Government

The Washington Post reports: Republican senators clashed with one another and confronted Vice President Pence inside a private luncheon on Thursday, as anger hit a boiling point over the longest government shutdown in history. “This is your fault,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) at one point, according to two Republicans who attended the lunch and …

The Houston Chronicle reports: The 200 employees at NASA’s Johnson Space Center being asked to work without pay as shutdown surpasses the one month mark now are being asked to do something else for free: clean the bathrooms. A NASA manager tweeted Thursday a photo of a sign asking for volunteers to clean up the bathrooms once a week until …

The Hill reports: President Trump’s top economic advisor on Thursday said federal employees were “volunteering” to work amid the partial government shutdown in part because of their “allegiance to President Trump.” “They honor us and they do it because of their love for their country and the office of the presidency and presumably their allegiance to President Trump,” National Economic …

Axios reports: The Republican-backed Senate proposal to reopen the government, which included $5.7 billion to fund President Trump’s border wall, failed to garner the 60 votes needed in a procedural vote Thursday to advance the measure. The final tally for the Republican proposal was 50-47. Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) — an immigration hardliner — voted …

The Washington Post reports: White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has pressed agency leaders to provide him with a list of the highest-impact programs that will be jeopardized if the shutdown continues into March and April, people familiar with the directive said. Mulvaney wants the list no later than Friday, these people said, and it’s the firmest evidence …

Politico reports: The White House is expected to soon name Joe Grogan as the next head of its Domestic Policy Council, two sources with knowledge of the decision told POLITICO. The move would elevate Grogan, a top Office of Management and Budget health care official and ally of acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, to a role that …

Reuters reports: U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday said an upcoming proposal by President Donald Trump to provide temporary protections for some undocumented immigrants in return for building a wall on the southwestern border with Mexico was “unacceptable.” Trump’s plan also does not “represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives” and is unlikely …

NBC News reports: Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb made his most direct threat yet against e-cigarette companies Friday, saying they face an “existential threat” if they don’t stop marketing to youth. Gottlieb said he was horrified at the recent rapid rise in teen vaping. He called out the most popular product — Juul— by name and said …

Reuters reports: Detained in a California lockup with hundreds of other immigrants seeking asylum, Duglas Cruz faced a choice. He could content himself with a jailhouse diet that he said left him perpetually hungry. Or he could labor in the prison’s kitchen to earn money to buy extra food at the commissary. Cruz went to work. But his $1-a-day salary …

Axios reports: President Trump has formally sent Andrew Wheeler’s nomination for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to the Senate for confirmation, the White House announced Wednesday. Wheeler, the current acting chief of the EPA, is a former coal lobbyist who is expected to run a more conventional and inclusive policy process than former administrator Scott Pruitt. The end result, …

CNN reports: Hundreds of Transportation Security Administration officers, who are required to work without paychecks through the partial government shutdown, have called out from work this week from at least four major airports, according to two senior agency officials and three TSA employee union officials. The mass call outs could inevitably mean air travel is less secure, especially as the …

The Washington Post reports: While many federal workers go without pay and the government is partially shut down, hundreds of senior Trump political appointees are poised to receive annual raises of about $10,000 a year. The pay raises for Cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries, top administrators and even Vice President Pence are scheduled to go into effect beginning Jan. 5 without …

The Associated Press reports: Human feces, overflowing garbage, illegal off-roading and other damaging behavior in fragile areas were beginning to overwhelm some of the West’s iconic national parks, as a partial government shutdown left the areas open to visitors but with little staff on duty. Unlike shutdowns in some previous administrations, the Trump administration was leaving parks open to visitors …

Just in via press release: Today, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and Kalijarvi, Chuzi, Newman & Fitch (KCNF DC) sued the federal government on behalf of AFGE members and federal employees being forced to work without pay. The lawsuit alleges that the federal government is violating the law by requiring some federal employees to work without pay during …

The Associated Press reports: House Democrats are unveiling legislation to reopen the government without money for President Donald Trump’s border wall. The House is preparing to vote on the package Thursday when the new Congress convenes. This is according to an aide who was not authorized to discuss the plan publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. It will include …

Roll Call reports: As the partial government shutdown grinds on, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday evening that would freeze pay for federal workers in 2019. Trump telegraphed the move in his February budget request for fiscal 2019 when he proposed a pay freeze for the roughly 2.1 million federal civilian workers. White House and Office of Management …

ABC News reports: The president’s incoming chief of staff said Sunday that any money for the border wall would have to come from the Treasury Department, saying “the Department of Homeland Security can’t actually spend money from Mexico.” “Technically, you and I both know that it cannot work exactly like that,” Mick Mulvaney told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent …

Bloomberg reports: Senators are preparing for a possible vote on Friday if the House is able to send it an amended government funding bill. Senators and aides say they’ve been told to tentatively plan for a vote around noon on Friday, even as scores of senators have already left Washington after passing a seven-week stopgap funding measure on Wednesday night. …

The Hill reports: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that she didn’t hear Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) farewell speech on Wednesday because she “was busy doing other things.” “This may come as a shock to you, but I was busy doing other things at the time. I wish him well as he goes forward,” she said when asked …

ABC News reports: House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters Wednesday afternoon after meeting with President Trump that the President will not sign a spending bill that has already passed the Senate because it does not offer funding for his border wall. Trump had indicated yesterday that he would sign the bill in order to prevent a government shutdown. The government …