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Spilled Milk: Brokeback Bethlehem

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This post is the eleventh in a series of Spilled Milk columns by Emmy Award-winning writer and producer William Lucas Walker that chronicle his journey through parenthood. Spilled Milk, which originates in The Huffington Post, appears on these pages on Saturdays.

In early November 2005, our son James received his first formal invitation, to Sunday afternoon tea at our friend Richard’s house.

As he’d only been alive for five weeks, this presented our boy with unique social challenges. He didn’t know how to wear shoes, for instance. Was restricted to a diet of baby formula. And lacked the fine motor skills to RSVP with anything more legible than a brusque footprint.

Still, he was five weeks old, not stupid. While pretending to nap, James had in fact overheard us discussing in hushed tones how to handle this social conundrum. Normally, we’d have declined, at least until James had grown into a larger diaper. But Richard is British. Knowing this, and putting two and two together, James no doubt feared that refusing an Englishman’s invitation to tea had the potential to escalate into a serious international incident. Rather than risk his country being forcibly restored to British rule, James, an American patriot, overcame his misgivings and indicated to us via spit bubble that we should accept on his behalf.

skitched-20130209-140700

Cute? Don’t be fooled. Never invite these two to tea.

Though we arrived two minutes early, I waited until precisely 3 p.m. to ring the doorbell. Because I know they value that sort of thing across the pond. Richard welcomed us with a broad, warm smile and posh public school tones: “Well, look who’s arrived at my front door. Good aaaaafternoo–”

His mellifluous greeting was cut off by a low moan. A keening almost. Looking down I realized it was coming not from James but our four-year-old daughter Elizabeth, her dainty mouth contorted into the sort of grotesque, frozen rictus you only see on Italian widows just before they howl and throw themselves into their husband’s freshly dug graves.

I knelt down. “Honey, what’s the matter?”

“It hurrrrrrts!”

She now had one hand clapped to her ear and was hopping up and down on Richard’s brick walkway in what I can only describe as a dance of the damned. I shouldn’t have been surprised that our daughter had chosen this worst of all possible moments to experience the first and last ear infection of her life. This sort of impeccable timing had announced itself in Elizabeth’s infancy when, as she was placed in her beaming grandfather’s arms for the first time, she instinctively realized it was the perfect moment to empty the contents of her stomach.

As I dug around in James’ diaper bag for some liquid Tylenol, Richard bent down and asked Elizabeth if she might be more comfortable lying down in a back bedroom. “Is there a TV?” she whimpered. Watching him whisper to our daughter as he tenderly led her down the hall, I was struck by his special brand of kindness, something I find unique to the childless. Those patient smiles and encouraging words I always imagine mask a silent, internal mantra: “Thank Christ I never reproduced.”

In the living room, Kelly balanced James with one hand while Googling earache remedies with the other. My girl did in fact calm a bit as we lay her down on the guest bed, but all it took was Richard switching on the TV for the crying to ratchet up. Richard thought it was the volume, until I assured him it was PBS. The Antiques Roadshow always has that effect on children.

In just under four seconds, 27,682 Internet sources had informed Kelly that a warm, damp washcloth on our kid’s ear might ease her pain. Remembering the advice of a homeless man I’d once passed while pushing Elizabeth in a stroller, I piggybacked on this idea, suggesting to Richard that he might soak the washcloth in bourbon in case she got thirsty. But Kelly nixed this idea, loudly, from the next room.

In lieu of alcohol, I had no choice but to suggest a more insidious narcotic — The Disney Channel. As it always did, my finger began to twitch uncontrollably as I reached for the remote, but somehow I managed to switch on The Suite Life of Zach & Cody. I felt terrible for Richard. This very nice friend had invited my family into his lovely home and how had we repaid him? By infecting it with the death of culture.

I’m pretty sure no sane adult has ever voluntarily subjected himself to children’s programming. Except of course those rare cases when emergency contraception is called for. I was reminded of this as Richard, unaware of what we were watching, walked in on a Disney moment so cloying it seemed to knock him backward as if he’d been the victim of a blunt force trauma. Tossing the washcloth over his shoulder, he kept walking, announcing that tea would be served in five minutes.

