MoCo Hunkers Down
You hear the number 800,000 federal employees out of work, but it is a little more complicated than that. More than half of those are still going to work, even though they are not being paid for it. Note that being forced to work without pay is known, normally, as "slavery."
Lots of federal employees are not working. They are hoping their pay will be reimbursed, as it always has in past shutdowns, but there is no guarantee. A couple of weeks ago the President canceled their scheduled pay raise for 2019. And now, imagine how his base will love him when he says, "Why should they be paid for not doing anything?" They love to hate federal employees, depicted as a bunch of lazy bureaucrats burning up taxpayers' hard-earned dollars doing nothing. The President's following would be happy if he could cancel furlough back-pay.
Mortgage is due on the first, Pepco wants their share, the bank wants your car payment. You want your gas to stay on. Today is payday on the calendar but there isn't going to be any pay. The zero-dollar pay-stub is today's Internet meme.
And contractors have it the worst. In a lot of agencies contractors run all the IT, they are the programmers, editors, subject-matter experts, help desk, security, building operations and cleaning people, and they know they aren't going to be paid. This shutdown is a pure loss for most of them. Hopefully they understood the risks and put some money away when they took the gig, because they are only going to go deeper into the hole, the longer this thing drags on. I have not seen any numbers for contractors affected, so far. I don't know if anybody knows how many there are. In the past couple of decades the government has tried to save money by replacing federal employees with contractors, but I don't see the numbers out there, and they don't get mentioned in most discussions of the effects of this shutdown.
Our little county in Maryland is full of people who work for the federal government, either as federal employees or contractors. Most of us have been through this before, but this time is different. There was always a sense of process, an understanding that the two sides were going to work out an agreement and we would all get back to work and everything would be fine. You could never treat a shutdown like a vacation because, one, you never knew when they would call you back, and two, you really were not getting paid in the meantime, so you couldn't spend anything. And now three, you don't know if Trump is going to try to block pay for your furlough time. A lot of us don't have a ton of savings -- a GS job is pretty good but it's is not, let's say, the golden path to wealth. I used to say the best thing about working for the government was the stability.
So here in Montgomery County we are feeling the brunt of this foolishness. I tend to agree with those who are saying that Trump doesn't even really want a wall. He is just trying to keep the attention away from his own catastrophes. You notice the news surrounding the Mueller investigation has a lot of Russian names in it these days, and the idea that there was "no collusion" is not even mentioned any more. Trump can't do anything about the legal troubles that are about to rain down on his criminal organization, but he has always been good at manipulating the public perceptions of people who are not really paying attention. The wall, the shutdown, this will keep Mueller off the front pages. I don't think he'll make it through this term. The question now is the "President Pence" problem. Well, we'll see how tightly he is interwoven with Manafort. Maybe they'll be cellmates. I really doubt President Pelosi will pardon either of them.
Figure with contractors and other federal support, a million people are being directly hit by unemployment at this point, never mind the cascading effects of money those out-of-work people aren't spending in their communities. This is all to support the vanity of one sad man whose life of corruption unfortunately landed him in the White House. When he says he "relates" and says the federal workforce will adapt and be okay, it is clear he has no idea how widespread the damage is. His own sense of self-importance is so magnified that real people with real bills are like ants to him.
And it's not just the plight of the federal workforce -- it's also the work that they do. Right now, research projects are stopped, federal law enforcement is stripped down to a minimum, the weather models are not maintained, economic models, trade policy, the courts are running out of money, food isn't being inspected, the statistics that measure progress and decline in the population and the economy, the parks are going to hell, infrastructure maintenance, fire prevention. The federal government does a lot of things. If you have a political belief that it is too big or does too much then fine, you can vote for conservatives who will trim it down; this is not the way to do it.
[Update: Mother Jones says there are three million contractors, and that Congress is trying to arrange back pay for them. Nice.]
Lots of federal employees are not working. They are hoping their pay will be reimbursed, as it always has in past shutdowns, but there is no guarantee. A couple of weeks ago the President canceled their scheduled pay raise for 2019. And now, imagine how his base will love him when he says, "Why should they be paid for not doing anything?" They love to hate federal employees, depicted as a bunch of lazy bureaucrats burning up taxpayers' hard-earned dollars doing nothing. The President's following would be happy if he could cancel furlough back-pay.
Mortgage is due on the first, Pepco wants their share, the bank wants your car payment. You want your gas to stay on. Today is payday on the calendar but there isn't going to be any pay. The zero-dollar pay-stub is today's Internet meme.
And contractors have it the worst. In a lot of agencies contractors run all the IT, they are the programmers, editors, subject-matter experts, help desk, security, building operations and cleaning people, and they know they aren't going to be paid. This shutdown is a pure loss for most of them. Hopefully they understood the risks and put some money away when they took the gig, because they are only going to go deeper into the hole, the longer this thing drags on. I have not seen any numbers for contractors affected, so far. I don't know if anybody knows how many there are. In the past couple of decades the government has tried to save money by replacing federal employees with contractors, but I don't see the numbers out there, and they don't get mentioned in most discussions of the effects of this shutdown.
Our little county in Maryland is full of people who work for the federal government, either as federal employees or contractors. Most of us have been through this before, but this time is different. There was always a sense of process, an understanding that the two sides were going to work out an agreement and we would all get back to work and everything would be fine. You could never treat a shutdown like a vacation because, one, you never knew when they would call you back, and two, you really were not getting paid in the meantime, so you couldn't spend anything. And now three, you don't know if Trump is going to try to block pay for your furlough time. A lot of us don't have a ton of savings -- a GS job is pretty good but it's is not, let's say, the golden path to wealth. I used to say the best thing about working for the government was the stability.
So here in Montgomery County we are feeling the brunt of this foolishness. I tend to agree with those who are saying that Trump doesn't even really want a wall. He is just trying to keep the attention away from his own catastrophes. You notice the news surrounding the Mueller investigation has a lot of Russian names in it these days, and the idea that there was "no collusion" is not even mentioned any more. Trump can't do anything about the legal troubles that are about to rain down on his criminal organization, but he has always been good at manipulating the public perceptions of people who are not really paying attention. The wall, the shutdown, this will keep Mueller off the front pages. I don't think he'll make it through this term. The question now is the "President Pence" problem. Well, we'll see how tightly he is interwoven with Manafort. Maybe they'll be cellmates. I really doubt President Pelosi will pardon either of them.
Figure with contractors and other federal support, a million people are being directly hit by unemployment at this point, never mind the cascading effects of money those out-of-work people aren't spending in their communities. This is all to support the vanity of one sad man whose life of corruption unfortunately landed him in the White House. When he says he "relates" and says the federal workforce will adapt and be okay, it is clear he has no idea how widespread the damage is. His own sense of self-importance is so magnified that real people with real bills are like ants to him.
And it's not just the plight of the federal workforce -- it's also the work that they do. Right now, research projects are stopped, federal law enforcement is stripped down to a minimum, the weather models are not maintained, economic models, trade policy, the courts are running out of money, food isn't being inspected, the statistics that measure progress and decline in the population and the economy, the parks are going to hell, infrastructure maintenance, fire prevention. The federal government does a lot of things. If you have a political belief that it is too big or does too much then fine, you can vote for conservatives who will trim it down; this is not the way to do it.
[Update: Mother Jones says there are three million contractors, and that Congress is trying to arrange back pay for them. Nice.]
posted by JimK at 8:45 AM
256 Comments:
Jim, when the Dems have no power but insist on their way over an elected President who is merely determined to pursue his campaign promises on a program he was elected on. When the amount involved would be a mere 3.7 billion in a budget of trillions. When a wall has proved over 90% effective in places it's been tried, and the Dems claim to support border security. When Dems have an opportunity to fulfill a campaign promise of their own by trading this small expenditure for citizenship for Dreamers. When virtually every Dem has, in the past, supported a physical barrier on the border, and Dem Presidents have built them. When most wealthy legislators have walls around their estates. When the Washington Post, for crying out loud, says the Dems should compromise.
It's the Dems' fault.
And their motivations are completely a cynical, political strategy. Most being hurt are their loyal supporters, and they should be giving them hell. They need a new party.
btw, government workers should research some of the freebies being offered around town. Restaurants, entertainment venues, sporting events. Churches are organizing meals. If I was a g-man, I'd go grab a couple of tickets to see the Terps play Wisconsin.
Hope everyone gets back to work soon. Flood your Congressmen's office with calls. The solution is a no-brainer.
Don't worry, they'll get back pay. you're probably right that Trump wouldn't give it to them but it won't be up to him and he won't veto over something like that.
The 48-hour build-up to President Trump’s first Oval Office address to the nation was chock-full of breathless hand-wringing in the media over whether they should air the speech in the first place.
“How can we air a speech that will be full of lies and distortions?” they asked each other on endless panel shows. “Maybe we should tape-delay the address so we can contextualize his statements and provide a thorough fact-check,” they insultingly suggested.
This is the Trump era. Fact-checking has moved into the mainstream. CNN’s 22-year-old production assistants are now responsible for running lower-third graphics designed to snark the president’s remarks so their dwindling audience can feel the smugness that comes with knowing they’ve received the revealed truth thereby forgoing any need to hear alternate views or challenge a belief.
But this week, something changed. This week, the media fact-checkers jumped the shark.
Within the first minute of Mr. Trump’s address, The Washington Post posted a political argument under the “Fact-Check” heading. Given that the post is time-stamped 9:02 p.m., the Post had to have been pre-written and published to time with the speech that had yet-to-be delivered.
“There is no new crisis at the border,” the “Live Fact Check” claimed. Politico issued a similar “not a crisis” “fact-check.”
Those are not fact-checks. The idea that an elected official is lying by calling a situation he is trying to resolve a “crisis” goes well beyond fact-checking and enters the realm of making a partisan political argument. Like other regurgitations of Democrat talking points, this is certainly a legitimate form of opinion journalism, but is not even remotely a dispassionate research project to verify facts.
Furthermore, the Post fact-check contradicted an article posted in their own publication just three days earlier, in which the Post’s own journalists described the border situation as a “humanitarian crisis.”
CBS News reportedly deleted a fact check that “corrected” Mr. Trump’s assertion that 1 in 3 women are sexually assaulted during the hazardous trek from Central America to the U.S. border. CBS claimed “Between 60 percent and 80 percent of female migrants traveling through Mexico are raped along the way, Amnesty International estimates.” Their fact check actually helped the president’s argument by correcting him for under-reporting the hazards of crossing the border illegally. The fact check was deleted with no explanation.
The number of false or misleading fact checks goes on and on and I suggest you read the great work of clear-headed journalist Mollie Hemingway who has cataloged a plethora of such examples.
However, none of these biased opinion pieces disguised as public-service fact checks would signal the tipping point for the form on their own. No, the “jump the shark” moment happened this week, because even liberal journalists seem to have had enough.
The Associated Press dared to fact check a claim from the Democrats’ response that Mr. Trump was responsible for the partial government shutdown.
“Democrats put the blame for the shutdown on Trump. But it takes two to tango. Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion for his border wall is one reason for the budget impasse. The Democrats refusal to approve the money is another,” the AP accurately wrote.
Democrats on Twitter were not pleased.
The AP tweet was “ratioed” as social media denizens say. This means that despite 8,000 retweets (largely interpreted as agreement) the tweet garnered over 24,000 comments (largely interpreted as arguments and disputes with the AP’s analysis).
None other than MSNBC’s Chris Hayes chimed in with this: “The fact-checking genre is fine and useful in certain circumstances but it is *woefully* under-theorized as an undertaking, which leads it into all kinds of weird, shoddy, and dubious territory.”
We agree, Mr. Hayes. But, where have you been?
The fact checkers with their infantile “Pinocchios” and “pants on fire” judgments have long fallen into the trap of arguing opinions, contexts, stipulations and, often, outright political hackery.
Another Washington Post fact check from the president’s speech as an example. “266,000 aliens arrested in the past two years: The number is right but misleading” was the Post’s headline.
That’s the problem in a nutshell. If your fact check consists of “this is true, but ” you are no longer checking a fact. You are engaged in an argument, and therefore, you’re guilty of misleading your readers — which, we thought, was the opposite of your job description.
The campaign promise was that Mexico would pay for the wall. He had two years of Republicans running both houses of Congress, and it is silly for you or anyone to try to blame the Democrats if he didn't get everything done that he promised.
"The campaign promise was that Mexico would pay for the wall. He had two years of Republicans running both houses of Congress, and it is silly for you or anyone to try to blame the Democrats if he didn't get everything done that he promised."
You are focusing on chants at rallies. Trump made himself more available to reporters than any candidate in history and they asked him how this could happen. I remember his answer clearly: it's easy, we do much more than this in business with them.
Mexico has already paid through trade concessions, as Trump intended.
Your suggestion that he said he would only enhance border if Mexico contributed, is pretty deceptive.
The federal government shutdown has hit many federal employees and contractors very hard, spreading anxiety and leaving them without paychecks — whether they’re still working or not. For many, this is posing a real hardship, as they struggle to make their rent or mortgage payments or even put food on the table for their families.
That’s why I’m organizing a community dinner this Friday, Jan. 11, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Montgomery Blair High School cafeteria as a way for the community to support our affected neighbors.
Several musicians have agreed to provide live music at the event for free, and other neighbors are bringing meals to allow workers to have a fun night out with their families. Plus, representatives of county agencies and utilities will be there with information about how to access social services.
Many of our local restaurants — including Abyssinia, All Set, El Golfo, Fire Station 1, Ghar-e-Kabab, Kaldi’s Social House, Kefa Cafe, Kin Da, Mark’s Kitchen, McGinty’s Public House, Middle Eastern Cuisine, Pacci’s, Port-au-Prince and the TP/SS Co-Op — have already agreed to donate food and beverages for this community event to show support for our beleaguered federal workers.
And our U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen has just announced he’ll be joining us as well!
Potluck to support Federal workers and contractors
Montgomery County Councilmember Tom Hucker is hosting a community potluck & live music night to support federal employees and contractors impacted by the shutdown on Friday, January 11th from 6:30 – 9:00 pm at Blair High School Cafeteria. Please share to spread the word.
Federal workers, contractors and their families may attend for free. Other supporters & neighbors can bring a store-bought pre-packaged dish or make a contribution to a non-profit on-site. Please RSVP so that we can ensure that we have enough food and beverages for everyone.
Live music will be hosted by Joe Uehlein of the U-Liners.
Sign up at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScc1Z3nMr-TKccnYlW4rHtOjZsngPk2s6s8LXHLC4_YnwxMbg/viewform
President Donald Trump this week delivered his first televised presidential address from the Oval Office.
It was a sober address, short but touching some emotive chords, carefully based on facts and proposals -- contrary to the Democrats' meme that it would be based on fears, not facts.
Post-speech fact-checking was particularly farcical. The Washington Post said Trump's claim that ICE officers made "266,000 arrests of aliens with criminal records" in two years is accurate but "misleading" because the number includes all crimes. Huh?
Another complaint is that Trump claimed 1 in 3 women in migrant caravans is sexually assaulted. The complainer pointed to a study that says it is 80 percent of those women. Obviously, nobody knows the actual numbers; a good guess might be "a lot." But it is pretty obvious what's been happening on the southern border.
Attempted border crossings rose in 2018, as many Central Americans started arriving with children, hoping to gain entry into the United States by exploiting court-created loopholes in American asylum law. Few had legitimate claims on the political persecution or other traditional grounds for asylum; many complained of high local crime rates, for which, so far as I know, no nation has ever granted asylum.
Dems in Congress insist vehemently that a wall, which many supported a dozen years ago, will inevitably be ineffective and must be regarded as "immoral."
This first argument flies in the face of evidence. Israel's wall with the West Bank, Morocco's with Algeria, India's with Bangladesh, Hungary's with Serbia and others have reduced illegal crossings to near zero. This year, France, Iraq, Lithuania, Estonia and Norway are putting up walls. It is simply counterfactual to suggest that walls won't work, a willful subordination of facts to the politics of the day.
And why are walls immoral? Dems insists a wall to keep people out is "medieval" and "a symbol of 'us and not us.'" Well, yes -- U.S. citizens and not U.S. citizens. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith says Trump's call for the wall is rooted in "xenophobia and racism."
To say that it is impermissible or racist to distinguish between American citizens and others is to make a case for open borders. Even in the days of Ellis Island, health restrictions blocked some would-be immigrants and deterred perhaps millions of others.
Trump made the argument more gracefully, pointing out that wealthy politicians build walls, fences and gates around their property not "because they hate the people on the outside but because they love the people on the inside." A backyard fence is not a prison wall.
In his speech, Trump was careful to stress that he is seeking better technology, more personal humanitarian assistance and asylum law changes, as well as "a physical barrier." He says, "At the request of Democrats, it will be a steel barrier rather than a concrete wall."
Pelosi and Schumer insisted, without citing evidence, that a wall is "ineffective" and "unnecessary." Their party seems emotionally fixated on blocking a wall and impervious to argument, even as Trump, perhaps surprisingly, made a dignified and factual case that it's needed to "protect our country."
Government shutdowns, formerly headline news, seem less painful these days when three-quarters of government is funded.
Looks like a stalemate.
"Mortgage is due on the first, Pepco wants their share, the bank wants your car payment. You want your gas to stay on. Today is payday on the calendar but there isn't going to be any pay."
forgot to mention that, in addition to churches, businesses, and community groups providing food, those having trouble with utilities can contact the Washington Area Fuel Fund, run by the Salvation Army, for assistance
unfortunately. looks a cold snap for next week or so
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/michael-barone-a-shutdown-stalemate-as-trump-goes-factual-democrats-illogical
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/10/january-2019-when-media-fact-checkers-finally-jump/
I threatened to have them arrested when they used to throw free copies of their rag in my driveway and look at TTF's Troll now, shoveling Moonie-Rag shit here.
"His stated ambition was to rule the world and replace Christianity with his own faith, which blended elements of Christianity, Confucianism and Korean folk religions."
Disgusting.
Former Trump Organization VP Spills Beans On Donald Trump’s Awful Dealmaking Skills
“It is always someone else’s fault.”
"moonie rag crap" has no answer for the reasonable points raised
Democrats and the mainstream press accuse President Donald Trump of manufacturing a crisis at the border. The numbers tell another story.
Pelosi said Trump "must stop manufacturing a crisis."
NPR's "fact check" — like countless others — dismissed Trump's claim as false because "illegal border crossings in the most recent fiscal year (ending in September 2018) were actually lower than in either 2016 or 2014."
What they aren't telling you is border patrol agents apprehended more than 100,000 people trying to enter the country illegally in just October and November of last year. Or that that number is way up from the same two months the year before.
Nor do they mention that last year, the border patrol apprehended more than half a million people trying to get into the country illegally. And that number, too, is up from the year before.
Trump's critics certainly don't bother to mention that those figures only count illegals the border patrol caught. It does not count the ones who eluded border patrol agents and got into the country.
The Department of Homeland Security claims that about 20% of illegal border crossers make it into the country. Other studies, however, say border agents fail to apprehend as much as 50% of illegal crossers.
Even at the lower percentage, that means that 104,000 illegals made it into the country in 2018 alone.
Is that not a crisis at the border?
Pelosi and company also don't bother to mention the fact that there are already between 12 million and 22 million illegals — depending on which study you use — in the country today.
Let's put that number in perspective.
At the high end, it means that the illegal population in the U.S. is larger than the entire population of countries like Syria, Chile, the Netherlands and Ecuador. Even if the number is just 12 million, that's still more than the entire population of Sweden, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Ireland and New Zealand.
It is, in short, a massive number.
Here's more perspective. The U.S. is virtually alone in the world in having such a large share of its population in the country illegally.
An analysis by the nonpartisan ProCon.org found that in 2010 almost 4% of the U.S. population was in the country illegally. The average for 13 other countries it analyzed was just 1.3%.
