THANKSGIVING 2025

 

ONE OF THE BEST THINGS YOU'LL READ TODAY:

A 16-year-old Latina girl named Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski submitted her application to MIT.

On paper, her achievements should have been undeniable.

At age 14, she'd built a fully functional single-engine airplane in her garage by herself. She taught herself to fly it. She documented the entire construction process on YouTube.

She was one of only 23 women among 300 students selected as a US Physics Team semifinalist.

She was a first-generation Cuban-American from Chicago Public Schools. Not the typical pipeline to elite universities. She knew the rules: be twice as good to get half as far.

She was twice as good. The plane she built proved it.

MIT waitlisted her anyway.

It was crushing. She'd dreamed of MIT since childhood. To be told "maybe, but not yet" felt like having her entire identity questioned.

But two MIT professors—Allen Haggerty and Earll Murman—saw Sabrina's airplane construction video.

"Our mouths were hanging open," Haggerty later said. "Her potential is off the charts."

They fought for her. They showed the admissions office what they were about to miss.

MIT reconsidered. Sabrina got in.

But she never forgot that waitlist.

Years later, she told reporters: "At some level, I'm glad...because if I had a safety school, I don't know if I could have pushed myself off the wait list."

She felt she had something to prove.

And prove it she did in ways that exceeded everyone's wildest expectations.

Sabrina became the first woman to win MIT's prestigious Physics Orloff Scholarship.

She graduated in just three years—while still a teenager—with a perfect 5.00 GPA, the highest possible score at MIT.

She was the first woman to graduate at the top of MIT Physics in two decades.

Her first academic paper was accepted by the Journal of High-Energy Physics within 24 hours of submission—almost unheard of in academic publishing, where peer review typically takes months.

By graduation, NASA had offered her a job. Jeff Bezos personally offered her a position at Blue Origin.

She turned them all down. "I want to understand how the universe works," she explained simply, "not make billionaires richer."

Instead, Sabrina enrolled at Harvard for her PhD in theoretical physics, studying under renowned physicist Andrew Strominger.

Her research focused on some of the most complex questions in science: quantum gravity, black holes, spacetime, and celestial holography—the mind-bending concept that information at the edges of the universe might encode the entire cosmos.

At age 25, her work was cited by Stephen Hawking in one of his final papers before his death.

Stephen Hawking—one of the greatest physicists who ever lived—cited HER research.

But Sabrina's journey wasn't just about personal brilliance.

It was about navigating a field systematically designed to exclude people like her.

The statistics tell the story:

Hispanics earn only 8% of STEM degrees despite being nearly 20% of the US population

Women earn just 28-35% of STEM degrees

The first woman to earn a PhD in physics did so in 1929—less than a century ago

Sabrina knew these barriers intimately. Being one of only 23 women among 300 Physics Team semifinalists showed her exactly how underrepresented women and minorities were.

It changed her.

She began advocating for women and girls in STEM. She worked on documentaries encouraging young women and minorities to pursue science. She became involved with Michelle Obama's Let Girls Learn initiative, earning an invitation to the White House.

She promoted STEM education in Cuba and Russia, receiving recognition from the Annenberg Foundation and the US Embassy in Moscow.

But being a role model came with crushing pressure—the burden placed on women of color in science who are scrutinized under multiple prejudicial lenses.

She was expected to be perfect. To represent everyone who looked like her. To never stumble. To be both groundbreaking physicist AND spokesperson.

She handled it by focusing intensely on her work. She didn't own a smartphone. She avoided social media. She updated only her website, PhysicsGirl, with academic accomplishments. When journalists called her "the next Einstein," she pushed back.

On her website's "Media Fact-Check Sheet," she wrote: "I am just a grad student. I have so much to learn. I do not deserve the attention."

That humility, combined with extraordinary talent, made her story even more powerful.

After earning her PhD from Harvard—with another perfect GPA—Sabrina completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton's Center for Theoretical Science.

She joined the faculty at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada, one of the world's leading centers for theoretical physics research.

She founded and now leads the Celestial Holography Initiative, directing researchers tackling one of physics' biggest unsolved puzzles: uniting our understanding of spacetime with quantum theory.

