Posted here as the GOP is blocking increasing the debt ceiling, maybe another thread would be more appropriate.

Yellen should stop paying the salaries and expenses of the politicians in Congress, the limit would soon be increased.

Trump throwing oil on the McCarthy debt ceiling fire.

It will be a major challenge for McCarthy to get his conference to agree to a proposal that every GOP House member can vote for, he can only afford to lose four votes.

Of course, there will be appeals.

This goes to show that regardless of what his critics say, Trump still knows what's important to a large chunk of the American electorate. Sure, he's got fringe friends and elements, but this is a mainstream voter issue.

According to this PDF from Rep. Larson's office, some 10,000 baby boomers become eligible for Social Security every day, and many live check to check.

That was the key to Trump's success, he had an uncanny ability to tune in and recognise what was important for large chunks of voters and could talk to them.

He had the potential to be a very successful and widely loved President by addressing and resolving those issues but he drifted too far to the dark side and so lost many of the voters in the middle.

Strangely George Santos GOP House rep and serial liar is still denying performing as a drag queen despite photos being published, actually, to be fair he is quite sexy in that role.

Trump says he is "more angry" than ever

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...campaign-trail

The only thing he really cares about is winning, though... so of course he will try to appeal to voters and whoever else he feels could benefit him at the time. I think that if he truly cared about Americans and people in general, he wouldn't have told people that they should not care about getting Covid, etc. and would have done more to stop a violent attack on the Capitol and the politicians inside.

Anyways, Trump was trying to restrict access to Social Security and Medicaid in his 2020 budget, so again, I don't think he really cares about people. He just cares about getting re-elected, because this election is a personal vendetta for him.

In 2019, John Durham began investigating the origins of a probe into potential connections between Russia and the Trump 2016 presidential campaign, with the encouragement of then Attorney General William Barr.

Now there are claims that also in 2019 this probe turned into a criminal investigation that is said to have arisen from a credible tip from the Italian government about suspected financial crimes linked to former President Donald Trump.

The New York Times reported on the Italian tip on Thursday as part of the newspaper's investigation into the Durham probe and said that Barr and Durham considered the matter too serious to ignore.

Now the US Senate judiciary committee is digging into this.

There are also claims that long-term colleagues of Durham who were part of the probe resigned over Durham prosecuting people with insufficient evidence and the coverup.

"Barr and Durham are being mocked as incompetent doofuses, yet they actually seem to have quite ably and successfully buried that tip from the Italian government about Trump criminality" tweeted David Frum of The Atlantic.

He never had that potential. If he had the potential to do those things, he would never have been able to make it out of the Republican Primary.

Nope, he recognized that 25% of the country thrives on fear of others and hatred that someone has something you don't. That was enough of the population to get him elected, but not enough to become successful and beloved. I am not sure that will be enough this time. Because it looks like there will be a MAGA.2 candidate in DeSantis, that doesn't carry the same baggage that Trump has.

Of course on the beloved note. I am not sure that is possible or has been possible for the last 40 years. I am not sure the US has had a beloved President since FDR. Carter makes the case for a beloved Former President, but those are the only people I can think of that might get the title.

So now he is in a hospital…….

So?

Tom

Worst case the governor appoints another Dem to serve until 2028

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team turned over more materials with classified markings and a laptop (with scanned copies) belonging to an aide (who works for Save America PAC) to federal prosecutors in December and January.
Presumably, the aide (like the legal team) had no security status.

Point is, he had just recovered from a stroke and was running for US Senate. Now we have a vegetable who by his own admission "hears the voice from the cartoon Peanuts" when on duty.

Seems like to you that vegetable is like red meat.

Even with his limitations he is still a much better Senator than his opponent would have been.

and better than the criminal and lying Santos!

Apparently, Fetterman is doing okay now.

"Sen. John Fetterman has been released from a Washington, DC, hospital, after being admitted due to “feeling lightheaded” and undergoing tests earlier this week, according to a statement from his office.

The Pennsylvania Democrat intends to return to the Senate on Monday.

“In addition to the CT, CTA, and MRI tests ruling out a stroke, his EEG test results came back normal, with no evidence of seizures,” Fettterman’s communications director, Joe Calvello, said in a Friday statement.
“The results of the MRI, along with the results of all of the other tests the doctors ran, rule out a new stroke,” Calvello said at the time."

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/10/p...tal/index.html