Shutdown 3: the Shutdownening

[Carpet_pissr]

If these are truly the only two options for McCarthy, I wonder which he will choose:

“McCarthy's dilemma: Save his speakership or keep the government open”

[Unagi]

He’s got such a horrible ‘speaker’ position, I’d almost think he’d rather lose it (no, not him, not really, but I would).

It just looks like he is so unbelievably weak. He controls absolutely nothing and at every juncture they just all show him that they are in control of him. His legacy will just be his total ineffectiveness in any capacity.

[GreenGoo]

Has he invited the entire house to applaud a Nazi yet?

No?

He's doing alright.

[Carpet_pissr]

Has he invited the entire house to applaud a Nazi yet?

No?

He's doing alright.

Ha! I get that.

[RunningMn9]

Things have escalated at work, and we are now preparing for an orderly shutdown of operations on Monday. Very inconvenient for me as the toddlers are likely impacting travel that I have scheduled for the following week to try to speed up getting things to soldiers that they need. But I guess this is Matt Gaetz’s world, not mine.

[malchior]

Washington Post - no link because computer has gremlins.

Cutting housing subsidies for the poor by 33 percent as soaring rents drive a national affordability crisis. Forcing more than 1 million women and children onto the waitlist of a nutritional assistance program for poor mothers with young children. Reducing federal spending on home heating assistance for low-income families by more than 70 percent with energy prices high heading into the winter months.

With days left before the government shuts down, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has embraced steep reductions to the U.S. safety net in an attempt to appease far-right Republican demands for lower spending. If McCarthy can win over conservatives and pass legislation funding the government, Republicans hope to have greater leverage in negotiations with the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House.

But far-right votes have remained elusive, leading McCarthy to propose ever larger and still evolving spending cuts.

...

Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), a top McCarthy lieutenant, told reporters over the weekend that the House leadership plans to cut spending on “discretionary” programs, a category that excludes programs such as Social Security and Medicare, by roughly 27 percent, except for the military budget and spending on veterans affairs.

That appears to translate into taking more than $150 billion per year out of the part of the budget that funds child care, education subsidies, medical research and hundreds of additional federal operations. The “bottom line is we’re singularly focused right now on achieving our conservative objectives,” Graves said. Trying to court the votes of far-right lawmakers, he added that these “huge savings” were being proposed “despite the fact that you’ve had record inflation under this administration.”

...

House Republicans have not unified, at least so far, on a single spending plan, which complicates attempts to characterize the party’s position that is changing by the day. House lawmakers plan to try to move ahead Tuesday with a package of spending bills that would cover the full 2024 fiscal year for four swaths of the government.

But even if those bills were approved by the Senate, which they will not be, much of the government would still shut down because federal operations are funded by 12 different bills. Hard-right holdouts blocked action on one of those bills last week.

[Blackhawk]

Washington Post

Wrong link.

[Octavious]

I'm at a solid 99.99999%. I also think our credit rating will take another ding. Which is awesome.

[LordMortis]

Yeah my 25% from last week was taken off the table the a few hours after I voted. Within a day or so, I think it jumped to 90% and I'd probably put it pushing 95% now. I'd take a critical on D20 to pass.

[malchior]

Every network right now -- BREAKING NEWS!! Senate reaches funding deal!!**

Spoiler:

**This was never in question.

[Octavious]

Good thing McCarthy won't do anything with it as he will get booted if he takes it.

[waitingtoconnect]

A real American would do a deal with the democrats and ignore the rebels.

[Blackhawk]

Washington Post - link fixed!

Um...

[malchior]

Washington Post - link fixed!

Um...

Edit: Oh weird. It works on one of my computers but didn't work on the other. It works on both now. Hopefully good! Thanks.

[Blackhawk]

Washington Post - link fixed!

Um...

Edit: Oh weird. It works on one of my computers but didn't work on the other. It works on both now. Hopefully good! Thanks.

The link works now.