She works in the same intellectual tradition as Einstein, Hawking, and Strominger—exploring questions most people can't even comprehend, let alone answer.

And she does it while carrying the weight of representation.

Every paper she publishes, every talk she gives, every student she mentors opens the door wider for the next Latina girl, the next first-generation immigrant, the next kid from public schools who dreams of understanding the universe.

Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski's story isn't just about genius—though she is undeniably, extraordinarily brilliant.

It's about what happens when institutions almost overlook someone because they don't fit the expected mold.

It's about proving yourself when you shouldn't have to.

It's about succeeding brilliantly in spaces that weren't designed for you.

MIT waitlisted her because they couldn't see past their own assumptions about what a physics genius looks like.

She made them reconsider with undeniable proof.

Then she exceeded every expectation—and then some.

She built a plane before she could legally drive.

She earned perfect GPAs at the world's most demanding universities.

She was cited by Stephen Hawking.

She rejected NASA and billionaires to pursue pure research into the fundamental nature of reality.

And now she's working to explain how the entire universe works—while ensuring the next generation of physicists includes more faces that look like hers.

Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski proved something profound:

Brilliance doesn't wait for permission.

Talent can't be waitlisted forever.

And sometimes the people institutions almost reject become the ones who define the field.

She didn't just get into MIT.

She showed them—and the entire world—what they almost missed.

 

TRUMP'S VENDETTA GETS THROWN OUT OF COURT

 

It's not just Trump's incompetency and corruption that played out here, this embarrassing failure belongs to Pam Bondi, Trump's consigliere. She owns this as well.

Judge Tosses Criminal Charges Against James Comey and Letitia James 

A federal judge threw out the criminal charges against James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, on Monday after finding that the prosecutor President Trump handpicked to bring the cases had been illegally appointed. The ruling deals a heavy blow to a pair of high-profile prosecutions sought by President Trump, who has pushed the Justice Department to pursue his political enemies.

Meidas Touch:

🚨 “This is stunning — and dangerous: The Trump administration’s much-hyped 28-point “peace plan” for Ukraine — the one Trump claimed Zelensky had days to accept or the U.S. would pull support — turns out not to be a U.S. plan at all. According to new reporting from PBS NewsHour’s Nick Schifrin, senators were just briefed that the document actually originated from Russia.

Sen. Mike Rounds confirmed that the plan was delivered to Trump envoy Steve Witkoff by someone believed to be representing Russia. Sen. Angus King says the document is “essentially the wish list of the Russians.”

Meanwhile, Trump endorsed it. His spokesperson publicly touted it. Allies condemned it. And Ukraine was told to treat it as an American proposal.

This isn’t a “leak.”

This is a foreign influence crisis reaching directly into U.S. national security decision-making.

How did a Russian-drafted ultimatum to Ukraine end up being pushed by Trump’s team as American policy?

And why is Rubio now denying involvement after Axios reported he helped craft it?”

"I was only following orders," is illegal.

 

The family is out shopping and doing errands, so I have a moment.

The Mother Ship is upset because some Democrats have said that the military is not obligated to follow ILLEGAL orders. Apparently the Mother Ship sailors and captain believe soldiers, etc., SHOULD obey illegal orders.

In a post on his "Truth" Social, Trump suggested that the Democrats who said soldiers are not required to follow ILLEGAL orders should be tried as traitors and hanged.

Here is the law:

Unlawful Orders

This Article is intended to explain unlawful orders in the Military.

A Servicemember can face adverse action for violating a lawful order; doing so is a violation of Article 92 of the UCMJ, and sometimes Article 90 of the UCMJ and Article 91 of the UCMJ.  Often, Servicemembers wonder what are lawful orders and what are unlawful orders.  Article 92 provides the following guidance regarding unlawful orders:

"Lawfulness. A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States, or lawful superior orders or for some other reason is beyond the authority of the official issuing it."

