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November 10, 2025 • 13 mins
Rocky and Donna talk about the progress being made on the government shutdown with Dr. Bo Kabala.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Incredibly early, but I guess by the weekend it's going
to be like sixty degrees, like it never happened again.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
So but pressing issues here.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Look, everyone is talking about the government shutdown, and I
feel like it's one of these issues that most people
don't understand the inner workings. They probably don't even care
about the inner workings. They just want to be able
to get on their plane and fly to where they
want to fly without some sort of mishap, where they
want to be able to go through TSA without taking
five hours. They want to be able to get this,

(00:31):
get that. And you know, if you're a Republican, you
blame the Democrats. You're a Democratic, you blame the Republicans.
I guess it looks like there's a potential deal in place,
you know, admittedly after the election, when things could have
been done before the election. But that's another topic on that.
But just to kind of explain and kind of summarize
where we are with this and maybe how we got here,

(00:52):
We've got a great guest joining the show right now.
His name is doctor Bo Kabbala. He is an expert
in poly size with a Tarletan state and he joined
right now doctor Kabala.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
How are you.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
I'm great, good afternoon. Thanks so much for having me.
Hope you're well.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Absolutely, so, I guess again without tell us how we
got here, to tell us what happened, if anything different
than in year's past.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
We always seem to kind of go through this.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
A government's going to get shut down, It usually happens
for a couple of weeks, and then things are fine
and just people get.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
A little bit kind of a numb to the.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Fact that it happens all the time. This was a
little unprecedented. How long it lasted. What's your take on
kind of how we got here?

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, absolutely, and I think it was unprecedented. This is
the longest shutdown on record, and we were about to
run up against canceled flights and people not receiving snap benefits.
So I think this was getting increasingly serious, not just
for the American people, but for both parties. You see

(01:52):
the polling with respect to who's blamed by the American
people fairly even split between Republicans and Democrats. And I
think one thing that occurred was the election happened, and
you had in New Jersey and Virginia some unexpected support
for the moderate Democratic position so represented by Mikey, Cheryl
Abigail Spamberger, and I think that may have encouraged five

(02:16):
additional Democrats in the Senate moderates to take this initial vote.
So there's been sixty now in the Senate that have
preliminarily voted to reopen the government. It's not yet that
final vote in the Senate, and it will still have
to go to the House. But I think as we
came closer to Thanksgiving in the holiday season and these
elections happened in New Jersey and Virginia that Tim Kaine,

(02:39):
Dick Durbin, Maggie Hassan, Jean Shaheen, and Jackie Rosen all
kind of reconsidered their position, and so it looks like
we're headed towards the reopening.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
Well, yeah, they still have to vote on it.

Speaker 5 (02:52):
The problem is kind of what Rocky just stated, is
if you're Republican, you blame the democracrest Democrats to Republicans.
I think when you mess with people's flights around the
holidays and food, then it doesn't matter. At any point,
everybody's going to be blamed. The whole country is going

(03:12):
to blame everybody for that. So I think at this
point and then to see that you know, Congress is
getting paid. They're getting paid, so they have no problem,
you know with that. So I think everybody, including myself
and all Americans are saying, you guys need to do something.
It's like the worst mom and dad fight in the world,

(03:33):
and if you guys can get it figured out, then
we're going to just kill kick everybody out of office.
And I think people are starting to realize that.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, now totally agree. This was again the polling was
neck and neck, and you get to you know, forty
plus days and you're looking at canceled flights and people
not receiving snap benefits, and yeah, the pain just becomes untolerable.
So not only is it the right thing to do
in my opinion, but nobody wants to take the risk

(04:02):
for being blamed for that.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
And doctor Cabala, I'm just I mean kind of summarize
in Layman's terms, what exactly the core issue. My understanding
is that the Republicans didn't want anything new in the bill.
They just wanted to kind of keep what we've been
doing and kind of go forward. The Democrats wanted more
funding for Obamacare is and I guess where's that going
to shake out? Is that what's going to be the

(04:25):
end result is there? Is it going to be more
funding and money for Obamacare?