But as much as I hate to be the one to tell you this... it's the wrong story, unless Sikh separatists are behind the shutdown.

[waitingtoconnect]

I blame the corrupt senator from Ne w jersey whom happens to be a democrat for all of it!

[malchior]

Washington Post - link fixed!

Um...

Edit: Oh weird. It works on one of my computers but didn't work on the other. It works on both now. Hopefully good! Thanks.

The link works now.

But as much as I hate to be the one to tell you this... it's the wrong story, unless Sikh separatists are behind the shutdown.

This is some weird shit. I'm just blowing the link in the post away because it works on the machine I'm posting from but not others.

[Blackhawk]

Is this your story?

[Carpet_pissr]

I assume the shutdown will affect the passport agency. Not good. Not good at all.

[Octavious]

Passports are a shit show even without a shutdown. They are super backlogged again. I got super lucky and got mine through before they piled up again. I would apply like 20 weeks before you need it if not more.

[Skinypupy]

Seen this morning:

I don’t think that we can repeat enough times that this isn’t another shut down where congress is fighting with the White House or the House with the Senate.

The govt is shutting down because the GOP speaker is fighting with about 25 GOP weirdos.

Such infuriating, clownish, performative bullshit.

[LordMortis]

They would deny this. They would say it's about border control and impeaching a malicious president. But then the GOP is famous for criticizing people sneaking in things in to budget and spending bills. This time it's not sneaking. It's compromise.

[Zarathud]

This shutdown would be in the 2 weeks before extended tax return due date. Utter stupidity.

[Smoove_B]

What an absolute tool.

"We said when we came into office we’d do two things: curb the spending and remove the wokeness. That's what we did [in these appropriations bills]." - @RepRyanZinke

I need a line-item breakdown that shows were the "wokeness" was cut from the budget.

[Jaymon]

Remove the wokeness, let them sleep during session!

[malchior]

FFS. This poll is so poorly thought out that they should be embarrassed about publishing the results. But that won't stop the headlines that'll surely follow. Why has everything become incredibly stupid here?

[waitingtoconnect]

48% of the public polled don’t understand how our system of government works clearly…

[Carpet_pissr]

FFS. This poll is so poorly thought out that they should be embarrassed about publishing the results. But that won't stop the headlines that'll surely follow. Why has everything become incredibly stupid here?

Also poorly worded/ambiguous. “Responsible for the shutdown” or “responsible” as in “behaving like a got damn grownup for once”?

[malchior]

The mistake in the statistical math on this is straightforward as well. Giving two options and then effectively summing them up as Democratic party responsibility naturally "splits" the ticket and inflates the results for those options. The pollsters should have known this. It's a known tendency. Trained data scientists are taught how to adjust for this by either transforming the data (weighting the results appropriately) or explaining the effect. Neither path was chosen here which is a huge error.

I mean this paragraph is just a disaster from a data science point of view. Just 80% of Democrats are going to blame the GOP? Explain that one. I suppose some might blame forces not in the poll or are part of the usual 5-10% who are "not sure" but my belief that this is a quality poll is quite low.

If the federal government does shut down, 43% of the American public will hold the Republicans in Congress most responsible while a slightly higher number will place the blame on the opposite party – either President Biden (27%) or congressional Democrats (21%). As may be expected, 80% of Democrats would blame the GOP while Republicans are split between seeing Biden (46%) or the Democrats in Congress (38%) as being more at fault if a shutdown occurs.

[LordMortis]

GOP can't agree with GOP on getting anything moving, so more people think it's either the president or the democratic Congress? Are you cereal? It might be a horrible poll, but that's still the death of our nation run amok. Neither party in the GOP will compromise with the GOP to avoid government shutdown...

[Smoove_B]

GOP can't agree with GOP on getting anything moving, so more people think it's either the president or the democratic Congress? Are you cereal? It might be a horrible poll, but that's still the death of our nation run amok. Neither party in the GOP will compromise with the GOP to avoid government shutdown...

