Disaster Day For MAGA, Israel, Ukraine, the Border - US Politics Today!
Stunts and slightly dodgy claims in court are all the Republican rage right now. You know something is wrong when even the stunts fall flat. .
In one day: Trump lost his appeal to the DC court so his insurrection trial is back on, the bipartisan Border, Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan Bill that house Republicans had insisted on is flailing and 2 House stunts i.e. impeaching a Cabinet member and a separate funding bill for Israel didn't pass.
Just another day at the office?
US politics is seemingly riven by a persistent lack of seriousness. While a subsection of politicians used to harness a natural weakness to be susceptible to empty but inflammatory rhetoric to get their policy choices enacted we've now devolved to the point where it's all empty, roundhouse rhetoric. It seems there are no real policy objectives. Just power objectives. And nothing gets done. Such circular motions are a powerful endorsement for ballroom dancing, less so democracy.
Like a dog who caught his tail and keeps pulling himself into a more and more frenetic circle House Republicans caught an immigration and border bill that gave them everything they said they wanted except for internment camps (part of a Trump border fantasy list). The Dems gave them everything they asked for in order to fund the fight in Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel. And when Republican's should be taking a bow and congratulating themselves for a job well frigged they are instead insisting that they didn't win and so won't vote for the bill??
Like the cat who swallowed the Canary is astonished that it can't sing US House members can't believe they won the border deal they wanted and can't celebrate it. They won't even consider passing it.
House republican's had insisted attaching hard core border policy to any military funding Bill for Ukraine or Israel. They were sure the Dems would never go for it. And they could shout out how Dems were more concerned with foreign countries then the US border. The thing is they were wrong. The Dems, led by Biden's border czar, Mayorkas, negotiated a muscular, practically Trump-like border agreement that answered all their issues. Some Dems didn't like it but the centrists and practical Senators prevailed. The Senate produced a solid bipartisan Bill. Much to the harder right's chagrin.
At this point it might have made sense for Republican house members to stop for a minute, take a breath, look in the mirror and ‘try not to take a step into looney town believing all the crazy stuff they tell each other about Dems’. No Dems might not be communists, they don't support replacement theory and they might not be secretly trying to change every single one of America's core values. Having said that stuff for so long for political points it seems many Republican's are believing their most extreme rhetoric. Democrats might not be much better they just haven't pushed things so hard lately.
But, maybe that's just our point of view.
The Dems called their bluff and surprise, surprise a bipartisan agreement limiting immigration, changing asylum protocols, funding border police was smacked together in the bat of an eyelid/Congressional flag pole. Mayorkas (the guy they're trying to screw/impeach) was instrumental in writing one of the strictest border policy bills ever to be presented on the floor of the Senate. But who's counting.
Shock, recrimination and backpedaling ensued because rather then pass laws that might improve border conditions they are flat out refusing. With no legitimate reason to refuse other then they want to keep saying Dems aren't strong on the border they just won't bring the bill to the floor. The illegitimate reason not to pass it is Trump wants to be the one to look strong on immigration so they can't give Biden a bipartisan win...
And the new Leader of the House, Johnson (not Boris), didn't stop there. Talk about pushing your luck or lack thereof as the case may be. He put up a vote playing to their large evangelical base who really care about defending Israel and Jerusalem that would fund the Israeli defence needs but ignore Ukraine and Taiwan. And put up a trumped up impeachment vote of Mayorkas (the guy who put together the bipartisan border bill). He was going to message that the house was serious about their political priorities.
In an unprecedented result for messaging bills they lost both votes. A display of incompetence even the three Stooges couldn't have imagined.
They can't even get the stunts right. It's like Evel Knieval never quite landing a jump.
Meanwhile back at the ranch.... Trump lost his claim that a President can commit crimes and can't be prosecuted for them. He posted to the court that a President could order Seal Team Six to kill his political opponents and that wouldn't be a crime. This novel legal theory was firmly struck down by the DC appeals court and now will be heading to the Supreme Court. All bets off where we go from there.
Led by Trump, the latter day Calamity Jane, the Republican's are becoming a little more Stooge-like by the day. Their credo is now 'no humiliation is too large'. A page out of the Boris Johnson biopic.
Of course the NY courts have already fined Trump 70 million dollars or so for sexual assault and offensive conduct. An imminent judgement for fraud is about to come down on him that could be as much as a further 350 million and he is under criminal prosecution starting in March in the New York state court. Still counting…
Trump might soon be losing the shirt off his back and in jail. Humiliation might be the least of their problems. What happens to a party shown up as fools at almost every turn? We might soon find out.
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