The Government May Actually Shut Down This Time

Good morning, everybody. It is not Monday, it is Tuesday, because we had a Hollywood weekend, feels very different. I hope you're all doing well, a lot of stuff I want to talk about. I want to talk in particular about the shutdown of the US government, because while they say it's going to happen every year, it tends to not happen, or every time they try to pass a new budget. This time, it looks like it might happen. I know many people would say, well, it looked like it was going to happen many times in the past. This time, it looks like it's going to happen, and here's why. Neither side seems like they want to pass it. The House and the Senate don't seem to be able to agree on a budget. Both the Republicans and the Democrats, what they would call the far right and the far left of both sides, don't seem to want to pass it either. And essentially, I don't know if there is such a thing as moderates these days, but the closest you'll get to it, they seem like they're the only ones that they want to get something through. A government shutdown does appear to be in the works. Now, keep in mind, a government shutdown in America does not mean the government shuts down. It merely means that non-essential workers, non-essential services come to a close. If you were to ask me, heck, I think we should observe what a government shutdown looks like and observe how the country can still function, with only the essential things still functioning, and maybe take some lessons on what that would look like for a future model. But that's just me. That being said, let's talk about this, a few other things. Heck, y'all watching what's happening on Twitter right now, Musk is talking about suing the Anti-Defamation League, ironically for defamation, and revealing what seems to be a kind of global conspiracy of censorship enacted through that organization, and a large umbrella group tied to many, many others. We'll see what happens with it, but this could be pretty big in terms of revealing the kind of strong-arming taking place behind the scenes, being basically carried out by a small handful of organizations. It's a big deal. Maybe I'll do more on it later as more information comes out. But let's talk first about the government shutdown. Now, first of all, Time Magazine here, let me show you what Time is saying. Keep in mind, Time, they have a leftist bias, of course, so that's their stance. I'll show you both sides. They say this further in, earlier this year around Washington, the key question was whether Speaker Kevin McCarthy, again, House Speaker and Republican, could steer his caucus away from shutting down the government. That no longer seems up for debate. Now the question flying around the Capitol comes in two categories. Top of mind are the two logistical ones. When will the government shut down, and for how long? In other words, they're suggesting it's no longer even a question of whether there's going to be a government shutdown. The question now is, when does it happen, and for how long are they going to do it for? I'll give my take on this in a minute, but let me kind of explain a bit further. It says, then there are the more nuanced queries. What price, if any, will McCarthy pay for grinding the U.S. government to a halt? They're blaming Republicans. The Democrats seem to be on board with shutting it down as well, but I'll explain that in a minute. But they're blaming it on Republicans, right? Basically what punishment will McCarthy face for this? He said, thereby sending millions of federal workers home without pay while forcing millions more in uniform to keep showing up for free. It's not really for free. They get paid. There's a delayed process. And will any of that matter when voters head to the polls in 2024? After all, McCarthy agreed to a provision that allows a single member to offer a motion to boot him, and it leaves him perpetually on the brink of ruin. Now what they're pointing out here is that when Kevin McCarthy was appointed Speaker of the House, there was a break among the Republicans, you know, the Freedom Caucus, the Trump supporter branch, the individuals like Matt Gaetz and so on, who essentially wanted to ensure that the MAGA movement did not get pushed out of U.S. politics, and that MAGA voters, the American voters, I'd say a lot of them now based on polling, who align with the Trump vision for the country. That movement has now moved beyond just Trump. It's the Freedom Caucus. It's the Freedom Movement. It is essentially a new party existing as, ironically I'd say, a sub-party of the Republicans, but in reality, at the grassroots level at least, probably the strongest element of the party. And McCarthy, they only agreed to vote in Kevin McCarthy under the condition that a single member could bring back a movement essentially to have him removed as Speaker of the House, and they could vote to appoint somebody else. The suggestion being that since Republicans have the majority, that they would be able to choose another Republican, and very likely choose another Republican who is more, not less, in line with the Freedom Caucus agenda. Now that being said, they're putting a lot of pressure on Kevin McCarthy with the budget, because for example, some of them want to defund the special counsel, the one looking into Donald Trump. Some of them want to pull the budgets from New York and Georgia because of the cases against Donald Trump. A lot of them want to use the powers of Congress to try to fix the, to try to get rid of the weaponization of the justice system that we now see taking place. And you also have many of them wanting to defund key actions being taken by the Biden administration, things that they believe are against the country and so on. Of course, for the Democrats to be willing to agree to that, there's a very slim chance. And so, you know, and of course, Democrats, even, for example, like relief for people in Maui, they're saying they're not going to let that go through unless they get funding for Ukraine. Ironically, Ukraine has become more of a Democrat issue than a Republican issue, although you do have some Republicans on it. Between the House and the Senate, and the Democrats and the Republicans, and the Freedom Caucus and the normal Republicans and the extreme