Alex Lemieux

As day six of the partial government shutdown is nearing its end, both houses of Congress have made plans to meet in Washington on Monday, putting off any action to reopen the government until New Year’s Eve at the earliest. Negotiations on a funding bill between the House and Senate have showed no signs of progression since federal funding ran out on December 21 at midnight.

Although President Donald Trump insisted earlier this month that he would take ownership of the government shutdown over the money to construct the U.S.-Mexico border wall, he quickly aimed his animus towards the opposition party in the hours after no deal was to be had. For days, he has been admonishing Democrats in the media – from his desk in the Oval Office and on his smartphone – as over 800,000 federal employees have been affected.

President Trump, who was busy on social media today, took to Twitter to again blame Democrats for the shutdown.

“‘Border Patrol Agents want the Wall.’ Democrat’s say they don’t want the Wall (even though they know it is really needed), and they don’t want ICE. They don’t have much to campaign on, do they? An Open Southern Border and the large scale crime that comes with such stupidity!”

CNN reports that White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also criticized Democrats on Thursday, saying in a statement that the liberal party had “decided to go home” over the Christmas holiday rather than stay in Washington to negotiate. President Trump abandoned Christmas plans with his family at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, remaining in the White House to take questions from reporters and to hopefully engage in negotiations – apart from his and First Lady Melania Trump’s secret trip to Iraq for the commander in chief to visit American troops on Christmas.

Regardless, House Republicans passed their own bill last week that includes $5.7 billion in border wall funding, but the Senate has yet to deliberate the measure, adjourning just hours before the shutdown began last Friday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said last week before the shutdown that even the simple majority needed to pass the funding package via the 51-member “nuclear option” was not there. Some GOP senators, including Jeff Flake (R-AZ), reportedly sent letters to the office of the majority leader claiming they would not vote to pass a measure that included funding for President Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA-12) has relayed to the White House that her caucus, which is set to take the majority on January 3, has offered Republicans “three options” to reopen the government that include money for border security, but does not include funding for “the President’s immoral, ineffective, and expensive wall.”

When the Republican majority in Congress reconvenes on Monday, December 31, they will have less than three days to pass a funding package before Democrats take over the reigns as the party in power in the House until at least January 2021. Although the blame game is being played with which party caused the shutdown, since House Democrats plan on bringing legislation forth on the opening day of the 116th Congress, President Trump must know that the shutdown could backfire on both him and the Republican Party in the opening act of the 2020 General Election season.

On Europe’s battle-scarred Western Front during the early years of World War I, simply known as “The Great War” to citizens over 100 years ago, what was said to have occurred on or around Christmas Day was something that hearkened back to the times of Medieval chivalry and a mutual respect for soldiers fighting against one another in battle. It was a fleeting, but landmark instance that cut through political affiliations and patriotic duties to the bare bones of human emotion in one of the worst wars society has ever seen.

Most accounts claim that the Christmas Truce of 1914 was started by the Germans – whose clocks would have indicated it was Christmas back home one hour earlier than the British or French – but the deafening sounds of gunfire zipping through the air transformed into laughter and music that was aided by all who were fighting in the muddy fields of Allied Europe. According to some reports, it has been said that the peacetime was instigated from just a single German voice cutting the silence in northern France with the line: “You no shoot, we no shoot.”

Nevertheless, in the week leading up to December 25, French, British, and German soldiers climbed out of their trenches into “No Man’s Land,” first to retrieve the bodies of fallen soldiers, but what also turned into exchanging seasonal greetings. This expanded into soldiers, who were shooting at one another just hours beforehand, exchanging food and souvenirs with the opposing sides. Notably, there was also games of soccer being played with and against one another – British, French, and German soldiers together in unison.

In 2008, a Christmas Truce memorial was unveiled in Frelinghien, France, at the location where, on Christmas Day 1914, the games were played between the Allied and Axis Powers.

Although the entirety of the fighting throughout continental Europe did not cease during the Christmas Truce, it was one of the last examples of the then-outdated notion of chivalry between enemies in warfare. A temporary Christmas holiday truce was never repeated – attempts in later years were halted by military officers who threatened punitive and disciplinary measures on soldiers who dared to engage in peaceful activity with a sworn enemy.

Regardless, it served as heartening proof, albeit brief, that beneath the brutality of warfare, the humanity embodied in a soldier endured even through hell on Earth.

