November 22nd, 2025Open the government, release the files Praise the lord and pass the whisky, says Jeff Glorfeld

Tach it up, tach it up
Buddy going to shut you down

Shut Down by Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys, 1963

As our fingers are poised over the keyboard, word arrives that the United States Senate has reached “a tentative deal” that will end what is the longest shutdown of the US government in the country’s history, or that “Government shutdown may be nearing end”.

Other sources are less hesitant in reporting that “Lawmakers reach deal to end the government shutdown”.
As of this moment, it is possible that the government of the United States of America will resume, um, governing? So, here in little Redding, California, a person we know has a restaurant, and she decided it made good sense to open another restaurant that would target a different clientele, except she was wrong and the new place tanked, she was forced to close the doors, but she says she is going to re-brand, re-decorate and re-open soon.
Kind of like the US government.
Here in the USA we take our worship seriously. For example, whenever a crazed individual brings their high-powered weapons into a public space and slaughters innocent people, our civic leaders’ first act is to offer the now mandatory thoughts and prayers.
By prayers they mean appeals or petitions to a proper white Christian God, who hopefully will assuage the suffering of those left behind, because it’s too bad about the dead people but no one can do anything about guns in the US – it’s the Second Amendment, you know.
Speaking of the Second Amendment, it is one of 27 such changes to the US Constitution, and when we talk about Americans being a worshipful bunch, our fervour for the Founding Fathers – the authors of the Constitution – is surpassed only by our passion for that white Christian god. The Constitution was written in 1787, ratified in 1788, and has been in effect since 1789.
It begins with the words “We The People”, which is meant to signify that the US government’s purpose is to serve the folks who live here. The first thing these founding fathers did with their Constitution was to create three sections of government – the legislative, executive, and judicial branches – which would be co-equal.
The founders, having been through a revolution – really the first American civil war – hoped to ensure that this new nation would not come under the influence of another individual with king-like powers. This new government would be slow moving but if anyone wanted to get stuff done, by god they’d need to have their stuff tightly wired.
One of the main jobs of the government is to decide how it is going to do the business of looking after its people, plus a bunch of military and overseas obligations. In fact, no one in the whole world knows how this is done, where the money for the operation comes from, where it goes, and who gets what and why.
But there are a bunch of reasonable-sounding websites with “gov” in their names that use thousands of words trying to make it sound as if someone, somewhere, is fully on top of the situation.
Every year, the head of the executive branch – the president – submits a budget proposal to Congress. It’s supposed to be a detailed plan for the administration’s policy goals and spending expectations for every government agency and program.
Congress – the 435 members of the House of Representations, and 100 Senators – receives the president’s wish list and then comes up with its own plan. The various strategies are handed out to committees and departments where all the special interests and back-room deals are negotiated. The ultimate goal is to arrive at an overall spending cap – how much money does the government have to spend – how big is the deficit going to be?
The fundamental differences between progressive Democrats and whatever the Republicans believe are similar to the eternal conflict between Labor and the LNP in Australia.
Democrats believe in government as a force for progress and social benefit; Donald Trump’s Republican Party wants to hollow out the federal government, get rid of all government regulation and as many services as possible, leaving a military and an executive branch and not much else.
So here we are in 2025 and the once-revered Constitution is being superseded by a document called Project 2025, which is a manual for replacing the government created in 1787 with a Christian nationalist structure in place of the three co-equal branches, with a chief executive officer who has unchecked power and authority.
The people of the US gave twice-impeached convicted sex offender Trump a second go at being president, and the first thing he did was send to Congress a budget proposal that gives massive tax cuts to the wealthy while taking away healthcare and food assistance for middle and low-income Americans.
Democrats in Congress decided that this was the hill on which they would make a stand against the Trumpists, and used their power to block passage of the budget. When the money allocated for the current year ran out, the government shut down.
Trump and the Republicans thought they could use the shutdown to their political advantage, but even the notoriously dim American public saw through the lies and turned against them.
Oh, wait, there’s one more thing: it’s called the Epstein files. If you haven’t heard of them, consider yourself to be fortunate – it’s a revolting, sordid story. At one time, releasing these files to the public was considered mission critical for the political party currently in power in the US; the Republicans, at present in control of all three of the supposedly co-equal branches of government.
But in 2024, after taking power, the Republicans decided that these Epstein files were no longer of interest to anyone, and certainly not to the public. Why? We’d need to ask Trump, and he’s not talking. With the government closed for business, the files remain safely hidden away.