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The Republicans shut down the government to prevent the release of the Epstein files.
Just a form letter at this point.
Republicans do ________.
Republicans blame everyone else for the negative results.
I fucking hate bearing witness of a slow collapse of a world power from where I'm sitting at... It's been almost ten months since that fucking day.
This shutdown is just one of the steps towards what amounts to a mafia dictatorship by committee.
Oh the smoke's been there for a while, the fire has been burning, and now that the flaming debris is falling to the ground you notice, that's all.
Say it with me kids…. “sleepy joe!” Or something. I dunnno. Trump is a pedo btw.
probably part of the plan to let programs and agencies they couldn’t legislate away die by attrition.
why didn't they just try changing senate rules lmao, or just ignore the parliamentarian? are the fascists this incompetent?
Don't take this as incompetent, they wanted the government to shutdown. They have something going on right now where if the government shut down, they were effectively ending a bunch of administrative positions in a reduction of force.
This shutdown is just one more way they are trying to destroy this country through destroying the mechanisms that run the government.
Welp, blue states can form a new country, republicans will just have to reap what they sow.
If conservatives alone got what they deserved (misery) it wouldn't be so bad. But they insist on taking everyone else down with them, too.
Ok what the hell is going on? I know the American government has "shutdown" before but don't Trump's party have a majority in both houses of congress? What's in the way of them doing...whatever it is they want to do?
This is another method to destroy the government. They are planning to use the shutdown for mass layoffs. Here's a quick video explaining the topic.
I'm not in a situation where I can watch videos right now, but I've heard this argument and I don't buy it. Are you telling me that this regime, which has been flouting laws and regulations and norms to do mass layoffs already, and shrugging at every judicial slap on the wrist that has come as a result, even to the point of bringing in a private citizen to go around with a chainsaw and destroy workforces and agencies he doesn't understand— you're telling me that this regime, the most lawless in recent American history, the one that cares far more about appearances and feelings than facts and is so disorganized as to have trouble organizing a church potluck, this one— they suddenly have their act together enough and value the rule of law enough to engineer an unbelievably unpopular government shutdown, in order to justify an unbelievably unpopular layoffs of government workers, when they could clearly just do it anyway with no repercussions?
Yeah, I don't buy it. I don't see any 4D chess here, I just see tic-tac-toe being played in elephant manure.
The courts ordered many of those people fired by DOGE cuts to be returned to their jobs.
This is a way to starve those people out in a way that the courts can’t intervene.
The court order was good, but as far as I can tell (1) most of the people who were fired have already moved on to other jobs (or understandably don't want it back under this admin); and (2) I haven't seen much evidence of the administration actually complying with this court order.
You know, the only coherent response to this I can come up with is just incredulity. I'm not trying to be mean about this, but this comment reeks of someone not paying attention or just very naive. Given how Project 2025 laid out plans for dismantling the federal government and we've seen them take coordinated and planned out steps to implement this already, why is this so unbelievable to you?
they suddenly have their act together enough and value the rule of law enough to engineer an unbelievably unpopular government shutdown, in order to justify an unbelievably unpopular layoffs of government workers, when they could clearly just do it anyway with no repercussions?
Why do you think they wouldn't try to do both illegal and quasi-legal methods? What makes you think they wouldn't engineer a situation that lets them use a different legal strategy to try to make it work when they've tried, and arguably failed, to reduce the workforce through other methods?
I mean, pretend that the trump administration is as dumb as trump and not backed by fuckers like the heritage foundation (that has been implementing a plan to effectively destroy America as we know it for decades) at your own peril. They will try any and every way they can to enact their end goals, don't fall for the doddering old fool who shoots their plans in the foot and not see the people desperately trying to not footgun themselves with the fucking moron as the face of the movement.
Given how Project 2025 laid out plans for dismantling the federal government and we've seen them take coordinated and planned out steps to implement this already, why is this so unbelievable to you?
Specifically because I've been paying attention, and noticed that they do not care one single iota about doing anything lawfully. They haven't followed the law so far to do all of their layoffs, why would they start now?
Why do you think they wouldn't try to do both illegal and quasi-legal methods?
Because the illegal methods work, there are no consequences, they're faster, and they have the added bonus of "triggering the libs." Plus, layoffs are unpopular, so the legislative branch doesn't want its stink on them.
pretend that the trump administration is as dumb as trump and not backed by fuckers like the heritage foundation [...] at your own peril.
To be clear: the Trump administration is dumb. But not because of Trump.
