Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

President Trump Posts Altered Photos to Facebook and Instagram That Make Him Look Thinner

Trump’s fingers have been made slightly longer. Seriously.

 

:lol:

 

Yes, especially the finger he's giving to all of the U.S.A. and her allies.

[y66]

From the Editorial Board at NYT:

 

It is beyond time for this pernicious shutdown to end. With each passing day, more Americans are feeling the pinch of having the federal government thrown into chaos by a political standoff over President Trump’s demand for a wall on the southern border.

 

The continuing battle increasingly resembles an episode of “Real Housewives,” with the attendant name-calling and hair-pulling. On Jan. 16, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, sent Mr. Trump a letter suggesting that he postpone his State of the Union address until the government reopened. The following day, Mr. Trump hit back, withdrawing military support for a congressional delegation that Ms. Pelosi was preparing to lead to Afghanistan.

 

Come Saturday, Mr. Trump introduced a new immigration plan that he touted as a grand compromise but that, in reality, included enough poison pills to gag all but fervent hard-liners. On Wednesday, he followed up with a letter to Ms. Pelosi, declaring his intention to deliver his big speech as planned in the House chamber, shutdown or no. The speaker promptly announced that she would not allow the president to speak on the House floor for the duration of the shutdown.

 

“The State of the Union speech has been canceled by Nancy Pelosi because she doesn’t want to hear the truth,” Mr. Trump told reporters. He said he’d find another place to give the address.

 

So further down the rabbit hole we go.

 

As an alternative to the Don-and-Nancy drama, the Senate could take a small but solid step toward rescuing Americans from further pain and humiliation, when on Thursday it takes up a pair of competing plans to reopen the government.

 

After weeks of insisting that there is nothing Senate Republicans can do about the shutdown, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has agreed to hold a floor vote on two proposals to end it — a clear sign that lawmakers are feeling the heat and anxious to at least look like they’re taking action.

 

One measure is the immigration plan that Mr. Trump rolled out Saturday, an offering that seems custom-designed to turn off Democrats. The second is far more modest: a continuing resolution that would fund the government through Feb. 8 and that, aside from some extra money thrown in for disaster relief, is basically identical to a bill the Senate passed in December.

 

Back then, Mr. Trump initially agreed to accept the stopgap plan, before executing a last-minute back flip after being accused of apostasy by Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. This time, the funding bill, like Mr. Trump’s proposal, is widely expected to fail.

 

This would be a waste. Embracing a short-term continuing resolution could provide an opening — no matter how narrow and fraught — for lawmakers to push this mess a few inches closer to a resolution. And at this point, every inch is a minor miracle. Republican senators with even a faint spark of independence remaining should stiffen their spines, stop providing cover for the president and signal their commitment to ending the shutdown madness by backing the measure. They did it once, just a few weeks ago. How hard can it be to do so again?

 

On the other hand, if members of the majority decline to step up, they should expect Democrats to ratchet up the pressure. Pass or fail, the very act of senators’ voting alters the story line that McConnell and company have been peddling: that Republican lawmakers are helpless observers in some tacky war between the president and congressional Democrats.

 

This was always a dishonest narrative. Mr. McConnell’s refusal to have his members vote on the funding proposals coming out of the House has been a cynical political move, an attempt to absolve his team of any responsibility — with either the public or the president — for the impasse.

 

With Thursday’s votes, Republicans will no longer have that cover. In December, the stopgap bill passed on a voice vote, meaning that individual members’ positions were not recorded. This time around, a formal roll call will be conducted, letting the public know exactly who favors moving forward and who would rather keep the government closed to satisfy the president.

 

Obviously, a short-term extension does not address the underlying issues that led to this shutdown. But by reopening the government, even briefly, the Senate could change the dynamic so that Democrats are not operating in a hostage situation — that is, negotiating with the president while he’s holding in his hands the livelihood of some 800,000 federal workers and those who rely on them. Democrats have vowed that they will not bargain under such circumstances — period — lest they encourage Mr. Trump to behave similarly going forward.

 

Considering the president’s track record, this is a reasonable concern. But if the government reopens briefly, it could ease the conflict enough to get everyone back to the bargaining table.

 

The assumption now is that Mr. McConnell is looking to send a message to Mr. Trump with this pair of votes. Both measures failing could show the president just how impossible this situation has become and how everyone needs to rethink his or her positions.