Article 92 also references subparagraph 16.c of the UCMJ, which states the following:

"Inference of lawfulness. An order requiring the performance of a military duty or act may be inferred to be lawful, and it is disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate. This inference does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime. The lawfulness of an order is a question of law to be determined by the military judge. [NOTE, the lawfulness of an order can also be decided by a Commander at an Article 15, a General Officer during the GOMOR process, or by a Separation Board/Board of Inquiry]

Authority of issuing officer [or NCO] . The commissioned officer [or NCO] issuing the order must have authority to give such an order. Authorization may be based on law, regulation, custom of the Service, or applicable order to direct, coordinate, or control the duties, activities, health, welfare, morale, or discipline of the accused.

Relationship to military duty. The order must relate to military duty, which includes all activities reasonably necessary to accomplish a military mission, or safeguard or promote the morale, discipline, and usefulness of members of a command and directly connected with the maintenance of good order in the Service. The order may not, without such a valid military purpose, interfere with private rights or personal affairs. However, the dictates of a person’s conscience, religion, or personal philosophy cannot justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order. Disobedience of an order which has for its sole object the attainment of some private end, or which is given for the sole purpose of increasing the penalty for an offense which it is expected the accused may commit, is not punishable under this article.

Relationship to statutory or constitutional rights. The order must not conflict with the statutory or constitutional rights of the person receiving the order.

LIGHT POSTING FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS

 

My SoCal family is here and my New York family will arrive on Saturday. My oldest grandchild, who lives in Virginia, will arrive on Friday.

We're having an early Thanksgiving.

However, I'll be watching the news for any more of Trump's shenanigans.

The Comey indictment seems to be unraveling.

WHY MUST WE SUFFER UNDER SUCH A STUPIDLY CORRUPT MAN?

 

Either Trump was too lazy to review what his own CIA determined about Khashoggi's murder before meeting again with MBS, or he knew and is deliberately defending the murderer, MBS, because he has business dealings with him.

Either explanation points to Trump's ever-present cupidity in all his dealings with foreign leaders.

"A declassified U.S. intelligence report released in February 2021 indicated that the CIA concluded with high confidence that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) approved the operation targeting journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in October 2018. 

This assessment was based on several factors, including MBS's control over security and intelligence, and the involvement of his advisers and personal protective detail. The report also suggested MBS viewed Khashoggi as a threat and supported violence against dissidents."

"Quiet! Quiet Piggy." --Trump

 

Trump Calls a Bloomberg Reporter 'Piggy' on Epstein Files Query 

 "Trump interrupted a Bloomberg reporter aboard Air Force One, telling her 'Quiet, quiet, piggy' as she questioned him about Jeffrey Epstein's files. 

 Trump denied any ties to Epstein, accused Democrats like Bill Clinton of connections, and called the controversy a hoax, while supporting a House vote to release all remaining documents. 

The exchange occurred ahead of the vote on mandating the Justice Department to disclose Epstein's investigative records, emails, and flight logs."

********************

This is the president MAGA and the folks on the Mother Ship defend and admire.

The Bloomberg reporter was doing her job. Trump is a convicted criminal who spent years partying with his best friend, child sex-trafficker and rapist, Jeffrey Epstein. We know the rest of Trump's swinish behaviors.

Trump called the reporter, "Piggy." One of his favorite epithets for women he fears and hates. It’s the same simmering rage he’s shown toward women his entire life.

The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln · 8h 

Trump, a literal pig, at reporter on AF1: “Quiet, quiet piggy!”

THIS IS NOT GOING AWAY

 

Michael Jochum:

The Pedophile Files:

The Epstein files are not about Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Harvard, Wall Street, the left, the right, or whichever convenient boogeyman the outrage machine wants to throw across the stage today.

They are about the victims, the children, the human beings who were preyed upon, bought, trafficked, silenced, and discarded like contraband.

But every time new documents surface, every time a new name is hinted, every time another window opens on the darkest criminal conspiracy of our time, what does the most powerful man in the country do?

He deflects.

He points fingers.

He throws up smoke.

He shouts “Clinton!” like it’s an exorcism spell.

And he expects us to treat his denial as gospel.

This isn’t a Republican scandal or a Democratic scandal. This is a human scandal, a moral catastrophe that should unite every decent person on earth with one simple, sacred truth:

Child predators get no quarter. Not from the right. Not from the left. Not from anyone.

