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If Democrats don't bend to their funding conditions, Republican leaders say they arent afraid of the ultimate fallback, a so-called "continuing resolution" or CR that drags out the same spending levels for the 10 months left in the budget year.

Well walk away from the bill, and we'll just go with a CR. We're not going to do it," Rep. Ken Calvert of California, the ranking Republican on the Houses defense funding panel, said about Democrats digging in on their liberal funding goals.

Democrats dont need the other partys help to advance the $1.75 trillion climate action and safety net spending package they are working to pass. Government funding bills, however, need 60 votes in the Senate. And Republicans could benefit from a monthslong standoff on the topic, which would hamstring Democrats attempts to increase non-defense spending.

As inflation poses a fresh threat to President Joe Biden's sagging approval ratings, Republicans are seeking to brand themselves as cutting spending to tame ballooning prices for consumer goods even though the national debt surged by more than $7 trillion during Trumps presidency.

"It's a shameless approach that they've taken," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said about GOP leaders' refusal to negotiate on a longer-term spending bill unless Democrats acquiesce on every controversial policy before negotiations can begin.

"There are a number of Republicans who believe that it's important to fund the priorities of the federal government, including the defense priorities. But I know there's an ongoing discussion in their caucus," added Van Hollen, who chairs the Senate spending panel that funds the Treasury Department and the IRS.

The GOP has adopted a heads I win, tails you lose attitude with another shutdown deadline in less than three weeks. If Democrats don't buckle to a slew of conservative demands before spending negotiations even begin, Republicans wont engage in dealmaking at all, GOP leaders say. The minority party has demanded that Democrats agree up-front to status-quo spending constraints, like the longtime ban on using federal funding for abortion.

Falling back on a CR that extends current funding levels would mean flat government spending and the preservation of funding constraints Trump signed into law almost a year ago, blocking Democrats who've been eager to revamp government budgets since they took back the majority.

Under a long-term CR, "what you end up with is Donald Trumps last negotiated budget, when he was president and we had the Senate. I would consider that a pretty egregious Democratic failure, said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), his partys top appropriator on the spending panel that handles the largest pot of non-defense funding.

Senate Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is taking the GOP threat of a year-long funding patch seriously, according to a committee aide, who said Republicans seem adamant about leaving more cash for the military on the table in order to stick Democrats with Trump-era funding levels for domestic programs. Leahy blasted Republicans on the Senate floor this month, saying GOP leaders seemed determined to thwart President Joe Bidens agenda.

The White House turned up pressure on Friday for a government funding deal, warning that a year-long stopgap would seriously hurt the country by hampering Covid vaccine research, delaying military construction projects and jeopardizing food safety.

A full year of static funding would sting for all the GOP lawmakers seeking a boost in defense spending, while undercutting the military and all the other federal agencies that have been lurching through the budget year without funding certainty.

The truth is, if you take a look at the challenges that are out there with China right now and Russia, this budget needs to go, warned Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds the Pentagon.

Democrats have already debuted all 12 of their annual spending bills in both chambers and passed most of those bills in the House over the summer. House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said now "we need our Republican counterparts to respond with their own proposal."

Top appropriators in both chambers have no meetings on the books to continue bipartisan negotiations, according to aides. Their first confab broke up last week, with both sides issuing warring statements.

The deadlock could complicate Democrats efforts to retain their House and Senate majorities in next years midterm elections. Even if the two parties eventually strike a deal to boost federal spending before time runs out next September, a string of short-term funding punts would feed into Republican criticism that Democrats cant get anything done on time.

I dont get the sense when it comes to keeping the trains running on time they are particularly adept at that, said Senate Minority Whip John Thune. Its just sort of management by chaos. Theres no real rhyme or reason to it. They keep putting out deadlines which end up not being met."

Government funding negotiations have taken a backseat to the jam-packed legislative to-do list, including passage of Demcorats' $1.75 trillion social spending bill and a continued standoff over lifting the debt ceiling. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), the top Republican on the Transportation-HUD spending panel, said real negotiations on a funding deal "have yet to start."

A bipartisan Senate framework for striking a funding accord isnt in play this year, exposing the gaping distance between both parties. The Senates top Republican appropriator, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, insists Democrats need to resurrect the so-called Shelby-Leahy agreement the Republican devised in 2018 with his counterpart across the aisle. Under that deal, both parties agreed to forgo controversial policies lawmakers like to call poison-pill riders.

