Reflections in the early dark
It gets dark here so early these days that, combined with some of the news, I sometimes succumb to feeling gloomy. Some days it just seems like there are so many lies circulating in the news – so many lies that so many people believe – that I feel like I’m playing whack-a-mole, and my arms are getting tired.
I was just out taking a little walk, and not only was it dark but it was cold and nippy. I actually liked the cold, because – except for snow and ice, which is a big “except” where I live – I find cold exhilarating, up to a point.
So today I don’t want to give a whole lot of time to news like the fact that the left has decided to take up the “Trump and Epstein” cry again, although the “news” is not really news nor is it incriminating. The spin is, but spin is enough for some people.
And although I’m glad the shutdown is almost certainly about to end, the whole thing was a tiresome charade orchestrated by the left because they thought, with the help of the MSM, they could frame it as “mean old Republicans doing their mean old things.” For some people, that seems to have borne fruit, as last week’s election probably demonstrated.
Jew-hatred is on the rise, too. This should be no surprise – the history of the world demonstrates the cyclical nature of one of the world’s oldest hatreds and calumnies. But it’s nevertheless depressing – and the rise is among young people especially, which bodes ill for the future.
And one of my best friends is waiting for the results of a biopsy for something potentially very bad.
I tend to get happier after the sunsets start to get later.
Last night I was up late, sending the PDF of the Vanderleun poetry book to the printer. It’s a new printer, chosen because they also do the mailings (with the essay book, the mailings were a problem). But this printer had a form for me to fill out electronically, and it had inadequate instructions; therefore it took me about two tooth-grinding hours to figure out how to complete it and sign it. I’m amazed I figured it out at all.
I’d been hoping to get the book out by November 1, because of Christmas season coming. But I estimate it will be another week or two before that happens. Finishing both books, essays and poetry, is a bittersweet moment for me; mostly sweet but also partly sad, as I think you’ll understand.
Whatever happened to Tucker Carlson?: Part I
That’s a question many people have been asking. This post is my answer – or Part I of my answer, because the story is long and there’s a Part II.
However, at the outset I want to say that, although a lot of people give the answer “It’s the money, stupid,” I don’t think that’s correct. Or, rather, although that may be part of the reason Carlson says and does what he presently says and does, it is not the main reason, IMHO. Tucker not only has quite a bit of other money, but I think he did not sell himself (to Qatar, for example) and do some sort of reversal for pecuniary reasons because it isn’t all that hard to trace the evolution of his thoughts in a rather straight and consistent line over the last twenty years or more and arrive at where he is today.
Commenter “chazzand” wonders:
The fall of Tucker Carlson has been so disheartening and surprising. And in such a short time. … It’s like someone who was a great friend who then went off the deep end. You can’t bring yourself to rip into him but you let it be known that a wide chasm has formed and puzzling things have to be answered before (if ever) it goes back to normal. I wonder what caused it?
Actually, I don’t think Carlson’s descent was especially sudden, although it may appear that way. I was never a big Tucker fan nor was I a big TV news watcher, network or cable, but I used to watch TV news more than I do now – which is just about never. So, over the years, I’ve watched Tucker Carlson many times in all. For years I considered him okay on many domestic issues, although he always had a smirky snarky quality that seemed juvenile to me, accentuated by the fact that he has consistently looked young for his age (he’s 56 at present).
However, I never thought Carlson was particularly good on foreign affairs; he started reminding me of Pat Buchanan a long time ago on those issues. But I didn’t think too much of it. I considered him a paleocon and an isolationist, but really didn’t think about him all that often for a long long time.
Carlson was still on Fox News in early 2022 when Ukraine was invaded by Russia, and from the start his stance was isolationist. That would not have surprised me; it was in keeping with the general approach he’d had to these things for many years. But that’s not all he was. He was a noticeable Putin apologist and perhaps even admirer, and seemed to hate Zelensky with an intense venom right from the start, which seemed strange considering that Russia had done the invading. At the time, I was only tuning in to Carlson every now and then, but I saw several examples of Carlson’s hatred of Zelensky; I no longer remember the exact quotes, and I didn’t witness this particular episode, but it’s a good example of the genre:
“Now you see [Zelensky] on television, and it’s true you might form a different impression. Sweaty and rat-like, a comedian turned oligarch, a persecutor of Christians, a friend of BlackRock.”
There’s a big clue there. But to explain it, I’ll need to go back in time.
