President Trump Caves On Government Shutdown

I haven’t been posting here for the last week.

When I last felt compelled to write about American politics, it was when the GOP Congress was throwing Steve King under the bus over a gaffe and unanimously condemning White Nationalism for the second time in two years. I figured that it would be a good time in the middle of winter to take a break and not miss anything but more of the same old failure theater:

“President Donald Trump touted GOP unity for 33 days of a partial government shutdown. But by the 34th day, it was clearly gone — and so was the shutdown by the end of the 35th.

Senate Republicans had finally had it and were struggling to continue to defend the president’s position and heap blame on the Democrats. Perhaps no one illustrated that dynamic more than Sen. Rob Portman.

The Ohio Republican, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), had spent more than two weeks pushing to reopen the government and then negotiate on border security, only to face repeated rejection by the president and Vice President Mike Pence. So when two votes came before the Senate this week, one on Trump’s plan, the other on a stopgap with no new guaranteed wall money, Portman nearly made a rare break with his party.

“I considered it, yes,” he said on Friday after the president finally caved on his position that the government would only reopen with a down payment on his wall.

Portman and most Republicans ultimately stuck with Trump after Pence’s pleas for unity. A sustained rebellion against Trump on Thursday, Portman argued, would mean the government “would not be open right now,“ because Trump would simply veto a Democrat-backed bill. “It would have been a real problem.” …”

The partial government shutdown is finally coming to an end.

Trump has been humiliated by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Senate Republicans caved and that forced Trump to cave. He isn’t getting any funding for his wall. The whole episode was nothing but a waste of time to look like he was fighting for the wall funding after two years of avoiding the issue.