Tenderly placing the warm, damp cloth on my daughter’s ear, I had to admit she seemed better. Sometimes soulless dialogue, bad acting and apocalyptic role models really are the best medicine.

I joined Kelly in Richard’s cozy, immaculate, antique-filled living room. As my husband sat on what I felt sure was called a divan and fed our son his afternoon bottle, I bit into a tiny cucumber sandwich and relaxed into the sort of adult surroundings I rarely got to enjoy anymore. Admiring the carefully placed bric-a-brac and Richard’s impeccable collection of early twentieth-century photography, I allowed myself to be carried away by the first thought that crossed my mind — that a truly motivated toddler could destroy this place in about three minutes.

skitched-20130209-140921“There we are,” Richard said, entering with a tea set I felt certain had been in his family for generations. He gingerly set the tray on the tea table in front of us next to an assortment of sandwiches, scones and jellies he’d no doubt assembled from scratch. Soon fragrant steam filled the room as Richard expertly filled each of our cups and proceeded to make the appropriate fuss over James, asking how Elizabeth was adjusting to her new brother and if Kelly and I were getting enough sleep. We showed him the Halloween photo we’d taken the week before of James looking adorably heroic in his tiny Superman onesie. We thanked our friend for this rare afternoon out and told him how much it meant to us that he’d found such a unique and personal way to celebrate the arrival of our son.

A moment James seemed instinctively to understand called for a personal response. And that’s when he obliged our host by adorably cocking his head, widening his eyes, and spewing what I swear had to be a good quart of white upchuck all the way across the room. I recall watching in sheer, open-mouthed amazement at the raw physical power of it. As a perfect arc of Carnation Good Start began to make its way across Richard’s immaculately laid tea table, time seemed to stand still. Picture that hail of bullets in the The Matrix — only vomit — seeming to freeze in midair before resuming warp speed and landing with a loud splat next to a very large, sleeping dog. Then picture said dog bolting from the room, galloping into the back bedroom and landing on your daughter’s bad ear.

Her bloodcurdling scream is the last thing I recall of that afternoon.

Miraculously, by suppertime Elizabeth’s ear seemed all better, leading us to believe our daughter was either the next Meryl Streep or a witch.

James wasn’t so lucky. That night he was unable to hold down any food. The next morning an x-ray revealed something called incipient bronchitis. It wasn’t uncommon at that time of year in a child so young, our pediatrician told us. A nurse brought in a machine called a nebulizer and taught me how to give James breathing treatments at home. I was instructed to administer one every four hours and return each morning for a followup so the doctor could monitor our son’s progress. I did as I was told.

No one lets you know how quickly things can go south. In our case it was overnight.

Three days after the Great Tea Debacle, I found myself in the back of a speeding ambulance, watching a man I’d never met using every trick he knew to keep my eight-pound son’s drowning lungs going long enough to make it to the hospital.

We spent the next eleven days in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of Tarzana Regional Medical Center. I try not to revisit those days, but moments flash unbidden from from time to time. Here’s what I recall:

Placing my son in his car seat for his followup x-ray and noticing how gray he was. I told my daughter we were skipping the preschool drop-off and taking James straight to the doctor. “That’s just stupid,” she said.

Not being able to see James because of the rear-facing car seat, and the shuddering chill when Elizabeth said, “Daddy, James looks like he’s running out of batteries.”

Our pediatrician’s face going white as he moved a stethoscope across James’ back, and muttered to a nurse, “Call an ambulance. He’s got crackles. Crackles everywhere.” And me asking what that meant.

Calling Kelly and telling him to leave work immediately. I gave him the address of the hospital and told him what I knew. That “crackles everywhere” meant our son had something called RSV, a temperature of 92 degrees and life-threatening pneumonia in both lungs.

Trying to read my daughter a Care Bears book as a nurse administered an emergency breathing treatment to James, then calling out the door, “He’s turning blue! Get the doctor back!”