I think I first saw Carlson on CNN’s Crossfire, which he co-hosted from 2001 to 2005. Those were the bowtie years for Tucker, if I’m not mistaken. He seemed a fairly typical conservative at first, and one of the things I recall fairly vividly was that he supported the invasion of Iraq during the Bush administration, but then changed his mind. He felt he’d been duped into supporting it, and he was both angry and embarrassed about that. Not a good combination.
Please take a look at this from 2004, when he said the following [emphasis mine]:
I think it’s [that is, the Iraq War is] a total nightmare and disaster, and I’m ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it,” he said. “It’s something I’ll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who’s smarter than I am, and I shouldn’t have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I’m enraged by it, actually.”
Obviously that was a huge regret of his, and a source of anger towards those he believes talked him into it. It’s become customary to use the word “neocon” to refer to the people who urged Bush to undertake that war, and although many of them were not the least bit Jewish (nor were they “newly conservative,” one of the original meanings of the term), the phrase “neocon” rather quickly became a kind of code word for “Jew” and even “warmongering Jew.” I believe that in Carlson’s mind, the term “neocon” came to stand for all the people he was angry at because he believed (and continues to believe) that they had led him astray into what he considers his major error of judgment on Iraq, and he thought many of them were Jews and were working on behalf of Israel’s interests.
I’m not going to re-argue the reasons for the Iraq War here; I’ve got plenty of posts on the subject already and the subject is well-aired. But the reason I am bringing it up now is that it seems clear to me that for Tucker, it was an intensely painful turning point. I date his reaction to that war as the start of his more extreme stance of isolationism, and his distrust of anyone with even a hint of advocacy of American entry into wars or even financial or political support of wars. These people were automatically suspect, and he also identified a great many of them with Jews, or with non-Jews sympathetic to Jewish and especially Israeli interests.
Recently Carlson had Jeffrey Sachs on his program and showcased Sachs’ point of view, which is that Israel – and Netanyahu – has pushed the US into many wars, including the Iraq War. Sachs – an economics professor at, yes, Columbia – is a Jew himself but primarily a leftist, and as such he falls into the category of those who detest Netanyahu with a passion, thinks Israel is committing genocide, is a China admirer, and is one of Soros’ allies. However, while it is true that Netanyahu did indeed initially support the Iraq War, so did much of the Western world (including Carlson), and Netanyahu was speaking as a private citizen at the time he spoke in the US Congress on the topic. However, people in the Bush administration who were involved in talks with Israeli government officials in the buildup to the war (Sharon was prime minister at the time) claim that the Israelis warned against attacking Iraq. You certainly won’t hear that from Carlson, who focuses on Netanyahu’s statements prior to the war.
I don’t think it’s possible to overemphasize how important the Iraq war was in forming Carlson’s point of view toward “neocons,” Israel, Netanyahu, and even American Jews whom he believes have “dual loyalties.” But when he was still hosting his show at Fox News, for a while he kept those things somewhat under wraps for the most part. To the best of my recollection, he focused more on domestic issues, and Israel didn’t come up all that often. That may have been mostly because his bosses at Fox kept him in line in that regard – or he himself felt he had to keep in line – and not get too rabidly anti-Israel. Plus, things were relatively quiet in that region compared to now, post 10/7.
In a quick search, the only relevant article I found about Carlson’s isolationist views in those Fox News days but prior to the Ukraine War in 2022 was this one from 2018, when Tucker interviewed Colonel Macgregor (a man who later became a pro-Russian “expert” on the invasion of Ukraine; see this). In 2018, during Trump’s first term, Carlson’s interview with Macgregor was about the idea (incorrect) that the US was about to go to war against Iran. Much later that became a big theme of Tucker’s, who said (incorrectly) prior to the more recent US strike on Iran’s nuclear facility that it would cause a huge and costly war that would kill many Americans. But he was already singing that tune in 2018, interestingly enough:
On 1 May, Tucker Carlson of Fox News Channel interviewed retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor on Fox News about Iran’s relations with the U.S.
Macgregor endorsed the horribly flawed Iran nuclear deal and essentially implied that the U.S. is but a puppet for Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Disappointingly, Carlson made no effort to challenge Macgregor’s statements and contributed with some straw man arguments of his own that appeared to back up what Macgregor was saying.
