The chutzpah: Democrats literally pushed Biden out of office three months before the election and they want him to take the blame for losing to Trump

 After covering for the guy from the beginning for his 2020 campaign conducted from a basement.

They have no one to blame but themselves.

 Democrats want Biden to take responsibility for loss to Trump 

... “He needs to stop talking about what could have happened and what should have happened and how the party betrayed him and start talking about how he ultimately betrayed the party,” said one Democratic strategist. “The reason we find ourselves in this position is because he was too stubborn to step aside.” ...

The GOP runs the House but fails to get Trump's bill out of the budget committee, vote fails 16-21

 

GOP fiscal hawks sink key vote on Trump ‘big, beautiful bill’  

Budget Package Remains Bottled Up in House Committee, for Now

House Budget Committee rejects Trump agenda bill in major setback for GOP leaders

Resolution by Senators Ron Wyden and Rand Paul to scrap Trump's craziest tariffs fails 49-49

 Senate resolution to scrap Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs fails despite some GOP support 

A Senate vote to scrap President Trump’s wide-ranging “Liberation Day” tariffs narrowly failed on Wednesday, sparing Republicans a second consecutive blow as the president’s trade policy continues to face opposition. 

Three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Rand Paul (Ky.) — voted in favor of the resolution alongside every present Senate Democrat. 

But Democrats ran into attendance problems. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) was absent, along with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had voted in favor of a similar bill reversing tariffs on Canada earlier this month.

The final tally was 49-49.

McConnell and Whitehouse had both missed the two votes earlier in the day. One Senate GOP member told The Hill that McConnell was sick and unable to vote. ...

Democrat Pete Aguilar (CA-33) predicted the House Freedom Caucus would cave to the Senate budget proposal, and every last one of them did lol

They have no principles. The national debt is going to soar just like it would have under Harris.

Spartz and Massie, the lone Republican Nay votes, are not members of the House Freedom Caucus.

Democratic leader predicts GOP holdouts will cave and support Senate budget bill

... “It’s pretty clear that House Republicans generally say one thing when they’re in an elevator with us or with you,” Aguilar told reporters in the Capitol. “And then they do something else when they are given an opportunity to vote on the floor.”

Aguilar is predicting those dynamics will also govern the debate over the sweeping budget blueprint passed by the Senate last week, which has drawn howls from a number of House conservatives who fear it will pile trillions of dollars onto the national debt. ...

House conservatives, however, are furious with the budget drafted by Senate Republicans, saying the spending cuts it promotes are insufficient to rein in deficit spending. They’re also up in arms over the Senate’s adoption of a budget gimmick empowering upper chamber Republicans to claim that the tax cut extensions will add $0 to the debt — a far cry from the $4 trillion deficit impact estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.

Aguilar, though, said Democrats anticipate that those holdouts will experience a change of heart when the pressure grows from the White House and they’re being blamed for blocking Trump’s agenda. ...

“Generally, the only one who we can believe is Thomas Massie, who’s principled and if he says he’s a no he’s going to be a no,” he continued, referring to the Republican representative from Kentucky. “Everyone else generally will say one thing until they get a phone call from the president.”

The GOP House caves again, adopts the absurd, Orwellian, milktoast Senate budget plan instead of their own to get to reconciliation

Now they all take two weeks off.

House Republicans on Thursday adopted the Senate’s framework that will be used to enact key parts of President Trump’s legislative agenda, getting the blueprint over the finish line after a last-minute scramble to win over conservatives who had spent days railing against the measure.

The largely party line 216-214 vote marks a big win for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who has pushed an aggressive timeline to advance Trump’s domestic policy priorities, and President Trump, who endorsed the legislation and lobbied those on the right flank to get on board.

Only two Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Victoria Spartz (Ind.) — voted against the measure. ...

More.

Ceding tariff authority to the executive was the Congress' way of escaping the political consequences of fulfilling their responsibilities under the constitution, but that may be changing

 The phenomenon is mirrored in the states by the enthusiasm for referenda, aka ballot measures, which are promoted as democracy but are in fact simply a reflection of elected representatives' desire to escape the consequences of their votes.

"Hey, don't look at me, that's what the people wanted".

 

7 GOP senators sign on to bill to check Trump’s trade authority 

Seven Republican senators, including Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the Senate’s president pro tempore, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), the former Senate Republican leader, have signed on to a bipartisan bill that would require Congress to approve President Trump’s steep tariffs on trading partners.