As more senators fly back into Washington, D.C. to debate on a spending measure passed by the House of Representatives less than 24 hours ago, the clock is ticking towards the partial government shutdown that will begin after midnight tonight. If the upper chamber votes down the short-term spending measure that will extend the federal funding through the beginning of next year, it will trigger a highly-politicized, partisan, Christmas time debacle as Democrats are set to regain the majority in the House in just two weeks.

After days of threats from President Donald Trump of shutdown over the failure of Congress to give him $5 billion in border wall funding, the GOP majority in the House passed a bill containing $5.7 billion for money to construct the U.S.-Mexico border wall late Thursday night.

Since there are not 60 votes in the Senate, President Trump was looking for Republican leaders in the Senate to invoke the “nuclear option” on passing the funding measure. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) does not have the votes to change the rules and pass the bill with a simple majority.

According to The Hill, a spokesman for McConnell confirmed that there were not enough in the conference to pass funding for the border wall, or to change the rules to pass it with 51 “yes” votes. “Just this morning,” the spokesman added, “several Senators put out statements confirming their opposition, and confirming that there is not a majority in the conference to go down that road.”

AP reports that Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), a fierce Trump opponent, was opposed to the bill, saying he would resist wall money without broader immigration reforms, leaving the procedural dead on arrival.

At a Thursday night bill signing at the White House after the 217-185 House vote, President Trump said the government is “totally prepared for a very long shutdown.” Attempting to place blame on minority Democrats, he added that this may be the “only chance that we’ll ever have, in our opinion, because of the world and the way it breaks out, to get great border security.”

Only a week ago, Trump insisted during an Oval Office meeting that he would take ownership of a partial government shutdown over the U.S.-Mexico border wall. “I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down,” he reiterated.

One scenario following a “no” vote on the bill is that the Senate may strip the border wall funds out of the package, and send it back to the House to further consideration. However, Reuters adds that the House adjourned just before 7:00 p.m. Friday, ensuring that the bill is now in the Senate’s hands.

As space becomes a bigger priority for the White House, President Donald Trump announced earlier this week the creation of “Space Command,” a unified combatant command that will serve as the first step towards the commander-in-chief’s vision of “Space Force,” a potential sixth branch of the military. The move follows other highly ambitious moves to make spaceflight easier, planning infrastructure for a “Space Gateway,” and an idea for a forward operating base on the Moon.

The announcement delivered by Vice President Mike Pence at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, was planned to coincide with the launch of a Space X Falcon 9 to deliver U.S. military satellites to orbit. The launch, however, was aborted after the Falcon 9’s onboard computer triggered an abort procedure, according to Space.com.

Nevertheless, commenting on Trump’s directive to the Pentagon, Pence said that “space is, in his words, a ‘war-fighting domain.'” While a Space Command currently exists under the Air Force, establishing it as a unified combatant command will provide a home for each military branch’s space elements. As the 11th combatant command, it will exist alongside the likeness of CENTCOM, SOCOM, and eight other regional and functional forces.

Advances in aerospace technology among nations that are aggressors towards the U.S. likely prodded the creation of what some say is “just another bureaucracy.” Though, some countries have even developed anti-satellite measures and laser-based weaponry that could be used against U.S. assets or on the homeland itself.

“China has tested missiles to destroy satellites. China and Russia are working to stage new weapons directly in space,” Vice President Pence said in Cape Canaveral.

“Under [President Trump’s] leadership, the United States is taking steps to ensure that American national security is as dominant in space as it is here on Earth,” he added. “To that end, it is my privilege to announce that today, President Trump will direct the Department of Defense to establish a combatant command that will oversee all our military activities in space.”

Although Pence is the chairman of the newly-revived National Space Council, he will not led the new combatant command into battle (or continuing a mission to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no one has gone before).

A general or flag officer from any of the military services will serve as the commander. In a memo from the President to the Pentagon, Defense Secretary James Mattis will recommend officers to be nominated as the commander and deputy commander of Space Command, whom will be subject to Senate confirmation.

The U.S. Air Force initially opposed the idea of Space Command, arguing that there would be two separate military forces in space. Even though the cost has been pegged at $800 million over the next five years, a report from the The Hill reveals that in September, a widely-leaked Air Force memo put the cost at $13 billion, with proponents of Space Command claiming the numbers were inflated to increase animus against the measure.

Regardless, the Trump Administration looks to cement a space-faring sixth branch of the military by the end of his first term in office. Aircraft manufacturer Boeing is already working on an aircraft (spacecraft) with a test flight set for 2021, which has been dubbed the “Phantom Express” – possibly, one could hope, the precursor to something that looks like a T-65 X-wing Starfighter.