Once again, the Senate has failed to pass the clean continuing resolution (CR) that would fund and reopen the federal government.
With Congress breaking for the weekend, we are now approaching three full weeks with the government shut down.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) appears to have hit his breaking point, firing pure venom at Democrats, while those on the left are firing right back at the White House.
Thursday was day 16 of the shutdown, and it ended like the previous 15, with no deal in place.
This time, not everyone showed up to vote on the CR, with the GOP registering 51 members in favor of the CR compared to 45 votes against, a decrease in the tally during the prior attempt.
Thune has done everything he can, including offering to put a standalone bill on the floor to extend Obamacare tax cuts for another year.
Everyone went home for the weekend, so when lawmakers return to work on Monday, it will be day 20 of the shutdown, with no end in sight.
Generally speaking, Thune is pretty mild-mannered, not one to get into heated rhetoric, but he did not hold back after this latest vote failed.
He stated, "I think there's a ton of dysfunction in the Democrat caucus, and I think this [‘No Kings’] rally this weekend is triggering a lot of this.”
Thune later added, "I think the leadership is applying pressure. They were all being called into Schumer's office this morning to be browbeaten into voting ‘no’ on the defense appropriations bill, something that most of them, you know, like I said, that should be an 80-plus vote in the Senate."
I think he is right, as this has become nothing more than a publicity stunt for Democrats at this point.
To Thune’s point about dysfunction, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was throwing daggers at the White House this week.
He unleashed on the White House press secretary, stating, "You've got Karoline Leavitt, who's sick. She's out of control. And I'm not sure whether she's just demented, ignorant, a stone-cold liar, or all of the above.
Jeffries went on, "But the notion that an official White House spokesperson would say that the Democratic Party consists of terrorists, violent criminals, and undocumented immigrants makes no sense, that this is what the American people are getting from the Trump administration in the middle of a shutdown."
To me, all this name-calling is just silliness to play up the media and get some press, and both sides are guilty of it. But Dems are taking it all to another level, clearly holding out for headlines. The fact that they extended the tax breaks twice while Biden was in office, using reconciliation, when they easily could have made them permanent, tells you all you need to know about this little stunt.
