John Fetterman

They Should Have Left the Government Shut Down.

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Last week the Senate failed to extend subsidies for people buying health care on the Affordable Care Act Exchanges. This week?

Friday’s proposal from House Republicans includes measures that would allow small businesses to join together to buy insurance plans for their employees and put in place new requirements for pharmacy benefit managers in an effort to lower drug costs.

Starting in 2027, federal payments, known as cost-sharing reduction payments, would aim to lower premiums for some low-income Americans. Health plans that provide abortion coverage would be excluded.

A vote on the package is expected next week, House Speaker Mike Johnson said.

“House Republicans are tackling the real drivers of health care costs to provide affordable care, increase access and choice, and restore integrity to our nation’s health care system for all Americans,” Johnson said in a statement.

Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries blasted the proposal Saturday.

“Mike Johnson just released a toxic Republican Healthcare plan that hurts everyday Americans,” Jeffries wrote on X. “It fails to extend the ACA tax credits that expire this month. And is a deeply unserious proposal.”

This is a joke. Sure, let employers buy together, but what does that do for people who are buying their own health insurance? The answer is nothing. For people like me, who buy their coverage at full price, this will mean not only do I get hit with higher 2026 premiums, but when millions drop their coverage in 2026, my premiums will skyrocket again in 2027. Health care costs the least when the most number of people are able to pay for their care, or are insured. House Republicans actively are plotting to harm that. Why? Some sort of stubborn insistence on free markets? I doubt it. They simply don’t want the government to provide anything, so they can cut taxes more for wealthy people. At this point, it’s clear their goal is no income taxes at all.

This did not have to happen. The decision by Chuck Schumer to send Tim Kaine, Dick Durbin, John Fetterman, Jeanne Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, Angus King, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Jackie Rosen over to vote to end the government shutdown without even this small concession from Republicans will essentially do massive damage to the American health care system. If Republicans were going to re-open the government without these subsidies, Democrats should have forced them to end the filibuster to do it. Let them have the blood on their hands. Instead Democrats gave them a way out of their own mess, and we all know it was approved by their leader, because they gave just enough votes to get it done. Senate Democrats basically own this mess as much as Trump’s GOP, which is utterly embarrassing for a party whose crowning achievement of the last 20 years was a health care system that insured over 20 million people who were previously uninsured.

We really need to get rid of John Fetterman in 2028, by the way.

Crooksy’s Hired Nerds Will Save Us, Right?

/ Rich Wilkins / 1 Comment

They gave you an underperforming antisemite. They gave you Senator Shrek. Now you should trust that they are ready to deliver you a House Majority. Just check out their puff article.

After successfully propelling Zohran Mamdani to the mayor’s office in New York City, the campaign firm Fight Agency is moving on to its next targets – defeating Pennsylvania Reps. Ryan Mackenzie (R-07) and Rob Bresnahan (R-08).

The six-person firm consists of Rebecca Katz, Tommy McDonald, Julian Mulvey, Morris Katz, Eric Stern, and Lynnette Jackson. Fight Agency’s website reads that it has assisted over 300 winning elections in 40 states and has won over 100 awards, including 2022 Campaign of the Year.

Katz was the lead strategist for Sen. John Fetterman’s winning campaign in 2022, while McDonald was his key admaker. Mulvey was a key member of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) braintrust, and Katz was the firm’s lead on the Mamdani campaign. 

Stern was deputy campaign manager for Fetterman, while Jackson heads operations.

The group’s website says that it is “looking to help American originals” who are “ready to fight the toughest battles in politics.”

“And we’re here to help you with sharp messaging and the next great iconic ad.  So, if you’re looking for something different, you might have just found it.”

So their new iconic original is a pro-gun militant, who hates Kaepernick for supporting BLM (as opposed to telling people to not vote in 2016), and stiffed his mother-in-law. An American original? I mean, you can find deadbeats all over the place right, like maybe Trump Tower? Or is this whatever day Northampton County has hearings for people who stiff their family? I’m unsure. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is certainly unoriginal though. I’ve see plenty of people who aren’t even honest when it comes to their family.

