Displaying items by tag: government shutdown

The partial federal government shutdown is in its fourth week. When a Baptist pastor in Memphis, Donald Johnson, realised that people in his congregation would be affected by what the president was doing, he stepped in to help them weather an uncertain period of missed paychecks. Having found eight people on the church's database who were federal workers, he collected an offering and had the church's financial board match what was collected. He was able to raise $8,000, enough for $1,000 each.

Donald Trump is prepared to prolong the current government shutdown because the ‘humanitarian and national security crisis on the southern border’ necessitates funding a wall. This plan is popular with his fanbase, but most Americans oppose it by a 10-to-20 point margin. Trump has Republican support, but Democrats feel they have public support; so the standoff about the shutdown continues. Also, before signing an anti-human trafficking measure on 9 January, Trump said, ‘Israel put up a wall to protect them, and they don’t have a problem any more’. He seems to equate Hezbollah terrorists, Hamas, IS, and the Palestinian ‘second intifada’ attacks with a few thousand migrant families at the Mexican border. See