The spending authorizations for Homeland Security, HHS, Depts. of Justice, Transportation, State, Commerce, Education, Labor, Agriculture, etc. expire at midnight on September 30. The House of Reps has only eleven days of session scheduled between now and then. Unless 218 Congresscritters pass a Continuing Resolution, those departments will no longer be authorized to spend money.
IIUC, some Republicans oppose all government spending on principle, so Democrat votes are needed to achieve the 218 total. However Democrats are not eager to fund the Great Border Wall, and Mexico is still refusing to pay for it. Trump and his top ideological advisers (Limbaugh and Hannity) want to insist on the Wall. If D’s don’t buckle, the government will shut down and millions of fools will shout “MAGA! Lock her up!” in delight.
But even without the need for a Continuing Resolution, the President of the United States can do just about whatever he wants. What are you going to do, indict him? Badmouth him in a N.Y. Times editorial?
But the foreigners would then just use intermediaries to finance American hackers. It is a serious loophole, unless you commit to effective management of domestic hackings of elections.
"A Washington, D.C.-based federal judge ruled on Friday that the Trump administration must fully restore the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, saying the government’s rationale for dropping it is inadequate. …
In the 25-page opinion, Bates also denied a motion by the Department of Homeland Security to vacate a previous decision in which he determined the administration’s explanations for phasing out the Obama-era program were “arbitrary and capricious.”
…"
I had this fantasy about how a normal president would have responded to the Russian meddling.
Presidential address from the Oval Office, July 2017.
President, seated behind his desk, speaking in a serious but confident tone, making the following points:
I*t’s the unanimous opinion of all intelligence agencies that agents under the direction of the Russian government attempted to influence the 2016 presidential election. I agree with this assessment.
Fortunately no votes were altered or voters disenfranchised
We expect that they will continue their efforts in 2018
Therefore I’m making the following directives:
$x billion dollars to state election commissions to harden security
A blue-ribbon bi-partisan panel to investigate Russian activities and provide recommendations to thwart future activities
Work with executives of social network companies to minimize the impact of Russian trolls
Finally, remember that despite our political differences, we’re all Americans and love our country and that elections are the cornerstone of our democracy.
God bless America.*
Any of the prior 44 occupants of the office would have done exactly this.
At this point I don’t think it has anything to do with loyalty, patriotism, or doing the right thing. I fully believe the R’s just want to save their own asses.
Up until now, I just assumed that everything would go to shit eventually, and then all but the hardcore fanatics would abandon Trump.
Now I realize the “hardcore” are in fact legion, and they’ve been playing the “find anyone but Trump to blame” game for some time.
Let’s say GDP growth suddenly plummets. It will be the fault of the deep state, or hillary clinton, or the media, or BLM. And the worse things get, the more people will call for something to be done against these “enemies within”.
That’s why the midterms are actually so important.
Yes Trumpists will blame whatever democrat influence there is in government for whatever goes wrong. But at least with a deadlocked Executive there’s only so much the radicals can do.
If you take away Carroll O’Connor’s innate charm, humanity and empathy, which was needed to make Archie funny and not a total monster, the Trump comparison by both Lear and Reiner is legitimate.
