Kevin Drum died on Friday. Many of you knew Kevin’s blog. For those who didn’t he was one of the first well-known politics bloggers dating back to early in the first George W. Bush administration and he never stopped. His last post was three days before he died. He began as “Calpundit” and then took his blog in-house at a series of publications before again going independent. His passing was not a great surprise. Kevin was first diagnosed with cancer a number of years ago and recently shared with readers that as part of that on-going battle his health had grown acutely precarious.
I never knew Kevin terribly well. As I thought about it today, I’m not sure we ever met in person. But we would exchange notes, tips, even career advice on a couple of occasions. He was one of the few people to whom I could say, figuratively if not literally, I understand what you do. Because I do it too. And it’s a very weird, idiosyncratic and personal enterprise we do.
In this post, I am collecting reports about where Democratic senators are telling constituents they stand on the Trump/Elon continuing resolution bill. If you haven’t, please read the piece immediately below this one (or click here) about the choice Dems now face.
(Ed. Note: I go into a lot of detail below. The bottom line is Democrats have about 48 hours to convince D senators to clip Elon’s wings. It’s still totally doable. But it has to happen in the next 48 hours.)
We’re now down to the wire with the so-called “continuing resolution” fight. And just to take this out of Congress-speak, this is a temporary spending bill that will keep the government running, such as it is, until Republicans can pass their full budget in the early fall — that’s the one that will slash health care coverage and other safety net spending to give the Elon crowd a massive tax cut. After almost two months of a criminal wilding spree on the republic, interspersed with lots of “cry more!”s and “sucks to be you”s, Republicans now come to Democrats and say: hey, now we need your help to keep going. The bill is essentially a license for Elon to keep the party going right through the fall.
The bill is being billed as a “clean CR” — in other words, just a continuation of the Biden budget. That’s not true. It’s the Biden-era stuff plus new money for a bunch of Trump priorities. What it doesn’t do is lock in the Musk-illegal cuts. What that also means is that it appropriates a bunch of money for stuff Elon has already shut down. So where’s that money go exactly?
I usually go many years between writing anywhere else but TPM. But I got tempted by the opportunity to write a short item about the hows and the whys of hand tool woodworking. It’s in Playboy of all places (don’t start). It’s part of a package called 25 Things To Do Before the End of the World. You can read it here.
So it looks like at least Roll Call thinks Republicans will be able to pass their continuing resolution through the House without any Democratic votes. Surprising, given the nature of the caucus, but it doesn’t change the big picture since Republicans still need seven Democratic senators to cross over and vote for it in the Senate. The House just released their continuing resolution text. What I hear though is that Senate Democrats simply don’t have their heart in the fight.
The funding proposal comes as the constitution’s separation of powers is under strain, with billionaire Elon Musk and his nominally executive branch DOGE entity continue to plow through government, slashing line items and even entire offices with little regard for past funding legislation passed by Congress.
Kate and Josh discuss Trump’s bizarre economic actions, the response to his joint address to Congress and how slashing the federal government is playing in the courts.
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