Gee, I hope all those Generals and Admirals Pete Hegseth required to be in Quantico to hear his speech don't have any trouble returning to their duty stations when the government shuts down tonight

The round trip tickets must have cost a fortune, paid by the taxpayers.

Typical GOP wants to fight about spending . . . later

 GOP leaders say Obamacare tax credit fight can wait until after government shutdown is averted

LOL, 8 Senate Democrats were Yea before they were Nay: 9 Senate Democrats and 1 Independent broke their own filibuster to advance the House Republican continuing spending resolution to a floor vote against which 8 of them then voted as it passed on a simple majority

 8 Democrats: "See, we voted against it!"

The Senate filibuster is indeed a magical, wonderful, horrible, no good thing. It makes you collect 60 votes to end debate, but then you can vote to make yourself look good right after you betrayed your friends.

Senate passes GOP funding bill to avert a government shutdown

The Senate passed a six-month funding bill Friday to avert a government shutdown hours ahead of the midnight deadline, sending it to President Donald Trump to sign into law.

The vote was 54-46, with two Democrats joining all but one Republican in voting yes. Earlier Friday, the bill cleared a key procedural hurdle with the help of 10 Democrats in a 62-38 vote. Sixty votes were needed to defeat a Democratic filibuster.

The votes came after a dramatic 48-hour period during which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., broke with most House and Senate Democrats, announcing he would support moving forward on the bill one day after he declared it didn’t have the votes. Schumer ultimately voted no on final passage of the legislation.       

The cloture motion roll call 62-38 is here showing the nine Democrats and one Independent vote Yea to defeat their own filibuster.

The final passage roll call 54-46 is here showing eight of the ten, all Democrats, voting their phony Nays: Cortez Masto, Durbin, Fetterman, Gillibrand and Schumer, Hassan, Peters, and Schatz.

Peters, who voted Yea and then Nay, isn't running again next year, and neither is Shaheen, who really didn't care and voted Yea both times with King the Independent.

Rand Paul voted Nay Nay!

 

 

Nay Nay is good.

 

Senator Schumer's surrender to Republicans inflames rank and file Democrats even in their homes

The anger mirrors less visible Republican discontent with its supine leadership for failing to assert Congress' control over the power of the purse and letting Elon Musk run their show.

 

House Dems go into "complete meltdown" as Schumer folds

... "I know I speak for so many in our caucus when I say Schumer is misreading this moment. The Senate Dems must show strength and grit by voting no," said Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.).

... Some House members, in turn, have gotten an earful from constituents. "I have also never had so many people from home personally texting me—ANGRY," said another House Democrat. "I don't think they knew who Chuck Schumer was before today," the lawmaker said. "But they know now and they hate him." ...

Ohio shoulda said pwease

 

Local projects like Milliken Road, Wright-Patt sidelined as U.S. House votes to avoid shutdown

Even as Ohio Republicans stuck with President Donald Trump and voted on Tuesday to approve a six-month government funding bill in the U.S. House, that decision came with a price — as the GOP plan denied federal funding for a variety of local projects across the state. ...

 

House Freedom Caucus caves completely to King Ludwig and Prince Elon, House votes 217-213-2 to continue spending at Biden levels through the end of fiscal year 2025

 

Two seats remain vacant due to Trump appointments and one is newly vacant due to sudden death. 

Republican Massie voted Nay and Democrat Golden of Maine voted Yea. Republican Moore of North Carolina and Democrat Grijalva did not vote. 

The bill moves to the Senate.

The Republican controlled House dares Senate Democrats to vote Nay and has gone on vacation until March 24th.

The government will close down on Friday at midnight if the Senate fails to pass the measure.

60 votes are needed in the Senate where the Republicans are in the majority with 53 seats. 

 House narrowly passes six-month funding bill as shutdown deadline nears

 Roll Call 70 | Bill Number: H. R. 1968

 

 

Ed Kilgore: Senate Democrats have no choice on the dirty continuing spending resolution if it passes the House, have only one filibuster to use in 2025, and now's the time

Johnson added conservative sweeteners to the CR, which isn’t “clean” (i.e., a simple extension of current funding levels for everything) as advertised, but instead adds immediate money for defense and mass deportation, and cuts domestic spending by $13 billion. House Democrats already inclined to vote “no” on the CR because it contains no language forcing the executive branch to actually spend the money appropriated (which would restrict the power of DOGE or OMB to unilaterally “freeze” spending, cancel grants or contracts, or fire personnel) now have even less motivation to keep the government open. ...