Yet here we are, in 2025, watching an entire government tiptoe around a dead billionaire pedophile’s Rolodex like they’re afraid of catching fire. Watching the President of the United States pretend he’s never heard of “the girls,” while simultaneously instructing the Justice Department to chase down every Democrat within three degrees of Jeffrey Epstein’s corpse.

Trump says he “knows nothing.”

He always “knows nothing.”

A remarkable claim for the man who supposedly “knows more about everything than anyone.”

He knew nothing about the girls.

He knew nothing about the emails.

He knew nothing about the friend he once described as loving women “on the younger side.”

He knew nothing about the victim he reportedly “spent hours with” in his own home, a victim who is no longer alive to speak for herself.

How convenient. How cowardly. How morally bankrupt.

Meanwhile the MAGA loyalists line up behind him, chanting the usual incantation: “Not our guy. Look over there.”

Except, in a rare moment of honesty, even Marjorie Taylor Greene is calling bullshit.

And when Marjorie Taylor Greene becomes the moral voice in the room, the room is in flames.

She signs a petition with Democrats to release more Epstein files, and what does Trump do?

He attacks her. Calls her a RINO. Calls her lost. Calls her disloyal.

Because in Trump’s moral universe, telling the truth is treason and protecting the vulnerable is weakness.

This is what happens in cults.

This is what happens in fascist movements.

This is what happens when power becomes the only currency and conscience becomes the enemy.

But here’s the thing the deflectors don’t want to hear:

There were many players. Many enablers. Many abusers. This wasn’t one monster, it was a ring. An ecosystem. A system built to protect the powerful from consequences.

And that system is still alive.

It survives because we allow it to.

Because politicians hide files.

Because billionaires protect billionaires.

Because too many Americans have been trained to ask not “What is true?” but “Which side does this help?”

Well, here’s a radical idea:

Children are not partisan.

Rape is not partisan.

Trafficking is not partisan.

Justice is not partisan.

The survivors deserve the truth.

They deserve transparency.

They deserve accountability.

And they deserve a country whose leaders stop playing political ping-pong with their trauma.

I am sick, of the excuses, the deflections, the performative outrage, the crocodile tears, and the endless moral contortions required to protect powerful men from scrutiny.

To the MAGA faithful who scream about crime and justice:

If you cannot demand full transparency about a global child-trafficking operation because it might implicate your idol, then you have abandoned morality for worship.

To the Republicans who want to bury the files:

You do not serve America. You serve fear.

To the Democrats who only care when the accused wears a red tie:

You are complicit, too.

To the President who wants to investigate everyone but himself:

You are the deflector-in-chief of a nation drowning in denial.

And to the survivors, the ones still alive, the ones who didn’t make it, the ones still fighting to be believed, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry this country keeps choosing politics over humanity.

I’m sorry your names have become footnotes in a culture war.

I’m sorry the people responsible for protecting you are more interested in protecting themselves.

And I’m sorry, most of all, that the truth has become a threat.

But guess what?

The truth is coming anyway.

And none of these men, not presidents, not bankers, not billionaires, deserve the power to stop it.

Enough with the deflection.

Enough with the lies.

Enough with the worship.

Release the files.

All of them.

Let the truth speak.

And let justice finally, mercifully, do what politics never will.

YOUR SUNDAY MOMENT OF ZEN

 

SATURDAY NIGHT SOOTHING MUSIC

 

This is what evil and misogny look like: A MALE BLAMING FEMALE CHILD RAPE VICTIMS FOR WHAT WAS DONE TO THEM

 

Shaw Kenawe

We don’t know that.

But the Epstein emails show Epstein himself stating that Trump was alone with one of the girls for hours in Epstein’s mansion. Also, we have evidence that Trump and Epstein celebrated “ their secret”. Don’t you wonder what secret they shared?

Beyond all that, though, what the Epstein scandal shows is that very wealthy very powerful men were engaged with Epstein in raping children. Doesn’t that turn your stomach?

FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew

Trump and Epstein's secret? That under hypergamy, the rich can grab any woman by the p*ssy, and she will love him for it. Cuz that's how she can draft on his wealth and social position.

