'Wake Up, Dude': GOP Lawmaker Puts 'Charlatan' Matt Gaetz On Blast

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is trying to boot House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from his leadership post over his deal with Democrats to prevent a government shutdown and claims that McCarthy cut a “secret side deal” with President Joe Biden on aid for Ukraine.

But at least one member of his own conference isn’t having it.

Why government shutdowns seem to only happen in US

The US government has shutdown ten times over the past 40-plus years. Meanwhile, in other countries, governments keep functioning, even in the midst of wars and constitutional crises. So why does this uniquely American phenomenon keep happening?

For most of the world, a government shutdown is very bad news - the result of revolution, invasion or disaster. That leaders of one of the most powerful nations on Earth willingly provoked a crisis that suspends public services and decreases economic growth is surprising to many.

Senate Clears Bill To Prevent Government Shutdown

With hours left to go on the eve of a government shutdown, Congress passed a stopgap bill to keep federal agencies funded and workers at their desks through mid-November.

The price? About $6 billion in aid to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian invaders and new worries Russian dictator Vladimir Putin will be encouraged to continue the full-scale invasion he started in February 2022.

With Shutdown Looming, Biden Calls Out Speaker McCarthy for a “Terrible Bargain” With MAGA Republicans

President Joe Biden said in an interview on Friday that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had made a “terrible bargain” and that “in order to keep the speakership, he’s willing to do things that he, I think, he knows are inconsistent with the constitutional processes.”

Asked about the looming government shutdown, and the impeachment inquiry that McCarthy agreed to authorize in the hopes of keeping right-wing Republicans from ousting him from his post as

‘It’s crazy': Shutdown caps Congress’ week from hell

Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman has never seen a scenario like this week: “Not in real life — in movies. It’s crazy.”

It’s practically a national adage to say that Congress is wracked by dysfunction. Yet in the days leading up to Sunday’s potential shutdown, the House and the Senate are witnessing a cinematic parade of horribles.

The GOP-controlled House has failed to pass a spending plan. At the helm, Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces daily threats to his job from the right and recently launched an impeachment inquiry that some of its own members believe botched its inaugural hearing.

House Republicans Are Hurtling Toward the Most Pointless Shutdown Ever

In a rather striking split screen today, Joe Biden became the first president ever to walk a union picket line, grabbing a bullhorn and using the word “we” to rally striking autoworkers. His Federal Trade Commission teamed with 17 attorneys general to sue Amazon for unfair competition (which was fun to see Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post report). And the FCC, finally under the control of Democratic commissioners, announced it would be moving to restore net neutrality rules undone by Trump. 

House thwarts hard-right push to gut Ukraine funding

House Democrats and Republicans teamed up to defeat a pair of proposals to gut Ukraine funding in annual defense spending legislation, though each vote showed sizable GOP opposition to continued aid for Kyiv.

The amendment votes on Wednesday serve as a barometer of Republican views on further support for Kyiv as the war with Russia drags on, with funding for Ukraine becoming a major sticking point in Capitol Hill talks to avert a government shutdown.

A Small Cadre of GOP Hard-Liners Is Pushing US Toward Government Shutdown

The U.S. government is set to run out of money later this week, not because the U.S. has suddenly gotten poor, but because hard-liners within the GOP are looking for major policy concessions from the White House and the Democratic-controlled Senate simply to keep government operations afloat. Without those concessions, many Republicans have made it clear they will refuse to cast their votes for the 12 appropriations bills that keep the system ticking along.

This is the latest installment of what has become an entirely dysfunctional congressional ritual — using vital legislative deadlines as bargaining chips in a high-stakes effort to impose a far right agenda on the body politic. If the borrowing limit needs to be raised, a significant number of Republicans simply refuse to vote for the increase. If government needs to be funded through appropriations bills, as is the case this week, these same hard-liners see it as an opportunity to leverage their votes in exchange for massive cuts to federal spending and the adoption of a raft of other policy demands.

Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell Facing Off In Government Shutdown Showdown

WASHINGTON — The top Republicans in the House and Senate don’t agree on how to avert a government shutdown that is looking increasingly likely this weekend.

And if the government shuts down, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has made clear who should get the blame: the Republican-led House.

With House Republicans In Turmoil, Colleagues Implore GOP Holdouts Not To Shut Down Government

WASHINGTON (AP) — Working furiously to take control of a House in disarray, allies of Speaker Kevin McCarthy implored their Republican colleagues Saturday to drop their hardline tactics and work together to approve a conservative spending plan to prevent a federal shutdown.

In public overtures and private calls, Republican lieutenants of the embattled speaker pleaded with a handful of right-flank holdouts to resist further disruptions that have ground the House to a halt and back McCarthy’s latest plan to keep government open before next weekend’s Sept. 30 deadline for a shutdown.

Trump Wants Republicans to Shut Down the Government to Block DOJ Charge

In a Truth Social post on Wednesday night, former President Donald Trump demanded that Republican lawmakers in Congress shut down the federal government in order to aid him in thwarting the charges against him in the federal grand jury investigations into his actions.

