What you need to know about the impasse.Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get Weekend Reads every Saturday. [link removed]

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The Government Has Been Shut Down for Months [link removed]

**The Trump administration’s assault**on a functioning system of government started long before this week [link removed]. Activities deemed “essential” by the president—stalking immigrants, lobbing missiles at Iran, etc.—have gone on, but activities purported to conflict with the president’s policies have been stopped.

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Workers Sue Vought for Threatening to Use Shutdown to Fire Them [link removed]

**Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought**is illegally using the government shutdown as cover to fire federal workers en masse, abusing his position, and pushing an extremist agenda, according to a lawsuit [link removed] brought by multiple labor unions representing more than two million federal workers. 

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The Real Problem With the Trump Shutdown [link removed]

**What is really at stake in the shutdown** is not health care subsidies by themselves—important as they may be—but the basic principles of American democracy [link removed], which Trump is trying to destroy with the willing participation of the Republican majority on the Supreme Court.

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The “Look What You Made Me Do” Phase of the Shutdown [link removed]

We have hit a phase in the shutdown [link removed] where Trump and his lieutenant Russell Vought are making decisions they’ve always wanted to make and blaming Democrats for forcing them to make them. You can call it the “look what you made me do” phase of the shutdown.

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Opening Parks During Shutdown Part of Plan to Ruin Them [link removed]

Keeping national parks open during the shutdown seems like a win—until you consider how extremely limited staff [link removed] makes them dangerous, filthy, and easier to seize. Conservation work has halted, visitor centers and bathrooms are closed, trash is piling up, and visitors can’t expect prompt responses to emergencies.

****The

**Prospect**’s Weekly Roundup:****

****Mamdani Before Mamdani****

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**David Dayen** and

**Naomi Bethune**discuss Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, the expiration of Microsoft's Windows 10, and the government shutdown. You can catch the Weekly Roundup live every

**Friday**

**at**

**12:30 PM ET/9:30 AM PT,**or watch it back anytime on our YouTube channel.

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