Politics

Senate republicans took a major, if relatively easy, step toward passing Trump's tax plan on Thursday night with the critical passage of a budget blueprint that would protect a $1.5 trillion tax cut from a Democratic filibuster. Senators narrowly voted 51-49 to pass the fiscal year 2018 budget after a several hour-long marathon on the Senate floor. The budget resolution could also pave the way for opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration by ensuring that drilling legislation can pass with only Republican votes according to the NYT.

Nothing distracts like fear. And today, former DHS chief Elaine Duke invoked one of the most traumatic episodes in US history to remind complacent Americans that Al Qaeda and ISIS are still out there, plotting deadly terror attacks meant to kill as many American civilians as possible.

North Korea swiftly quashed hopes for a détente with the US and its regional allies earlier this week when a government spokesman said there would be no sit-down between US and North Korean diplomats at a non-proliferation conference in Moscow this week.

Now that the North – presumably taking its ques from President Donald Trump who earlier this month ridiculed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s attempts at backchanneling – has refused to participate in talks, tensions between the two nuclear-armed powers have escalated to absurd new heights.

Since the federal government has been operating under a series of continuing resolutions for the last four years, it’s been a while since the Senate held an old-fashioned “vote-a-rama” – and yes, that is the technical term (have you not read Robert’s Rules?).

Authored by James Bovard, op-ed via USA Today,

Those who denounce Trump's constitutional depredations and anti-democratic pronouncements are clueless about the real threat.