Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

The Schumer Shutdown dragged through the weekend, with neither side budging. Republicans pushed for a straightforward continuing resolution to keep the government funded through November, but Democrats chose to hold the line for their wish list of radical spending priorities—billions and billions of dollars’ worth—and in doing so, shut the government down. The media has focused on their demand for free health care for illegal immigrants, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot more buried in this standoff that isn’t getting the attention it deserves.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) took to the Senate floor this week and laid out, in his trademark blunt and hilarious fashion, exactly what Democrats are trying to shut the government down over—and it’s every bit as ridiculous as you’d expect.

“Basically, President Trump just said, ‘We want you to take some stuff out of the budget that we think is wasteful,’” Kennedy began. “And we did — and that upset the congresswoman.”

That “congresswoman,” of course, is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who, according to Kennedy, went ballistic when Trump and congressional Republicans started cutting some of the more absurd Biden-era spending priorities.

Kennedy didn’t hold back as he read aloud what Democrats are fighting to restore.

“We found that under President Biden, they were spending $3 million for circumcisions and vasectomies in Zambia,” he said. “We took that out. The congresswoman says, ‘We’re gonna shut down government until you put that back in.’”

And that was just the beginning.

“We found $500,000 of American taxpayer money for electric buses in Rwanda,” Kennedy continued.

“We found $3.6 million for pastry cooking classes and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti. I kid you not. I’m not making this up. It was in the budget under President Biden.”

Kennedy went on to rattle off even more examples of this insanity:

• $6 million for media organizations for the Palestinians.

• $833,000 for transgender people in Nepal.

• $300,000 for a pride parade in Lesotho.

• $882,000 for social media mentorship in Serbia.

• $4.2 million for LGBTQI people in the Western Balkans and Uganda.

Do you think we should be funding that nonsense?

Republicans, Kennedy noted, stripped out each of these items as they tried to rein in wasteful foreign spending. But Democrats—with AOC and the “socialist wing” of the party leading the way—are threatening to shut the government down until every last one of those absurd expenditures is put back in.

“I could spend the rest of the afternoon here,” Kennedy said. “We took all that out. It upset Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. It upset the socialist wing of her party. And now they’re threatening all other Democrats and saying, ‘You’ve got to shut that government down until we get what we want.’”

And that, Kennedy concluded, is what this entire budget fight is about—not defending American taxpayers or funding core government services, but holding the government hostage over millions in woke pet projects and bizarre international handouts.

The Schumer Shutdown didn’t happen by accident—it’s the result of Democrats choosing their woke agenda over citizens. Chuck Schumer made his priorities clear, and now the American people are paying the price.