My daughter saying, “Daddy, what’s happening? What are they doing to James?” as a doctor and three nurses struggle to revive him. Trying to keep him from dying, I think but don’t say.

James coughs. “That’s good,” says the doctor. My son’s breathing. I’m not.

And suddenly he’s not either. The tiny room fills. Three doctors now and four nurses. I can’t even see my son. It takes over a minute before he starts breathing again.

A neighbor arrives to get my daughter out of there and take her to preschool.

Nurses pushing furniture and families against the walls of the waiting room so my son’s gurney can make it out the door and into an ambulance.

The weird lighting inside an ambulance, the flop sweat beading on the EMT worker’s face.

The random thought that if we’d taken my daughter to preshcool first, as planned, James would have stopped breathing in my car.

Kelly arriving at the hospital, unaware of all that had happened since I’d called him; collapsing in his arms, sobbing.

The feeling of utter powerlessness as a small army of strangers hooked one tiny boy to countless machines and drips and monitors. Dying a little every time they stuck another needle into him.

skitched-20130209-141038Being told James’ lungs were no longer able to breathe on their own. My husband and I giving the doctor permission to put him in a virtual coma so a breathing tube could do the work for him, and to keep him from tearing out all the wires and monitors off his body.

Five days of watching my son lie unconscious, not being able to look into his eyes.

Offering the only comfort I knew. Stroking him and singing “Sweet Baby James,” the one thing that always calmed him, and willing myself to believe he can hear me.

Being told, after James’ third day of round-the-clock intensive care, that somehow his right lung has collapsed.

Swapping shifts with Kelly so our son would see one of our faces when he woke up.

Trying to make things feel normal at home for Elizabeth when nothing was normal.

My only moment of pleasure each day — eating a chocolate chip ice cream sandwich in the cafeteria.

Priests from the church where Kelly and I had met arriving to offer us communion in the hospital.

Running into a TV star I’d once written for on a popular sitcom at the hospital elevator. The incongruity of it, and realizing that no amount of clever plotting or snappy dialogue could fix his mom. Or my son.

The numbing phone call from my doctor father, gently trying to tell me that Kelly and I needed to prepare ourselves that “this might not end well.”

Being there to see my son open his eyes for the first time after five days. Very weak, but looking me straight in the eye and reaching for my finger.

skitched-20130209-141154

Five days later, moving out of pediatric intensive care into a room with windows. Singing to my son as he lay on my chest. And the physical sensation that despite our lack of a biological tie, we shared the same heart.

Thanking our team of nurses and a doctor named Carmen Botero, who made herself available 24 hours a day, and restored our son to us.

Watching James’ eyes dance again, in a face so bloated from steroids we couldn’t decide if he looked more like Mao Tse-tung or Roseanne Barr.

* * * * *
On Sunday, November 20, James came home again and, with flawless timing all his own, smiled for the very first time. In the weeks that followed, he thrived, confirming what he’d known from the moment he picked his first Halloween costume. He was Superbaby.

The same neighbors who’d helped look after Elizabeth while we were at the hospital now brought home-cooked dinners to our door every day. As we shared a meal with one of them, the phone rang. It was Wendy Barrie, one of the priests who’d served communion over the rail of James’ hospital bed as he lay unconscious.

“How’s our boy?” she said. Doing pretty great, we assured her.

“The reason I’m calling is that the entire vestry has taken a vote and it’s unanimous. We want James to play Baby Jesus in the Nativity pageant next month. If he’s up to it.”

“Wow, really? Baby Jesus?” Even I was starstruck. It’s kind of the ultimate brass ring for Christian-leaning infants.

“Actually, we’d love for the whole family to be involved. We thought Elizabeth could play an angel, and you guys could handle Joseph.”

“Which one of us?”

“Both of you.”

“Wait a minute. What? You want us both to be Joseph?”

“Why not? We’re a radically inclusive church.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “What are you planning on calling this thing? Brokeback Bethlehem?”

And that’s how at the 2005 Christmas pageant of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, for what I’m guessing was the first time in recorded history, Jesus had two daddies.

Which, come to think of it, as even the Holy Virgin might tell you, is kind of historically accurate.