In France, for example, illegals make up just 0.9% of its population. It's 0.3% in Germany, 0.8% in Spain, and 0.5% in the Netherlands.
Isn't having millions in the country illegally, with thousands joining them every day, not a crisis at the border?
Critics also complain that Trump overstated the risk of illegal immigrants committing crimes. They all point to a report from the Cato Institute, a pro-immigration libertarian think tank. Cato did a statistical analysis of census data and concluded that incarceration rates for Hispanic illegals were slightly lower than those of the native-born.
But the Center for Immigration Studies looked at federal crime statistics. It found that noncitizens accounted for more than 20% of federal convictions, even though they make up just 8.4% of the population.
"It is almost certain that a majority of noncitizens convicted of federal crimes are illegal immigrants," said Steven Camarota of the CIS.
Texas also has been monitoring crimes committed by illegals. It reports that from 2011 to 2018, it booked 186,000 illegal aliens. Police charged them with a total of 292,000 crimes. Those included 539 murders, 32,000 assaults, 3,426 sexual assaults, and almost 3,000 weapons charges.
Even if Cato is right that the crime rate among Hispanic illegals is a bit lower than for natives, that's cold comfort to victims of these crimes, which would not have happened had the border been more secure. They would likely agree with Trump about their being a crisis at the border.
Here's another problem with claims that we don't have a crisis at the border.
Past presidents all treated it like one.
In 1982, for example, President Ronald Reagan said that "The ongoing migration of persons to the United States in violation of our laws is a serious national problem detrimental to the interests of the United States."
President Bill Clinton said in his 1995 State of the Union address that "All Americans … are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country." That's why, he said, "our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders."
President George Bush, in a prime-time Oval Office speech in 2006, declared that securing the U.S. border is a basic responsibility of a sovereign nation. It is also an urgent requirement of our national security."
Bush also promised to end the practice of catch-and-release "once and for all." He said that "people will know that they'll be caught and sent home if they enter our country illegally."
President Barack Obama in 2005 declared that "we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked." And in 2014 even he admitted there was a crisis on the border — one that he did virtually nothing to fix.
Yet despite repeated promises by presidents and Congress for the past three decades, the border remains nearly as porous as ever. And catch-and-release is still alive and well. Is it any wonder so many try to cross the border illegally every month.
Isn't the failure of leaders to do what they all say is necessary to protect national security interests the very definition of a crisis at the border?
Democrats, it seems, want to label everything a crisis. We have a health care crisis. A clean water crisis. A "food desert" crisis. An infrastructure crisis. A homelessness crisis.
Democrats label just about everything a crisis. Why? Because they want to whip up public support for bigger, more expensive, more intrusive government programs.
Everything, that is, except for the very real, long-standing crisis posed by a porous border that each year lets in tens of thousands of illegals.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is considering using billions in unspent disaster relief funds earmarked for areas including hurricane-pounded Puerto Rico and Texas and more than a dozen other states to pay for President Donald Trump’s border wall as he weighs signing a national emergency declaration to get it built without Congress.
The White House has directed the Army Corps of Engineers to comb through its budget, including $13.9 billion in emergency funds that Congress earmarked last year, to see what money could be diverted to the wall as part of a declaration. That’s according to a congressional aide and administration official familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
It is the latest sign that the administration is laying the groundwork for a possible emergency order as negotiations between Trump and congressional Democrats to reopen the partially shuttered government have ground to a halt. Trump is demanding billions for his wall that Democrats won’t give him. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of federal workers are set to miss paychecks Friday.
Trump on Thursday gave his strongest public indication yet that he is leaning toward an emergency declaration as he traveled to the Texas border to continue to press his case for the wall.
Trump told reporters as he left the White House that he was still holding out hope for a deal, but that if it “doesn’t work out, probably I will do it. I would almost say definitely.”
Todd Semonite, commanding general of the Army Corps of Engineers, was traveling with Trump on Thursday. The Army Corps of Engineers directed questions to the Pentagon, which directed questions to Congress.
...Republican and Democratic lawmakers raised immediate concerns over shifting funds that have already been approved by Congress for projects in states across the nation.
Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, a top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, said he has been hearing from lawmakers in recent days concerned that Army Corps projects in their states could be canceled or postponed.
“If they drag the money out of here,” Simpson said in an interview late Thursday, “a lot of members will have problem with it.”
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the incoming chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said in an interview that rebuilding the disaster areas is “a way higher priority benefiting the American people than a wasteful wall.”
He said the Army Corps works on dams, levees and other projects across the nation and has an enormous backlog of unfunded needs. “It would be an incredible disservice to the American people and the economy” to divert the money to the border wall, he said....
Further to Good Anonymous's comment above:
That Trump would hurt millions of people needing disaster relief to salve his ego with a useless $25-30 billion wall is typical of conservatives.
United Way, one of the AFL-CIO’s national partners, supports 2-1-1, a free nationwide information and referral line that helps people find local resources they may be eligible to obtain 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The 2-1-1 line can be accessed by phone or computer. A toll-free call to 2-1-1 connects you to a community resource specialist in your area who can put you in touch with local organizations that provide critical services, including:
Supplemental food and nutrition programs;
Shelter and housing options, and utilities assistance;
Employment and education opportunities;
Services for veterans; and
Health care and mental health services.
Call 2-1-1 and speak with a live, highly trained service professional in your area from any cell phone or landline. All calls are private and confidential, and assistance is available in multiple languages.
Or visit 211.org to locate organizations in your community that provide support and assistance to working families in their time of need.
To find a local United Way in your community and learn about potential additional resources, visit unitedway.org/find-your-united-way.
And if you know of a worker impacted by the shutdown, please share this with them as well.
WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - The Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted on Friday to restore funding for federal agencies that have been shut down by a fight with President Donald Trump over border wall funding, as some 800,000 government workers, from tax collectors to FBI agents, missed their first paycheck.
But a full resumption of government operations did not appear in sight because Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has said he will not bring the House bill up for a vote. Republicans who control the Senate have so far stood with Trump and insisted that any spending bills include money for his wall.
The House bill would restore funding for the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, two of the agencies that have been without funding since Dec. 22 amid the standoff over the proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The bill provides $35.9 billion in discretionary funding, $6 billion above Trump's budget request and $601 million above the fiscal year 2018 enacted level...
The House also passed a bill by a bipartisan vote of 411-7 that would provide back pay to federal workers once the shutdown ends. That legislation, which has already been passed by the Senate, now heads to Trump's desk to be signed into law.
Separately, Senator Rob Portman and eight other Republican senators introduced legislation that would permanently outlaw the closing of government operations during budget fights, underscoring the growing frustration in Washington.
During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly pledged that Mexico would pay for the wall, which he says is needed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs. But the Mexican government has refused and Trump is now demanding that Congress provide $5.7 billion in U.S. taxpayer funding for the wall.
Democrats in Congress call the wall an ineffective, outdated answer to a complex problem.
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/01/11/us-house-passes-bill-to-reopen-some-agencies-shut-down-in-wall-fight/23640623/
oh, if Dems in Congress would pass an appropriation to replace the disaster funds that Trump is using, the Senate will pass it right away and Trump will sign it
this is a way for them to indirectly pay for the wall and save face on their ridiculous position
but there's a reason it's unspent
it's unneeded
so when Priya says, "Trump would hurt millions of people needing disaster relief", it's just another of the lies Priya is known for
right now, the crisis at the border is a disaster
over the last 50 years, Congress has ceded authority to the President to reallocate money in emergencies that the PRESIDENT DETERMINES TO BE EMERGENCIES so Trump has the power to do this
Congress could theoretically take the power back but Dems don't control Congress
as a matter of fact, Dems don't have the power to do much of anything other than impede and obstruct progress
if you think that will endear them to voters in 2020, you're loco
twisted, shooby-dooby, crazy
After I spanked them for their immorality in this thread and this thread Wyatt/Regina have been quite mad at me.
Having a mind like a steel trap, I picked up on what I'm sure slipped by everyone else - Wyatt/Regina really like the current supreme court. They like it because Republicans, despite rarely controlling the presidency over the last four decades by winning the popular the popular vote, have appointed almost all supreme court justices in the same time. They like it because the American public has overwhelmingly rejected their sadistic desire to treat gays unfairly and Republicans like them have subverted democracy to force their radical desire to hurt innocent gays on all of American society.
Wyatt/Regina seek to maximize societal punishment of innocent gays because this gives them a giddy feeling of being morally superior to people who harm no one. Typical of social conservatives, they believe they are entitled to superiority over anyone not in their tribe and sadistically enjoy that unjust power. Its obvious that hurting gays is their highest priority goal for society while they describe me as a "mental case" because I seek to maximize their happiness as well as mine.
Priya, I don't think you're going to get any takers for this debate you seem to be trying to have
looks like you've given up and will just have it with yourself
still, it might amuse everyone if you'd give us your definition of the word "happiness"
okay......GO!
we're timing you
Wyatt/Regina really wants us to know that they love the U.S. Supreme court being filled with christian sharia law loving right wing extremists appointed only due to the corruption of Republicans seeking to fill their lust for power despite lacking any democratic support for their agenda.
Because nothing is more important to them than maximizing the pain society inflicts on innocent LGBT people, to hell with what the vast majority of society wants. That the minority is controlling the majority by perverting democracy thrills them because "owning libtards".
They stood with Trump as he demonized undocumented immigrants, and got clobbered for it. They're doing it again—and will get clobbered again.
Ahead of last year’s midterms, President Trump telegraphed his electoral strategy. “Hard to believe that with thousands of people from South of the Border, walking unimpeded toward our country in the form of large Caravans, that the Democrats won’t approve legislation that will allow laws for the protection of our country,” he tweeted in mid-October. “Great Midterm issue for Republicans!” To that end, he held rallies across the country, fomenting fear with racist claims about a migrant caravan that was largely made up of families fleeing violence in Central America. Trump also tweeted a veiled warning to his party: “Republicans must make the horrendous, weak and outdated immigration laws, and the Border, a part of the Midterms!”
They got the message. As the Times reported less than a week after that tweet, “Trump has not been alone in seeking to divide the electorate along racial lines this fall: As the congressional elections have approached, a number of Republican candidates and political committees have delivered messages plainly aimed at stoking cultural anxiety among white voters and even appealing to overt racism.”
The strategy failed spectacularly. The party’s anti-immigrant rhetoric may have motivated the GOP base, but not as much as it motivated Democrats and independents. The Republicans got shellacked, losing 40 seats in the House in the worst midterm defeat in history. The results can be read as nothing short of repudiation of Trump’s immigration policies.
And yet, here we are today: The Republicans have let Trump lead the country into what will soon be its longest-ever government shutdown, all over an immigration policy that voters roundly rejected last November. The party’s leaders, notably Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, could break this impasse by joining with Democrats to pass a veto-proof funding bill. Instead, they continue to stick by the president, as they have done—to their increasing detriment—since he became the party’s nominee in 2016. They paid a price for doing so last year, but refuse to learn their lesson.
bye bye!
Thanks to the immoral behaviour of Republicans over the decades they've redefined the word "conservative" to mean "A person how hates gays, nature, and democracy and seeks to destroy them.
Washington, DC, January 11, 2019 – The ongoing partial government shutdown, which is en route to being the longest shutdown in history, is looming large in the minds of Americans. Ipsos’ latest poll with NPR shows that three out of four Americans (74%) believe that the government shutdown is embarrassing for the country. Even though Democrats (87%) feel more strongly about this than Republicans (58%), a majority in both parties agree. Most Americans also believe that Congress should pass a bill to re-open the government now while budget talks continue (71%), once again with majority support coming from both Democrats (86%) and Republicans (56%).
Americans also believe that the gap in federal funding caused by the shutdown has unfairly impacted federal workers, who they believe should get back pay for the time they worked (83%). While this sentiment receives bipartisan support (with 90% of Democrats and 77% of Republicans who agree), almost half of Republicans believe that federal workers should work without pay during the shutdown to keep government services running (46%). A much smaller portion of Democrats agree (27%).
Trump’s speech did little to restore faith in the American people, as only one in ten thought it brought the country closer to ending the shutdown (10%). Much of the general frustration surrounding the situation also comes down to the belief that the government in Washington is not doing enough work across the aisle to end the shutdown. Democrats believe that the Trump administration is doing too little to work with Congressional Democrats (78%), while Republicans believe that Congressional Democrats are doing too little to work with Trump (76%).
Current sentiments toward the government in Washington in general are negative, with three-fourths reporting that they feel ‘frustrated’ or ‘angry’ toward the federal government (74%). Though there is widespread agreement that the shutdown is bad for the country, when it comes to the wall, the grip of partisan politics is strong. Nearly one in three Americans believe that we should keep the government closed until there is funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border (31%), a sentiment which is largely driven by Republicans (58% vs. only 14% of Democrats).
Compromise. It’s a word President Trump used several times yesterday. He is open to compromise. In this case, that means something short of the $5 billion he wants for a border wall. He’s open to taking less, perhaps in exchange for not applying the law to younger illegal immigrants. This is clearly the easiest way out of the current debacle. But it is something the Democrats, led by “No Wall” Nancy Pelosi, have said they will never support.
This is a problem. Democrats have backed themselves up against a, well, a wall. They have created a situation in which if they give even one dollar to Trump to build a wall, or fence, steel barrier, or whatever, they have lost the political fight. Pelosi, the great speaker of the House who gets things done, has left herself no leverage to get anything done. She could ask for almost anything in exchange for wall funding, but instead, she won’t budge.
Trump is channeling his inner Michael Corleone and telling Democrats that his offer is this: nothing, not even the price of the border wall, which he would appreciate Pelosi appropriating. So here we are.
We all like to knock and mock Trump’s braggadocio claims that he is the best negotiator ever. But in this case, he really has outflanked his opponents. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have painted themselves into a corner. They have said, “No funding for a wall.” They say this despite the fact that they have supported barrier funding in the past. So in essence they have given themselves no fallback position.
The Democrats have made this a zero-sum game. If Trump gets any money for the wall, he wins. That’s a really fantastic position for him. He can go on TV, whether in a controversial network roadblock or an appearance on the southern border, and say, “Hey, I’m up for a compromise.” Meanwhile, Chuck and Nancy have to slam the door shut on getting 800,000 federal employees back to work.
A president always has an advantage in a government shutdown. The executive branch speaks with a single voice, while Congress is divided between parties. Trump is clearly pointing to and offering a solution. The House Democrats aren’t. And their intransigence is highlighted by the fact that Republican members of Congress are calling them out.
The simplest and best solution to the current crises is for Democrats to give Trump a few billion dollars for the wall, get something back on minors illegally transported across the border, and then we all move on. But the new Democratic leadership has decided this can’t happen. They have drawn a line in the sand, “and across this line you will not…”
So here we are. What reason does President Trump possibly have to cave? You could point to the legitimately troubling stories of federal employees unable to pay the rent, as major networks have done, but as troubling as those stories are, can we really place the blame squarely on the one person who is open for a compromise?
Pelosi, perhaps feeling a bit bullied by leftists like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, made a grand announcement that there will be no compromise on the wall. Okay. Then what? Trump said he was willing to own the shutdown, and maybe he does, but what he took ownership of was a situation in which Democrats refuse to act. It accrues to his advantage.
If the government shutdown ends in the near future, which it well may not, it will only be because the Democrats fold on wall funding. There is no other way out. Pelosi made this a do or die situation. In all likelihood Trump will be willing to keep the government shutdown for the rest of his presidency. Is Pelosi up for that?
I tend to think she is not up. In fact, one problem Democrats face in a shutdown is that if the government gets shut down in the forest and nobody notices, does it make a sound? That is to say, maybe people will think, huh, perhaps the federal government is too big after all. And wouldn’t conservatives rejoice at that?
Pelosi will have to fold here. There is no benefit to Trump for folding, and plenty of benefit for her. She played it wrong. Fair enough: she can live to fight another day, but this time, on this fight, Trump is beating her soundly and will get his wall funding. It’s only a matter of time.
Wyatt/Regina, you asked me why it matters so much to me that conservatives like you seek to anti-democratically force gayness back into the shadows.
I posted the answer in my last post of this thread:
http://vigilance.teachthefacts.org/2018/12/drowning-accomplished.html#comments
When christian conservatives encounter people who oppose the spreading of oppressive religion, one of their favourite tactics to discredit you is to feign concern and ask "Why does this bother you so much." "Or who hurt you". They try to trick you into going on about the abuse many of us have suffered so they can make it falsely appear that it is not religion that is at fault for your pain but it is your own rare and unique situation that has caused your pain.
That way they absolve religion of responsibility for the widespread heartache it causes and make it appear as though you're just an uncommon example of someone who has been mistreated in a way they falsely imply they would never do (look at the concern they're showing you!).
Anti-gay religion harms innocent people and society as a whole by reducing their productivity. And of course, contrary to what religious conservatives will try to lead you to believe, hurting even one individual because you unjustly dislike them is hurting society because society is merely the aggregate of individuals.
You unnecessarily hurt one individual, you are hurting society as a whole. Hurting innocent gay couples in monogamous marriages hurts society.
Coal Plants Shutting Down at Record Pace
Yet another major campaign promise pounded out again again - BROKEN (thank god).
Trump promised to bring back high paying jobs in dying industries like coal, claimed he'd done so even.
Instead, more coal plants have shut down in the first two years of his administration than shut down during Obama’s entire eight years in office. And the reason is purely economic.
Trump has broken every single major campaign promise. The only one he kept was to greatly increase pollution which will kill thousands more Americans before their time and lower the life quality of millions of others - by stopping all enforcement of limits on pollution created by industry.
Research shows that not regulating pollution costs the economy several times more in real human terms than what the cost of pollution controls on industry is.
Nevertheless, this is yet another major campaign promise Trump lied about and he wouldn't be president if he had told the truth.
"who's gonna pay for the wall?"
"MEXICO!"
Trump hasn't kept a single one of his major campaign promises.
Republicans lie that he filled his promise for a middle class tax cut but in fact the trillions in the tax cut went to billionaires who have no use for it and have just taken that money out of economic circulation and into savings they'll never use.
"you asked me why it matters so much to me that conservatives like you seek to anti-democratically force gayness back into the shadows"
never asked that
your lying becomes more brazen by the day
"just taken that money out of economic circulation and into savings they'll never use"
and yet, America is booming
go figure.......
"Trump has broken every single major campaign promise"
this is another lie by Priya
Poll: 70% of Americans think Trump's government shutdown is embarassing.
It doesn't happen very often, but I screwed up and I need to eat crow now. Its actually 74%, not 70% of Americans that find Trump's shutdown embarrasing.
Sorry for misportraying reality like Wyatt/Regina do!
Tяump - increasingly embarassing the United States since globally 2008
"Poll: 70% of Americans think Trump's government shutdown is embarassing."
Wayne, someone already posted this poll here earlier
your need to draw attention to yourself is puerile
you're wasting space
come back when, and if, you have something to contribute to the discussion
Another adamant lie by Wyatt/Regina exposed
In this thread I said to Wyatt/Regina "you asked me why it matters so much to me that conservatives like you seek to anti-democratically force gayness back into the shadows"
In yet another example of their prolific dishonest SOP "I know you are, but what am I" Wyatt/Regina responded "never asked that your lying becomes more brazen by the day"
As I do whenever I catch them falsely accusing me of lying, I prove them wrong, they DID ask why their anti-gay advocacy bothers me:
Wyatt/Regina said in this thread at January 08, 2019 11:49 PM Wyatt/Regina said "Yes, gayness is a sin why does it bother you for someone to say that when you don't believe in the very concept of sin?"
The answer is at the end of the above thread.