Grassley and McConnell have joined five other Republicans — Sens. Jerry Moran (Kan.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Todd Young (Ind.) and Susan Collins (Maine) — in supporting the Trade Review Act of 2025. ...

It would require that new tariffs sunset after 60 days unless Congress passes a joint resolution approving them.

And it provides a pathway for Congress to cancel tariffs before the 60-day period expires by passing a joint resolution of disapproval.

Trump has already threatened to veto the bill. ...

Trump last week announced reciprocal tariffs on more than 180 countries and territories by invoking his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

 

Yeah, that saying everything is an emergency business has got to go, too

 

 

It's important to remember that screw-up Pete Hegseth is SECDEF because of J. D. Vance

 

... Vice President Vance had to break a tie vote to get Hegseth confirmed after three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.) — voted no. ...

More.

LOL Stefanik stays in the House even though Democrats are down two seats due to recent sudden deaths

Whipping the vote for Trump in the GOP-led House must be getting harder and harder given all the mayhem he's causing for Republican voters in Republican districts, who are losing their government jobs and are becoming afraid for their Social Security among other things.

Assuming Republicans keep FL-1 and FL-6, they'll be back to 220 since Stefanik isn't leaving for the UN, but apparently a temporary seven-vote majority is needed because for some legislation the GOP still doesn't have the votes.

 

 

 

 White House withdrawing Stefanik nomination to serve as U.S. ambassador to UN 

... House Republicans had expressed concern that if Stefanik was confirmed, it would have made it tougher to get Trump’s agenda through the lower chamber because Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) would have lost a vote in his conference and didn’t have a clear idea how long it would take New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to schedule a special election to fill the seat.

 

 

Ha ha ha, the budget framework House Republicans were so proud of passing in late February will have to be completely reworked in the Republican Senate, reconciliation bill won't move until the end of July

... “Thune and others have said they don’t think it’s realistic we’ll move the finished product until the end of July,” a Republican senator said of Thune’s projected timeline for moving Trump’s agenda.

“Thune said he thought that the House’s timeline on this was totally unrealistic and that the House doesn’t have their ducks in a row, and their budget resolution has to be completely reworked, and this idea that we do it by April or May is just ridiculous,” the source said. ...

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said last month that the House-passed budget needed “a major overhaul” before it could pass the Senate. ...

 

More. 

The major areas of disagreement include switching to the so-called current policy baseline to get the cost of the package to zero, a complete fantasy; choosing which tax cuts, most of which are ad hoc and targeted and not broad-based, to include in the package; cutting future deficits by $880 billion as the House says it wants without cutting Medicaid funding; and goosing defense spending by $175 billion.

 

Just minor details like that.

 

 

Acting Social Security commissioner Leland Dudek is a lying sack of shit typical of the Trump administration who should be fired immediately

Dudek's reasoning below is the same level of ridiculous we saw when Trump said he wouldn't recall the deportation flights ordered by Judge Boasberg because they were already in international airspace and were therefore not subject to the order. Trump ordered the flights in the dead of a Friday night/Saturday morning a week ago to avoid detection and court intervention.

Republicans playing chicken with the lifeline for over 73 million Americans wasn't what people voted for last November, but that's what they are getting.

 

... Dudek said the court order [from Judge Hollander] is so broad that it could apply to any Social Security employee, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

“My anti-fraud team would be DOGE affiliates. My IT staff would be DOGE affiliates,” Dudek told Bloomberg. “As it stands, I will follow it exactly and terminate access by all SSA employees to our IT systems.”

However, in a March 18 letter to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Dudek said there are only 11 DOGE-affiliated individuals at the Social Security Administration. ...

Dudek assumed the role of acting commissioner in February when then acting commissioner Michelle King stepped down due to DOGE privacy concerns. ...

Reported here.

Marco Rubio and his fellow barbarians are shredding and burning USAID classified documents and personnel records

 

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees and outside groups are fighting an order from the agency’s leadership to shred and burn its classified documents as well as personnel records.

An email obtained by The Hill sent by USAID’s acting executive secretary instructs remaining employees at the dismantled agencies to “shred as many documents as possible first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break.” ...

More.

A few GOP senators are not happy with Trump on Ukraine

 Republicans press Trump to resume military, intelligence aid to Ukraine 

 ... Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) ...

... Susan Collins (R-Maine) ...

