UnNews:Congress reconvenes, wrestles with national Trump crisis
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| A newsstand that's brimming with issues | ✪ | UnNews | ✪ | Sunday, December 22, 2024, 01:10:59 (UTC) |
| Congress reconvenes, wrestles with national Trump crisis | 
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7 September 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Congress has returned from vacation to decide what to do about the advancing menace of Donald Trump — short of taking positions that might actually become law.
As the four Republican Senators running for President hope to get a few toes in his spotlight in some way not involving actual work, their self-serving meekness over the last year may give way to self-serving noisemaking.
Trump, the jillionaire-turned-candidate, hit 30% in the New Hampshire polls by promising to build a wall on the Mexican border. The Senators hope to win the Hispanic vote by giving out more freebies than President Obama at a hospital visit.
The battleground may be a funding bill for 2016. Voters who last year gave Republicans historic control of Congress were amazed when their first act was to reauthorize spending on everything they had campaigned against with no conditions attached. However, this was not permanent but now requires a follow-on surrender.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) will seek to stop funding Planned Parenthood. America's leader in tax-paid abortions was shamed to be revealed seeking the best price for its "products" like a garden-variety profiteer. Unfortunately, a cut would have to be attached to something Mr. Obama wants, such as new loot for solar energy, and Republican leader Mitch McConnell has ruled that out, as Mr. Obama might veto the whole package and people would blame Republicans.
Republicans did eliminate the Civil Aeronautics Board in 1985, though that was a Democratic Party idea. And although the employees moved elsewhere in the org-chart, they stayed at their desks — where all are still getting paid, some posthumously.
Mr. Cruz and Mr. Trump are to campaign together against the plan for the U.S. to pay Iran to either wait 10 years before building a nuke, or cheat. Unfortunately, the rest of the GOP converted a "treaty" requiring a 2/3 Senate vote into a "deal" requiring a 2/3 vote to block it — again conceding on the "merely procedural" Corker Bill but vowing to fall back, regroup, and win later on the "important" vote.
As Democrats will block the "important" vote, Republicans will spend September fighting their own leader, who will argue that it would avoid drama not to vote disapproval of the "deal" at all. In contrast, Trump will fight only petite news anchors Megyn Kelly and Jorge Ramos.
Sources[edit]
- Seth McLaughlin "Republican senators return to Hill, look to seize 2016 spotlight from Donald Trump". Washington Times, September 6, 2015