That they consider themselves morally superior to gays is an obvious, fair, and accurate paraphrasing of every anti-gay thing they've posted here over the decades. It is also a fair and accurate paraphrasing to say they asked me why it bothers me that they're trying to undemocratically force gays into the shadows". I don't have the exact quote but they have certainly said something to the effect of "homosexuality should happen in the shadows".
Examples of them accusing others of their own worst actions (lying) are neverending and when the obviousness of their lies is shown they just childishly repeat the lie.
It reminds me of the shameful confirmation hearing performance by unjustly appointed Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh - very angry repeated denials. As an experienced prosecutor said "The innocent people don't make a big deal about their denial of wrongdoing, its the guilty who make this over the top indignant display of denial. They're trying to compensate for the fact that they have nothing that points to their innocence.
Clearly, what I write is very important to me. That's why you regularly see posts I've deleted.
And its just as clear from this thread alone, Wyatt/Regina couldn't care less about what they write or being exposed as blatant liars. They're only to antagonize gay supportive liberals and to increase society's desire to hurt innocent LGBT people.
Wyatt/Regina are just trolls,andresearch shows internet trolls are sadists
I really want to make the world a better place, they don't.
Clearly, whenever Wyatt/Regina scream "I never said...!" they almost always did.
The world's oceans have heated up 40% faster than was predicted five years ago.
Don't buy lying Wyatt/Regina's dishonest cut and pasts that encourage you to waste your time thinking about some geographically isolated short term evidence that goes against the overwhelming majority of evidence showing the earth is warming.
We've got a global climate warming crisis that threatens to destroy the planet and Wyatt/Regina want society to focus on destroying harmless LGBT people
Global climate warming is an existential threat.
My greatest fear with Trump is that Putin, Turkey, Saudi Arabia,China, and all the other world's dictators rule Trump with an iron fist. They've gotten him to destroy the trust in other NATO members that the U.S. will uphold its agreement to be united in defending an attack on any NATO member. Trump has taken obscure positions on issues that are largely unknown in the U.S. but of great importance to Vladimir Putin - for the grossly ignorant Trump to be aware of these obscure Russian issues shows Putin is feeding Trump these Russian policy concerns about U.S. actions and Trump has promoted the Russian position on them.
My fear is that now they have total control over Trump, Trump has shaken confidence in the mutual self defence committment of NATO, and dictators around the world are united, Putin and his backslapping pal in Saudi Arabia attack a weak NATO member, every other NATO member is afraid to respond without the backing of the U.S. army and one by one Putin and the the other religious extremists take over the world without any real opposition from a divided NATO.
And if Russia decides it wants to take over the U.S. through its puppet Trump, I certainly wouldn't count on American evangelicals to in any way oppose that. They love the new dictatorial christian Russia since Putin has crushed its democracy. American religious conservatives gleefully helped Russia draft its law taking away the right to free speech from LGBT people. You certainly can't count on them not to assist Putin and the other religious dictators from taking over the world.
Maybe that's what American religious conservatives want - the jackboot of theocracy on the throats of all the liberals they don't like. You gotta wonder why religious conservatives like Wyatt/Regina ashamed to say what their highest priority goal for society is.
Wyatt/Regina have accused me of lying hundreds of times.
And yet they never seem to be able to provide a thread link and date-time stamp to a quote that proves it.
It is a fair and accurate paraphrasing of Wyatt/Regina's posts here over the decades that they consider themselves morally superior to gays.
People who don't hate gays don't make jokes about violence like swirlies coming to them.
When you make a "joke" about bad things happening to someone you have had friction with, that is a revelation of an inner desire to hurt that person (or group). It is veiled as "humour" but make no mistake about it, those "jokes" are made out of animus.
well, I think it's pretty clear we have a deranged individual here
I really am dense, and this time I mean it sincerely. When Wyatt/Regina posted in the previous thread "Yes, gayness is a sin..." I should have recognized the olive branch in the word choice and given them credit for making a step I never thought I'd see them make.
Or maybe I did recognize it as such, but I wanted to show them that after decades of verbal abuse to LGBTs from them, we're a long way from friends yet.
At least I think it was an olive branch, lol
So, yeah, thanks for that, Wyatt/Regina, sincerely.
The partial government shutdown is the left’s chance to get a deal on DACA as the president has made clear he’s willing to make a deal in exchange for a barrier or wall along the southern border.
But partisan Democrats are so blinded by their unbridled quest to regain control of the West Wing come 2020 that they’re willing to throw an estimated 11 million “Dreamers” under the bus — when they could be obtaining amnesty for them.
That’s a gargantuan missed opportunity that will bleed support from the Hispanic community, no doubt.
Then there’s the fact that the Democratic Party, including its leadership, widely supported and voted for billions of dollars for border security — including hundreds of miles of fencing currently in place — over the past two decades, but now since Trump’s involved they refuse to work in a bipartisan manner and support both a barrier wall and additional common sense measures.
That’s not leadership.
And of course I am in no way agreeing with Wyatt/Regina that gayness is a sin/wrongdoing.
That's just not the way they usually phrase it.
It'd take a long, long consistent string of things done right before I'd ever trust someone who consistently abused me.
So, lest anyone get the wrong impression, it hasn't been all bad with Wyatt/Regina here, just 99.9% bad - a recent drop in the amount of bad.
If any new readers doubt my characterization of Wyatt/Regina's decades of posts as portraying themselves as morally superior to gays and seeking to promote harm against LGBT people for their own enjoyment, I encourage you to spend a bit of time looking through the Teach The Facts older threads and see for yourself.
Operation Rotten Orange.
New York Times publishes that the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation into whether Trump was working for the Russians because they were so concerned with his firing of Comey and saying it was due to the Russia investigation.
Christians think they're being magnanimous when they say they don't consider gayness a worse sin than any other, they are in fact being very insulting. In fact its an arrogant and ignorant display of privilege - gayness is not morally equivalent to either murder or lying.
They ask why we care if they promote the idea that their god opposes gayness if we don't believe their god exists.
Because it is a lie to say gayness is a sin/wrongdoing.
And spreading that idea encourages unjust maltreatment of harmless gays - like denying them the same right to marry their love that everyone else has.
So, yeah, don't expect a pat on the back when you say "I'm a sinner just like gays".
any Led Zep fans out there?
I was just thinking about that great track from II, Ramble On
those were the days, my friend
One remarkable feature of the debate over the situation on the U.S.-Mexico border is how little some commentators seem to know about what the Trump administration is doing. Pundits regularly get facts wrong. Talking heads engage in passionate arguments over dubious premises. Confusion reigns.
Much of the blame goes to the commentators themselves, who do not appear to have tried very hard to find out what is going on. But some blame also goes to the administration, starting with President Trump himself, which has often been unclear about its plans. So here, in the interest of clarity, is what officials say is happening:
First, the Department of Homeland Security says there is currently some sort of barrier on 654 miles of the 1,954-mile border. Some of it is high-quality fencing that greatly discourages illegal crossing. But some of it is so old and dilapidated that it is not really a barrier at all. Some is fencing designed to stop vehicles but allow pedestrians to walk right through.
For almost all of its proposed construction, the administration has settled on a steel bollard design, or what the president has called "steel slats." It is a hybrid of a fence and a wall, and either word could reasonably be used to describe it. But since Democrats object so strongly to the word "wall," Trump has taken to calling it a barrier.
Homeland Security says it has already finished erecting about 35 miles of the barrier and is on track to increase that to 40 in the next few months. About two miles have been put in place at the El Centro Sector in California. (DHS divides the border into nine sectors, and that is how it cites the locations of new barriers.) Another 20 miles has been finished in the El Paso Sector in New Mexico. Fourteen more miles in the San Diego Sector in California are set for completion in May, with another four miles in El Paso slated for completion later this year.
Then, there are another 75 miles that DHS says are under contract or for which the contract and design process is underway. Those areas cover parts of San Diego, El Centro, the Yuma Sector in Arizona, and the Rio Grande Valley Sector in Texas.
Put it all together, and that is about 115 miles. It is all being done, according to DHS, with money that was available in fiscal year 2017 and 2018 appropriations.
All of that work replaces and upgrades existing fencing. It's the kind of work that in an earlier era might have been entirely uncontroversial.
The current fight between Trump and Democrats in Congress is over money for next year — $5 billion to build more barriers. If the administration were to actually get the $5 billion, officials say, it would allow DHS to build up to 215 additional miles of barrier, with about 65 miles being replacement barrier and 150 miles being new construction in areas that currently have no barriers at all.
The department has already announced where the barriers would go. There would be five miles in the San Diego Sector, 14 miles in the El Centro Sector, 27 miles in the Yuma Sector, nine miles in the El Paso Sector, 55 miles in the Laredo Sector in Texas, and 104 miles in the Rio Grande Valley Sector in Texas.
In all, counting work that is done, being done, and planned, the administration would build 330 miles of new barrier, 150 in areas with no barrier today.
All of it is a project that, in a less crazy time, might be the subject of bipartisan approval. Indeed, as the White House is fond of pointing out, bipartisan majorities in Congress voted in favor of an extensive border barrier back in 2006.
Politics aside, the bottom line is that even the relatively short lengths of barrier the Trump administration is building will do good. Just look at some of the fencing made from rusted steel helicopter landing mats from the Vietnam era. The administration is replacing it with imposing barriers that will discourage illegal crossings. That's a net plus.
And there is no doubt such barriers work. In San Diego, for example, a barrier has made a tremendous difference. "In the 1980s, migrants overran the border and the Border Patrol," the San Diego Union-Tribune reported in 2017. "Thousands gathered nightly on a small slice of the border ... there, men, women, and children waited for nightfall before making their passage." In 1986, agents apprehended an astonishing 629,656 illegal immigrants in the San Diego area.
When U.S. officials constructed one barrier, and then another, that number fell dramatically; by 2015, apprehensions fell below 30,000.
Now, the flow of migrants presents a new and different problem. While smaller than several years ago, it is largely made up of families and unaccompanied children who have no valid claim to asylum but who cannot, by U.S. law, be returned to their home countries. As long as those migrants can freely cross the border, they can stay in the United States — a situation that will attract more and more illegal immigration.
The president's proposal, which in addition to a barrier contains provisions for more immigration judges, more Border Patrol agents, more detention beds, more medical resources, and more technology, would improve the situation. If the political debate were not being fought at such an extreme pitch, that might be obvious to all.
Remember way, way back in the old days — I’m talking December — when the Boston Globe-Democrat and New York Times were full of praise for President George H. W. Bush and his record of bipartisan compromise? When pundits on CNN and MSNBC were bemoaning the fact that more politicians weren’t willing to follow #Bush41’s example, set aside the politics and make a deal across the aisle?
“At Farewell to Bush, a Yearning for Decency, Moderation and Compromise,” was the headline in the Washington Post. “We had our differences of opinion … but we were able to work together in respectful ways,” Nancy Pelosi said of Bush.
All of Washington wondered: When did ‘compromise’ become a dirty word?
This week, apparently. Because the same Democrats decrying the divisiveness of a Washington without compromise greeted President Trump’s request for an additional $4 billion with “Not one penny!”
No counter-offer, no pot-sweetening, no nothing. In a $4.4 trillion budget, one that spends $7 million every minute, Democrats won’t cut a deal with Trump over 10 hours worth of cash?
The argument that Democrats are making now — “We can’t waste money like that!” is the biggest spit take in American politics. Since when did Democrats worry about wasting money? The Obama “Bridge to Nowhere” stimulus bucks? The pallets of cash we airlifted to Iran?
Or how about Head Start? We have mountains of research proving this preschool program doesn’t work, but we’ll still waste $10 billion on it this year.
Liberals can’t have it both ways. They can’t harp on about how our fundamental democratic institutions are weakening, and our trust on governance is failing because our leaders won’t work together, while simultaneously telling Trump (and his 60 million voters) to pound sand over his core campaign issue.
If our democracy is truly in danger, then Democrats should cut the deal. Schumer and Pelosi should say, “Look, we don’t like the Wall. We think it’s dumb. But Trump won the election and democracy means letting winners do dumb things their voters like. So go play ‘Bob the Builder’ while we solve real problems.”
That’s what #Bush41 would have done. That’s what Tip O’Neill would have done. Will Nancy Pelosi?
Hell, no. Because she thinks she’s got Trump over a barrel and, like all the other “bipartisan compromisers,” she’d rather defeat Trump than defend the fabric of our democracy
CBS poll out, and things are trending toward Trump. You can't fool Americans for long:
In a new CBS News/YouGov poll, 35 percent approve of the president's handling of the shutdown, and only 33 percent approve of the Democrats, while the rest are unsure.
Just a few things to remember...
The shutdown started on December 22nd, when congress was controlled by Republicans, and IQ45 was in the Cheeto Office.
The Rumpster Fire had 2 years of Republican controlled Congress to get Mexico to pay for his wall, and not surprisingly, he failed.
And let's not forget that immigration along the southern boarder was significantly higher back in the last Bush administration than it is now. Granted, Bush II had to come up with a fake reason to start a new war in Iraq, so he probably didn't have time to come up with a fake reason for a new wall.
One should also note that Under Obama, illegal immigration from Mexico dropped from the highs it saw during Bush. Without a wall no less. If he had asked for a wall after Republicans regained congress, there is no do that the sequestration-happy Republicans would have refused him and said there was no need to build a wall and increase the deficit when immigration rates were already dropping.
Rump's immigration "crisis" was purely manufactured he him. Unfortunately, real Americans going without paycheck are paying for his latest boondoggle.
"while simultaneously telling Trump (and his 60 million voters) to pound sand over his core campaign issue."
His core campaign issue was "We are going to build a wall! And Mexico is going to pay for it!"
The selective attention span and memory of Republicans rivals that of a rabid tsetse fly.
Show me the pesos!
This is part of a conversation from this thread. I think its important for everyone to know.
Priya: "I think if you look back to cave man days and assume our basic psychology evolved to maximize our success in that environment its clear that people lived in small extended family groups and competed with other tribes. So it follows that both misogyny and tribalism are parts of human nature."
abb3w: "I'm not seeing how misogyny would be advantageous for a society in that environment."
Priya: "Animals often do things that are counterproductive to their survival for sexual attraction purposes - think a peacock's huge feathers making it harder to escape from predators. Men being generally bigger and stronger than women, in cave man days, had no grand formal society to restrain them from trying to impose their will on generally weaker and meeker females.
Having said that, harrasment and oppression of females is rife throughout animal species. Male dolphines frequently gang up on and harrass and chase a a lone female for hours in an attempt to mate with her against her will. Similarly, I speculate that in cave man days males oppressed women in order to get as much sex for themselves as they could, aided by a "bros before hoes" attitude. This made human males more successful in passing on their genes - I have no doubt that rape was a common occurrence in cave man days, just as we see it in dolphins and other primates."
abb3w: "However, most such "counterproductive" adaptations are merely detrimental to survival, but to the benefit of larger groups -- such as how the feathers of the male peacock allow it to divert attention of predators away from the (relatively inconspicuous) peahen and chicks. I'm not immmediately seeing the larger group benefit here."
Priya: "Yeah, I don't buy that peacock feathers substantially benefit the species in that way (beyond the detriment to the species of the loss of male individuals)but we can argue back and forth about that all day and never prove it one way or the other. I believe that the peacock's escape limiting tail evolved due to female sexual attraction preferences that advertise the quality of the males genes which enhances the passing on the genes of some individuals while negatively impacting the long term survival of males as a group."
Priya: "When I said "harrasment and oppression of females is rife throughout animal species", I should have been more specific in that I was thinking of mamals in general and primates in particular, with bonobos amongst man's closest relations being the one interesting exception that comes to mind. Chimpanzees are most closely related to us but there is a lot of male on female violence amongst them in contrast to the closely related bonobos. So, who are we more closely related to, bonobos or chimpanzees.
I'm certainly not suggesting that misogyny was a beneft overall to the human species in cave man days, rather that it was a benefit to male individuals passing on their genes. Survival of the fittest is about the individual surviving through whatever means (raping women for example) that helps them to pass on the individual's genes.
I don't know if you've read about this but there is a lot of conflict between what is best for females to pass on high quality genes and what is best for males to impregnate as many females as possible to spread his genes as far as possible. Due primarily to this, and the fact that bigger stronger people often abuse and dominate the weaker for personal gain (you can't dispute that this is a widespread and inherent part of human and in general, mammal nature) misogyny is a frequent part of human nature unless we recognize that as a society and actively work against it.
I believe, and I've read a lot to this effect, that the primary driving force of nature is the desire for individuals to pass on their genes. In social species this results in a complex interplay between what benefits the individual to either the benefit or the detriment of the broader species with the happy fact being that social species generally cooperate more than they fight amongst themselves and, on the whole, this enhances overall species survival.
I'm certainly not purporting that this male/female antagonism psychologically evolved through our ancestor species and cave man days is in general a unmitigated benefit to the human species back then (and certainly not now) but rather that the evolutionary imperitive to pass one's genes on has evolved men to sometimes be cruel to women to the overall detriment of the broader group's happiness, if not the survival of the species beyond the species survival utility of passing on of the genes of the individual."
I think if you look at human behavior over history, its obvious that individuals have an inherent tendency to benefit themselves to the detriment of the broader society - this is certainly inherited, not just a part of a meme distinct from our ancestral psychological tendencies. If you look at what is merely memes in human cultures you see a huge array of memes unique to individual cultures, but at least the occaisional unjust abuse of women by men is common to virtually all cultures throughout history - that suggests to me it is an inherent part of human nature.
Besides, to me if you look at the at most memes with isolated beginings that have spread from one to all or most cultures, they are ones that have a net benefit to society. As we agree, misogyny is not a net benefit to society, so it does not follow to me that it is now global meme originating in an isolated mistaken culture, not an inherent part of caveman/ancestral mammal psychology we've inherited.
Carl Sagan's "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" is my favourite book.
I call it the bible.
But of course these evolved psychological tendencies are counterproductive in our modern society, so we need mechanisms and instutitutions, and to educate young people to restrain our worst tendencies and bring out our best."
Wyatt/Regina said "Ramble On".
Right. Whatever you do, don't re-read any of what I wrote in the last 3 threads and dwell on it - you skimmed over it, you know there's nothing worthwhile in what I wrote. :)
Wyatt/Regina, I spent several years unemployed living on an acreage 40 miles from the city when I had only one fuzzy TV channel. I spent thousands of hours staring out the window at nature and the bald prairie, seething in anger over the unfairness of bigots like you. You don't do that for that long without coming to a few conclusions.
All your time studying christianity and your childhood indoctrination in it are no competition in a philosophical debate about what's best for humanity.
"Just a few things to remember...
The shutdown started on December 22nd, when congress was controlled by Republicans, and 2 years of Republican controlled Congress to get Mexico to pay for his wall"
here's another thing to remember
budgets have to be passed by 60 votes in the Senate
the Grimmer Twins, Nancy and Chuck, started their obstruction of democracy long before Dems took the House
the same issue came up last year but Trump folded in order to boost military spending
McC should have used the nuclear option this time but he's too old school
"And let's not forget that immigration along the southern boarder was significantly higher back in the last Bush administration than it is now. Under Obama, illegal immigration from Mexico dropped from the highs it saw during Bush. Without a wall no less."
we have twelve million illegals, most of whom come across the southern border
hundreds of thousands more join them annually
the pace has picked up in the last few months
of course, illegal immigration dropped during the term of Obama the Worst
the economy was a disaster
who would flee here??
now that a Trump boom is occurring, illegals are flooding in again
"Unfortunately, real Americans going without paycheck are paying for his latest boondoggle."
During the Obama years, the rest of America suffered economic hardship while the DC area boomed because the government doesn't lay-off and retires early to double-dip
don't think fly-over country feels too bad
if Dems don't cave soon, America may decide they don't need that much government anyway
you'll have the Grimmer Twins to thank
"His core campaign issue was "We are going to build a wall! And Mexico is going to pay for it!"