Yes, these folks got Zohran elected in a gigantic blue city. Good job. Unless they’re going to flat out lie to people and get away with it like they did with John “Shrek” Fetterman, that doesn’t usually work though. Look, Mamdani will be the latest leftist who promised the world and under delivers. John Fetterman somehow went from a Bernie socialist to a Republican before he finished three years in the Senate. These same folks want you to think it’s okay to have a Nazi tattoo, so much so that you should be elected Senator in Maine. Yes, he’s really their guy. These folks brag about electing like 300 socialists, but they probably lost more Presidential primaries with just Bernie Sanders alone than Eugene Debs did in his career. Most Americans don’t want to be Democratic Socialists.

The movement they are selling is simply awful. It’s morally bankrupt. We have seen what their kind of candidates give us. They give us Trump’s National Intelligence Director, Tulsi Gabbard. They give us deadbeat Senator, Bernie Sanders. They give us completely con-artist Senators, like John Fetterman. That’s a road to the future version of MAGA. We don’t need this kind of garbage.

Trump Uses Fetterman and Schumer’s Blunder to Kill Obamacare

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

And there you have it- the death of the subsidies is here. Trump is demanding direct payments to the people of cash for the ACA subsidies, or he won’t sign it. Of course that won’t work, I know you’re thinking it. People will pocket it. People will buy junk plans. It’s literally just a give away. Yes, you’re right.

Chuck already put abortion access in danger with this stupid deal. Now it’s the whole Affordable Care Act. Giving 8 votes to the GOP to re-open the government was political malpractice, and bad government. It was never a good idea. The most leverage they had to get the subsidies back was in the shutdown. Now Trump is going to say he wants to give the subsidies straight to the people, instead of the companies. And guess what? The GOP Congress will go with that. Democrats will probably end up voting no. A lot of that money will never get to health care, and a lot will go to junk plans. The system will collapse.

Fetterstein and Sleepy Chuck strike again.

I’m Thankful for Senator Fetterman’s Health Care, but he’s Not as Thankful for Mine

/ Rich Wilkins / 2 Comments

John Fetterman was hospitalized last week, and has since been discharged. Thank goodness he’s ok. I think he’s a bad apple as Senators go, but we don’t cheer for people to die or be seriously hurt here. Apparently he was on a walk in Braddock and had a heart issue that made him light headed, then he fell, and he had wounds to the face. Again, we’re glad he’s alright.

Thankfully, John Fetterman has outstanding health insurance as a United States Senator. I think that’s a good thing. We invest tremendous actual power of every part of our lives in these 100 people, and we should want them to perform their duties at a healthy, high level and always get the care that they receive. A lot of people complain about the benefits the public *gives* to these 100 people. I don’t. We should want good people to want those jobs, and this is part of what you give good people to take them. Also though, everyone should have access to quality health care.

The government doesn’t give me care though, and that’s ok with me. Look, if we had national health insurance mandated on everyone, I’d probably be getting lesser care than I get for buying health care on the Affordable Care Act created exchange for Pennsylvania, Pennie. I pay full price (In 2025, $427 a month) for my plan, I’ve hit my deductible in consecutive years because of my health issues, and in exchange I have received first rate insurance that has saved my life and well being a couple times now. You get what you pay for, and that’s what I got. I don’t take the premium subsidies, because it then impacts your tax returns, and I don’t want them more complicated than they are. I just want access, and frankly this is much cheaper than I’d have been buying care for myself without the passage of Obamacare. I know what I’m getting into.

I do care about those people on the subsidies though, and there’s two reasons for that. One, I’m not some ghoulish nut who wants people in need to die. Second, self interest. Insurance companies set their rates based on how many people they think will buy for the year. When the subsidies became endangered this year, insurers assumed that less people will buy care for next year and keep it for the whole year. Because they thought they’d have less customers, but they wouldn’t pay out any significantly less amount, they raised rates on the people who are buying. Those rates are now set in stone for 2026. The subsidies are still a question. If those subsidies are not continued, more people will drop their care either before or during the next year. That will drive 2026 premiums up even higher. That will impact me a lot. It is in my interest that these folks get their subsidies.