 

But counting on this president to behave rationally has burned Mr. McConnell before. The only thing Mr. Trump seems to respect is power. If the Senate wants to end this standoff, members will need to assert some of their own.

[johnu]

Dennison Says Grocers, Lenders Will Cut Federal Workers A Break: ‘That’s What Happens’

 

But Trump defended the man and said that banks were also “working along” with those facing financial hardship during the shutdown, “and that’s what happens in a time like this.”

 

I'm sure if you go into the local grocery store and ask if you can have a cart full of groceries without paying right now that everything will go very smoothly. Especially if you are a person of color and the manager and clerk are white. Yep, that will certainly go well :rolleyes:

 

As far as banks go, I'm sure they will cut you a sweetheart deal if

 

1) Your name is Trump

2) You are doing Kompromat with Russia

3) The bank is Deutsche Bank

4) Deutsche Bank is laundering money for Putin and the Russian Oligarchs

 

[hrothgar]

I will gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today

[hrothgar]

Looks like an interesting day in the news...

 

Stone going down is a huge development.

[Winstonm]

Looks like an interesting day in the news...

 

Stone going down is a huge development.

 

From the indictment:

 

After the July 22, 2016 release of stolen DNC emails by Organization 1, a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton Campaign. STONE thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by Organization 1.

 

(My emphasis)

 

 

And soon it may be Kushner's time in the barrel:

[johnu]

And soon it may be Kushner's time in the barrel:

Kushner has been doing dennison shady stuff since before he joined the White House.

 

YT: Kushner's business got $500M in loans after White House meetings

 

If he was part of the government shutdown, he could also have got a loan for that week's groceries.

 

And more loans from Qatar

 

THE KUSHNERS ARE FINALLY GETTING THAT SWEET, SWEET QATARI CASH

 

And there is the upcoming scandal about how Kushner was given top secret security clearance.

 

Officials rejected Jared Kushner for top secret security clearance, but were overruled

 

Kushner's was one of at least 30 cases in which Kline overruled career security experts and approved a top-secret clearance for incoming Trump officials despite unfavorable information, the two sources said. They said the number of rejections that were overruled was unprecedented — it had happened only once in the three years preceding Kline's arrival.

Why bother with reviewing anybody for security clearances if a political appointee is going to approve them anyways.

 

As a very senior official, Kushner was seeking an even higher designation that would grant him access to what is known as "sensitive compartmented information," or SCI. That material makes up the government's most sensitive secrets,

After Kline overruled the White House security specialists and recommended Kushner for a top-secret clearance, Kushner's file then went to the CIA for a ruling on SCI.

 

After reviewing the file, CIA officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top-secret clearance, the sources said.

[barmar]

Dennison Says Grocers, Lenders Will Cut Federal Workers A Break: ‘That’s What Happens’

Don't know about bankers, but I've heard a number of stories about restaurants giving free food to government workers. Just this morning WGBH aired this story about a Boston Chinese restaurauteur giving free dumplings to federal workers, and next week he's going to add rice bowls.

 

But the fact that a few private individuals and companies are stepping up to help these people should hardly be considered an excuse to let the shutdown drag on. People also donate money and goods to victims of natural disasters, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to government relief.

[johnu]

Don't know about bankers, but I've heard a number of stories about restaurants giving free food to government workers. Just this morning WGBH aired this story about a Boston Chinese restaurauteur giving free dumplings to federal workers, and next week he's going to add rice bowls.

 

But the fact that a few private individuals and companies are stepping up to help these people should hardly be considered an excuse to let the shutdown drag on. People also donate money and goods to victims of natural disasters, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to government relief.

And there's this

 

Chef Jose Andres’ pop-up kitchen serves free food to federal workers affected by shutdown

 

Jose Andres is also well known for serving free food in Puerto Rico after Hurrican Maria. Many thanks to Jose, but it's a sad comment on America that such efforts are needed when there is no natural disaster.

 

And maybe many tens of thousands will be helped by others. The problem is that there are 800,000 federal employees not getting paid anything.

 

How much does average US household have in a savings account?

 

the median savings account balance across American households is $4,830

40 percent of U.S. adults don't have enough savings to cover a mere $400 emergency

Last year, the average U.S. household spent 60,060, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's roughly $5,000 a month.

The average expenditures is much higher than the median expenditure but are not quoted (available?).

