The House came in briefly Friday morning to pass another awful abortion bill then Republican leadership decided to tell everyone they can skip town, even knowing that the short-term spending bill they passed last night won't pass the Senate as is and the government will shut down in hours.
“We’ve passed our CR,” McCarthy said in an interview following an hour-long House GOP leadership meeting. The House has approved a bill to keep to keep the government open until Feb. 16, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats want a resolution to decide the fate of 700,000 Dreamers, or children brought illegally to the United States as children. […]
McCarthy said House GOP leaders do not support a “very short term” CR of four to five days.
They are also, however, sending the message that "Members are advised to remain flexible, as additional procedural votes are possible." But the public message they are projecting is that they're washing their hands of this whole thing. It's not their problem.
Mitch McConnell took very much the same line Friday morning in his opening floor speech. It's nothing to do with him, he says, no Sen. Chuck Schumer is completely in charge here, which must come as a surprise to the minority leader who has been completely shut out of the room on every major issue that's come before the Congress for the past year. This part was particularly rich:
"Now, Madam President, I wish for all of our sakes that the Democratic leader would figure out what he actually wants. I feel bad for his own members. He's painted them into a corner. But I especially feel bad for the American people whose government, the Democrat—government the Democrats are threatening to shut down and the nine million children whose health insurance could be thrown into jeopardy because Senate Democrats cannot get their story straight."
(Memo to Mr. McConnell: at least three Republicans are opposed to this, they're your guys.) McConnell has held no private discussions with Schumer—the guy now apparently in charge—since they clashed on the floor Thursday night.
This isn't the first time the Majority Leader of the Senate abdicated his role in government because someone "couldn't get his story straight." When we last checked in with him on immigration, he was insisting he could not act because Trump "has not yet indicated what measure he is willing to sign." Now it's the president who gets to decide what bills are put on the floor, no matter that there's a perfectly good bipartisan bill ready to go, that would pass. Nope, McConnell won't act until "we figure out what he is for." And good luck to you on that.
As of 12:20 PM ET, no vote had been scheduled in the Senate, with less than twelve hours to go. The Republican leadership is playing the most nihilistic game of chicken we've seen yet. The Senate vote hasn't been scheduled. The House is leaving. They apparently aren't lifting a finger to avoid this shithole shutdown.
All because Democrats aren't willing to save their sorry asses this time.