The best chance for those subsidies to be continued was in the continuing resolution passed by Congress last week that ended the government shutdown. Eight Democratic Senators voted to pass the resolution without the subsidies. Now Democrats are hoping for a vote in December on a stand alone bill to fund those subsidies. Only the Senate is committed to even voting on that bill, and now it is not attached to any Republican priorities that they would *need* to care about. So Republicans in the Congress can kill it several different ways. Even 41 of the 53 Republicans could kill the vote by never allowing it to the floor. They could get 50 Senators to just vote it down and kill it at final passage. They could attach a bunch of amendments, such as on abortion, and damning the subsidies to be voted down even by Democrats. They could pass the bill in the Senate and House Republicans just never give it a vote. House Republicans might just decide to vote it down. Or they could pass it, and Donald Trump could just veto it. And it almost certainly won’t be able to be over rode in either house of Congress. So really the only chance Democrats have of getting the subsidies continued is to give the Republicans something else for it. That’s what the shutdown was supposed to be about. Republicans don’t need anything in December now, so Democrats will have to offer Republicans something they won’t like to pass this bill before the year ends. It was strategically stupid.

John Fetterman, who deservedly has great health care, was a leading proponent of voting to re-open the government. I’m glad he has great health care. If he is actually glad that I have good health care, he showed he doesn’t care very much. Protecting what 20 million of us have was not a priority for him like making sure the Trump government was funded. We can see his priorities. They are not priorities that apparently take the rest of us into account.

Tulsi, Fetterman, Crooksy

/ Rich Wilkins / 5 Comments

I’m an OG Bernie hater. When his online weirdos put me on their hate list in 2017, it was a badge of honor. I knew then that he was a grifter. His campaign, his super pac (Our Revolution), and his institute (Sanders Institute) all employed his family. Some of his organizations bought his books (great for royalties). He made a profit off of running for office. So he kept running for President in a political party that he slams repeatedly and isn’t a member of. It’s a great existence, for him. He disowns all the stuff that is inconvenient for him, vaguely claims the populist stance, and makes a lot of money off of it. It’s easy to see the guy isn’t real.

I also never trust the people he elevates as our “future.” He has given us some real doozies. Bernie gave us Tulsi Gabbard (who literally had an internal campaign “hate” list that they put me on too). Tulsi Gabbard told us Assad in Syria was “not an enemy,” essentially blaming the U.S. for Russia invading Ukraine, and that Hillary Clinton is drugged and refusing to back her over her foreign policy and cheating Bernie out of the nomination. Today, Tulsi Gabbard is Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, claiming that Russia did not seek to help Trump in 2016 (they did), contradicting a GOP lead Senate report saying they did. Gabbard’s revisionist history is the backbone of the government’s case that former Obama era intelligence leaders lied to Congress and tried to frame Trump. In short, Tulsi Gabbard is a psychopath. Bernie Sanders told us she’s not. Of course, she got her rise by being a trusted friend to Bernie.

Then there’s the case of Shrek John Fetterman here in Pennsylvania. In 2016, Fetterman ran for Senate as “the only candidate backing Bernie Sanders.” In 2018, Bernie came to Philly to back Fetterman for Lt. Governor. In 2022 Bernie loved Fetterman even more, formally endorsing him, calling him a “real fighter for the working class of America,” and saying “there was no candidate who ran who was more strongly identified with the working class” than John Fetterman. Last night Fetterman voted to re-open the government without subsidies for Americans buying health care under the Affordable Care Act. He greets pro-Palestinian protestors, who probably backed him in the past, by waving the Israeli flag at them. Fetterman’s wife is a dreamer, and has probably been his most effective surrogate, but he’s turned his back on that group of supporters, even saying Biden went too far on immigration. Fetterman went from being one of Bernie Sanders first big endorsements in 2016 to saying “I’m not a progressive.” Do I agree with some of his moderation on a purely policy point? Sure. Is Fetterman, like Gabbard, completely turning his back on the people who supported his political rise? Yes. It’s bizarre behavior that no one should cheer.