Show me the pesos!"
dude, we essentially unilaterally renegotiated trade with Mexico and the US Treasury will be up more than 5 billion because of it
further, the new Mexican president is pro-Trump and has vowed to help stop the flood of immigrants from Latin America that ravages his country on the way here
Mexico is pitching in
Nothing to see here, folks, move along, move along.
Hahahahahahahahaha!
Trying to keep society from addressing the disproportionate number of hate motivated attacks on LGBT people, Wyatt/Regina said "in any case, the perps [of an assault on a trans-woman] are being prosecuted, so what's the complaint?".
What you're willfully blind to is that LGBT people are disproportionately singled out for violence because people hate our innocent selves. That merits society doing something to change this abnormally high level of violence against LGBT people. We don't need to (as you've advocated to discourage ameliorating the abuse people like you promote) create useless legislation that further protects kids and chilren as they are already fiercely protected against violence and no one is disproportionately singling out them for violence like they do with gays.
People like you who attack innocent gays because they are gay do so to send a message to the wider gay community - "We're gonna get you! Go away!". You know, like Wyatt/Regina have been doing by regularly mentioning the christian sharia law judges Republicans appointed by suppressing democracy. The only way to stop people from disproportionately assaulting or killing gays in order to create fear in the wider gay community is with hate crimes laws. Only additional penalties for perpetrating a hate crime can send the message to society that harming innnocent people because of who they are won't be tolerated.
The holier than thou Wyatt/Regina are eager to change the subject because they don't want to talk about morality.
Who can blame them though, it wasn't going very well for them.
Funny how you never hear Wyatt/Regina opposing blacks or christians in hate crime or anti-discrimination law protections.
Oh, they make the rare statement that they oppose anti-discrimination or hate crime laws in general. But then they bury that message with nothing but hateful opposition to including gays in these laws.
Then when you paraphrase them as opposing equal treatment for gays they dishonestly claim they've never done that because once in a blue moon they pay lip service to opposing including any societal group in these laws.
This is their favourite dishonest debate tactic - they excuse grossly mischaracterizing their opponents and their own past positions by pointing to grossly atypical statements of theirs which are completely overshadowed by the huge volume of unjustly anti-gay comments they've made to the contrary.
"I reeeeeally like our current Supreme Court" means:
"I reeeeeally hate LGBT people"
Wyatt/Regina, don't take out your hatred for me on the LGBT community as a whole. That wouldn't be right.
The majority of American gays and lesbians are christians, after all.
At June 19,2015 1:54 PM in this thead Wyatt/bad anonymous said "Gays raising children when a biological parent is alive should be illegal. We'll add that to the bills.".
They claim they don't hate gays or treat them unfairly and here they are proposing that heterosexual parents who rejected or were unfit to raise children now being raised by a gay couple should be forced to raise that child they don't want, merely because Wyatt/Regina want to spit in the face of gays and lesbians!
Hubby's off work for a few days. In his time off he wants to watch MSNBC pretty much non-stop. I don't mind quite a bit of MSNBC, but this is a bit much. He figures so much shit has come out about Trump, and this is the only the tip of the iceburg, that Trump is almost certainly going down in a huge multifaceted explosion which will also severely damage the party that was aware of and enabled Trump corruption.
I think he's right. I'll be shocked if Trump is the Republican party's 2020 presidential nominee. It looks inevitable to me his lifetime of corruption will be exposed in detail and even Republicans will be forced to repudiate him, but it will be too late. They knew and if they didn't look the other way they were actively assisting and/or covering up the law breaking.
Hubby thinks we're watching history here, and I think he's right.
Tяump did several dozen 2016 campaign events whose central theme was:
"Build the wall!"
"And whose gonna pay for it?"
"MEXICO!"
There is no more prominent Tяump 2016 campaign promise than "Mexico will pay for it, for sure, 100%!"
And now he's cowardly trying to claim Mexico is going to pay indirectly through the new NAFTA agreement. That means Canada is indirectly paying for the wall on the Mexican border too. Tяump never campaigned on that - another lie through omission. Wyatt/Regina try to trivialize Tяump's lies and mischaracterize them as innocuous when they are dangerous, destructive, and grossly undemocratic. Wyatt/Regina have said "most people lie all the time" - trying to normalize and thus unjustly excuse their lying.
"Mexico will pay for the wall. Believe me. A hundred percent. They don't know it yet, but they're going to pay for the wall.
Wyatt/Regina think I'm a "mental case" because I seek to maximize their happiness as well as my own.
Why do they hide their highest priority goal for society?
Wyatt/Regina think the health and mental toll of decades of hypervigilance they want society to inflict on all LGBT people is funny.
That's why they "joke" about assaulting LGBT people.
"dude, we essentially unilaterally renegotiated trade with Mexico and the US Treasury will be up more than 5 billion because of it"
Keep dreamin' bud. Our treasury keeps goin' more negative every second.
In order for the Treasury to be up by $5B in tax revenues from Mexico, net sales to Mexico would have to jump up by somehow have to jump by 25 to $50B depending on how much it is taxed.
Net sales of energy to Mexico was about $1.6B in 2017 - which was a great year. But our trade deficit with them was $67B in 2018. You just don't lop off a major chunk of that kind of deficit by fiddling around the edges of NAFTA. Especially when companies here are complaining his tariffs are forcing them to cut employees.
But Math was never a strong suit for the Republicans.
I missed this false statement by Wyatt/Regina "dude, we essentially unilaterally renegotiated trade with Mexico and the US Treasury will be up more than 5 billion because of it".
The New NAFTA includes Canada, just like the old NAFTA did. If its true that Mexico is paying for the wall indirectly through NAFTA then so is Canada.
Trump never campaigned on that - Yet another Trump campaign lie.
I'm at a little bit of a loss. What language in the new NAFTA says Mexico is going to pay for Trump's useless, nature destroying wall?
Tяump said "When I said Mexico would pay for the wall...I didn't say this".
Tяump's just like Wyatt/Regina, pretending that somewhere in one of the hundreds of statements they made saying one thing, is some semantic difference no one else can see that clearly shows their real meaning was the exact opposite of what they said over and over and over.
Dick B • 7 hours ago
"This quote from today crystalizes if for me:
"It has been fairly easy for people to contemplate that Trump might be trying to cover his own tracks, but there has been a widespread block when it comes to envisioning the American president as working to cover Russia’s tracks. The FBI overcame that hurdle after the firing of Comey. Ever since, the investigation has operated on the assumption that Trump and Russia are coconspirators both before and after the fact." - by Martin Longman at Washington Monthly's Political Animal this morning.
It's a great article that I highly recommend as it sums up nicely most of the parts we already know coming to the conclusion that DT is actually working for Russia. Not that we didn't know it, but the article now puts it in black & white where, at least for me, the fog has cleared. I think I always assumed that DT was a criminal for his own behalf, but this clearly puts the treason in clear focus.
Longman closes: . . . to make the case that this is an inquiry that began as an investigation into Russia but has long sought to prove, and will prove, that the president is acting as an agent of a foreign power."
The Trump wall is a last desperate attempt to distract from the ever-growing pile of evidence Trump really is Putin's puppet.
Border Patrol Union Deletes Anti-Wall Webpage
Politico reports:
A union that represents Border Patrol agents recently deleted a webpage that said building walls and fences along the border to stop illegal immigration would be “wasting taxpayer money.”
The deleted webpage, posted in 2012, argued that border barriers don’t tackle the root causes of migration — and could potentially encourage more migrants to enter the U.S. fraudulently or overstay visas. The webpage was taken down after the union’s president endorsed the wall at a White House news briefing earlier this month.
“Walls and fences are temporary solutions that focus on the symptom (illegal immigration) rather than the problem (employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens),” the union wrote in a media FAQ.
"Keep dreamin' bud. Our treasury keeps goin' more negative every second."
well, that's been going on a while, long before Trump came around
last time it wasn't like that was when Newt Gingrich made a Contract with America and forced our sexual predator President of the nineties to balance the budget
still, our deal with Mexico is positive on balance
"In order for the Treasury to be up by $5B in tax revenues from Mexico, net sales to Mexico would have to jump up by somehow have to jump by 25 to $50B depending on how much it is taxed."
pretty ignorant statement
sign up for a course in international economics
economics was never a strong suit for liberal lunatics
With the president’s plea to the American people about the border wall behind us, only time will tell what, if anything will be done to truly secure our borders.
The debate has been contentious, our politics toxic and our cultural battle worrisome.
It should be noted, though, that many of those voices loudly condemning a border wall as cruel or ineffective have previously gone on record about our need for thorough border security.
In 2005, Barack Obama declared, “We simply cannot allow people to pour into the U.S. undocumented, undetected, unchecked, circumventing the people who are waiting patiently, diligently, lawfully to become immigrants in this country.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer knew the dangers of illegal immigration back in 2009. “People who enter the United States without our permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who enter the U.S. legally,” he said.
Even Hillary Clinton said in 2014: “I voted numerous times when I was a senator to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in and I do think you have to control your borders.”
It is obvious that for many, cynical politics are prioritized over the fundamental safety of the American people. That is political malpractice. It is immoral and we should not forget it.
We won't forget it.
Clearly Mexico is not paying for Trump's useless wall in any way, shape, or form, directly or indirectly.
"Mexico will pay for it, 100%, you can bet on it!" was the centrepiece of Trump's 2016 campaign.
There is no bigger broken Trump promise than that!
Randy, I was having a discussion with Get a Clue
you have added nothing and have again shown signs of narcissistic personality disorder
come back when, and if, you have something on topic to contribute
Matthew Dowd: "President Trump now presides over the largest deficit in our history, the longest shutdown in our history, the biggest drop in International trust of American in our history, etc. Making history as opposed to making amercia great is why this point has historic low approval."
7645 false or misleading claims since Trump took office.
Sounds like a similar rate to Wyatt/Regina. I assume they've been posting here since the beginning of this blog, they must have made tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of false or misleading statements here (like "I have never said I consider myself superior to gays (or did he say homosexuals?)!!!!!"
I didnt' count how many times they falsely accused me of lying in this thread alone, but it seemed like 30 to 50 times (maybe it was just the fake indignation that made it seem like so many). If anyone doubts who is wielding the machine gun of false accusations, just have a look back at a few older threads.
The machine gun of false accusations you've seen Wyatt/Regina spray, is another religious conservative troll tactic - keep accusing your opponent of lying. That's another way trolls like Wyatt/Regina use our honesty and good intentions against unwary liberals - they machine gun out the "You lied!" accusations and we, unlike them, are concerned about our reputations and feel compelled to factually step by step document that we didn't lie and they just ignore that and repeat the same or a similar false accusation. Their goal is to take you away from the main convincing points of your argument and get you to waste your time repeating yourself until the open-minded readers' eyes glaze over and they're not sure who lied despite the fact that it was entirely the religious conservative troll.
Trolls like Wyatt/Regina want to obscure the facts and create doubt and confusion to sidetrack liberals from doing a good job of summarizing the evidence and logic that shows we are clearly right. They could actually be paid Russian trolls, here to sew discontent and obscure and create doubt about reality. This is after all Montgomery County, a population centre right next to Washington DC and there's soooo much paid Russian troll activity in the States nowadays(Lindsey Graham is clearly being paid by Russians to implement christian sharia law). Wyatt/Regina's dedication to demonizing and antagonizing LGBT people seems a little excessive for people who aren't getting paid to do it, as does the complete lack of concern for blatantly and repeatedly showing a near total lack of integrity.
I suppose Wyatt often posts from work, so in a way he's getting paid to post anti-LGBT and anti-democracy propaganda. Who knows if they're paid by the Russians as well.
Results not resistance. That’s what I think the American public was expecting when they brought Democrats back into power in the House.
But instead, echoing Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated 2016 strategy, the Democratic leaders so far have fully planted a flag in simply opposing legislation, funding and appointments under the theory that putting lead boots on President Trump is the best way to get him out of office, even if the country is put on pause for another two years.
This is a fundamental mistake, and just as going overboard with Spartacus moments opposing the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh backfired and strengthened the Republicans in the Senate, this strategy too is likely to throw away the best opportunity Democrats had to build a lasting majority coalition by producing the results.
Voters fundamentally support progress and compromise. They are moderate, not liberal voters. They are not dancing in the hallway with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The voters just a few days ago were asked in the monthly Harvard Harris poll if the president and Congress should compromise or stick to their principles – 66 percent of the voters said compromise. Asked a specific question about barrier funding, 51 percent said they would approve of a compromise. The polling shows that regardless of who is to blame for the shutdown, every swing voter who matters agree that “compromise” should be the rule of the day – the one word the Democrats left out of their televised response.
The idea that a few billion dollars for more walls, fences and border security rises to a moral level is overdone, especially since the Democrats supported nearly 600 miles of barriers across California not long ago. This is about politics, not policy. About the partisan bases, not the swing voters. And everybody knows it.
The Democrats should – and still can – get their shopping cart out and fill it with things they want like DACA work permits and turn this lose/lose stalemate into a win/win. Trump may preen, but the Democrats will be the real winners if they are seen as the ones who break the log jams and move the country forward.
The public wants immigration, infrastructure and health care fixed. It’s the people’s top priorities. With their partial win, Democrats are now in a strong position to negotiate good deals consistent with Democratic priorities. The immigration compromise has been sitting on the table now for years and there are millions of immigrants here who would benefit from a trade-off between more border security and work permits and a path to citizenship. Making them wait another two years in limbo is unthinkable.
The Democrats ran on a healthcare agenda and yet they have yet to produce a plan. The status quo is a win for no one, and yet Democrats so far are putting forward all sorts of campaign finance legislation, not health care fixes before the House. I’m confused – Did they run on campaign finance or health care?
Infrastructure, like justice reform, should be low hanging fruit for the Democrats and there is near unanimous agreement among the voters that we need another round of capital spending spurred by the government to make our country competitive.
Trump is not the obstacle to getting these things done. The obstacle is the idea that it’s better to throw up resistance to cripple the presidency than to get things done. The obstacle is the politics of “no” seems more advantageous than the politics of “yes but.”
We are going to have divided government for the foreseeable future, and such thinking is short-sighted and ultimately counterproductive. Democrats already gained in the midterm all the voters they need to win in 2020 opening up a 7 point lead – the trick is to keep them. These swing voters will reward the doers, and they will ultimately penalize the stallers.
Rather than being overshadowed by the Ocasio-Cortez show, the Democrats have an opportunity to realign the mainstream suburbs here on a longer-term basis if they become the party of action and fair compromise. They can be the ones who point fingers and fight over who caused the shutdown or they can be the leaders who stepped up, were bigger and ended it for the good of the country. The choice should be an easy one.
I can always tell when Wyatt/Regina are really angry with me, they start calling me "Randy", lol!
"It is obvious that for many, cynical politics are prioritized over the fundamental safety of the American people. That is political malpractice. It is immoral and we should not forget it.
We won't forget it."
The Dems have voted for billions in increased border security over the years. You can try and pretend that they didn't but the facts are out there.
Everybody knew there was no way Rumpster Fire could actually get the Mexicans to pay for his wall back when he was still candidate Rump. That's just not how international politics have EVER worked.
Now Republicans expect Dems to roll over and fulfill his grandiose fantasies. Keep in mind, the first $5.7B is just the down payment. It will take billions more to "finish", keep it maintained, and properly manned.
If Rump was half the deal maker he believes he is, he would have gotten it passed during the time when Rs controlled both houses of congress. After all, Obama managed to get the ACA through when his party controlled congress, and Republicans did everything possible to thwart him.
There is absolutely no reason for Dems to capitulate to Rs now after they spent 6 years thwarting every democrat plan and judge they possibly could. Rs will only continue to behave that way until they get a taste of their own medicine; and probably won't even change their ways after that lesson.
If Obama had threatened to call a "national emergency" (like Rump has) to get his way with congress, right wingers would be going absolutely ballistic about how much of a dictator he had become.
And just a couple of weeks ago it was Rump himself claiming that he would shut down the govt and you could blame him for it.
Guess what. People are blaming him. Give him credit where it's due.
The Shart of the Deal
The popular vote losing pussy grabber has always advanced the fiction that he is the greatest deal maker who has every lived.
So, why hasn't the "ultimate" deal-maker been able to make a deal on his useless wall????
The truth is Mango Mussolini never was much of a deal maker and has been utterly unable to make any deals as president.
It's kinda convenient that the government, including much of the FBI and the DOJ have to stop what they're doing just as a bunch of info comes out about the Mueller investigation.
I'm sure that's just purely a coincidence though! XD
Trump totally failed to manage the crisis in Puerto Rico after the massive hurricane that devastated the area. Things are still in a terrible state for a large percentage of the population and now Trump wants to take funds Puerto Rico desperately needs and waste it on a useless wall solely to salve his own overgrown ego.
Trump wants to cause massive destruction to North American wildlife because he's too much of a baby to admit he never wanted or intended to build a wall, it was just a ploy to jack up the rubes.
Tяump has taken steps to keep his communications with Putin from American Intelligence. He has hours long meetings with Putin where he orders all the American media and gov't recording staff out of the room and there is no American record of what Tяump and Putin talked about.
There is a lot of evidence piling up that Tяump really is a Russian Intelligence asset. Its the only way to explain his attempts to divide NATO and implement Russian policy desires.
New: After a closed door meeting with Putin Tяump took his interpreters notes, told the linguist not to reveal what had transpired to other administration officials. Its part of a a long pattern of concealing communications with Putin.
https://twitter.com/gregpmiller/status/1084229345764392960
Newly empowered Rep Eric Swalwell (D) says "Destruction of evidence is consciousness of guilt. At this point please show me that @realDonaldTяump is not working for Russia."
The United States is looking very weak to the world right now. We could be witnessing the downfall of the United States.
GOP Global Warming Denialist slapped down but good.
"Investigation of NOAA climate scientists finds bupkis
Report puts quiet coda on wild allegations published in the Daily Mail."
"During his run as chair of the House Science Committee, recently retired Texas Congressman Lamar Smith made a habit of accusing US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists of manipulating data to exaggerate global warming.
His favorite target for both accusations and subpoenas was a 2015 paper published in the journal Science that incorporated new research to update NOAA’s global temperature dataset. The updates to the dataset made warming in the early 21st century more pronounced, and they indicated that a supposed "pause" in warming was a statistically insignificant event.
After the paper was published, the UK's Mail on Sunday and its digital sibling The Daily Mail published allegations of improper behavior at NOAA, courtesy of a “whistleblower” inside the agency. The source, John Bates, claimed that the study had been rushed through without following proper data archiving protocol and that questionable choices had exaggerated the warming trend."
"The Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday were eventually forced to publish corrections. The report’s topline conclusion is hardly a surprise: “After carefully reviewing internal NOAA email correspondence, the MITRE Committee found no evidence that the Karl Study falsified, or intentionally distorted climate data. The Karl Study data were subsequently used in multiple peer-reviewed scientific publications.”
There's another one of all those examples Wyatt/Regina has of climate scientists "faking" the data.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
"they indicated that a supposed "pause" in warming was a statistically insignificant event".
Surprise!
Lindsey Graham is *very* strongly against having the translator at the Tяump-Putin meeting ever reveal what was said.
Oh yeah, he's paid by Putin too.
I remember that over the top angry fake indignation that Lindsey put on at Kavanaugh's supreme court nominee hearing - it was so obviously a panicky attempt to derail the Republican appointed Lawyers questioning of Kavanaugh that was just getting to the party at Timmy's house.
I'll never forget lying Lindsey screaming "YOU have nothing to apologize for!" and thinking there's now way the greasy little fucker could know that.
Kavanaugh's calendar from back in the day was supposed to exonerate him, instead it was corroborating evidence of the sexual assault Dr. Blasey Ford described.
No wonder Republicans exploded in anger when their own lawyer's questions of Kavanaugh moved to this area.