The straw men start to appear at the :45 mark of the 5 minute video below when Carlson asks the question of Macgregor, “Is it in our strategic interests to have a conflict with Iran?” …
Carlson then essentially accuses U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley of calling for war with Iran, something that she never said. Carlson goes on with this line of reasoning by claiming that “many Republicans in Congress and a lot of Democrats believe that it is essential that the United States goes to war with Iran.”
Carlson is either profoundly confused or he is dishonest. No one in Congress has said or written anything close to approaching that it is essential that we go to war with Iran.
The template was certainly set already for Carlson’s present point of view.
The next turning point for Carlson was Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when some of these same themes came together and intensified in Carlson’s coverage. Unlike previously, he focused on Ukraine and made many of his shows revolve around the topic of that war, and that’s when most viewers probably first noticed his extreme isolationism. But it had already been well-established.
That’s it for Part I, but there’s much more. To be continued in Part II …
[ADDENDUM: Part II can be found here.
Part III can be found here.]
Open thread 11/12/2025
A Tucker Carlson impersonation that’s so funny it’s painful
This is the best Tucker Carlson impersonation ever – although come to think of it, I’ve never seen anyone else impersonate Carlson. Nevertheless, I can’t even imagine anyone doing a better job.
I’ve got a post (maybe a series of two) coming that represents my opinion on what happened to Tucker Carlson to turn him into what he is today. But meanwhile, I’ve watched quite a few of these and been highly amused. If you’re not familiar with Carlson’s mannerisms – especially the sudden eruption of the maniacal laugh – or some of his claims, this video may seem rather odd. But believe me, it’s only a very very slight exaggeration:
The guy’s a genius, IMHO. He also does a great Trump, Netanyahu, Kamala Harris, Nick Fuentes, Piers Morgan, Donald Murray, and Joe Biden.
But the BBC has been lying for decades
There’s been a a big dustup at the BBC about “fake news,” with forced resignations of higher-ups:
The [BBC] resignations over the weekend of two of the BBC’s highest executives, director-general Tim Davie and CEO Deborah Turness, are major victories in Trump’s war on Britain’s censorship complex.
Davie and Turness both resigned after revelations about the BBC’s bias against the President. Britain’s national broadcaster was exposed by the Telegraph for doctoring a speech Trump gave on January 6, 2021. The edited clip, which aired in a TV program a week before the 2024 election, made it sound like he was urging supporters to storm the Capitol, rather than telling them to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” …
When BBC executives were presented with the now-leaked internal report, which voiced concerns about this program and other distortions in reporting, they ignored it.
More here:
Apparently, a ‘cabal’ of ‘populists’ has just succeeded in ousting director-general Tim Davie and CEO of news and current affairs Deborah Turness. That, remarkably, is the high-status take following the shock resignations of Davie and Turness last night, following the outrageous, flagrant examples not simply of BBC bias, but of it pushing flat-out misinformation, detailed in an internal memo leaked to the Telegraph. …
Former Murdoch newspaper man turned BBC podcaster David Yelland was on Today, airing his conspiracy theory that a ‘cabal of toxic plotters with links to the BBC board’ had ‘designed and executed a coup’, as he had put it on social media. When pressed, he couldn’t present a scrap of proof for this. But this claim was revisited time and again throughout the show.
And furthermore:
The “mangled” footage was highlighted in a 19-page dossier on BBC bias, which was compiled by a recent member of the corporation’s standards committee and is now circulating in government departments.
Nineteen pages is quite a few pages. Although the MSM seems to be spotlighting the Trump misquote (which was no accident; it is impossible to do something like that and not realize its impact, if you have some functioning brain cells), a lot of those pages dealt with the reporting on Israel and the Palestinians. Anyone who has followed not just the BBC but the MSM in general, here and abroad, knows that coverage is anti-Israel and that defamatory lies about Israel are nearly constant.
This is not news; it’s been going on for decades. I’ve covered it, many writers have covered it, MEMRI covers it, and Richard Landes has devoted at least twenty years to talking and writing about it and trying to raise awareness of it.
Here’s a recent article in Spiked on the subject of the BBC and Hamas:
Funny how it was the Trump thing that cost BBC director-general Tim Davie and his head of news, Deborah Turness, their jobs. Of course, doctoring footage of The Donald’s ‘January 6’ speech, to make it appear as if he had explicitly incited the Capitol riot, was remarkably egregious and brazen, a prime example of the BBC deciding not to bother with the mask for once. But what about its relentless bias – also exposed by that recent internal memo leaked to the Telegraph – against Jews and Israel? …
In its relentless bias against Israel, the BBC has been effectively lending its corporate heft to that same message. With every misleading piece of reporting sent out into the world, public opinion is hardened against the Jews. As has been the case for thousands of years, anti-Semitism is based on lies. The modern loathing of Israel is no exception.
