Republicans eye standalone bills to reopen government from shutdown

«Senate action on appropriation bills would also heap more pressure on Johnson to bring the House back to work.»

https://www.axios.com/2025/10/08/shutdown-senate-republicans-military-pay

How far will House Republicans go not to seat the new Representative (Grijalva) from Arizona who will provide the 218th vote on the discharge petition to release the Epstein files?

White House draws out mass federal firings timeline as GOP grows squeamish in funding fight | CNN Politics

«“There will come a point when we have to face reality. We need to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. But we hope it doesn’t come to that,” a White House official said.»

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/07/politics/white-house-strategy-federal-firings-shutdown

God forbid they have to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. That would be awful.

(Unless they’re maybe dreading something else and they’re just lying.)

The New York Times: In a Private Park in North Carolina, Confederate Statues Are Rising Again

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/us/north-carolina-confederate-statues-park.html

This is awesome. Every municipality in the US should send Denton NC their unwanted Confederate monuments (which should be all of them). They can be a boneyard of Confederate statues, solitary mustachioed men holding rifles, and generals on horseback. People can visit as part of learning of Jim Crow (and other) era statues, and then they can go over to the Bentonville battlefield in NC to see the graves of the last people to die on the wrong side of history and be sad for the stupidity and racism that caused people to “lay down their lives” for this evil cause. I mean… there is tragedy in that.

Trump’s power to deploy National Guard, explained : NPR

«”For better or for worse, I think the insurrection Act has been a third rail politically for much of its history,”»

https://www.npr.org/2025/10/07/nx-s1-5564010/national-guard-deployments-powers-trump

Discussions of “third rail” are completely irrelevant in these days of Trump, Project 2025, and the MAGA base.

«”We’ve been fortunate for 230 years to not have to worry about where the line is between permissible and impermissible uses of those authorities,” he said. “That luck has run out, and now we really are at a point where the question is going to be: Do courts have the power to draw a line in the sand? And if so, where is that line?”»

Ok, well, THAT part’s right.

Trump sends California troops to Oregon, defying court order | Sacramento Bee

Trump and the P25 people playing to the Fox news audience. “American cities are *dangerous!!!1!1!!*

«On Saturday, U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut in Portland temporarily blocked the Pentagon from sending 200 Oregon National Guard members to protect an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland from protests.

She rejected the Pentagon’s claims that Portland faced a “danger of rebellion,” and said “the president’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” a week after Trump told military leaders that he planned to punish “dangerous” cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York by using them as military training grounds to combat “a war within.”»

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article312391589.html

Trump White Houses Senses Political Risk on Healthcare Despite Government Shutdown Bravado – WSJ

«Advisers are worried that the GOP will take the blame for allowing healthcare subsidies to expire, raising costs for millions of Americans ahead of next year’s midterm elections, according to administration officials.»

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-government-shutdown-healthcare-risk-d5b7e197?reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink (gift)

*snerk*

They couldn’t see this coming? Or they KNEW it was coming and they KNEW they’d have to negotiate something and they KNEW it would just raise the deficit even more and they just didn’t talk about it?

Republicans are either stupid or dishonest. Pick one.