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The Democrats Again Perform a Self-Own in Federal Shutdown
The American Spectator ^ | October 2, 2025, 8:26 PM | Daniel J. Flynn

Posted on 10/03/2025 12:02:52 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

They played into their own checkmate.

Earlier this week, Uncle Sam’s red-white-and-blue getup, a la Cinderella’s dress, morphed into dirty rags once the clock struck midnight.

If an unpropitious way to start the fiscal year, it seems more honest than the 365 days that preceded. October 1, after all, admitted that the federal government is broke. The days before it, a la Kevin Bacon in Animal House, insisted “All is well!”

The counterintuitive, Baconesque, if you will, message of the government shutdown is: Remain calm. All is well!

The real problem, of course, occurred not on October 1, when rules forced the federal government to spend within its means. It occurred on all those days when legislators could spend all sorts of money that the treasury lacked.

The federal budget deficit reached $2 trillion for the 2025 fiscal year. This occurred because legislators spent $7 trillion — about a quarter of the gross domestic product. This pushed the national debt close to $38 trillion.

Recklessness, then, occurred on all the days when legislators spent money not in the treasury. Prudence, even if of a false, forced variety, occurred during these last few days in which legislators could not spend money on all sorts of things we cannot afford.

A government shutdown means, like so many Washington euphemisms (Washiphemisms?), not a shutdown of the government but instead a government that prioritizes spending.

After all, Social Security checks do not stop and the post office remains open. The Environmental Protection Agency, on the other hand, goes on leave.

Is all that so horrible? It sounds to a lot of people like a government that acts more in concordance with the Constitution and basic rules of accounting.

The progressives of all parties, their media enablers, and so many others push the idea that a lack of money to spend, i.e., a government...

(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
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1 posted on 10/03/2025 12:02:52 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Guess we have to wait till Monday. The Dems have nothing to gain and everything to lose.


2 posted on 10/03/2025 12:09:02 PM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The democrats are performing a ‘How to on self destruction’.


3 posted on 10/03/2025 12:10:47 PM PDT by Bullish (My tagline ran off with another man, but it's ok---- I wasn't married to it.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

It’s weird. The government is shut down, and yet life seems to go on with the smoothness of a luxury car.


4 posted on 10/03/2025 12:11:53 PM PDT by Sirius Lee ("Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Shutdown will end next week. Media and Schumer and Sombrero will say we won. Republicans agreed to everything we asked. Of course Republicans will spend more money.


5 posted on 10/03/2025 12:14:19 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3 ( I'm Proud To Be An Okie From Muskogee)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
It's vaguely annoying my va deposit won't arrive until the
leftist lunatics shenanigans are over.
6 posted on 10/03/2025 12:15:00 PM PDT by chief lee runamok ( Le Flâneur @Large)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

7 posted on 10/03/2025 12:16:23 PM PDT by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: TornadoAlley3

Gubmint shutdown is the great uniparty scam.

It gives the illusion of two opposition parties in mighty opposition.

Whenever the shutdown ends, each wing of the uniparty will claim it as a victory for its wing and the American people.

Yet, NOTHING changes.

Spending money we don’t have, borrowing to cover the expenditures, leaving future generations to deal with debt, and that is the UNIPARTY GAME, it’s called kicking the can down the road.


8 posted on 10/03/2025 12:21:27 PM PDT by Biblebelter
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To: Sirius Lee

“The government is shut down, and yet life seems to go on with the smoothness of a luxury car.”

92% of the govt is running as usual. The only thing I’ve noticed is that Visitor Centers at National Parks and Monuments are closed, but the Parks are open and entry is free because no one is manning the pay booths, and no reservations are required. Bathrooms may be locked but like the animals you have all outdoors for your bathroom. Enjoy, but dig a hole first.


9 posted on 10/03/2025 12:23:20 PM PDT by SaxxonWoods (Annnd....TRUMP IS RIGHT AGAIN.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Shutdown Day #3 – Trump’s Challenge

October 3, 2025 | Sundance

The professionally Republican wing of the GOPe want this shutdown ended just as much as the professionally Democrat wing. The UniParty cannot allow Trump/Vought this much power. Republicans cannot allow Trump this much power.

The Moonbat leftists are not the biggest problem, they never have been. They are ideologues, mostly. Insufferable, stupid, violent at times, but easy to spot.

Remember, Democrats quest for power; Republicans quest for money.

Always underline this because it’s really important.

The Moonbat leftists seek power, seek control of your life, and they are open in their insufferably stupid arguments to get there. When they start to lose, they turn violent. This is their history.

That said, they are not the most dangerous.

The professional Republicans are more dangerous, because their priority is money. As a result, their approaches, goals, objectives and arguments can be purchased.

Republicans have no interests, goals or objectives, nor allegiances, that supersede their primary objective – getting money, and growing their wealth.

Democrats will come at you with a knife, a gun or a baseball bat. You can see them. The professional Republican guy standing beside you, however, is willing to take a payment to shoot you in the ear when you don’t see it coming.

This is also why it seems like Democrats stick together, and Republicans split. Democrats are chasing a common goal, a collective goal – power. Republicans are chasing a commonality, yes, but an individual goal – money, their wealth.

Donors contribute to the Democrat agenda because their interest is to benefit from power. Republicans modify their agenda to benefit donors, because their goal is money.

Democrats stay on task, power. Republicans are flexible, money.

You enter a war against Leftists with extreme danger. However, the danger is not the war in front of you, it’s the army beside you waiting to get a payment from the enemy in front of you.

Out of a group of 1,000 Democrats, 900+ will join in to defend a weakened Moonbat leftist (see Kimmel).

Out of a group of 1,000 Republicans, you will find, maybe, 5 willing to cover your back regardless of how much bribery is put in front of them.

