[continued from previous message]   
      
   weren’t ready to reopen the government yesterday and your aides didn’t   
   burst into spontaneous enthusiastic applause, now you understand why.   
      
   I’ve used the metaphor of marching into a box canyon before. Senate   
   Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, desperately needing to look like a tough   
   guy who can stand up to Donald Trump, has maneuvered his party into a   
   situation where the Democrats (a) self-evidently are the obstacle to   
   reopening the government, and (b) need the pain of the shutdown to get   
   worse in order to sway the minds of Republicans to spend a half-trillion   
   over ten years to keep giving subsidies for buying health insurance to   
   people who are making in excess of four times the poverty level.   
      
   In situations like this, it is always wise to study the classics. In   
   season five of 24, when Jack Bauer needed a duplicitous double agent   
   named Henderson to tell him the location of some stolen nerve gas   
   canisters, he recognizes that threatening to shoot Henderson in the   
   kneecap isn’t going to make him talk. Instead Jack shoots Henderson’s   
   wife in the leg. (Alas, Henderson is such a ruthless SOB, he doesn’t   
   talk even after his wife has been shot.)   
      
   Now, as violent and desperate as Jack’s action was, it did represent a   
   sharp, calculated gamble on what Henderson valued and what kind of   
   pressure would make him give up the location of the nerve gas canisters.   
   (It was also one of the rare times on 24 when torture didn’t work.)   
      
   There is no “nice” version of a government shutdown, unless you want to   
   count a brief one. Inevitably, federal workers face financial stress   
   from missing one or more paychecks, even if they know they’ll get back   
   pay when the shutdown ends. Firefighters at Naval Air Station Corpus   
   Christi didn’t do anything to deserve this. Nor did the nonprofit   
   Breathing Association in Columbus, Ohio. TSA workers in Mobile, Ala.,   
   shouldn’t be forced to sell their plasma or get gigs as Uber drivers. It   
   is morally wrong that “hundreds of service members have reported   
   receiving incorrect pay or no pay at all during the mid-month pay cycle   
   — and so far, none of those discrepancies have been corrected.” If you   
   run a coffee shop near Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora, Colo., a   
   bunch of your regular customers just aren’t going to be coming in as   
   frequently. Blue Ridge Parkway maintenance employees in North Carolina   
   shouldn’t be scrambling to find temporary work.   
      
   But as laid out above, government shutdowns are exercises in political   
   pressure and leverage. These are the consequences that the Democrats   
   voluntarily signed up for the first time they chose to vote against the   
   continuing resolution.   
      
   If you’re not willing to hurt people, you really shouldn’t get into   
   government shutdown fights.   
      
      
      
   ADDENDUM: We all knew that former White House Press Secretary Karine   
   Jean-Pierre had all the sharpness of a bowling ball, and that her White   
   House memoir was going to be a litany of implausible excuses and spin.   
   As expected, her book tour is going quite badly.   
      
   In an interview with Isaac Chotiner of the New Yorker, she contends that   
   Joe Biden had a good shot of winning the 2024 election if he had stayed   
   in the race; that Democrats don’t stand up for “the L.G.B.T.Q.   
   community”; that she has no concern, even to this day, that Joe Biden   
   could serve as president through January 2029, even though he’s   
   currently getting radiation therapy for prostate cancer and turns 83   
   next month; that Biden performed well in the post-debate interview with   
   George Stephanopoulos in which the president said he couldn’t remember   
   if he had watched his own debate performance; that it was an insult that   
   people wanted a primary instead of automatically nominating Kamala   
   Harris and that at the same time, Jean-Pierre “never really believed   
   Harris could win”; and concludes by accusing Chotiner of speaking “for   
   the Democratic leadership” in his questions.   
      
   Jonathan Chait of The Atlantic posted on X, “This is an interview that   
   should inspire some follow-up reporting: how was KJP hired for her job   
   in the first place?”   
      
   Really, pal? Really? You can’t think of any possible way that someone   
   who begins every sentence with “as a Black woman who is part of the   
   L.G.B.T.Q. community” ended up getting hired for a job she couldn’t   
   perform in a Democratic administration?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)