* * * * *

 

* * * * *

William Lucas Walker is an Emmy Award-winning writer and producer whose television credits include Frasier, Will & Grace and Roseanne. He co-created the critically-acclaimed Showtime comedy The Chris Isaak Show. Bill and his husband Kelly are the parents of Elizabeth and James, born in 2001 and 2005. The children were gratified by the legal marriage of their parents in 2008, an event that rescued them from a life of ruinous bastardry.

Spilled Milk chronicles Bill’s misadventures in Daddyland. The first recurring humor column by a gay parent to appear in a mainstream American publication, Spilled Milk has regularly landed on the front page of The Huffington Post.

Follow William Lucas Walker on Twitter: @WmLucasWalker, @SpilledMilkWLW or Facebook: “Spilled Milk” by William Lucas Walker.       

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News

‘Sounds Like Putin’: Trump Blasted for Declaring Top News Organizations ‘Illegal’

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March 14, 2025

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President Donald Trump, just 54 days into his second term, declared himself “the chief law enforcement officer in our country” and labeled two major news organizations, CNN and MSNBC, as “illegal,” while further denouncing their coverage as “illegal.” His remarks Thursday afternoon were delivered to officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, in an appearance that shattered a decades-old norm designed to insulate the department from political interference—a safeguard established in response to President Richard Nixon’s abuses of power. Trump’s statements have drawn sharp criticism for their authoritarian tone and direct attack on press freedom, sparking alarm.

“I believe that CNN and MSNDC,” said Trump (video below), using his own derogatory twist on MSNBC’s name, “who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal. What they do is illegal.”

Trump also “rallied against the press,” in general, “claiming they are influencing judges and, without any evidence, claiming the media works in coordination with political campaigns, which is not allowed in the news industry,” The Hill reported.

READ MORE: White House Caught Admitting Real Reason for Mass Firings: Experts

It has been widely reported that during his first term in office, Fox News host Sean Hannity spoke with Trump “nearly every weeknight.”

“These networks and these newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative. And it has to stop, it has to be illegal, it’s influencing judges and it’s really, eh, changing law and it just cannot be legal. I don’t believe it’s legal and they do it in total coordination with each other,” the President alleged.

Trump’s remarks were just a part of a speech that lasted more than one hour, during which he “delivered an insult-laden speech that shattered the traditional notion of DOJ independence,” as Politico reported. During those remarks, Trump also “labeled his courtroom opponents ‘scum,’ judges ‘corrupt’ and the prosecutors who investigated him ‘deranged.'”

“With the DOJ logo directly behind him, Trump called for his legal tormentors to be sent to prison.”

It is not the first time the President, who is a convicted felon, has declared MSNBC “illegal.”

Last month, when MSNBC host Joy Reid left the news network, Trump unleashed a torrent of hatred.

“Lowlife Chairman of ‘Concast,’ Brian Roberts, the owner of Ratings Challenged NBC and MSDNC, has finally gotten the nerve up to fire one of the least talented people in television, the mentally obnoxious racist, Joy Reid,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform. “Based on her ratings, which were virtually non-existent, she should have been ‘canned’ long ago, along with everyone else who works there. Also thrown out was Alex Wagner, the sub on the seriously failing Rachel Maddow show. Rachel rarely shows up because she knows there’s nobody watching, and she also knows that she’s got less television persona than virtually anyone on television except, perhaps, Joy Reid.”

READ MORE: ‘Team Fight’: Democrats Call for Schumer to Resign

Trump’s Friday afternoon assault on the media was swiftly criticized.

“This is what a dictator sounds like,” wrote U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI).

“Journalism is legal,” declared award-winning investigative journalist Lindsay Beyerstein. “Criticizing the president is legal. Being a Democrat is legal. Nothing Donald Trump is ranting about here is a crime and he’s disgracing himself and the Department of Justice by talking this way.”

Journalist Matt O’Brien observed, “Trump wants to get rid of freedom of speech because he wants to be a dictator. And unlike his first term, he now has a government full of fascists who are eager to make that a reality.”

