Trump and Scott Bessent are prioritizing paying the military and paying welfare payments for single mothers. They are de-priortizing paying bureaucrats.

An Axios piece reporting that while Democrats want to force Trump to pay their bureaucrat friends first and foremost, they're too afraid to sue Trump and to make their own priorities clear.

Democrats in Congress say President Trump's methods for paying military service members and funding food stamps for vulnerable communities are clearly illegal. But they're not keen to fight him on it.

Why it matters: It's a rare instance where Trump is going mostly unchallenged as he ignores Congress' constitutional role in controlling federal spending.

...

Several House Democrats in battleground district said privately that it would be a massive political headache for them if party members challenged the payments.

"The legality is questionable, but politically I hope Democrats don't do it," said one lawmaker who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide candid thoughts about the political dynamics around the shutdown.

Said another vulnerable House Democrat: "I'd say that it's a good thing we're helping poor people who are facing food prices and it's good that we're paying the troops."

From Ed Morrissey, who also writes that Joni Ernst is proposing that Russ Vought's Reductions in Force be made permanent.

If they're "non-essential employees" during a shutdown, doesn't that mean they're also non-essential employees outside of a shutdown?

[Fox:] "Schumer's Shutdown shenanigans have already wasted $4.4 billion paying 750,000 'non-essential' federal employees not to work for more than two weeks," Ernst told Fox News Digital.

"My Non-Essential Workers Transparency Act will expose the lost productivity and true cost of Democrats' political stunt," she said. "It will also help expose which parts of the bloated bureaucracy are truly 'non-essential' and should be put on the chopping block to increase efficiency in Washington for taxpayers."

More at the link.

Schumer has denied that he is keeping the shutdown going to show the "No Kings" cultists that he's a Serious Tough Left-Wing Guy. They're staging a protest/riot for this weekend (the 18th), and Schumer reportedly wants to keep the shutdown going at least through the weekend to show off for his Antifa/anarchist palz.

The fact that he's denying it is conclusive proof that it's true.

The protests are set to come amid a government shutdown that has left large parts of the federal workforce furloughed or fired. Several prominent Republicans in recent days have accused Democrats of prolonging the government shutdown to align with the upcoming "No Kings" protests. House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Fox News that Democrats wouldn't vote to reopen the government until after Saturday's "hate America rally" because "they can't face their rabid base."

But protest leaders say the movement's tone will be festive and peaceful, and that their protest is not a factor in the shutdown negotiations. "What this is about is everybody coming together and demonstrating--we don't do kings in America," Indivisible's executive director Ezra Levin told MSNBC last week. "They're going to have funny signs, there's going to be chanting, there's going to be dancing, there's going to be singing."

Oh great, more ancient creaky bediapered hippies singing out of tune.

Meanwhile: Charles Schumer calls for violent insurrection.

If anyone riots on the 18th, he should be arrested for incitement.