Then, you see, in Axis of Unethical Conduct Land, the disastroud, doomed to fail shutdown was ethical because “it worked.” The Harry Reid Principle (“Romney lost, didn’t he?”).
“Why did you decide to vote with Republicans to open the government?” Joe Scarborough (on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”) asked “Independent” Senator Angus King (of Maine), who is a Democrat without the guts to admit it.
“Well, Joe, you have to go back to what the strategy was at the beginning of the shutdown,” King answered. “There were two goals, both of which I support. One was standing up to Donald Trump. The other was getting some resolution on the ACA premium tax credit issue. The problem was, the shutdown wasn’t accomplishing either goal. And there was practically, well, it was zero likelihood that it was going to.”
And there you have it! The Democrats were willing to harm the economy, government employees, the poor, federal workers and more to “stand up” to Trump, meaning that the shutdown had as much validity as the “No Kings” rallies and the Trump Deranged who gathered for a primal scream at the sky. The ACA premium tax credit issue had already been resolved, but the Democrats, who ironically enough, no longer support democracy, didn’t like the way it was resolved by an elected majority.
King caucuses with the Democrats; he knows what they talked about. Like any good totalitarians, which is what they have become, the entire party with a few outliers like Senator Fetterman, is counting on a captive, Pravda-style news media to mislead the public so they blame President Trump and Republicans for the damage they did unilaterally.
I wonder if they’ll get away with it…
Ethics Alarms 
Jack, the shutdown is old news. The Dems and the media have already moved on to the Epstein files to get Trump impeached, for, evidently, as a private citizen not, I’m not sure what, having Epstein investigated, arrested, prosecuted and jailed for being a really sleazy guy with an inexplicable amount of money? Are there any letters left in the alphabet for this plan?
I am personally furious at them all. My motto. “Vote the bums out” we don’t need to “fight” or “leverage” or to “get Trump” we need people who don’t just vote for whatever their party pukes up as a new proposal just because it’s them. We need more purple states who want compromise so their politicians can compromise. Unfortunately I don’t see any of that happening. So alternatively I say we ditch both parties completely because they are now useless and skip all partisan politics. I’m not sure how to fire the parties when no one believes it can be done but I hope the silent majority starts voting for the non conforming at least. Maybe they can influence the primaries where they tend to lose.
I share your disgust with both political parties. Although there are some exceptions among the members, the parties as parties are both IMO morally bankrupt and corrupt. I also believe they are both self-destructing, in different ways. May we live to see the end of both of them in their current versions.
Will new, reconstructed versions of each arise from the ashes that have the potential to serve the needs of the country in a constructive fashion? (as opposed to idiotic goals such as “own the libs” and “get Trump”) Maybe. Or maybe the brands will have become so toxic that the path forward will be new parties developing and coming to the fore, as the Republican party once arose in another time of turmoil.
Ah, the old, “they’re both terrible” ploy. Which really means, “the Democrats would be fine if there weren’t any Republicans around.” Baloney.
Why thank you Old Bill, for offering this thoughtful demonstration of my point!
Perhaps someday you will be inspired to try taking off your partisan glasses–just for a moment, maybe because you are momentarily curious about what the world looks like without them.
Or not! Sticking with what has become comfortable and familiar also always a choice.
You are perfect either way.
Fuck you, Holly.
Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill….
Holly practices what Ann Althouse terms “civility bullshit.” My less heated response to her is very simple and as follows: America is two-party system. You can choose one from Column A or one from Column B. No substitutions. It’s only Dems who say both parties are terrible and then vote for and promote the Democrat. Sparty did this fairly regularly. It’s simply a disingenuous ploy. To say that saying both parties are terrible as if that elevates you above the fray and makes you morally and ethically and intellectually superior is, again, simply lazy civility bullshit and extremely annoying.
That being said, yes, I am partisan. Given the Democratic Party seems intent upon turning the county into West Somalia, the Republican Party is the only bulwark on offer.
‘Perhaps someday you will be inspired to try taking off your partisan glasses–just for a moment, maybe because you are momentarily curious about what the world looks like without them.
Or not! Sticking with what has become comfortable and familiar also always a choice.
You are perfect either way.”
