The Weekly Sift

Due to scheduling conflicts among the people I typically spend the holidays with, this last weekend was my Christmas. The festivities didn’t lend themselves to extensive news-sifting, so there won’t be a featured post this week. I’m constructing a weekly summary, which I hope to post between 10 and 11 EST.

The big thing to cover this week is something that didn’t happen: the government shutdown that was due to start Saturday morning. Trump tried his usual one-more-demand negotiating style. That was enough to scuttle a deal otherwise ready to go, but the slim GOP House majority couldn’t hold together to give him anything beyond what it had already negotiated. Sensible people then prevailed, and the deal that passed is very close to the original one.

This was a preview of what I think we’ll soon see: An even-smaller GOP House majority in the new Congress will need to stay united to pass anything, and that will be a tall order. Democrats won’t come to the rescue unless they get something in return, which Trump will hate.

Anyway, I’ll interpret what I think this portends, while noting a few other things: As predicted, Trumpists have already started talking about a third Trump term, in spite of the clear language of the 22nd Amendment. They’re also preparing to challenge birthright citizenship, in spite of the clear language of th 14th Amendment. During the next four years, the Supreme Court will be challenged again and again about whether the Constitution actually means anything in the new fascist era. We should also see pretty quickly whether press freedom survives an era in which the major news outlets are controlled by conglomerates that can be bribed or intimidated by government influence over their non-news business interests.