• Schumer Shutdown update: For the first time since the Schumer Shutdown began on October 1, the ball is in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s court. The Senate has passed the slightly amended continuing resolution; now, the House will vote on the funding extension. The House Rules Committee worked past midnight to pass the bill to a general rules vote, which will be held today. Democrats attempted and failed to force votes on amendments related to their pet ObamaCare subsidies. Interestingly, while Senate Republicans promised Democrats a vote on those subsidies in early December, House Republicans have made no such promise. If the CR passes the rules vote, as expected, it will then be open to debate before being put to a final vote tonight, advancing the legislation to President Donald Trump’s desk.

• Leftmedia comes clean: With the Senate Democrats finally ending their record-long government shutdown, the Big Three legacy media networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — suddenly changed their tune. Having misinformed the American public by primarily blaming Republicans for the shutdown, the networks finally admitted the shutdown was the Democrats’ doing. A despondent NBC’s “Today” reported that “the reason Democrats had pushed for the shutdown in the first place” failed and that seven Democrat senators “decided it was time to bring the shutdown to an end.” CBS anchor Tony Dokoupil observed that Democrats chose to “drive the country into a shutdown,” and their base is now angry. ABC’s Rachel Scott reported that “it was Senate Democrats who backed away from what they’ve been demanding all along.” Maybe this shutdown would have been much shorter if these networks had accurately reported that Democrats were responsible for it in the first place.

• SNAP fight reaches SCOTUS: Lawsuits attempting to force the Department of Agriculture to find funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments that go out to nearly one in eight Americans were successful last week before the Supreme Court answered an emergency request on Friday to freeze some lower-court orders. The initial freeze offered by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson would have expired on Tuesday if the Court had not extended it to Thursday at 11:59 p.m., this time against Justice Jackson’s wishes. The Supreme Court did not explain its decision, which is not unusual for emergency requests. However, given the recent movement on the CR to fund the government, it’s likely that the Court hopes Congress will provide funding through ordinary means, thereby rendering the question moot.

• UK sides with narco-terrorists: Apparently, the current leadership of the United Kingdom would rather see illicit drugs flow into the U.S. than see them stopped. That is effectively the message that was sent after the UK said it was suspending the sharing of some intel with the U.S. over the Trump administration’s recent strikes taking out cartel drug boats. Reportedly, the UK prefers not to be complicit in “illegal” U.S. military strikes. So, America’s closest ally doesn’t want to share intel because it thinks attacking drug-smuggling terrorists is illegal. Based upon what? Evidently, past practices, when those criminals ferrying illicit drugs, responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans annually, were simply detained and had their illicit cargo seized. In war, killing the enemy ends the enemy’s war efforts.

• Antifa vs. TPUSA: The Turning Point USA tour that Charlie Kirk began on his last day on earth in Utah ended on Monday at UC Berkeley, where Antifa thugs tried to stop the event. One arrest for battery occurred before the event even started, and one TPUSA supporter was seen on video being assaulted and trying to flee Antifa. Police later detained that man with blood pouring down his face before identifying him as a victim. At one point, a car backfired with a sound like gunshots, and it was greeted with raucous cheers. Andy Ngo reported that the protest was organized by a group called By Any Means Necessary. TPUSA noted that inside the police barricade, the event went off without a hitch. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon suggested that the DOJ will investigate possible First and Fourteenth Amendment violations, and UC Berkeley has promised to cooperate.

• Hochul shuts down Mamdani’s free child care promise: In his successful bid to become New York City’s next mayor, Zohran Mamdani promised a litany of freebies, including free child care. The estimated annual cost of providing “free” child care to NYC residents is roughly $6 billion, equal to the NYPD’s entire budget. Mamdani’s answer to that massive cost is higher taxes, but here’s the catch: taxes fall under the purview of the state government, and Governor Kathy Hochul is in no mood to sign off on such a significant tax increase. Hochul is facing a significant election challenge from popular Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik. The last thing Hochul wants to do is alienate New York voters outside of NYC who are already paying some of the highest taxes in the country.

• CFPB to run out of money as DOJ rules its funding is illegal: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent and arguably unconstitutional executive agency established during the Obama presidency, will run out of money next year. The CFPB, intentionally designed to avoid accountability, draws its funding directly from the Federal Reserve rather than from Congress. However, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has determined that money can flow to the CFPB only when the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet shows a profit, which has not occurred since 2022. Given this reality, the CFPB’s funding will run out in early 2026, effectively shutting down the agency. CFPB could go to Congress with hat in hand and ask for a direct appropriation of cash, but this will likely fall on deaf ears given that Republicans control the legislature.

• The frontrunner for Nancy Pelosi’s seat makes it clear where he stands: California State Senator Scott Wiener had a chance to engage with concerned voters on Monday, during which he made his priorities abundantly clear. The man who is poised to succeed one of the most influential American female politicians of all time was forthright: he stands with men — that is, “trans women” — over women. Tish Hyman, who gained national attention last week for objecting to a man undressing in her locker room at Gold’s Gym, asked Wiener about how he’d ensure women would “be protected from men.” Wiener responded with leftist dogma: “trans women are women.” For those who ply in identity politics, crossdressing men are more important than women.

• DHS says surging number of terror suspects at border is good news: Despite DHS closing out the 2025 fiscal year with the best border numbers in five decades, one category did not show a significant drop — the number of terrorist suspects nabbed crossing the border. The number increased nearly 30-fold — from several dozen a month to more than 950 in September alone. According to the DHS, that’s a good thing. Since the Trump administration has classified certain drug cartels like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua as terrorist organizations, the numbers have skyrocketed — not because more of them are crossing into the U.S., but because they are actually being flagged via the terrorism watch list. “The elevated number of TSDS matches is not a surge in new threats,” said U.S. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott. “It’s the result of properly identifying the dangerous actors who were always there.”

Headlines

• Epstein: Trump “asked Ghislaine Maxwell to stop” recruiting girls from Mar-a-Lago spa (NY Post)

• Jeffries, Democrats will offer three-year extension of ObamaCare subsidies (The Hill)

• “Operation Dirtbag” sees over 150 illegal migrant sexual predators nabbed in Florida (NY Post)

• U.S. to mint its last penny as Treasury halts production (Fox Business)

• California illegally issued 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses (Transportation.gov)

• Virginia redistricting push leader used campaign funds on family business, daughter’s campaign, steaks (Washington Examiner)

• Google lawsuit accuses China-based cybercriminals of massive text-message phishing scams (CBS News)

• Humor: Congress prepares to pivot from doing nothing because of the shutdown to doing nothing because they’re Congress (Babylon Bee)

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