National security experts say it is "without precedent", "suspicious" and "outrageous" that Tяump seized the notes of his own interpreter from the 2 hour Tяump Russia meeting.
Putin owns Tяump.
I just hope the world's dictators don't team up and start knocking off weaker western democracies now that Trump has destroyed faith among NATO members that the U.S. will adhere to its agreement for mutual defence.
"The Dems have voted for billions in increased border security over the years. You can try and pretend that they didn't but the facts are out there"
RSTAPLA, everyone has pointed out that Dems have done this
indeed, they are many miles of barriers already built, approved or advocated by Dems, that have been over 90% effective in stopping illegal immigration
that's why they are so hypocritical now as they try to block Trump from spending our gains from trade negotiations with Mexico on increased border security
people in Mexico would love it if caravans of migrants were disincentivized from traipsing across their country, causing crime and property damage
"Everybody knew there was no way Rumpster Fire could actually get the Mexicans to pay for his wall back when he was still candidate Rump. That's just not how international politics have EVER worked."
as he said, specifically, that he would get it through the trade negotiation process, which he did
but this is irrelevant
nowhere did he say we should have border security only if Mexico pays for it
a week ago, Dems were saying "of course we want border security but this wall is an ineffective way to do it"
now as evidence has emerged that walls are over 90% effective in areas where they've have been used, you aren't hearing that so much
1. Dems say they want border security
2. barriers have proved over 90% effective in providing it
3. Trump has signalled he is willing to grant amnesty to Dreamers for this funding
why Dems aren't storming Pelosi and Schumer's offices like they did to Susan Collins when she bravely approved the terrifically qualified Brett Kav to the Supreme Court is beyond me
asking this deal is in the best interest of the people who voted for them
blocking it will make 2020 a lot bleaker for the Grimmer Twins
"Keep in mind, the first $5.7B is just the down payment. It will take billions more to "finish", keep it maintained, and properly manned"
I don't think anyone's forgotten that
the Mexican trade deal doesn't expire in a year
"If Rump was half the deal maker he believes he is, he would have gotten it passed during the time when Rs controlled both houses of congress"
priceless to watch the Dems criticize Trump for not building the wall before this
truth is, illegal immigration was falling just from Trump's rhetoric last year but it rising again because of Trump economic miracle is attracting more immigrants
"There is absolutely no reason for Dems to capitulate to Rs now after they spent 6 years thwarting every democrat plan and judge they possibly could"
here's an idea: do what's right for the country rather than model yourself after what you criticize
what a bunch of lousy hypocrites
"And just a couple of weeks ago it was Rump himself claiming that he would shut down the govt and you could blame him for it.
Guess what. People are blaming him. Give him credit where it's due."
just yesterday, a poll was out that more people approve of Trump's handling of this than the Democrats
even after he said "blaame him"
ouch, that's embarrassing for Dems
"It's kinda convenient that the government, including much of the FBI and the DOJ have to stop what they're doing just as a bunch of info comes out about the Mueller investigation"
let's think this through:
what came out?
when?
when did the shutdown start?
oops, sounds like another inane commment by RSTAPLA
CNN reporter Jim Acosta confirmed no crisis existed along a walled portion of the U.S.-Mexico border during a visit Thursday.
In a video shared to Twitter, Acosta pointed to "some of the steel slats that the president's been talking about." Walking along the border in McAllen, Texas, Acosta noted that the president has warned of a national emergency at the unwalled portion of the southern border. Acosta observed that this emergency did not exist along the portion of the border that had already been secured with steel slats.
"As we're walking along here we're not saying any kind of imminent danger," he remarked, patting the border barrier with his hand as he filmed himself. "There are no migrants trying to rush towards this fence."
President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to "build the wall" and secure the border. Though the rate has decreased in recent years, hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals cross the southern border into the United States every year.
Democrats have refused to provide funding for the president's border wall, though many have voted for it as part of larger immigration bills in the past. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) jokingly offered the president one dollar for the wall and called it immoral. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), have refused to accommodate Trump's wish to build a border wall.
"He is not going to get the wall in any form," Schumer said last month.
Many Democrats, like Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.), have agreed that "enhanced fencing" would in fact help secure the border.
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, aka the Grimmer Twins, say the crisis on our southern border is manufactured
Yet, The Washington Post, no friend to the Trump Administration, disagrees. They say the situation on the southern border is “a bona fide emergency.”
Record numbers of migrant families are coming to the United States, the U.S. immigration courts have a backlog in excess of 800,000 cases and the holding cells and detention centers are at overflow capacity.
Add in the fact that scores of Americans are killed by illegal immigrants every month, the tremendous strain illegal aliens place on the nation’s social welfare system, not to mention the human trafficking, drugs and crime burdening American citizens.
Still crickets from the left.
When we do hear from Democrats, it is because they are expressing outrage over the Border Patrol taking non-lethal countermeasures to protect themselves from a migrant caravan bum rushing the border; a level of contempt we didn’t see from Democrats when former President Barack Obama was faced with a nearly identical situation and dealt with it in a similar fashion a few years earlier.
Luckily for the White House, Americans by and large are not buying what Congressional Democrats are selling when it comes to the southern border. They want strong border security. A recent survey from Morning Consult shows that 79 percent of registered voters see the situation at the southern border as a “crisis” or “problem.”
So what specifically makes this current southern border crisis different than the ones faced by President George W. Bush or Barack Obama?
It is not so much the raw number of aliens crossing illegally, but the “make up of the flow” that is different.
More migrants hail from Central America, more are coming in family units, and there are more unaccompanied minors. This shift in composition of illegal immigrant groups is key to understanding how our current asylum laws combined with various other immigration loopholes and defects allow them to specifically game the system in a way that unaccompanied adult Mexican nationals, who previously comprised the majority of illegal immigrants, cannot. In other words, once these folks (Central American migrants, family units and minors) arrive and set foot on U.S. soil, they are next to impossible to remove. This is why the Trump administration has gone to great lengths to broker a deal with Mexico to serve as a staging area for Central American migrants until their asylum claims are processed.
But until Congress has the will to change the asylum laws and to fix the other legal loopholes and defects, it would be foolish not to better secure the southern border in the meantime.
Speaker Pelosi will tell you a wall is “immoral,” and both Schumer and Pelosi will tell you they are “ineffective.”
Of course what Pelosi and Schumer won’t tell you is that the U.S. currently has more than 650 miles of physical barriers and fencing on its southern border. They also won’t tell you that several prominent Democrats including Schumer, Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden voted for it as senators in the name of better border security.
Playing asinine semantics of what constitutes a wall and claiming that physical barriers on the southern border are “ineffective” are among the most intellectually dishonest statements in recent political memory, particularly when the data suggests just the opposite.
Of course nothing is impenetrable or foolproof, but the fencing in Yuma, Arizona, is a great example of what works. Since its construction in 2005, it has yielded better than a 90 percent drop in illegal traffic. Similar numbers have been registered at other physical barriers in San Diego, El Paso, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona, since their construction.
Even former Obama Border Patrol chief Mark Morgan, who was removed by Trump, concedes that physical barriers work and that more need to be constructed to make the southern border stronger.
Contrary to the media hype, President Trump is not advocating that one continuous wall should be built on the nearly two-thousand mile U.S. southern border, but that the current barriers be extended by a few hundred more miles. He is also asking for more immigration judges, law enforcement officers, detention beds and additional border technology, among other items — common sense stuff when it comes to stronger border security.
If the Democrats were to come to the table right now and talk comprehensive immigration reform and DACA, so long as it contains additional physical barriers along the southern border, the White House has signaled a willingness to move forward on that front, provided that it enhances border security.
The White House is ready to deal. And even though federal government workers will eventually receive back pay, the White House doesn’t want to see them suffer. The questions for congressional Democrats are simple:
Do they really hate President Trump more than they love border security?
Do they care more about illegal immigrants than American citizens?
Only time will tell.
As President Donald Trump digs in his heels on the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, one prominent conservative is telling him to throw in the towel.
CNN’s S.E. Cupp unleashed a scathing rebuke of the president in her Saturday night monologue, advising him to accept that he’s not going to win his battle for border wall money.
“This is what losing looks like. Mr. President,” she said. “You’ve lost this one. You’re not getting your $5.7 billion border wall ― not from Mexico, not from Congress, and I’m willing to wager not from taxpayers, either.”
Trump’s inability to strike a deal with Democrats for the money, Cupp argued, was his focus on “too much tweeting, too much rallying, not enough governing.”
“It’s a shame, too, because when you had the opportunity, the public support, Republicans in control of Congress, Democrats against the proverbial wall, you couldn’t get it done,” she added.
“So now it’s time to accept the loss and move on to what’s next.”
Cupp then mocked the president’s tweet earlier in the day when he again claimed to be almost alone in the White House, an assertion he also made on Christmas Eve just days after the shutdown began.
Some potentially productive uses for Trump’s “me time,” Cupp joked, could be meditation, yoga or maybe even a better way to organize his goals.
“How about a vision board where you paste pictures of all the things you’d like to accomplish this year? I got you started. Here’s a picture of a wall and here’s a picture of you signing a bill into law. Put those up on your vision board.”
"here's an idea: do what's right for the country rather than model yourself after what you criticize"
Dems can do what's right for the country AND teach the Repubs a lesson. Republicans have been acting more and more like belligerent bullies ever since Newt Gingrich stormed into office. Compromise and civility took a nosedive then and has only gotten worse.
Democrats acquiescing to Republican demands and shutdowns over the years has only encouraged more of the same behavior, pushing the country further and further right, and ever deeper into the deficit-ridden fallacies of supply-side economics, steadily driving us toward a debt-driven economic collapse.
Any act of civility, i.e. compromise by Dems now only exacerbates and encourages Repubs to push more and show the Rs that if you're belligerent enough, the Ds will eventually give in.
The only chance this country has of Republicans returning to the compromising efforts our for-fathers tried designing into our constitution is if they see that there is ultimately an unpleasant cost for their recalcitrant bullying.
The Republicans will NEVER take a cue from diplomacy and compromise exercised by Democrats because they view it as a weakness and another fantastic opportunity to push forward their far right agenda.
Any change on the Republican side will have to come from within what's left of the Republican party itself. There used to be a species called "moderate Republican." Now they are routinely derided as "RINOs" and primaried out of office.
One used to hope that the moderate Republicans would wake up, get pissed off, and grab their party back from the demagogues, white nationalists, and tea baggers that were taking it over, but instead, moderate Republicans appear to have gone extinct.
We are instead left with the gun toting, bible thumping, American flag waving caricature of a once productive political party.
GoFundMe may shell out more than $20 million to reimburse donors who contributed to an Iraq War veteran’s fundraiser to build a southern border wall.
That’s because its organizer, Brian Kolfage, has suddenly changed the direction of the money, planning now to send it to his self-created nonprofit rather than the federal government.
Last moneth when his GoFundMe page was started, Kolfage vowed that “100% of your donations will go to the Trump Wall.”
“If for ANY reason we don’t reach our goal we will refund your donation,” he added.
Those statements have since been removed from the page where Kolfage announced Friday that he cannot get the money to the Trump administration.
“The federal government won’t be able to accept our donations anytime soon,” the update read.
As a replacement, the Florida vet has decided to send the donations to “We Build the Wall, Inc.,” the nonprofit he’s formed along with his board of advisers.
“Our highly experienced team is highly confident that we can complete significant segments of the wall in less time, and for far less money, than the federal government, while meeting or exceeding all required regulatory, engineering, and environmental specifications,” Kolfage wrote on his fundraising page.
However, those who’ve donated already to his GoFundMe campaign must actively opt in to sending their money to the nonprofit. If they don’t, GoFundMe will simply send their contribution back to them.
Kolfage has voiced outrage over news of the refunds, claiming at the top of his page, “The media is falsely reporting all money is being refunded and it’s over. They are WRONG.”
GoFundMe spokesman Bobby Whithorne told The Hill the refunds came about because Kolfage broke the rules by switching the destination of the money.
In his statement, Whithorne pointed out the change in statements on the page, noting that Kolfage promised to return all donors’ money if his goal wasn’t reached.
“However, that did not happen,” he said. “This means all donors will receive a refund.”
While Kolfage attempted to assure donors the campaign wasn’t a scam when it began, he’s already run into trouble online in the past.
In December, NBC News reported that Kolfage’s Facebook page, “Right Wing News,” had been taken down in a major sweep by the company as part of its initiative to rid the platform of pages run by fake accounts or those being used as “ad farms using Facebook to mislead people into thinking that they were forums for legitimate political debate.”
Last Thursday, BuzzFeed News revealed that Kolfage allegedly has a past of making money by spreading false news. One of his ventures, the outlet said, included another GoFundMe page that raised thousands of dollars for mentorship of veterans in military hospitals, but spokespeople at the facilities reportedly had no record of Kolfage’s work there or any sign he had donated the money.
Wyatt/Regina said "how did we ever get such a great Supreme Court?"
Republican crooked dealing, obviously
Republican Voter suppression
Russian collusion to win 2016 election
Decades of Republicans perverting and breaking the law.
Lying Wyatt/Regina claim they don't hate gays, but its obvious from their posts in this thread alone, they do hate gays.
"I love the supreme court" means "I really hate gays.
Not that anyone was fooled by their obviously false claim they don't hate gays and seek to harm them.
Breaking news:
Washington Post and the New York Times that the FBI early in 2017 opened a counter-intelligence investigation into whether Tяump was working on behalf of the Russians and against his own country.
They were THAT worried about the evidence they had seen that Tяump was worried for the Russians.
The FBI has kept secret about what's happened with the investigation into Tяumpgate ever since.
There's sooooo much Tяump corruption that has been revealed through Mueller court filings and that is only the tip of the iceburg of what Mueller knows!
All the people saying so could be wrong, but at this point it looks like there's no way in hell Trump can survive to be the 2020 Republican nominee
And that's a good thing for America.
Tяump has only had nice things to say about Putin and harsh criticism for long time U.S. allies.
On five ocaisions when Tяump met secretly with Putin he seized the notes of his interpreter. U.S. intelligence experts say this is unprecedented and deeply worrying.
In this thread: I said "Wyatt/Regina left out one situtation where the Uganda law called for the death penalty - if the person was a repeat "offender".
That meant if you had sex with more than one same sex partner, or more than once with the same partner they proposed putting you to death."
Wyatt/Regina responded: "yes, Robert said that too I didn't leave it out on purpose, I didn't know about it. Of course, penalties should increase with repeated offenses but the death penalty would be wrong".
In this thread: Wyatt/Regina offers unqualified praise for Peter Sprigg who seeks to criminalize gayness and deport gays:
Inthis thread: at December 11, 2013 2:10 PM Wyatt/Regina/ say they are thrilled at India recriminalizing gay sex:
And in this thread at September 22, 2011 3:10 PM Wyatt/Regina supports executing people for being gay.
"in the U.S., you can be executed for doing nothing in Iran, you have to commit a serious crime, like homosexuality"
Tяumpgate!
This is going to be bigger than watergate, we are currently watching history here, folks!
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) urged President Donald Trump to reopen the federal government for a short period to see if a deal can be reached with Democrats before declaring a national emergency over border security.
Trump has refrained from going that route, which would involve bypassing Congress to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border with unidentified Pentagon funds. The president told reporters on Friday that he wasn’t planning to make a declaration “right now” but that he would if he had to.
The idea has gotten pushback in Congress, however. Some Republicans who railed against executive overreach during President Barack Obama’s administration now fear that a future Democratic president could similarly declare a national emergency and fund projects without congressional approval.
“If today the national emergency is border security, tomorrow the national emergency might be climate change,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said this week.
Unlike most Republicans these days, Rubio has managed to show he has the ability to think ahead. And if you let the Republican president to get away with unilateral dictator-like actions, you have to expect the other team my just try and do the same.
There is a reason the founders put checks and balances into our government, and it was to save us from criminals like Rump.
And let's not forget the crooked Mitch McConnel, Senate majority leader who in a flood of lies and a Pharasean(?) facade stole a Supreme Court appointment from Obama.
Mitch McConnel could immediately end this destructive farce over the Tяump Vanity Wall by bringing back to the floor the Senate bill that the Senate had unanimously passed, pass it again, if Tяump vetos it, override his veto.
This sudden "emergency" over Tяump's vanity wall on the Mexican border is just the last desperate act of a man trying to distract from the 17 investigations closing in on him
Tяump had previously said he'd accept a deal on border security to fund the government, the Senate unanimously passed it in a bipartisan act and then Tяump started taking criticisms from Fox "News" and Rush Limbaugh reneged on his promise and suddenly there was a fake emergency at the border. The truth is despite much better technology to detect it, illegal immigration is at a 40 year low, many Mexicans have returned to Mexico because things are better there and in fact during Obama's last term there was a year or more of more illegal immigrants returning to Mexico than coming into the States.
Tяump is using the his fake border emergency to create a real humanitarian emergency on the southern border. And he's happy to hurt 800,000 government workers, some who will be forced to quit and find other jobs because he is overwhelmed by the need to protect his vanity wall and himself from the Russia investigation.
And then when the Putin Puppet is asked about all the government workers he's devastating he b.s's that they'll all easily adjust and they really support him anyway and their all Democrats and who gives a damn about democratic voters working for the government.
add to above
"and Trump laughably claims he knows how these devastated government workers feel"
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter doesn’t think that Donald Trump will get his border wall.
The government is currently in partial shutdown as the result of a showdown over funding for a border wall, affecting around 800,000 government employees. A bill that includes $5.7 billion in border wall funding does not have the votes to pass the Senate, and Trump previously rejected a bill that didn’t include funding for the wall.
In a radio interview with host Mark Simone, Coulter said, "The president and I have had a little tiff. For one thing, he actually did shut down the government—though don’t worry, he will fold in the end.”
Taking to Twitter, Trump doubled down on his desire for the wall, saying, "I remain ready and willing to work with Democrats to pass a bill that secures our borders, supports the agents and officers on the ground, and keeps America Safe. Let’s get it done! Sadly, there can be no REAL Border Security without the Wall!"
Coulter says that if Trump caves on the wall, the next president will be a Democrat.
"As President Donald Trump digs in his heels on the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, one prominent conservative is telling him to throw in the towel"
one, huh?
wow, that changes everything
As Nancy & Chuck, the Grimmer Twins, dig in their heels on the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, dozens of prominent progressives are telling them to throw in the towel and do what's best for their country and the voters who supported them
“It’s a shame, too, because when you had the opportunity, the public support, Republicans in control of Congress, Democrats against the proverbial wall, you couldn’t get it done,”
that opportunity didn't exist
budget bills require 60 votes for passage in the Senate
nice try, S.E.
"The only chance this country has of Republicans returning to the compromising efforts our for-fathers tried designing into our constitution is if they see that there is ultimately an unpleasant cost for their recalcitrant bullying."
"return"?
Trump right has offered a compromise to the Grimmer Twins and they say they won't
"GoFundMe may shell out more than $20 million to reimburse donors who contributed to an Iraq War veteran’s fundraiser to build a southern border wall."
fascinating...
so what?
"Some Republicans who railed against executive overreach during President Barack Obama’s administration now fear that a future Democratic president could similarly declare a national emergency and fund projects without congressional approval"
no problem
as soon as the wall starts getting built, Congress can rescind the past bills enacted by Dem Congresses to cede power to the executive
"There is a reason the founders put checks and balances into our government, and it was to save us from criminals like Rump."
if Trump were to build the wall using the emergency statutes, he would simply be saving time
the wall will be approved or the non-essential parts of government will never open
btw, I see Randy woke up this morning and flooded the blog with a bunch of nonsense posts
people at this blog have been very kind to Randy and this is how he repays them?
basically, ruining the blog
no one is going to make any response to these posts
Randy, my favorite female songwriter of the 20th century came from your neck of the woods
Joni Mitchell
I'm going to her 75th birthday celebration in February
one of my favorite lines by her might be helpful for you to consider:
"heart and humor and humility will lighten up your heavy load"
I don't know if a Democrat will be president in 2020, but I'm very confident, vanity wall or not, Tяump will not be.