With a funding crisis looming, and no indications that a deal between Democrats and Republicans (much less between Republicans and Republicans) is in motion, the federal government is set to run out of funding by the end of September.

House GOP Holdouts Again Stall Defense Bill, Dampen Hopes For Avoiding Shutdown

House Republicans were set Thursday to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and again try to get back to passing spending bills to avoid a looming government shutdown after the defense funding bill was stalled for the second time in three days.

“That was the most productive meeting we’ve had in some time and frankly we heard really good ideas,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told reporters after emerging from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) office.

Democrat Taunts GOP Leader With Bill To Block Lawmaker Pay During Government Shutdown

Someone in the congressional office of Rep. Angie Craig is having fun with acronyms.

On Wednesday, the Minnesota Democrat unveiled a bill taking aim at House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as the federal government nears a shutdown at the end of the month. Party in-fighting has left the Republican leader struggling to pass a spending plan to fund government services.

Craig’s bill would block members of Congress from receiving their scheduled pay if the government shuts down and federal workers are furloughed. She is calling the legislation the My Constituents Cannot Afford Rebellious Tantrums, Handle Your Shutdown Act, or the MCCARTHY Shutdown Act for short.

Shutdown Prospects Grow As House GOP Fumbles Defense Funding Bill

A small group of rebellious House Republicans sank the annual funding bill for the Pentagon in the House Tuesday, underlining how difficult it will be to keep the entire government open and the lights on after Sept. 30.

The defense bill is usually the easiest for Republicans to vote in favor of, as it funds their top priority: national defense. But this year, it has become entangled in a wider, increasingly bitter intra-party fight in the House GOP overspending. 

A Republican Leader From the 2013 Shutdown Has a Warning for Kevin McCarthy

In October 2013, the Republican-led House of Representatives failed to pass a last-ditch spending bill for the first time in 17 years, forcing the federal government into a costly and controversial 16-day shutdown. Now, as Congress once again careens toward a potential shutdown on Oct. 1, one of the Republican leaders at the center of the fight 10 years ago — former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor — has some advice for his colleagues in the GOP.

Don’t do it again.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Plays Victim After Threatening To Hold Government Hostage

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) seemed defensive after being called part of the “hardcore fringe” of the Republican party following her vow to vote against government funding if House Republicans do not open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

The Georgia lawmaker claimed she was being persecuted for having “the audacity” to ask questions as she railed against the White House in a Saturday thread on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

White House Calls Out Marjorie Taylor Greene Over Threat To Shut Down The Government

The White House on Thursday took issue with what they described as the “hardcore fringe” of the Republican Party following comments by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) threatening she won’t vote to keep the government open unless the GOP-controlled House of Representatives launches an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

“The last thing the American people deserve is for extreme House members to trigger a government shutdown that hurts our economy, undermines our disaster preparedness, and forces our troops to work without guaranteed pay,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

House Freedom Caucus rolls out demands to avoid shutdown

The conservative House Freedom Caucus on Monday formally drew its red line on the looming government shutdown deadline.

The group of roughly three dozen Republican lawmakers said it would oppose any short-term stopgap unless leadership meets a slew of their demands. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, earlier this month, publicly said a temporary fix will be necessary to avoid a shutdown at the end of September as Congress takes more time to hash out new spending bills.

How A Government Shutdown Could Steal Food From The Poor

WASHINGTON -- Tens of millions of Americans could be left hanging at the grocery store if Congress can't reach a funding deal before the end of the month.

The Senate will vote on a funding bill Monday, but it's not clear what the House will do, since a faction of Republican members are so intent on shutting down a women's health services provider that they're also willing to shut down the government.

Minnesota Government Shutdown 2011 Costing State Millions Of Dollars

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- While Minnesota's political leaders haggle over how much the state should spend in the next two years, state coffers are bleeding millions of dollars as a result of the state's week-old government shutdown.

"It's going to be a slow force on the economy," said Tom Stinson, a University of Minnesota professor who is laid off from his job as state economist.

Minnesota stands to lose tens of millions of dollars in the nation's only state government shutdown, as lottery tickets go un-purchased, tax cheats go un-pursued and 22,000 laid-off state workers collect unemployment and health benefits.

The government interruption also threatens to slow an already sluggish economic recovery as the state employees in limbo and others who lose state-dependent jobs – including construction workers and nonprofit staffers – tighten their spending.

Stinson said the shutdown isn't likely to cause a recession – but "it's clearly not good the longer that it goes on."

The political dispute that has closed state government centers on how to erase a $5 billion deficit. Republicans who run the Legislature want to cut projected spending to match the amount of revenue the state will collect over the next two years. Gov. Mark Dayton hopes to avoid some of those cuts by raising income taxes on the highest earners; he has also said he's willing to consider other ways to bring in new revenue.

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Source: Huffington