"The one chance the Dems have to demand accountability & a return to constitutionality by the Republicans -- and they opt to cave in to keep government functioning with piddling concessions & 'business as usual'. Did no one see what Bernie Sanders has been doing & the response from the general public? Why are mainstream & old-school Dems like Schumer such pathetic losers? No wonder Trump & Musk are well on their way to the complete authoritarian takeover." - WaPo comment
“By voting last week to keep the US government running on
Trump’s terms, Schumer dropped Democrats’ sole leverage. Schumer said a
government shutdown would have let Trump do what he likes. Since Trump and Musk
are already doing just that, Schumer’s reasoning fell flat.” - Edward Luce, Financial Times, ‘The U.S
Establishment is Scared Of Its Own Shadow’.
I can tell you this 81-year-old dude is completely supportive of shutting down the MAGA USA government because it certainly does not represent me. I want to see the Musk-Trump cabal stopped at every turn. It's the MAGA House and the MAGA Senate that are at fault here, not even making any effort to deal with Democrats. Why shouldn't we give them a taste of their own medicine. - NY Times comment
As the chattering classes' heads explode at the prospect of a government shutdown, let’s get one thing clear: This is the last available leverage the Democrats possess against a full tilt, insane axing of the government by Musk’s DOGE dogs.
Thus, any long-term “continuing resolution” you hear about
today will be the loudest and last signal that Congress has wholly ceded
control of the “power of the purse,”- thereby critically undermining the
separation of powers that has been a benchmark of our democracy. Do you really
want that? I don’t!
Apart from which approving by vote of the Reeptards’ bill will open the floodgates to $4.5 trillion more in deficits from tax cuts. As oligarch gadlfy Scott Galloway put it last night (Anderson Cooper 360) “It will put our kids in hock with debt for generations.”
Thus the renegade, lawless Trump administration has given Senate Democrats no
choice but to shut down the government. Our country, its systems and its
principles are under an assault that will lead to unprecedented societal and
personal catastrophes in the short and long term, both domestically and abroad.
Government shutdowns are unquestionably painful, but the death of the separation of powers during this administration would be far far worse. The federal government was never intended to be controlled by the executive branch alone. We were never intended to be ruled by a latter day, wannabe king - hell, why else would my Revolutionary War ancestors have taken up arms against then mad King George III.
But if a government shutdown occurs,
responsibility should fall not on Democrats who refused to back the continuing
resolution, but at the feet of Speaker Mike Johnson (Louisiana) and his fellow
Republicans. At the president’s command, they cynically refuse to advance the
normal appropriations process and have surrendered their authority to the
executive branch for fear of primary challenge.
Senate Democrats need to use a shutdown as leverage to demand accountability for everything that has transpired over the past six weeks. Their opening negotiating offer needs to be big because the administration’s authoritarian actions have had huge negative implications for the constitutional freedoms of Americans, government transparency, separation of powers, the rule of law, national security, business continuity, the economy and the trustworthiness of America as a partner on the international stage.
Here's the bottom line takeaway for today:
This is intolerable, so we need a shutdown to cut down DOGE at the knees.
The federal programs we depend on — for everything from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Food and Drug Administration, and from federal assistance for low-income communities to crucial environmental, social and economic programs and beyond — could be zeroed out at the administration’s discretion if Congress isn’t able to provide detailed direction on how the money should be spent or to insist that the law be followed. A long-term continuing resolution will be the loudest and last signal that Congress has wholly ceded control of the “power of the purse,” critically undermining the separation of powers that has been a benchmark of our democracy.
A Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday found that 32 percent of registered voters would blame Democrats in Congress for a shutdown, 31 percent would blame Republicans in Congress and 22 percent would blame Trump.
That translates to a majority (53%) blaming the Reeps and their Demented Orange Overlord. That makes it worthwhile to shut down to show the DOGE Dogs, the Musk Rats and Dimwit Dotard they cannot get their way on every issue or event. The time now is to defend democracy not roll over as Sen. Chuck Schumer seems prepared to do. As Sen. Bernie Sanders put it last night on ALL In, Schumer's fears only materialize if one assumes there will be no blowback from the people. He (and I) are betting there will be - as the eruption of discontent at Trump's madness has for too long been bottled up as it is.
See Also:
Funding bill may grant Trump, Musk more control over federal spending
Chuck Schumer had one job: to stand between Donald Trump and the complete dismantling of American democracy. Instead, he caved — again — handing Trump the power he craved without a fight, without a demand, without even a moment of real resistance. With every cowardly compromise, Schumer isn’t just failing Democrats — he’s enabling an autocrat in real-time.
