So we’re in a government shutdown that doesn’t make any sense, right? The Republicans control the House and the Senate, and the GOP congress critters will do whatever President Grievance wants, so what the hell is going on?
Well, it might be a little early for ghost stories, but the truth is that the Capitol is haunted by a ghost: Jeffrey Epstein. Of course the Republicans can’t say that so they’re throwing up a huge smokescreen of lies to push their message, but that their lies are easily disproved is proof enough.
Let’s get to the point: right now congressional Republicans have the ability to pass any kind of spending bill they want to. They hold majorities in both the House and the Senate and can easily muster a simple majority at any time.
Now you see a lot of hand-wringing about the 60 vote threshold needed in the Senate to pass anything, but that’s just a lie because that threshold is 100% because of the filibuster, a procedure that was added to the Senate rule bank in the 19th century but rarely used until the 20th century. And we see that its most frequent use has been in the 21st century.
And why is that? Because in 2008 a Black man had the temerity to win the presidency, and when the members of his party controlled the Congress, the GOP congress critters decided that they would obstruct every single thing that president would do, simply because he dared to be president while being Black. And the Republican belief that a Democratic president is an illegitimate president has expanded to now include every elected Democrat.
Which leads us to Adelita Grijalva, a newly-elected Democratic House rep from Arizona. She won her election on September 23 and as of today Mike Johnson has refused to swear her in. Here’s a glimpse of the lengths House Republicans are going to in order to keep her seat open:
Obviously this has nothing to do with policy arguments or Democratic senators. It’s about one thing, and one thing only: the House discharge petition to release the Epstein files. The petition needs 218 signers to move forward and, you guessed it, Grijalva is number 218.
With that established it’s easy to see why congressional Republicans are willing to blatantly lie about and lose the public argument on a government shutdown: whatever is in the Epstein files about President Grievance would topple the entire Republican establishment.
And we got confirmation of that yesterday, courtesy of, of all people, Howard Lutnick:
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recounts meeting Jeffrey Epstein and seeing his massage table:
— Home of the Brave (@ofthebraveusa.bsky.social) 2025-10-02T02:03:28.144Z
And this:
Lutnick on Epstein:Devine: So how come these other people could hang around him and not see it?Lutnick: They participated. That's what his M.O. was, "Get a massage" And what happened in that massage room, I assume is on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever. That's how he had money.
And
And so we wait and wait for that shoe to finally drop.
I’ll leave you with this: