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Democratic senators finally capitulated to Republicans after the drawn-out, record-breaking government shutdown. Although Democrats didn't actually accomplish anything, they maintain the shutdown was worth it. Democrats originally shut down the government to force Republicans' hand on extending health care subsidies from the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire at the end of the year. Over 40 days later, eight Democrats caved and voted with Republicans to reopen the government without securing a deal on health care. 'We got people to pay attention.'Republicans' only concession to Democrats was to reverse reduction-in-force notices issued during the shutdown and a commitment to refrain from implementing any more through January 30, when the continuing resolution expires. After eight Democrats flipped and voted with Republicans to pass the continuing resolution, many of their colleagues expressed outrage and disappointment. Even still, some Senate Democrats maintain that the record-breaking shutdown was worth it. RELATED: 'Pathetic' Senate Democrats cave, advancing key shutdown vote and prompting intraparty uproar: 'It’s a surrender' Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty ImagesDemocratic Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado told CNN that demonstrating the overwhelming reliance millions of Americans have on the federal government made the shutdown worth it. "Yeah, I think so," Hickenlooper said. "I hate it, but yeah, it was worth it. Definitely.""We got people to pay attention to the fact that this is a traumatic, in many cases, life-or-death situation all over this country." RELATED: Senate Republicans pass key deal with Democrat defectors as end to record-long shutdown draws near Photo by Tom Williams-Pool/Getty ImagesDemocratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island echoed Hickenlooper, saying the shutdown was worthwhile. "I think it was," Reed said after a long pause. "Because I think the perception, we made it clear that it's not just a health care issue, but the whole issue. I think it was remarkable when the president tried to use SNAP as the punishment to force us to capitulate."Notably, Reed's claim that President Donald Trump weaponized food assistance programs like SNAP to bully Democrats is inaccurate. Congress is the only political body responsible for appropriating SNAP, and Democrats intentionally shut down and refused to reopen the government for over 40 days. Additionally, neither Hickenlooper nor Reed were among the eight Democrats who voted to reopen the government. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The Islamification of the United States is in full swing, and BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is continuing to sound the alarm, warning Americans of what’s happening right under their noses.“They want to use the tax-deductible mosques to build the voter bloc. They want to use their CAIR (c)(4) — this was the CAIR executive director saying they want to use the (c)(4) of their organization to lobby, draft, and fight laws. They want to use their PACs to fund candidates, and they want to use super PACs for unlimited money to flip races,” Gonzales explains.“Now, there are not a lot of people who will actually stand up and call out corrupt organizations like CAIR and call out what is actually happening right before our very eyes, for fear of being called an Islamaphobe,” she continues.“Oh, no, a mean name,” she says mockingly. “I guess I’ll just stand by and watch my civilization be completely destroyed.”CAIR is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which Gonzales explains has “reported terrorist ties to organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, also Hamas.”Which is why Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) — who is running for attorney general of Texas — has introduced a bill to strip tax-exempt status from charities with known terror ties.“I think there’s a lot of folks who don’t realize, or haven’t realized until lately, how bad it truly is,” Roy tells Gonzales, explaining that once he started speaking out about the Islamic takeover happening not just in America but across the world, he started getting harassed.“They were, you know, harassing my staff and basically trying to target us, which is what they’re going to do,” he says.But he warns that it's going to get worse, as what has happened with Mamdani in New York City is not the “canary in the coal mine” but the “four-alarm fire that’s currently raging right here, right now.”“And you know it, and I know it. You know, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with EPIC. But it’s not just EPIC … there’s this massive Islamic center in Houston. There’s 300 mosques throughout the state of Texas. There’s more mosques being built in Texas every day than any other state in the union,” Roy explains.“And that’s the last point,” he continues. “There are organizations, deeply funded, widely funded, with ties back to Middle East funding, but also radical Marxists, because that’s what people don’t understand: This is the combination element of Marxism and Islamism.”“And it is purposeful, and they are targeting the United States of America specifically to take us over,” he adds.Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Police found a half-naked woman handcuffed in a Texas backyard who had been tortured for a considerable period of time by five people she knew for years, authorities said. The Austin Police Department said in a statement that officers conducted a welfare check just after 9 a.m. Oct. 30 after a report regarding a "woman in distress who appeared to be restrained and calling for help."The woman told investigators she 'got in trouble' the night before police found her because her pants fell down, according to the affidavit.Police said they discovered a woman outside a home who was "handcuffed to a piece of exercise equipment.""The woman showed signs of physical distress and had visible injuries consistent with prolonged restraint," the press release read. "The woman told officers she had been held at the residence for several months and was not allowed to leave."Police said they had to cut through the "heavy metal links" to release the woman who soon was taken to a local hospital for treatment.Officers discovered three children inside the house who were "safely removed and placed in the care of Child Protective Services for safety and support."Police arrested five people from the residence and charged them with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, injury to elderly or disabled, and unlawful restraint.The suspects were identified as 51-year-old Michelle Garcia, 32-year-old Mache Carney, 30-year-old Juan Pablo Castro, 21-year-old Crystal Garcia, and 21-year-old Maynard Lefevers.The Austin American-Statesman said it obtained the arrest affidavit, which indicated the woman told police she was friends with one of the females who lived in the house and visited often — but "one day they decided they didn't like her anymore and no longer allowed her to leave."The