DACA and CHIP for that matter could have been handled anytime in the last several months by the republicans.
If they had it would have taken leverage out of the Dems hands. They should have dealt with it in any case as they are in charge of the government and being effective leaders means handling federal issues as they occur.
Instead they neglected governance, and instead focused on (failing) to repeal the ACA and passing tax cuts. They then waited until the very last minute to try and pass yet another CR and failed.
The could have avoided this by actually working to pass an actual budget. They’d didn’t. Shocking I know.
But nope it’s gotta be the Dems.
Donald Trump had planned to spend the first anniversary of his inauguration in his happy place, Mar-a-Lago, the gold-plated palace where a mere president can pretend to be a monarch. Unfortunately for Trump, presidents are expected to remain in Washington when the government shuts down. That Trump did not recognize this until the crisis was at hand shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. This president is not merely unfit for office; he is so uninterested in feigning fitness that he cannot be bothered to focus on the most basic responsibilities he swore on January 20, 2017, to faithfully execute.
It is often suggested that Trump tweets obnoxiously and speaks outrageously in order to distract the American people—or at least the White House press corps—from the serious issues at hand. Perhaps. But the more likely story is that Trump himself is too distracted to focus on those issues—be they the budgetary matters that great presidents master, the societal concerns that great presidents address, the disasters that great presidents seek to avert. There is nothing “great” about this grifter’s failed presidency; it has simply confirmed that his 2016 campaign slogan was, like the rest of his promises, a lie. He is not even the mediocre manager that the stupidest pundits imagined he might be. Trump is simply the son of privilege he has always been, steering whatever he touches toward financial or moral bankruptcy and then blaming everyone else for the crash.
The buck never stops with this president, so there was never any chance that he would demonstrate leadership sufficient to prevent a shutdown. He was never going to put any effort into understanding the budgetary balances and political pressures of the shutdown dance that his predecessors understood as the existential crisis of their presidency. This, and Trump’s crude bigotry, is what made the interactions of congressional leaders with the president during the days leading up to the inaugural-anniversary shutdown so agonizingly awful to watch.
As the deadline passed, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer described a last-minute “art-of-the-deal” moment when he thought he had Trump engaged in negotiations to protect beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, while making concessions to the president’s border fantasies. But, the Democrat explained, “He did not press his party or Congress to accept it. Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell, without the commitment of the president, would not agree to accept anything either.”
So the shutdown came, not because Democrats and some Republicans sought to use the moment to resolve lingering debates about the Dreamers or the S-CHIP program or myriad other issues, nor even because the House Freedom Caucus Republicans held out for even more draconian fiscal policies. It came because the United States lacks a functioning, let alone functional, president. This is the first #TrumpShutdown, but it is unlikely to be the last.
Without a president who is capable of leading the party that controls the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, petty hacks who have never cared about anything more about satisfying campaign donors, will continue to run their games. Those games are so destructive—to the hundreds of millions of Americans who rely on government, to the necessary work of setting budget priorities, to America’s image in the world—that they demand a political response. Small deals will be made in coming weeks and months to restore a measure of normalcy. But it will be a brutal measure, crueler and harsher at each turn.
The necessary repair will come only when the players change. Unfortunately, Trump is not on the ballot this November. But Paul Ryan and his minions are. One of Ryan’s challengers, a Wisconsin ironworker named Randy Bryce, offers the best assessment of what ails America when he observes, “Paul Ryan treated this shutdown like an insider political game, using people’s jobs, Dreamer’s futures, and children’s health insurance as bargaining chips. Now, even as thousands of workers are facing suspension without pay and communities across the country are set to lose access to services, Paul Ryan is still playing games, trying to pin the blame for the shutdown on others. We need politicians in DC who won’t play games and who take responsibility for their actions.”
I do too. Six of the 46 Republicans in the Senate at the time voted against his nomination. That is a notable percentage and means it was not simply Democrats who ultimately ended up having issues with him. Obviously it is true that more Democrats had an issue with him, but the evidence is even if Republicans had controlled the Senate at the time to a degree, the nomination would have been voted down given the concerns of the some of the more moderate Republican members. By contrast, it is very clear that many Republicans actually had no issue with Merrick Garland's qualifications (or viewed him as having extreme views which meant he should not be nominated regardless of who was President) and it purely was a political power play, with multiple Republicans in fact articulating the view that they should vote on his nomination and plenty of evidence he would have been successfully nominated if it reached that point like it had for Bork.You know the actual numbers? I do.
Yep, over 30 years ago. We no longer have the same level of bipartisanship we had back then due to events such as the Bork nomination. How's it working out do you think?I do too. Six of the 46 Republicans in the Senate at the time voted against his nomination. That is a notable percentage and means it was not simply Democrats who ultimately ended up having issues with him. Obviously it is true that more Democrats had an issue with him, but the evidence is even if Republicans had controlled the Senate at the time to a degree, the nomination would have been voted down given the concerns of the some of the more moderate Republican members. By contrast, it is very clear that many Republicans actually had no issue with Merrick Garland's qualifications (or viewed him as having extreme views which meant he should not be nominated regardless of who was President) and it purely was a political power play, with multiple Republicans in fact articulating the view that they should vote on his nomination and plenty of evidence he would have been successfully nominated if it reached that point like it had for Bork.
