After refusing for weeks to negotiate over border security “until the government is open,” the bluff has been called on congressional Democrats. Congress has until February 15 to craft a border security package ahead of what could be yet another partial government shutdown. Talks among the 17 lawmakers appointed to the committee assigned
While the national debate continues over how secure our border will be, another aspect of illegal immigration continues to snake its way through the courts. In 2017, the Trump Administration added a question about citizenship to the upcoming 2020 census; simply, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” Predictably, the administration
If there was any hope that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) would emerge as the “Speaker We Need” in the Republican minority, it was dashed this week. On Thursday, McCarthy channeled his inner mean girl and kicked Representative Jody Hice (R-Ga.) off the coveted House Armed Services Committee for the very serious and intolerable
As the partial government shutdown enters its third week with little hope of an end in sight, President Trump continues to demand funding for a southern border wall. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) flat out refuses to pass any funding at all. In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has
The partial government shutdown is well into its second week. And given the mix of Democrat enthusiasm and complete Republican apathy, it looks like it may stay that way for a while. Ask any reporter or Capitol Hill staffer who has worked through previous government shutdowns, and we’ll all tell you the same
How is the current partial government shutdown going to end? That’s the question echoing down the halls of empty congressional chambers, talk radio, and cable news shows. On Thursday, the Senate made a part of the outcome obvious. After retreating for the Christmas holiday, the Senate returned to work—for all of three minutes.
Washington is staring into the abyss of its third shutdown in two years. Say what you want about the political utility of a shutdown (and, believe me, the talking heads will spare no words), but one significant advantage they provide is to clarify the field of battle. Thanks to the ongoing shutdown theater,
President Trump, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer met for a televised Oval Office meeting on Tuesday and it was arguably the greatest 20 minutes of television that Washington has ever seen. There was bickering, sighing, eye rolling, finger pointing, ridiculing, cross talk, and repeated pleas from Chuck and Nancy to take this “away
There’s only one area where bipartisanship still reigns in Washington: avoidance. Republican and Democrat leaders this week held hands and used the funeral events for President George H. W. Bush as an excuse to move their funding deadline—which previously expired on December 7—two weeks forward, to December 21, four days before Christmas. In
If 2018 has made anything clear—apart from the fact that our politics are a dumpster fire—it’s that we have a crisis at the southern border. Whatever one thinks about Trump, he didn’t create it. He is, however, the only one who has been trying to fix it, and next week represents the last
