It was the House’s turn to approve it this Wednesday, as the longest government shutdown in U.S. history slowly comes to an end. All 435 lawmakers met in full for the first time since Sept. 19 to vote on a Senate-approved plan to refund the government on Monday after seven Democrats and one independent defected to support Republicans the day before.
There were 222 pieces If so (216 Republicans, 6 Democrats) Up to 209 people it’s not (202 Democrats, 7 Republicans). All that remains is Donald Trump’s signature — expected during a ceremony to be announced at 9:45 p.m. (Washington time) – to be able to finish shutdownThis is what Washington calls a partial lock on public funds, a repeated threat that materializes if the two parties fail to agree on budget issues. This time it lasted 43 days, breaking all records for lack of agreement in the Capitol.
The president’s signature would gradually return to normalcy for dozens of shuttered federal agencies, closed or deserted monuments and national parks, and major U.S. airports that have seen thousands of flight cancellations and tens of thousands of delays due to the coronavirus. shutdown Air traffic controllers and security personnel were considered “essential” and were forced to work without pay. The remaining approximately 750,000 people have had their jobs and salaries suspended in recent weeks.
It is not clear when all these problems can be considered resolved. Especially about airports. It is also unclear how the 42 million people receiving the food stamp program (SNAP) will ultimately be affected. The Trump administration has done everything possible to avoid paying the equivalent amount in November, but last Friday, the Supreme Court stepped in and agreed with the White House and its efforts.
The agreement to resume public funding includes a provision to provide federal loans until the end of January, when a new crisis could occur. These include funding for vouchers in fiscal year 2026 and a promise that the Trump administration will reinstate officials fired in the last 43 days. The administration also announced that it would retroactively pay those who kept their jobs any missed paychecks and that no more federal employees would be laid off over the next two and a half months.
More importantly, what is not included in that agreement? The Democratic Party, in particular, is facing another internal crisis just a week after its big wins in New York, Virginia and New Jersey, which helped it overcome the previous elections. Republicans have not committed to expanding some of the health benefits included in the Obamacare program, the law named after its author. These are subsidies approved during the pandemic whose foreseeable end will raise the price of health insurance for 24 million Americans. They agreed to vote on these grants soon, but the effort is unlikely to succeed on Capitol Hill.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives is speaker Mike Johnson, in an unprecedented move, suspended her for 54 days in an attempt to blame the effects of the shutdown on Democrats. The last thing lawmakers did before going on indefinite leave was to approve the budget, which later failed to get the support it needed in the Senate, where 14 votes failed and it wasn’t approved until Sunday. And Democrats didn’t want to support plans to shut down the government after Oct. 1 and keep it open.
During this time, Johnson has also refused to allow incoming Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, who won a special election on September 22, to succeed her father, Raul Grijalva, who died in January – a political calculation based on unwavering loyalty to Trump, everything suggests.
Grijalva vote
He finally did it this Wednesday afternoon. The first thing he did was join the people in signing a petition to force a vote in Congress. If that happens, which is also unlikely, the White House would be forced to release all files held by the Justice Department related to the case of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died in a high-security cell while awaiting trial in 2019. Mr Johnson set that vote for next week.
Democrats and a handful of Republican senators (Thomas Massey, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace), who are authorizing the necessary 218 additional votes, want to know the contents of a document that the Justice Department had promised to see for months until last July when Attorney General Pam Bondi released a statement signed by FBI Director Kash Patel. I have to distribute it now.
On Wednesday, new emails from Mr. Epstein were released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, in which he repeatedly mentioned Mr. Trump by name. The two were friends for 15 years before separating in 2004. That was before the financier’s first trial began and before the real estate mogul and reality TV star became president for the first time.
The White House’s sudden refusal to release these files has heightened suspicions that they contain something President Trump doesn’t want known. At the beginning of the summer, these maneuvers caused the most serious crisis among his followers in the MAGA world (an acronym for the Trumpist slogan “Make America Great Again”). Conspiracy theory extremists have long suspected that these files, which contain a list of the rich and famous who were involved in Epstein’s crimes, were withheld from the public to protect them. Also, the investor did not commit suicide as the forensic report claimed.
Congress has been obtaining document after document from Epstein’s family since August until the Trump administration releases all of these documents. The email released this Tuesday corresponds to last week’s last shipment. Bondi, as he stated, has a complete document on the table in his office.
Trump claims he knew nothing about his old friend’s crimes. This Wednesday, he dismissed the new revelations as another manifestation of a “Democratic hoax” to distract from the end of the government shutdown that eventually came after a slow-motion conclusion.
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