To appreciate the scale of the BBC’s Israel problem, you have to get into the details. The memo is rather extensive, so here are its main points:
BBC Arabic had very little reporting on Israeli suffering at the hands of Hamas or criticism of the terror group.
BBC Arabic devoted huge swathes of articles to statements from Hamas and Hezbollah, denying factually accurate stories.
BBC Arabic described Hamas’s terror attacks as ‘military operations’ and barely covered the deaths of Israeli hostages.
BBC Arabic published fake news, such as Iranian and Syrian claims that Israel had staged an attack on children in the Golan as a pretext for attacking Hezbollah.
BBC Arabic gave a platform to journalists who had openly glorified terrorism hundreds of times, but inaccurately downplayed them as ‘eyewitnesses’ in a public statement.
The BBC as a whole gave ‘unjustifiable weight’ to Hamas casualty figures.
BBC journalists reported extensively on the fact that Palestinians had been digging graves near Al Nasser and Al Shifa hospitals. Later, the same journalists strongly implied that Israel had dug the graves to bury mass casualties in subsequent reports.
BBC Newsnight repeated the false claim that ‘14,000 babies’ would die within ‘48 hours’ even though it had already been exposed as false. In the same programme, it also aired pictures of an emaciated child as an example of starvation, even though they had already been exposed as showing a congenital oesophageal condition.
Various BBC platforms spread fake news about starvation in Gaza and were sometimes forced to make corrections.
BBC News did not inform viewers that, under international law, hospitals were allowed to be targeted when they were being used as military bases.
The BBC lavished extensive coverage upon a letter signed by 600 lawyers claiming that Britain was breaking international law in selling arms to Israel, but largely ignored a letter signed by 1,000 lawyers arguing the opposite.
Hamas tunnels were sanitised as being used to ‘move goods and people’, rather than for jihadi operations.
Numerous BBC channels repeatedly suggested that the International Court of Justice had ruled there was a ‘plausible genocide’ in Gaza, despite the fact that the ICJ president herself had debunked this claim on one of the BBC’s own programmes.
There is much, much more.
And the “much much more” encompasses many of our own major news outlets, plus much of Western Europe, the UN, the Arab countries, social media (especially TikTok), and NGOs. It’s relentless and much of it is vicious. I first noticed it before I even began to blog, which was in 2004. In fact, widespread anti-Semitism of an overt and brutal kind was one of the first things I noticed when I initially went online in 1995.
As for the BBC’s use of splicing quotes of Trump’s to make it seem he was conveying something he wasn’t conveying, this is hardly a new MSM tactic. At the BBC, I figure they’ve been watching too much Pallywood, which features a manufactured propaganda-driven “reality.”
And suddenly I see this:
When the issue was raised with managers, they “refused to accept there had been a breach of standards”. The report’s author then warned Samir Shah, the BBC chairman, of the “very, very dangerous precedent” set by Panorama but received no reply.
Who is Samir Shah?:
Samir Shah, CBE (born 29 January 1952), is an Indian-British television and radio executive, who has been the Chair of the BBC since March 2024. …
Shah was born in 1952 in Aurangabad, India, to Amrit Shah and Uma Bakaya; the family moved to England in 1960. …
In August 2024, Shah received a letter from around 200 individuals employed by the BBC calling for an investigation into alleged institutional antisemitism at the corporation. Shah dismissed these calls for an investigation, praising the BBC for having an “inclusive” environment.[
Apparently, Shah was born a Jain but converted to Islam when he married a Muslim. But you know what? I’m actually not blaming Shah, because the anti-Semitic rot at the BBC long long predated his tenure. It had a very native British provenance at the BBC.
My deeper question is: why did this blow up now? After all, the BBC has been lying in various ways for years. There may be a hint here, though:
Yesterday, BBC chairman Samir Shah sensationally admitted an ‘error of judgement’ in the editing and confirmed he had received a letter from the President’s lawyers threatening to sue for $1 billion (£761 million).
“Error of judgment” ha!. It was indeed abominable judgment, but it was no error.
