Originally published at: Another Senate Dem Refuses to Participate in Budgeting to Protest Trump’s Power Grab
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has not been backing the historically bipartisan appropriations process used to compile the federal government’s budget for the next fiscal year in protest of the Trump administrations’ power grab on Congress’ power of the purse. Murphy and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are both opposing…
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Murphy and Schatz are a couple of my favorites.
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Trump is essentially creating his own version of the line item veto, only with added power. Even with the current supine GOP leadership, it feels remarkable that senators of any stripe would effectively collude with ceding power to the Executive. Doing so undermines the entire set of governing assumptions that the founders built into the Constitution.
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Bringing a dull pen-knife to a gun fight. Schumer’s a smart legislator who’s been tossed into a far more primitive and ruthless version of the Congress. Makes me wish there was a younger Nancy Pelosi out there. Some may not have liked her, but Pelosi could do ruthless when it was called-for.
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It’s all well and good that Senators Murphy and Warren are speaking out and taking stands, and I support them in that, but it does no good if the media don’t report it in full (and they are not), including Trump’s repeated constitutional and legal violations with respect to funding and appropriation, the GOP Congressional caucus supporting him in all of that in violation of their oath of office to support and defend the Constitution, and absolutely including the corrupt Supreme Court’s repeated unconstitutional rulings allowing him to do so - essentially, giving him free rein on everything, and the Constitution, the rule of law, and the structure of the Federal government be damned.
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Murphy is one of my Senators. Someone has to start the fire to burn down this ridiculous power grab. When will the rest of the Dem Senators join the burn. Take a page from the Texas legislature - it’s the only thing people understand and media will cover.
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Murphy’s willingness to speak out has made me very proud. Convince more of your colleagues, Senator!
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They should absolutely close down the government. Democrats are blamed for everything (by the GOP and Trump) anyways, so what difference does it make? They will have half the country applauding them.
I love Chris Murphy.
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Love to see it.
AFAIC, they should be doing everything they can to block ALL new business in both houses until the rule of law is restored.
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Darn right, Senators Warren and Murphy! Why should Democrats sprinkle the holy water of “bipartisanship” over some “deal” (aka bill) that isn’t worth the uncalculable reams of paper it’s been printed on, but nobody apparently has ever bothered to read? Since Trump isn’t going to abide by it, and will demand and get “recissions” of all the hard-negotiated spending points anyway?
Democrats need to stop going along with the charade. The media will blast them, no matter what they do or don’t. Only the voters will notice whether anybody stood up.
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I keep thinking that sometime in the next 3.5 years DonOLD is somehow, with Miller’s help, figure out how neuter Congress. I hope that voters realize by the midterms next year that DonOLD does not play well with others.
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I would like to see the Dems tell the republicans to pound salt. Probably won’t happen, but then again, any deals they make won’t be honored anyway so if the were smart the would just let the GOP work on this on their own. There is no way a government shutdown is going to hurt people any less than TRUMP’s BBB has and will.
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Actually, no - it’s about 1/3 of the electorate and about 90 percent of the mass market media (owned by six or seven conglomerates…)
There was lots of stupid/racist/misogynistic voting last year, but it’s not that half of the electorate voted for TSF, it’s that enough were discouraged or disenfranchised to throw the election. A lot of folks are realizing they blew it, hopefully we’ll be able to rebuild things when this “season” is over.
Sadly, I’m convinced that the U.S. role as “Steward of the Western World” is done and flushed, need to look forward to a more circumspect role after we flush the current things down the toilet… 
ETA: Oops, rereading your post I now think you meant that half would applaud the Democrats acting, which I do actually agree with. Sorry if I got it wrong the first time… 
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They should leave the party. Maybe that will wake these fucking twits up.
I just spent the afternoon listening to a leader in my university talk about how close our office of research is with the appropriations committees, and what a great relationship we have with members to support our funding, and I just wanted to cry at the level of ostrich-head-in-the-sand-ing that was going on in his presentation. “Better days are just around the corner!”
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Being ruthless meant some didn’t like her. Too bad. She knew how to play the game and wasn’t a shrinking violet.
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I like Murphy
His beard looks fake, and he from the cursed state of Connecticut, but i still like him.
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I fully support Murphy’s logic and he and Warren’s no votes as matters of principle, however I don’t know that they will have much impact. The problem is that the Congress becomes even more irrelevant during a shutdown which allows the President to run the government however he sees fit - even without a budget.
This only ends when the Trump’s manifest incompetence results in a depression or a war. Until then, we are in for a wild and disturbing ride into chaos. Murphy and Warren are no more able to head off disaster than you or I.
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