For two years Trump has been going around parroting the often obscure policies of Russian president Vladimir Putin. While the administration has put sanctions on Russia, the WhiteHouse has dragged its heals at every step in implementing them. There is an ever growing pile of evidence Trump seeks to diminish the United States and NATO and enhance the power and wealth of dictators around the world he has never ending praise for.
And let's not forget the crooked Mitch McConnel, Senate majority leader who in a flood of lies and a Pharasean(?) facade stole a Supreme Court appointment from Obama.
Mitch McConnel could immediately end this destructive farce over the Tяump Vanity Wall by bringing back to the floor the Senate bill that the Senate had unanimously passed, pass it again, if Tяump vetos it, override his veto.
Wyatt/Regina just posted that their favourite female singer songwriter of the 20th century was Joni Mitchell.
Earlier when I was documenting their lies and immoral treatment of LGBT people they implored me not to make such "off-topic" posts.
And so we see yet again, for religious conservatives like Wyatt/Regina, the rules are for liberals, sigh...
Any long time readers of TTF know, no one has posted more off-topic posts than Wyatt/Regina. Their hypocrisy is mountainous. Anything that discusses their maltreatment of LGBT people is one of the very few posts they consider off-topic.
Polls show Americans overwhelmingly blame the Mango Mussolini for the government shutdown. After all he did say "I will be the one to shutdown the government...I will own it" and own it he does.
And then there was his performance on Fox "News" last night. Jennine Piro gives him the softball "Are you now or have you ever worked for Russia" and Trump refused to answer, instead talking about all manner of trivia including Hillary and food for two minutes.
It should have been the easiest thing in the world for Tяump to answer "No" when asked if he is working for Russia against the United States. That he wouldn't or couldn't do that is deeply worrying.
Meanwhile, the evidence mounts that Tяump is a Russian Intelligence assett. Its obvious why the FBI felt compelled to open a counter-intelligence investigation into whether Polls show Americans overwhelmingly blame the Mango Mussolini for the government shutdown. After all he did say "I will be the one to shutdown the government...I will own it" and own it he does.
And then there was his performance on Fox "News" last night. Jennine Piro gives him the softball "Are you now or have you ever worked for Russia" and Trump refused to answer, instead talking about all manner of trivia including Hillary and food for two minutes.
It should have been the easiest thing in the world for Tяump to answer "No" when asked if he is working for Russia against the United States. That he wouldn't or couldn't do that is deeply worrying.
Meanwhile, the evidence mounts that Tяump is a Russian Intelligence assett. Its no surprise that the FBI felt compelled to open an unprecedented counter intelligence investigation into whether Tяump has been co-opted by Russia.
There is much more to this than Americans have seen so far. We'll see much more over the coming months.
"if Trump were to build the wall using the emergency statutes, he would simply be saving time
the wall will be approved or the non-essential parts of government will never open"
I suspect dems will find some way to keep some impeachment hearings going. They've got a lot of plans for this year, no need to slow them down on his account!
For those acting like the partial wall cost of $5 billion is a trivial sum to flush down the toilet : Two of Obama's top priorities for all of 2016 were $1 billion for Zika precaustions and $2 billion for the opiod epidemic.
House and Senate Republicans both refused all year calling it "wasteful spending". Obviously, like Tяump they consider helping the brown Americans in Puerto Rico in desperate need "wasteful spending" too.
TEXAS: Two Men Charged With Federal Hate Crimes After Using Grindr To Lure, Beat, And Rob Gay Men
The Dallas Morning News reports:
Two men have been charged with federal hate crimes for using the Grindr app to lure at least nine gay men to a vacant Dallas apartment where they allegedly beat, robbed, threatened and humiliated them, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday. Daniel Jenkins, 19, and Michael Atkinson, 24, committed the armed assaults during the first two weeks of December 2017, according to the 15-count indictment.
The defendants remain in custody. Jenkins and Atkinson are charged with hate crimes, kidnapping, carjacking, and using a firearm during a crime of violence. The victims ranged in age from 19 to 57. Most were under 30. The alleged assaults and robberies at gunpoint took place in...
Wyatt/Regina have regularly asserted on this blog "The gays are doing just fine". They want to prevent society from doing anything to address the disproportionate violence against LGBT people. If criminals were singling out children for violence merely because they are children I'd happily support giving them additional protection under hate crime laws. But no one is singling out children or the elderly for violence, they're singling out LGBT people for violence. So, when Wyatt/Regina object to adding LGBT people to the groups protected by hate crimes and suggest giving additional protection to two of society's most loved groups, they are promoting hate and violence against LGBT people.
On Quora.com from Amy Patrick:
"I’m a licensed structural and civil engineer with a MS in structural engineering from the top program in the nation and over a decade of experience on high-performance projects, and particularly of cleaning up design disasters where the factors weren’t properly accounted for, and I’m an adjunct professor of structural analysis and design at UH-Downtown. I have previously been deposed as an expert witness in matters regarding proper construction of walls and the various factors associated therein, and my testimony has passed Daubert.
Am I a wall expert? I am. I am literally a court-accepted expert on walls.
Structurally and civil engineering-wise, the border wall is not a feasible project. Trump did not hire engineers to design the thing. He solicited bids from contractors, not engineers. This means it’s not been designed by professionals. It’s a disaster of numerous types waiting to happen.
What disasters?
Off the top of my head...
1) It will mess with our ability to drain land in flash flooding. Anything impeding the ability of water to get where it needs to go (doesn’t matter if there are holes in the wall or whatever) is going to dramatically increase the risk of flooding.
2) Messes with all kind of stuff ecologically. For all other projects, we have to do an Environmental Site Assessment, which is arduous. They’re either planning to circumvent all this, or they haven’t accounted for it yet, because that’s part of the design process, and this thing hasn’t been designed.
3) The prototypes they came up with are nearly impossible to build or don’t actually do the job. This article explains more:
https://www.google.com/…/mo...
And so on.
The estimates provided for the cost are arrived at unreasonably. You can look for yourself at the two-year-old estimate that you see everyone citing.
http://fronterasdesk.org/…/...
It does not account for rework, complexities beyond the prototype design, factors to prevent flood and environmental hazard creation, engineering redesign... It’s going to be higher than $50bn. The contractors will hit the government with near CONSTANT change orders. “Cost overrun” will be the name of the game. It will not be completed in Trump’s lifetime.
I’m a structural forensicist, which means I’m called in when things go wrong. This is a project that WILL go wrong. When projects go wrong, the original estimates are just *obliterated*. And when that happens, good luck getting it fixed, because there aren’t that many forensicists out there to right the ship, particularly not that are willing to work on a border wall project— a large quotient of us are immigrants, and besides, we can’t afford to bid on jobs that are this political. We’re small firms, and we’re already busy, and we don’t gamble our reputations on political footballs. So you’d end up with a revolving door of contractors making a giant, uncoordinated muddle of things, and it’d generally be a mess. Good money after bad. The GAO agrees with me.
And it won’t be effective. I could, right now, purchase a 32 foot extension ladder and weld a cheap custom saddle for the top of the proposed wall so that I can get over it. I don’t know who they talked to about the wall design and its efficacy, but it sure as heck wasn’t anybody with any engineering imagination.
Another thing: we are not far from the day where inexpensive drones will be able to pick up and carry someone. This will happen in the next ten years, and it’s folly to think that the coyotes who ferry people over the border won’t purchase or create them. They’re low enough, quiet enough, and small enough to quickly zip people over any wall we could build undetected with our current monitoring setup.
Let’s have border security, by all means, but let’s be smart about it. This is not smart. It’s not effective. It’s NOT cheap. The returns will be diminishing as technology advances, too. This is a ridiculous idea that will never be successfully executed and, as such, would be a monumental waste of money.
"I suspect dems will find some way to keep some impeachment hearings going. They've got a lot of plans for this year, no need to slow them down on his account!"
"some way"? haha! they've already decided they will so that and it won't endear them to voters, just as the current shutdown is not
they can impeach him any time they want to
the Constitution gives them that power
that's "some way" haha!
but the Senate will run the trial and, absent evidence, which is currently absent, he will be acquitted and voters will want to know why they wasted this time when immigration, health care, and infrastructure need to be fixed
"I am literally a court-accepted expert on walls."
oh brother
the defense or the prosecution can bring in any credentialed person who will help their case
big deal
"And it won’t be effective. I could, right now, purchase a 32 foot extension ladder and weld a cheap custom saddle for the top of the proposed wall so that I can get over it. I don’t know who they talked to about the wall design and its efficacy, but it sure as heck wasn’t anybody with any engineering imagination."
perhaps it's the people who built the walls already in place that have been over 90% effective, invariably
being an "expert", you, no doubt, already know them
Charles H Norman "It is unclear why Republicans would knowingly accept donations from such contributors , particularly after Russia's attempt to interfere with the presidenttial election was known..."
No, it isn't.
Senators Mitch Mcconnell, Marco Rubio, and lying Lindsey Graham are amongst those who benefited from Russia-linked donations.
Congress Investigates Another Trump Project In Russia
NBC News reports:
Before Donald Trump’s lawyer was pitching the Kremlin on building a Trump Tower in Moscow, the future president was negotiating to put his name on a building in a separate glitzy real estate development outside the Russian capital.
Trump’s partner in this earlier project was Aras Agalarov, an oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the same man whose promise of dirt on Hillary Clinton set in motion the infamous June 2016 meeting at the original Trump Tower in New York.
According to the above-linked report, House and Senate investigators are looking into this separate Moscow project now that Michael Cohen has admitted that he lied to Congress.
The Tяump government shutdown is his Marie Antoinette moment. He's made it clear he couldn't care less about the hardship he's causing, absurdly claiming the employees will easily adjust and they all support him. Tяump has said as far as the employees he's hammering "Let them eat cake."
Trump Hid Details Of Talks With Putin From Own Staff
The Washington Post reports:
President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.
Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. U.S. officials learned of Trump’s actions when a White House adviser and a senior State Department official sought information from the interpreter beyond a readout shared by Tillerson.
The constraints that Trump imposed are part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries.
A Republican, a factory worker, and an immigrant are sitting at a table with 20 cookies. The Republican takes 19 of them and says to the factory worker, "Look out! The immigrant is going to take your cookie!"
"A Republican, a factory worker, and an immigrant are sitting at a table with 20 cookies. The Republican takes 19 of them and says to the factory worker, "Look out! The immigrant is going to take your cookie!""
a Republican President, a Republican American-born factory worker, and a Republican legal immigrant factory worker are sitting at a table
they all brought pot luck and everyone was glad that factory jobs have risen by leaps and bounds after our most recent Democratic President said they would never do that, as those jobs steadily declined during his term
they were also glad that after the last President claimed illegal immigration was an crisis and did nothing about it, the GOP is standing up for border security
they all wonder what kind of morons vote Democratic after they promised to bring a plate of cookies and didn't show up
someone joked that maybe illegal immigrants will since that seems to be the only people Democrats care about
then, Brett showed up with the keg and the mirth flowed freely
Hey Wyatt/Regina, I see you're pretty happy about the religious conservative bias on the Supreme Court. I get that you like that they're going to tell LGBT people, liberal women, and so on how to live.
What I don't get is how this Supreme Court makes your lives better.
How does this religious conservative Supreme Court make your lives better?
USA Today "The president's attempts to hide the content of his conversations with Putin are not only abnormal, but also deeply suspect,"
All signs point the same way: Vladimir Putin has compromised Trump.
President Trump has the constitutional and legal right to invoke his emergency powers to divert funds to build a wall along the southern border without running afoul of the Constitution or the law, according to top legal analysts.
“The short answer to 'Can he do it?' is yes and 'Can he get way with it?' is probably yes, actually,” Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values, said.
“We sort of think we live in a constitutional government in which all powers have some kind of legal constraints, but the way that the emergency powers in the U.S. are written and the history of their use indicates that basically, there is not much of a constitutional constraint on the use of presidential emergency powers,” she said.
“I have the absolute right to declare a national emergency. I haven’t done it yet.” Trump told reporters. “If this doesn’t work out, probably I will do it. I would almost say definitely.”
He appears to be right. Congress gave the president the authority to declare a national emergency through the National Emergencies Act of 1976.
“Congress has given the president very broad leeway to declare national emergencies, and Congress could have — but chose not to — impose any restrictions or preconditions on declarations of emergency,” Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice, said. “Congress didn’t even define what an emergency was. The law really leaves that to the president.”
According to the Brennan Center, there are 123 statutory provisions that delegate emergency powers to the president in the time of a national emergency.
Among those laws, the Trump administration could cite at least two in justifying the use of emergency powers to build the wall and circumvent Congress, according to legal scholars.
One of the laws gives the secretary of the Army, upon the declaration of a national emergency, the authority to terminate Army civil works projects and apply those resources, including money and personnel, to “construct or assist in the construction, operation, maintenance, and repair of authorized civil works, military construction, and civil defense projects that are essential to the national defense.”
The other law allows the secretary of defense to undertake military construction projects “not otherwise authorized by law that are necessary to support such use of the armed forces.”
“The statute is so open-ended about what constitutes an emergency, how we can shift money around, and what the actual construction looks like that it’s plausible he can actually get away with it,” Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law, said. “He can thread the needle and get where he needs to go.”
Congress, Blackman said, gave the president this broad power to declare national emergencies.
Like Scheppele, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, agreed that declaring a national emergency to build the wall would not be unconstitutional, noting that Congress gave the president the authority to act unilaterally and take such action in 1976.
“There are compelling arguments against funding the entire wall demanded by Trump, although some added border barriers clearly are warranted,” Turley wrote in an op-ed Tuesday. “However, one can oppose an emergency declaration without claiming that it is facially unconstitutional. It is not.”
Harold Krent, dean of Chicago-Kent College of Law, agreed it’s “absolutely clear” Trump does have the power issue an emergency declaration to redirect funds for the wall.
“Congress thought it was very important for there to be a mechanism by which the president can use in extraordinary circumstances,” he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a motion to stop President Donald Trump's appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general.
The court turned away the request made by Barry Michaels, a criminal defendant in a federal case whose lawyers challenged Whitaker, a former federal prosecutor, being named in court papers as the acting attorney general after Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Nov. 7. The court in a brief order also declined to hear Michaels' appeal in the underlying case.
Trump has nominated William Barr, who served as attorney general under former President George H.W. Bush, to carry out Trump's agenda at the Justice Department as attorney general. The Senate is due to begin its confirmation hearing on Barr's nomination on Tuesday. Rosenstein is preparing to leave his job soon after Barr takes office, a department official said last week. Senate confirmation is expected to be a breeze!
The Justice Department has defended the legality of Whitaker's appointment, saying Trump was empowered to give him the job under a 1998 law called the Federal Vacancies Reform Act even though he was not a Senate-confirmed official.
Congressional Democrats had raised concerns Whitaker could undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible conspiracy between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Moscow. Unfortunately, they don't have any support for that on the august Supreme Court.
Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the New York Times' bombshell report on a counterintelligence investigation into President Trump's ties to Russia only strengthens the argument that the FBI has no evidence of collusion against the Trump team.
"This is yet more evidence that FBI leaders actually had no real evidence against the Trump team," Nunes said in a statement. "Instead, they were simply trying to undermine a president they didn't like and avenge Comey's firing. By relying on the Steele dossier — a fraudulent document funded by Democrats and based on Russia sources — FBI leaders were either complicit or too oblivious to notice they were being used in a disinformation operation by the Democratic Party and Russian operatives."
On Friday, the New York Times reported the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into Trump the day after he fired FBI Director James Comey in the spring of 2017. The counterintelligence inquiry was later wrapped into the FBI's broader Russia collusion investigation, which special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to lead after Comey's ouster. That inquiry is still ongoing.
When he was asked about whether he has ever worked for the Russians during an interview late Saturday, Trump said it was "the most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked."
Trump also argued on Twitter that the Times story showed "the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ James Comey, a total sleaze!"
Ohhh, the irony:
Sen. Rand Paul To Have Hernia Surgery In Canada
The Louisville Courier-Journal reports:
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, one of the fiercest political critics of socialized medicine, will travel to Canada later this month to get hernia surgery.
Paul, an ophthalmologist, said the operation is related to an injury in 2017 when his neighbor, Rene Boucher, attacked him while Paul was mowing his lawn. The incident left Kentucky’s junior senator with six broken ribs and a bruised lung.
He is scheduled to have the outpatient operation at the Shouldice Hernia Hospital in Thornhill, Ontario during the week of Jan. 21, according to documents from Paul’s civil lawsuit against Boucher filed in Warren Circuit Court.
The surgery will cost him $5000 – $8000 as a foreign national. Rand Paul has often described universal healthcare and socialized medicine as “slavery.”
Canada has the best vets.
Wyatt/Regina have been taking delight in fantasizing about how the christian sharia law Justices on the Supreme Court might harm LGBT people, liberal women, blacks, and Hispanics.
And they've failed for the 4,000th time to answer:
How does this religious conservative Supreme Court make your lives better?
The answer is it doesn't. And they won't reveal their goals because they are sadists who feel morally superior to harmless LGBT people and thinking about hurting us makes them warm in their tingly bits.
Its the evil evangelical christian agenda.
The First Amendment does NOT make christians superior to other Americans.
Poll:
Who is responsible for the government shutdown?
56% - Trump and the Republicans
36% - Democrats.
Hey Wyatt/Regina, why didn't you post a paragraph about this poll and dishonestly tell us it was the other way around (56-D, 36-R)?
Remember when you tried to deceive everyone like that that during the Oct 2013 shutdown?
The polls then showed the public blamed the Republicans. Lying Wyatt/Regina tried to trick us into believe that wasn't true. Then, they brazenly asserted they hadn't done anything immoral because they didn't lie about anything material to the news reports! Nothing is more material to reporting on the poll than who the public blamed!
But, that's been them for decades. When it isn't the machine gun full of lies they're spraying wildly in the air, its the machine gun of false accusations.
These are deceptive evil people patting themselves on the back that they're not (allegedly) gay.
The richest anti-Trump Democrat in America, owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, cheated on his wife and will have to pay her 65 billion.
The LA Rams and Chargers are paying 6 billion for a new stadium in southern California.
The State of California is paying 98 billion to build a bullet train to get people from LA to the Bay area faster.
But another 3.4 billion to make the border more secure is an immoral waste to the Dumbo Dems.
President Trump on Monday urged Democrats to "get to work now" on negotiations as a partial government shutdown enters its 24th day.
Trump, who made the comment on Twitter, wrote in a second tweet that Democrats could "end the Shutdown in 15 minutes" and claimed that they are to blame for the funding lapse, which was sparked by demands that legislation funding the government include more than $5 billion for his long-promised border wall.
"I’ve been waiting all weekend. Democrats must get to work now. Border must be secured!" he tweeted.
"Nancy and Cryin’ Chuck can end the Shutdown in 15 minutes. At this point it has become their, and the Democrats, fault!" Trump continued, referring to the Grimmer Twins, Nancy Pelosi and Senate MINORITY Leader Charles Schumer.
There have been few signs that the shutdown is nearing an end, with Trump continuing to demand wall funding and Democrats vowing not to approve any for the project.
Over the weekend, the shutdown became the longest in history, passing the previous record of a 21-day shutdown that occurred during the Clinton administration.
Wyatt/Regina won't talk to me :(
Their religious based "morality" is based on a foundation of absurdities, hypocrisy, and injustice.
Its not there fault that the christianity they blindly accepted as children doesn't have a workable moral code.
It can't beat the simplicity and elegant rationality of morality based on not doing harm to others.
