Here I thought democrats wanted Trump and Musk to stop dismantling the government. Where did you see that all they want is a clean CR?
They will get behind one. The issue is that the current CR supports trump, etc. Yes, they want trump and Musk to stop, but that cant be done in a GOP congress.
Who is actually responsible does not matter one iota. What actually matters is who will get blamed and which party has the journalistic power to make the claim stick.
Mind if I steal this for the eventual Facebook post?
Feel free!
Nope, he’s naturally useless.
Meanwhile, fucking Rand Paul is doing more to gum up the works than the so-called leader of the opposition.
Pelosi says senators should ignore Schumer and vote no.
Johnson recessed the House as a way of signaling “this or nothing” . Paul seems to be needling them on it.
And nine members of the Surrender Caucus have voted for cloture.
Primary them all.
It is telling that Pelosi says to listen to the women but notably ignores AOC. It seems Pelosi really does not like her. Petty when the country is in this condition.
AOC wants to ban congresspeople from insider trading. Pelosi’s husband is a venture capitalist. Do the math.
If the Supreme Court rules that the executive branch has to spend the money in the continuing resolution for the indicated agencies, the Democratic senators who voted to cut off debate will be vindicated.
But if Trump gets away with gutting the Environmental Protection Agency, Agency for International Developmental, etc., who, eighteen months from now, is going to connect this vote to keep the government open with large parts of the government having been nevertheless long-term closed?
This sounds reasonable to me:
AOC isn’t leadership. She’s not the only person calling for no on cloture.
I know there’s a twitter post upthread, but I thought I’d give the list of Dems who voted yes on cloture and yes on the Mike Johnson/Elon/Trump Continuing Resolution. From Newsweek:
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada
Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York
Senator Gary Peters of Michigan
Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire
Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire
Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent who frequently caucuses with Democrats
**Voting yes on CR itself**:
Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire
Senator Angus King of Maine, indep
Schatz is a surprise: he was a big filibuster reform supporter. As noted earlier Rand Paul was No on cloture. Schumer needed 8 votes and gathered 10.
From the above link here is the crux of Matt Yglassias’ argument:
Shutting the government down to halt DOGE did not make sense on a number of levels:
If the problem with DOGE is they are laying off workers and curtailing programs that are vital and important, a shutdown also does those things!
Under the circumstances of an appropriations lapse, Trump and Musk can just furlough 100 percent of the federal workers they would like to lay off and declare whoever they don’t want to lay off “essential,” and they’ve already achieved their endgame.
Because the federal workers at the epicenter of the pushback against DOGE would all be either furloughed or else working without pay, pressure to cave to Trump would soon be coming from the very people Democrats are trying to help.
Senior Trump officials have signaled, repeatedly, that they want to challenge the constitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. If the Supreme Court sides with them about that, then no additional legislation would change anything. If the Supreme Court rejects Trump’s argument, then much of this is taken care of right there.
I agree with this:
It drives me crazy that the very same progressives who shit on Democrats for not being able to stop bad things Republicans do after they lose elections spend all the time before elections shitting on the idea of being more pragmatic and moderate and winning more seats. If there were four more House Democrats, none of whom supported any policy changes in a progressive direction whatsoever, that would still give Democrats a majority and the ability to block all kinds of GOP fuckery. That’s true on DOGE, it’s true on Medicaid and SNAP for billions of poor kids. It’s actually a really big deal. If you want to stop Republicans from doing bad things, you need to win races.
This part leaves some things out about dominance politics:
You need to back moderates in red-leaning districts and encourage party leaders to take popular positions and win.
Evidence continues to accumulate for this:
We see once again that the filibuster is not the boon that moderate senators think it is. Their lives would be much easier if they could just do what frontline House members did and vote “no” on a CR they think is bad, and allow the majority to pass it. Responsible party government and majority rules are good.
You mean the people who have repeatedly said that a shutdown would be preferable to passing the bill? The consultant class keeps talking down to Democratic voters, ignoring their wishes, and telling them how they should feel, then acts surprised when nobody votes for them.
The government has already been in a de facto shutdown for two months and Schumer threw out the only leverage Democrats had and got nothing out of it, and handed Trump and Musk a free pass to use the Treasury as their personal slush fund.
Popular positions like “vote no on cloture”, maybe?
I’m gonna need a cite that the Republican majority are either responsible or good.
What did being more moderate accomplish in 2024, or 2016, or 2004, or 2000, or any other time the consultant class has told Democrats to ignore their base?
Part of me wonders if this is all theater. Maybe Schumer was picked to be thrown under the bus so it could make it look like the democrats ‘wanted’ to fight but couldn’t.
Schumer will be almost 80 in 2028 when he is up for re-election. He may have decided to damage his reputation so people like Jeffries can stand up to him, making people like Jeffries look good by comparison.
But the point is the democrats are looking for someone to be the fall guy for their own spinelessness.
During the ACA period, Joe Lieberman was the guy that got publicly thrown under the bus to explain why they couldn’t have the public option (despite the public option being passable via reconciliation with 50 votes).
Anyway, I think its all theater. The democrats probably always planned to pass whatever bill the republicans passed, and figured since Schumer is probably retiring soon he can take the heat and be the public punching bag, and manipulate democratic voters into thinking other democrats like Jeffries ‘want’ to fight but can’t.
Coming from the party that kept dragging Dianne Feinstein’s half-mummified corpse onto the Senate floor Weekend At Bernie’s style because seniority and norms are sacred and must never be questioned at any cost?
These people don’t retire unless they’re forced to.
I think this makes a good broader point about what I perceive to be the problem with the Democrats: they are absolutely acting as if they can afford to put up with the current leadership, and make changes once they are again in power in 2026 or 2028.
While I don’t buy into the fear that elections will be suspended or cancelled, I really don’t think we can afford to wait until 2026. I don’t think we can afford to wait until April. But the Democrats in power, even Jeffries, don’t seem to perceive the urgency in the way that I do. I don’t know if it’s because I’m outside the corridors of power, if I’m way too left-wing, or if they are simply too insulated from the changes that are happening.