Marlow Stern, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Journalism at Columbia University’s Columbia Journalism School wrote: “sounds like putin.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist Kyle Whitmire wrote simply: “Enemy of the Constitution.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Basically Underwater on Everything’: Trump in Big Trouble With Majority of Voters Poll Finds

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

 

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News

White House Caught Admitting Real Reason for Mass Firings: Experts

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March 14, 2025

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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is “basically admitting” the White House “lied” about the mass firings of tens of thousands of federal government employees, a legal expert is alleging, based on her remarks on Friday. Many of not most of the terminated government workers were ordered to be reinstated by two separate federal courts on Thursday. Judges ruled the terminations were likely unlawful.

According to The New York Times, one judge “said in his lengthy ruling that the government’s contention that the firings of the probationary employees had been for cause, and not a mass layoff, ‘borders on the frivolous.'” Another judge “concluded much the same and made it clear that he thought the manner in which the Trump administration had fired the probationary workers was a ‘sham.'”

Leavitt previously has been criticized for having exhibited “a fundamental misunderstanding of the separation of powers enumerated in the U.S. Constitution since 1789,” and for making false claims in general.

READ MORE: ‘Team Fight’: Democrats Call for Schumer to Resign

On Friday, having been asked to clarify a previous statement, Leavitt told reporters that the Trump administration will be “fighting back” against those two rulings “by appealing, fighting back by using the full weight of the White House Counsel’s office and our lawyers at the federal government who believed that this injunction is entirely unconstitutional.”

Leavitt insisted that the injunction — presumably both injunctions blocking the administration from additional mass firings and requiring that the fired probational employees be reinstated — are unconstitutional.

She claimed that, “for anybody who has a basic understanding of the law, you cannot have a low level district court judge filing an injunction to usurp the executive authority of the president of the United States.”

That is false, and violates the separation of powers, as legal experts and Supreme Court cases have made clear, although it is a claim the Trump administration has repeatedly asserted.

“That is completely absurd, and as the executive of the executive branch, the president has the ability to fire or hire. And you have these lower level judges who are trying to, uh, block this president’s agenda,” she stated (video below).

That appears to be the remark that drew the attention of attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration policy expert and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.

READ MORE: ‘Basically Underwater on Everything’: Trump in Big Trouble With Majority of Voters Poll Finds

“Pay attention here to how the White House is basically admitting to have lied about why these people were fired,” Reichlin-Melnick wrote. “Now they claim this was the President’s command and must not be overruled. But when the firings were happening, they claimed on paper it was for ‘performance’ reasons.”

Andrew Heineman, legislative director for U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) wrote: “It sounds very much like Leavitt just admitted that the firings were part of Trump’s ‘agenda.'”

Leavitt went on to suggest that there is a conspiracy of activist judges working to “block” President Trump.

“It’s very clear, and as I just cited, I was appalled by the statistic when I saw it this morning in three or, uh, in one month in February, there have been 15 injunctions of this administration in our agenda,” she said.

“In three years under the Biden administration, there were 14 injunctions. So, uh, it’s very clear that there are judicial activists throughout our judicial branch who are trying to block this president’s executive authority.”

She went on to praise President Trump and his legal team, saying that despite being “indicted nearly 200 times,” he was able to become President.

Trump has not been indicted nearly 200 times. He was indicted four times, and faced a total of 91 felony charges.

“We are going to fight back,” she insisted, “and as anyone who saw President Trump up in his legal team fighting back, they know how to do it. He was indicted nearly 200 times, and he’s in the Oval Office now because all of the indictments, all of these injunctions have always been unconstitutional and unfair.”

“They are led by partisan activists, who are trying to usurp the will of this president and we’re not going to stand for it.”

Critics blasted Leavitt’s grasp of the law.

Semafor’s David Weigel posted headlines of federal judges, or, “low level district court” judges, as she said, blocking other President’s actions.

“You sure about that? You sure about that?” he asked, mockingly.

