One big word worth learning is “schadenfreude.” Schadenfreude is “pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.” Nothing better captures the perverse pleasure that Democrats are deriving from the pain inflicted on our country caused by the government shutdown. Democrats precipitated this shutdown to force Republicans to back off efforts to turn around our suicidal growth of government spending and debt. House Republicans passed a continuing resolution ready for the president’s signature to fund the government, but Democrats said no. They refuse to get rid of $450 billion over 10 years in Obamacare premium subsidies that were enacted as temporary assistance during COVID-19. Now, the more Americans squirm in discomfort from the shutdown, the more the Democrats love it. They want Republicans to cave. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food assistance to almost 42 million Americans, is now forced to suspend payments, which will be partially covered with emergency funding. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told the press, “Republicans are willing to starve hungry children in this country and take away SNAP benefits.” Just several days prior, Jeffries endorsed Zohran Mamdani, the declared democratic socialist running as a Democrat for mayor of New York City. SNAP is another government program going back to the 1960s in which inefficient government largess was sold as compassion. In 1970, there were 6 million Americans receiving the benefit. Today it is nearly 42 million. SNAP spending just six years ago was $63.5 billion. Today it is nearly $100 billion. Per the American Enterprise Institute, “Less than half of able-bodied working-age SNAP recipients work, and many recipients receive benefits for years.” According to AEI, SNAP is “one of more than 80 means-tested safety-net programs in the U.S. designed to alleviate hardship among low-income households.” In 2023, spending on these programs, per former Sen. Phil Gramm, now a senior fellow at AEI, totaled $1.6 trillion, consuming “72.6% of unobligated general revenue.” Gramm compared that with defense spending which fell to 37.2% of unobligated revenue in 2023 from 68% in 1967. Welfare payments, per Gramm, going to “average work-age” households in the lowest fifth of income recipients, have increased inflation-adjusted, 780% since 1967. And “the portion of prime work-age persons” in the bottom fifth who work has fallen from 68% to 36%. Clearly, the country’s cultural and social problems and our fiscal problems go hand in hand. Various proposals have been put forth for reforming SNAP. These include moving federal funds to states as bloc grants and giving states move responsibility in their management and disbursement. This was key to the successful welfare reform of 1996 that created Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. But most critical is reform of the underlying welfare culture that has so destructively rooted into our country. Making government largess more efficient is critical. But we must rebuild a culture in which individuals, in all income classes, feel personally responsible for their lives. Some 16 years ago, Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill at the Brookings Institution published their research pointing to the “success sequence.” Per Haskins, for those who followed these rules—finish high school, get a full-time job, get married before having children—about 2% wound up in poverty and 75% wound up in the middle class. We launched a program at CURE, the institute I founded in Washington, D.C., to publicize the “success sequence” in targeted low-income neighborhoods around the country. We bought billboard space that advertised the “success sequence” for getting out of poverty. In two major cities where we posted the billboards, Minneapolis and Philadelphia, Black Lives Matter went to the billboard company and insisted they take it down—which they did. Know that the country’s Left, today represented by the Democratic Party, hate the idea of personal responsibility, which is the cornerstone of personal freedom. Democrats are taking us to cultural and fiscal bankruptcy. This is what Republicans want to change. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Government Shutdown That Democrats Love appeared first on The Daily Signal.

And before you ask: no, it's not because of Ancient Egyptians in the Grand Canyon.

