The Patriot Post® · Shutdown Showdown
Funding for the federal government runs out today. Congressional leaders have been scrambling to cobble together a short-term spending bill to fund the government through March.
But as details of the 1,500-page stopgap spending bill began to emerge, conservatives were furious. Then Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy started reading the bill, and all hell broke loose.
Donald Trump didn’t like it either. Trump and J.D. Vance issued a joint statement opposing the bill. Vance went to Capitol Hill late Wednesday night to discuss options with Speaker Mike Johnson and other GOP leaders, who confirmed that the 1,500-page monstrosity is now dead.
Here’s the dilemma: House Democrats have 211 votes. House Republicans have 219. To pass anything requires virtually every GOP member to vote for it. They can afford to lose only three votes.
But far more than three conservatives oppose the spending in the bill. In addition, a handful of Republicans in difficult districts are hesitant to make major changes.
So, if conservatives and moderates bail out for whatever reason, Speaker Johnson needs at least two dozen Democrats to get something passed.
Of course, they all have a price. Congressman X wants this. Congressman Y wants that. And don’t forget that Chuck Schumer still controls the Senate. Johnson has to deal with Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, and Bernie Sanders.
It’s an ugly process, but that’s how the sausage is made. Sadly, this difficult situation is likely to get worse in January, as the GOP margin in the House shrinks further.
In many ways, this is a test to see if the GOP can rein in various factions the way Nancy Pelosi did in order to get things done. I hope they can. But it may come down to fear of Donald Trump and Elon Musk to unify the party so no Democrat votes are needed.
Change Is Coming
Some people are telling Speaker Johnson, “There was an election! Get with the program.” Yes, there was an election. But the results are not in place yet. Right now, we do not control the White House or the Senate.
I love that Elon Musk is all in and willing to fight to change Washington. I love that Donald Trump is all in, too.
But here’s the reality: If Trump loses three months because the deal locks in spending through March, he has at best 18 months to accomplish what he wants before the 2026 congressional election dominates everything.
We’ve been told over and over by Mitch McConnell and others that every time there is a government shutdown, Republicans always get blamed. Well, if they always get blamed, they seem to be doing just fine.
The government has shut down multiple times, and the polls during those times don’t look great. Yet, Republicans keep winning elections.
Anyone who doesn’t understand that the American people just voted to end business as usual just doesn’t get it. Change IS coming on January 20th. But as I just outlined above, how much change we can enact now is questionable.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich says the solution is “obvious.” Pass a short-term spending bill that goes just past January 20th. At that time, Republicans would only be negotiating with themselves. But if the government shuts down in the short term, most Americans won’t notice.
By the way, early reports suggested the spending bill included a $60,000 pay raise for members of Congress. There was a pay raise, but it wasn’t $60,000. It was $6,600.
That was also a major point of disagreement. The politicians know that to avoid the disgust of the American people, they had to bury any pay raise in a massive bill like this one, which is why there is so much disgust among the American people.
Drone Update
We’ve been told that the disturbing drone sightings over New Jersey and other parts of the country are nothing to be concerned about. We’re told that people are mistaking airplanes, helicopters, and even stars for drones. It’s all just one big case of mass hysteria.
But if there’s an innocent explanation, why did the government just ban drone flights for thirty days over two dozen areas of New Jersey? That’s a huge overreaction to “nothing.”
Something is going on, and we are clearly being lied to.
Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, thinks he knows what is going on. He made headlines this week when he said these are likely spy drones from communist China. McCaul may well be right.
As we have previously reported, there is deep concern about Chinese interests affiliated with Beijing’s communist regime buying up large amounts of land near 19 U.S. military bases.
Well, guess what? According to the New York Post, 17 of those 19 bases have reported drone incursions. This disturbing news comes after previous reports that Chinese nationals have been arrested more than 100 times attempting to breach our military facilities, including scuba divers!
After getting caught on the ground so many times, it’s likely the Chinese decided to try flying drones over our bases. By the way, as we pointed out, roughly 85% of all drones are made in communist China.
So, why is the Biden administration acting like everything is just fine and insisting that there is no national security threat? Because they’re afraid the American people would get angry and demand a serious response.
They want to keep the “sheeple” dumb, uninformed, and blissfully ignorant.
Just like Russian collusion in the 2016 election, the origins of COVID, and Hunter Biden’s laptop, our own government is deliberately deceiving us.
The lies must stop!
Wisconsin Murder Update
There is a horrifying twist in Monday’s shooting at a Christian school in Wisconsin.
During the COVID disaster, the public schools folded like cheap suits and shut down, doing a lot of damage to our children. In that time, Abundant Life Christian School accepted a lot of troubled kids, who were really hurt by the public school closures.
The shooter was a troubled girl from a broken home. She was also obsessed with the Columbine school shooters, who were part of the Goth subculture and regularly dressed in black.
During their shooting spree they asked victims if they believed in God. Cassie Bernall reportedly answered, “Yes,” and was shot on the spot. Misty Bernall, Cassie’s mother, wrote a book about her daughter’s murder.
Wednesday, police raided a home in southern California. Alexander Paffendorf, 20, was arrested and his guns were confiscated. He had been communicating with the Wisconsin shooter online, discussing a plot in which he planned to attack a government building at the same time she attacked the school.
A lot of questions remain unanswered. What was her motive? How did a 15 year-old girl in Wisconsin connect with a 20 year-old man in California? What role exactly did he play in this atrocity? And are there other potential killers connected to them?
Bring Them Home
On June 5th, astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore flew to the International Space Station in a Boeing Starliner capsule for what was supposed to be an eight-day mission. They are still stuck in space.
But the capsule developed problems, and it was deemed unsafe for the astronauts to return home as scheduled. An attempt to bring them back in late June was scrapped. The Biden administration later announced that they would return in February. That flight has just been canceled.
Now the Biden administration says Williams and Wilmore will return to Earth no earlier than late March. Eight days has turned into 10 months!
These failures do not inspire confidence.
Trump Wins Again
A Georgia appeals court yesterday declared Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis “wholly disqualified” from the absurd RICO case she filed against President-elect Trump. The court also ruled that her assistant DA’s have “no authority to proceed.”
Bye bye, Fani!