The Republican Party’s struggle to forge a plan to keep the government open exposes deep, intractable rifts that raise questions about its ability to govern, with GOP leaders handcuffed by party divisions and whipsawed by President Trump’s outbursts on how to proceed.

The poisonous dynamic has now pushed Washington to the brink of a partial government shutdown, which will occur after midnight Friday if a one-month spending bill fails to pass Congress.

A funding lapse would mark the first time in U.S. history that there has been a government shutdown with the furlough of federal employees when one party controlled both Congress and the White House.

“We have one real responsibility here, and that’s to keep the government funded,” said Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee. “There’s a lot of stuff we want to do or we’d like to do, but there’s one thing we must do and that’s to pass a budget and keep the government funded. And it is very frustrating that simple, basic task has become such a herculean effort.”

BURBANK, Calif. —The Overwatch League christened its inaugural season this month in largely the same ways as any professional sports league’s opening day. The very best players in the world donned uniforms representing their teams. Fans packed an arena, purchasing licensed merchandise in addition to concessions. And announcers broadcast the action for hundreds of thousands more watching at home.

The setting was consistent with a big league pro football, basketball, baseball, soccer or hockey event, but the competition here was a team-based video game, and the new league is the latest development bringing competitive gaming, familiarly known as eSports, closer to the mainstream.

The audience for eSports has surged in recent years and major investors have followed, including owners of traditional sports franchises seeking to reach a young audience traditional sports increasingly miss. Annual revenue has grown more than 40 percent over the past two years and is quickly approaching $1 billion, according to market research firm Newzoo. The International, the major tournament for the game Dota 2, featured a total prize pool of $24 million, with the tournament winners landing $10.8 million. Newzoo projects the total audience for eSports will approach 590 million worldwide by the year 2020.

Following up on JJ’s earlier post: Trump even has to brag about his height. During the campaign, he boasted that he’s 6? 3?. During the briefing on his health today, the doctor reported that he’s 6? 3?. Oh, and that he weighs 239 lbs. At those stats, Trump’s body mass index (BMI) is 29.9 which classifies him as “overweight”. The BMI that would classify him as obese? 30. Trump’s driver’s license says that he’s 6? 2?. I actually met him about 10 years ago during a pro-am golf tournament, and I can assure you he’s not 6? 3? and would be on his toes to be 6? 2?.



It gets better. It gets a lot better. Jeb Bush actually IS 6? 3?. Here’s a picture of Jeb and Trump side by side at one of the debates:

Washington (CNN)The special counsel investigation led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller would be able to continue, even if the federal government shuts down over an impasse on the budget.

A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed to CNN that employees in the special counsel office are considered exempt from furlough and "would continue their operations in the case of a lapse in appropriations."

The shutdown looms for Friday at midnight as congressional and Trump administration negotiators grapple with an agreement to continue funding the government, and some Democrats mull how to force a plan to protect recipients of the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program.

Should Congress and the White House fail to achieve a spending agreement, much of the government will shut down, and federal operations will lapse until a spending plan is passed. During the lapse in funding, however, all employees whose work is not funded by the regular appropriations process are "exempt" from the mandatory furlough that other federal employees have during a shutdown.

Any objective observer who is at all familiar with poll numbers would see Munro’s article for what it is. Then there’s Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade.

On Tuesday morning’s “Fox and Friends,” the hosts were discussing a survey showing that most 2017 coverage of Trump’s presidency was negative. Kilmeade interjected with some good news.

“Believe it or not,” he said, “through all this negative coverage, they did a survey of 600,000 people about how black America views this president. His numbers have actually doubled in approval. It’s still low, it’s around 25 percent, but it’s doubled since the election.”

Okay. So. First of all, they didn’t do a survey of 600,000 black Americans. Second of all, Kilmeade clearly thinks that saying “600,000” adds heft to the results, which, as we noted above, it doesn’t. Third, Trump’s approval numbers haven’t doubled, for the reasons above — and then some.

Approval numbers necessarily start only when a president takes office; after all, how are you going to evaluate the job performance of someone who doesn’t yet hold a job? Gallup has asked Americans their views of Trump’s job as president since his first week in office, allowing us to compare approval ratings among black Americans from the earliest point to the most recently available ratings (through the end of 2017).

Trump’s approval among black Americans fell nine points from January to December. Rather than doubling, his approval rating among those Americans was actually more than cut in half, dropping from 15 percent to 6 percent.

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Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina reportedly settled a veteran discrimination and retaliation claim from a former aide for $150,000 in taxpayer funds, according to a Washington Post report published Friday.

The confidential settlement was identified in an Office of Compliance report released on Friday. The Post said it was able to link a mention about the settlements contained in the documents to the claims made by Bradley Podliska, the former staffer, identified by The Post.

Podliska, who was fired in 2015 from the House Benghazi committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, alleged that he was wrongfully terminated in part for his unwillingness to engage in what he believed was a partisan investigation into Hillary Clinton's time as US secretary of state. Podliska alleged that the high-profile investigation focused its attention on Clinton and the State Department after discovering she had used a private email server to conduct government business.

As part of his veteran-discrimination claim, Podliska, an Air Force Reserves officer, alleged that he was discriminated against when he took leave for his service-related obligations.