Sunday, September 24: Shutdown Impending
Next week has a looming, foreboding, almost spooky vibe
It’s kinda nice living in a declining empire where a handful of wealthy bureaucrats can hold an entire nation hostage from time to time. The bozos in charge of the federal government are headed towards a disruptive shutdown on October 1st that will put the squeeze on more workers and force a confrontation over federal spending.
These republicans in the house of representatives are demanding the following or else they’ll shut down the government (withholding the pay of millions of workers):
A 27% cut in Social Security Administration (just casually take out a quarter out of a trillion dollar budget)
Cut nutrition assistance programs for poor newborns (gotta get your money up kids)
Cut money to ensure our drinking water is safe (I actually prefer for my tapwater to resemble Yoohoo chocolate milk)
Cut most federal education money (American schools, famously overrated)
Cut federal cancer and stroke research (we know enough about that stuff already, it’s all sad, get rid of it)
Biden will sit and point fingers at republicans, who will almost certainly sit back and do the exact same thing. Meanwhile, important services from food safety and food aid to air travel and passport processing and even pay for the military and law enforcement will be put on hold, potentially wrecking more havoc on the already fragile economy.
Side Item
Egyptian Opposition Spyware: Looks like Egypt’s government is still coming up with new and innovative ways to repress opposition and make the lives of its citizens a collective nightmare. An Egyptian opposition politician who recently announced a bid for the presidency, former lawmaker Ahmed Altantawy, was targeted multiple times with spyware, including with the Predator malware that automatically infects smartphones. Citizen Lab said in a blog post that Egyptian authorities were likely behind the attempted hacks, and that once infected, the Predator spyware turns a smartphone into a remote listening device and lets the attacker siphon off user data