If there is one person I don’t envy right now, it’s Lisa Murskowski. She sold her soul the other day when her sole vote allowed the BBB to advance to where J.D. Vance could do the tie breaker. Her words at the time were that the bill she had just voted on was “not the final product” that she wished to see. So why vote on it then? Oh, right, because the bill would then bounce back to the House and get reworked massively somehow and be a real piece of political art when all was said and done. Where she got that idea from, nobody is clear. In any event, she’s disgraced and left holding the bag now.
And Mad King Donald is going to make a big to do of signing the thing and then he’s headed to the golf course. “My sincere hope is that this is not the final product. This bill needs more work across chambers and is not ready for the President’s desk. We need to work together to get this right,” Murkowski said. Surely she didn’t believe that would really happen?
Even at the time, it was clear the House intended to pass the bill as is. Now that has happened, many commentators on social media want to know what Murkowski is thinking.
“So, how does Lisa Murkowski feel now that the bad bill she voted for wasn’t improved by the house?” wrote anti-Trump Republican pollster Sarah Longwell.
“Hard not to wonder how Lisa Murkowski is feeling about her vote now,” wrote journalist Isaac Saul. “Her plan was literally to get changes and send it back to the Senate; instead, she was the decisive vote on a bill she insinuated shouldn’t become law.”
“Does Sen. Murkowski have anything to say, now that the House passed it and the bill is not going back to the Senate?” wrote Democratic media strategist Victor Shi.
“Some dared not defy the president, others like Murkowski focused solely on their own state and not on the country,” wrote journalist and former California first lady Maria Shriver. “This is where we are. So many do not know what’s in this bill. So many don’t even realize how it will impact them in really profound ways. Detrimental ways.”
“POV: The House didn’t send it back,” wrote the Republican Accountability Project, posting a picture of a scowling Murkowski.
“I don’t think the bill is coming back,” wrote Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ).
Meanwhile, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) had a different take, harshly criticizing Murkowski and GOP lawmakers in general for trying to get carveouts for their own states from the legislation, knowing it would kick millions of people off health care and food assistance.
“The fact that all these Republican lawmakers are running around trying (& often, failing) to get specific carve outs in their own bill so THEIR community isn’t subject should tell you all you need to know,” she wrote. “If they think it’s so great, why don’t they want it as-is for themselves?”
And speaking of Mad King Donald, pop over to Mother Jones and read how many of the grievances that the colonies had against Mad King George are the same ones that Trump is committing. The more things change, the more they are the same. Here’s a sampling. In bold is what King George did and below that is one of Trump’s actions.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
Trump’s Medicaid-cutting-deficit-busting-billionaires-enriching tax-and-spending megabill tried to prevent state legislatures from passing specific laws with a provision that would ban states from enacting measures to regulate AI for the next 10 years. (That piece was stripped out on Tuesday.) He threatened to withhold federal funds from the state of Maine if it did not ban transgender girls from participating in women’s sports, which, according to Gov. Janet Mills, would entail the state violating state law.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
Trump threatened to deny disaster relief to California if it did not abandon its legislative independence and change its water policies to Trump’s liking. He also threatened to cut off federal funding to New York City, should Democrat Zohran Mamdani win the mayoral race and enact laws or policies Trump opposes.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
The so-called Department of Government Efficiency has moved to relocate federal agencies and repurpose their office buildings (including the US Institute of Peace and the National Science Foundation) to make life uncomfortable for employees and officials. Watch out, Speaker Mike Johnson.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
Trump has not yet tried to dissolve any local governments. But Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem did state that the purpose of sending Marines and National Guard troops to Los Angeles was to “liberate” the city from its elected representatives.
You’re getting the picture. This is where we are as we are celebrating our 249th birthday tomorrow. It was a great run while it lasted. If we don’t kick these bums out in 2026, I fear we’ll never be able to.
She’s roughly our age and might just decide instead of “becoming an Independent and caucusing with Democrats’ it’s time to retire. I don’t think she’ll get a very warm welcome back in Alaska. For damned sure she’s kissed any chances of repeating winning as an Independent goodbye and she’s sure to be primaried out of office. She set off the implosion bomb that has killed her political career and legacy, and that of her father too. No amount of scorn will be able to convey how badly she served herself, Alaskans (except the rich ones) and our country overall.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Murkowski screwed this one up. She would have been better off defying Trump and being in the same league as Thom Tillis. Tillis has a future. He may not choose to run for the Senate again but he absolutely has some street cred as a commentator or analyst.
Murkowski has self immolated this time. And it’s not surprising. She’s gone very close to the point of no return before and now she’s gotten there.
She truly deserves no more blame than all the other heartless and soulless entities who voted to hurt millions of Americans. Is she really worse because some expected she might have a soul, and she showed that she does not?
She is definitely off my Christmas list. Same for Chip Roy but I have lost more respect for Murkowski. Roy was just a bag of hot air and remains so.