Remember this, understand this and the reality of who presents the most danger to us is accurately framed.

Republicans do not simply snatch defeat from the jaws of victory; they sell defeat to the highest bidder!

In our lifetime we have watched this unfold.

There were Democrats with the same outlook as Republicans; they were known as “blue dog” democrats. The Blue Dogs were willing to compromise power, to sell power, in return for financial payment.

Traditional ‘Blue Dogs’ were names like Hillary and Bill Clinton; their prism was the assembly of money. However, this group faced the introduction of hardline ideological believers – the communists or Marxists represented by Barack Obama.

Obama Inc. battled Clinton Inc. to determine the future of the Democrats. The ideologues won, and the democrat Blue Dogs in their tribe, those willing to concede ideology for money, were purged from their ranks. Modern Democrats, post Obama takeover, are now pure ideologues.

By any means necessary” is the operational objective of modern leftists.

This is why government under Obama flipped the switch so openly and began weaponizing power. Purging govt agencies and replacing the staff with ideologues. Crushing opposition, by brute force and targeting.

Simultaneously, in the smaller Republican ranks, there was a small group who wanted to face down the same battle inside the Republican Party. The original Tea Party represented this group. A smaller assembly trying to put ideology, freedom and liberty at the forefront of the Republican objective.

Unlike the leftist effort, the Tea Party effort inside the Republican Party failed. Republican leadership crushed the liberty rebellion, and went back to business taking money from the ideological Marxists who now ruled the centers of power.

People, who didn’t quite understand what was taking place, stood and watched, frustrated, at the dynamic of Republicans who conceded every battle to the left.

What the abused GOP viewers didn’t understand was the core of the issue; Democrats want power, Republicans want money.

Each time the Republicans could win on a policy issue, they sold the loss to Democrats. Battered conservatives grew more frustrated and more frustrated.

Now we enter the era of MAGA, represented by billionaire Donald J. Trump, who, like Obama before him, began the fight inside the Republican Party.

The Tea Party rebellion quickly reengaged Trump and formed MAGA; the ideological fight inside the Republican party, liberty over money, was on again.

MAGA represents opposition to the leftist ideological advancement. But the Republican assembly will not concede. In a way their resistance makes sense.

If liberty and freedom become the priority, the advancement of personal wealth becomes more difficult. Simultaneously, if retention and assembly of wealth is the priority, liberty and freedom ideologues become impediments. Again, MAGA within Republicanism must be crushed when money is the priority.

This internal Republican battle has been unfolding in various reference points for almost a decade now, while the internal Democrat battle was long ago decided.

The root issue within the Republican apparatus still surrounds the greatest evil. ‘The love of money is the root of all evil.’

This conflict has not yet been fully decided, yet admittedly -and thankfully- MAGA has made some significant gains. The Republican Party now has a lower income demographic and a more ideological working class base.

However, don’t be fooled. The top tier of the Republican apparatus is mostly unchanged; albeit, they are facing more entrenched ideological opposition from the awakened MAGA forces. The top tier will still sell out the base, still compromise for personal profit, and still take payment for policy.

This brings us to where we are today.

Inside the MAGA assembly, we are trying to identify which Republican leaders have shifted to the MAGA/liberty viewpoint, and which Republican leaders are playing the long game while retaining their DNA level objective – get money.

Each day on these pages, and many others, the ‘trust’ factor is raised; this is completely understandable.  We have a strong muscle memory for betrayal, and we all bear the scars to remind us.  It is fitting and proper that these conversations take place.

After all, it’s interesting to watch professional Republicans discuss how agencies like the DOJ and FBI have lost the institutional trust of the American people due to corruption, while simultaneously those same Republicans never note trust loss within the Republican Party as a result of their willful blindness to it.


10 posted on 10/03/2025 12:37:47 PM PDT by Bratch
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

All of this is happening to booster Chuck Schumer’s election hopes against AOC. It is not working. The far left doesn’t care and will attack other democrats to get their way.

Soon all the old guard democrats will be gone and only the full blown communists will be left posing as democrats.


11 posted on 10/03/2025 12:55:56 PM PDT by packrat35 (“When discourse ends, violence begins.” – Charlie Kirk, and they killed him anyway)
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To: Sirius Lee
It’s weird. The government is shut down, and yet life seems to go on with the smoothness of a luxury car.

With fewer speed bumps.

12 posted on 10/03/2025 12:57:15 PM PDT by FateAmenableToChange
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To: Biblebelter

Trump should end departments and sell the buildings during the shutdown. He would if he was serious. Make recess appointments and never cave.


13 posted on 10/03/2025 1:45:38 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3 ( I'm Proud To Be An Okie From Muskogee)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Wouldn’t it be a shock if the uniparty agrees on a funding bill and President Trump vetoes it!


14 posted on 10/03/2025 1:49:53 PM PDT by T Ruth (Mohammedanism shall be destroyed.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
The federal budget deficit reached $2 trillion for the 2025 fiscal year. This occurred because legislators spent $7 trillion — about a quarter of the gross domestic product.

Which budget is being spoken of here? Reconciliation bills and continuing resolutions aren't budgets, they're still just open ended spending.

JMO, YMMV

15 posted on 10/03/2025 2:22:18 PM PDT by philman_36 (Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty and supped with infamy. Benjamin Franklin)
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To: Bratch

A worthy read. Thanks.


16 posted on 10/03/2025 8:45:54 PM PDT by drSteve78 (Older Je suis Deplorable. Even more so )
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To: chief lee runamok
It's vaguely annoying my va deposit won't arrive until the leftist lunatics shenanigans are over.

There is no disruption to VA or SS. Both of mine arrived on schedule.

17 posted on 10/04/2025 2:09:02 AM PDT by BlackbirdSST (FTL)
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