Remember, MAGA has inherited a very fragile coalition of two groups from the GOP: the Heritage Foundation crowd (corporate technocrat oligarchs, etc) and the "Moral" Majority crowd. It's hard to tell the difference because they've locked in the unified messaging and pressured all of their members to say and vote for all of the same stuff, but they're still just two angry cats in the same bag; they want vastly different things, they just both think that they can betray the other to get it. This administration is dumb because it's an unholy alliance of two diametrically-opposed groups, and the guy currently on top isn't smart enough to keep them in line.
The technocrats control the Executive and SCOTUS, but the "Moral" Majority crowd control the Legislature, albeit tenuously. And they need two things: to get reelected (I know, "there won't be another election," I know, but just go with me here) and to have enough governmental levers to pull in order to advance their White "Christian" Nationalist policies. Cutting more of the governmental apparatus reduces their ability to do both.
So I don't think Johnson wants to cut much more of the government. He's probably getting at least some pressure from Trump to not seat Grijalva for as long as possible, and he knows he's never going to get the votes to break the logjam on the budget, so he probably figures he can just rip off the band-aid now, get started on shifting the blame to the Democrats, and avoid the embarrassment of losing multiple votes in a row before the shutdown inevitably happens anyway.
Constant state of fear and confusion is pretty much the normal now.
They need a larger majority of 60/100 in the Senate to my understanding, and while they have a majority they don’t have the 60 necessary to pass the spending bill. They need at least some Democrats to cross the floor and I don’t think any are willing.
They could also abolish the filibuster but they won't do that because they want to keep it for later.
3 did break party line. Fetterman, some guy from Maine and I think a gal from Arizona?
Fwiw, on the Republican side, Rand Paul broke from their party line and voted against the stopgap funding measure.
That's a good point, Ms. Harris. What are you doing about it?
I'm not American, so correct me if I'm wrong. What can she do about it? By all accounts, isn't she just another citizen at this point in time?
She is. A problem that has become quite apparent in the U.S. is that there are no effective measures to stop an unpopular government. The Republicans have at this time gerrymandered their voting districts and otherwise reformed democratic institutions in their favor, and are passing legislation that opposes the will of the people. They have no fear of recall, nor impeachment—there is nothing.
The vitriol people feel towards Democrats like Kamala Harris stems, among other reasons like sexism, from two common sources: a belief that Democrats spent too much time compromising with a party that openly opposed the people and the limits of government control, and a level of incredulity at the very institutional language that they are using while it is obvious that Republicans are now simply tearing down institutions they don’t like.
Just this morning I got an email from Alexandria Occasio-Cortez’s team—one of the U.S.’s most radical government representatives —that read, “And when Republicans use a legislative mechanism to gut the American healthcare system, we have to use a legislative mechanism in order to restore it and fight for it.”
How does that work? We have no legislative mechanisms available to us. The ruling party has taken away legislative mechanisms. It’s like asking a children’s basketball team to keep playing and try harder when their opponents have tossed the ball right out of the gym. The entire idea is premised on someone returning the ball—or to return from the metaphor, that Republicans are going to wreak havoc for two years and then get voted out of office because they allow enough of their enemies to vote. And that it’s “democratic” to sit and wait our turn while peoples’ deaths in the States and around the world are directly attributable to this administration’s undemocratic actions and our collective failure to stop them as of this moment.
Yeah, that sounds really tough. If I may suggest, you need more than 2 parties, and you need more local candidates that reflect this unrest.
Also, I don't know how to do this without adjusting the 1st amendment, but you really really need to stop fox news from blatantly lying
Trump was "just a citizen" in 2020, and look how much he got done in 4 years.
Trump was president for 10 out of 12 months in 2020 he was not “just a citizen” then.
Okay, fine. I should've said 2021 instead. What a nitpick.
He was President for ALL of 2020.
He lost an election in November, but he was President until January 20, 2021.
He was President of the United States in 2020.
I know ow history is a hard subject, but it was 5 fucking years ago.
What did he do at that time? 2020-2024 was a blur of Lysol and cabin fever for me
He kept the MAGA coalition together and retained control of the Republican Party. Then, he mounted a campaign to get re-elected. Harris has no vision, so she's just touring the country with her book about how she lost. This is the same thing that Hillary Clinton did.
Of course they're blaming the Democrats. And MAGA asks, "Well, what were the Democrats wearing?" to validate the victimization.
And I'm sure they'll blame the Democrats for all the government employees they're going to fire.
The party that practically trademarked government shutdowns now want you to believe they aren't responsible and would never want such a thing.
Even though we ordered our representatives not to negotiate and we ordered them not to show up when the Democrats all did. We really wanted to avoid this. Yeah right.
I kinda would have liked to see what would have happened if the Democrats said yes to all their demands.
Took me too long to understand why my birthday was always so full of strife.
Turns out, it's the end of the fiscal year.