All those underage girls hanging out with Jeff & Ghislaine? They were all playing the hypergamy game. Only when the sun came up and the "Prince" hadn't put the slipper on their feet, they blamed Ghislaine, when they should have simply looked in the mirror to see whom they should blame.

November 15, 2025 at 9:27 AM

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew

Turn my stomach? There are only 13 US States (& Virgin Islands) where the age of consent is 18. In my state, Maryland, its' 16.

They weren't raping children.. The children all appeared to be consenting... or they would have all reported it immediately to the authorities rather than keep playing the hypergamy game.

November 15, 2025 at 9:35 AM

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew

btw - Why was Trump responsible for spilling the beans on Epstein's hypergamy game? Every woman on the planet was playing it.

November 15, 2025 at 9:40 AM

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew

Trump was merely practicing hypogamy (the opposite game).

New records detail how Epstein levereged connections to the wealthy, powerful to abuse girls Nation Jan 5, 2024 12:06 PM EST

***********************

In a 2016 deposition, Joseph Recarey, a police detective in Palm Beach, Florida, said that approximately 30 women had spoken to him about "performing massage and work at Epstein's home" in the beachfront community.

He said Maxwell was involved in recruiting the girls.

Mr Recarey testified that only two of the girls had any massage experience and the majority of them were under the age of 18.

When asked how Epstein was able to gain access to so many underage girls the detective said: "Each of the victims that went to the home were asked to bring their friends to the home."

Some were paid to recruit, he said, adding: "When they went to perform a massage, it was for [Epstein's] sexual gratification."

                ***********************

According to people like -FJ, those wily underage girls were practicing "hypergamy," in order to trick Epstein and Maxwell into giving them a financially better life. 

Poor Epstein and Maxwell and Trump! All victims of underage girls practicing what all females practice: The age-old deceptive craft of hypergamy! 

-FJ: "Trump and Epstein's secret? That under hypergamy, the rich can grab any woman by the p*ssy, and she will love him for it. Cuz that's how she can draft on his wealth and social position."

T

NOTE:  Most of the victims in the Epstein scandals were NOT "women," they were underage girls.

MORE EVIDENCE OF TRUMP'S DETERIORATING MIND.

 

The Epstein files/emails are a hoax ONLY when they implicate Donnie. 

Trump has directed his personal lawyer and lackey, Bondi, to open an investigation into the hoax -- but only where Democrats are implicated.

See how that works?

Who's surprised?

 

Trump says he will ask DOJ to investigate Democrats, business leaders with ties to Epstein 

Classic "wag the dog" by an obviously frightened little man who has been exposed as a friend of child sexual predators/pedophiles and who gave preferential treatment to them.

Has anyone thought to ask Epstein's bestie, Trump, why Ghislaine Maxwell is getting preferential treatment in a "club fed" facility, when this has never happened in the case of any other person who sex trafficked children and engaged in sexual acts with those children?

*********************

"Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Donald Murphy told CNN “We can confirm, Ghislaine Maxwell is in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) at the Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan in Bryan, Texas.” 

Maxwell’s transfer comes after her lawyer met met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for a private meeting in Tallahassee. 

A statement has been released by the families of Epstein and Maxwell’s survivors slamming the president’s treatment of the situation. It reads: President Trump has sent a clear message:

Pedophiles deserve preferential treatment and their victims do not matter. We, the undersigned, are the family of Virginia Roberts Giuffre and survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received. 

Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency. Yet, without any notification to the Maxwell victims, the government  has moved Maxwell to a minimum security luxury prison in Texas. This is the justice system failing victims right before our eyes. 

The American public should be enraged by the preferential treatment being given to a pedophile and a criminally charged child sex offender. 

The Trump administration should not credit a word Maxwell says, as the government itself sought charges against Maxwell for being a serial liar. This move smacks of a cover up. The victims deserve better. Signed: Annie Farmer Maria Farmer Sky and Amanda Roberts (family of Virginia Roberts Giuffre) Lanette and Danny Wilson (family of Virginia Roberts Giuffre)."