suspects said they had known the woman for years, the affidavit stated. Carney told police they started restraining the woman to stop her from stealing from neighbors, the affidavit said. Several of the suspects claimed the woman suffers from mental health issues, according to the affidavit.Crystal Garcia told investigators that the woman was only “50/50” capable of consent, the affidavit stated. RELATED: Female reportedly orders her 5 lovers to kidnap, torture, and deprive man of food and sleep for a week at Red Roof Inn Citing the affidavit, KVUE-TV reported that the woman had been at the home since July and had been "handcuffed inside and outside the house for months." Castro — the husband of Carney — admitted to purchasing the handcuffs, according to the affidavit. According to the affidavit, the woman told detectives a male and a female repeatedly shot her with a BB gun and that she was beaten with a baseball bat and fed only once a day. Michelle Garcia told investigators they fed the woman one meal a day because she had gotten "chunky," according to the arrest affidavit. However, police noted that the woman appeared malnourished when she was found.Police said the woman told them she was punished if she tried to leave and had open wounds, cuts, swollen wrists, missing flesh from her hands and feet, extensive scarring all over her body from BB gunshots, and a battered face, the American-Statesman reported, citing the affidavit.KVUE, citing law enforcement, reported that the woman had "hundreds of small BB scars across her body and a swollen shut right eye from a pellet injury."The affidavit said the suspects confessed to shooting the woman with BB guns. Castro told police he bought an electric rifle-style BB gun "to shoot her" because he didn't want to touch the woman. According to the arrest affidavit, Castro told authorities he would come home from work, grab the BB gun from his closet, and "chase her around the yard," firing pellets."I [expletive] hate her," Castro told investigators when asked why he shot the victim, the affidavit stated. A 4-year-old child who lived at the home told a specialist during a forensic interview that Castro — his father — shot the woman when she was "bad," according to the affidavit. The child said he could hear the woman outside screaming, according to the affidavit.The woman told investigators she "got in trouble" the night before police found her because her pants fell down, according to the affidavit. The American-Statesman said as "punishment," a number of suspects "allegedly shot her repeatedly with a BB gun," secured her in the backyard with handcuffs, then left her there "overnight without pants or food as temperatures dipped into the 40s." The paper, citing police, added that the woman said she "begged and cried to be released, but was threatened with more and worse violence" if she kept pleading.The investigation is ongoing, and those with information about the case are urged to contact the Austin Police Department’s Human Trafficking Unit at 512-974-4786 or submit an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers at austincrimestoppers.org or 512-472-8477.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Republican lawmakers officially passed their funding bill to reopen the government on Monday night. In addition to getting the ball rolling on reopening the government, their bill sets the stage for possible retribution over the Biden FBI's Arctic Frost operation.Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) published damning documents last month regarding the Biden FBI's Operation Arctic Frost, an investigation that ultimately morphed into former special counsel Jack Smith's federal case against President Donald Trump regarding the 2020 election.'Arctic Frost was a grotesque abuse of power. It was Joe Biden's Watergate.'The documents revealed that the bureau not only subpoenaed records for over 400 Republican individuals and entities but secretly obtained the private phone records of numerous Republican lawmakers as part of what the Iowa senator called a "fishing expedition."According to the Grassley, those behind Arctic Frost "were spreading a wide net because they were looking for anything they could to hook on Trump, put Trump in prison, keep him from running for president, and things of that nature."The funding bill passed by the Senate this week contains a provision that would enable any senator whose phone records were "acquired, subpoenaed, searched, accessed or disclosed" without his or her knowledge to file a civil lawsuit against the government inside the next five years for at least $500,000 plus legal fees for each instance of a violation.Senators would be able to take legal action if at the time their records were seized, they were a target of a criminal investigation; a federal judge issued an order authorizing a delay of notice to the senator in question; the government complied with the judge's order; and the subpoena was faithfully executed.RELATED: Republicans torch Obama judge over his role in Biden FBI's 'partisan vendetta,' demand impeachment Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images The provision, which is retroactive to 2022, notes that "no officer, employee, or agent of the United States or of any Federal department or agency shall be entitled to assert any form of absolute or qualified immunity as a defense to liability" in relation to such violations."It's designed to put real teeth into federal law that prohibits the executive branch from surveilling the Senate," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — whose Senate office hard-line and cellphone records were reportedly targeted — told the Daily Caller. "Arctic Frost was a grotesque abuse of power. It was Joe Biden's Watergate.""[It’s] a common-sense provision to ensure that no Department of Justice — Democrat or Republican — ever does that again," added Cruz, who confirmed to Politico that Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) was "directly" responsible for the inclusion of the provision.Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told the Daily Caller the provision serves to protect against "a weaponization of government against members of the Senate" and stressed that "senators are going to take responsible action, and that's what we've done here."Democrat lawmakers complained about the measure."I'm shocked that a huge change in policy would be dropped into a bill at the last minute, and the first that most senators learn about it is in the press," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told the Caller. "This is one more way in which the bill that passed the Senate tonight is even worse for the American people."Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) similarly clutched pearls over the provision, telling Politico, "I am furious that the Senate minority and majority leaders chose to airdrop this provision into this bill at the eleventh hour — with zero consultation or negotiation with the subcommittee that actually oversees this work."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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