That’s simply way out of line, rude and condescending, and deserves a well-earned and blunt response. I’d have said “Bite me,” but that’s your term.
What is that comment other than ad hominem condescension?
Actually it’s Crow’s term from Mystery Science Theater 3000. Use it with pride and gusto!
Does it mean “Bite my dick?” I looked it up once, but it did not seem to have a very specific meaning other than an expression of contempt.
I think its the latter. A woman who worked for me, a Southern conservative, used to say “Hop up my ass!” I really liked that one…
The expression “bite me” is the shorter version of “bite me in the ass.”
So, if either of you gentlemen prefer to exhort me in the future to bite your dick I guess you’ll need to specify?
“It’s a way of showing someone that you don’t care what they think about you or what they have to say.”
An important sentiment to express on a blog purporting to invite an exchange of views…. no wait, not THOSE views!
Again, deflection and straw men. Do better. Substance would be refreshing…
No, I am disappointed, disgusted and frustrated with them all with a few exceptions. Vote the bums out! Regardless of party. Ditch the parties. I think they’re two sides of the same corrupt coin and it doesn’t matter who is elected if they’re republicans, democrats, doesn’t matter. None even talk about independence, individuals, reducing spending or generally working together to address major issues.
But defaulting to “a pox on both their houses” is a deflection and a rationalization when the issue is a particular party’s dastardly and indefensible act, like the shutdown. It’s a way to avoid contemning your own team when the ethical act is to do so. Surely you see that.
No, I don’t see that. All I see is two parties that have forgotten their purpose, their roots and their responsibilities to the people in deference to lockstep voting with their own parties. I see words like “fight” “leverage” and “get them” instead of their true purpose it’s not a deflection when I think we’d be better off without them and their behavior. I see no redemption for them and so therefore they need to be banished to the history books. BOTH OF THEM
So the ethical and practical response is to call out each abuse when appropriate, and not use the other party’s abuses as excuses to let them go criticized.
And here Jack demonstrates yet another casualty of partisan blinders, which there can only be two teams, and one is duty bound to chose one, no matter how corrupt.
The simplest result of said blinders (regularly on display in the body politic) is the perception that if someone criticizes the unethical behavior of a team, it’s highly likely they actually belong to the “other team” (there being only two teams imaginable in a highly polarized conception of the political world) unless they have strong “team” credentials and couch their criticism in the language of reform and improvement.
A somewhat more nuanced result (as demonstrated in Jack and Old Bill’s comments) is that if someone fails to declare allegiance to either of two corrupt teams and finds them both highly distasteful, the person must be (1) secretly a member of the hated “other” team–possibly a paid agitator?? or (2) a cowardly person who lacks the courage to suck it up and join one of the only two teams that matter, probably because of falling prey to the propaganda of the “other” team or possible because of deep character flaws, perhaps both (?).
What seems to be truly inconceivable when wearing said blinders (despite “nonaffiliated” being the largest plurality of voters in the country, many of whom (see Obama-Trump voters, or Trump-Biden voters) vote variously for whatever candidate they think MAYBE MAYBE might be somewhat better than the other candidate on offer) is that many Americans truly “belong” to neither of these teams.
Some throw their lot in with the Libertarians, or the Democratic Socialists, or one of the other alternative parties on offer, or sign on to the periodic attempts to create a viable third party that could actually gain the power to do something constructive.
Others are attracted to none of the available teams, and if we don’t decide to check out of politics altogether and just focus on the business of life, we may continue to participate while holding out hope that either (1) one or both of the two major corrupt teams will fall far and hard enough that they will institute drastic reforms and become a team we could imagine joining and/or (2) a new team will arise (or develop from one of the currently small teams overlooked by the “Big Two”) that we might feel comfortable supporting, one that isn’t completely consumed with the quest for obtaining and maintaining power over an “enemy” team, whatever the cost for the actual citizens they are supposedly elected to serve.
Well said Holly!
Completely fallacious. If there are only two sides, one is obligated to choose one over the other. That doesn’t imply blind loyalty or belonging to a “team.” Although I have on occasion refused to do that in some elections, it was only in circumstances 1) my vote was in a district where it wouldn’t matter, and 2) where a symbolic protest “none of the above” made me feel principled, even though I knew it was futile and self-serving.