Democrats and the moderate Democrats, none of them seem to be able to agree. Therefore, it seems we are heading towards a shutdown. And these very difficult debates where, to the extent that the American voters are going to break, I think from, they're already breaking their support for a lot of these individuals. I mean, if these elected officials, you know, representatives, because we have a representative government, if these representatives are not representing, are not representing what the people of their, you know, districts want, they're going to get voted out. And so they're realizing this as well. If you look at a lot of the discussions among Republicans right now, Republican voters, they're very angry. They're angry, for example, that the Republican Party, they believe is sitting on their hands. They believe that, you know, at least among the Trump supporters, they believe Kevin McCarthy is not doing enough. They believe he's talking a lot. Anytime the Democrats do something really extreme, Republicans write like a strongly worded letter, we condemn this. But there's no action. And so the only action Congress can essentially take on a lot of these issues, other than, for example, starting House committees to investigate issues and so on, which Democrats are very aggressive with, other than that, they can deny the budgets. They can go after the finances of some of these government branches and, you know, other things in order to, for example, you know, just hold them accountable. And so the budget this time around is very, it's walking on thin ice because of these issues. Now, that being said, let me show you the other side of it. Senator Blackburn is saying that Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, is trying to force a shutdown to help them, quote, hang on to the US Senate. It says, again, Republican, Senator Marsha Blackburn, she said Sunday that she believes Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is trying to force a government shutdown as a way to help him hang on to the US Senate. And so the Democrats are blaming Kevin McCarthy, the House, you know, House leader. The Republicans are blaming Chuck Schumer, the Senate leader, you know what I mean? And so they're both blaming the other side for wanting to shut down the government at this point. It said that Senator Blackburn made the comments on the Fox News channel Sunday morning's future. It says Blackburn was responding to comment by the show host about Schumer saying he will blame House Republicans for any government shutdown if they fail to pass spending legislation by the end of September. Blackburn, who sits on the Senate Finance and Senate Judiciary Committee, said this, The Democrats would like to have that government shutdown because it would halt, to put an end to, these investigations that the House is working on, suggesting the investigations into Hunter Biden and into Joe Biden, and also into the weaponization of justice. Now, what is the motivation on both sides, in my personal opinion? I think Republicans would like to shut down the government because, well, frankly, they're want to cut the funding to a lot of these, a lot of the weaponization of justice systems taking place across the country. They need to show their constituents that they're actually willing to take action and not just sit on their hands and write strongly worded letters. They also understand, I think, increasingly based on the Trump kind of side of politics, that a lot of government agencies and whatnot are not necessarily necessary. But at this point, a lot of them, ironically, are probably acting more against the American people than for the American people. A lot of them serve no actual tangible function. Frankly, the government could shut down tomorrow, and you and I would not even feel it. The government could shut down for like 20 years, and we'd actually probably be better off because it's not really a full government shutdown. They still keep the essential services functioning. Now, in my personal opinion, I think that they should keep financing the military. I think the core functions of government, if you want to go to the real basics, are typically foreign diplomacy, at least on the federal level, right? Foreign diplomacy, a court and legal system to mediate grievances between people, and a military. And aside from those three core services, government typically, anything beyond that, at least in terms of traditional government, is basically overreach. You would have also, to an extent, national defense, which would include, like in traditional societies, ensuring that there's grain stores if there's a famine or something like that. But you could put that under defense department type stuff. If you want to talk about fundamental roles of government, that's literally about it. But if you go back to the American founding, that was also relatively the limits of the federal government anyway. We've had, of course, a massive expansion of federalism to the extent that it's governing everything and things we never even thought government could possibly try to control. And not to mention the fact that very little of what they do seems to benefit the average American in any tangible way, which is, of course, the other issue a lot of conservative voters have. That being said, of course, in America, we're essentially an empire. We essentially have kind of an emperor type system, but the emperor is an elected official rather than someone brought in through generations. Essentially what America is, is it's 50 separate countries, each with their own government, each with their own constitution, each with their own police, each with their own military, of course, the National Guard. Individually functioning nations that have agreed to surrender some degree of their sovereignty in order to have a unifying federal government that essentially is like the government of the governments, which would be, of course, the federal government is, the elected leaders in Washington. And so based on the constitution, like typically anything, well, legally anything not included in the constitution defining the powers of the federal government are actually supposed to be delegated to the states. So federalism has gone far beyond what it was ever meant to go to. And I do believe