And Trump – well, ya gotta love him. Actually, you don’t gotta – many hate his guts – but he certainly has put the fear into the BBC, at least momentarily.
[ADDENDUM: Here is another Telegraph article on the subject, this time going into a great deal of detail on what was in the report on the BBC’s extreme bias. It’s the sort of thing we’ve been discussing here about the MSM (mostly our own, but also in other Western countries) for many years. But for those who saw the Telegraph article and weren’t already familiar with such things, it must have been shocking and shameful to see.]
Veterans Day, Armistice Day
[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post.]
Yes, indeed, I am that old—old enough to just barely remember when Veterans Day was called Armistice Day. The change in names occurred in 1954, when I was very small, in order to accommodate World War II and its veterans.
Since then, the original name has largely fallen out of use—although it remains, like a vestigial organ, in the timing of the holiday, November 11th, which commemorates the day the WWI armistice was signed (eleventh hour, eleventh day, eleventh month).
I’m also old enough – and had a teacher ancient enough – to have been forced to memorize that old chestnut “In Flanders Fields” in fifth grade – although without being given much historical context for it, I think at the time I assumed it was about World War II, since as far as I knew that was the only real war.
You can find the story of the poem here [well, you could when the post was first written, but the link is dead now]. It was written by a Canadian doctor who served in the European theater. It’s not necessarily great poetry, but it was great propaganda to encourage America’s entry into what was known at the time as the Great War.
The poem’s first line “In Flanders fields the poppies blow” introduces that famous flower that later became the symbol of Armistice – and later, Veterans—Day. Why the poppy?
Wild poppies flower when other plants in their direct neighbourhood are dead. Their seeds can lie on the ground for years and years, but only when there are no more competing flowers or shrubs in the vicinity (for instance when someone firmly roots up the ground), these seeds will sprout.
There was enough rooted up soil on the battlefield of the Western Front; in fact the whole front consisted of churned up soil. So in May 1915, when McCrae wrote his poem, around him bloodred poppies blossomed like no one had ever seen before.
But in this poem the poppy plays one more role. The poppy is known as a symbol of sleep. The last line We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields might point to this fact. Some kinds of poppies are used to derive opium from, from which morphine is made. Morphine is one of the strongest painkillers and was often used to put a wounded soldier to sleep. Sometimes medical doctors used it in a higher dose to put the incurable wounded out of their misery.
Now a day to honor those who have served in our wars, Veterans Day has an interesting history in its original Armistice Day incarnation. It was actually established as a day dedicated to world peace, back in the early post-WWI year of 1926, when it was still possible to believe that WWI had been the war fought to end all wars.
The original proclamation establishing Armistice Day as a holiday read as follows:
Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and
Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.
After the carnage of World War II, of course, the earlier hope that peaceful relations among nations would not be severed had long been extinguished. By the time I was a young child, a weary nation sought to honor those who had fought in all of its wars in order to secure the peace that followed – even if each peace was only a temporary one.
And isn’t an armistice a strange (although understandable) sort of hybrid, after all; a decision to lay down arms without anything really having been resolved? Think about the recent wars that have ended through armistice: WWI, which segued almost inexorably into WWII; the 1948 war following the partition of Palestine; the Korean War; and the Gulf War. All of these conflicts exploded again into violence – or have continually threatened to – ever since.
So this Veterans/Armistice Day, let’s join in saluting and honoring those who have fought for our country. The hope that some day war will not be necessary is a laudable one – and those who fight wars hold it, too. But that day has clearly not yet arrived – and, realistically but sadly, most likely it never will.
[NOTE: I’ve scheduled this post to be published at 11:11 AM on 11/11.]
Open thread 11/11/2025
Yes and no from SCOTUS
SCOTUS says it will be hearing a case about mail-in ballots. This is potentially extremely important:
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Watson v. the Republican National Committee (RNC), which asks the Court to decide if ballots cast before Election Day by mail should be counted if they arrive after that date.
It’s not everything – I would love for mail-in ballots to be limited to actual absentee votes, and certainly not mailed out automatically to all voters. But this case deals with one of the more flagrant outrages involved with mail-in ballots – the idea that the counting can go on and on and on even with ballots received after the fact. This is a situation that increases the possibility of fraud.
