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After 10 PM EST on Friday, The U.S. Senate rejected a deal that would fund the U.S. government for another month:
Only five Democrats voted to advance the bill — Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.), who are all up for reelection this year in states carried by President Trump in 2016 election, and newly-elected Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.).
Republicans were also not united, as Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Mike Lee (Utah) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.) also voted against advancing the legislation. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is battling brain cancer, was absent.
The procedural vote remained open late Friday, though it needed 60 votes to pass and was well short of that number with 48 senators voting against it.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer continued to negotiate after the vote opened (archive), but no deal has been reached yet. As of midnight (5 minutes before this story went live), the government shutdown was in effect.
At Wikipedia: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Government shutdowns in the United States.
- What's the Government Shutdown 'About'?
- D.C. Stays Open This Time Around — Even If Federal Government Shuts Down
- Senate Lacks Votes to Advance GOP Spending Bill: Shutdown Update
- The CHIP Debacle Shows Democrats Need to Put the Government on Autopilot
- 'We Have to Stand Our Ground.' Activists Push Democrats to Fight for DACA Recipients in Shutdown
- Shutdown? It Could Be Forgotten in a Trumpian Flash
- Analysis: Emboldened Democrats take a risk on a shutdown
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @04:13PM
I made this comment back when Trump got elected.
The blame rests squarely on the 96 percent who chose to polarize as Republicans or Democrats rather than going 'We might lose this election, but sending a message to the parties is more important!' and voting for third party candidates instead.
All those candidates needed was ~5 percent of the vote for federal support next election cycle, or 10-20 percent to make the news stations have a hard time pushing them out during the next election cycle's debates. If either of those numbers had been reached, especially on multiple candidates, it would have weakened the duopolist control of America and sent political leaders scrambling. But instead people acted like rival football fans and polarized into two frothing rabid mindless masses and proved why herd mentality is always depicted as unintelligent bovines: Because people really do act that stupid in a large group.
And the problem is only getting worse, not better. I can only imagine how bad the next election's candidates will be.