Senate Dems Cave In, Trump Pardons All, Mail In Votes?

Monday’s fallout is real, and it’s ugly. Forty days of government shutdown, and the one card Democrats had left? They folded. You’ll hear the consequences, and it’s not pretty.

Eight senators turned a massive victory into a pratfall. Momentum crushed in forty-eight hours, leaving millions stuck in the chaos while the political theater played out.

More Trump pardons for January 6? Guess what Donald, the delusional one is doing now. You’ll hear it all.

The Supreme Court is back in the spotlight. They’re deciding whether mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day still count. 

Democracy is on the clock, and the rules are bending for some while others are left scrambling.

This isn’t just politics. It’s about survival of truth, accountability, and whether anyone in power actually earns your trust.

Families waiting for relief. Workers hoping for paychecks. Every move has real-world consequences, and they’re playing games like nothing is at stake.

I break down the fallout, the pardons, and the ballot battles, and why the country can’t afford to blink, even for a second.

And there’s another Supreme Court ruling you’ll want to hear about. You will be shocked at what they decided.

There’s also a major announcement about my podcast. I think this is important.

Listen to the full episode. Get the context, the details, and the moments that will make you shake your head.

AWorldGoneMadPodcast@gmail.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open And Stakes Set
• 0:45 Democrats’ Shutdown Deal And ACA Leverage
• 6:40 The Cost Of Folding On Healthcare
• 8:55 Pardons And The Rule Of Loyalty
• 11:38 A Rare Win: Court Leaves Marriage Equality Intact
• 14:06 Mail-In Ballots And Democracy On A Deadline
• 17:41 Listener Feedback And Live Stream Announcement
• 19:40 Sign-Off And Call To Stay Hopeful

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

This is a bad boy. This is a worldbone.