Speaker 2 (04:29):
How does that work well?

Speaker 3 (04:31):
And so that's interesting and I appreciate your making the point.
There's a pledge that Leader Soon has made in the Senate,
and this appears to now enjoy the support of sixty senators.
It's not to extend Affordable Care Act Obamacare subsidies, but
if to allow a vote on extension, and so you
do have Democrats who are upset, and some of the

(04:52):
talk on the internet is really blaming Tim Kine, Dick Durbin,
Maggie Hassan and others at this point for even voting
preliminarily to reopen because there isn't a guarantee. My guess
is the Senate will vote to support an extension of
the Obamacare subsidies. But that's right. It's just a basic framework,
not a lot of substantive guarantees, and we're just trying

(05:16):
to reopen at this point.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
So in other words, they'll kind of pass some half
measure to basically say we're just going to kick it
down the road a little bit and whatever.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Good there's not benefits.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
You can get on your airplane and it'll be fine,
but we'll probably be dealing with this again next year.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Well and so right, because it's a continuing resolution, so
it's not even an appropriations bill or budget. Of course,
as you know, twelve appropriations those. This is just getting
agreements on what's known as a continuing resolution, which is
not really the full budget, but it at least allows
the government to fulfill those basic functions or planes are flying,

(05:51):
we've got border patrol, and people getting snap benefits. So
it looks like there's enough agreement on a sort of
continuing resolution which kicks the can down the road so
that we can agree on a formal budget. And fortunately
I was getting worried. It looks like we're tentatively on
the road to making that happen, but we still need

(06:12):
one more vote in the Senate, and we need than
the House to agree if government is to fully reopen.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Doctor Bocabolas, our guests, he's a policyber professor at Tarleton
State and uh, doctor, let me ask you this, how
should I say this? A lot of people, a lot
of people are or have made the point of like, look,
if you just somehow there was a way where the
folks in Congress their pay would stop when the government

(06:40):
shut down, it would.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Stop all of this. Is there any real effort to
make that happen?

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Of course, why would those people vote something that's natively
affects them.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Is there any real push for that? Do you ever
see that happening?

Speaker 1 (06:53):
And that's everybody Republican Democrats wish, But is it ever
going to happen?

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Hey, the government shuts down, that means you're he stops.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
To you know, And I think that's a great point.
If anybody we're going to push that, I could see
Senator rand Paul on the Republican side, maybe Senator Fetterman
on the Democratic side. But no, Unfortunately, my understanding is
we're not really have that. We're not having that conversation.
We've started having a conversation about insider trading in Congress. Fortunately.

(07:22):
But I think you make a brilliant point. Let's we
need we need to start talking about that so that
this doesn't happen again and and you know, we can
avoid this kind of dread around the holiday season. I
think you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Well, it's kind of like, look, one thing is for
sure every politician a run, certainly first time politicians.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
One key part of their platform is.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
And I am going to vote on term limits, and
we're going to limit and and then once.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
They get in, who said that it tages their mind?

Speaker 4 (07:52):
We need limits?

Speaker 5 (07:54):
And doctor Kabala, I know the five Democrats that voted
for this, which I applaud them for or because we
need to stop the silliness. And and you know, I
when it affects me or affects somebody, I know, then
we all care, right because I fly a lot and
I have people coming in and is Thanksgiving, Chris. But

(08:14):
they're not up for re election. Do you think that
has because Rocky just brought a term loft?

Speaker 4 (08:21):
Do you think that had something to do with it?

