Senate Democrats have blocked paying essential federal workers as the government shutdown continues into its fourth week.  In a vote of X to Y, a bill sponsored by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., to pay essential federal workers, including active-duty members of the U.S. military, failed to clear the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to become law. Democrat Sens. Z and H voted for the measure. Fetterman in particular has criticized his Democrat colleagues for continuing the government shutdown.  “Shut our government down and America loses. 2 MILLION Pennsylvanians depend on SNAP to feed their families. For me, it’s hungry Americans over party. Paying our military over party. Paying Capitol Police and federal workers over party. I choose country over party,” the Pennsylvania senator posted on the social media platform X on Wednesday.  Shut our government down and America loses.2 MILLION Pennsylvanians depend on SNAP to feed their families. For me, it’s hungry Americans over party.Paying our military over party.Paying Capitol Police and federal workers over party.I choose country over party. pic.twitter.com/JQbGkzYdw8— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) October 22, 2025 Meanwhile, over the weekend, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., visited California to gin up support for the Proposition 50 ballot measure, which would allow Democrats to gerrymander congressional maps in the Golden State. The measure comes after the Republican efforts to redistrict in Texas and Missouri. The Wisconsin senator’s bill would have paid all federal employees who are working during the government shutdown because they have been determined to be essential. It also would have compensated certain federal contractors who are critical to supporting the federal government during a shutdown.  Republicans have made clear through repeated efforts to pass their stopgap spending continuing resolution and an attempt to fund the Department of War individually that they want what has become the second-longest federal government shutdown in history to end.  Those efforts have been thwarted by Senate Democrats, ostensibly over extending the temporary COVID-era Obamacare enhanced subsidies. The subsidies have been criticized for subsidizing abortion and transgender procedures as well as likely leading to tens of billions of dollars in fraud against American taxpayers.  In total, Democrats are demanding $1.5 trillion in additional spending through extending the temporary subsidies, as well as other demands, such as ending the savings from the One Big, Beautiful Bill. This new spending would have been taken out as additional national debt over the course of the next 10 years, even as the national debt has surpassed $38 trillion.  Democrats are admitting that they’re using the American families as leverage. They need to stop playing sick, partisan games with people’s lives and reopen the government. https://t.co/bAIuj7Gggl— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) October 22, 2025 Thousands of federal workers have been furloughed during the shutdown, which has also led to the closure of the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo. Federal employees by law will receive back pay for the furloughed time once the government shutdown ends if they are not compensated before then. The post BREAKING: Senate Democrats Block Bill to Pay Essential Federal Workers appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Philly's Despicable Soros DA, a Murder, and the NJ Governor's Race

Algorithms pretending to be therapists may be putting people in danger.

"Right now, the existence of live saolas can neither be proven nor disproven."

Reduced blood supply to the brain may result in tunnel vision and other unusual geometries.

H5N1 outbreaks are popping up around the world, but that’s not the only flu strain to watch.

Some industries are untouchable, and this is currently one of them.

Trump’s AI czar called out an artificial intelligence chatbot for pursuing “backdoor Woke AI” after hiring the “Biden AI team.” President Trump’s AI czar David Sacks called out LinkedIn co-founder and billionaire Democratic mega-donor Reid Hoffman for his public praise of AI company Anthropic on Monday. Hoffman had recently revealed that a company where he is a partner has invested in Anthropic, the parent company of the Claude AI chatbot.  In the X thread in which Hoffman called Anthropic “one of the good guys,” he supported the claim by praising the company’s efforts to “deploy AI the right way, thoughtfully, safely, and enormously beneficial for society.”  Sacks pointed out the irony in Hoffman saying Anthropic is “one of the good guys” when he is “the leading funder of lawfare and dirty tricks against President Trump.” Indeed, Anthropic is also funded by the leftist Ford Foundation, another notorious peddler of woke propaganda. [The story continues on MRCFreeSpeechAmerica.org]

