U.S. Politics: Girthers Vs. Anti-Girthers

[ThinkerX]

Could get interesting if this shutdown drags on for say, three or four months. 

Yes, it's unlikely.  However, given the extreme polarization and a mercurial president (being polite) it's at least possible.

The congressional conservatives might even see a prolonged shutdown as a good thing, a way of hacking government down to size. 

[Martell Spy]

Quote

 

The truth is, Cotton’s views on immigration are more prevalent among House Republicans than Graham’s are. House Speaker Paul Ryan won the support of the archconservative House Freedom Caucus for the spending bill to avert an embarrassing defeat in the House in part by promising movement on a hardline immigration plan.

So while Graham might have sway with Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats, and maybe even the White House, he has a huge House Republican problem — and he has people like Cotton battling for Trump’s attention on immigration.

“No one will own any deal without the White House owning it. Ryan loses 150 of his guys on a Lindsey Graham deal,” one GOP lobbyist told me.

 

Lindsey Graham seems like the only person trying to fix the government shutdown
Nobody else is making a deal. But Graham has a big problem standing in his way.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/20/16913328/government-shutdown-2018-lindsey-graham

[lokisnow]

Shrug. Why not give trump the wall. It will be attacked with lawsuits immediately and those  might find some serious teeth the moment they try to eminent domain any property and it won’t even have started groundbreaking by January 2021. Property costs will instantly balloon to 200 times their current value which will seriously impede the budget for the wall and reduce it in scope from thousands of miles to hundreds. And in any event, They’ll still be doing grading work roads and generally messing about with prep work. If democrats can get DACA and CHip funded in exchange for the wall, then if they get elected they can just repeal and not replace the not-yet-built wall.

oh, and democrats should insist if they’re going to give trump the wall that it be funded with a 5% increase in the estate tax (and a 2 million dollars reduction in the amount exempted from the estate tax)

[all swedes are racist]

17 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

Why not give trump the wall.

hell yeah, that’s what i’m talking about!

oh wait, you meant in that other way

[IamMe90]

2 hours ago, dr. thicc president said:

hell yeah, that’s what i’m talking about!

oh wait, you meant in that other way

For once, I actually -sorta- agree with Loki though. The wall, as Trump conceives it (I use the word "conceive" very lightly; not sure he actually has any concrete ideas about what this wall entails at any given moment) is just totally unfeasible. It will never actually get built, it will never be a thing. If promising funding for the wall can leverage democrats real benefits, I don't see why we shouldn't use it to that end.

However, I have serious doubts that we can actually use funding for the wall as leverage to get concessions from Trump. I don't think he actually cares that much about the wall; he doesn't really care about any substantive policy. 

[Galactus]

Trump isn't really the issue. Congressional republicans are.

 

The "Moderates" don't want the wall, and so don't want to trade anything for it, and the hardliners aren't amenable to compromise in the first place. 

[Fez]

2 hours ago, Galactus said:

Trump isn't really the issue. Congressional republicans are.

 

The "Moderates" don't want the wall, and so don't want to trade anything for it, and the hardliners aren't amenable to compromise in the first place. 

They're both the issue. If Trump signed off on a deal, and Congress trusted that he wouldn't back out of it (which I don't think is possible anymore), he'd drag nearly all Congressional Republicans along with him. Whether they want to or not.

Which is why it remains baffling (or at least, it would be, if it wasn't already totally clear that Trump has no idea what he's doing), that Trump didn't decide to govern from the middle. He could've split the Democratic party on nearly every issue, causing the party to engage in massive in-fighting instead of uniting to oppose him in the midterms and 2020, while keeping the Republican party firmly united behind him because members of congress desperately want to be able to support their party's President. 

Instead, we get all this; over and over.

[GAROVORKIN]

5 hours ago, IamMe90 said:

For once, I actually -sorta- agree with Loki though. The wall, as Trump conceives it (I use the word "conceive" very lightly; not sure he actually has any concrete ideas about what this wall entails at any given moment) is just totally unfeasible. It will never actually get built, it will never be a thing. If promising funding for the wall can leverage democrats real benefits, I don't see why we shouldn't use it to that end.

However, I have serious doubts that we can actually use funding for the wall as leverage to get concessions from Trump. I don't think he actually cares that much about the wall; he doesn't really care about any substantive policy. 

