US gov shutdown leaves IT projects hanging, security defenders a skeleton crew The US government shut down at 1201 ET on October 1, halting non-essential IT modernization and leaving cybersecurity operations to run on skeleton crews. President Trump has made overhauling government technology a priority for his administration - at least sort of - since coming into office. The Trump-created, formerly Musk- …
The cuts were deliberate, they wanted to make them and cheered them on.
The problem the democrats have always had with messaging is they say "look the republicans want to do X, you need to vote for us" but even when republicans are in power democrats have usually managed to block republican attempts to do "X". The average voter thinks "the democrats are always claiming the sky is falling, but I'm not seeing the things they are warning about happening".
At some point the democrats need to stop saving the republicans from themselves and stand back and let them do the things they want knowing they will hurt people. Some people need to learn things the hard way. If people impacted by the ugly stuff in the "big beautiful bill" are persuaded to give democrats control of congress then they'll have the leverage and they can force these changes to be reversed.
What is interesting is that the voter blocks have shifted a lot over the past couple decades. A lot of the wealthier suburban voters who used to be solid R are now voting democrat. A lot of the poor / lower middle class white voters (and a larger chunk of the poor latino voters) who used to be solid D are now voting R. As a result there are more republican Medicaid recipients than democrats and the same is true for those relying on ACA. What republicans are doing will hurt more of their own voters than it will hurt democrats. Maybe they don't care, but the people who lose coverage certainly will.
> At some point the democrats need to stop saving the republicans from themselves and stand back and let them do the things they want knowing they will hurt people.
Have you heard of this place called Oklahoma? The Republicans got everything they wanted, and things became reeeeaaalll bad there. But hey, they tried to make tattoos illegal. Not sure it succeeded.
At some point the democrats need to stop saving the republicans from themselves and stand back and let them do the things they want knowing they will hurt people.
Have the Democrats actually done anything useful as an opposition party under this presidency? I'm inclined to believe that if they had suddenly vanished into thin air overnight, exactly the same things would have happened.
Also, the shutdown is a sideshow and it won't be fixed by voting. Trump called US generals back to the US to tell them they would be deployed in Democrat cities to root out the internal enemy and Hegswth promised them immunity a couple of days ago. Midterms are just a year away. You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out what's going to happen.
"You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out what's going to happen."
Supermajority for the GOP? One can only hope. The Democrats have turned themselves into a clown show. The sombrero thing has totally broken them. Only the Dems got bent out of shape about the chubby JD memes and they are all salty that we're not rioting in the street after southpark. Just imagine if someone did a Kathy Griffin but instead of a Trump head it was a Democrat? Oh the screaming and wailing that would ensue!
Meme them until they cry and then make memes about them crying!
Except he's clearly having major health issues, so if I had to bet I would say he doesn't live out his term. MAGA collectively worships Trump, but there is no other individual who has the support of even a majority of MAGA. So JD Vance isn't going to be able to dictate to congress what to do, or get MAGA behind him in the sort of way that's required to exercise dictatorial powers.
Sad that we're at the point where we have to cross our fingers and hope an old sick white man gets sick enough to die soon, but that's where we're at I guess.
"Except he's clearly having major health issues, so if I had to bet I would say he doesn't live out his term."
Now if I'd said that in 2021 about Biden I would have been called a conspiracy theorist and all sorts of other names. It was if y'all worshiped the ground he walked on and he could do no wrong. Sorta funny that it has transpired one of the people who was busy defending Biden's health and mental acuity only actually saw Joe in person TWICE during his time in the WH. Or we could compare all the TV docs who were desperately trying to diagnose Trump45 with all sorts of issues but said they could not diagnose Joe without doing a proper examination.
And for the record we are looking forward to JD48.
"hope an old sick white man gets sick enough to die soon"
You'd be having an utter meltdown if someone had said such things in relation to Joe Biden.
Trump is dragging the US down the drain.
That's a lie and you know it! Donald is not "dragging the US down the drain".
He is, as a matter of fact, pushing the US down the drain while he hovers above in his brand spanking new Qatari Air Force One, paid for by hardworking low- to medium income Americans while he guzzles his Diet Coke, bites into his freshly prepared hamburger fit for a king on his way to play a round of golf in Scotland Greenland Iceland, America's 52nd state (after Canada, of course!).
I'm glad there wasn't yet another horrible last minute stop gap that just let the wounds keep bleeding. The US budget has been a giant pork barrel for decades and no political party has done anything to make it better. They point fingers at each other, but plenty of clear examples of abuse can be shown both ways.
Doge was/is a massive waste of time. Problems that have taken 20 years to get into won't be solved in 10 minutes by a bunch of 20yo virgins. Budgets must balance today to be reduced tomorrow.
California's insurance commissioner is being investigated for using tax money to go on "business" trips to 5 star resorts, go on a safari and commit a host of other fraud without any sort of oversight board asking a question. One might think that a state functionary would have no business undertaking international travel at all, much less to give talks at a LGBTQx advocacy group in Bogota Columbia. Lots of wood chippers for rent.
I'll admit to having a morbid fascination with the current state of US politics. Since none of these events affect me personally, I just shake my head in amazement before moving on to something else.
Come on guys, update the APOD website, it's one of the more wholesome and interesting things you guys have given to ROTW.
Elected officials, from Congress to the President, continue to get paid during the shutdown - unlike employees deemed essential for government operations, who have to continue to report without a guaranteed paycheck until the shutdown ends.
Isn't it nice to know that (elected) management are deemed non-essential?
About the only sane conclusion I've seen lately around this whole mess.
You wonder how quickly this kind of crap would get solved if they weren't paid due to the shutdown and it was truly in their interest to end it quickly...