EA regularly calls out misconduct on both parties where appropriate. When Mitch McConnell unethically pocketed Merrick Garland’s SCOTUS nomination, I, while noting the Democratic hypocrisy, having started the tradition of rejecting POTUS nominations of qualified judges for pure partisan reasons, did NOT say that Mitch’s tactic was acceptable or forgivable because Democrats had used dastardly tactics against Bork or Thomas. The “pox on both their houses” of your stripe is virtue signalling and cowardly, while refusing to engage in critical analysis on false grounds.
One party cheated to elect a President in 2020. One party used the politicizing of the legal system to try to eliminate the threat to their power. One party lied about the capabilities of a President while allowing unelected hacks to run the government. One party, while claiming the other was a threat to democracy, selected a Presidential candidate based on her race and gender, allowing no democratic process whatsoever. One party is largely guaranteed media support and propaganda, a direct threat to democracy and a hallmark of totalitarianism. One party used partisan impeachments and a fake scandal to sabotage an elected President. One party refused to enforce immigration laws, embraced racial and gender discrimination, has allowed communist and socialists to flourish in their party, censored social media, and has deliberately encouraged violence. In all of these cases, it was the same party.
There is a clear choice to be made, and a responsible, informed citizen makes it rather than sticking his or her nose in the air and pronouncing, “Neither is good enough for me.”
Not that it matters, but I’m a registered independent. I DO blame the democrats for the shutdown. This attitude of “get Trump” specifically is nonsense. I also blame republicans, but not much. Their rigid stance on the ACA act is well known and democrats should’ve known better than to use that particular avenue to “fight back”. HOWEVER in DC their one and only job is to compromise. I don’t see that happening by either party.
One doesn’t negotiate with hostage takers or extortionists.
I do not know why the Republicans should carry any political blame at all here. Both the administration and the Republicans in Congress played their hand well, and walked away with the victory without any meaningful concession to the Democrats. The Democrats did not even have a PR win, as the party seems to be in crisis now.
Let me reiterate:
So the Democrats went into the shutdown with zero political leverage, and proposals that were quite frankly non-negotiable given were the GOP stands on things.
There is no way that the GOP was going to vote for a new extension of ACA subsidies as the GOP has always been strongly against the ACA. Having illegal immigrants benefit from ACA subsidies is an additional poison pill.
A vote for extension of these subsidies would be regarded by the Republican base as a betrayal, and would be political malpractice given the midterm elections in 2026.
CVB: on the one hand, your analysis (and Demeter’s) seems absolutely correct re the ACA demands. GOP concessions on the ACA were never going to happen in this context, I agree.
However, I also think the big “PR” error on the GOP side (sad that this has become such an important aspect of all Congressional inactions) was Johnson sending his branch of Congress off on an extended vacation when they could have, for example, been working on Appropriations. You know, doing their actual job. If Congress actually had completed their primary job of appropriation bills on time, this would have removed the possibility of a government shutdown.
So in that sense, all of Congress is to blame for not doing their job. Jan 30 is not that far away. And we have Thanksgiving and Christmas recesses between now and then. Anyone think that Congress will pass all of their long overdue appropriations bills by then? Yeah, me neither.
When no governing takes place by those elected to govern because both sides are taking virtue-signalling “One doesn’t negotiate with hostage takers or extortionists” or “One must take a stand against Trump, no matter the collateral damage” stances, the already frustrated electorate is liable to be frustrated with both sides.
As I am, whatever the balance of blame for one transgression or another (and there are plenty to choose from). The system is profoundly broken. And no one in Congress seems to be working toward a realistic path toward for fixing it. Instead they are just shouting about who broke what… kind of like many of the citizenry….
Yeah, the Dems had no realistic plan to accomplish anything of actual value for citizens. Sad!
My state (Oregon) doesn’t have open primaries, so the only way to vote in a major party primary is to register for one before the primaries. I’m currently registered as a Republican because I was hoping to vote for Nikki Haley, but unfortunately she dropped out of the race before we got to the primaries. Just one of many hopes dashed…
We also had an independent candidate for governor in 2024, and I thought she actually had a chance, both because Phil Knight was backing her instead of the GOP candidate and because Tina K was NOT well liked by the Dem establishment, while the independent (a former Dem in state government), WAS well liked by her former Dem colleagues, and was respected by her former GOP colleagues and by independents. Alas, we ended up with the tribal choice and got another blue trifecta.