A wall doesn't by definition have to be a physical barrier , It could, be something as simple  upgrading existing border security, enforcing laws that are already on the books .  The Democrats would by and large be agreeable to this.  Reasonable  border security is something  that could and should  in theory,  get Bipartisan support.  Both sides, if they put their minds to it , could solve this one to everyones satisfaction.

[Jace, Extat]

1 minute ago, GAROVORKIN said:

A wall doesn't by definition have to be a physical barrier , It could, be something as simple  upgrading existing border security, enforcing laws that are already on the books .  The Democrats would by and large be agreeable to this.  Reasonable  border security is something  that could and should  in theory,  get Bipartisan support.  Both sides, if they put their minds to it , could solve this one to everyones satisfaction.

They did. Donald let Stephen Miller and John Kelly convince him into taking a stance against letting the undesirables into the country as an additional condition.

And DACA and CHIP are not bargaining tools. They each have over 85% public approval. R's offering them as a carrot is akin to taking away all of the food and then saying that if you will only agree to sell your family into slavery then they can have some bread crusts.

[Shryke]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

They're both the issue. If Trump signed off on a deal, and Congress trusted that he wouldn't back out of it (which I don't think is possible anymore), he'd drag nearly all Congressional Republicans along with him. Whether they want to or not.

Which is why it remains baffling (or at least, it would be, if it wasn't already totally clear that Trump has no idea what he's doing), that Trump didn't decide to govern from the middle. He could've split the Democratic party on nearly every issue, causing the party to engage in massive in-fighting instead of uniting to oppose him in the midterms and 2020, while keeping the Republican party firmly united behind him because members of congress desperately want to be able to support their party's President. 

Instead, we get all this; over and over.

Is it really baffling? Especially on this issue?

He's a huge fucking racist. Of course he ain't splitting the difference here.

[Shryke]

6 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

They did. Donald let Stephen Miller and John Kelly convince him into taking a stance against letting the undesirables into the country as an additional condition.

And DACA and CHIP are not bargaining tools. They each have over 85% public approval. R's offering them as a carrot is akin to taking away all of the food and then saying that if you will only agree to sell your family into slavery then they can have some bread crusts.

The technical word for what they are is hostages. The GOP is deliberately holding children and dreamers hostage to get the Democrats to fold. McConnell ain't even trying to deny it.

[Martell Spy]

5 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

They did. Donald let Stephen Miller and John Kelly convince him into taking a stance against letting the undesirables into the country as an additional condition.

And DACA and CHIP are not bargaining tools. They each have over 85% public approval. R's offering them as a carrot is akin to taking away all of the food and then saying that if you will only agree to sell your family into slavery then they can have some bread crusts.

And the second that the Dems cave, they will lose all leverage and the Republicans will begin acting like the sociopaths they are. At this point, if Dems agreed to even a 4 week fix, the Repubs will not take them seriously again this year.

[Mexal]

12 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

They did. Donald let Stephen Miller and John Kelly convince him into taking a stance against letting the undesirables into the country as an additional condition.

And DACA and CHIP are not bargaining tools. They each have over 85% public approval. R's offering them as a carrot is akin to taking away all of the food and then saying that if you will only agree to sell your family into slavery then they can have some bread crusts.

This. Schumer was willing to give him the 1.6B Trump asked for in his budget. The bi-partisan immigration bill had over 1B in enhancements to border security. The issue isn't that the Dems are willing to give them the money they originally asked for, it's the hardliners (including Miller/Kelly in the WH) who have no desire to give DACA recipients any pathway to legal status. That's the non-starter, no matter what Trump or Republican leadership has promised in the past, which means a deal will never happen until one side folds.

And to perfectly clear (which everyone here knows), this is all politics. McConnell objected to motions to fund CHIP and to pay the military. He wants the narrative out there that the Dems hate the military and want to see kids die, even if the Republicans could have passed a clean CHIP bill any time over the last 3 months.

[Jace, Extat]

3 minutes ago, Shryke said:

The technical word for what they are is hostages. The GOP is deliberately holding children and dreamers hostage to get the Democrats to fold. McConnell ain't even trying to deny it.

Yeah, and even worse they want Dems to sell themselves into servitude in exchange for releasing some of the hostages. It's fucking insane.

