We are 9 days out from a government shutdown, and Republican representatives are hard at work putting VP Harris, Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre's salaries to a vote.

Here is Rep. Claudia Tenney, introducing her amendment. "Thank you Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer an amendment to reduce the salary of Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House Press Secretary, to $1," she began. "Mr. Speaker, during Ms. Jean-Pierre's tenure as Press Secretary, she has repeatedly lied to the American people and acted in a condescending manner toward reporters, and also violated the Hatch Act." A rich accusation, given the day-to-day violations of Kayleigh McEnany, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and others in the last administration.

This is no joke, to quote the president. The Speaker of the House has had to pull two appropriations bills from the floor because he can't get enough Republicans (who actually wrote them in committee) behind them. This is no accident. What Republicans are doing here is pretending like they're working while they're just fiilbustering toward a government shutdown.

None of these stupid amendments will pass, but they still have to be debated and voted upon while the real legislation to fund the government languishes under a pile of amendments.

Yesterday they voted down an amendment to defund VP Kamala Harris' office. Then Pete Buttiegieg. Now Karine Jean Pierre.

Why isn't the Beltway press reporting on this? It seems important, given that they'll blame Democrats for the shutdown when it happens right before Thanksgiving. Oh, wait, they're too busy obsessing on polls and talking about Biden's age.

Here's my prediction and I really hope I'm wrong: Republicans will shut down the government on November 17th and it will stay shut down until after January 1st. They don't want to govern. They just want to blow it all up.

First amendment is from Rep. Tenney is to reduce KJP’s salary to $1 pic.twitter.com/0kOZi1Bs4B

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 9, 2023