Trump warns that is the eventuality in the future Democrat-controlled Congress and Senate anyway now that former Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. and Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., are no longer in the Democrats’ way of moving to the nuclear option.

“Republicans Should Terminate the Filibuster (THE DEMS WILL DO IT THE FIRST CHANCE THEY GET!), End the Shutdown, Pass lots of Great ‘Things,’ and Win the Midterms,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.

“SO EASY TO DO — Be the Smart Party, Not the Stupid Party!”

The issue of Obamacare subsidies is at the forefront of the government shutdown debate because Obama’s signature law set the end of 2025 as the expiration date for the subsidies in order to reevaluate the government-aided health care policy more than a decade after it was put into law.

Eric Mack ✉

Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.

Putin’s troll sets out to dupe the American right

Posted on November 9, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

Kirill Dmitriev — Vladmir Putin’s special envoy and head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund — is suddenly ubiquitous.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been largely quiet since his maximalist negotiating approach with Team Trump failed. Moscow, presumably largely guided by Lavrov, after winning a concession on Tomahawk missiles, opted to continue Putin’s hardline demands for ending the war in Ukraine ahead of the proposed Trump-Putin summit in Budapest. NATO would have to admit that it was the root cause of the war. Kyiv would have to cede all of the Donbas, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine would essentially have to disband.

None of that is going to happen.

When Russia’s Plan A failed, Putin tried Plan B to get Team Trump’s attention. He did so by testing his latest wunderwaffe.

Trump was not amused. He said Putin’s testing of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile was “not appropriate.” Trump also backed out of the meeting in Budapest after Putin’s nuclear shenanigans.

In response, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. Putin’s oil and energy sector, already under attack by long-range Ukrainian deep strikes against refineries and pipelines, is Moscow’s lifeline to keep funding the Russian dictator’s special military operation in Ukraine.

A week later, Putin tried again. This time, he announced the testing of a nuclear-capable underwater drone codenamed Poseidon. Then yesterday, in response to Trump’s threat to resume nuclear testing, Putin ordered Kremlin officials to “submit plans for the possible resumption of [Russian] nuclear testing.”

Putin’s favorite weapon during the Biden administration was nuclear bluffing. Ditto now during Trump’s second term. Yet this nuclear Kabuki theater is not working on Team Trump.

Enter Dmitriev. Putin knows both he and Lavrov overplayed their hand. Dmitriev’s mission is to find a way back in from the cold. The Stanford- and Harvard-educated 50-year-old appears to have calculated that he can do so by reaching out to the U.S. far right. Fearmongering is his weapon. However, undermining U.S. military support and aid for Ukraine is his mission.

In pursuit of this, he recently met with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), thanking her for supporting Putin’s ridiculous negotiating demands on Ukraine. He also taped a podcast with Lara Logan wherein he falsely claimed that Putin upholds “traditional [conservative] values.”

But intentionally targeting civilians in Ukraine is not conservative or liberal — it’s a war crime. Ditto for kidnapping Ukrainian children.

As Steven Moore, a former chief of staff on Capitol Hill and the founder of the Ukrainian Freedom Project told us, given “the collapse of Tucker Carlson, who has always been on message for the Kremlin, the Russians are looking for a new way to pretend that they care about America’s culture wars.”

Dmitriev, at least for now, has apparently been tasked by Putin to do just that. He did it again after Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the much-watched New York City mayoral race Tuesday night, when he posted that George Soros had been a key backer of his winning campaign. Later that same evening, he quote-tweeted the New York Post’s cover that was captioned, “On your Marx, get set, Zo!” while saying, “Good Morning, NYC Comrades!”

Not many people had on their Bingo card a Putin stooge warning Americans about a communist in sheep’s clothing. Yet here is Dmitriev, doing just that. Regardless of where you stand on Mamdani, Dmitriev’s goal was not to warn Americans about the NYC mayor-elect or about modern-day communists. Rather, his sole aim is to undermine U.S. support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In order to do that, Dmitriev must undermine growing Republican support for military aid to Ukraine. So Dmitriev is trying to do an end-run around Team Trump to court his conservative base. One way to bond with the American right is to warn about communists. Another is to make false claims about Russian conservative and religious values is another.

Especially given the resurgence of Republican support for U.S. economic and military aid to Ukraine.

As Moore noted in a recent Wall Street Journal op ed, Republican voter support had plunged to only 19 percent by March 2025. Now, it has rebounded to 47 percent among Trump voters.