That you would even consider voting for a proven weasel like Haley is indictment of your selectivity. Read her EA dossier. As far as I can see, she can’t even spell “integrity.”
This was my favorite, I think: asked what caused the Civil War, it never occurred to her to mention that slavery thingy.
The choices were (until she dropped out) Trump and Haley. If Haley = weasel, then yes I did indeed prefer a weasel to the all-too-human Trump. My experience with Trump 2.0 has done nothing to make me reconsider that preference.
“Selectivity” is precisely what primaries (all elections, actually!) require… that you “select” someone. I presume you also selected someone, demonstrating your own “indictable” — what does that even mean in this context?–“selectivity”?
…Or maybe that was one of the cases in which you chose instead to feel “principled, futile and self-serving.”
I don’t understand the reasoning. Trump, if anything, is consistent with his own values. He also had a surprisingly successful first term, especially given what the “resistance” did to him. At best it was a tie in character flaws with Haley, and Trump had the plus of a full term of POTUS experience. (Sounds like emotional NeverTrump bias to me!)
Haha, yet another perfect reply!
“I don’t understand your reasoning … but there MUST be something wrong with it because you expressed a different preference than my own …. preferring Trump to a weasel…which must mean … that there’s no reasoning at all!”
As I reflect more deeply on my newly discovered irrationality, I realize there MUST be mysterious emotional reasons I would prefer the weasel, even though the weasel has easily discoverable flaws of the sort common to weasels!
Childhood trauma, perhaps? (Hmm… none that I can recall…)
Perhaps the weasel is my spirit animal?
Sarcasm, evasion and deflection! Beneath you.
There’s a simple solution to this, but it’ll never happen.
We need a Constitutional Amendment that says:
“Each year, the Congress shall pass a budget which must be signed by the President by {some appropriate date}. In the case where no budget has been passed by the specified date, then the previous year’s budget shall remain in effect with no modifications; and all members of the House and Senate shall be ineligible for re-election to the Congress.”
The only way to keep Congress in line is to threaten the one thing they fear the most.
–Dwayne
P.S. I think there are actually quite a few more things that should trigger the “ineligible for re-election” clause.
Thinking about this a little more, it probably should not require the President’s signature, since that would effectively empower the President to clean out the Congress every two years.
With that in mind we’d need to account for what to do when the Congress passes something but the President vetoes it. I suppose keeping the previous-year budget in effect until a new budget is passed would work well enough.
–Dwayne
Yes I like this!
I thought briefly of adding the proviso that “until a new budget is passed, no elected member of Congress is paid” but upon reflection that would only harm those members who are not (yet!) sufficiently wealthy that it wouldn’t make any difference to them. There are already way too many forces that operate to preferentially select wealthy people as representatives or to render them wealthy after they are elected via insider trading or as a reward for supporting X Y or Z corporate interests.
I endorse this sentiment…and maybe this exact implementation. I’m trying to decide if we could get the necessary states behind it. I think “yes.”
Honestly, if there were ever a time for budget reform to pass, that time is NOW.
–Dwayne
Provided that any constitutional amendment can be passed in the current political climate I am going to add to the pipedreams by requesting a constitutional amendment stipulating that the budget has to be balanced, with provisions to pay off the current national debt.
Oh I would totally support a Balanced Budget Amendment too, but I recognize that it’s a separate issue.
This continuous trend towards borrowing more and more and more without any intent to ever pay it down is an existential threat to the United States of America, and I do not use that term lightly.
–Dwayne
Forgive me if this repeats comments made by others, I have very limited time to read and post but I wanted to get this posted.
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired!
The Democratic Party is full of liars.
Everything about this shut down falls straight in the laps of the Democratic Party. The Democrats rammed the “Affordable” Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, down the throats of We The People telling stupid people that we had to pass the bill to see what’s in it. We The People were told that health care insurance premiums would go down, we could keep our current health care policies, and we could keep our doctors; NONE of that was factually correct! Insurance premiums went UP, policies changed dramatically and many people were forced to change their doctors because updated insurance policies and insurance company changes through the ACA wouldn’t pay for the doctors they had previously. The Democrats knowingly LIED to We The People! We the people were told multiple times by Republicans that the ACA would increase premiums, policies would change, and many would be forced to change their doctors. The Republicans were tarred by Democrats as spreading false fear mongering propaganda predictions. Obama’s ACA, aka Obamacare, was sold to ignorant sheep by wolves in sheep’s clothing, then it was passed, and now We The People were stuck with the consequences.