Speaker 3 (08:24):
I think so. I think that's a great point. You've
got too retiring. None of you know, nobody in this
group of moderates is facing reelection and twenty twenty six.
So what I think that speaks to is you do
have some of the base energy on the Democratic side
that really resisted reopening. And of course you've had it
on the Republican side when we had the fights under

(08:46):
President Obama over the Affordable Care Act. So I think
you know, yes, that's very relevant, and it does kind
of show, you know, we've got base energy both on
the right and the left that's a little more polarized.
And it took folks who are not up for re election,
facing the wraths maybe of the base, to take this,

(09:07):
in my opinion, responsible step doc.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Let me ask you this kind of aside from the shutdown,
just back to the elections. And I know that was
last week, but you know New Jersey, Virginia, or the
big ones obviously in New York City with Mondami, A
lot of yeah, you know, some pundits out there say, oh,
this is an indictment on you know, the mid terms
next year. I personally didn't see it that way. I mean, Virginia,
New Jersey are pretty blue and have been.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
For a long time.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
And I don't think Trump, for whatever it didn't actively
get out there and kind of get behind in candidates.
I think he probably just knew they were going to lose.
To be honest, but do you, in your opinion, is
this an indictment on things that come or is this
kind of a one off?

Speaker 3 (09:50):
So, and I think you make a great point about
every mid term election tends to be you know tends
to favor more the party that's not in the white US,
and then the year before the midterm, you'd also expect
to see in this situation Democrats do much better. I
will say I agree with Steve Bannon, sometimes referred to

(10:10):
as Trump's President Trump's consiliari, saying it's also a wake
up call because if you look at the margin the
Donald Trump lost by New Jersey, it was five points,
and then I was surprised to see dak Shadowicky lose
by I mean it was almost ten I think against
mikey Ryl. So is it a bell Weather I mean,
yes and no. I think the margins, especially in New Jersey,

(10:33):
were maybe a little surprising to folks, and there's reason
for Democrats to be energized. I think it does indicate
comparing sort of New York to you know, Virginia and
New Jersey, you do have a struggle in the Democratic Party.
What is the identity of the Democratic Party? Is it
about going hard democratic socialists that certainly appealed to younger

(10:58):
folks in New York City I'm done fifty or is
it kind of take the moderate route? Abigail Spamberger, Mikey
Sheryl that that seems to be a different approach. So yeah,
I would agree with you, not not at be Weather,
but but pointing to some real big questions, both for
Democrats and the MAGA coalition.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Trump's biggest issue is is prices, and I'm not sure
there's exactly a ton he can do about that. He
brought down gas prices, which is kind of the thing
he can control outside of that. But nevertheless, again back
to our original point, most people don't care about the
minutia details are like god, man, I'm you know, going
out the lunch cost twenty seven dollars anymore, so that

(11:38):
that that's got to come down. But listen, doctor Cabala,
we got to run. But this has been a lot
of fun. I really appreciate it, and I hope we
can do this again. If folks want to find out
more about you, where can they go?

Speaker 3 (11:49):
Bz Kabala dot org. B like boy z Kabala ka
b A l A dot org. That's our website and
we'd invite everybody to come to Dublin, Texas if you're
passing through Carlton State. But thank you so much, a
lot of fun, and yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
Against doctor the best. Thank you, Yes, sir, we'll see.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
And Donna, I don't know about you, but everyone's always saying,
like you know, the Democrats and Republican's got to find
issues that they can both agree on, and I feel
like that's increasingly harder and harder to do with some
of the stances. All right, but one is like if
one thing again, both parties are if if you shut
down the government, you should not get your paycheck if

(12:28):
you're a politician.

Speaker 4 (12:28):
I think everyone does.

Speaker 5 (12:29):
Everyone.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
There are things well maybe maybe the only common ground.

Speaker 4 (12:34):
No, because I term limits.

Speaker 5 (12:36):
I we agree one hundred we should not have people
that are in their nineties running in concresce.

Speaker 4 (12:42):
It doesn't make sense.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
I mean, but I'm telling you those are two.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
At least we found two.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Next time, like next election, like especially a first time candidate. Yeah,
look at some of their platform, and I guarantee some
of it, certainly on the Republican side, will be I'm
going to be against you before term.

Speaker 4 (13:01):
Hundred and then it never once you get in it's tower.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
It's a good tower, it is. Let's go and check
some trafficking weather. How are we looking
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