But sticking points abound. Republican appropriators list more than 30 items they say Democrats must add or nix from their spending bills before GOP leaders will enter into funding negotiations. That includes dropping wage requirements for projects funded with federal cash and ensuring the Guantanamo Bay terrorist-holding site remains open. The party also wants to continue federal funding for abstinence education programs that encourage people to refrain from non-marital sexual activity.

Republicans want the Biden administration to spend nearly $2 billion to keep building the border wall, rather than sending that cash back to the Treasury Department, and they want to kill environmental efforts, such as allowing new emissions regulations and funding a Civilian Climate Corps.

The question is, will we kick the can to January, February or March?" Shelby said. "And then come March, when we havent done anything, will we kick it to July and then September?

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.

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GOP weighs trapping Democrats in Trumps budget - POLITICO

A man walks past a free flu shot advertisement outside of a drugstore in New York on August 19, 2020.Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images

Recent polls show a 25 percentage-point gap between Republicans and Democrats who've gotten or will get a flu shot.

This is remarkably similar to the approximately 30 percentage-point partisan gap on COVID-19 vaccine uptake.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was little to no partisan gap on influenza vaccine uptake.

Recent polls show Republicans are now much less likely to get a flu shot than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, indicating that the politicization of the coronavirus vaccines is bleeding over into the flu immunization.

In the years prior to the global pandemic, Republicans and Democrats were similarly likely to get an annual influenza shot, CNN recently pointed out. In a February 2020 AP-NORC poll, 58% of Democrats and 54% of Republicans said they'd gotten a flu shot in the past year.

This year, between 65 and 68% of Democrats say they have gotten or will almost certainly get a flu shot, while between 40 and 44% of Republicans said they have or will get vaccinated against the flu, recent polls show. A UC San Diego study published last spring found that Republicans had become less likely to say they'd get a flu shot during the pandemic.

This gap is reflective of the approximately 30 percentage-point gap between Democrats and Republicans who've received a COVID-19 jab. While between 90 and 95% of Democrats 18 and older have gotten a coronavirus vaccine, just about 65% of adult Republicans have done the same.

The coronavirus vaccines, vaccine mandates, and other public health efforts related to the pandemic, including mask-wearing and lockdowns, have been heavily politicized over the last nearly two years. Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to oppose these mitigation efforts. Many Republican lawmakers and politicians have aggressively opposed COVID-19 vaccination and testing requirements, a position some experts fear will aggravate hesitancy and opposition to other vaccines as well.

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This partisan gap in vaccine uptake is one reason why there's a significantly higher COVID-19 death rate in counties that voted for former President Donald Trump and those that President Joe Biden won in 2020. Those who've received a COVID-19 vaccine are much more likely to have gotten or say they will get a flu shot than those who've failed to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

This comes as public health officials have ramped up their efforts to promote the influenza vaccine. Last year, medical experts warned of a "twindemic" of both rising COVID-19 cases and a flu epidemic that could overwhelm hospitals already stretched to the brink with coronavirus patients, prior to the release of the COVID-19 vaccines. The 2020-2021 flu season was ultimately very mild, likely because many Americans stayed home, distanced from others, and wore masks to protect against the coronavirus. But with many COVID-19 mitigation efforts loosened this year, it's likely cases of the flu will be higher.

Some private entities have also stepped up their efforts to fight the flu as the season. Some universities have mandated that students and staff get the flu shot this year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone in the US six months and older get a flu shot. Medical experts warn that contracting the flu could make people more vulnerable to COVID-19 and that catching both viruses simultaneously could dramatically increase the risk of severe illness or death.

"The Covid-19 pandemic is not over, and the risk of both flu and Covid-19 circulating could put additional strain on hospitals and frontline health care professionals," CDC head Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in October.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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The gap between Republicans and Democrats on flu shots is 20 percentage-points bigger than it was pre-pandemic - Yahoo News

And if the sane Republicans leaving don't speak up, and talk only in careful code, what responsibility do they have for what's left?

These are the thoughts spurred by the news last week that state Sen. Nicole Poolman, sane Republican from Bismarck, will not run for re-election in 2022. She cited family and professional reasons, but also said these "toxic times" in politics weighed in her decision.

Since Republicans hold a super-majority in North Dakota politics and you can fit all the Democrats in the Legislature in a thimble, we presume Poolman was referring to her GOP counterparts.

