[Politico] When Mark Meadows didn’t get President Donald Trump’s chief of staff gig, he wasn’t losing much.
Just 10 days later, the powerful conservative lawmaker managed to engineer what has since become the longest-running government shutdown ‐ convincing Trump to pull the trigger right as the partial closure was on the brink of being avoided.
Meadows picked up the phone to make his move just after Vice President Mike Pence had told lawmakers over lunch on Dec. 19 ‐ two days before government funding would expire ‐ that Trump was prepared to sign a clean spending bill to keep the government open through early February. The North Carolina Republican, who helped shutter the government in 2013 during a revolt against Obamacare, wasn’t prepared to back away from demanding funds for a border wall. And despite Pence’s clear-as-day comments, he assumed the president wasn’t either.
Meadows was right. A lengthy and revealing article
[PJ] If Donald Trump thought he could end the partial government shutdown by dangling some tantalizing tidbits to Democrats on DACA recipients and Temporary Protected Status holders, he was immediately disabused of that notion when the Democratic leadership flatly rejected his proposals.
The Hill:
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that Trump offering some protections for DACA and TPS recipients "in exchange for the wall is not a compromise but more hostage taking."
Trump "keeps putting forward one-sided and ineffective remedies. There’s only way out: open up the government, Mr. President, and then Democrats and Republicans can have a civil discussion and come up with bipartisan solutions," Schumer added.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in a statement released shortly before Trump's speech, said the proposal couldn't pass the House and is a "non-starter."
Was this just more political maneuvering by the president or a genuine effort to end the stalemate on the budget?
#1
Last gesture before 30 days then RIF and no money for food stamps rear their heads.
If numbers of the 800,000 have worked enough free days or are veterans or high level managers they have a chance of retaining those jobs. Otherwise they need to pray Donald Trump doesn't enter a hardball game and yell RIF!
#3
Now that Dems have turned down the offer Trump should no longer negotiate and just start turning up the heat: cancel all remittances to Mexico and Central America, turn up deportations in Blue States, tighten up the border with additional state national guard, begin furlough of GIVERnment employees....
#4
It's not about the wall. It's about power. Like the Gracchus brother attempt to dilute the power of the vote to all of Roman Italy beyond the tribes of Rome. The Donks are now clearly signalling that they want to dilute the power of 'Americans' with non-Americans. Like Rome, there will be a civil war. Look around and enjoy what you see and experience cause when the war gets going, it will all disappear. Think of a Katrina event but not isolated to one region, but the whole country. There will be no one from the outside rushing to 'rescue' you and get services back on line.
#7
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in a statement released shortly before Trump's speech
"whatever his proposal is, it's rejected. But he's responsible for the shutdown"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/20/2019 9:05 Comments ||
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#8
By their behavior we can see which side is/believes it is winning - Pelosi is standing fast and Trump is offering concessions... Trump must feel he is losing in the polls.
#9
He's showing flexibility. She's showing she's more afraid of her parties left
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/20/2019 11:17 Comments ||
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#10
If Dems refuse to accept reasonable compromise for a vote they agreed to under previous administrations the polls will start to drastically tip towards Trump's favor.
#12
I've read some pretty credible explanations saying that the current shutdown situation does not meet the requirements for a RIF. I certainly hope he can RIF a bunch of the workforce.
#13
The national representatives are divided beyond the ability to compromise. They are further apart than during Lincolns time. We are headed for dark times...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/20/2019 15:06 Comments ||
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#14
P2K, I don't know who you think is gonna do all this fighting. I understand that underestimating one's enemy is piss poor strategy but, try as I might, I cannot picture these people raising an army, certainly not the kind that would have any hope of taking Camp Pendleton.
That said, if Nancy doesn't want to negotiate about the Dreamers then Trump should start deporting them.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/20/2019 16:11 Comments ||
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#15
...they expect the military to obey them. History shows games like that shatters the military. Given that there are not enough even of the uniform military to cover all the infrastructure, they'll fall back upon the local 1)true believers, 2)their other loyal voting group, felons (penal battalions with promises of 'free other peoples' stuff'), and 3) [the classic] cannon fodder. They've demonstrated time and again, they don't understand war. They don't understand real history. It's just like the socialists, they figure they just got to find the right people to do it. Meanwhile, they'll keep the mob motivated. Then the black swan event occurs.
[NYPOST] The walls supposedly are always closing in on Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... . The end is always beginning.
He’s going to quit. He’s going to be impeached and removed. He’s going to decide not to run again. Somehow or other, he’s going to relieve everyone of the responsibility of ever thinking of him again, and especially of the responsibility of defeating him in an election.
This the perpetual backdrop to media commentary about Trump. It rocketed around the Internet a couple of months ago when Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker said Trump might not serve out his term. Fake Washington Post editions recently distributed in Washington were about Trump quitting. Such scenarios are a constant topic in private conversations.