 

And that doesn't count non government employees who are either laid off or have their hours substantially reduced because their companies depend on spending by the government (service and supply type stores ) or government employees (restaurants, shops, etc).

[Winstonm]

Pink Floyd has chimed in on the response of Individual-1 to the Roger Stone arrest: "All in all, you just shat another brick for your wall."

[johnu]

Shutdown over?

 

Trump announces deal for government to reopen for three weeks, ending longest shutdown; no money for his border wall

 

A 3 week temporary win for the Democrats. The troubling issue is that the agreement is only for 3 weeks. Is there going to be another shutdown once the temporary agreement expires?

[jjbrr]

Shutdown over?

 

Trump announces deal for government to reopen for three weeks, ending longest shutdown; no money for his border wall

 

A 3 week temporary win for the Democrats. The troubling issue is that the agreement is only for 3 weeks. Is there going to be another shutdown once the temporary agreement expires?

 

“They save good people from attempting a very dangerous journey from other countries - thousands of miles - because they have a glimmer of hope of coming through. With a wall, they don’t have that hope.”

 

-The President of the United States

[johnu]

“They save good people from attempting a very dangerous journey from other countries - thousands of miles - because they have a glimmer of hope of coming through. With a wall, they don’t have that hope.”

 

-The President of the United States

I wonder what good people he's talking about.

 

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

 

–Real estate mogul Donald Trump, presidential announcement speech, June 16, 2015

Or maybe the good people are the Dreamers who are either US military veterans or currently serving in the US military that President Bone Spurs wants to deport.

 

Or maybe he was talking about the caravans coming north through Mexico. Those that made it to the border are mostly camped out at legal entry points along the border trying to apply for asylum.

 

He did say

So let me be very clear: We really have no choice but to build a powerful wall or steel barrier. If we don’t get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on February 15th, again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and the Constitution of the United States to address this emergency.

He could have signed bills a month ago and declared an emergency. He threatened to do so a number of times and didn't. If he does declare an emergency, the House will try to block any wall spending and the dispute will likely end up in the Supreme Court.

 

That being said, from what I've read, the Democrats are willing to provide some funding for a wall in exchange for a permanent DACA solution, and other immigration agreements.

[kenberg]

Shutdown over?

 

Trump announces deal for government to reopen for three weeks, ending longest shutdown; no money for his border wall

 

A 3 week temporary win for the Democrats. The troubling issue is that the agreement is only for 3 weeks. Is there going to be another shutdown once the temporary agreement expires?

 

I cannot imagine the shutdown being repeated. But then I couldn't imagine a president shutting down government to get his way on building a wall, so maybe I am wrong.

Something interesting happened during the shutdown.Everyday people were hurt. A relative on my wife's side is a TSA agent. She is white, female, and although I have never asked her, probably gay. She was hurt. Straight white males were hurt. Old people were hurt. Young people were hurt. African Americans, male and female, were hurt. The damage shoved aside any notion of identity politics. It was sufficiently widespread so that everyone was affected, many very directly and substantially. And the issue was clear. There was a bill to open government, Trump would not support it unless he got his wall, McConnell would not allow a vote unless Trump got his wall. A person did not need to read a ten page article in some obscure political journal to get the gist of what was happening.

 

It was heartless and vicious, and ultimately brainless. And widely seen in that way. I have conservative friends and Republican friends, some, and I think this includes the TSA agent, may well have voted for Trump. There has been some serious re-thinking going on.

 

We will see where this all goes, but I do not think there will be another shutdown any time soon.

 

[Winstonm]

I cannot imagine the shutdown being repeated. But then I couldn't imagine a president shutting down government to get his way on building a wall, so maybe I am wrong.

Something interesting happened during the shutdown.Everyday people were hurt. A relative on my wife's side is a TSA agent. She is white, female, and although I have never asked her, probably gay. She was hurt. Straight white males were hurt. Old people were hurt. Young people were hurt. African Americans, male and female, were hurt. The damage shoved aside any notion of identity politics. It was sufficiently widespread so that everyone was affected, many very directly and substantially. And the issue was clear. There was a bill to open government, Trump would not support it unless he got his wall, McConnell would not allow a vote unless Trump got his wall. A person did not need to read a ten page article in some obscure political journal to get the gist of what was happening.

 

It was heartless and vicious, and ultimately brainless. And widely seen in that way. I have conservative friends and Republican friends, some, and I think this includes the TSA agent, may well have voted for Trump. There has been some serious re-thinking going on.

