The Easiest Government Shutdown to End Has Become a Quagmire

<![CDATA[I must confess, I did not have on my Portland Jailblazers Bingo card the Schumer shutdown rapidly approaching the one month mark with no realistic end in sight. It seems extraordinary that such a ridiculous proposition underway in the United States Senate is still being held onto in a death grip by all but three Democrats in the upper chamber. As for the shutdown's ramifications, thanks to a $130 million dollar donation to fund the United States military servicemembers last week, the real pain of the shutdown has been relatively minimal. Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, has permanently fired over 4,000 federal employees, and has made public remarks that the number of those RIF'd (reduction in force), will top 10,000 the longer the shutdown lasts. On Sunday, Los Angeles International Airport, among the busiest airports in the world and considered by many, me included, to be just a half-step above something usually found in a third-world country's capital, issued a ground stop for a few hours in the morning due to staffing shortages in air traffic control. ]]>