Notably, as a poll Moore commissioned, Christian Republicans who attend church weekly are one of the key drivers accounting for renewed Republican support. They may be more fully appreciating that Ukraine is a deeply religious country and shares many of America’s core values. As Moore emphasized to us, “80 percent of Ukrainians identify as Christians. Baptists are the third largest Christian denomination in Ukraine after Orthodox and Catholics.” Roughly half of Ukrainians attend religious services at least once a month, compared to fewer than 10 percent of Russians, according to various sources.

Putin has hypocritically framed his war as a religious crusade, and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill declared Putin’s invasion of Ukraine a “Holy War” against a West that has “fallen into Satanism.”

Dmitriev is not fooling Team Trump. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly sent him packing after he he claimed new U.S. sanctions would have no effect on Russia’s economy.

Yet Dmitriev keeps trying. He seems to think he and Putin have seats at the table where American culture wars are playing out. Americans of all political stripes should disabuse him of that notion by showing him the door.

Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet

Putin’s troll sets out to dupe the American right

Posted on November 9, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

Kirill Dmitriev — Vladmir Putin’s special envoy and head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund — is suddenly ubiquitous.

None of that is going to happen.

When Russia’s Plan A failed, Putin tried Plan B to get Team Trump’s attention. He did so by testing his latest wunderwaffe.

Putin’s favorite weapon during the Biden administration was nuclear bluffing. Ditto now during Trump’s second term. Yet this nuclear Kabuki theater is not working on Team Trump.

But intentionally targeting civilians in Ukraine is not conservative or liberal — it’s a war crime. Ditto for kidnapping Ukrainian children.

Especially given the resurgence of Republican support for U.S. economic and military aid to Ukraine.

As Moore noted in a recent Wall Street Journal op ed, Republican voter support had plunged to only 19 percent by March 2025. Now, it has rebounded to 47 percent among Trump voters.

Dmitriev is not fooling Team Trump. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly sent him packing after he he claimed new U.S. sanctions would have no effect on Russia’s economy.

Yet Dmitriev keeps trying. He seems to think he and Putin have seats at the table of where American culture wars are playing out. Americans of all political stripes should disabuse him of that notion by showing him the door.

Why are Things Unaffordable ?

Posted on November 9, 2025 by theartfuldilettante

With the election of Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York, much conversation has been made of his appeal to “affordability.”

As I’ve written previously, this is a noble conversation, but one that has been dishonestly framed (by Democrats and media) to date. I will use Mamdani’s comment in his acceptance speech to re-frame the debate.

We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.

Mamdani and the Democrat party have effectively defined a binary choice: Should government or “the market” control affordability? The Democrats are seemingly all in on expanding the size and scope of government, to the point of eventually seizing the means of production.

First let’s look at the role that government has already played and its effect on affordability. What areas in the economy have seen the greatest increase in costs for the consumer? Education, housing, healthcare, and food. Ironically, these are all areas of the economy that the government has interjected itself in the form of subsidies, regulations, government-backed loans, and transfer payments.

In the 1960s, tuition costs were a reasonable expense. The best and brightest pursued advanced degrees and had good-paying high-skilled jobs available upon graduation. Government-backed loans were buffeted by a competitive “private loan” market.

In 2010, Obama eliminated the federal guaranteed loan program, which had let private lenders offer student loans at low interest rates.  Now the Department of Education is the only place to go for such loans.

With the election of Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York, much conversation has been made of his appeal to “affordability.”

As I’ve written previously, this is a noble conversation, but one that has been dishonestly framed (by Democrats and media) to date.  I will use Mamdani’s comment in his acceptance speech to re-frame the debate.

We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.

Mamdani and the Democrat party have effectively defined a binary choice: Should government or “the market” control affordability?  The Democrats are seemingly all in on expanding the size and scope of government, to the point of eventually seizing the means of production.

First let’s look at the role that government has already played and its effect on affordability.  What areas in the economy have seen the greatest increase in costs for the consumer?  Education, housing, healthcare, and food.  Ironically, these are all areas of the economy that the government has interjected itself in the form of subsidies, regulations, government-backed loans, and transfer payments.

In the 1960s, tuition costs were a reasonable expense.  The best and brightest pursued advanced degrees and had good-paying high-skilled jobs available upon graduation.  Government-backed loans were buffeted by a competitive “private loan” market.

In 2010, Obama eliminated the federal guaranteed loan program, which had let private lenders offer student loans at low interest rates.  Now the Department of Education is the only place to go for such loans.

Private lenders (prior to 2010) would lend money based on a risk model, where student loans could be obtained with the lender determining their degree of risk associated with repayment. It didn’t serve their interest to make loans to a large swath of students that might likely not repay the loan. Tuition was mostly held in check, as students and lenders evaluated the cost-benefit analysis of higher education. Universities couldn’t raise tuitions beyond what “the perceived market” for return on investment would support.

