Shutdown - Part Two

Bill Sykes Has Entered the Chat

Sooooooo, the shutdown is at record length and the House has been closed for even longer and AZ Rep. Grivalja is still not sworn in and SNAP funds have run out and tRump refuses to use the contingency fund to feed people despite court orders, so people are heading into a Thanksgiving with bare cupboards, and the ICE raids and shootings continue and tRump says repeatedly that he can do ‘whatever he wants’ and blows up another boat in the Caribbean (65 dead so far) and every day smarmy Mike Johnson and a gaggle of butt-kissers go out to the press and say that Democrats are radical leftist Marxists who have caused all of the problems and are the only ones who can solve this by giving in on the CR.

tRump has almost literally become a Dickensian character.

Scratch ‘almost’.

In fact, the whole Republican Party right now resembles ‘Oliver Twist’ and tRump’s Scrooge.

This is what we’re up against. An entire party and president that refuses to show up, to negotiate or do any work, lambasting the other party for their obstinance.

A party that refuses to behave with civility, complaining the other party is uncivil. The party jack booting immigrants calling the other party divisive, the party of graft calling the other party fraudsters- frankly, we could go on all day with this kind of shit.

It’s not just the shutdown. Republicans have been insulting and demeaning Democrats like this since tRump came on the scene. And they’ve constantly played ‘Lucy and the football’ with every bill and amendment that Democrats propose.

It plays out most directly in the legislature.

There are no Democratic amendments in the ‘One Big Beautiful Bull Act’. (hehehe) It passed entirely on party lines. Democrats pleaded for the healthcare and SNAP cuts to be removed, for the ACA subsidies to be extended.

No dice.

So, Dems have filibustered the CR- another Republican failing as they only need it because they couldn’t put a budget together if your life depended on it. (Oh, wait, it does.) They can’t pass their own ideas, much less even listen to Democrats.

And, if Democrats cave and let the CR pass?

Those subsidies disappear completely, which will wreak havoc on millions of citizens and the entire healthcare industry. And it will instantly reduce SNAP by almost 20%.

Both of which Republicans will blame on Democrats.

So, did Democrats want to shut down the government and make people lose their paychecks and food?

Of course not.

Why didn’t they do that when the bill was on the floor?

They did. They were defeated in every amendment in both chambers.

The bill naively ignored all of these highly telegraphed repercussions and if Democrats don’t fight them now, this way, they will never get to fix them unless they take a super majority number of seats in both chambers in the midterms and that’s not until next year.

Republicans had to have known the Democrats would filibuster the CR after being shut out so completely from the Bull bill. They could just ‘nuke’ the filibuster for CRs and pass it on party lines anytime they want- I mean, they do it all the fucking time, why not now?

Because they like the shutdown. They like the damage and the outrage it causes. Because what they like best is being able to blame Democrats. That’s why Johnson trots out the posse to lie to the press about them every day. They relish the vitriol.

It’s not just an ‘Alinsky’ style strategy, it’s, well, okay, damnit, it is pure Alinsky and it’s the Republicans doing it. Irony, much?

Anyways…..

Now, the ‘shutdown’ of the House is an integral part of this, too. While it’s definitely attached to new AZ Rep. Grivalja’s required swearing in and her promise to be the 218th vote-forcing signature on the Epstein Files petition, the closure of the House interacts with the shutdown to give tRump what he really wants.

Both Congress and the social/economic arms of the government are paralyzed. But, not the military or the DoJ.

And, that brings up the other reason that the Republicans are so intransigent.

They know what’s coming.

tRump is absolutely planning on invoking the Insurrection Act, and soon. That’s precisely why he’s ordered ICE to commit blatant assault and kidnapping of latinos and deployed the national guard to blue cities. He’s trying to create a reaction he can label as an insurrection.

Once he does, Congress, the courts and the Constitution itself will be irrelevant. He is planning a military takeover and permanent presidency.

Now, the man is not only demented, disordered, larcenous, duplicitous, psychopathic, here we go again, folks, greedy, spiteful and dying, but astonishingly stupid. He thinks he’ll live long enough to be an emperor. But a tyrant who thinks a dementia test is an IQ test is eventually going to be overthrown himself- by his sycophantic minions.

Once he goes too far, he’s outta there.

For the vast majority of us, that’s already happened. He’s gone way too far, too fast, and caused too much damage in just nine months. Few of us can even fathom any other president having done any of this.

But, the minions- Nosferatu Miller, Sneaky Russ Vought, Puppy Killer Noem, Gruesome Tom Homan, batshit Bobby Jr. and the backstabber at large, JD Vance, all have a much more dire definition of when ‘enough is enough’. tRump himself has no concept of that, as, when asked if ICE had gone too far, he said they “had not gone far enough”.

Any past cabinet would have seen even a small portion of tRump’s behavior as grounds for the 25th Amendment, and, of course, he’s probably committed over a hundred individual impeachable acts just in the first 9 months of his second term.

But, the minions would never consider dumping tRump now and getting the government back on track, following the law. They don’t want that. They just want him to do the dirty parts before they take over, so, they’re egging him on to do all the damage he wants, which, they’ll all bend over backwards to blame on Democrats.

Then, they will gladly rule over the ashes.

Stopping the shutdown will not solve any of these problems. The immediate crisis is already disingenuously created to use hunger as a weapon against Democrats, to make those on SNAP pawns in their 1/2 dimensional chess. (It’s checkers, Donald, checkers! Stop asking where the queen is.)

No, getting rid of tRump is not enough. All of the cabinet, and especially un-elected and un-appointed uber-Nazi Miller need to be ousted if not and outright jailed.

And the House and Senate need to be purged of traitorous agents like Johnson.

And, that could happen in the midterms, as, for instance, Johnson’s own Louisiana district has 38% on Medicaid, and a similar percentage on SNAP. Johnson could, for the first time, face a critical electorate who knows what he’s been doing.

The question is, can we survive until the midterms? Will there even be a midterm election?

We’re all gonna find out, the hard way.

C.2025 Cousin B