The question most Democrats want to ask of Leader Chuck Schumer in the Senate appears to be, “How’s that ‘keeping the government open to hold Trump accountable’ thing working out for you?”
Everything Trump does now going forward, when people or the press complain, he will say was authorized by “bipartisan legislation” with “the full support of the Senate Democrats.”
In fact, just hours after Schumer and a handful of timid Senate Democrats voted to pass Trump’s Enabling Acts of 2025 legislation, the president issued an executive order gifting Vladimir Putin with the gutting of the Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution.
If you've read much history about our Civil War, known in the south as the War of Northern Aggression, you surely know what a disappointment General McClellan was to President Lincoln in the early years of that war. McClellan was so unenthusiastic about engaging with the enemy that people began to question his commitment to preserving the union, let alone opposing slavery. For a military leader, he showed what seemed like very limited interest in fighting, so much so, in fact, that after months of having to nag him to be just a bit more aggressive, an exasperated Lincoln wrote him saying, in effect, that "if you're not going to use our army, might I borrow it." Not long after, Lincoln replaced McClellan and would soon find his way to Grant, after which the pace of the war picked up noticeably.
I'm no expert on military strategy or armed conflict, but I intuit that if one wants to prevail in most any kind of conflict, contesting with the enemy will, sooner or later, become essential to winning. If one side is more committed to winning or is meaner, nastier, less concerned about the price to be paid and who will pay it, chances are they'll come out on top. Sun Tzu, a Chinese guy from way back, explained all this a very long time ago. Maybe Chuck Schumer and other dithering Democrats should read that book.
Not even two months since Inauguration Day and it’s already been quite a trip. Ping-ponging between vindictive pettiness and unconstitutional overreach while using everything in his power (and much that isn’t), U.S. President Donald Trump has served up a goulash of dubious orders with a slathering of venom on top. He’s been abetted in the upheaval he promised on the campaign trail by the richest man on Earth, a cabal of lickspittles, and a cabinet filled with people who appear to have answered job ads stipulating, “Only the unqualified may apply.” As it became clearer what the battles to come would be, a friend wrote me: “I feel now like we’re watching it all happen. It being that thing that can’t happen here.”
There would be something strangely exhilarating about the frenzy of activity in Washington, if only it weren’t so careless, mean, dishonest, and destructive. Some of the most egregious actions have indeed been temporarily halted by the courts, but there’s no guarantee that trend will hold up—if, of course, Donald Trump and crew even pay attention to court decisions—especially when cases arrive at what’s potentially “his” Supreme Court. Meanwhile, insidious ideological purges encourage citizens to rat out their neighbors and coworkers, as leaders of industry, the media, and other institutions rush to appease the president before he dissolves into a hissy fit of revenge. (The speed with which many corporations complied with the order to axe DEI programs illuminates how shallow their commitment to that effort really was.)
by Jaime O’Neill | March 14, 2025 - 5:30am | permalink
It started by being about things like the Central Park Five, then about Muslims, followed by Mexicans, until it took on random fears about nearly every other country in the world except Saudi Arabia, Russia, and North Korea.
It was about Obama’s birth certificate, Hillary Clinton’s emails, and Sleepy Joe Biden's age and "crime family." Then it was about Kamala because her name was hard for him to pronounce, because she was a "lunatic," and he hated her laugh. Also, she was the wrong one of the genders, of which there were, according to his later fiat, only two.
It was about inflation. The price of “groceries,” a word that seemed to be new to him. It was about foreigners coming here to rip us off, or about them ripping us off from their mostly shithole countries, though even the nicer countries were only nicer because they had been ripping us off so consistently for so long.
And:
Democrats to decide: Shut down government or side with Trump - The Washington Post
And:
‘Big mad’: Trump is ‘emotional’ and ‘annoyed’ over trade war he started | Watch
And:
In a letter to senators, obtained by Talking Points Memo, the American Federation of Government Employees urged lawmakers to oppose a Republican plan that would keep the federal government open for another six months. That plan, a continuing resolution passed by the GOP-controlled House earlier this week, would avert a shutdown that is due to start Saturday.
But passing the
Republican proposal in in the Senate would mean lawmakers effectively
surrendering their constitutional power to the executive branch, where Musk —
backed by President Donald Trump — has claimed authority to slash
congressionally-authorized appropriations. If the White House can disregard
such appropriations, in defiance of the Constitution giving Congress sole
discretion over spending, then passing a CR with no limits imposed on Musk or
his Department of Government Efficiency would in effect be
providing the Trump administration a pot of money to spend as it pleases.
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