To kill the CR, Democrats would have to launch a filibuster, and in that circumstance it would be much easier for Republicans to blame the Donkey Party for shutting down the federal government, despite the clear intention of the Trump administration to keep gutting the government if it remains open. If just seven Senate Democrats choose to join Republicans (or all but Rand Paul, who is demanding deeper cuts; he’s effectively matched with Democrat John Fetterman, who’s vowed to vote to avoid a shutdown), the CR will pass.

If Senate Democrats are put to the challenge and subsequently cave, they will have more than likely forfeited any real Democratic leverage for the remainder of 2025 beyond stirring up public unhappiness with Trump 2.0. Appropriations aside, most of Trump’s legislative agenda will be enacted via a gigantic budget reconciliation bill that cannot be filibustered. So the decision not to deploy a filibuster on the one crucial occasion it is available will represent an admission of powerlessness that won’t make rank-and-file Democrats happy. ...

More.

Mad King Ludwig declares war on Representative Thomas Massie (KY-4), one of only two Republicans remaining with the gumption to oppose the proposed continuing spending resolution

The other Republican opponent of the CR is Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. He won his 2022 Senate race with 61.8% of the vote and won't need to stand for re-election until 2028 when Trump is history.

Massie is unafraid. He's been there, done that, and is still standing:

 Trump vows to "lead the charge" to unseat GOP Rep. Massie

The House Freedom Caucus' Chip Roy, attacked by Trump in the past, is folding like a house of cards, will support yet another continuing resolution authorizing spending through September 30th

In shift, hard-line conservatives signal openness to stopgap to avert shutdown 

... For years, members of the House Freedom Caucus have been predictable “no” votes on stopgaps and other spending measures that do not codify their priorities, railing against leaders for failing to approve appropriations bills on time.

But now, many of those members — happy with how the Trump administration and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is taking a sledgehammer to the federal government — are being atypically cooperative and signaling support for Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) plan to pass a largely clean continuing resolution (CR) until Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. Trump endorsed the full-year CR last week.

“My bottom line is: It’s a step forward, again, based on the word that we’re being given from the White House, that they will continue to do the work, that the president supports it and wants it, I’m comfortable,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a deficit hawk who is part of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. ...

These bumblebrains really don't get it.

Elon Musk and DOGE have usurped the role of Congress and have made the Congress irrelevant by accomplishing what they never do.

They should just pack it in. Or maybe DOGE should just eliminate them. 

After all, they can't list any accomplishments, can they?

 

 

 

House Democrats correctly doubt whether any funding deal they agree to will be respected by Elon Musk and DOGE, hurtling the federal government toward a shutdown

 ... many Democrats are pressing leadership to withhold support for any spending plan that doesn’t take steps to ensure the allocated funds go where Congress intended — a response to Trump’s efforts to gut federal programs Congress had previously funded. 

“There will have to be some type of guarantees, because we’re very unsure about whether things that we’ve already approved are actually going to be expended,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said. ...

“House Republicans are marching the country towards a government shutdown that was started by Elon Musk,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters on Tuesday.

“Rosa DeLauro is still at the table. We need House Republicans to join her.” ...

Heading into the fight, some Democrats are already warning that they won’t support in any form. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said it makes no sense for Republicans to claim billions of dollars of waste and abuse across federal agencies, and then back a CR that funds that same waste and abuse. ...

More.

 

Democrat Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) is correct: Elon Musk is an unelected interloper, with no authority and no legitimacy who makes a mockery of the appropriations process

 

 Musk exercises nonexistent dictatorial line-item-veto powers over spending and personnel as a "super cabinet" official who was never confirmed by the US Senate like the other cabinet members he now tells what's what.

The whole scheme is illegal and unconstitutional, which is why Trump is now all of a sudden denying that Musk is head of the so-called DOGE, just like Trump hastily made Musk a special government employee after lawsuits were filed on February 3 questioning Musk's authority.

It's an end run around the constitution no less serious than the National Popular Vote Compact, which seeks to neuter the Electoral College.

Trump has been making this bullshit up as he goes and has been since Musk endorsed Trump after the July assassination attempt and then became part of Trump's circle of intimates in August.

The tech oligarchy got front row seats at the inauguration for a reason.

Congress closing in on shutdown deadline with no clear plan 

“We cannot come to a deal where you hammer out gains, losses, but you come to a conclusion and you come to a meeting of the minds,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, told reporters. “That should not be subject to some third party deciding that that’s not what they want.”