that's part of the problem, let's say, is the expansion of it beyond what it was intended to actually do. Not to mention the way it's stomping out state rights, unfortunately. That being said, it looks like we may actually have a government shutdown this year. I personally cannot see on either the right or the left how they're going to come to any kind of agreement. I mentioned a lot of the Republican side, but I'll say something on the Democrat side before we jump over to the more stories. On the Democrat side, they've exhausted their ammo. They hate Donald Trump. They're doing everything they can to investigate him, prosecute him. Even the movements I've mentioned previously with the 14th Amendment, the legal case they have in Florida just got thrown out. The move to get the states to take him off the ballot is already failing. Efforts through Congress, both through impeachment and through congressional action, they found cannot use the 14th Amendment to push Donald Trump off the ballots. And now you have the Democrats suggesting it has to go to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, I can almost guarantee, is not going to take Donald Trump off the ballot for the 2024 elections. I can almost guarantee that's never going to happen. Not to mention that a lot of folks, including myself, by the way, on a personal level, would still just write his name in. It wouldn't work, in other words. That being said, of course, they are reaching a state of desperation. And the Democrats understand that basically nothing they're doing is working in terms of polling, in terms of action, in terms of investigations, in terms of narratives, in terms of hit pieces, scandals, none of it's working. And so I think the next logical thing they could do is shut the government down and blame it on Republicans, which is what they're going to be doing, it seems. And again, it's not just them. I think the Republicans are doing it too. But I think both sides at this point actually do want to shut it down. And I think it's going to be very hard for them to agree, even tangibly, even if there was not an intent to shut it down. I think it's going to be very hard for them to come to an agreement on a lot of the very divisive issues they have, including, for example, whether they defund these investigations into Donald Trump, whether they provide funding for more money to Ukraine, and so on. There's some issues, and not to mention Biden's whole Build Back Better Green agenda. I don't see a way for them at this point to come to an agreement on how to keep the federal government funded. That being said, let's jump over to Epic TV. For those of you on YouTube, come join us. Briefly as well, starting next week on the 11th. Okay, big news. Starting next week on the 11th, my nighttime show, Crossroads Tonight, is going to go live. We've been pre-recording it up until now. That's kind of been a pilot program. We're going to put that live. It's going to start at the current length, which is like half an hour, roughly. Over time, we want to expand it to an hour show. Every night, 7 to 7.30 p.m. Eastern Time, Crossroads Tonight will be live. The goal, again, is to make it an hour show, but honestly, just the technical side of it is a bit of a challenge. We're trying to get there. That's also on cable. We're doing national broadcast stuff, actually international even. We're going to be pushing that very hard. That said, I will not be doing the morning show once that happens, because honestly, it's just a bit too much for me to do both a morning show and a night show. That said, of course, the nighttime show will be live. We're trying to find a way to work in questions. We can still do a Q&A. Also, for subscribers, we're planning also fireside chat things. I'll still do some lives with you all, so don't worry about that. That said, I feel bad because I enjoy doing the morning show, but honestly, a morning show and a night show is just honestly a little too much for me, to be honest. Not to mention, my daughter's back in public. Sorry, she's in private school, and I have to take her to school a couple times a week. That said, folks, I appreciate you all being here. Again, don't worry. We're still planning on doing some kind of community events where I'll come and do lives with you all, but we'll probably just do those on Epic TV. Don't worry. This is not goodbye. Don't worry as well. As far as I'm concerned, I've been doing this since 2006, but I kind of feel like my career in journalism is just starting still. I tend to look at the long road with things. For me, I'm just starting on video, as far as I'm concerned. This is just the beginning, so we'll, of course, always do things in terms of what works best, so don't worry. That said, folks, jump over to Epic TV exclusively, and I'll go into by dynamics and how that narrative's failing. Then we'll go into questions. I will see you on Epic TV. Before we jump over, let me show you a trailer, the Capitol Hill tapes, the real name of which we cannot state on YouTube. Let me show you this, then we'll jump over, and again, we have a flash sale right now, 25 cents, and I will see you there. What was the process of actually putting this all together? Many, many hours of finding the right camera angles and watching it. The first trouble started just after 1 o'clock. 45 pages. Here it is right here. Donald Trump has been indicted. A somber day for the country. This all happened before President Trump's speech was over. The founder of the Oath Keepers Militia Group is headed to prison for more than 18 years. His lawyers didn't have this video. The video we're watching right now, his own lawyers did not have. There was a big question of what did the people do who actually did enter the building. This is where we picked it up with the security footage that is new. At this point, the story dramatically changes. The New Jersey man who assaulted a Capitol Police officer on January 6th has been sentenced. So this was withheld. This was not shown to the defense. That could be considered exculpatory evidence. This doesn't seem like what a lot of the media is showing. It's going to change narratives no matter what your political perspective is. What we're after is the truth. All right, folks, thank you all for being here. Let me talk.