Two more days is when the fun begins. I hope. Here’s the plan:
House Democrats plan to use their new majority to vote through measures that would reopen nearly all of the shuttered federal agencies through the end of September, at funding levels Senate Republicans have previously agreed to. Those spending bills contain scores of priorities and pet projects for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
The Democratic proposal holds out one exception: The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border security, would keep its current level of funding, with no new money for a border wall. The plan would also extend the department’s budget only through Feb. 8, allowing Democrats to revisit funding for key parts of Trump’s immigration policy in a month.
“The President is using the government shutdown to try to force an expensive and ineffective wall upon the American people, but Democrats have offered two bills which separate the arguments over the wall from the government shutdown,†read a joint statement from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the likely next House speaker, and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Trump wants to meet with congressional leaders Schumer and Pelosi, McConnell and McCarthy, tomorrow for a “briefing” on border security.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security will brief the top two leaders in each party in the House and the Senate.
“Border Security and the Wall “thing†and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let’s make a deal?†Trump tweeted Tuesday.
It’s not clear whether this “briefing” will be televised the way that last White House encounter was.
The thing is, he had a deal about a year ago that would have given him $25 billion for his wall, and he turned it down. Jim Newell wrote last March:
Rather than spending spring break stewing in the White House over what might have been, Trump could be lounging in a lawn chair by the border right now, sipping iced tea, watching as contractors erect the prototypical barrier of his liking. He could have fulfilled one of his core campaign promises to his base, a promise that not any generic Republican president would have prioritized.
And all he had to do was accept a 10- to 14-year path to citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States at a young age.
That deal has been on the table for more than a month now: Trump gives Democrats a path to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers; Democrats give Trump his full $25 billion wall funding request. The Trump administration balked at this clean trade when the Senate was negotiating immigration in February and again in the weeks before the omnibus. The master dealer always wanted something more, be it sharp cuts to family-based immigration or enhanced interior enforcement. Democrats were willing to blow money on Trump’s vanity project, handing him a political victory, but they were never going to secure Dreamers’ future by agreeing to the sharpest tightening of legal immigration levels in decades or selling out other undocumented immigrants.
Chuck Schumer made the original offer in January 2018, but got slammed for giving away too much to Trump. And then when Schumer gave up on the deal, he got slammed by immigration advocates.
This weekend Miz Lindsey was on the TeeVee saying he was sure the Democrats would make a new deal that give Trump $5 billion for his wall in exchange for protections for Dreamers. But I would be surprised. I suspect, or at least I hope, that Pelosi and Schumer are no longer thinking in terms of making any deal with Trump, but rather are looking to box in Mitch McConnell in the Senate. Mitch can either put the House bill up for a vote or have the shutdown hung around his flabby neck.
Nope!
Don't give in.
I agree with maha. Pass the exact same CR that passed in the Senate 100 to 0!
Let Mitch find a way out of the corner he painted himself into by trusting tRUMP!!!
Department of Homeland Security isn't getting funded. ICE isn't getting funded. They are required to work without pay – Trump's Gestapo. Are the private prison contractors housing the people who have crossed the border getting paid? I don't know. USDA isn't getting funded – emergency relief checks for the farmers who have been clobbered by the Tariff-man aren't going out. Some of them are teetering on bankruptcy.
The shutdown is not sustainable for Trump. Pelosi and Schumer have the winning hand as long as they control the narrative. IMO, Pelosi is the strategist who is trying to fund government at existing levels on day ONE! That makes Trump and McConnell the people standing in the way of an end to the impasse.
I do hope that when Trump and McConnell use the words "negotiate" and "compromise", Pelosi and Schumer say – "Put DACA on the table." This is a bargaining chip the American people support based on the last polls I saw. A pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens is what the cult will see and if Trump takes the deal, heads will explode in fascist-land. But the deal will look totally reasonable to most Americans.
The Democrat's proposal to fund everything except the DHS makes a lot of sense in some respects. The only drawback is that Trump would have to give up his hostages. I don't think he's going to do that. His mentality is that by inflicting pain and suffering on the American public he'll get what he wants.
