The bill that cleared the #House sets up a clash — & likely a prolonged negotiation — w/the Democratic-controlled #Senate as the 2 chambers work to reconcile & merge their separate versions of the #legislation in the months ahead. Earlier Fri, the Senate #ArmedServices Cmte released its version of the #NDAA totaling $923.3B.
This is exactly what happened last year, a fact many Democrats lamented angrily on the House floor this week.
"None of this [dysfunction] is new information. The GOP isn’t in Washington, D.C. to solve anything. They’re there to literally bring the federal government to its knees until it can be turned into an engine for authoritarian intent. They’re not there to address any issues, especially if it’s during a Democratic presidency."
"As the headline of Carl Hulse’s analysis in the New York Times puts it: 'On the Border, Republicans Set a Trap, Then Fell Into It.'
In a speech at the White House today, President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass the bill. He thanked the negotiators who have worked so hard on it, and blamed Trump for shooting it down."
"Trump has been working the phones, calling Republican lawmakers to 'threaten them and try to intimidate them to vote against this proposal,' Biden said. 'And it looks like they’re caving.'
Biden pointed out that 'everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the Border Patrol [Union] to the…United States Chamber of Commerce support[s] this bill,' and that the Border Patrol Union endorsed Trump in 2020."
The corporate media do much to withhold information from us that would, if we had this information, help us see that the serious dysfunction in D.C. and the federal government is virtually entirely due to Republican obfuscation driven by a politics of authoritarianism.
In not highlighting this information and making it central to the narrative of the 2024 election, the corporate media allow too many of us to claim ignorance as we make our voting choices.
"Everywhere you turn with the GOP these days, you see dysfunction."
As Jay Kuo says, count the ways: the impeachment charades; the deliberately staged border "crisis" with a refusal to address it; the refusal to permit much-needed aid to reach Ukraine.