Among the material devastation to everyday people, Senate Dems have now blown a hole in their ability to work with the House.

We had an agreed upon plan, House took immense risk, then Senate turned around midway and destroyed it w/ a fear-based, inexplicable abdication.

They own what happens next.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@aoc.bsky.social) 14 March 2025 at 23:18

 The US produces, among many other things, champagne outside of the Champagne region, Parma Ham outside of the Parma Region and Chianti outside of Tuscany. The US doesn't care about things like Appellation or Protected Designation of Origin. Unless it's about Florida Oranges or Tennessee Whiskey, then suddenly it matters to them, too.

What was the choice again?

A) Government shutdown which doesn't really change much from the current state of things where Trump and Musk do whatever they want, the legality of it be damned. But the takedown of the country will result in greater resistance from the population against Trump's agenda.

B) Allow Trump and Musk to do whatever they want, but grant them a broader legal frame to work with from now on.

Without a doubt two bad options, but one is clearly worse. This is like people who care about Gaza voting for Trump because Biden did a bad job at it, despite it being obvious that Trump will be even worse for Gaza.

In regards to champagne, isn't that due to a loophole and it only applies to a select few companies over a hundred years old, I think only a few are allowed to sell it labelled as champagne due to that loophole of an old ass treaty but newer companies aren't allowed to use the champagne name, or I have that totally wrong, Lol. Either way I think most would think California Champagne is a cheap knockoff anyway 😂

*I don't drink

The terrible CR Budget bill — written by right-wing House Republicans with no input from anybody but themselves — was passed tonight with the support of 10 Democrats.
 
An absolute failure of Democratic leadership. NOBODY in the Senate should have voted for this dangerous bill.

— Senator Bernie Sanders (@sanders.senate.gov) 15 March 2025 at 00:49

More piling on Chuck Schumer, this time from Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Dem on the House Approps committee.

House Dems "gave the Senate the momentum" to stop the GOP bill, "but the Senate Minority Leader failed to see how dangerous it was to give President Trump a victory."

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— Jen Bendery (@jbendery.bsky.social) 15 March 2025 at 00:51

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.):

"So today was a bad day for the country. And I won't sugarcoat it, today was also a bad day for the Democratic Party."

"In the House, Democrats stayed together," he says. "We did not stay together in the Senate."

— Jen Bendery (@jbendery.bsky.social) 15 March 2025 at 01:04

House Dems seem PISSED.

Was hardly any upside, this is a horrific failure in leadership by Schumer, he absolutely cannot stay on as the Dems Senate leader, this is just too big of a fuck up, he has pissed off progressives, moderates, a dozen Dem Senators, Pelosi, almost all of Dem House, his own voters, now instead of the focus being on this horrific bill, it's instead how much of a horrific fuck up Schumer is. It's now House Dems vs Senate Dems. Absolute fucking embarrassment and all he has done is hand Trump and Musk more power on a silver platter to gut the country even more.

The first fight and this lazy prick surrendered.

And the other 8 but 1 of those (Fetterman) is bordering on Republican anyway.

Chuck Schumer is facing one of the most perilous moments of his Senate leadership career.

The Senate minority leader came under heavy fire for the second straight day from Democrats enraged at him for backing a Republican bill to avoid a government shutdown, and fallout appears likely to last well past Friday's vote.

A handful of House lawmakers, including some in battleground districts, are floating supporting a primary challenge against him. Activists are organizing efforts to punish him financially.

Schumer is facing questions within his own caucus about whether he made strategic errors in handling the high-stakes moment and failed to outline a clear plan about how to deal with the complex politics of a shutdown, according to interviews with six lawmakers or their aides. Some Democratic senators are even privately questioning whether he should stay on as their leader.

"He's done a great deal of damage to the party," said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the liberal group Indivisible, which has scheduled an emergency call Saturday with its New York chapter and other local leaders to "seriously consider if the current [Democratic] leadership is equipped to handle the moment we're in."

In a remarkable sign of how deep the intraparty frustration with Schumer runs, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries refused to throw his fellow New Yorker a life raft. Asked by reporters on Friday if there should be new leadership in the Senate, he said, "Next question."

Schumer's one-time partner, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), went so far as to urge senators to vote against his position, saying that "this false choice that some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable." And dozens of House Democrats sent a sharply worded letter to Schumer Friday, which expressed "strong opposition" to his standpoint, arguing that the "American people sent Democrats to Congress to fight against Republican dysfunction and chaos" and that the party should not be "capitulating to their obstruction."

Though several senators said they supported his leadership, some Senate Democrats avoided questions when asked directly Friday about Schumer's leadership role.

"We still have more to play out on this," said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) when asked if the backlash would impact Schumer's role as leader. "So I'm not really thinking about the big-picture politics."

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) also dodged, saying: "The leader I don't have confidence in is Donald Trump."

And Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) responded to a query on whether he still supports Schumer by calling for a "good post-mortem" on Senate Democrats' approach to the government funding fight.

"Anytime you have a failure — and this is a failure altogether — we as a caucus owe it to Democrats across the country and our constituents to look back and see: How do we get ourselves into this situation?" he said.

One Democratic senator granted anonymity to share private discussions said conversations are starting about whether Schumer should be their leader going forward.

"There's a lot of concern about the failure to have a plan and execute on it," the senator said. "It's not like you couldn't figure out that this is what was going to happen."

Democrats fume over Chuck Schumer’s handling of funding fight - POLITICO

US declares South Africa’s ambassador persona non grata

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called envoy Ebrahim Rasool a “race-baiting politician” who hates the US and President Donald Trump.

“South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country,” Rubio said in a post on social media platform X.

“We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA,” Rubio said.

Rasool had presented his credentials to former President Joe Biden on January 13, marking the start of the envoy’s tenure, according to the South African Embassy’s website, which said this was Rasool’s second stint in Washington.

Rasool has been a vocal critic of Israel. Trump’s staunchly pro-Israel stance has brought the president into conflict with South Africa over its genocide case against Israel at the World Court.

The US announcement also came on the back of a land distribution law meant in South Africa to address inequalities that have continued since the apartheid era. The South African government says that Trump is misinformed about the law, which has not been used to confiscate any land from white South Africans.