It blamed Senate Democrats for the federal shutdown, 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 to keep the government funded. By Thursday, the second day of the shutdown, at least nine federal agencies displayed messages on their websites or social media accounts pinning it on the “radical left” or Democrats. Could the messaging violate federal law? Ethics watchdogs said the political messages from government agency websites and emails exceed the level of partisanship they have seen in the past from the civil service.