With five weeks remaining before a Presidential and Congressional election that many are calling crucial for democracy and the state of our nation, leaders of both parties of Congress have agreed to a deal that will keep the government funded through Dec. 20.
House Speaker Mike Johnson dropped demands for proof of citizenship for voters and agreed to additional funding for the Secret Service after two attempts to assasinate former President and candidate again for the job, Donald Trump.
The deal, which extends federal appropriations through Dec. 20, includes an additional $231 million to help the beleaguered Secret Service protect candidates during the upcoming presidential election and into next year. According to the Treasury Department, the United States has spent about $6.3 trillion in fiscal 2024, which ends on Sept. 30.
The timeline of the deal allows Congress to sidestep a government shutdown during the campaign season, but it all but ensures that spending disputes will dominate the lame-duck period between the election and the inauguration of a new Congress in January.
“While I am pleased bipartisan negotiations quickly led to a government funding agreement free of cuts and poison pills, this same agreement could have been done two weeks ago,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said in a statement heralding the temporary spending patch — known as a continuing resolution — and blaming Republicans for dragging their heels. “Instead, Speaker Johnson chose to follow the MAGA way and wasted precious time.”
This comes amid a cruicial election that most polls show Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by a widienig spread while crucial battleground states remain close.
With more post-debate polls rolling in, our averages continue to show a slight improvement for Vice President Kamala Harris compared to before the Sept. 10 debate against former president Donald Trump. While she continues to be ahead of Trump by two percentage points nationally, her lead has ticked up slightly.
She also leads in four of the seven battleground states that are most likely to sway the election, having recently taken a small lead in Nevada, while her lead in Pennsylvania has grown from two percentage points to three. Trump continues to be ahead in Georgia and Arizona, while North Carolina is a tie.
On the deal to keep the government funded and running, the Post adds:
Congressional lawmakers on Sunday agreed to a deal to avert a looming government shutdown, advancing a three-month stopgap spending agreement with emergency funding for the Secret Service and without the harsh voter registration restrictions demanded by former president Donald Trump.
The package represents a setback for House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) and his Republican conference, which spent the past two weeks demanding a longer funding bill with unrelated legislation attached requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.
But pressed closer against the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline — and mired with disputes within his conference — Johnson brokered a deal with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Democrats to dodge what could have been a politically costly outcome.
Republicans face dubious odds to maintain control of their slim House majority, and a shutdown, which would shutter some vital government services ahead of November’s elections, could have put more GOP candidates in jeopardy.
“While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances,” Johnson wrote Sunday in a letter to House Republicans. “As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”
The legislation is a continuing resolution, or CR, that extends federal funding at current rates until Dec. 20. It includes an additional $232 million to boost security around the presidential election after agents thwarted a recent suspected assassination attempt on Trump, and green-lights faster spending from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to aid natural disaster victims.
The Post also reports on Trump’s “imaginary world” where fantasy substitutes for Truth and warnings of doom dominate:
In Donald Trump’s imaginary world, Americans can’t venture out to buy a loaf of bread without getting shot, mugged or raped. Immigrants in a small Ohio town eat their neighbors’ cats and dogs. World War III and economic collapse are just around the corner. And kids head off to school only to return at day’s end having undergone gender reassignment surgery.
In Donald Trump’s imaginary world, Americans can’t venture out to buy a loaf of bread without getting shot, mugged or raped. Immigrants in a small Ohio town eat their neighbors’ cats and dogs. World War III and economic collapse are just around the corner. And kids head off to school only to return at day’s end having undergone gender reassignment surgery.
In Donald Trump’s imaginary world, Americans can’t venture out to buy a loaf of bread without getting shot, mugged or raped. Immigrants in a small Ohio town eat their neighbors’ cats and dogs. World War III and economic collapse are just around the corner. And kids head off to school only to return at day’s end having undergone gender reassignment surgery.
The former president’s imaginary world is a dark, dystopian place, described by Trump in his rallies, interviews, social media posts and debate appearances to paint an alarming picture of America under the Biden-Harris administration.
It is a distorted, warped and, at times, absurdist portrait of a nation where the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to deadly effect were merely peaceful protesters, and where unlucky boaters are faced with the unappealing choice between electrocution or a shark attack. His extreme caricatures also serve as another way for Trump to traffic in lies and misinformation, using an alternate reality of his own making to create an often terrifying — and, he seems to hope — politically devastating landscape for his political opponents.
Trump, for instance, regularly claims that Democrats favor abortions up until the day of birth — and, in some cases, even after birth.
Speaking at the Sept. 10 presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, Trump falsely claimed that Harris’s running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has said “abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine.”
“He also says, ‘execution after birth’ — execution, no longer abortion because the baby is born — is okay,” Trump continued.
In fact, Walz has not said this, The Washington Post Fact Checker found, and “execution after birth” — or infanticide — is illegal in all states. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2021, nearly all abortions — 93.5 percent — occur at or before 13 weeks, and fewer than 1 percent were performed after 21 weeks.
Trump aupporters admit privately that he is slipping mentally and emotionally, shouting in incoherent ramblings that have little or no truth or reason.
With election closing in, Trump is claiming that Jews will be responsible if he loses and “a bloodbath will follow.” He is using social media influencer Laura Loomer as his political confidant and her imaginary world is even darker.
The major question that remains is that is tije runnng out for Trump or for America
Voters will make the choice.
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