Did Rushdie Say ‘Peaceful Muslims Don’t Matter’ Because He Was Attacked by ‘Just One Muslim’?

A high-ranking Republican is blaming Democrats over a looming government shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) penned an opinion piece for The Washington Post on Monday, claiming that leaders must avert a spending crisis with a bipartisan appropriations process and claiming "Democrats are holding government funding hostage to a long list of partisan demands, totaling more than $1 trillion. And they’re ready to shut down the government if Republicans don’t comply."

Thune was among a group of leaders slated to meet Monday with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, which includes House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).

This closed-door meeting is just hours before the Oct. 1 deadline. A White House official described this as a make-or-break moment. It's also the first time Trump will meet with the Democratic leaders since he took office eight months ago.

Thune argues that "Republicans are open to discussion and negotiation on a number of issues."

"But there’s a difference between careful discussion and negotiation during the appropriations process and taking government funding hostage to jam more than $1 trillion in big-government spending in a funding bill designed to last mere weeks," Thune writes. "Major decisions should not be made in haste. And they certainly shouldn’t be made because one party is threatening to shut down the government if it doesn’t get its way."

As Republicans urge Democrats to accept the bill, Democratic leaders have pushed back against cuts to healthcare.

Affordable Care Act subsidies are set to expire this year. And without an extension, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that more than 4 million people will lose healthcare over the next 10 years.

Thune claims that "Democrats have decided to abandon the process."

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought announced on Friday that his office has started firing federal workers.

The post Russ Vought Announces Firings of Federal Workers: ‘The RIFs Have Begun’ first appeared on Mediaite.

An analyst warns Thursday that GOP lawmakers "drunk with power" have made a major stumble amid the ongoing government shutdown, unleashing "Republicans' worst nightmare."

Salon columnist Heather Digby Parton writes about how Obamacare premiums are set to soar — something President Donald Trump had promised to replace — and now "appears to be one step too far" for Americans.

"Ten years of similar promises have shown that replacing the Affordable Care Act wasn’t so easy after all — and that the only health care plan the GOP ever truly wanted was one called 'you’re on your own,'" Digby Parton writes.

Republicans haven't introduced any alternatives, instead people are receiving notices that their healthcare premiums are set to rise, while they cut Medicaid and close a number of rural hospitals, add work requirements and deny care to millions. And although they've pointed to Project 2025, aiming to force people into a privatized version of Medicaid and "plan to open up the market to sell junk insurance plans which are worth virtually nothing," it's still a half-baked policy, the writer argues.

"But the GOP’s lack of strategy and success makes it clear the party is as flummoxed on this issue as they’ve always been, and they know it’s a loser for them," she writes.

Healthcare matters for Americans because it's something that effects their daily lives, she adds, and "it’s now on the front lines of this massive war against our social safety net."

As the Trump administration works to defund scientific research and following "the government's shambolic response during the first year of the pandemic and the damage being done every day by the administration to our scientific research community, I suspect a lot of people are feeling insecure about their actual health care these days."

That could leave room for Democrats to step in and hold the line.

"If Democrats can find the fortitude to hold out for their demands, they will have taken the first step in reining in this lawless administration and given the American people something to hold onto in these dark days," Digby Parton writes.