Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie has officially drawn a Donald Trump-backed challenger.
Ed Gallrein, who preemptively earned the president’s endorsement last week, launched his campaign Tuesday to oust the seven-term lawmaker Trump began targeting earlier this year over Massie’s opposition to Republicans’ megalaw.”
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/10/21/congress/massies-challenger-00616290
Republicans are attacking democracy in multiple ways.
“House Speaker Mike Johnson has been threatened with legal action by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes over his ongoing failure to swear in her state’s new Democratic congresswoman-elect, Adelita Grijalva.
Grijalva, 54, won a special election in Arizona’s 7th congressional district on September 23, comfortably beating Republican Daniel Butierez by picking up 69 percent of the vote to his 29 percent, and will, eventually, succeed her late father, Raul Grijalva, who passed away in March.
In a letter sent to the speaker on Tuesday, Mayes wrote: “Arizona’s right to a full delegation, and the right of the residents of CD 7 to representation from the person they recently voted for, are not up for debate and may not be delayed or used as leverage in negotiations about unrelated legislation.””
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/arizona-says-sue-mike-johnson-164023248.html
“By hiking tariffs on nearly all imports to the United States earlier this year, President Donald Trump effectively imposed one of the largest tax hikes in American history—and did so without congressional approval.
Now, the Trump administration is reportedly preparing to spend some of the revenue from those tax increases—also without congressional approval.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/03/trumps-planned-farm-bailout-should-require-congressional-approval/?nab=1
The Navy said they didn’t want any more littoral combat ships because they sucked, but Congress spent a bunch more money building more of them due to district politics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT7TWwMj8OQ
Military wife calls, concerned about her family’s healthcare as a result of the shutdown, and Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House, just lies to her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYjicMCmNc4
“We’re seeing more evidence for this adage as the government shut downs following Democrats’ refusal to vote for a spending bill that did not include an extension of “temporary” Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, subsidies passed during the pandemic.
Those enhanced subsidies were passed as a temporary measure as part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act in March 2021, and then extended through the end of 2025 by the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
…
Making these subsidies permanent would not be cheap. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it would cost $340 billion a year.
On the flip side, letting the tax credits expire would result in about 1.6 million higher-income earners losing subsidies completely. Millions more would continue receiving a smaller subsidy and see their premiums rise as a result.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/01/democrats-shut-down-the-government-to-obscure-obamacares-failures/
“Certain benefits will continue to be administered: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and assistance for Veterans. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will not be affected initially, but could be if the shutdown goes on for a long time. The federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program will not be able to accept any new applicants starting today. In the past, “inspections of chemical factories, power plants, oil refineries and water treatment plants were disrupted because the Environmental Protection Agency furloughed most of its employees in charge of monitoring pollution and compliance,” reports the Times. “Some routine food safety inspections also stopped.”
National parks have previously had their operations hobbled; open-air sites will probably stay open but visitors centers or other areas that need staffing will shut down. The Department of the Interior says that restrooms will be cleaned and garbage will be collected”
https://reason.com/2025/10/01/trump-government-shutdown-could-do-a-lot-of-good/
Trump is forcing federal agencies and workers to attack Democrats.
Trump is threatening to cancel funding in Democratic states to attack Democratic leaders in response to the government shutdown.
This politicization of federal responsibilities is not good. Bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5ycvFottSE
“In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that President Franklin Roosevelt acted illegally when he tried to fire an anti-New Deal commissioner from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC “cannot in any proper sense be characterized as an arm or an eye of the executive,” declared the Court in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. “We think it plain under the Constitution that illimitable power of removal is not possessed by the President in respect of officers of the character of those just named.”
But that was then. More recently, the Supreme Court has all but announced that Humphrey’s Executor faces imminent judicial execution, an outcome that would allow President Donald Trump (and every president who succeeds him) to fire “independent” agency heads at will.”
https://reason.com/2025/09/25/scotus-is-now-poised-to-overrule-humphreys-executor-a-1935-precedent-limiting-presidential-power/
“What does shutdown theater actually cost taxpayers? Lost Productivity, for starters. The 2013 shutdown cost $2.5 billion in back pay to 850,000 furloughed employees who missed a combined 6.6 million work days. All that productivity was permanently lost, since they were paid for work not performed.
Shutdowns also result in special expenses specifically related to preparing for shutdowns. Before each shutdown, agencies must develop detailed contingency plans outlining which functions will continue and which will stop. This pulls hundreds of thousands of employees from their regular duties to document procedures that everyone hopes will never be used.
Shutdowns cause economic disruption. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 2018-2019 shutdown reduced GDP by $11 billion in all, including $3 billion that will never be recovered. The 2013 shutdown cost the economy $24 billion and 120,000 private sector jobs.
Finally, shutdowns cause a great deal of administrative drama. Beyond direct costs, shutdowns can delay tax refunds (almost $4 billion in 2013), halt fee collections, and force the government to pay penalty interest on late payments. These indirect costs often exceed the supposed savings from furloughing workers. (White House Office of Management and Budget, November 2013)”
https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5523992-government-never-shuts-down-heres-what-actually-happens-in-budget-standoffs/?tbref=hp