“We had a deal last year, all of us and so forth, and then there was an interloper with no authority, no legitimacy, nonelected, who said, ‘Don’t vote for it,’” DeLauro said, as Democrats have continued to zero in on tech billionaire Elon Musk, the head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Hakeem Jeffries should welcome a government shutdown on March 14 because Trump is now a bad faith president who oversteps Congress' power of the purse and can't be trusted

Really, Democrat leadership is looking at it all wrong.

Just shut it down and go home. That's what Democrat legislators have had to do in many states. Might as well try it in Washington.

In fact, put out a general call for all Democrats to refuse to cooperate everywhere in the country, like the communists do in Italy and France.

Don't go to work at the factory. Don't go to work at the school. Shut down all the government offices everywhere. Don't go to work anywhere. Snarl transportation on land, sea, and air. Empty the shelves at the grocery stores. Cancel all the doctor appointments. Let 911 ring and ring and ring.

Call a general strike.

Shut the whole goddamn country down until Trump agrees to play by the rules. Get mad as hell and refuse to take it anymore!

 

... House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer, have been in talks about how best to use the funding deadline to counter Trump. But some top Democrats worry that even if they won policy concessions, Trump would only ignore the law — as they believe he has in some of his initial assaults on federal agencies — so a knockdown, drag-out battle and potential shutdown could be all for naught.

“If the foundational role of Congress is the power of the purse, why would we ever believe them again on an appropriations deal?” said Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware. “It’s going to be harder for us to work together because it’s harder for us to trust each other.” ...

“We’re not going to keep on bailing him out,” added Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, who is among a growing faction of Democrats who are ready to stare down Trump in a shutdown fight. “We’re not a cheap date.” ...

“If Senate Democrats don’t have the gumption to do what is necessary in this moment, I believe that House Democrats will,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said. Asked whether the confrontation could lead to a shutdown, she insisted her party wouldn’t be to blame and the price of Democratic votes should be “very high.”

More.

Fox News dipshit says Trump gave a masterclass lol

 DAVID MARCUS: De facto President Trump's handling of shutdown threat was a masterclass

The piece of legislation which the boss said at 4:00 PM on the 19th was very important and even vital to making America great again was defeated 235-174 not three hours later at 6:54 PM lol.

 

Maybe the dumbest line though was this:

 

. . . having slayed the dragon of out-of-control spending . . ..

David is too dumb to understand that a continuing spending resolution simply continues the spending which already put fiscal 2024 $1.9 trillion in the hole.

The extra $100 billion for the tent people of Western North Carolina is just the insult added to the injury.

I seem to recall that throughout the aftermath of the hurricanes there was vigorous protestation from the right about FEMA still having plenty of money and they didn't need any more. But here we are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The US House passed a continuing spending resolution through March 14, 2025 at 5:59PM yesterday, the US Senate passed it this morning at 12:23AM, averting a federal government shutdown

 

 The House roll call vote (366-34-1-29nv) is here. 34 Republicans voted Nay.

The Senate roll call vote (85-11-4nv) is here. 10 Republicans voted Nay, as did pinko commie Bernie Sanders.

The continuing spending resolution includes NO extension of the suspended debt ceiling time limit demanded by president-elect Trump, who now gets to waste his precious time trying to primary all 170 Republicans in 2026 who just voted for this

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL,

something he had threatened on Wednesday.

170 House GOP just told Donald J. Trump Nay Nay by voting Yea, proving once again that he is just a paper tiger.

Meanwhile the debt ceiling and the income tax remain chief among the failed gimmicks of the Progressive Era, dating to 1917 and 1913. The one hasn't stopped the debt from exploding to $36 trillion, and the other hasn't paid that bill. 

The continued existence of these gimmicks serves to remind us, but only periodically, of the lies we tell ourselves, which is why we have to keep them.

Trump's first defeat lol: You might say the two billionaires were shown who's boss

 Second continuing spending resolution goes down in flames, after Elon Musk and Donald Trump said Nay to the first one, which never even came to a vote. Speaker Johnson and the Democrats had worked on that compromise deal for three months.

The roll call vote is here.

CNBC story here.

Extremely amusing.

 

The Republicans Who Said Nay

Trump's a Democrat now lol

 

Making chumps of us all.

President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that Congress should get rid of the debt ceiling, a day after he came out against a deal reached by congressional lawmakers to fund the government before a shutdown occurs.

In a phone interview with NBC News, Trump said getting rid of the debt ceiling entirely would be the “smartest thing it [Congress] could do. I would support that entirely.”

