Shutdown! Breakdown! Takedown!

The Republican shutdown / Project 2025 power grab is here.

Photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash

So the government shutdown has happened, again, thanks to Trump and Republicans, again, this time because Republicans can’t bear to wait any longer to gift millions of people with bigger health insurance bills at the same time that hospitals are closing. Let them eat horse paste!

So as of midnight, trauma commenced for as many as 4 million federal employees and contractors, just like Project 2025 henchgoon / Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought has always yearned for. Government contractors and sub-contractors are simply shit out of luck. And all government agencies’ non-exempt, aka non-essential, civil servants are now furloughed, which means they didn’t show up to work today, and won’t be getting paid, but will get back pay for not working once the government re-opens. Did somebody say waste and fraud?

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Here Comes Another Government Shutdown!

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Meanwhile, exempt / essential employees, including members of the armed forces, did have to go to work, but they won’t be getting paid until the shutdown is over either. A nice parting gift after Sec. Def. Boozehound and Commander-in-Chief Bone Spurs’ demeaning rah rah go shoot citizens in the knees, NO FAT CHICKS, yer fired if I don’t like your face forced pep rally for military brass yesterday. Will ICE goons still have a spring in their step tackling abuelitas, knowing they have to go home and pay their babysitter in Burger King coupons and an IOU?

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That Pete Hegseth Speech Could’ve Been A Spam Email For Boner Pills

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And now Trump and Russ Vought are slobbering to power-grab and fire every non-essential employee whose job wasn’t funded in the Big Beautiful Billionaire Blowie Budget bill, then go back to hand-pick who they deem essential after everything breaks. Which is what they have been trying to do since January anyway with all that DOGE AI slash-and-burning. Tear it all down! Burn it all! Let diseases and floods course through! Send no FEMA, Thanos all the undesirables away, and let Jesus sort ‘em out later.

So Republicans are going all out pushing the conflicting message that shutting down the government they control all three branches of is very bad and all the Democrats’ fault, those dumb Democrats are single-handedly holding the government HOSTAGE because they refuse to negotiate, but also the shutdown is great because now they have the opportunity to prove that the federal government is nothing but a waste-and-fraud factory that everyone is better off without anyway.

Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, but they need 60 votes to pass a seven-week stopgap spending measure. And Democrats refuse to compromise on Affordable Care Act tax credits and are trying to prevent cuts to Medicaid. It’s a strong message to run on, WE ARE TRYING TO SAVE YOUR HEALTHCARE, JOE LUNCHPAIL. But will that message reach the tushes in Barcaloungers in front of Fox News?

Meanwhile, the entire House has left town, conveniently delaying some more the swearing in of Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona / the 218th vote for that Epstein Files discharge petition.

And the race to revenge-cut is on. Vought just peacocked on X that he’s frozen $18 billion for New York City infrastructure projects in Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries’s districts.

What can Democrats even do? Trump was already loud and clear he was going to punish their districts anyway, like just a few days ago was pounding he’d personally take away New York’s money if they elect Zohran Mamdani mayor.

And if Democrats can’t stand up for Obamacare subsidies and no cuts to Medicare, what do they even stand for? And how can anybody negotiate in good faith with a team led by a disingenuous clown who just posted an AI Chuck Schumer with Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero?

Then Trump just posted another one. Fucking gross.

Well, congrats, your ideology has won! Proceed to govern, guvnah! Without the subsidies, ACA premiums are projected to more than double, with some couples making $85,000 a year set to pay $22 THOUSAND MORE a year in premiums. That will REALLY hurt, and would seem to be a wildly unpopular thing for Republicans to have to answer for right before the midterms. But BIDEN TAX SUBSIDIES OBAMACARE.

And a recent New York Times/Siena Poll from the shutdown found (among other interesting things) that voters were more likely to blame Republicans than Democrats for a shutdown. Though the majority (65 percent) also say that Democrats should not shut down the government, even if their demands are not met, and only 27 percent said that they should. Though it sounds like a bit of a loaded question to begin with. As opposed to, say, should Republicans shut down the government so they can force middle-class and poor people to pay more for healthcare? And most people, 33 percent, said they would blame both parties for a shutdown.

Messaging is important. And Democrats are losing their platforms.

So will the Supreme Court Six let Russ Vought get away with more rounds of executive axing? All signs point to yes. Just last week they re-affirmed that Trump could snatch the power of the purse from Congress, letting him freeze almost $4 billion in foreign aid funding that had been already approved, for work that had already been done.

Welshing on America’s promises in spite of Congress’s wishes, it is Lord King Executive Trump’s holy right to decree! Also, it is now legal to be racist to the Welsh. Cry harder, Tom Jones.

A lot of people will be hurt by this shutdown. The ripple effects will reach far and wide. But it’s what Republicans have always wanted and were going to get one way or another, as soon as the Supreme Court crowned Trump king. Now they have caught the car, and are howling Democrats made them chip their teeth on the bumper.

What else is new, man.

Have a better petty breakdown.

[Politico / New York Times archive link]

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