Yesterday, Cook's Amy Walter mused aloud whether or not big Republican support for Trump "is going to translate into turn-out and support for the GOP in 2018. You don’t have to go too far back in history to find an example of a president who came to office with backing from a new, enthusiastic group of voters, only to find that those voters failed to consistently show up for the party.
North Carolina right-wing ideologue Mark Meadows opposes the bipartisan compromiseLate Sunday night, congressional staffers announced that Democratic and Republican negotiators reached a bipartisan agreement to fund government operations through September to the tune of over a trillion dollars, while igno
Will the government be open in 5 days? We speculated the other day that Bannon would like to make sure it isn't. Congressional Republicans feel otherwise.
Ryan held a conference call with his members yesterday to assure them that he has no intention of shutting down the government despite what the White House appears to be angling for. He promised not to let his failed TrumpCare bill get in the way. Some Republicans in Congress are worried they'll be blamed by next year's midterm voters if there's a government shutdown. Those worries are not part of Steve Bannon's calculus.
Did you always have the feeling that Trump's campaign ploy-- his absurdly expensive ($20 billion) and ineffective, beautiful wall-- would be a non-starter? If so you were probably correct. Democrats won't vote for anything that includes funds for the nonsense and more and more Republican congressman-- many who oppose the whole idea to begin with-- are not ready for a shut-down-the-government fight over the wall.
Congress is back in town and the first thing up is an intractable Republican-created controversy that, thankfully, doesn't involve-- at least not so far-- El Trumpanzee! Instead of rushing to fund the president's Zika proposals, like they should have a year ago, the GOP immediately started bickering about shutting down the government.
The new Gallup poll that asks how satisfied respondents are with Congress found that just 17% of Democrats and 15% of Republicans approved the job Congress is doing. It's been a long slide since 2001 when a narrow majority of Americans actually thought Congress was doing a decent job.
On the day the House was bidding a fond adieu to one corrupt Speaker, the corrupt Republican who played Speaker before Boehner, Denny Hastert, pleaded guilty to one carefully constructed charge of "structuring," evading reporting requirements in connection to a multimillion dollar blackmail scheme.