If the Dem's bend to his demands, his bullying antics will continue. I feel sorry for the people who are caught up in Trump's vicious game playing, but Trump has to be confronted or else his nonsense goes on and on. Here's a sentiment from our history that expresses my feelings on how to deal with Trump "…and if they mean to have a war, let it begin here" Pelosi and Schumer should echo the words of Vincente Fox in no uncertain terms…We ain't paying for your fucking wall. You can piss and moan all you want, but we aren't going to entertain your racial biases that are born of ignorance and pure stupidity. Kiss off, you asswipe!
A quick reading of Mitt Romney's assessment of Trump and his character in a recent opinion piece portend problems for Mitch McConnell. His statements were clearly aimed at the present moral puppeteers of the president on wall policy, and the bigoted power of Ann Colter and her cabal of hate media moguls. Romney's move for the moral high ground will certainly pose problems for many Trump loyalists and has been honored as important by the normal twitter rant.
America's sinking standing with other world powers was also a key point in Romney's position. I doubt he is going so public on this without support from some members of his own party. Trump has a strong base, but it's baseness does not appeal to some. We will soon see how many.
Nancy Pelosi is singing "I am woman, hear me roar" and Trump better be scared.
Just read Romney's Op-Ed in the Post. Sounds good but it can't or won't happen while Trump is in office, unless, republican senators such as Romney are willing to do more than join the Flake/Collins Trump pearl-clutching club and actually take action where they can.
Problem is Romney and all the rest of them in the GOP agree with Trump on policy, and are putting up with his crassness and stupidity to continue to get what they want from him. They just don't like that he's too stupid and narcisstic to understand that use a dog whistle instead of a sledge hammer and bullhorn gives them the deniability on things like race and being totally and exclusively for the wealthy as they really are.
Hell hath no fury like a Mormon scorned. Mitt says he wants to take a chunk out of Trump's ass so bad that he can taste it. Trump's public humiliation of Romney was so intense for Romney that it permanently altered his brain structure. Talk about seduced and abandoned? Trump lured Romney to an intimate candle light dinner with a sweet tease of making him the Secretary of State, only to turn their magic moment into a humiliating photo op. Come, Mitt, and publicly grovel at my feet and for my favor. Yes, Mitt, we will have a Copacabana moment locked in a photograph for all posterity to see that I dismissed you as a loser. Reduced and abandoned?
Vengeance is mine saith the Mormon.
" Vengeance is mine saith the Mormon "
Good old Mittens, he is almost as despicable as Trump, they deserve each other.
I hope Chuck and Nancy have a plan (I suggest using a republican tactic of blaming the President (Trump) for increased illegal migrants and possible terror attacks, seeing as how his shutdown has both the CBP and TSA working without pay), though based on the "pressor" they gave after the WH meeting it don't look good, you would think they would have had some talking points before they approached the podium?
What I'm curious about is the pressure that's building and where. Pelosi and Schumer are getting push form various quarters to make a deal. Trump is under pressure to end the shutdown from various quarters. The politics is designed to put the most pressure on the other side.
So there are sharp people who are qualified to evaluate where that pressure is most powerful and how long pressure will take to build. If anyone sees articles by those experts, I hope they post a link. I'm aware that my biases affect my judgement. What do the experts say the different facets of the shutdown will have. Coast Guard? IRS? USDA? ICE? Parks? What's the National Mall going to look like after a week with no maintenance? Where are the polls going? How much water will McConnell take on before he bails on Trump?
So man the situation room and spread some lies and half-truths. Donnie did not get his wall for Xmas and so temper temper. His nemesis Mitt got the Senate seat he wanted, and probably new his and hers Cadillacs. Now he is taking the moral high road and rubbing it in for a little revenge. Meanwhile hate media got Mitt's niece to renounce his diatribe, and Jerry Falwell Jr. to state that in his high moral opinion it was evil not to support the Tantum Child. Mom Nancy held firm saying he was way to spoiled already and this has to stop sometime. So "happy" new year. We must all learn to quench our thirst from an empty cup, especially if we are laid off federal worker.
Let the investigations begin!