There’s others too. Graham Platner in Maine, the Nazi tattoo guy, is telling us he’s “no John Fetterman,” but he’s just the latest left-wing unicorn candidacy. Guess who endorsed Platner? Guess who is now defending Platner on the Nazi tattoo? In fact, Grifter Bernie thinks it’s mean that people are asking about it. I guess it’s normal to have a Nazi tattoo in Bernie’s circles.

I could go on and on. I have several “Squad” members I could talk about. I won’t. Bernie’s candidates have a much harder time winning elections, but worse yet, he just picks the absolute worst people. Over and over again.

This is a good time to tell you that Bernie Sanders endorses Bob Brooks for Congress in PA-7. That’s the man we call Crooksy. The man who stiffed his mother-in-law. The man who told us he hates Kaepernick for being a BLM protestor. The man who thinks guns and school prayer would save America. I guess he missed Bernie’s memo about Fetterman being a working class hero, he thinks he was the first guy to speak to the working class. That’s kind of unbelievable, given that he has the same consultants and is basically the same guy. In fact, you won’t believe this- the same consultants ran Bernie, Mamdani, Fetterman, Platner, and now Crooksy.

There are incredibly misguided people, for whatever weak reasons they have, who think Crooksy isn’t the next Fetterman or Gabbard. This guy told you he’s a cheat, a racist, and a religious nut from the jump. I’d actually rather Republican Ryan Crosswell win this race, and he’s totally unacceptable too. Voting for Bob Brooks is the same as voting for Tulsi or Fetterman at this point. It’s absurd on it’s face and it’s just caving to a bunch of Harrisburg insiders that don’t have your interests at heart, just their career aspirations.

Go to Hell, John Fetterman.

/ Rich Wilkins / 5 Comments

I can’t believe I’m typing this, but in 2016 I was a John Fetterman supporter in the U.S. Senate Primary, initially. He seemed like something different. By 2018 I thought he was an awful idea for Lt. Governor. Then along came the 2022 Senate Primary, and I warned y’all. John Fetterman, like many out of the Bernie-inspired, grifter pool, was a fraud. He wasn’t the progressive champion he told y’all he was. He wasn’t a moderate from Western Pennsylvania. He is literally a trust fund baby, racist, “pick me” kid that wants us all to notice him. He believes in nothing, other than his own greatness.

To be clear, I don’t hate that he’s been more moderate than he ran on. In fact, I like it. What I hate is that he’s an inauthentic liar. He ran as a Bernie progressive, but now he’s willing to cut the health insurance of millions. John Fetterman says (above) that he won’t shut down the government over subsidies for ACA users. This of course means that millions will drop their insurance (not me, I pay full price on purpose), thereby raising the rates of those who do pay. Fetterman might not have any clue about that at this point, but somebody around him does. Of course, they’re trying to create the new Fetterman so they can keep grifting too. Don’t hate the players, hate the game.

Why the hell does any Democrat care about keeping the government open at this point? They are offering you absolutely nothing for your help, the government is doing certifiably shitty things to their own people, and you’re worried about keeping it open? Shut that shit down. Especially if they are going to make health care worse for people. You are under no obligation to help them. Especially if you’re an “every man” like John Fetterman. This isn’t an ideological fight at this point. These people suck, let them eat their shitty actions. You just tell the press, “I don’t agree with the bill. Most of it is bad.” Then you vote no. Don’t argue every point. They’re not offering you a serious proposal. So let them pound sand.

Not John Fetterman though. 2028 can’t come fast enough. That guy can go straight to hell, just like he’s trying to send his constituents to.