Eliminating the private lending market placed government as the sole provider of student loans. The government abandoned risk-benefit analysis and effectively provided loans to anyone and everyone who wanted to attend university. This act ballooned the number of people (qualified and unqualified) who obtained government-backed student loans and removed the “market” pressure on tuitions, causing tuition rates to rise exponentially.

Housing unaffordability has three distinct (government-created) problems.

One: Rent control. New York offers us a glimpse at the impact of rent control programs on price and availability. Controlling rents on some subset of housing creates hyperactive demand on the balance of housing in a generalized area. Wherever rent control has been instituted, rents throughout said market rise above and beyond where “the market” might otherwise settle.

Two: Supply and demand (price controls and regulations). Wherever rent controls have been instituted, local governments (i.e., New York, San Francisco) alternately impose strict regulations on the building and upkeep of housing within said market. These regulations, as we see playing out in Pacific Palisades in California, make it near impossible to rebuild and repair, and they discourage private investment.

Three: Illegal immigration. Unfettered illegal immigration has placed extreme demand for housing above and beyond what the market might otherwise require. Cost supports (transfer payments) to illegal aliens, like government-backed student loans (above), removes some cost pressure against entry for many, causing prices to rise above what the market might otherwise demand, making housing unaffordable in many, primarily urban markets.

Obamacare, or the inaptly named Affordable Care Act, we were told, was necessary to “bend down the healthcare cost curve.” Conservatives, Republicans, health care industry analysts, and economists warned that the opposite would occur, with costs rising and care becoming rationed to curb hospital outlays. This is exactly what occurred, as we see with the debate over Obamacare subsidies as part of the Democrats’ rationale for shutting down the government. Temporary Obamacare subsidies implemented by Democrats in 2021, expiring at the end of 2025, are necessary, say Democrats; otherwise, Americans (and non-Americans) will see a doubling or tripling of their health insurance premiums.

If only someone had warned Democrats that this might occur.

As for health care subsidies to illegal aliens, some untold amount (billions) of federal tax subsidies has been paid out to states as reimbursement for Medicaid outlays. California Medi-Cal (Medicaid) provides full-scope coverage to all children and low income-eligible adults regardless of immigration status, including illegal aliens. Approximately $107.5 billion is reimbursed to California (for Medicaid) with federal funds.

We are informed (again by the shutdown) that 42 million Americans (and non-Americans) receive SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits. This number rose from 38 million in 2019. SNAP is supposed to be a temporary support program and available to U.S. citizens only. The USDA requested SNAP participation information from all 50 states. Twenty-one (Democrat-lead) states have refused to provide these data. It’s believed that this is due to their payouts of SNAP benefits to illegal aliens.

It is no wonder that Americans are concerned with affordability, but they are sadly mistaken if they think “more government” is the answer. Here’s why.

Government subsidies create a third-party payer economic (pricing) problem.

Prices and products’ and services’ range of quality in a “free market” are arrived at organically, between a buyer (consumer) and a seller (or provider).

Sellers determine the market for their product or service and determine their costs in providing said product of service. They then determine a reasonable profit that justifies the development of a product or the providing (or not) of a particular service.

Buyers are placed in the position of determining the price they’re willing to pay for a particular price or service.

Competition causes other makers or providers to enter a market, if they believe they can make a better or cheaper product. Competition and choice apply downward pressure on costs, helping to ease affordability.

In a third-party payer model (as we see above in education, housing, health care, food, etc.), the buyer has no “direct” incentive to find a better product or service for less money. The money they’re spending is not their money. It’s “other people’s money,” as Margaret Thatcher once opined.

Democrats virtue-signal their care and concern for the American people (and non-American illegal aliens) as they promote the ever-burgeoning expansion of subsidies and transfer payments, because a dependent populace is a loyal (voting) populace. Nothing more. Nothing less.

They’ve systemically advanced Alexander Tytler’s missive in his Cycle of Democracy:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship (or communism).

We thus face a binary choice. Democrats want to expand government, up to including seizing the means of production. Republicans must make the case for reducing government subsidies (and removing illegal aliens) and permitting the market to allow for competition to lower the cost of goods and services.

Democrats and media will clamor that Republicans are dispassionate about “the people.” What’s dispassionate is government-produced unaffordability (documented above), leading to the eventual collapse of our economy and our freedoms.

Communism is the end goal of Progressivism, as Cloward-Piven documented in the 1960s. New York has fallen and will eventually implode. The draw to “free stuff” is real.

Republicans must educate the American people that nothing is free when all are in chains.

Image: pasja1000 via Pixabay, Pixabay License.

Related Topics: Economics