Well I am pretty angry about how Republicans have behaved, with as noted among other issues Republican Senators clearly not giving Garland the same opportunity Bork did when he was nominated by President Reagan, I suspect you are going to try to put a different spin on things.Yep, over 30 years ago. We no longer have the same level of bipartisanship we had back then due to events such as the Bork nomination. How's it working out do you think?
You are bending the truth, 85% support it, I am one of the 15% who doesn't. However, none of them want DACA vote over government shutdown.85% of Americans disagree with you.
Yep, over 30 years ago. We no longer have the same level of bipartisanship we had back then due to events such as the Bork nomination. How's it working out do you think?
YupYou mean... The GOP could just do right by millions of people? Why would they want to do that?
They've increasingly been the Party of divisive hate & discontent since Gingrich. It helped them win elections, and now the presidency. Hell- Putin even pitched in to help them out, cuz he believes in the MAGA.
Well, maybe Republicans shouldn't shut the government they fully control down to block a policy that 85% of the country supports.You are bending the truth, 85% support it, I am one of the 15% who doesn't. However, none of them want DACA vote over government shutdown.
Your anger at Republicans is noted.Well I am pretty angry about how Republicans have behaved, with as noted among other issues Republican Senators clearly not giving Garland the same opportunity Bork did when he was nominated by President Reagan, I suspect you are going to try to put a different spin on things.
Master Yoda is speaking to all of us.Your anger at Republicans is noted.
On Saturday, the president was left alternately defiant and angry, self-pitying and frustrated. He argued to aides that he did not deserve the blame he was taking, but without a credible deal on the table, there was little for him to do. Irritated to have missed his big event in Florida, Mr. Trump spent much of his day watching old TV clips of him berating President Barack Obama for a lack of leadership during the 2013 government shutdown, a White House aide said, seeming content to sit back and watch the show.
He missed his big party last night...boohoo.
He missed his big party last night...boohoo.
Trump sure does miss work a lot. In the real world that would get a person fired.People have posted pictures of the food that was served at Mar-a-Lago. He's lucky he missed it.
You are bending the truth, 85% support it, I am one of the 15% who doesn't. However, none of them want DACA vote over government shutdown.
Still, 56% overall say approving a budget agreement to avoid a shutdown is more important than continuing the DACA program, while just 34% choose DACA over a shutdown. Democrats break narrowly in favor of DACA -- 49% say it's more important vs. 42% who say avoiding a shutdown is the priority -- while majorities of both Republicans (75%) and independents (57%) say avoiding a shutdown is more important.
Views on the issue fall generally along ideological lines, with 68 percent of Democrats in favor of a shutdown aimed at extending the DACA program, while 83 percent of Republicans and 65 percent of independents would oppose a shutdown driven by an immigration fight, according to the poll.
Those findings mirror a CNN survey released Friday that found 56 percent of polled voters believe that passing a budget to avoid a shutdown is more important than reaching an agreement on DACA.
“The poll suggests that a shutdown over DACA could well backfire as the public is hugely sympathetic to the 'Dreamers' but don’t think closing the government is the way to handle it,” said Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll co-director Mark Penn.
65% of independents are going to inflict their wrath on Dems in November.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...-shutting-down-government-over-daca-provision
This is why Mitch won't defer to the nuke option, he wants the Dems to bleed a slow and painful death over the shutdown. Dems ain't fooling anyone, the #SchumerShutdown is going to burn them the longer the gov stays closed and Trump will once again spin it in his favor with Twitter as DACA vs funding for CHIP/military. Don't believe me? Read this.
http://wtvr.com/2018/01/20/why-democrats-may-be-making-the-wrong-bet-on-the-shutdown/
Once again he'll win just like he did when he forced NFL owners to make their players stand for the anthem. He's playing chess while these chumps are playing checkers and Dems are too stupid to realize it until they fall into his traps time and time again. Overly betting on something as trivial (according to polling) as DACA shows that Dems are completely out of touch with today's American voter.
That's probably true, but I think a nice long hard shutdown will stick in the minds of voters and at least in the near term will generate more enmity for the hard left. Yes Trump could undue a lot of those political "gains" with some tweets but so far it hasn't seemed to hurt his support to voters in swing states at all. Take Ohio, for example, and the funny segment from a few days ago that cnn ran on democrats who voted for Trump in Youngstown.Lol. You think this will even be on the minds of independent voters in November. That’s 288 Trump news cycles from now.
Independent voters will barely be able to keep track of the scandals in the week before the election.
When all else fails... Tag in SP33DY
You can't make this shit up anymore folks...
Next up.... LegendKiller