SPEAKER_01: 0:09

This is a World Gone Mad. I'm Jeff Allen Wolf. Monday Fallout, where the weekend's lies meet Monday's reality. From DC across the globe, the Fallout is everywhere. And I'm not here to sugarcoat a damn thing. Before I start the episode, I'm going to let you know about a major announcement about a World Gone Mad podcast. I'll be telling you this at the end of this episode, so please listen to the full episode, and then I will reveal all at the end. Okay, here we go. Democrats take a landslide victory and somehow invite the GOP to hold the ladder while they climb out on a limb. The great Democratic caven. The government shutdown just hit 40 days. 40 days, the longest in the history of this country. And during those 40 days, the message from Democrats to Republicans was clear. Extend the ACA subsidies or the government stays closed. That was the line in the sand. That was the moral stance. That was the one leverage point left for millions of Americans, 24 million to be precise, drowning in healthcare costs. And then eight Democrats said, yeah, never mind. They voted with the Republicans. They gave away the one card left in the deck. They said, we'll reopen the government now and trust the Republicans to deal with health care later. Later, because that always goes well. The eight senators, just to be precise, put them on the record. Tim Kane, Virginia, Dick Durbin, Illinois, Maggie Hassen, New Hampshire, Jean Shaheen, New Hampshire, Jackie Rosen, Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masta, Masto, Nevada, John Fetterman, Pennsylvania, Angus King, Independent from Maine. Here's what makes it even more infuriating. We just had a massive blowout on Tuesday's elections. Democrats crushed it everywhere. Momentum was sky high. Voters showed up and said, we are done with the chaos. And what did these eight senators do with that momentum? They squandered it in 48 hours. They turned a victory lap into a prackfall. They took the one card they had left and threw it into the Republican fireplace like kindling. Let's just remember who we're talking about. This is the same Republican Party that tried to overturn Obamacare 70 times. 70. They lost in court. They lost in Congress. They lost in a public opinion. Now Democrats are handing the Republicans the ball again. Like, here, maybe this time you'll play fair. It's like watching Charlie Brown trust Lucy with the football again. Only Lucy's wearing a MAGA hat and holding a pair of scissors. The deal supposedly gives us in the United States relief. Snap benefits. Air traffic controllers paid. Wonderful. But the ACA subsidies? Those are just, we'll talk about it December 14th. December 14th. That's what the Republicans said. A date that might as well be engraved on a tombstone because Speaker Mike Johnson doesn't even want to bring it to the floor for a vote. Jake Tapper asked him recently today about this, and he said, well, you know, he wouldn't commit to it. Mike Johnson's the guy who's allergic to health care like it's gluten. So here's the trade-off. Yes, families get food back on the table. Yes, planes keep flying. But every American who pays for insurance just got shoved under the bus. 24 million. Because the people elected to fight for you decided to fold their cards early. And look, if you're one of the people who needed that paycheck or those snap benefits, or you're an air traffic controller who just wants to get back to work, I get it. I do. You shouldn't have been collateral damage in this political mess. You deserved relief, and I'm glad you're finally getting it. But we can't keep saving one group of Americans by sacrificing another. Healthcare isn't a December 14th, maybe. It's life or death for 24 million people. And pretending it can wait until December 14th is the part that makes the whole deal feel rotten. They didn't just blink. These eight Democrats blinked, flinched, apologized, and then wrote the GOP a thank you note for the opportunity. These eight senators stood there and told us this deal puts Republicans under the magnifying glass. Really? That's your plan? To trust the same people who spent the last decade trying to burn the magnifying glass. This is not strategy. This is surrender dressed up as bipartisanship. I get this too. I really do. There are real-world stakes. People needed paychecks. I understand. Families needed food. But leadership means fighting for both the now and the next. You don't save the body by cutting out the heart. You don't save America by letting the insurance companies win again. So yes, the government may open again in the next few days, but the door it opened might be the one to the hospital billing department. And when your next premium, your health care premium, hits your inbox, and you scream, why the hell is this this high? Remember these eight Democrats who thought trust was an improved health care plan. And now the clock runs for four weeks. Does the Senate take this deal as is? Does the House pass it clean so the president can sign it and turn the lights back on? Then comes December 14th. Do Republicans actually keep their promise and put ACA subsidies vote on the floor? Or do they bury it in a drawer and call that governing? We all know the odds for an extension. Slim to none. And Slim just left town. Open the government today and hand America a healthcare time bomb tomorrow. That's the start of our Monday fallout. Forty days of shutdown, 40 days of posturing, and one cowardly cave-in by eight senators that remind us all sometimes the real fallout isn't radioactive, it's political, and it burns just as deep. More Monday fallout. Pardon my corruption. And while Democrats were busy undercutting health care, Trump was busy undercutting accountability. This weekend he pardoned Rudy Giuliani, that's right, and the rest of the 2020 election crew. The same people who tried to flip democracy like it was a used mattress are now free to roam the country shaking hands and selling podcasts about patriotism. We are now officially the nation where you can break the law, torch the Constitution, and walk away with a smile as long as you did it for Donnie Boy. You can lie to Congress, bully election workers. Giuliani, I'm talking about you, pressure officials to find votes, and if you get caught, the orange get out of jail free card lands right in your mailbox. Think about what this means. It means the rule of law has been replaced by the rule of loyalty. The message is clear. Pledge allegiance not to the flag, but to the man who tried to tear it down. This is no longer about politics. This is about survival of truth, of accountability, of the idea that the law applies to everyone. If Trump can pardon the very people who helped them try to overturn an election, what's next? Do we pardon bank robbers as long as they wear MAGA hats? Do we let arsonists go if they like the match while humming God bless America? It's the judicial equivalent of saying, sure, officer, I was drunk driving, but it was for the brand. Giuliani, the man who turned America's mayor into America's mistake, now gets to walk free after spending years screaming about law and order. Law and order for everyone else, not for him, not for the inner circle. We used to laugh at banana republics where dictators handed out pardons like party favors. Now we are the banana republic, and we've got the bruises to prove it. Here's the absurd part, listeners, that keeps me awake. Every MAGA