It’s the most wonderful time of the year
with Donald Trump tweeting and party infighting
and Paul Ryan coming to ask for a vote
with bad football analogies
and this joke is awful...
Here’s all the shit we couldn’t cover today:
- House Republicans have given every political reporter and pundit a little Christmas gift, an opportunity to use the word “punt” without any sense of irony. The House passed a short-term spending measure today, before departing from the holidays, in order to prevent a partial government shutdown. The stopgap keeps the government funded until January 19, as well as providing short-term funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). [Washington Post/NPR]
- Politico reports that “Republican and Democratic sources say they don’t expect to be able to attach more than six months of CHIP funding, with three of those months retroactive to when Congress let funding lapse, on Sept. 30.” [Politico]
- Experts say that the short-term amount allotted to CHIP isn’t nearly enough money to sustain the program. [New York Times]
- The National Governors Association also says that the stopgap isn’t enough and is urging Congress to pass a five-year reauthorization of CHIP. [The Hill]
- Democrats, including Senator Kamala Harris, were pressuring Republicans to pass the DREAM Act before the New Year. That didn’t happen, despite threats from Democrats. Read Harris’s essay on the DREAM Act, anyway.[Elle]
- 128 countries voted in favor of a United Nations resolution that called on the United States to rescind its recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, despite threats from the Trump administration. [Reuters]
- Prior to the vote, Nikki Haley, U.S Ambassador to the United Nations, threatened to pull funding from countries that voted in favor of the resolution. “The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out in this assembly. We will remember it when, once again, we are called up to make the world’s largest contribution,” Haley said in what was certainly regarded as a very diplomatic and not at all melodramatic speech. [Axios]
- Donald Trump and his buds are going to save a lot of money from the new tax bill. [The Guardian]
- Roy Moore is still at it. [ThinkProgress]
- Al Franken said goodbye, again. [Talking Points Memo]
- Speaking of goodbyes, let’s a say tearful, and likely long and painful, goodbye to the Affordable Care Act. [New York Times]
- In the meantime, nearly 9 million people enrolled in Obamacare. [NBC News]