Eggs and Matza 😱 ✡️🌻😱 💣🚀 🐣🫓

Stalemate: On Friday House Republicans rejected the Senate’s compromise plan to fund all of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) except for ICE and border patrol.  Instead, by a partisan vote, they approved two months of funding for all of DHS despite the fact that the Senate has rejected full DHS funding several times.  House Republicans didn’t act in a vacuum; they had the full support of Trump who followed up by signing an executive order for members of the TSA to be paid ASAP. Members of the House then followed their colleagues in the Senate, running out the doors and to the airports to get out of town where many of them will hide from their angry constituents.  As a result, DHS funding remains up in the air.  As the Punchbowl News, which generally forgives Republicans for a lot, put it, in control of the House, the Senate and the presidency, the DHS mess is now fully a “Republican problem.” Both the Senate and the House are on holiday until April 13. As of now, Senate leader Thune has no plans to call the Senate back early to vote on the House plan and why would he, because absent any compromise he doesn’t have the sixty votes he’d need to pass anything other than what he’s already passed.  It’s not clear that Trump’s TSA funding order is kosher or how long it can last but starting this week, TSA staff will start receiving paychecks which should help shorten airport lines as people head off for the Easter🐣/Passover break🫓.  

 

War:  Trump says that he’s negotiating with the head of Iran’s “new” regime but won’t name who he is negotiating with.  He says that’s because he’s concerned that if he names who he is talking with, that person will be eliminated by Israel but it’s just as likely that he’s not talking with anyone.  The Iranian regime, which isn’t changed but does include new leadership because all if not most of the prior ones have been eliminated, says that they’re not negotiating with Trump. Trump says that Iran has accepted his 20 demands. Iran’s leaders deny that they’ve agreed to anything and are instead demanding that Trump meet their demands.  Trump says that since he has already won, it is time to end the hostilities but continues to send more US troops to the region.  The WSJ reports that Trump is “weighing a military operation” to extract Iran’s uranium, a “complex and risky” mission that would require him putting troops on the ground, likely accurate given his troop buildup.  The Iranians appear to believe that Trump’s invasion plans are set and that he’s only pretending to negotiate right now because the required US troops aren’t yet in place.  The Iranians may be right. In a perfect world, Iran would stop calling for the annihilation of the US and Israel.  Iran would stop hanging protestors, would stop shooting missiles, would turn its swords into plowshares; Israel would believe them and stop attacking, and Trump wouldn’t be Trump.  Unfortunately, the world’s not perfect and none of that is likely to happen so we’ve got Trump, who ran on no more wars, just steps away from sending US troops into a war that prior presidents concluded couldn’t be won and we’ve got Iran now governed by leaders who appear to be even more radicalized than the ones they’ve replaced. Just to emphasize that last point, Iran’s surrogates, the Houthis, are back in the mix. And either because Trump is trying to convince his friend Vlad to stop helping Iran or maybe just because he just likes him, he’s letting Russia deliver oil to Cuba where people really are hurting.  

 

More:  People marched by the millions in more than 3000 places for Saturday’s No More Kings demonstration. Eight million in total showed up if the organizers are to be believed but even if they’re exaggerating, that’s a lot of likely Democratic voters which explains why Republicans are so desperate to get their voter squelching SAVE Act passed.  CPAC, the conservative group still lrun by accused sex offender Matt Schlapp held one of its conferences.  Mostly because Trump didn’t appear, attendance was down though lots of the usual miscreants did attend.  Steve Bannon was there pushing his usual outrage. The diminished crowd still loves Trump and wants him to run again though some are a bit turned off by the Iran war that Israel “forced” him into.  JD Vance won CPAC’s meaningless 2028 straw poll for who should be the next Republican presidential candidate, assuming of course that Trump doesn’t stay put or run again. RFK Jr was in attendance, talking about Trump’s greatness, especially his empathy for the downtrodden, one of those things that one says when one’s losing favor with the king and RFK does appear to have lost some ground.  Last night, on his flight back to Washington, Trump said that he’s heard that Casey Means, RFK’s pick for Surgeon General, was having trouble with her Senate confirmation, then responding to a press question about whether or not he might pull her, he said that anything was possible. Trump still hasn’t made a Texas Senate race endorsement, but appears to be leaning towards Ken Paxton, another “victim” of impeachment but it’s only Monday and he could change his mind or stick with doing nothing.