The same poisonous right-wing, loony-tune politics that have become popular around the United States in the Donald Trump era are overtaking the Republican Party in North Dakota. The non-existent problem of Critical Race Theory, the belief Trump won the 2020 election, the wild-eyed frothing over masks and COVID vaccines, the intimidation of school boards, support of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists .... it's all here in North Dakota.

And it's only going to get worse.

Poolman, best as we can tell, doesn't belong to the wacky wing of the Republican Party although the line between normal and wacky has moved decidedly to the right and is becoming blurred. She's a classic Republican, checking all the conservative boxes on taxes, regulation, business and other traditional GOP issues. A high school teacher, she supported public education.

Moderate Republicans and the handful of Democrats in Bismarck seemed to like Poolman and worked with her on policy. There was a genuine outreach of support when she announced her retirement, something that will not happen when, say, Fargo Rep. Jim Kasper leaves.

But there is also a measure of hypocrisy with Poolman citing toxicity as a reason for bailing out, just as there is when every Republican laments the current political atmosphere of disrespect and lack of decorum.

Which person is most responsible for the noxious state of political discourse and what party does he lead around by the nose?

Hint: It rhymes with Tonald Drump.

Republicans disgusted by the nastiness of modern politics have a clever, almost pathological, way of disassociating themselves from Trump to keep themselves clean. His policies are fine, they'll say, but I don't like the person. As if you can so easily separate the two. Mussolini kept the trains running on time, right?

Whether Poolman voted for Trump is unknown. She certainly never spoke out against him or the legion of nutjobs in North Dakota who are taking his cues. She and her husband Jim, the state's former insurance commissioner, are tight with U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong, who's also never spoken a cross word or taken a tough vote against the former president.

So if the reasonable Republicans aren't going to speak out against the insanity and insurrectionists, who will? Losing a sane Republican like Poolman isn't good, but neither is the silence of her and other like-minded Republicans who are getting out.

Readers can reach columnist Mike McFeely at mmcfeely@forumcomm.com

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McFeely: Another sane Republican bites the dust - Grand Forks Herald

A new poll found that more Republicans now think that Donald Trump will likely be reinstated as president before the end of 2021.

The survey by the Economist/YouGov was conducted between November 6 and 9 and surveyed 1,500 Americans. One of the questions that respondents answered was: "How likely or unlikely do you think it is that Donald Trump will be reinstated as President before the end of 2021?"

Thirteen percent of Republicans surveyed in November said that it is "very likely" that the former president would be reinstated, compared to only 11 percent of Republicans who said so in an October poll.

Republicans who said that Trump will "somewhat likely" be reinstated before 2021 ends increased from 11 percent in October to 15 percent in November.

Additionally, the number of Trump voters who said that the former president will "very likely" be back to the White House increased by 1 percent in November compared to last month, according to the YouGov poll.

Meanwhile, the number of Democrats who agreed with that notion decreased from 7 percent to 4 percent in November.

In September, Trump hinted that he could be reinstated as president if it was a possibility due to what he claimed as "tremendous voter fraud."

At a rally in Perry, Georgia, Gina Loudon, a host for the conservative media network Real America's Voice, asked Trump when would America "get President Trump back?"

"Well we're going to see," Trump responded. "There's been tremendous voter fraud. And it's being revealed on a daily basis and we'll see what happens."

Although the November YouGov poll showed that more Republican voters believed more in the former president, it revealed growing disapproval of other GOP members.

The polls showed that the number of Republicans who disapproved of GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's job increased by 1 percent from the prior month.

McCarthy has been scrutinized by fellow Republicans for failing to stop the passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill on November 5. Critics in the GOP questioned McCarthy's ability to lead the party's interests in the future.

On November 6, the National Review wrote that it's "not too soon to be asking whether Representative Kevin McCarthy should be ousted from leadership for his inability to keep his caucus together on such a crucial vote."

The bipartisan infrastructure bill passed after a final vote of 228-206 with the help of 13 Republicans who voted in favor of it. In August, the bill passed in the Senate with the votes of 19 Republicans.

The legislation aims to improve the country's infrastructure including bridges, rail, and roads over the course of five years.

McCarthy in October said that if the bill came to the floor, he would "expect few, if any, to vote for it." He was also asked in an interview with FOX News whether he thinks the infrastructure bill would pass, to which he responded: "It will fail."

Newsweek contacted Trump's office for comments.

