Schumer's Shut Down? Trump On Your Money. Hamas Handed an Out. Canterbury Courts Collapse. And ASALH Success

October 3, AD 2025

Schumer’s Shut Down? Not Really.

A government shutdown happens when Congress does not pass the yearly money bills or a short-term bill called a continuing resolution. When that happens, many federal offices close or slow down. Workers miss paychecks. Services stop or get delayed. This is not how government should run.

Right now Republicans control the government. They lead the Senate. They lead the House. They hold the White House. When one party controls all three, that party owns the outcome. MAGA is in charge of the government. If the shut down continues the public should hold the people in charge responsible. If many Americans still think Democrats caused this, that means Democrats have not explained the facts clearly. The Democrats led by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York are bad teachers.

Here is the key fact: the Senate’s 60-vote rule on cloture is not in the Constitution. It is a Senate rule called the filibuster rule. It says most bills need 60 votes to end debate before the final vote. With that rule in place, a minority can block or delay bills, including bills to reopen the government. There is a way around this rule. It is called the “nuclear option.” Or what I call the Constitutional Option. This option is a simple majority vote to set a new Senate precedent about how cloture works. In plain terms, 51 senators can decide that ending debate on a certain kind of bill will only need a simple majority, not 60 votes. The Senate has already done this for presidential nominations in the past. It can do the same for budget legislation. It is legal because the Constitution lets each chamber set its own rules. So if the GOP wants pass the Bill the Democrats should tell them to go for it.

If Republicans chose this path, the steps are straightforward. First, they bring a clean bill to reopen the government to the Senate floor. “Clean” means the bill funds agencies without unrelated add-ons. Second, a Republican senator raises a point of order that cloture on funding bills should be by a simple majority. The presiding officer will say the current rule requires 60. Third, Republicans appeal that ruling and vote by simple majority to overturn it. That vote creates a new precedent. From that moment, ending debate on that category of bills takes 51 votes. The Republicans have 53 Seats in the Senate. Then they can take the final vote and pass the bill with Republican votes alone. All the Democrats could put together is 45 votes against it, they cannot block so they lose and the GOP wins. The House concurs. The President signs it. The shutdown ends. Simple. The Republicans can do this anytime they want to.

They are not doing that, why? Because, what the Republicans want to do, to the government is unpopular, and they want the Democrats to have their fingerprints on the knife to the American social contract. The GOP does not want to take solo responsibility and the blame for their actions.

110th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History

This past week I presented my paper “In Search of the Black American Conservative Tradition, 1776-1949” as part of the panel “Black Conservative Thought and Black Ethnocentrism.” It was well received at the top African American history association. ASALH regularly draws over 1,000 attendees, including a large proportion of community members—not just academics—and that’s the appeal. At ASALH, you’re not just dealing with the ivory tower crowd; you must be able to present your research to everyday people. To me, ASALH is the real test of my ideas because I believe that if ideas cannot survive outside the academy, then they have no real-world value. This is why I love speaking to groups like the Colonial Dames and the Daughters of the American Revolution. The plan now is to turn this paper into one part of an edited volume exploring the unique tradition of African American thought related to their place within the American nation and state. Stay tuned for updates on the project. It is important to note that by conservatism I do not mean the Republican Party or MAGA. The tradition I am researching is older, non-partisan, and creative rather than reactionary.