A humble, decades-old folate compound — used not to fight cancer but to ease the side effects of chemotherapy — has become the latest flashpoint in America’s health wars. On September 10, the Trump administration announced that the FDA would move toward approving leucovorin for children with cerebral folate deficiency, a rare metabolic disorder linked to autism in some cases. Supporters hailed it as long-overdue recognition of promising small studies; critics called it another example of the MAHA agenda politicizing science. While bureaucrats and scientists bicker, families with real skin in the game tirelessly run their own experiments and share their results, hoping the science will eventually catch up.The debate since has been fierce, with professional groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics advising against the off-label use of leucovorin for autism, warning that the evidence remains preliminary — while prominent physicians call for larger, biomarker-guided trials to confirm what early studies suggest.A parent’s loveAll parties insist their motives are pure, but this latest skirmish is a reminder of how tangled those motives can be. What drives the people and institutions pushing medical science forward is often a sincere desire to help people, yes — mixed in with ambition, rivalry, financial interest, and the unspoken urge to be the one who’s right.But there’s another force at work here, deeper and simpler, and it tends to override all the rest: a parent’s love for a child. This is the same love that kept the parents of children with cystic fibrosis pushing to understand a condition doctors considered hopeless, or that led a Hollywood father to resurrect a forgotten epilepsy therapy to help his son. And now it’s the force animating hundreds of parents who believe a decades-old folate compound has literally given their autistic children a voice.While bureaucrats and scientists bicker, families with real skin in the game tirelessly run their own experiments and share their results, hoping the science will eventually catch up.Even before the FDA signaled approval of leucovorin for cerebral folate deficiency — a rare metabolic disorder with links to autism — parents have been sharing reports of progress with the drug on Reddit forums and in Facebook groups to share anecdotal reports of progress. A few families have also told their stories in clinic-produced or news-segment videos.A treatment’s hopeLeucovorin, also called folinic acid, is a bioactive form of folate. It’s been used for decades to “rescue” patients from high-dose chemotherapy. In autism, it’s being repurposed to bypass what some researchers call a “folate transport blockade.” Up to 70% of autistic children in certain studies test positive for folate receptor alpha autoantibodies — immune proteins that prevent folate from reaching the brain. The result: cerebral folate deficiency. High-dose folinic acid appears to restore that supply, sometimes with striking behavioral effects.Dr. Richard Frye, a pediatric neurologist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, led one of the first controlled trials in 2016. His team found improved verbal communication in FRAA-positive children treated with leucovorin. Later case studies described language bursts, better eye contact, and calmer affect. RELATED: Tylenol fights autism claims, slams proposed FDA warning label as 'unsupported' by science Photo by ISSAM AHMED/AFP via Getty ImagesFrom ‘no words’ to the Pledge of AllegianceThe parents themselves provide more affecting testimony. Carolyn Connor’s son Mason was 1 when she realized something was amiss: “He wasn’t talking. No language. No words.” When their pediatrician downplayed this lag in development as typical in boys, she and her husband began doing their own research, which led them to Frye. Three days after starting leucovorin, Mason spoke his first words. Now 6, he continues to take the medication, and continues to thrive. Beth Ann Kersse’s daughter was diagnosed with autism at age 3. “In her vocabulary she had about three or four words,” Kersse said in a video uploaded by Washington, D.C.-based Potomac Psychiatry. “But she didn’t call me ‘Mom.’ She kind of would point at me,” she added.That’s when Kersse and her husband began exploring leucovorin. Two years later, Kersse describes her almost 5-year-old daughter’s transformation as “incredible.”“The other day she stood up and put her hand over her heart, and she recited the Pledge of Allegiance, and we were just like, OK ... I didn’t know we knew that. ... She’s able to have a full conversation; she can tell us how she’s feeling.”Late last month, Nebraska pediatrician Dr. Phil Boucher posted a case study detailing how a 3.5-year-old autistic girl responded to leucovin treatment, citing texts from her mother reporting that she was “blown away” by the changes she observed:She is starting to consistently look at people when they call her name. ... She’s becoming more interested in her little sister. ... She also has started taking some of the baby dolls that we have and has been covering them up with a blanket, giving them a kiss, and saying, “Night night.”As Boucher is careful to point out, anecdotal success stories like these don’t prove the drug works. But to those experiencing the improvement firsthand, they’re a promising sign that a simple, inexpensive vitamin derivative can do what years of therapy can’t. And if this promise does indeed bear fruit, leucovorin treatment will be the latest of many homegrown revolutions in medical care spearheaded by determined mothers and fathers unwilling to wait for consensus.

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Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., formally announced Friday that she is running for governor of New York, vowing to make the state "affordable and safe for all" and promising to "fire Hochul" in a sharp rebuke of Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul's leadership.

Former NFL star Antonio Brown has been arrested on an attempted murder charge stemming from a shooting after a celebrity boxing event in Miami, police confirmed Thursday. Brown, 37, was taken into custody...

The Federal Aviation Administration 's unprecedented order to scale back flights nationwide because of the record-long government shutdown took effect Friday morning, with some passengers trying to figure out backup travel plans.