Brendan Buck, Counselor to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, has an outstanding tweet thread posted tonight that perfectly spells out what should have already been abundantly obvious about the potential for a gov’t shutdown despite one party controlling the House, the Senate, and the Executive.

The media has been playing dumb all day, dancing to Nancy Pelosi’s skeletal tune. But there is no question the minority party has the power to do it. And there is no question that this was their specific intent. Their desired outcome was a government shutdown. It’s simply not a question.

Here you go:
Brendan Buck Breaks Down Blocking Bills

This is the money right here: “It is also purposefully obtuse to ignore that in the Senate a minority can filibuster and block any legislation.”

And of course:

This is not a on-one-hand-but-on-the-other situation. They’re not even hiding it. Democrats are openly saying they are using the filibuster to shut down the government to try to get something entirely unrelated.

You can, and I am sure many thousands of social media users will, debate the relative applicability of the word “unrelated”. You can argue that the Democrats were given an unreasonable set of options. But you cannot, as the media has been doing, argue that this is somehow the Republicans shutting down the government.

In plain English, the Republicans voted for funding the government (and CHIP), and the Democrats voted against it. The Democrats voted to shut down the government.

That’s just what happened.