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Republicans Saying Trump Likely to Be Reinstated by Year's End Jumps to 28 Percent - Newsweek

As liberals shy away from the word "woke," the media has blamed Republicans negative use of the term for its downfall. What actually happened to "woke" may be more complicated, and cause problems for Democrats in coming elections.

After the results of the Virginia election, Democrat strategist James Carville blamed "stupid wokeness" for his partys disappointing loss. In an interview with PBS Newshour, the long-time Democrat strategist said that some of his partys ultra-progressive policies had a "suppressive effect across the country on Democrats."

"Some of these people need to go to a woke detox center or something," he added.

DEMOCRAT STRATEGIST JAMES CARVILLE: WHAT WENT WRONG IN VIRGINIA ELECTION WAS STUPID WOKENESS

New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took a different approach, saying Democrats' losses on election day were due to "trying to run a fully 100% super moderated campaign."

When Ocasio-Cortezs comments were branded as advocating for "woke" policies, she balked, tweeting "How can news outlets even attribute words to me I didnt say? Said nothing abt wokeness which is a term almost exclusively used by older people these days btw."

Despite her and other Democrats' current disdain for the word, New York-based writer David Marcus said being woke was once seen by the left as a positive thing. "You go back 12, 13 years it was definitely something that people on the left would use in an approving way," he said in an interview with Fox News Digital.

DONALD TRUMP BROKE THE WOKE STRANGLEHOLD ON OUR COUNTRY, AND ON US

But as the comments from Ocasio-Cortez and Carville illustrate, that is no longer the case, and the media is blaming Republicans for the terms downfall.

As far back as 2018, an NPR opinion said it was time to put the word "woke" to sleep due to the "muddling" of the definition.

"Words that begin with a very specific meaning, used by a very specific group of people, over time become shorthand for our politics, and eventually move from shorthand to linguistic weapon. Or in the case of woke, a linguistic eye-roll," the piece read.

A New York Times columnist declared that "Republicans want to recast wokeness as progressive politics run amok," saying the term "has been referred to in the most hyperbolic language imaginable, from ideology to religion to cult."

"No wonder young people are abandoning the word," the piece continued. "Opponents to the idea are seeking to render it toxic."

A New York Times columnist claimed Republicans are trying to recast wokeness.

A piece in The Guardian sought to explain "How the word woke was weaponized by the right," saying the word is "used as a stick often wielded by those who dont recognize how un-woke they are, or are proud of the fact."

A Washington Post columnist claimed "the word woke once meant something, kind of. But now its just an empty, all-purpose insult hurled by conservative propagandists, anti-vaccine fabulists, lazy journalists and people who dont want to know our history."

I'M A CONSERVATIVE IMMIGRANT READY TO CHALLENGE THE WOKE LEFT - AND NO, I WON'T GO HOME

Despite the medias claims, Marcus told Fox News Digital the lefts disavowal of the word had to do with "so many excesses," and the "commoditization of the concept."

"There are all of these companies whose job it is to go into schools and corporations and do these anti-racist woke trainings," he said. "I just think that the term has become associated with something that a lot of people now see as corrupt or involved with some sort of perverse interests in terms of the money that can be made through it."

Marcus cited research done by Manhattan Institute senior fellow and City Journal contributing editor Christopher Rufo, who has written extensively about the infiltration of progressive training and policies into corporate America.

Rufo has brought attention to corporations like AT&T and Walmart for their policies, including White employees at AT&T being "tacitly expected to confess their complicity in white privilege' and systematic racism" or be "penalized in their performance reviews.

CHRISTOPHER RUFO: WALMART VS. WHITENESS - HOURLY EMPLOYEES GUILTY OF INTERNALIZED RACIAL SUPERIORITY

Walmart, according to internal documents Rufo obtained from a whistleblower, "launched a critical race theory training program that denounces the United States as a white supremacy system and teaches White, hourly wage employees that they are guilty of white supremacy thinking and internalized racial superiority."

These findings are part of the left wanting to get away from the term woke, Marcus said, but despite the media's push to stop use of the word it will be an issue for Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections and beyond.

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"I think that especially people who are running in tighter races are going to have to address the excesses. Theyre going to have to find a middle ground," he said. "If the Democrats dont find a way to address this and reel it back in a little bit, I think theyre going to be in trouble."

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What happened to woke: Liberal media blame Republicans for the term's downfall - Fox News