After all the times that Democrats have clutched their pearls about a possible government shutdown, it's ironic that they have no qualms about shutting everything except government down.  Hopefully, Martha McSally's bill will get passed so the Democrats can share the pain.

The two types of shutdowns are similar in this way: only the supposedly non-essential work is shut down.  And who defines what's non-essential?  Yes, the government doing the shutdown also does the definition.  No conflict of interest there.  I guess if it saves even one union member, it's worth it.

Mind you, congressional millionaires won't be hurt financially by a few weeks off, or a few months — not as most people will, meaning the same ones who are seeing their local (city or state) governments tell them to stay home for their own good and that of others.  Pay no attention to the increased government control being executed on you "little people."  I don't think Nancy Pelosi believes that her bill has a chance at passing, but it's an opportunity to blame Republicans for relief not happening instead of having the American people giving them credit for trying to do something effective.  That's why newspapers repeatedly change their headlines to apportion undeserved blame.

As a small-government person myself, I think government is largely non-essential, and if you tell the police to stop arresting people, it's even less so.  My thought is that if the coronavirus were rampant in prisons (it isn't), then let the potential criminals stop committing crimes for a couple of weeks.  Nature's death penalty (except it  mostly isn't) might keep us safer than a "woke" societal concern for the health and welfare of people who were in jail because they lacked a reciprocal concern for other members of society.

There are plenty of articles and blog posts about the damage being done to the national economy by the continuing shutdown.  It seems that "self-vaccination" (i.e., catching and surviving COVID-19)  may be all we ever get, since the Democrats can't prevent it.  If the Democrats have their way, they'll keep this stranglehold going as long as they can, slow-walking any relief (even if Republicans utterly cave) in order to do maximum damage to Trump.  We deplorables are also expendables, but so are the Democrats' own rank and file.

Shut down the shutdown, and boot up the economy!  We can survive COVID-19 easier than joblessness.

Now, if only there were a vaccine for political stupidity...