 

We will see where this all goes, but I do not think there will be another shutdown any time soon.

 

by opening his mouth and exposing how unfamiliar he is with the lives of normal Americans, Wilbur Ross may have done as much damage to the Republican party as anyone since Nixon - well, since Individual-1, anyway.

[y66]

From the Editorial Board at NYT:

 

What a debacle President Trump’s shutdown proved to be — what a toddler’s pageant of foot-stomping and incompetence, of vainglory and self-defeat. Mr. Trump tormented public servants and citizens and wounded the country, and, in conceding on Friday after holding the government hostage for 35 days, could claim to have achieved nothing.

 

He succeeded only in exposing the emptiness of his bully’s bravado, of his “I alone can fix it” posturing. Once upon a time, Mr. Trump promised that Mexico would pay for a wall. He instead made all Americans pay for a partisan fantasy.

 

Maybe you want a wall. Can you possibly argue that Mr. Trump’s shutdown strategy advanced your cause? He made the right decision on Friday — to sign a bill reopening the government through Feb. 15, giving lawmakers time to reach a permanent deal. But he could have had this same outcome without a shutdown. He ultimately agreed to the sort of bill that Democrats have been pitching for weeks — one that contains not one dollar in wall funding.

 

In his announcement, the president struggled to obscure his failure with yet another rambling infomercial about the glory of walls. “No matter where you go, they work,” he said (raising the question of how you can get there if, in fact, there’s a wall in your way). He had nothing of substance to offer beyond the usual specious claims that only his wall can end the border flood of drugs, crime and migrant women who have been duct-taped and stuffed into vans by human traffickers. To repeat: Fewer border-crossing apprehensions were made in 2017 than at any time since 1971; drugs are overwhelmingly smuggled through established points of entry; and the only crisis at the border is a humanitarian one, of people fleeing violence and seeking asylum — again, mostly at established points of entry — under international law.

 

There is nothing to celebrate about this sorry shutdown, though it’s perhaps understandable that congressional Democrats were reveling in Mr. Trump’s collapse. Members of Mr. Trump’s conservative fan base demonstrated that, even if the president continues to insist on alternative facts, they are capable of acknowledging that truth.

 

Within minutes of the announcement, the bomb-throwing pundit Ann Coulter — among those credited with having scolded Mr. Trump into rejecting the temporary funding bill passed by the Senate last month — tweeted her judgment:

 

“Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States.”

 

The president tried to stand tough for Ms. Coulter and her ilk. Even as federal workers lined up at food banks, sought unemployment benefits and took backup gigs driving for Uber, he insisted he would not give an inch. He stormed out of meetings with Democratic leaders. He indulged in a public spat with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over his State of the Union address. He tweeted angrily. On Thursday, he was still vowing, “We will not cave!”

 

But on Friday he caved. With a growing number of overworked, stressed-out air traffic controllers calling in sick, staffing shortages at two airports on the East Coast began to snarl air travel. The spectacle of enraged travelers, canceled flights and imperiled safety turned up the heat on the White House and Congress.

 

Republican lawmakers were already in a foul mood. On Thursday, the Senate voted on, and failed to pass, two competing plans for reopening the government. Afterward, there were reports of sniping and finger-pointing within the Republican conference.

 

Along with their concerns about the human cost of the shutdown, Republicans were no doubt antsy about the negative impact the shutdown was having on their president’s public standing. Polls consistently showed that most Americans did not support the shutdown and that most blamed Mr. Trump for it. An ABC poll released this week put Mr. Trump’s approval rating at 37 percent and showed him to have the lowest two-year average approval of any president in the past seven decades. Perhaps he noticed that a poll released on Wednesday found that 59 percent of Americans thought he cared little about their problems.

 

On top of all that, the Russia investigation hit the headlines again, when, in a predawn raid on Friday, F.B.I. agents — working without pay — arrested Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump. Mr. Stone has been indicted on seven counts related to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, including witness tampering, obstruction and making false statements.

 

It was, in short, shaping up to be a very bad day for the president, who really cannot be blamed for wanting to change the story line.

 

Of course, the new narrative — that Mr. Trump got owned by Ms. Pelosi — isn’t likely to sit well with him, either. And who knows what he’ll do next to try to salve his ego, and salvage some political capital with the minority of Americans who still seem inclined to support him.