Ghislaine Maxwell's prison emails show she is 'happier' at minimum-security Texas facility 

 "Maxwell, a convicted sex offender connected to Jeffrey Epstein, was moved to a less restrictive federal prison this summer. Congress is investigating allegations of special treatment."

Who's surprised that Donald Trump would have his administration make sure that the lowest of low-life criminals -- child traffickers and sexual assaulters -- would get treatment in a facility that made them so happy.

Because in Trump's world, making pedophiles "happier" is how you ensure that they'll keep their rotten mouths shut.

Epstein email implicating Trump with an underage victim released on Wednesday

The discussion on the ACA is still ongoing. Thank you to Dave Miller and commenters for participating in the exchange of ideas.

I've interrupted it this afternoon because this is being reported everywhere because of the damning information included in the reports.

We do know from ample evidence that Trump and Melania partied with Epstein and Maxwell for decades. It is not a stretch to believe that both of them, but especially Trump, knew what was going on in Epstein's mansions in New York and Palm Beach. Trump and Epstein were, after all, very close friends. 

The emails in the NPR report linked below confirm what everyone suspected:  It appears that Trump was part of the criminal activity that Epstein and Maxwell were involved in with underage girls.

Read the article and decide for yourselves.

New Epstein emails appear to reveal more Trump ties 

November 12, 20258:30 AM ET

"Another email Epstein sent in 2011 to Ghislane Maxwell, his associate who was also convicted on trafficking charges, called Trump the "dog that hasn't barked"* and says Trump spent "hours at my house" with one of the alleged sex trafficking victims. 

 The last email shared is a 2019 message between Epstein and Wolff in which the disgraced financier wrote that 'of course [Trump] knew about the girls as he asked Ghislane to stop." The email does not elaborate any further.' "

*The phrase "a dog that hasn't barked" means that the absence of an expected action or evidence is itself a form of evidence. The concept originates from a Sherlock Holmes story where a dog's silence about an intruder reveals that the intruder was someone the dog knew. 

In modern usage, it can be a tool for critical thinking to identify what isn't obvious, such as finding hidden insights in data or understanding why a certain group or individual has remained silent on an issue.

GUEST POST BY DAVE MILLER

 May the ACA Rest in Peace

 

Obamacare is dead and congratulations are in order for the GOP.

 

Since the day the law, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, or ACA was passed in. 2010, conservatives have been doing everything they could to weaken it, kill it, end it and be done with it.

 

Even though a strong majority of Americans support it, use it to keep their medical costs down and stay healthy.

 

I know this personally.

 

In 2015, one year after full implementation of the ACA, I found myself literally doubled over in extreme pain walking into an emergency room in Las Vegas. As I sat there waiting to be treated, I wondered how much of my expenses what came to be known as Obamacare would cover.

 

At the end of my 11 days stay, one surgery and multiple procedures later, I got the answer, all of it. The coverage I had through the ACA paid all my doctor bills, my hospital bills, my follow up care, everything. And according to my doctors, those 11 days saved my life.

 

Not everything with the ACA is perfect. But one good thing it did was require insurance companies to cover people with preexisting conditions. It was a preexisting condition that kept my wife and I up nights, because that reality made all the regular channels of non-employer based insurance unaffordable to us, and millions of Americans.

 

That requirement, or mandate, along with forcing insurance companies to fund birth control, contraceptives, annual physicals and routine blood tests and screenings has saved lives, led to better health outcomes, dramatically lowered teen pregnancy rates and cut abortions, in some states, by over 15%.

 

But now it is dead, a victim of thousands of little cuts. All that’s left is to wait for the growing sepsis conservatives have sown in health care in America to finish its task.

 

It did not have to be.

 

The ACA, the signature legislation of the first term of President Obama had been a progressive dream for years. With a Democratic supermajority in the Senate, the Democrats could have simply written the legislation and rammed it through Congress. They chose not to do so.

 

Knowing real success would need buy-in from the other side of the aisle and a skeptical American people, the administration fanned out across Washington and the country to seek input and improvements in the projected plan.

 

In addition to over 60 bi-partisan official House discussions in chamber, there were also over 100 official Senate hearings held in Washington. Hundreds of amendments were offered with some becoming part of the new legislation. Members of Congress all across the country held  town halls to get the pulse and opinion of people before the legislation was enacted.

