If only

 Sadly, Dems will cave.

The excuse

 

Speaking of feckless Democrats

 

Pathetic.

This one might have been missed in all the chatter about the Dems caving once again...

They'll probably do it anyway

 

Precisely, Harry.  You've answered your own question.

In case you missed it, this is a dig at Kavanaugh for saying it's okay for ICE to snatch people up and hold them without warrants because they get released relatively quickly - or "promptly" in Kavanaugh's terms - after a "typically brief" encounter: now derisively called "Kavanaugh Stops".  

To their everlasting shame

 

What's this?

After a record-breaking 37-day shutdown, Republicans on Capitol Hill are reportedly ready to surrender. They’re ready to bend the knee. They’re ready, willing, and desperate to end the government shutdown crisis they courted by refusing to renew Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that, if allowed to expire, would skyrocket the healthcare premiums of tens of millions of Americans.

We come to you with a second major breaking news item.

Democrats do not accept their terms of surrender.

Yeah, read that sentence again.

After a decade of being possessed by the pathetic respectability politics of “strongly worded letters” and theater kid bullshit, Democrats have finally found a goddamn backbone.

Yesterday evening, in the wake of this week’s electoral “bluenami,” Politico reported that Senate Majority Leader John Thune told his GOP colleagues he will hold a vote later today to end the government shutdown.

  Zeteo

 The faces!

On Thursday, Republican senators discussed the idea of adopting a limited change to the Senate's filibuster rules to make it easier to reopen the government without Democratic votes.

[...]

The change would not terminate the 60-vote threshold writ large as there is not widespread Republican support for eliminating it despite the president's recent entreaties to do so.

Republican sources suspected even the limited change under consideration might not even make it to a vote.

  CBS

Disrespecting the Fuhrer?

BTW, Nancy Pelosi is finally retiring.

Oh, SNAP

 

Another plus for would-be destroyers of America

 

Yes, he IS that stupid

 Most of his voters rely on "Democrat programs" to get by.  

He's not Republican or Democrat.  He's simply mean, vindictive, and self-interested.

Preach, Rosa

 And they could find the money for bombing boats in the Caribbean if they wanted.

 

Resisting

On the 28th day of the government shutdown, a federal judge extended her order blocking the Trump administration from using the occasion to fire thousands of workers.

The leader of Democracy Forward, one of the advocacy groups behind the lawsuit, celebrated the ruling.

“This order is positive for the American people and a major blow to the Trump-Vance administration’s unlawful attempt to make the Project 2025 playbook a reality by targeting our nation’s career public servants, who work for all Americans,” the group’s CEO and president Skye Perryman wrote in a statement.

[...]

Before she issued a temporary restraining order earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston commented on “the human cost” of the Trump administration’s “politically motivated” decision to lay off thousands of people during the government shutdown.

On Tuesday, Illston began a roughly 90-minute hearing by reading the stories of some of the workers affected, including a sworn declaration from Air Force veteran Sonya Crocker.

“Prior to my current job, I worked at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and before that I was in the United States Air Force,” Crocker wrote. “During all that time, including during my combat deployment, I have never gone through anything as traumatizing as what I am now experiencing.”

[...]

[Justice Department senior attorney Michael Velchik] argued that the public voted for Trump’s mass layoffs.

“I mean the American people selected someone known above all else for his eloquence in communicating to employees that, ‘You’re fired’ — like, this is what they voted for,” said Velchik, quoting Trump’s tagline on “The Apprentice.”

  All Rise News

These people are barely human, if at all.

“Eloquence of doing so?” Illston repeated, incredulously.

“Yes, he’s known for, above all, I think that is sort of what he was known for,” Velchik insisted.

Attorney Danielle Leonard, representing a coalition of unions led by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), carried out Velchik’s argument to its logical endpoint.

“What counsel is arguing is that if Congress lets government funding lapse for one day, the president can fire the entire federal government,” Leonard noted. “That is absurd.”

UPDATE 05:19 pm:

 I'm pretty sure there won't be a lot of body cam video, nor will there be many - if any - use of force reports.  

Bovino personally tossed a gas canister into a crowd. But the fact that he has to personally go to her with the report speaks volumes about how serious she is.  Of course, he's a Trump goon.  We'll have to see if he complies.

They're doing their level best to start riots in Chicago.

UPDATE 06:29 pm:

Jackass.  Or cow.  Is Bovino Italian for cow?

UPDATE 10/29/2025:

You knew that was coming.

Follow the money

Trump is the law now.
 

The House is not working

 Although they ARE getting paid.

Senator Merkley is fillibustering

 Started 14 hours ago.  Still going.  Live stream.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) is using a lengthy filibuster speech to criticize President Donald Trump as Senate Democrats utilize the procedural tool to block passage of a GOP-backed measure to open the government.

“I’m holding the Senate floor to protest Trump’s grave threats to democracy. We cannot pretend this is normal,” he said in a post on X.

  Washington Examiner

OK, Examiner. It's not to keep the government from opening. It's to keep the Big Beautiful Bill to destroy what's left of America from coming to a vote.

    

Read between the lines

 Add to that the fact that Pam Bondi wouldn't answer when asked if the FBI had recovered photos of Trump with half naked young women on his lap, and I think you have a good idea what's in those files.  

I fully expect once they have used all their tricks to prevent the files being released, they will destroy a good deal of them.  Ooops.  Accidents do happen.

Dems must hold the line

 

Yes!

 

MTG has found a way back into the limelight - she's going woke

 

She's talking about the discharge petition to vote on releasing the Epstein files.  They'll have the needed 218 as soon as the newly elected Arizona representative, Democrat Adelita Grijalva is sworn in, something Mike Johnson is so far refusing to do.  He closed down the House to keep from doing it and now is telling them they can work in their districts rather than back in DC this week.  We'll see how he avoids it next week.

She complains that her adult children are facing doubled premiums.  Did she not vote for the Big Beautiful Bunk? I guess when it hits home, suddenly it matters.

But wait.

Laura Loomer is rocking the boat, too.

Trump may wish he'd kept these two ladies (and I use that term lightly) happy.

UPDATE 10/10/2025:

What the hell, Dick?

Thank God Dick Durbin is bowing out in November.   But I'm assuming there are many Democrats staying in who think they're walking in tall cotton on the healthcare issue.

They should be demanding all sorts of things and then negotiate down.  WTF?

They created this monster

Members of Congress in both parties bristled Tuesday at a White House memo arguing that federal workers who have been furloughed as part of the government shutdown are not necessarily entitled to backpay.

[...]

"For the most part, we're going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don't deserve to be taken care of, and we'll take care of them in a different way," [Trump said].

[...]

"The law here is quite clear," said Sam Berger, senior fellow at the Center for Policy and Budget Priorities. "The caveat is, if you follow the law."

  Axios

That is a sad and lonely "if".

"Every single furloughed federal employee is entitled to backpay. Period, full stop. The law is clear. We will make sure that law is followed," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said at a press conference.

Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.) said in a statement the White House is "throwing attention grabbing headlines out there to distract from the fact that they shut down the government."

"The over 55,000 federal workers in my District, who know the truth that they will be paid, won't take the bait," Vindman added.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters that threatening not to pay back workers is "bad strategy" and "probably not a good message to send right now to people who are not being paid."

Probably not, but Trump doesn't care.

The OMB memo is still a draft and it's not official policy yet.

He lives for making threats.