“The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge,” Trump added. 

Trump suggested that the debt ceiling is a meaningless concept — and that no one knows for sure what would happen if it were to someday be breached — “a catastrophe, or meaningless” — and no one should want to find out. 

“It doesn’t mean anything, except psychologically,” he said. ...

In his call Wednesday for Republicans to ditch the negotiated bipartisan short-term spending bill, Trump also demanded that lawmakers increase the debt ceiling — something that hadn’t been on the table at all.

More. 

I can't wait for Moody's to downgrade the USA from Aaa to Aa, to make it a Trinity of lost AAA.

And why not? It's only pSyChOlOgIcAl.

ICYMI: The House Republican spending bill with Trump's provision to stop non-citizen vote fraud was defeated on Sept.18 202-220 because of 14 Republican No votes, 5 Republican No shows, and 2 Republican fools voting present

 

House GOP torpedoes Speaker Johnson’s funding bill :

A diverse group of House Republicans torpedoed Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) proposal to fund the government on Wednesday, dealing an embarrassing blow to the GOP leader and derailing his strategy to avoid a shutdown at the end of the month.

Fourteen Republicans joined virtually every Democrat in voting against the spending plan — which paired a six-month stopgap bill with a measure that would require proof of citizenship to vote — bringing the final tally to 202-220, with two voting present. Three Democrats crossed the aisle to back the measure. [Davis of North Carolina, Golden of Maine, and Perez of Washington State]

The Speaker faced a troika of GOP opposition, with hard-line conservatives criticizing the use of a continuing resolution; defense hawks voicing concern about the impact the long-term funding bill would have at the Pentagon; and moderates expressing worries about having a shutdown threat so close to the election.

The roll call vote is here. 5 Republicans didn't bother to vote, mostly liberals from New York. Libertarian fool Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Gazpacho Greene voted present. The 14 Nay Republicans included cranks Biggs, Boebert, and Burchett, as well as grandstander Matt Gaetz and Nancy Look At My Big Tits Mace.

Don't blame Donald Trump or Speaker Johnson, or the 199 Republicans who supported them.

 

 

The US Senate just passed the funding bill

 CNN just reported:

The funding legislation was approved by a vote of 74-24 at 2:02 a.m. ET, more than two hours after the midnight ET deadline for passage of the critical legislation that was approved by the House on Friday. 

Compromise spending bill passes US House 286-134 bringing fiscal year 2024 federal discretionary spending to $1.659 trillion through September

 WASHINGTON — The House voted 286-134 on Friday to pass a sweeping $1.2 trillion government funding bill, sending it to the Senate just hours before the deadline to prevent a shutdown. ...

The bill, released early Thursday, funds the departments of Homeland Security, State, Labor, Defense, Health and Human Services and various other agencies. Together with the $459 billion bill passed earlier this month, it fully funds the federal government to the tune of $1.659 trillion through September, after months of stopgap bills and negotiations.

More here.

The Roll Call Vote is here, if you want to check how your representative voted. 

The argument is perennially NOT about deficit spending, but deficit spending on WHAT. 

The projected tax shortfall for all programs for fiscal 2024 is $1.582 trillion, more than half of which will be net interest expense of $0.870 trillion on the exploding national debt. Interest payments on what we have already borrowed now exceed defense outlays of $0.822 trillion.

CBO in early February estimated fiscal 2024 discretionary spending at $1.739 trillion, so today's bill "saves" a mere $80 billion off that.

Mandatory spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. is estimated at $3.908 trillion for fiscal 2024.

It's obvious that spending should be cut and taxes raised, but no one has the courage for either.

They should just agree to do both and let the chips fall where they may. Everyone out here will be pissed, vote accordingly, and it would be a wash politically.

Current national debt is $34.5612 trillion and rising.

Third continuing resolution since September passes Congress to fund federal government into March

WASHINGTON — Congress passed a bill on Thursday that would prevent a partial government shutdown this weekend and keep federal funds flowing through March 1 and March 8.

The Democratic-led Senate voted 77-18 on final passage after considering a few amendments. The Republican-led House soon followed suit, passing it by a vote of 314-108.

The bill now goes to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law before the funding expires Friday at midnight.

It is the third stopgap bill since last September as the divided Congress struggles to agree on full-year government funding bills. ...

The first stopgap bill led to the ouster of Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker. His successor, Johnson, is seeking to avoid the same fate by selling the conservative victories in the latest deal.

More.