Then most Federalist Society folks are kooky: Senators and Representatives and Judges keep chairs warm for decades while POTUS becomes a lame duck immediately upon re-election

We live under the spendthrift tyranny of the legislative feared by Madison, with its access to the pockets of the people, augmented by a renegade judiciary before which the other two branches remain supine because of Marbury.

Lame Duck House passes $5 billion border wall funding attached to spending bill 217-185

House passes spending bill with border wall money — setting up shutdown stalemate with Senate:

During a televised Oval Office fracas last week, Pelosi challenged Trump by saying he did not have the votes for wall money in the House. It turns out he did.

Stupid caller Michelle to Chris Plante still thinks Republicans retiring caused loss of the US House, to punish Trump supporters

There were fewer than ten seats retired by Republicans which flipped to the Democrats.

Politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the deal. If Trump couldn't pass his agenda with control of everything, he won't in this Lame Duck, and certainly not next year when Pelosi runs the show in the House.

Republicans are dead. Trump is dead. Justin Raimondo is dead. But only Justin Raimondo knows it.

One term president is down to $5 billion for part of a wall: Lame Duck Republicans kick shutdown can from tomorrow to Dec. 21

House passes bill to delay government shutdown and border wall fight for two weeks:

It would give lawmakers more time to hash out an agreement on spending and President Donald Trump’s demand for $5 billion to fund his proposed border wall.

Congress has approved spending bills for five government agencies, such as the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services. It has to fund seven more, including the Department of Homeland Security, which has emerged as the biggest sticking point as Congress tries to avoid letting funding for those agencies lapse.

If only Democrats realized that the easiest and cheapest way to get rid of Donald Trump is to give him his damn Wall

What's he going to run on after that, huh?

In the lame duck Pelosi in the House and Schumer in the Senate could allow just enough Democrats to go along with it that they could arguably still blame it on the Republican controlled 115th Congress.

But they are mean bastards. They'd rather inflict us with him for eight years instead of four.

Ted Cruz blows it again, big time: stalled appointments to make it through lame duck

From the Washington Post story here:

"As Democrats and a bloc of conservative Republicans jousted on parliamentary disputes on an unrelated matter, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) took advantage of the dispute to set up a string of votes on nominees that might have otherwise not made it to confirmation before the session adjourned. Once this session ends, the Republicans take charge next month and have vowed to block any nominee a vast majority of them oppose."

Neal Gabler Can't Face It That Democrats Have Betrayed Social Security

Here, for Reuters:

"There is no gainsaying that the basic purpose of the [Ryan] budget is to dismantle New Deal and Great Society programs that assist the poor and gradually remove the juice from the third rail by privatizing Social Security and essentially voucherizing Medicare. To save the country from the flood of debt, they must save us from FDR and LBJ."

The Ryan Budget isn't even the law of the land because Democrats have stopped it in the Senate. But for two years, two years!, Democrats have enthusiastically advocated and voted for reductions in the payroll tax, removing the juice from Social Security, in order to put cash into people's hands and stimulate the economy. Democrats did this in the lame duck session in December 2010, when they still had complete control of the US government: House, Senate, White House:

"In December 2010, as part of the legislation that extended the Bush tax cuts (called the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, the government negotiated a temporary, one-year reduction in the FICA payroll tax. In February 2012, the tax cut was extended for another year."

Looks to me like Democrats represent the biggest threat to the sacrosanctity of Social Security.

The 20th Amendment isn't Working

David Fahrenthold here for The Washington Post provides a nice summary of the history of the 20th amendment, ratified in 1933, which was supposed to stop lame duck sessions, but hasn't, because of air travel.

It seems the founders weren't the only ones without a crystal ball.