Conservative S.E. Cupp Tells Trump To Give Up: 'This Is What Losing Looks Like'
As President Donald Trump digs in his heels on the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, one prominent conservative commentator is telling him to throw in the towel.
CNN’s S.E. Cupp unleashed a scathing rebuke of the president in a Saturday night monologue, advising him to accept that he’s not going to win his battle for border wall money.
“This is what losing looks like, Mr. President,” she said. “You’ve lost this one. You’re not getting your $5.7 billion border wall ― not from Mexico, not from Congress and, I’m willing to wager, not from taxpayers either.”
Trump’s inability to strike a deal with Democrats for the money, Cupp argued, stemmed from his focus on “too much tweeting, too much rallying, not enough governing.”
“So now it’s time to accept the loss and move on to what’s next.”
Cupp then mocked the president’s tweet earlier in the day when he again said he was almost alone in the White House. He had earlier tweeted he hadn't left the White House for months despite several golf trips, holidays and "work" away from the White House.
Two new blockbuster scoops about President Trump’s relations with Russia — combined with fresh signs that Trump will drag out the government shutdown indefinitely — should renew our focus on the quiet but critical role that Mitch McConnell has played in enabling the damage that Trump is doing to the country on so many fronts.
As the shutdown drags into its fourth week, causing cascading impacts around the country, The Post reports that pressure is now likely to intensify on the Senate majority leader to allow votes on measures reopening the government. Three Senate Republicans have already called for a reopening, and as one GOP strategist puts it, a few more coming out “changes the calculus” for McConnell.
Meanwhile, thanks to new reporting over the weekend, the basic question of whether Trump has at pivotal moments acted in Russia’s interests, to the detriment of U.S. interests — is being thrust to the forefront with new urgency.
This should cause us to revisit the role that McConnell played during the campaign in preventing members of Congress from showing a united public front against Russian sabotage of the election.
The New York Times reports that after Trump fired James B. Comey as FBI director, FBI officials began an investigation into whether Trump had been working for Russian interests. The concern was that, in obstructing the FBI’s inquiry, Trump might have made it harder to determine what Russia had done during the election — thus helping Russia skirt accountability for an attack on American democracy.
As the FBI general counsel at the time bluntly put it, a crucial theoretical question was whether “the president of the United States fired Jim Comey at the behest of Russia,” impairing an effort to determine the scope of a “threat to national security.”
Meanwhile, The Post reports that Trump has gone to great lengths to conceal his private discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin from even his own advisers. The result: “there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years.”
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Revisiting McConnell’s role during the campaign
One shadow narrative unfolding in the background over the past two years has been the gradual discovery of just how broad the scope of Russian sabotage of the 2016 election really was. This has made certain events during the campaign appear more serious in retrospect.
In September 2016, as The Post has reported, top Obama administration officials privately asked senior congressional leaders in both parties to go public with a united front against Russian interference. But McConnell refused, claiming (in The Post’s words) that “he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.” McConnell also questioned the intelligence demonstrating Russian sabotage.
We have since learned a great deal about the Russian interference that McConnell raised doubts about. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s indictments of Russian nationals laid out a very detailed plot to corruptly swing the election. More recently, Senate Intelligence Committee reports demonstrated the extraordinary reach of the Russian disinformation campaign, which included elaborate efforts to divide the country on racial and cultural lines.
Remember, it was widely known during the election that some sort of Russian interference efforts were taking place. Candidate Trump was downplaying the seriousness of these efforts, or dismissing them altogether.
It’s hard to know how much of a difference it would have made if congressional leaders went public with bipartisan acknowledgment and condemnation of the Russian interference effort. But it certainly could have helped educate the public and shed light on just how indefensible Trump’s downplaying of Russian sabotage really was. Of course, that might have hurt Trump’s candidacy, so for McConnell, it was apparently a nonstarter.
Now we discover that there is fresh reason to wonder just how deep Trump’s loyalties to Putin and Russia ran throughout that whole period. What we still do not know is how detailed and convincing a briefing McConnell and other officials received on what was happening. We should revisit this.
What’s more, we’re also learning that in the view of intelligence officials, Trump’s obstruction of justice efforts were potentially more damaging to the country than we thought. They concluded that by firing Comey, Trump was making it harder to learn the truth about Russian sabotage of our democracy irrespective of whether there was any collusion.
In retrospect, failure to protect Mueller looks worse
This raises new questions about another McConnell action: The refusal to hold votes on legislation protecting the special counsel. In fairness, Trump has still not moved successfully against Mueller. But McConnell scuttled efforts to protect Mueller even though Trump privately tried to fire him twice. There’s still time for Trump to act, and passing such protections — which the Democratic House would support — would plainly make any such action, and the damage it would cause, less likely.
There’s also a forward-looking dimension here. As the Lawfare podcast notes, if FBI officials opened a separate investigation into whether Trump was obstructing the probe to help Russia, it’s plausible McConnell and other congressional officials were briefed on this. That would make the failure to act to shield Mueller worse. We need to know more about this, too.
On the shutdown front, McConnell continues to refuse votes on bills reopening the government that have already passed the House. McConnell claims there’s no point, because Trump wouldn’t sign them. But this actively shields Trump from having to veto bills funding the government, which would make it much harder for him to keep holding out. Worse, McConnell privately told Trump in December he has no leverage and no endgame here, meaning McConnell knows full well that not forcing Trump’s hand leaves us adrift with no exit in sight.
Meanwhile, what happens if Trump declares a national emergency to build his wall, a nakedly autocratic act that will further damage our institutions? Under the National Emergencies Act, both chambers of Congress have the authority to reverse such a declaration. Will McConnell’s Senate take such a step, or will he allow Trump to rampage forward on this, too?
In much discussion of all these matters, there is a terrible rhetorical habit of treating GOP conduct toward Trump as mere passive acquiescence. In fact, this is better seen as an active enabling, on one front after another. And we are likely to learn much more about just how damaging this has been soon enough.
In this thread at December 21, 2012 12:32 AM I let Wyatt/Regina get away with a WHOPPER of a lie. They absurdly claimed that the Canada had a much higher murder rate that the U.S. and that the murder rate in Canada was six times what it was in a typical U.S. suburb.
Actually, the truth is the murder rate in the United States is almost 3 times that of Canada
The United States has the 83 highest rate of murder in the world and Canada is 138th. Lying Wyatt/Regina condemned Canadians as much more violent than Americans because we have twice the murder rate of Germany. Of course Wyatt/Regina dishonestly omitted the fact that American murder rate is six times as high as Germany!
Wyatt/Regina - lives of non-stop lying just like Tяump.
Canadian Health Care out performs American Health care
Canada, half the cost, longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality.
And Canada consistently ranks as a happier country overall than the United States. :)
Bullying rates among middle school students in the spring of 2017 were 18 percent higher in localities where voters had favored Donald Trump than in those that had supported Hillary Clinton, according to a study published online today in Educational Researcher, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association. Similarly, student reports of peers being teased or put down because of their race or ethnicity were 9 percent higher in localities favoring the Republican candidate.
Prior to the 2016 presidential election, there were no meaningful differences in bullying and teasing rates between Democratic and Republican localities. The study examined a Virginia statewide sample of more than 155,000 seventh- and eighth-grade students across the state's 132 school districts.
The study -- conducted by Francis Huang, an associate professor of statistics, measurement, and evaluation in education at the University of Missouri, and Dewey Cornell, a professor of education at the University of Virginia -- used school climate survey data collected in 2013, 2015, and 2017. Researchers used a standard definition of bullying to ask students if they personally had been bullied at school, but also asked more general questions about bullying and teasing they had observed happening to others in their school.
Survey results were then mapped onto presidential election results for each school district's locality. The study controlled for several locality-wide variables, including prior bullying and teasing rates, socioeconomic status, population density, and the percentage of white student enrollment.
Huang and Cornell found that a 10 percentage point increase in voters supporting the Republican candidate in 2016 was associated with a 5 percent jump in middle school teasing because of race or ethnicity and an 8-percent increase in middle school bullying.
"We found consistent differences in teasing and bullying rates that were linked to voting preferences," said Huang. "While our findings do not indicate that support for Trump caused bullying to increase in Republican districts, they do provide some credence to the widespread perception that some types of teasing and bullying have increased, at least in some localities."
The researchers noted that the findings support nationwide concerns voiced by teachers about bullying following the presidential election.
"While the ways in which the presidential election could have affected students is likely complex, educators and parents should be aware of the potential impact of public events on student behavior," said Cornell. "Parents should be mindful of how their reactions to the presidential election, or the reactions of others, could influence their children. And politicians should be mindful of the potential impact of their campaign rhetoric and behavior on their supporters and indirectly on youth."
The researchers noted that further research is needed to determine whether there is a causal link between Trump's behavior and student aggression against peers, and, if so, how the mechanism works.
"It may be that presidential behavior has indirect effects on the social environment experienced by students, but we won't know until more studies are conducted," said Huang.
"Two new blockbuster scoops about President Trump’s relations with Russia — combined with fresh signs that Trump will drag out the government shutdown indefinitely — should renew our focus on the quiet but critical role that Mitch McConnell has played in enabling the damage that Trump is doing to the country on so many fronts"
you must be a racist if you consider an economy that has produced the lowest minority unemployment ever is "damage being done to our country"
yeah, Mitch is a Republican so he is an accomplice to making America great again
guilty as charged
btw, what are these blockbuster "scoops"?
is that a new flavor of Ben and Jerry's overrated ice cream?
"As the shutdown drags into its fourth week, causing cascading impacts around the country,"
oh, could you fill us in on the details?
I haven't seen any waterfalls myself
neither have most Americans, which is a big problem for Dems
people are going to start to wonder how much government we really need
"The Post reports that pressure is now likely to intensify on the Senate majority leader"
The Post, huh?
you mean that rag put out by an adulterer who cheated on his wife and will now have to give her 65 billion in divorce proceeds?
he's got a conflict of interest, he's got an ax to grind with Trump
"Meanwhile, thanks to new reporting over the weekend, the basic question of whether Trump has at pivotal moments acted in Russia’s interests, to the detriment of U.S. interests — is being thrust to the forefront with new urgency."
that reminds of when Obama told the Russia "hey, I can be a lot more flexible after the election"
also, remember when he cancelled ABMs in Eastern Europe and got nothing from the Russians
now, that was acting in Russia’s interests, to the detriment of U.S. interests
but, he was just trying a new strategy in dealing with the Russians
just like Trump is
the difference: Trump told voters exactly what he was going to do before he was elected
Obama tried to deceive voters
"This should cause us to revisit the role that McConnell played during the campaign in preventing members of Congress from showing a united public front against Russian sabotage of the election."
yeah, Obama was trying to build a case
at that point, there was no rush
he should have left it to the incoming administration
McConnell showed statesmanship
you Dems should give it a try
"The New York Times reports that after Trump fired James B. Comey as FBI director, FBI officials began an investigation into whether Trump had been working for Russian interests"
if that's when it started, this is evidence of an insular organization abusing its power
"The concern was that, in obstructing the FBI’s inquiry, Trump might have made it harder to determine what Russia had done during the election — thus helping Russia skirt accountability for an attack on American democracy."
preposterous
Comey had said he didn't think there was any evidence against Trump
"Meanwhile, The Post reports that Trump has gone to great lengths to conceal his private discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin from even his own advisers."
we already know he has private meetings with other world leaders
this is fake news
Wyatt/Regina said "we already know he has private meetings with other world leaders".
In none of his meetings with other world leaders did he force all Americans from the room other than his interpreter, and seize the notes from the interpreter and tell him keep quiet or else.
Tяump has never ending criticism for American allies and never ending praise for Russia. This is unprecedented and deeply worrying. The entire American Intelligence Community is shocked by the first president to ever keep secret meetings with the U.S.'s primary global adversary.
There is every reason to believe “the president of the United States fired Jim Comey at the behest of Russia,” impairing an effort to determine the scope of a “threat to national security.”
Tяump's poll numbers are in free fall! Hee hee hee!
Matthew Dowd "In latest polling, Pres. Tяump's overall job approval is 37%. Without white evangelicals propping him up, his job approval would be 16%."
Americans overwhelmingly oppose the Tяump Vanity Wall.
Tяump lost the popular vote and broke the law to become president, he does not have a mandate from the American people to do anything.
An unstoppable problem is making it increasingly difficult for the world to produce enough food
The possibility of increased food shortages looms in a nearer future than we'd care to believe.
Citing the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the latest Grantham Mayo van Otterloo (GMO) quarterly report noted, "humanity is risking ‘a breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes.’”
Those changes to the climate threaten the way food gets produced around the world, which can drive up the price of foods and lead to a host of other problems.
A June report from the Global Sustainability Institute of Anglia Ruskin University found that by 2040, food prices will be four times higher than they were in 2000. Already, they're already twice as high as they were in 2000, the GMO report notes.
"The results show that based on plausible climate trends, and a total failure to change course, the global food supply system would face catastrophic losses, and an unprecedented epidemic of food riots," the institute's director, Aled Jones, told investigative journalism project Insurge Intelligence. "In this scenario, global society essentially collapses as food production falls permanently short of consumption."
Here's how the different climate changes listed affect our food:
A warming planet leads to less food. Climate changes affect how farmers plan for the upcoming year. According to the IPCC's report from 2014, every decade of warming that happens decreases the amount of food the world can produce by 2%, or 4.4 million metric tons of food.
Droughts cut back on the food produced. The California drought is an example of how the climate affects food and how much access people have to it
Flooding decreases the amount of available land for farming. If the Mississippi and Missouri rivers flood, the report points out, it would cut corn production in the US by 27%, soybeans by 19%, and wheat by 7%, according to the institute's scenario. That's about 3.8 billion bushels of corn lost, based on the amount of corn produced in the US in 2014.
More frequent extreme weather makes it harder to have a reliable crop yield. Tornadoes, torrential downpours, etc. cause damage to lands that otherwise contain crops. An increasing amount of these weather events — a result of climate change — makes it harder to rely on a steady supply of food, thus driving up prices on all that remains.
All of these weather crises, in the GSI's scenario, could lead to food riots and increased global insecurity.
No American president has ever gone out of their way to keep all their meetings with Russia a secret from their entire staff.
Tяump is an existential threat to the United States and the World.
Democrats will subpoena Tяump's translator for his secret meetings with Putin and expose Tяump's criminal conspiracy to work against his own country.
Tяump will not be running for president in 2020.
Tяump "I will be the one to shutdown the government, I will not blame you."
Tяump owns the shutdown as all the polls of the public show.
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
China Reports Record Trade Surplus With United States
"Trade wars are good and easy to win!"
Sooo much winning...
Trump's a total failure at everything - "The Shart of the Deal"!
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
40 Detained And 2 Dead In Gay Purge In Chechnya
Putin is encouraging this.
Wyatt/Regina are fantasizing about this happening in the U.S.
Christian conservatives think they've got a right to harm gays. They don't - the First Amendment does not grant superiority over all other Americans to christians.
Assaulting and murdering gays doesn't make the lives of christian conservatives any better, but they're fine with that - evil grows.
"Bullying rates among middle school students in the spring of 2017 were 18 percent higher in localities where voters had favored Donald Trump than in those that had supported Hillary Clinton"
oh yeah, you know how political middle schoolers are
they're known for modeling themselves after presidential candidates
did anyone measure sexual assault rates in localities in Virginia that voted for our sexual predator President, Bill Clinton?
here in Montgomery County, a student would fear for his safety if anyone found that they agree with Trump about anything
btw, did the study define bullying?
because here at TTF, everyone thinks holding that not supporting the gay agenda is the same as "bullying"
The world's leading genital reconstructive surgeon is seeing a new trend. After years of performing operations for people who believe that they are a different gender than they actually are, Dr. Miroslav Djordjevic is now having patients come back to have their genital reconstruction reversed.
In an article published by the National Post, Dr. Djordjevic provides some insight into what's happening. He tells of patients suffering from "crippling levels of depression following their transition and in some cases even contemplated suicide." Djordjevic notes, "It can be a real disaster to hear these stories... And yet, in the main part, they are not being heard."
Among other noteworthy points, the revelation that those who regret their sex reassignment surgery are "not being heard" stands out the most. Among the transgender community that values individual expression, not being heard should be the last thing one would expect. Except, as the article reveals, "Last week, it was alleged that Bath Spa University has turned down an application for research on gender reassignment reversal because it was a subject deemed 'potentially politically incorrect.'"
Even Dr. Djordjevic, who refused to give his opinion about why so many people are seeking reversals of their sex reassignment, believes that "there is a desperate need for greater understanding in reversals."
The research that was rejected because it was "potentially politically incorrect" was the brainchild of James Caspian who works as a psychotherapist, specifically with transgender people. "According to Caspian," National Post wrote, "the university initially approved his proposal to research 'detransitioning.' He then amassed some preliminary findings that suggested a growing number of young people – particularly young women – were transitioning their gender and then regretting it." The article went on to say that "after submitting the more detailed proposal to Bath Spa, he discovered he had been referred to the university ethics committee, which rejected it over fears of criticism that might be directed towards the university. Not least on social media from the powerful transgender lobby."
The growing rates of depression in transgender people post-sex reassignment surgery is a legitimate area of concern and worthy of study. The fact that more and more transgender people are seeking to have their sex reassignment surgery reversed is also something that needs to be studied. People's mental health is at stake. And isn't one of the transgender lobby's main talking points about how public attitudes and laws have a negative effect on the mental well-being of transgender people?
The whole thing, of course, is a shell game. The transgender community, and the LGBT community at large, are unwilling to let the research move forward because it contradicts the narrative they desperately seek to protect. And that narrative is a lie.
Boys cannot be girls, and girls cannot be boys.
Familiarity, it is said, breeds contempt. It also breeds indifference. For almost three years now, the intelligence services and police apparatus of the deep state have worked tirelessly to undermine Donald Trump. Beginning sometime in the late winter of 2016, when Trump’s presidential campaign was showing unexpected signs of strength, John Brennan—the Communist-voting apparatchik turned media mouthpiece whom it pleased Barack Obama to appoint as director of the CIA—began ringing alarm bells about Trump’s possible relations with the Kremlin. His concern was based on two things. One was a report, spurious as it turned out, about “contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians.” The other was that brittle sense of entitlement, fired by paranoia, that membership in the higher echelons of the deep state’s nomenklatura breeds.
Brennan convened a “working group” at CIA headquarters that included Peter Strzok, the disgraced FBI agent who was head of counter-intelligence, and James Clapper, then director of national intelligence (now, like Brennan, another mouthpiece for the left-wing media), in order to stymie Trump’s campaign. It was Brennan, too, who first alerted James Comey, the disgraced former director of the F.B.I., to the fantasy of possible “collusion” between the Trump Campaign and “the Russians.”
Then came the infamous “Steele Dossier,” the agglomeration of malicious gossip about Trump that was surreptitiously commissioned by and paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. This fantastical piece of “opposition research” was essentially the sole warrant for opening secret FISA investigations against Carter Page, a low-level Trump campaign advisor, and others.
All this provided sensational pabulum for the anti-Trump press, who spent countless hours peeling back the complex, hypertrophied onion that the CIA, the FBI, and various figures within the Obama administration had built up to destroy the candidacy of Donald Trump without quite seeming to target Trump himself.
Mirabile ditctu, it didn’t work. Still, it was impossible that Trump could actually win the election. Nancy Pelosi told us that we could “take it to the bank” that Donald Trump was not going to be president. Many other politicians and talking heads made fools of themselves emitting similar pseudo-certainties right up to the afternoon and early evening of election day.
But win he did, and that changed everything. Now it was not a candidate who had to be stopped but a duly elected president of the United States who had to be kept from knowing exactly what lengths the government—soon to be his government—had gone to destroy him. From November 9, 2016, to January 20, 2017, the reins of government were still in the hands of Barack Obama. The apparatus to stop Trump the candidate was already in place. Now it would be deployed against Trump the president-elect and, later, Trump the president.