Then came the pandemic.
The Democrats knew exactly what was coming with health insurance premiums because it was already happening. So the Democrats convinced We The People and Congress that, due to the pandemic emergency, the government needed to provide “temporary subsidies” to temporarily reduce health insurance premiums. Side Note: It turns out that the pandemic was also an effective test to see how We The People would react to massive government intrusion into our lives and direct challenges to our freedoms and liberty.
Some years later, those “temporary subsidies” were about to run out and the Democrats didn’t want to get blamed for the rapidly approaching large increase in health care cost, as was predicted by the Republicans. The Democrats 100% own the rapid increase in health care costs. So what did the Democrats do, they devised a political plan to shut down the government, extort We The People, inflict as much pain as they could on We The People, and openly smear Republicans as being at fault for the “health care crisis” that Democrats actually created. Democrats were trying to extort We The People to try and force a change to what they once called “temporary subsidies” and make them permanent. Democrats and been pushing these kind of temporary-to-permanent socialists handout shifts of policies over and over again; they seem to think that once We The People get use to getting something “free” from the government on a temporary basis that We The People will scream bloody murder when that temporary thing expires, so the plan is to blame Republicans for “taking it away from the people” that which was implemented by Democrats and was presented as being temporary .
The Democratic Party and the liars that occupy its’ ranks 100% own the rapid increase in health care costs, period, end of argument.
THESE SOCIALIST DEMOCRATS CAN BITE ME!!!
Wanna put a permanently stop government shutdowns, here’ show to do it.
Pass a law that specifically states that for every day that the government is shutdown, all members of Congress, and their entire staff, will permanently loose one entire month of pay.
That’s how you tell Congress, fuck with us and see what happens.
“Then, you see, in Axis of Unethical Conduct Land, the disastrous, doomed to fail shutdown was ethical because “it worked.” The Harry Reid Principle (“Romney lost, didn’t he?”).”
I am unable to wrap my head around this sentence, as it implies that something that is disastrous and doomed can somehow work. My impression is that the shutdown failed for the Democrats, and that the shutdown was disastrous and doomed from the onset as President Trump held all the cards in the shutdown battle; and starting a disastrous and doomed effort for purely partisan reasons while in the meantime harming the USA is unethical. Perhaps our host Jack can clarify this?
Let’s assume that the shutdown had worked, and the Democrats had walked away with a political victory, by securing an extension of the ACA subsidies and NPR funding, then we can make the argument that the Democrats were ethical provided that their political goals were ethical; it is simply how the political game is played.
There are a number of theories why the Democrats went to the mat during the shutdown, with the first bullet point being the most important:
https://townhall.com/columnists/byronyork/2025/11/11/columnistsbyronyork20251111why-did-democrats-fight-so-long-before-caving-n2666292
There is no way Schumer and Jeffries can spin this as a victory; we will have to see if both politically survive.
The Republicans played a tight game here, and won the shutdown battle as a result.
“I am unable to wrap my head around this sentence, as it implies that something that is disastrous and doomed can somehow work.”
I may not be answering the question you’re actually asking, and if that’s the case I apologize in advance.
Yes, that sentence on its own doesn’t make sense until you read it as a continuation of the article’s title.
So, to paraphrase/summarize, it’s: If the news media succeeds in blaming Trump and the Republicans for the shutdown, then in AUC-land the disastrous, doomed-to-fail shutdown tactic will be deemed “ethical” (according to their ethics-free world-view) because–according to the Harry Reid Principle–“it worked, didn’t it?”
Why insist on a substantive policy change when instead you can just make things objectively worse and have your adversaries take the blame?
–Dwayne
“Why insist on a substantive policy change when instead you can just make things objectively worse and have your adversaries take the blame?” Exactly they (democrats and republicans) have forgotten their reason for being in DC. The parties are toxic and need to go.