In other SCOTUS news, the Court has declared it will not be hearing a case on gay marriage. It won’t be reviewing Obergefell, at least not any time soon:
The Supreme Court on Monday morning turned down a request from Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky, to reconsider its 2015 decision recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. In a brief, unsigned order, the justices rejected Davis’ petition for review of a ruling by a federal appeals court upholding an award of $100,000 to a gay couple to whom she had refused to issue a marriage license. That petition had also asked the justices to overrule the 2015 decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, arguing that a right to same-sex marriage “had no basis in the Constitution.”
As is generally the case when it denies petitions for review, the court did not provide any explanation for its decision not to hear Davis’ case.
I believe Obergefell was poorly reasoned in the legal sense, and yet I’m glad the Court won’t be reviewing it. Reversing it could possibly wreak havoc in terms of the millions of people who have relied on it to marry, and it would almost certainly have extremely negative political repercussions as well.
Trump pardons Giuliani, Eastman, and the so-called “fake electors” otherwise known as alternate electors
I’m glad Trump did this:
President Donald Trump granted sweeping pardons to 77 allies accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The group included Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, Boris Epshteyn, and Jenna Ellis. …
The pardon document states:
“This proclamation ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 Presidential Election and continues the process of national reconciliation.
“Acting pursuant to the grant of authority in Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States, I. DONALD J. TRUMP, do hereby grant a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to all United States citizens for conduct relating to the advice, creation, organization, execution, submission, support, voting, activities, participation in, or advocacy for or of any slate or proposed slate of Presidential electors, whether or not recognized by any State or State official, in connection with the 2020 Presidential Election, as well for any conduct relating to their efforts to expose voting fraud and vulnerabilities in the 2020 Presidential Election.”
Trump explicitly excluded himself from the pardon. What’s more, none of these people are currently being charged with federal crimes, so the pardons merely serve to ward off such future prosecution.
The Democrats’ contention that the alternate electors were “fake” – instead of merely “alternate” in case the election challenges were successful – was always weak; I wrote about the issues here.
The shutdown is nearly over
I guess the Democrats were waiting for last Tuesday’s election. They thought the shutdown would help them win – especially in Virginia, home of the federal worker, and that they could successfully blame it on the GOP. Now they can end it. The vote was for cloture, which means the shutdown will almost certainly be ended by a simple majority, and fairly soon.
All those predicting that the Republicans would cave were wrong; at least so far. It was eight Democrats who “caved,” none of them up for re-election in the 2026 midterms. So now it goes to the House, where I predict it will pass (hopefully), with a few more Democrats from purple districts “caving”:
… [M]ost Senate Democrats [had] refused for weeks to reopen the government unless a deal included the extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are set to end Dec. 31. The compromise includes a commitment for a Senate vote on the subsidies in the second week of December, but the concession doesn’t guarantee an extension.
John Hinderaker thinks it was the problems with air travel that caused the Democrats to give in:
Based on the speeches by Chuck Schumer (bordering on the insane) and John Thune, it sounds like what tipped the balance was disruption to air travel. Important Democrats are not on food stamps, but they fly. A lot. So when a shutdown of air travel threatened, pressure on Democratic senators became irresistible. That is my reading of the situation, anyway.
I have zero inside info on this, but I don’t think that’s correct – although I do think the air travel shutdowns made the “cave” even more likely. As I wrote above, I think it was always the Democrats’ plan to give in after the elections. I think the whole thing was pre-orchestrated, and the eight senators who “gave in” did so with the blessing of Schumer. If the Democrats had wanted to continue with the shutdown, they could have tried to continue to spin out propaganda that the big bad Republicans were the ones holding out, which never made sense but with the MSM’s help they were successful in convincing at least the Democrats I know that this was the case.
Several New Englanders were among the “cavers”, including the two bland senators from New Hampshire who like to pose as moderates but rarely are if it would mean actually defying the Party:
A critical group of at least eight Senate Democratic centrists has reached a deal with Senate GOP leaders and the White House to reopen the government in exchange for a future vote on extending enhanced Affordable Care subsidies, according to two people familiar with the discussions — even as the rest of their party has openly pilloried the deal.
***
At least eight Senate Democrats have agreed to vote for the deal, which was brokered Sunday night between three former governors — Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Angus King of Maine and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire — along with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the White House.One of those Democrats is Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who represents thousands of federal workers in the state and who said he supports the GOP’s promise for a future vote on the subsidies.
The more radical Democrat politicians seem outraged, and the Bluesky contingent likewise. Many of the former may be angry only because the GOP didn’t make more concessions; most of the latter probably thought the Democrats could and should hold out forever, or until the revolution.