 

In short, the process was public, done with regular order, negotiated between parties with substantial input from stakeholders. Additionally, amendments were offered and considered, all before the law was passed.

 

And then the empire struck back. Almost immediately conservatives began looking for ways to eliminate the ACA. In fact, the GOP plan was to kill it before it took effect and Americans came to like, rely on it and see that worked. All of which has come to be true in the last ten years.

 

Conservatives, however, have now voted more than 70 times to partially or fully repeal the ACA. President Trump has repeatedly lied, telling America his plan is “coming in two weeks”, “a few weeks”, “next week” and a “few days .” House Speaker Johnson has repeatedly lied saying the GOP has “a lot of” health care plans.

 

None of that is true. Instead, the conservatives of the GOP, egged on by their partisan supporters, have been working for 15 years to weaken the ACA to such a point that it no longer works, and then claim its inability to function requires it to be eliminated.

 

And their plan, despite a majority of Americans approving of the ACA, has worked like a charm.

 

Contrast the conservative approach with how progressives worked alongside President Bush to improve Medicare to cover prescriptions for medicines during his term. When that program needed improving, the Dems worked with the President to make sure it happened.

 

We saw no effort from conservatives to work to improve the ACA, with the single exception being Senator John McCain who refused to end the program during the first Trump term.

 

The simple truth is this:

 

Conservatives have for years, dating back to at least Senator Robert Taft’s run for the GOP nomination in the 1940s and '50s have railed against progressive legislation. Taft would feel right at home in today’s GOP as he stridently supported limited government and non-interventionist foreign policy.

 

Taft, while initially supporting Social Security and other programs during the Great Depression, came to believe those programs encouraged dependence on the federal government.

 

Then in the 1960s, conservatives used the same language to oppose Medicare, which President Johnson signed into law in 1965. Today conservatives see these entitlement programs that have helped lift millions of Americans out of poverty, and help them be healthy in retirement, as robbing people of their freedoms.

 

Finally, we come to what may be the real reason the Trump Administration has set its sights on the elimination of the popular ACA. It’s not because it’s imperfect, doesn’t work or doesn’t meet the needs of the American people. It’s not because the administration believes government should not be involved in private industry.

 

Not at all. The real reason the Trump Administration wants the ACA repealed is because it has become known as Obamacare, and our president is a petty, jealous man. How do we know the man who had to be shielded from seeing the name John McCain on a United States Navy aircraft carrier does not like the name Obamacare?

 

Because over the last few days he’s been posting and sharing his belief a new plan should be called “Trumpcare”.

 

All of this brings us to today.

 

Earlier this year, conservatives passed a budget in the House to eliminate millions of dollars of subsidies for the ACA. They knew doing so without a plan to cover low income people would lead to havoc and families losing their healthcare, but they did so anyway.

 

Angry over this, progressives initially refused to go along, and our government was shut down. Ultimately though, we all knew where this was headed. The progressive Dems simply did not have the cards or the votes to win this fight.

 

This week a handful of Dems gave up the fight.

 

It was not worth it they said, to crash the entire air traffic system the Trump Administration was shutting down. It was not worth it they said to continue to try and force the Trump Administration to abide by a SCOTUS ruling and provide millions of Americans the help they needed to put food on their tables. It was not worth it, they said, to continue to expect government workers, except Congress, to go without pay.

 

It was not worth it, but it is what cnservatives were willing to do to America so people could be free, finally they will say, of the ACA and so President Trump does not have to say “Obamacare”.

 

Now that the shutdown is over, we can get back to business. The House must now, unless Speaker Johnson has another exception, officially swear in and seat Representative-elect Grijalva of Arizona. That will force a vote Johnson does not want, to release the Epstein files.

 

Then, in short order I am sure, we can finally see the plan Speaker Johnson said could only be put forward and revealed once the ACA subsidies were ended. The time is now here for the Speaker and conservatives to show their hand.

 

Unless, as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says, that plan does not exist.

 

In which case, millions of Americans are now needlessly screwed, but free.