The Supreme Court is considering a Louisiana redistricting case that could have a greater impact on U.S. House of Representatives seats than the Texas and California “gerrymandering” maneuvers combined. The New York Times wrote, “Democrats would be in danger of losing around a dozen majority-minority districts across the South if the court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller tweeted, “How many people just realized that Dems had as many as 20 extra seats based on years of unconstitutional race-based gerrymandering?” For the purpose of “racial justice” under the Voting Rights Act, Democratic legislatures and politicians created several “majority-minority” districts in order to elect black and Hispanic congressional members. The Supreme Court will rule on whether these districts violate equal protection under the Constitution. ACLU Voting Rights Project Director Sophia Lin Lakin, who supports these majority-minority districts, said: “Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has been a critical tool in safeguarding the promise that people of color can participate in our democracy on equal terms. It has been our shield against discriminatory maps and our answer to laws designed to suppress the vote. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act with overwhelming, bipartisan support -- and reauthorized it again and again -- because our leaders understood a fundamental truth: you cannot cure discrimination by pretending it doesn’t exist.” NAACP lawyer Janai Nelson told the court, “It was clear that, regardless of party, white Democrats were not voting for black candidates, whether they were Democrats or not. We know that there is such a significant chasm between how black and white voters vote in Louisiana that there is no question that even if there is some correlation between race and party, that race is the driving factor.” The Supreme Court decades ago in Shaw v. Reno (1993) and Miller v. Johnson (1995) ruled against districts where gerrymandering by race was the dominant factor. “Ethnic cleansing!” cried Jesse Jackson after the Miller decision. Elaine Jones of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund said, “The noose is tightening.” Her colleague, Theodore Shaw, warned that once this decision goes through, the Black Congressional Caucus “could meet in the back seat of a taxicab.” But of the black House members in the four redesigned majority-white Southern districts who decided to run for reelection, three won. One chose not to run. In 2016, the city of over 100,000 population that voted most for Donald Trump, with 80% of the vote, was Abilene, Texas, a city that is over 75% white. Shortly after Trump’s election, Abilene voted for its first black mayor. Black Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) recently said: “Myself, Wesley Hunt, Burgess Owens, John James -- we are all black men who represent majority-white districts (referring to Texas, Utah, and Michigan, respectively.) Tim Scott is the United States senator from South Carolina. South Carolina does have a strong black population, but it’s a predominantly white state. These are the facts.” America’s three largest cities, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, all have black mayors, though none of these cities is majority black. There are many examples of blacks elected to statewide offices in a country where no state has a majority black population. These include Sens. Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Carol Moseley Braun and Cory Booker, as well as Govs. Doug Wilder, Deval Patrick and Wes Moore. About the 2008 presidential election, Obama’s principal rival for the Democratic nomination was Hillary Clinton. Obama was attempting to become the first black president, while Clinton was attempting to become the first female president. On the Republican side, the two primary rivals were Mitt Romney, who would become the first Mormon president, and John McCain, who would become at 72 the oldest elected president. In February 2007, Gallup found that 5% of Americans said they “would not vote for” a black presidential candidate; 11% “would not vote for” a woman; 24% “would not vote for” a Mormon; and 42% “would not vote for” a presidential candidate who is “72 years of age.” So, Obama’s hurdle was the lowest. As for the Supreme Court, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) calls Republican-appointed jurists “often underqualified or completely unqualified for their role.” Nothing says qualified quite like a bartender-turned-congressional candidate. And AOC got elected, proving yet again that despite America’s “systemic racism,” there’s hope. Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an “Elderado,” visit www.LarryElder.com. Follow Larry on X @larryelder. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM

Democrat Americans are more likely to view China as having greater economic power in the world than the U.S. has, results of a survey by The Economist/YouGov show. “Which country has greater economic power in the world?” the survey, conducted October 17-20, asked a national sample of U.S. adult citizens. Of all those polled, more U.S. citizens chose America over China: United States: 35% China: 29% About the Same: 23% Not Sure: 13% Democrats, however, were more likely to view China as a greater economic power, by nearly two-to-one: China: 41% United States: 23% About the Same: 23% Not Sure: 13% Republicans, on the other hand, were almost four times more likely to consider the U.S., rather than China, to have more economic power worldwide (58%-16%). Likewise, Republicans were far more likely than Democrats, or the country as a whole, to support the Trump Administration imposing a 100% tariff on goods imported from China. Here, 58% of Republicans said they would support a 100% tariff on Chinese goods, compared to just 5% of Democrats. In all, 56% of U.S. citizens said they oppose the imposition of a 100% tariff, while 29% support it. Another 15% said they weren’t sure what their opinion was.