The allure of all this is obvious. It is the promise of deliverance. After tormenting his enemies for so long, Trump’s going to make it easy for them. He’s just going to go away.
It is true that the odds of Trump somehow not serving out of his term are, given his erratic personality and the wildcard of the Mueller investigation, higher than those for a normal president serving in normal times (the BuzzFeed report that Trump allegedly directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress is a reminder of that). But they are still slim.
Perhaps special counsel Robert Mueller’s report will send a torpedo into Trump’s bow. It seems more likely that a report will contain damaging and embarrassing revelations that, whatever the initial shock, will be quickly absorbed by the political system and especially Trump’s supporters.
The velocity of the news cycle, driven in part by the sheer volume and pace of Trump controversies, works in his favor.
Does anyone remember what it was that precipitated Toobin’s prediction, namely the revelation that talks over a Trump Tower project in Moscow went on longer than first realized? Probably not.
The resignation of Jim Mattis rocked Trump’s administration to the core ‐ for all of about 36 hours.
Why would Trump ever quit? This is a man who has fought and clawed for every ounce of public attention ‐ good or bad ‐ he can get throughout his adult life and now, occupying the biggest bully pulpit on the planet, he’s just going to walk away?
Despite media reports that Trump is perpetually furious and feeling besieged, he has never shown the slightest brittleness or sense of being overwhelmed in public. He’s always his same ebullient, combative, outrageous self.
He’s the least likely president to get worn down by an impeachment fight. What would discourage or deflate the normal human energizes him.
The same applies even more to his running for re-election. After enduring several years of having to govern, not his natural aptitude, why would he throw away the opportunity to campaign, which he clearly relishes?
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2019 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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[USAToday] As the partial government shutdown neared a month, President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... used a White House speech Saturday to outline what he called "a common sense compromise both parties can embrace" that included protections for some undocumented immigrants colonists and money for border security.
"Both sides in Washington must simply come together," Trump said in a White House speech, saying he is trying to "break the logjam." Defending his plan, he said, "walls are not immoral, in fact they are the opposite of immoral because they will save many lives."
"His proposal is a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total, do not represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement issued before Trump's speech.
In remarks he billed as a "major announcement," Trump cited a proposal developed by administration officials and Republican politicians, one that would grant work permits to certain migrants colonists in exchange for approval of wall funding.
Congressional Democrats, however, said the offer as reported would not lead to a deal that would end the shutdown, in part because it would allow Trump to pursue an expensive and ineffective wall.
"His proposal is a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total, do not represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives," House Speaker Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi Congresswoman-for-Life from the San Francisco Bay Area, born into a family of professional politicians. Formerly Speaker of the House, but it's not her fault they lost. Really. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace... said in a statement issued before Trump's speech.
Pelosi and other Democrats said the proposal is also a non-starter because it does not provide a path to citizenship for qualified migrants colonists.
A senior House Democratic aide said the proposal as it would not pass the House or Senate, in part because "it includes the same wasteful, ineffective $5.7 billion wall demand that shut down the government in the first place."
Trump said his proposal would give DREAMers ‐ people who were brought into the country illegally as children and now face deportation ‐ work permits and protection from deportation, though he did not say anything about a path to citizenship. "This plan solves the immediate crisis," he said.
In exchange for new Dreamer rules, Trump said he would receive wall funding, a proposal he appeared to scale back in size; Trump said his wall proposal now involves barriers only in "critical places" along the border, not a coast-to-coast structure.
Trump also proposed a new program to allow Central American minors to request asylum in their home countries, though his administration terminated the exact same program shortly after taking power.
Sen. Lindsey Graham ... the endangered South Carolina RINO, fellow maverick of Honest John McCain... , R-S.C., outlined the proposal for Trump last month, and told news hounds the president was receptive. It involves giving the Democrats protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which includes a group known as DREAMers, and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders.
Trump said his proposal is designed to jump-start talks to end the budget impasse that has kept the government closed for four weeks ‐ now the longest shutdown in U.S. history.
"Let's get to work and let's make a deal," Trump said in a video he tweeted out before the speech.
$5.7 billion for wall or steel barriers for critical areas of the border
$800 million dollars in urgent humanitarian assistance to the border
$800 million for technology, border protection
75 new immigration judge teams, to reduce immigration casework backlog
Measures to protect migrant children from exploitation, a new system for minors to apply for asylum from their home countries
Three years of legislative relief for young immigrants (DACA) who arrived illegally with their parents, including access to work permits and protection for deportation
A three-year extension to the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) refugee program
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
01/20/2019 2:21 Comments ||
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#4
Next time Trump goes on TV with speech on immigration he should run a ‘ticker’ at the bottom of the screen with just the names of every American murdered by an illegal alien. No explaination, no details... just the names. Force the media and others to look up the names and explain.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[USAToday] As the partial government shutdown neared a month, President 
Nancy 
Lindsey Graham
