LITTLE GOVERNMENT: With House Republicans at war with themselves over budget and spending, a shutdown of the federal government at midnight Saturday is looking increasingly likely.

  Last we heard, Speaker Kevin McCarthy was trolling the corridors to get support for a bill that would maintain government funding at vastly reduced levels while imposing the stringent immigration restrictions demanded by conservatives. That has virtually no chance in the Democrat-controlled Senate, but it might not matter. McCarthy so far can’t muster the votes in his own chamber among his own party members. He’s got at least 10 fire breathing right wingers against him.

  If he goes to Democrats for votes, those same Republicans might try to turn him out of the speaker’s seat.

  If the money pipeline shuts down, federal workers will be furloughed or forced to work without pay. Air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration officers are supposed to keep working without pay, but you can bet some of them will call in sick, affecting air travel, as happened in the 2018 shutdown.

  Social Security checks and Medicare will keep going out, but expect delays in such things as passports, visas, and nutrition aid.

RETURN TO EARTH: Astronaut Frank Rubio returned to earth yesterday after setting the US record for days in space … 371. Rubio landed in Kazakhstan with two Russian cosmonauts.

  The 47-year-old Rubio took off last year expecting to be gone for six months. But in December mission control found a dangerous coolant leak in the Soyuz spacecraft that was their return vehicle. The space travelers had to wait for a different craft to be sent up. 

  Rubio travelled a total of 157 million miles and completed about 5,936 orbits around Earth. It appeared that he was unable to stand and was carried away, otherwise looking very happy and cheerful. Rubio said that in his first few days at home he’s going to focus on hugging his wife and kids.

ORANGE ALERT: In another legal blow to Donald Trump, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington deniedTrump’s demand for her to recuse herself from his federal election meddling case, saying lawyers for the former president had applied a “hypersensitive, cynical, and suspicious” reading of statements she made about defendants convicted in the Capitol insurrection.

  Trump’s lawyers claimed that Chutkan had made prejudicial statements about him. Last October, Chutkan alluded to Trump telling a defendant that he and others at the Capitol “were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution,” and that, “It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”

  In her decision yesterday, Chutkan said it was a stretch to say she had accused Trump of wrongdoing in her sentencing speeches..

THE WAR ROOM: A week after Ukraine claimed to have killed the chief of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, Admiral Viktor Sokolov has appeared in a second video handing out awards. Notably, a reporter asks him about the attack on fleet headquarters in which Sokolov was reportedly killed. He downplayed it saying, “nothing happened,” even though the building was badly damaged.

DEBATABLE: Seven Republican candidates for president debated last night and we didn’t watch. Donald Trump did not participate.  

THE SPIN RACK: New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez and his wife Nadine pleaded not guilty yesterday in a New York federal court to charges of taking payoffs in official business. So far, 30 Democratic senators have asked Menendez to resign, to no avail.  — Army Private Travis King, who ran across the border into North Korea in July, is back in the US after being expelled from the Hermit Kingdom for “illegally intruding” into their territory. North Korea said King “harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army and was disillusioned about the unequal US society.” —Baltimore police are hunting an “extremely dangerous” man suspected of killing 26-year-old tech CEO Pava LaPere in her apartment on Monday. LaPere was co-founder of the small startup EcoMap Technologies, which uses artificial intelligence for information management. — Auto makers Kia and Hyundai are recalling 3.3 million of their cars because they might burst into flames. — Rocker Bruce Springsteen is calling off the rest of his tour this year. He’s dealing with peptic ulcers, but says he’ll be back. — President Biden’s dog Commander has bitten another Secret Service officer. He’s bitten at least 10 times. The White House said it was working on “additional leashing protocols and training” for Commander.

BELOW THE FOLD: Regarding the size of Donald Trump’s duplex in Trump Tower, which the former president claimed to be $30,000 square feet for valuation when it’s actually 11,000, New York Judge Arthur Engeron cited the Marx brothers in his finding of fraud against Trump, his sons, and company: “As Chico Marx, playing Chicolini, says to Margaret Dumont, playing Mrs. Gloria Teasdale, in “DuckSoup,” “Well, who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”

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