Democrats Lament Lost Wages for Federal Workers as Their Paychecks Roll In
Plus, New York Times calls city's gifted program 'symbol of segregation' as Mamdani moves to end it
Federal lawmakers get paid while the government is shut down, but they can defer their paychecks until the government reopens. Some Democrats, like New Jersey senator Andy Kim, have done just that. Others have refused, though they are now lamenting the fact that millions of federal workers are going without pay.
“I would basically be missing, you know, mortgage payments, rent payments, child support. So it’s not feasible, not gonna happen,” said Arizona senator Ruben Gallego, who voted to block a bill that would have kept the government open.
Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett said she felt sorry for federal employees. “They make you be broke until they get they [sic] stuff together,” she said. “And to be clear, members of Congress, we still get paid. I just want to put that out there because I like to be fully transparent.”
Asked whether he’d forgo his own paycheck, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the question was not “ripe” because “we’re anticipating this shutdown issue will be resolved well in advance of our next paycheck.” That’s a no.
New York City kindergartners can test into a gifted program that provides accelerated instruction, and socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is vowing to end it.
The New York Times report on the matter describes the “selective program” as “a symbol of segregation in public schools.” What else.
It’s a perfect encapsulation of the Left striving for equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. “Critics say it has worsened racial segregation, creating exclusive classrooms occupied mainly by white and Asian students,” the paper reports. “In the fall of 2022, Black and Latino children accounted for roughly two-thirds of the public school system’s enrollment, but only a third of the kindergartners who were offered spots in gifted classes.”
Meanwhile, just 56 percent of New York City kids in grades 3-8 are proficient in English and math. In Mamdani’s New York, we can all be misundereducated together!
Some of the most successful American comedians, including Dave Chappelle, took big money to perform at the Saudi regime’s Riyadh Comedy Festival, underway right now. The talent had to sign gag orders barring them from criticizing Saudi royals. In his set, Chappelle compared the political climate in the United States unfavorably with that in the Sunni regime.
“Right now in America, they say that if you talk about Charlie Kirk, that you’ll get canceled. It’s easier to talk here than it is in America,” he said to applause.
Comedian Bill Burr, meanwhile, confirmed that the royals were off-limits. “They negotiated it all the way down to just a couple things: Don’t make fun of royals or religion,” he said on his podcast. “The royals loved the show. Everyone was happy.” No shit.
Not every comedian took the money: Shane Gillis said he was offered “a significant bag” to perform, but told the Saudis to pound sand. “I took a principled stand,” he said. “You don’t 9/11 your friends.”
Elsewhere:
On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, a terrorist of Syrian descent, 35-year-old Jihad al-Shamie, killed two people and injured four others in a targeted attack on a synagogue in Manchester, England. Our prayers are with the victims and their families.
Gazan civilians are speaking out as Hamas weighs whether to accept Donald Trump’s plan to end the war: “Hamas must say yes to this—we have been through hell already,” one said in an interview with the New York Times. “They don’t care about what people think or public opinion,” another said. “If they cared about that, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
A student television network at the University of Delaware, which houses the Biden Institute, offered “special thanks” to “Charlie Kirk’s killer” at the end of a comedy sketch episode, then quietly scrubbed that portion from the internet.
It’s official: Bari Weiss will become editor in chief of CBS News as part of Skydance CEO David Ellison’s reshuffling, a move that made the network’s staffers “apoplectic” when it was floated last month. Mazel Tov to our friend Bari and best of luck, Margaret Brennan!
Happy Friday, our full lineup is below.