Attorney and Democratic activist Aaron Parnas, responding to Leavitt’s claim that you cannot have a  judge block a president’s wishes, responded: “You actually can. That’s why we have three branches of government.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Entire World Ripping Us Off’: Trump Quotes FDR in Angry Tariff War Meltdown

Image via Reuters

 

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OPINION

‘Team Fight’: Democrats Call for Schumer to Resign

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March 14, 2025

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Democrats across the political spectrum—liberal, moderate, and progressive—appear united in their outrage over Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to back the Republican-led bill to fund the government and prevent a shutdown. They argue that the legislation enables President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to continue dismantling the federal government while jeopardizing health care and veterans’ benefits. Without a signed bill, the federal government will shut down at 12:01 AM on Saturday.

Calls are mounting for Leader Schumer to resign. There appears to be a movement on social media demanding his resignation, across platforms including X, Bluesky, and TikTok.

Protestors in New York City are chanting, “Vote no, it’s time to go,” while some hold up signs that read, “Schumer — Be a fighter not a collaborator,” and, “Don’t be a Schumer chicken s—.”

SENATOR AOC?

Some are calling for U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the popular progressive Democrat from New York, to primary the 74-year old Schumer, who was first elected to Congress in 1981.

“I think there is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal,” Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez told reporters on Thursday. “And this is not just about progressive Democrats. This is across the board. The entire party. There are members of Congress who have won Trump-held districts in some of the most difficult territory in the United States, who walked the plank and took innumerable risks in order to defend the American people, in order to defend Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. Just to see some Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk, I think it is a huge slap in the face, and I think that there is a wide sense of betrayal if things proceed as as currently planned.”

READ MORE: ‘Basically Underwater on Everything’: Trump in Big Trouble With Majority of Voters Poll Finds

Some House Democrats “are so infuriated with Schumer’s decision” that they have begun encouraging Ocasio-Cortez “to run against Schumer in a primary,” CNN reported Thursday night. “Multiple Democrats in the Congressional Progressive Caucus and others directly encouraged Ocasio-Cortez to run on Thursday night after Schumer’s announcement.”

One member said that Democrats were “so mad,” CNN added, “that even centrist Democrats were ‘ready to write checks for AOC for Senate,’ adding that they have ‘never seen people so mad.'”

SCHUMER’S ‘STRATEGY’

When in the minority, Democrats for years have handed Republicans enough votes to help pass numerous “continuing resolutions,” bills that keep the federal government’s lights on, but this time it’s different. Right now, Democrats are aching for a leader who will fight the Trump/Musk/MAGA machine.

Their anger erupted Thursday night.

Leader Schumer on Wednesday had announced that it did not appear there would be enough Democratic votes to help Senate Republicans pass the House bill, and instead that they would filibuster it. But on Thursday afternoon he declared he would support the legislation, suggesting there would be enough votes to pass it.

Schumer’s reasoning is not wrong, many are willing to admit. Elon Musk reportedly wants the shutdown because if the government stays closed for 30 days, he can then mass fire even more government employees.

But Democrats are saying Schumer’s rationale does not meet the moment. They want someone to fight, not cave.

Adam Jentleson is a writer, political commentator, and the former deputy chief of staff to the late U.S. Senator Harry Reid. Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, was an extraordinarily successful Senate Majority Leader from 2007 to 2015.

READ MORE: ‘Entire World Ripping Us Off’: Trump Quotes FDR in Angry Tariff War Meltdown

“There is a lot of ‘what would Harry Reid have done?’ and sadly we will never know,” Jentleson wrote late Friday morning. “But I can say that we won the 2013 shutdown because we spent months laying track on a clear message about health care. The terms of the shutdown were well-defined before it happened.”

Critics say that’s what’s missing — that Leader Schumer hasn’t bothered to do that.

Pointing to a late Friday morning report indicating that Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune said that he and Leader Schumer have not even spoken, Democratic strategist Matt McDermott writes, “The problem here is that all evidence suggests @SenSchumer has no strategy whatsoever. Absolutely stunning that he hasn’t talked to the Senate Majority leader, even to attempt to negotiate concessions.”

McDermott also offered this insight:

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Thursday night sat down with Schumer, and summed up the situation for him.