 

In his Friday remarks, Mr. Trump made threatening noises about declaring a national emergency if Congress cannot reach a compromise by the time this agreement expires. Polls suggest that such a move would be wildly unpopular, causing the president and his party even more grief. Maybe that danger will motivate congressional Republicans to hammer out a deal without him.

 

Here’s hoping that this mess leaves Mr. Trump with a vital lesson — even if he doesn’t care about a functional government, the rest of America does.

[Winstonm]

"Ratfrucker" Roger won't "roll" and Bobby Three-Sticks doesn't care:

 

Finally, do not expect to see special counsel Robert Mueller make any attempt to flip Stone and have him cooperate. A defendant like Stone is far more trouble than he is worth to a prosecutor. Stone is too untrustworthy for a prosecutor to ever rely upon. He has told so many documented lies, and bragged so often about his dirty tricks, that he simply has too much baggage to deal with even if here to want to cooperate—which seems unlikely in any event. Mueller, I suspect, would not even be willing to engage in a preliminary debrief with Stone to just test the possibility of cooperation out of concern that Stone would immediately go on television with his pals at Fox News to decry Mueller’s Gestapo tactics.

[kenberg]

"Ratfrucker" Roger won't "roll" and Bobby Three-Sticks doesn't care:

 

 

 

This seems right. Possible Stone has information, which if it were independently verifiable, could be useful but basically no one should trust anything he says. I vaguely recall some youngster from the '72 Nixon campaign who became (in)famous for dirty tricks. Stone turned 20 in August of 72 and was in the Nixon campaign, so I suppose he's the guy I heard of back then. Like Mozart, he started young.

 

Friday night on PBS Newshour Judy Woodruff was interviewing a former prosecutor who is now a defense lawyer and she asked what he would do if he were defending Stone.He said the first thing he would do would be to tell Stone to shut up. Beyond that, he had few ideas. Hope for a pardon seemed to be the best he had to offer.

 

The country is in deep stuff. I hope for the best.

[y66]

From Brad DeLong at Grasping Reality:

 

Open right now on my virtual desktop, as has been true about 5% of the time over the past fourteen months, is an article forecasting the economic effects of the 2017 Trump-McConnell-Ryan tax cut by nine academic economists: Robert J. Barro, Michael J. Boskin, John Cogan, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Glenn Hubbard, Lawrence B. Lindsey, Harvey S. Rosen, George P. Shultz and John. B. Taylor: How Tax Reform Will Lift the Economy: We believe the Republican bills could boost GDP 3% to 4% long term by reducing the cost of capital. It is, bluntly, unprofessional.

 

It states that the tax cut:

 

reducing the corporate tax rate to 20% and moving to immediate expensing of equipment and intangible investment... conventional... economic modeling suggests... would raise the level of GDP in the long run by just over 4%. If achieved over a decade, the associated increase in the annual rate of GDP growth would be about 0.4% per year. Because the House and Senate bills contemplate expensing only for five years, the increase in capital accumulation would be less, and the gain in the long-run level of GDP would be just over 3%, or 0.3% per year for a decade...

 

Their phrases "conventional economic modeling" and "if achieved over a decade" entail in their background a 600 billion jump in the level of investment this year then maintained for the next decade. That was never going to happen. That hasn't happened. The authors did not expect that to happen—if they had expected it, they would be very curious why their modeling approach had gone so wrong, and they are not so curious. As very sharp reporter Binyamin Appelbaum put it on twitter in a despairing cry:

Binyamin Appelbaum: I am not sure there is a defensible case for the discipline of macroeconomics if they can’t at least agree on the ground rules for evaluating tax policy. How does Harvard, for example, justify granting tenure to people who purport to work in the same discipline and publicly condemn each other as charlatans? What does it mean to produce the signatures of 100 economists in favor of a given proposition when another 100 will sign their names to the opposite statement?...

Greg Mankiw in his Snake Oil Economics: The Bad Math Behind Trump’s Policies came out attacking highballed estimates of the tax cut's effects and endorsing the Congressional Budget Office's conclusion—that it would have essentially zero effect on economic growth, while redistributing a substantial amount—1.5 trillion—from the rest of us to the rich over the course of the next decade.

 

Unfortunately, Mankiw's attack on highball estimates did not land in December 2017, when the tax cut was moving through congress, and when it might have done some good in the debate about public policy.

 

It came out, rather, a year later, in December 2018, as a review of a book by Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore: Trumponomics: Inside the America-First Plan to Revive Our Economy.

