Locator: 44493POLITICS.
BREAKING: House votes to pass bill! Now, it's up to the US Senate. The US Senate is preparing to vote.
- not a win for Trump/Musk -- with regard to the "debt limit"
- Trump / Musk supported the bill but wanted the "debt limit" removed -- in other words, Trump / Musk wanted "no debt limit" going into his presidency.
- so, after the bill passed, after originally telling the US House to pass it, now says he's unhappy with the bill
- a huge win for the country
- a big win for the Mike Johnson
- a nice win for the Democrats
The US House vote: 366 for to 34 against, for passage.
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Posted Moments Before The Vote
Link to The New York Times.
Fast-tracking the spending bill requires 67% of the US House to vote for it.
- the GOP has, maybe, a six-vote margin;
- Mike Johnson will need the support of many of the Democrats
- if the spending bill fails, the government shutdown is technically on Biden's watch, but the story can easily be spun that it's the GOP's "fault" -- assuming, of course, one wants to find fault;
- and if it's the GOP's fault, it's the fault of Elon Musk and Donald Trump
- Stripped down to what the continuing resolution is now suggests that folks will vote on this bill:
- for philosophical reasons;
- to send a message;
- to embarrass Trump;
- to stand up to Musk;
- because they want to get home for Christmas.
The actual dollar amount no longer matters. It's all about emotion or philosophy or messaging or crankiness.
Much more interesting than the 38 GOP members that are likely to vote "no," are the 111 or so Democrat house members that need to vote with the GOP to pass the continuing resolution.
Here's how the first spending bill vote went:
Getting from two to 111 seems like a bridge too far.
This is where Elon Musk is a huge liability. This is getting quite interesting. President Biden has not, as far as most of us know, articulated his preferences.
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America's Red Shift: Now Who's On The Wrong Side Of History
Essay by Charles R. Kesler, editor of the Claremont Review of Books.
Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2024, p. 6.
Six-page essay on the Trump-Harris campaigns and outcome.
The essay leads up to Obama's famous "on the right side of history" speech in which he originally suggested that those on the right side of history will eventually win because it's the right side of history.
But, now, with the outcome of the 2024 presidential election he has changed his speech slightly. "The right side of history" is not a given to win out. For the "right side of history" to win out, "we must will it to win."
"The right side of history" is not a given. In fact, it may not even be the "right side of history."
His argument leads up to a very fun piece of writing, page 12:
Though he didn't use that demographic argument in his speech to the DNC in Chicago, Obama still looked forward confidently to building "a true Democratic majority." Someone ought to endow a prized and name it after Obama -- the Barack Obama Prize -- prize for being painfully out of touch with your own country.
He (Obama) should receive the inaugural trophy. He could display it alongside the Nobel Prize he got in 2009 for bringing peace to the world. Trump and the MAGA Republicans are now in the process of assimilating working-class voters, including young black and Hispanics, supposedly elements that "true Democratic majority," into a new Trumpian movement that may form, in time, a new Republican majority party.
Consider Hispanic voters. Exit polls showed Trump winning about 55% of the Latino male vote. CNN reported a 42% swing toward the Republicans from 2016 to 2024. And it wasn't just en. Support for the Democrats among Latinas, according to CNN, dropped from a 44% advantage in 2016 to a 22-point advantage this year.
The Los Angeles Times interviewed some of Trump's Latino supporters. "Why am I for Trump?" asked Tomas Garcia, who supported him in 2016, 2020, and 2024. "Because I'm an American first of all."
The70-year-old's great-grandparents emigrated from Mexico. "Hispanics are about the American dream, said Abraham Enriquez, 29, who was raised by the children of Mexican immigrant parents in west Texas.
"Trump being a billionaire from New York, with a beautiful family and a beautiful wife, as a young Hispanic man, that is the American dream, that is what you one day want to be like."
Michael Fienup, an economist who studies Hispanics, commented, "Latinos are hard-working, they're self -sufficient, they're entrepreneurial, they're patriotic, they're optimistic. Guess what? Those are fundamentally American characteristics."