... One Republican senator who requested anonymity called the threat to deport thousands of Ukrainian refugees excessively “punitive.” ...

... Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, said he doesn’t support the decision to stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine. “I disagree with it,” he said. ...

 

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?

 

 

 

Judge John McConnell blocks Trump's freeze on federal grants and loans, citing the executive's usurpation of Congress' power of the purse

 

A second federal judge indefinitely blocked President Trump’s blanket freeze on federal grants and loans, saying the administration “put itself above Congress.” 

U.S. District Judge John McConnell’s preliminary injunction in favor of Democratic state attorneys general adds to a near-identical block imposed by a federal judge in the nation’s capital late last month. 

Both lawsuits commenced after Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a now-rescinded memo that instructed federal agencies to pause grants and loans, a sweeping freeze that covered trillions of dollars of federal spending. 

Under McConnell’s order, the Trump administration is indefinitely prohibited from implementing an across-the-board funding freeze under a different name. Agencies can still limit funding access on an individualized basis under applicable laws and regulations. 

“The Executive’s categorical freeze of appropriated and obligated funds fundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government,” wrote McConnell, an appointee of former President Obama. 

More.

Our servile GOP senators, who have been completely by-passed by DOGE, try to tell Elon Musk that he can't do that lol, now have to ask pretty please from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles

 

What an absolutely contemptible lot.

GOP senators tell Musk DOGE actions will require their votes 

Republican senators told tech billionaire Elon Musk at a closed-door meeting Wednesday that his aggressive moves to shrink the federal government will need a vote on Capitol Hill, sending a clear message that he needs to respect Congress’s power of the purse. ...

Paul and other Republican senators said Musk appeared open to the idea but didn’t seem to expect DOGE’s cuts and workforce reductions would need to come back to Congress for ultimate approval. ...

GOP lawmakers say Musk’s failure to brief them in advance about impending cuts and funding freezes — or to respond to their questions and concerns about actions taken by DOGE — reflected his belief that he thought the administration could largely bypass them by simply impounding funds lawfully appropriated by Congress. ...

Several GOP senators vented their frustrations over Musk’s operating style — especially his team’s failure to respond promptly to their concerns — at a meeting last week with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Wiles told frustrated senators they should contact her directly with their concerns over funding freezes and reductions in force pushed by Musk and his team of young engineers.

Sources familiar with Wednesday’s meeting said the GOP senators who complained about Musk and his methods last week were much more cordial when they met with him face-to-face in the wood-empaneled Mansfield Room just off the Senate floor. ...

Twilight Zone: Republican Senate fascists tell dictator Trump to drop dead, CHIPS Act won't be repealed

 

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday said President Trump’s call for Congress to “get rid of” the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which provided $52 billion for the domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry, is dead on arrival on Capitol Hill. ...

“I think reconstituting domestic manufacturing of advanced semiconductors is a national security and economic imperative,” said Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), who was one of 17 Senate Republicans who voted for the law.

Cornyn noted that “the whole purpose of this was national security.”

“Because if there’s a disruption between Asia or Taiwan, to be more specific, and the United States, we would plunge into a depression and we wouldn’t be able to build advanced weapons or aircraft like the F-35,” he said.

The Texas senator said “the idea” for the law came from the first Trump administration, particularly then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“I understand the president suggesting maybe there’s a better way to do this than use tax dollars as incentives … but I think the original bill was responsible [for] this trend [to bring] much greater investment here in the United States,” he added.

He said he’s open to “tweaks around the edges” but explained “the program that Congress passed — that money is essentially spent.”

More.

 

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.

 

The federal government farts through $20 billion a day, Social Security under Trump boasts of finding $800 million in savings for fiscal year 2025

 Not even $1 billion a year. Whoopdeedoo. Don't spend it all in one place, boys.

Social Security Administration says it’s identified $800M+ in savings 

The Social Security Administration (SSA) said in a release that it has identified more than $800 million in savings or “cost avoidance” for fiscal 2025 among information technology, grants, property and payroll. ...

Independent voters disapprove of Elon Musk's activities by a 2-1 margin

 Reported here:

A Washington Post-IPSOS poll last week found that 49 percent of adults disapprove of the job Musk is doing, contrasting with just 34 percent who approve. 

Notably, while Democrats and Republicans broke along predictable lines, independent voters disfavored Musk by a 2-to-1 margin, 52 percent to 26 percent.

 

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).