The blame game is on at federal agencies, where political messages fault Democrats for the shutdown

Army veteran Samuel Port couldn’t believe what he was reading in his latest weekly newsletter emailed from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

It , saying they were blocking a stopgap bill to fund the government “due to unrelated policy demands.” It then listed various disruptions to veterans’ resources.

In Port’s view, the finger-pointing was inappropriate from a federal agency and lacked the context that Republicans, too, could have taken steps . He said it wore away any trust he had left in the VA to offer services without a political agenda.

“This blatant propaganda being spat out was astonishing,” said Port, a Virginia-based volunteer for the progressive advocacy organization Common Defense. “Then the astonishment turned into just anger that we’re being politicized like this.”