Yeah, exactly. The hardcore fringe member of the GOP are holding the rest of the GOP hostage by not voting with them to approve the budget and that's President Biden's fault (somehow) because he...won't advocate for the hardcore GOP members? Meet with hardcore GOP members and negotiate the insane budgetary cuts they're proposing?

I'm pretty sure I saw Qevin on some clip bemoaning President Biden's border policy but the latest budget the House GOP proposed included severe cuts to border security elements. Like seriously, what in the actual F is happening with news media on this? I get that people are morons but the fact that the news media can't even seem to cover this correctly is insane.

[LordMortis]

GOP can't agree with GOP on getting anything moving, so more people think it's either the president or the democratic Congress? Are you cereal? It might be a horrible poll, but that's still the death of our nation run amok. Neither party in the GOP will compromise with the GOP to avoid government shutdown...

Yeah, exactly. The hardcore fringe member of the GOP are holding the rest of the GOP hostage by not voting with them to approve the budget and that's President Biden's fault (somehow) because he...won't advocate for the hardcore GOP members? Meet with hardcore GOP members and negotiate the insane budgetary cuts they're proposing?

I'm pretty sure I saw Qevin on some clip bemoaning President Biden's border policy but the latest budget the House GOP proposed included severe cuts to border security elements. Like seriously, what in the actual F is happening with news media on this? I get that people are morons but the fact that the news media can't even seem to cover this correctly is insane.

The also won't bother working together because the need to work together is predicated on thing breaking because the GOP reneged on the deal they just made to not have to go through this. But yeah, let's compromise and fix the border by ???? and impeach the president to follow through on the promises we made just a couple of months ago. Both sides! And by both sides, I mean the socialist democrat extremists.

I don't even pay close attention to what's up or the news and I hear this enough.

[malchior]

Like seriously, what in the actual F is happening with news media on this? I get that people are morons but the fact that the news media can't even seem to cover this correctly is insane.

Apparently at some point the practice of proper journalism became holding a mike in front of them and then re-broadcasting whatever they say with zero context provided. The Republicans know this and just shout things into the universe knowing that no one keeps them honest most of the time.

[Smoove_B]

Here we go:

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s last-ditch plan to keep the federal government temporarily open collapsed on Friday as hard-right holdouts rejected the package, making a shutdown almost certain.

McCarthy’s right-flank Republicans refused to support the bill despite its steep spending cuts of nearly 30% to many agencies and severe border security provisions, calling it insufficient.

The White House and Democrats rejected the Republican approach as too extreme.

The bill’s failure a day before Saturday’s deadline to fund the government leaves few options left to prevent a shutdown that will furlough federal workers, keep the military working without pay and disrupt programs and services for millions of Americans.

[Octavious]

Shocking. He's fucked. There's no way he gets out of this position alive. Bummer

[malchior]

How long until it turns into a discussion about why the White House isn't negotiating with the radicals?

[Smoove_B]

How long until it turns into a discussion about why the White House isn't negotiating with the radicals?

"Shutdown continues for 3rd week as White House and Biden Administration do nothing to change course"

[Unagi]

I’ll just say that the Dems need to be super careful not to create a narrative that the government shutdown is because McCarthy wouldn’t meet their demands.

[LordMortis]

How long until it turns into a discussion about why the White House isn't negotiating with the radicals?

Late July... That that's negative two months? How long until less biased talking heads, rather than talking head posing as less biased join that discussion? I'm not sure it matters much. The ignorant looking for excuses to blame Biden and Ka Ma La and rail about the price of beef (I guess Biden must have killed all the cows like he killed all the chickens no one is talking about any more) aren't likely to change their course.

[Blackhawk]

Now we get to see how long the country can continue without a functioning government. We're locked in an impasse here that I'm not sure there's a way out of. I mean, what happens if, six months from now, those few hardliners are still refusing to budge?