“I’ve seen a lot of House members, and across an ideological range, interestingly enough, urging the Senate to filibuster this, saying, look, this is existential about whether we control the power of the purse or not. We cannot essentially sign off on this DOGE unilateral arrogation of this power,” Hayes explained.

The Democratic Leader’s response was that “it’s different in the Senate,” because voting against the bill in the House would not have led to a shutdown. But that’s incorrect. If the House bill failed, and no other passed, that would have absolutely led to a shutdown.

“I felt so strongly that the shutdown would be the greatest disaster we face with these arrogant, arrogant autocrats that we had to avoid the shutdown and fight and many of the other things, every other issue that we have,” Schumer added.

‘TEAM FIGHT’ — ‘MISREAD THIS AT YOUR OWN PERIL’

Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker issued a statement explaining his opposition to passing the continuing resolution, but his chief of staff late Thursday night served up an analysis of what Democrats are feeling.

“The fight going on in the Democratic Party right now is not between hard left, left and moderate,” explained Anne Caprara. “It’s between those who want to fight and those who want to cave. And Team Fight stretches across all ideological aspects of the Party. Misread this at your own peril.”

Right now, it appears there might be enough Senate Democrats willing to vote in favor of the continuing resolution, or at least, vote for “cloture,” meaning to allow debate on the bill.

One who is not voting yes is U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), largely considered a moderate Democrat.

“When I saw the House bill on Sunday, I said, ‘Hell no,’ because I just was not interested in voting for something that was going to enable these guys to fire more veterans and cut education and health programs, screw up air safety, tank the economy,” Senator Kaine said Thursday morning on MSNBC. “Why would I do it?”

Kaine noted that during an Armed Services Committee,”the Pentagon looked us in the face and said, this House CR will hurt national security, will weaken our ability to maintain ships and subs. It’s going to do damage to us. And then my Republican colleagues on the committee said, we agree with you, this is going to hurt national security, but it’s better than a shutdown.”

He criticized Speaker Johnson f0r sending House members home after passing the continuing resolution this week, because there’s now little means to alter the bill.

“And I decided then, when the Republicans are trashing this, but acting like they have to go along, I’m not going along.”

“I went back to my days in living in Honduras,” Kaine shared, “when it was a military dictatorship, and I learned something very important. That a bully can take something from you but you shouldn’t hand it over to him, so I’m voting no.”

Kaine also said, “we’re winning cases in court right now against things that Trump is doing. But if we vote for this bill and sort of say, ‘Okay, we’re going to put our imprimatur on some of this,’ I even worry it might make it harder for us to prevail in court on some of these battles.”

PRAISE FROM TRUMP

Critics from across the Democratic spectrum continue to blast Senator Schumer.

“Schumer’s decision is an unconscionable surrender that shows he does not have what it takes to meet this moment,” explained MeidasTouch co-founder Brett Meiselas on Thursday night. “Time for new leadership in the Democratic Party.”

“It is clear that some of us understand the present danger & some don’t! I stand by the NO vote on the blank check for Trump & Elon,” wrote U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX). “I’ve got no explanation nor agreement with Senate Dems being complicit in Trump’s Tyranny.”

SiriusXM host Qasim Rashid, Esq. wrote: “Schumer thinks he’s smart to vote with GOP now because ‘in 6 months Trump will be unpopular.'”

“What’s Schumer smoking to think THIS time is different? Schumer—resign & retire.”

“How badly do you have to f— up being the Democratic leader that Trump is praising and congratulating you????” an astonished Elie Mystal, the justice correspondent for The Nation, asked on Friday.

Indeed, President Trump is praising Leader Schumer.

“Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took ‘guts’ and courage!” Trump wrote on Friday morning. “The big Tax Cuts, L.A. fire fix, Debt Ceiling Bill, and so much more, is coming. We should all work together on that very dangerous situation. A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights. Again, really good and smart move by Senator Schumer. This could lead to something big for the USA, a whole new direction and beginning! DJT.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Not Above the Law’: Fist-Pounding Democrat Explodes Asking ‘Where’s Elon Musk?’

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