Just now, Martell Spy said:

And the second that the Dems cave, they will lose all leverage and the Republicans will begin acting like the sociopaths they are. At this point, if Dems agreed to even a 4 week fix, the Repubs will not take them seriously again this year.

Agreed totes. I understand why some of our more Rightie friends may be a little confused by what's happening because of all of the lies, but for god's sake they're only demanding 20 billion dollars for a wall that won't be a wall but will be called a wall that Mexico is going to pay for but the money will come out of the tax payers pockets and isn't actually going to stop illegal immigration because the main method of illegal immigration in this country comes from people who fly.

Yeah, that's right. The Mexicans are so far ahead of the American government that they have developed a mysterious and frightening ability to soar like a bird right over terrestrial obstacles. Now if Donald is willing to talk about putting those little spikey things on his wall to make sure they don't build nests there then we might make progress.

[Shryke]

7 minutes ago, Mexal said:

This. Schumer was willing to give him the 1.6B Trump asked for in his budget. The bi-partisan immigration bill had over 1B in enhancements to border security. The issue isn't that the Dems are willing to give them the money they originally asked for, it's the hardliners (including Miller/Kelly in the WH) who have no desire to give DACA recipients any pathway to legal status. That's the non-starter, no matter what Trump or Republican leadership has promised in the past, which means a deal will never happen until one side folds.

And to perfectly clear (which everyone here knows), this is all politics. McConnell objected to motions to fund CHIP and to pay the military. He wants the narrative out there that the Dems hate the military and want to see kids die, even if the Republicans could have passed a clean CHIP bill any time over the last 3 months.

The hardliners don't just want no DACA. Their proposed deal is a huge overhaul of the US immigration system, massively reducing even legal immigration and in a ton of ways just throwing people (almost all non-white) out of the US who are already there. They want white supremacy and they want it very openly.

[Sivin]

Apologies for the tardiness, but I only just got home. 

Here's a nice video I took of some gentlemen who came to counter-protest the march in Nashville that was easily Brigade strength. 

Unfortunately I was unable to get the really offensive shit on video because when I got closer my efforts were needed to keep some of our brothers and sisters who couldn't handle the hate from making the wrong decision. 

Luckily the entire even was absolutely peaceful outside of some raised voices. 

 

[Martell Spy]

Quote

 

In the article describing Cotton’s desired immigration policy, Breitbart’s John Binder writes:

By 2023, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the legal and illegal immigrant population of the U.S. will make up nearly 15 percent of the entire U.S. population.

The Center for Immigration Studies was founded by John Tanton, who has a history of embracing eugenicist policies (he founded a pro-eugenics organization, the Society for Genetic Education, or SAGE) and was reported as telling a friend, “for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”

Now Tanton’s allies — and Cotton, Steve King, Bob Goodlatte, and, most of all, Donald Trump — are attempting to put these ideas into immigration policy. And they wonder why Democrats aren’t interested.

 

The far right chose virtue signaling over legislating. That caused the shutdown.
Immigration restrictionists killed any chance at a compromise.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/20/16913232/shutdown-far-right

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Shryke said:

Is it really baffling? Especially on this issue?

He's a huge fucking racist. Of course he ain't splitting the difference here.

It's not baffling because of what we've seen of Trump, but it should be.

You can be a huge racist and still cut a deal. It's even easy if it's an improvement over the status quo in your eyes. And it's not just this issue, it's all of them. Trump wants his victories but not any of the effort, even really basic stuff, to get them. He got the tax bill, but only because cutting taxes for corporations is the one thing all Republicans stand for. And even there he somehow almost failed.

[OldGimletEye]

Some people care what libertarians think.

I think who cares what "libertarians" think.

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/1/21/16916082/government-shutdown-size-of-government

Quote

Libertarians believe in smaller government. How much smaller? Roughly back to its size and scope in the 90s — that is, the 1790s.

So one might naturally assume that libertarians would cheer federal government shutdowns. These do not stop all federal government activities, but they at least suspend some parts temporarily. And no doubt many libertarians do find government shutdowns appealing.

 

[Jace, Extat]

7 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Some people care what libertarians think.

I think who cares what "libertarians" think.

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/1/21/16916082/government-shutdown-size-of-government

 

To be fair, Rand Paul actually conducted himself well this morning with Jake Tapper. He still spun some r wing bullshit (And undermined libertarianism in the process) but he was at least acting like just a misinformed adult instead of a fucking child.