Republicans shut down the government. They run the government. They are blaming everyone else.

This reminds me of that pie chart someone put out several years back where the majority of it was labeled Christian, and the remainder was labeled "other" with the Christian part saying "help! We're being oppressed"

That's how I feel about the US government shutdown right now.

But what do I know? I don't even live in that shithole country.

Christians have a massive persecution and saviour complex. Its a core tenet of the lore.
- I like that you referred to religious dogma as "lore".

A reminder that absolutely none of this shit would be happening if people just dropped their bullshit virtue signalling faux care for Palestine and voted for her.

Even Palestine and the rest of the Middle-East would be better off.

We knew this would be the case, but so many millions of leftists cared more about virtue signalling than reality.

Yeah, those millions changing their 'faux care' would have been so much easier than 1 woman expressing clearly that she would care instead of trying to fish republican votes.
You liberals are just brain dead at this point.
Fair, but I feel like these kinds of comments are on the same level as people refusing to go with Kamala, because Palestine. Understandable sentiment, but adds nothing to the conversation. Only divides people further, which is in the best interest of both candidates.
The rest of the middle east? Haven't several middle eastern countries made multiple lucrative business deals with American companies since trump entered office?

I miss the Car Talk days of NPR, just on my commute to night class today I get to hear them make the statement "Democrats shut down the government."

God this shit is disheartening.

Stop listening
click and clack the tap it brothers.
and whatever you do.. don't drive like my brother!

Americans are crazy

Americans need to be introduced to the concept of guillotine
- and maybe a revolution
Not all of us, but enough so that this generalization is entirely fair.
- Of course. But as a simplification I have to assume going forward that an American is crazy until they show me otherwise.

is anyone surprised, its meant to prevent the epstein files from being released by thenewly elected house member.

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.
Slow collapse? 10 months feels extremely fast to manage taking an economy that was at least somewhat stable and possibly on the rise to straight-up dumpster fire along with everything else thats just crazy thrown in for good fun. Felt really fast to lose it all..
- The reason that it's so fast is that the economy never really recovered from Reagan, he took a jackhammer to the base level foundation and empowered the corporations. Fact of the matter is the building was already leaning due to being too top heavy, Trump just kicked out the reinforcement struts that were slowing the inevitable collapse.

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.

Happy birthday! I got you a government shutdown.
- Fuck! That's what I got him to!

It's somebody else's fault. It always is.

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.

The only silver lining I see is that the Democrats didn’t. Still, having a mirror in that other dimension would be interesting (if likely depressing)
- Yet still, the Democrats totally face planted this. Only people chronically in political news even know why they bothered to not approve the budget. They chose to die on a hill of a nuanced policy stance that doesn't play well in headlines. Gargantuan missed opportunity to make it a populist movement to shut down the govt for something nearly everyone can get behind like minimum wage increases, ending ICE raids, etc.

Dem's should amend their demands for congressional reversal of every Trump funding fascism attack. So far that includes $18B in NYC infrastructure funding and $8B in blue state renewable energy funding.

Dems/DNC should tell states to collect federal taxes and fund their states with them, instead of remitting them to US treasury. Or governors should invoke that right in support of ending GOP shutdown.

As much as this feels like a great idea - companies usually collect and allocate taxes on behalf of companies individuals (payroll, income, sales etc.). I don’t think any major company is going to be brave enough to do openly defy the Federal Government and divert taxes away to state coffers instead.
- The IRS is reliant on state level agencies cut off communication with the IRS and cut utilities to IRS offices and server buildings. Then strong arm corporations through similar methods, oh Amazon doesn't want to give the states the federal taxes? Congrats permanent road construction in front of all facilities and no electricity.
- Law becomes you pay federal taxes to this state. If you get threatened to pay twice, state would keep what you didn't have to pay Feds, and can unionize against infringement of state rights. A union who's governance would stay open. If government shuts down, dissolve union and have new constitutional convention for states that want this government.

Say it with me kids…. “sleepy joe!” Or something. I dunnno. Trump is a pedo btw.

Just a form letter at this point.

    
Republicans do ________. 

Republicans blame everyone else for the negative results.

I like you made the important parts red. or is that just programming syntax?
- Used the “code” parameter which highlighted the words automatically.

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.
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.
- 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.
- They could also abolish the filibuster but they won't do that because they want to keep it for later.

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.

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.
WE DID IT. WE STOPPED THE GOVERNMENT. IT'S A GREAT, GREAT SHUTDOWN. PLAY GOLF. GOOD FOR AMERICA.

So... ICE isn't getting paid right now?

I'm sure they are, it's those guys who do unimportant work, like making sure the forests aren't going up in flames and consuming the nation, or helping out people who are about to die from starvation, exposure etc, those are the useless ones who don't get paid.
It's a fucked up system.
- I would say something snarky like "just wait til they make more money putting out literal fires than they do deporting brown people", but then I realize they haven't gotten any money from deporting people, and, you know, rich assholes would love to buy up cheap land when everything is burnt to the chimneys.
The way it works is some people work regardless, like the military or ATC for example. Idk if ICE falls into a similar category but it wouldn't surprise me.
Anyone still working won't get paid right now but when the politicians are done with their games and the government is reactivated they'll get back pay...eventually.
- with interest?
  because that's what all your backed due payments are going to have.

probably part of the plan to let programs and agencies they couldn’t legislate away die by attrition.

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.
- Trump was "just a citizen" in 2020, and look how much he got done in 4 years.

Good! Fascists being shut down is always good news.

The fascists are considered essential and will still be working whether or not they are being paid
In one sense yes, but this doesn't hurt any of them in the least. This hurts GS level employees and "expendable" workers, as planned.
Ask the government workers who are being fired because of the shutdown how good it is.
And how much pushback will they get long term after ripping out most career civil servants?
- Didn't they already fire most the normal people? The government employees at this point are more likely to be trump loyalists. Let them sweat.