diehard cheering these pardons is cheering the death of their own rights. Because once power can erase guilt with a signature, it can erase yours with a target. When the law stops protecting the guilty, it stops protecting the innocent. You don't drain the swamp, remember, Donald, drain the swamp, by pardoning the alligators. This isn't just corruption, it's a blueprint for tyranny written in black sharpie. This becomes normal, elections stop mattering, justice stops existing, and loyalty becomes currency. Every future president will look at this moment and think, why not me? And the answer will be silence. Because once you start pardoning crimes against democracy itself, the only thing left to pardon is democracy. That's your additional Monday fallout. And it's the moment America decided breaking the law isn't illegal anymore. It's just networking. And even more Monday fallout. The coin lands on its edge. You know, every once in a while, the Supreme Court actually gets something right. It's like spinning a coin on the table and then watching it stop and land perfectly on its edge. You sit there staring, not sure if you should celebrate, take photos, or what. Here's what happened. Back in 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in Obgerfell versus Hodges that same-sex couples have the same constitutional right to marry as everyone else. That decision made same-sex marriage legal nationwide. But one Kentucky county clerk named Kim Davis decided that her personal beliefs were more important than the law. She refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, people who had every legal right to marry, because she didn't approve of those marriages. She turned away couples who showed up at the her counter in tears, some who had waited years just to have their relationship recognized by the same government they pay taxes to. She, Kim Davis, later tried to get the Supreme Court to reopen that fight to let her and others like her deny same-sex licenses again. And this week, in a rare act of sanity, the Supreme Court ruled and said, no, they refused to take the case from her. They left the 2015 ruling in place. So for now, equality survives. For now, same-sex couples can breathe a little easier knowing their marriages aren't suddenly up for debate because one clerk somewhere still wants to live in 1952. Shouldn't feel like a miracle when the court leaves a basic human right alone, but it does, because that's how fragile the system has become. We've reached the point where not destroying progress counts as progress. Where standing still feels like winning. So yes, the coin this time landed on its edge. Don't blink. That's your brief moment of sanity before the next round of madness. And finally, the last piece of our Monday fallout. Sealed, postmarked, but discarded. So after a weekend of betrayals and pardons, the week ahead continues with the Supreme Court deciding how far they're willing to bend democracy itself. They've agreed to hear a case about whether, get this, mail and ballots that arrive after election day should still count. That's right. We are once again arguing about whether votes that were legally cast by real people should magically stop existing because they showed up on the wrong day of the week. This isn't about fraud. It's about the clock. It's about pretending the post office is a time machine and that democracy expires at midnight like a carton of milk. The case started in Pennsylvania, where some ballots arrived a day or two after election day, but were postmarked legally before. Under state law in Pennsylvania, they used to count. They said yes. Republicans want them tossed out because apparently, if the Postal Service slows down, misroutes mail, or decides democracy can sit in the back of the truck for a few days, that's somehow the voters' fault. They're punishing citizens for trusting the very system that's supposed to deliver their voice. Think how about how insane that logic is. You do everything right. You fill out the ballot, you sign it, you mail it on time, but if a truck gets stuck in traffic or the postal worker hits Starbucks on the way, your vote becomes null and void. That's not election integrity. That's voter roulette. And here's the deeper absurdity. The same people who say every legal vote should count are now fighting to make sure legal votes don't count if they took the scenic route through the mail. You know, it's like blaming a passenger who checked in on time on their flight, boarded the plane, and then when the plane arrives late to the destination for whatever reason, the tower refuses to let it land. And that's exactly what Republicans are asking the Supreme Court to do: toss out perfectly legal ballots because too many of them belong to Democrats. It's about rigging an election before all the legal votes are counted. If the court sides with these Republicans, states could start rejecting thousands of mail-in ballots over delivery timing. Not voter fraud, not fake votes, just timing. The very system trusted to carry democracy could end up being used to bury it. The danger here isn't just fewer ballots. It's the message that democracy has office hours, that your vote has to punch in by five or it gets written up and sent home. So yeah, the court's taking the case, the Supreme Court, and America once again holds its breath, wondering if the justices will defend voting rights or treat them like an optional subscription service. That's your final Monday fallout and your reminder that in this country, even democracy has to arrive on time or risk getting returned to sender. All right, let's hear from you. I keep yelling it, I keep screaming it, I keep slamming my face into a brick wall. Wolfpacktalks at gmail.com. That's the email. Or 833-399-9653-247 voice mailbox. Or for those of you that get my direct link, personally text me. Give me a couple of lines of your thoughts and feelings about this episode and what I said. And if you disagree, let me know. I'm here. Where are you? Okay, the major announcement I talked about at the start of the show and about my podcast. We're still doing the podcast Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And I am going live. That's right, a World Gone Mad podcast will still be available again Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That hasn't changed. But in addition, I'm going to be doing a live stream on TikTok. Not the same show that you hear. I talk about the news, but this is going to be completely different. Still news commentary. So we've already been doing this for a couple of days as an experiment. It did well. We didn't tell anybody. We will be doing a 40-minute live stream on TikTok Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, and Sunday mornings. If you want more details, email me, text me. I'll be more than glad to let you know the details. I'm excited. TikTok live. So I'll be doing the podcast and live stream six days a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday for the live stream. I hope some of you will tune in if you can, and if it's convenient for you on those live streams. There is also a replay, it'll save. This is the World Gone Man. I'm Jeff Allen Wolf. I'll be back Wednesday. Until then, Wolfpack listeners, remake skeptical. Keep focused, but most of all, stay hopeful.

SPEAKER_00: 19:53

There is chaos in the world. Can't you see? And we need to stand up and freezer a democracy. This is a world.