[johnu]

This seems right. Possible Stone has information, which if it were independently verifiable, could be useful but basically no one should trust anything he says. I vaguely recall some youngster from the '72 Nixon campaign who became (in)famous for dirty tricks. Stone turned 20 in August of 72 and was in the Nixon campaign, so I suppose he's the guy I heard of back then. Like Mozart, he started young.

Even Richard Nixon's foundation is trying to avoid being associated with Stone.

 

Nixon Foundation distances itself from Roger Stone after Mueller indictment

[y66]

From With Pain Still Fresh, Lawmakers Make Push to Outlaw Shutdowns by Carl Hulse at NYT:

 

WASHINGTON — Was this the shutdown to end all shutdowns?

 

The answer could be yes. The toll exacted on government operations and federal employees by the record 35-day stalemate — not to mention the political costs to those in the White House and on Capitol Hill — was so punishing that it is giving momentum to a longstanding call to prohibit the government disruptions that have become a regular facet of Washington hardball.

 

“Shutting down the government should be as off limits in budget negotiations as chemical warfare is in real warfare,” Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, said on Friday.

 

He was not alone in expressing those sentiments. Members of both parties said it was past time to enact legislation that would essentially mean the government would remain open at existing spending levels when an impasse such as the fight over the border wall was reached, rather than shuttering parts or all of the government. That’s an outcome that virtually everyone agrees is costly, unnecessary and even embarrassing.

 

“This never should have happened,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, speaking for many.

 

Veterans of past shutdowns have come to learn that there are few, if any, winners in the end and that closing the government has not proved effective as a negotiating strategy for those who use the government as a lever to press their case. It didn’t work for Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, for Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and House conservatives in 2013 or for Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and fellow Democrats early in 2018 when they relented on a shutdown after just three days.

[kenberg]

From With Pain Still Fresh, Lawmakers Make Push to Outlaw Shutdowns by Carl Hulse at NYT:

 

 

 

 

 

The fundamental problem is that Donald Trump is president, Mitch McConnell leads the Senate, and the rest of the Republican party, most of it, lacks the will to address the serious challenge that this presents. A couple of power mad whatevers with destructive urges will find a way to destroy things until they are stopped.

 

Nobody but a moron, maybe not even Trump, would suggest doing another shutdown so saying "Hey, let's prevent another shutdown" and then congratulating themselves on this great move is beyond embarrassing. Where were they for the past five weeks?

For example, if they wanted to do something about an actual present danger, they could unanimously, or as close to it as possible, pass a resolution making it clear that whatever the plusses or minuses of a border wall might be the need for it is not remotely the sort of problem that warrants a presidential declaration of a national emergency. This is presumably obvious to just about everyone but for Trump it is necessary to lay it out. The shutdown is, blissfully, a thing of the past. But Trump and McConnell are still there, so the fundamental problem is still very much with us.

 

[Winstonm]

The fundamental problem is that Donald Trump is president, Mitch McConnell leads the Senate, and the rest of the Republican party, most of it, lacks the will to address the serious challenge that this presents. A couple of power mad whatevers with destructive urges will find a way to destroy things until they are stopped.

 

Nobody but a moron, maybe not even Trump, would suggest doing another shutdown so saying "Hey, let's prevent another shutdown" and then congratulating themselves on this great move is beyond embarrassing. Where were they for the past five weeks?

For example, if they wanted to do something about an actual present danger, they could unanimously, or as close to it as possible, pass a resolution making it clear that whatever the plusses or minuses of a border wall might be the need for it is not remotely the sort of problem that warrants a presidential declaration of a national emergency. This is presumably obvious to just about everyone but for Trump it is necessary to lay it out. The shutdown is, blissfully, a thing of the past. But Trump and McConnell are still there, so the fundamental problem is still very much with us.

 

The ability to declare a national emergency over the border would come down to 4 Republican senators, I would imagine. Congress can block the move, but that requires both branches of Congress to vote against it - simple majority, I understand. The fact that they can actively stop it after it has been declared probably makes it harder to preemptively stop it.

[andrei]

Back on direct point about on thread:

 

With NATO withdrawal, Trump weighed ‘gift of the century for Putin’

 

 

No Jens Stoltenberg news lately?

 

NYT: no unnamed sources, no story

[Winstonm]

Crimestopper: no anonymous sources, no crime