Over the last few days, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other anti-Trump outlets have revealed, and reveled in, something that many observers suspected for a long time. That the investigation into various figures associated with the Trump campaign—not only Carter Page, but also George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and Michael Cohen—was just a pretext. The main target all along was Trump himself. As Andy McCarthy observed, “following the firing of FBI director James Comey on May 9, 2017, the bureau formally opened an investigation of President Trump.”
The Times breathlessly frames its story as the revelation that Trump might have been “secretly working on behalf of Russia.” Right on cue, the anti-Trump fraternity went into full-swivet mode. Probably the most comical contribution to this almanack of rhetorical incontinence was written by Max Boot, who offered “18 Reasons Why Trump Could Be a Russian Asset.” Reason number one: that Trump, the head of a multi-billion dollar real-estate development company with interests all over the world, had business dealings with Russia. Excellent, Max!
In fact, though, what the Times story revealed was simply that, pace repeated assurances by James Comey, Trump was the target of the investigation from the beginning. As McCarthy notes, “the only thing the story shows is that the FBI, after over a year of investigation, simply went overt about something that had been true from the first. The investigation commenced during the 2016 campaign by the Obama administration—the Justice Department and the FBI—was always about Donald Trump.” Moreover,
The FBI and DOJ knew this would be controversial—the incumbent administration spying on the opposition campaign in the absence of corroborated evidence of a crime.
Let’s pause to ponder that last bit: “spying on the opposition campaign in the absence of corroborated evidence of a crime.” “Controversial”? You think? How about nefarious and probably criminal? Richard Nixon is unavailable for comment.
In a way, you have to admire the cunning of the Obama minions. Faced with exposure of their “controversial” tactic, they went to work. “They designed the investigation,” McCarthy explains,
in a way that allowed them to focus on Trump without saying they were doing so. Before Trump was elected, they papered the files to indicate that they were focusing on the Trump campaign or people connected to it, like Page and Papadopoulos. This way, they could try to collect evidence about Trump without formally documenting that Trump was the target.
In other words, we are staring into the bowels of the biggest political scandal in the history of the United States. Americans pride themselves on living in a republic in which the peaceful transfer of power is a hallmark of our political life. But what we have here is an effort by one administration to thwart that process. Remember: there was no crime. There was always only the Steele Dossier, that rancid pile of slander that was paid for by Trump’s political opponents. That was the stated basis for the FISA warrants: uncorroborated rumor instigated and circulated by the Clinton campaign.
Naturally, the anti-Trump chihuahuas are yapping once again that this is—finally, at last—the revelation that will bring down the Trump administration. Chris Matthews, feeling another frisson tingling up his appendage, excitedly announced that the president is “at the end of the rope.” But we’ve been down this street before. From before Donald Trump assumed office, we’ve been repeatedly assured that some “bombshell” had been released that harbingered “the beginning of the end” for the Trump presidency. It’s actually quite amusing to watch a few of these hysterical prognostications back to back.
Back on planet earth, however, two things are happening. First, Donald Trump piles up victory after victory for the America people: jobs, economic growth, a revitalized military, constitutionalist judicial appointments, a more rational regulatory environment, border security and immigration reform -- the list is long and astonishingly impressive. He has also, by the way, stymied his supposed best-buddy Vladimir Putin by aggressively pursuing an energy policy that has made America the world’s largest producer of energy, sending lethal weapons to Putin opponents in the Ukraine, thwarting the Russians in Syria, and many other initiatives.
But in the parallel universe occupied by the John Brennans, James Comeys and Robert Muellers of the world, the effort to unseat the democratically elected leader of the free world continues apace. The entire investigation, conducted at first under cover of a counter-intelligence inquiry, was always deep down a criminal investigation. The great, insuperable problem that the would-be inquisitors have faced from the beginning is that this was never an investigation of a crime. Rather, it has been an exploratory probe that was bent on discovering a crime, much as a deep space probe is deployed in an endless search for intelligent life on the fringes of the galaxy.
Asked recently by Fox News host Jeanine Pirro whether he is or has ever been working for Russia, Trump responded, “I think it’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked.” Quite right, too. For the rest of us, though, it’s more than insulting. It’s been going on so long that we are tempted to forget what this travesty really is. Familiarity has bred indifference. It is time that we woke up to the truth. What we have been witnessing is a blatant and nefarious effort to repeal the results of a lawful election and undermine the integrity of our democratic institutions. The fact that this attempted coup is being undertaken not by wild-eyed revolutionaries but well-accoutered bureaucrats high up the feeding trough of the deep state makes the assault on our freedoms more, not less, frightening.
SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — A new caravan of migrants is forming in Honduras, and even ahead of its scheduled departure at dawn on Tuesday, battle lines were being drawn to the north, with some vowing to help them on their journey north, and others to block them.
For President Trump, the timing of the caravan offered fresh ammunition in his fight with Congress over the $3.4 billion he wants for an enhanced border wall between Mexico and the United States. The dispute has led to a shutdown of the federal government.
“There is another major caravan forming right now in Honduras, and so far we’re trying to break it up, but so far it’s bigger than anything we’ve seen,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday. “And a drone isn’t going to stop it and a sensor isn’t going to stop it, but you know what’s going to stop it in its tracks? A nice, powerful wall.”
Nancy Pelosi says a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border would be "immoral." Instead, she favors something she calls a "technological wall." Another top House Democrat, Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, calls it a "smart wall."
Instead of building an actual physical barrier of steel, concrete, or some other material, Pelosi, Clyburn, and other Democrats advocate employing an array of high-tech devices — drones, infrared sensors, surveillance cameras, and more — to keep track of activity at the border without physical impediments to discourage illegal crossings.
"We cannot protect the border with concrete," Clyburn said recently. "We can protect the border using the technology that is available to us to wall off intrusions."
The problem is, a smart wall would not actually wall off intrusions. Indeed, the main feature of a smart wall — in past debates, it was often referred to as a virtual fence — is that it will not stop anyone from crossing the border into the United States. It can detect illegal crossers and alert authorities to their presence. But it does nothing to keep them from entering the country.
That is especially important given the nature of the migrants crossing the border illegally today. In the past, many were single adult men who could be caught and quickly returned to Mexico. But now, according to the Department of Homeland Security, about two-thirds of the crossers are families and unaccompanied children who, by U.S. law, cannot be quickly returned. Once in the United States, their asylum claims — the vast majority are ultimately judged without merit — take a long time to process. During that time, many simply disappear into the country.
The point, for those illegal immigrants, is not to enter the United States without being detected. It is to enter, be caught, and begin the asylum process that will allow them to stay, one way or the other.
A smart wall is no obstacle to such crossers. On the other hand, a physical barrier would be a big obstacle and, if placed in key areas of the border, would likely reduce illegal crossings significantly. That is precisely the kind of barrier that Pelosi, Clyburn, and other Democrats oppose.
this morning, the Washington Post..
THE WASHInGTON POST...
ran an editorial begging Congress to re-open the government by funding the wall in exchange for Dreamers' amnesty
Trump has indicated he would sign such a bill
grumbling among moderate Dems is getting louder
the solution is so obvious
any moron could see it
yet, after the corner Nancy Pelosi has painted herself into, she can't do it without losing face
time for Dems to push her out
government workers and Dreamers would appreciate it
the Dem Party needs leadership
LAST WEEK, the New York Times reported that the FBI, in 2017, launched an investigation of President Trump “to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security” and specifically “whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests.” The story was predictably treated as the latest in an endless line of Beginning-of-the-End disasters for the Trump presidency, though – as usual – this melodrama was accomplished by steadfastly ignoring the now-standard, always-buried paragraph pointing out the boring fact that no actual evidence of guilt has yet emerged:
The lack of any evidence of guilt has never dampened the excitement over Trump/Russia innuendo, and it certainly did not do so here. Beyond being construed as some sort of vindication for the most deranged version of Manchurian Candidate fantasies – because, after all, the FBI would never investigate anyone unless they were guilty – the FBI’s investigation of the President as a national security threat was also treated as some sort of unprecedented event in U.S. history. “This is, without exception, the worst scandal in the history of the United States,” pronounced NBC News’ resident ex-CIA operative, who – along with a large staple of former security state agents employed by that network – is now paid to “analyze” and shape the news.
The FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of Trump is far from the first time that the FBI has monitored, surveilled and investigated U.S. elected officials who the agency had decided harboerd suspect loyalties and were harming national security. The FBI specialized in such conduct for decades under J. Edgar Hoover, who ran the agency for 48 years and whose name the agency’s Washington headquarters continues to feature in its name.
Perhaps the most notable case was the Hoover-led FBI’s lengthy counterintelligence investigation of the progressive Henry Wallace, FDR’s elected Vice President. The FBI long suspected that Wallace harbored allegiances to the Kremlin and used his government positions to undermine what the FBI determined were “U.S. interests” for the benefit of Moscow and, as a result, subjected Wallace to extensive investigation and surveillance.
Wallace was regarded by the FBI as having suspect loyalties because, as Vice President, he repeatedly insisted that the threat posed by Moscow was being exaggerated. He often accused the U.S. Government of disseminating propaganda about Russian leaders. He urged less belligerent and more cooperative relations with the Russian government. He opposed efforts to confront Russian influence it its own region.
And, because of these pro-peace beliefs, Wallace frequently ended up on the same side as the Kremlin when it came to foreign policy disputes. That Wallace was frequently critical of the oppression of Russian leader Josef Stalin made little difference: his dissent from prevailing U.S. foreign policy orthodoxy on how to deal with Russia made him suspect in the eyes of the FBI as a possible “national security threat,” a witting or unwitting Kremlin stooge or even as a traitor.
The White House is targeting defectors in the Democratic party as he pushes to reopen the government — yet another sign that the 24-day shutdown is far from over.
The White House is pitching an effort to woo moderate Democrats from red districts with the promise of a border security deal reopening the government, according to people familiar with the plans. Trump administration officials believe that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are too dug in to compromise. They're seeking to circumvent Democratic leadership and win over more moderate-minded pragmatists who are sick of the gridlock and eager to end the shutdown.
"I promised my constituents that I would put Lowcountry over party, and would be happy to speak with the president on the urgent need to reopen the government and get Americans back to work," said freshman Rep. Joe Cunningham. The South Carolina Democrat, who was slated to visit the White House to celebrate Clemson’s national championship football team Monday night, said he would be happy to return to the White House to discuss how to reopen the government.
Meanwhile, a small bipartisan group of senators met in the basement of the Capitol on Monday night to try to move talks forward. According to sources familiar with the meeting, Democrats said they could potentially compromise on border security. Republicans agreed, according to two sources in the room.
"What's important is to recognize that you've got a bipartisan group of folks focused on forging a path through the wilderness," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) as she exited the huddle. "We're not going to just sit back and do nothing."
The jockeying between House Democrats and the White House comes as Trump signaled again on Monday that he would prefer to reach an agreement with Congress rather than take unilateral action. The president appeared to rule out — at least for now — declaring a national emergency to build the wall, an option he floated last week amid the standoff.
"Now I have the absolute legal right to call it, but I'm not looking to do that,” Trump told reporters Monday as he departed the White House en route to Louisiana.
If both sides are stalemated and the government is closed because of it, that's a national emergency. Trump could build the wall on emergency authority just on that basis alone.
Oh, gee, ten posts in a row by Wyatt/Regina. If I had a nickle for all the times they fatuously stated making a bunch of posts in a row proved you were afraid of something, mentally disturbed, and wrong...
Almost all of their posts are long cut and pastes. It almost seems like they're trying to bury something. And, obviously they are very angry at LGBT people, or more likely, me in particular.
Hey Wyatt/Regina, I can see you're furious with atheist little ol' me, but please don't take that out on American LGBT people, okay?
2/3 of American LGBT people are Christians.
Wyatt/Regina, its clear you couldn't care less about demonstrating you're pathological liars or fair play. Combine that with the insane amount of effort you put into promoting hatred and abuse of people who like fairness it really makes you look like Russian trolls.
Wyatt/Regina, Russia has an absolutely massive disinformation campaign in the States with tentacles throughout the internet....
Are the Russians paying you, Wyatt/Regina???
'Cause you sure act a lot like Tяump
Tяump's like a WWII German bomber over the Battle of Britain. All shot up, running on one engine, going down in flames....
And Wyatt and Regina are damn well going to ride Tяump all the way down - no way they're going to ever publicly admit they were wrong!
Folks, you can easily identify posts by Wyatt and Regina Hardiman - just ignore them, I'm the one giving you the good stuff here.
Wyatt/Regina posts are the long cut and pasts about trivially relevant crap designed to distract you from the serious and dangerous global problems the Trump Administration has caused. Wyatt/Regina posts are clearly marked by being posted under 1) various names that express animus to gays and lesbians.
They are also the people who post in the 2) "Every sentence is its own paragraph" style.
You can tell Wyatt/Regina's posts at a glance based on the two aforementioned "tells".
Wyatt/Regina posts are either disinformation or intended as "take the bait" troll tactics.
I honestly don't know if they were once good people who were honestly mistaken about the "morality" they were taught being a good idea, or if they are just paid Russian trolls - there's no way to tell, but either they're paid Russian trolls or they're completely dedicated to demonizing and causing harm to American LGBT people/Canadian me.
Or it could be both, how can you know. The only thing consistent about Wyatt/Regina's posts here over the decades is their animus towards gays and liberal women and them spraying the lie-machine gun randomly about.
And make no mistake, all Wyatt/Regina posts under "I love the religious conservative extremist Supreme Court" are animus expressed towards American LGBT people/little old Canadian lady me.
All I did was talk me deeply held sincere beliefs about morality and look how angry it made them!
Nancy Pelosi could end the shutdown, getting paychecks out to 800K mostly Democrats, and fulfill a campaign promise to help the Dreamers, by giving Trump 3.4 billion more to built barriers in some key areas
that she doesn't is political malpractice
“Why is Nancy Pelosi getting paid when people who are working are not?” Trump tweeted.
Don't get me wrong that I am the only one here giving you the good stuff either. Various "Good Anonymii" have done great work posting sound rational arguments in favour of making the world a better place and backed it up with links to where you can find the source of the overwhelming evidence in favour of fairness and good stewardship over Nature (and we are part of nature).
And nobody does it better than Jim Kennedy. He is perhaps the most insightful commentator on the internet. He does an amazing job of clearly summarizing the current important situations, why they are important, what to do, and sometimes more importantly, what not to do.
Nobody does it better than Jim Kennedy.
There's your Democratic Presidential Nominee!
Even FOX News can't avoid how badly the TRUMP SHUTDOWN is going over with the American people
"As the partial shutdown enters its fourth week and hundreds of thousands of federal workers miss their first paychecks, fresh polling suggests the president is losing the battle of public opinion.
"A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday found that 63 percent of voters agree with the Democratic proposal to reopen parts of the government that do not involve border security, with 30 percent opposed. The same poll found 63 percent also oppose using the shutdown to force wall funding, with just 32 percent supporting.
"The poll found that 56 percent of American voters blame Trump and Republicans in Congress for the partial shutdown, compared with 36 percent who say Democrats are responsible.
"An earlier Washington Post-ABC News poll also found more Americans blame Trump and the Republicans than the Democrats over the stalemate."
NOLA.com Verified account
@NOLAnews
Protesters chant “Lock him up” right outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where @realDonaldTrump is speaking today.
https://twitter.com/NOLAnews/status/1084877945641058304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1084877945641058304&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2019%2F1%2F14%2F1826172%2F-Protesters-Chant-Lock-Him-Up-As-Trump-Speaks-To-Farm-Bureau-In-New-Orleans
Disinformation Wyatt/Regina said "Nancy Pelosi could end the shutdown".
That is quite simply a lie.
Pelosi and the Democrats have passed a variety of bills to open parts of the government. Mitch McConnel has refused to bring them to the floor of the senate for a vote. McConnell is complicit in the Tяump Federal Government Shutdown®
The Senate unanimously passed a CR to open the govenment after Tяump said he'd sign it. Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter grabbed Tяump by the short and curlies and told him to build The Tяump Vanity Wall® and Tяump (what else is new) reneged on his promise.
McConnell could end this in a heartbeat but he won't because he's as corrupt as Tяump and most of the rest of the Republicans.
McConnel needs to bring back the CR to fund the government that already easily passed Congress, pass it again and force Tяump to veto it....
And then overrride Tяump's veto.
Democrats and Nancy Pelosi have done everything humanly possible to end Tяump's Government Shutdown, now its up to the crooked Mitch McConnell to do what's right for once in his life and say no to Tяump's Vanity Wall and open the goddamn government!
If he really wanted the Tяump Vanity Wall® why didn't the Putin Puppet pass legislation to fund it when Republicans were in control of all three branches of government?
Because the "wall" was a campaign joke intended to help the mango mussolini to remember to talk about fake illegal immigration at his campaign stops. Tяump and the Republicans were never serious about building Tяump's vanity wall so they didn't fund it when they had the chance, that way they could lie and pretend its all the Democrats fault they didn't build this useless, wildlife destroying wall.
And don't let Wyatt/Regina fool you, $3.7 billion won't even begin to pay for the wall along the entire Mexican border which was Tяump's most important campaign promise - the Tяump Vanity Wall® will cost at least $25-30 billion and some experts say $50 billion or more.
This is money desperately needed elsewhere. Like fixing the humanitarian border crisis Tяump created to torment people who've come legally to the united states to request asylum. In an inhuman to discourage migration to the U.S. Republicans arrest them and house them in torturous conditions that have killed children.
Did anyone notice that while Wyatt/Regina commonly post ten or more times in a row, they never stop telling me I'm stupid, mentally ill, afraid and wrong if I post several informative times in a row.
And then they, who constanlty make one off-topic post after another, ironically tell me to "stay on topic!
I am just expressing my deeply held sincere beliefs about morality and they're trying to stop me from talking about it. Who's persecuting whom??? Who's trying to push who out of the public square???
I'm asking Wyatt and Regina to tell me about their deeply held sincere religious beliefs:
Wyatt/Regina, what is your highest priority goal for society?
Why won't they answer this question????
You tell me: Russian paid trolls, or out of control anti-lgbt/anti-Priya animus?
"Protesters chant “Lock him up” right outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where @realDonaldTrump is speaking today."
what do they want to lock him up for, comes around?
The First Amendment does not make my deeply held sincere beliefs about morality legally inferior to Wyatt/Regina's deeply held sincere (religious) beliefs about "morality".
Never forget that, my American friends no matter how many times Wyatt/Regina lie about it!
"Even FOX News can't avoid how badly the TRUMP SHUTDOWN is going over with the American people"
anon, I don't think Trump cares much about polls
his idea is you keep going and then make a case in Nov 2020 to the people on the results
right now, the results look pretty awesome
if Trump had let himself by blown about by every changing poll, we wouldn't be enjoying the robust economy we are
Remember folks, if you want a foundation for morality that will make the world a better place you can find it well articulated amongst the comments in these two TTF threads:
http://vigilance.teachthefacts.org/2018/12/flynn-free-trump-continues-to-march-off.html#comments
http://vigilance.teachthefacts.org/2018/12/drowning-accomplished.html#comments
If you want to see comments higher than the 199th, when you're at the bottom of the blue comment page, you need to click on the red "post a comment" icon and then when you're on the white page where you can post your comments you need to click on "newer" or "newest posts" in the upper left to see the comments #200 and above.
People have fought to the death over religion throughout recorded history. There are 35,000 flavours of christianity and growing. Clearly there is no one "great truth" amongst any of the world's religions all of them are converging on. Instead religions continue to diverge.
Religion never has and never will unite the world. Only a morality based on the highest priorities of fairness and avoiding harm can be accepted by everyone regardless of religion.
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