I can't shake the feeling that Trump wants a shutdown, if only for the dramatic news coverage.
Of course, Trump is blaming the Democrats even though it doesn't even have all the Republican senators on board.
He's going to be pissed too, as he'll miss his Mar-a-Lago party if he stays true to his word. Ah who am I kidding, of course he's lying about that too.
For additional non-Beltway WTFuckery how about the Dr. Larry Nassar scandal? At least 140 girls for 20 years? And people in responsible positions had been warned? When are their trials?
Govt contractor employees are in a special state of not knowing what to do. I'm hearing that some of us will be considered "essential" and have to come in and get paid, and some "nonessential" and will not come in or get paid. I'm hearing that that only happened once, and what will really happen is business as usual and then we wait to find out if we get paid. I'm hearing that nobody will get paid, but then the govt employees will get back pay and the contractors working with them will not. I think I've also heard the opposite of that, too. Some people are assuming that if there's a shutdown it will last 2 weeks, for some reason. We will be told what to do either just before 5 PM today or after midnight tonight.
"House Republican" is a level of shithead equivalent to but not the same as Trump.
It is so, so frustrating that House Republicans can't accommodate themselves the the 50th (much less the 60th) vote in the Senate, just in order to have a functional legislature. If we had a parliamentary system, would we have a governing coalition of Blue Dogs and conventional Republicans? Or are the conventional Rs secretly happy to let the Tea Partiers jam everything up?
Pre-tax bill, Rs were frustrated by Tea Partiers, because they thought they might not get all the money they wanted. Once the looting was successful, they're now secretly happy with the jamming.
Any bets on whether the New York Times runs a front page headline "Avoiding government shutdown depends on Democrats" some time in the next few weeks?
I wouldn't even bet they don't have that now.
Anyone else going to the one-year-later women's march tomorrow?
Honestly, somebody needs to explain to me why 6 years of CHIP isn't worth putting off Dreamers for 30 days.
The CHIP advocates are pushing for 10 years or permanent. I am not a healthcare expert but even they don't think 6 years is sufficient.
Honestly, somebody needs to explain to me why 6 years of CHIP isn't worth putting off Dreamers for 30 days.
I would have thought the argument is that the DACA thing is in practice irreversible. If it doesn't get done pretty much immediately, then they're getting deported.
12, 13: Like Moby, I don't get it. I mean, even if 10 years is your line in the sand, why not take six years now and then demand another four a month from now?
CHIP should be permanent anyway.
And substantively, why wouldn't a shutdown be considered a choice made by-- and the fault of -- the Democrats? Is there some other poison pill located in the 30-day funding?
(I have to be missing something, but I don't know what.)
Well, the House voted and fucked off. So I think you can make a reasonable case to blame them as that's not negotiation. I just don't know how it plays out with voters who are shitheads but shitheads afraid of Trump.
14: The DACA repeal has been enjoined (for now) in federal court. The situation isn't a happy one for the folks involved, but I don't see how it's a really dire situation for them that must be acted on in this way, right now.
I would have thought the argument is that the DACA thing is in practice irreversible. If it doesn't get done pretty much immediately, then they're getting deported.
TBC, they already are. Roughly 15,000 DACA recipients have lost their status since October 5, and they are all immediately vulnerable to deportation.
Currently, about 125 DACA recipients/day are losing status. The March 5 is an artificial, made-up one that has no external validity. The only thing it means is that the number of Dreamers losing status will increase to about 900/day after that point.
The other complication is that even if Congress acted today, it would take 8-10 weeks at least for the federal agencies to get the paperwork process rolling. And this administration has already demonstrated that they're not staying on top of doing things efficiently -- they just dealt with the Haitian TPS extension by waiting until THE VERY LAST BUSINESS DAY to tell Haitians how to apply for their final renewal. So of course lots of TPS holders were getting put on notice by HR that they were going to get fired/laid off on Monday because they weren't able to show that their work permits were renewed.
12 to 16, no? The House gave the Dems a substantive CHIP extension and in exchange, is only seeking 30 days.
Here's something for our friends across the pond: https://twitter.com/steviepattisond/status/953886975244857344/photo/1
I don't know any of the details of the shutdown compromises or what's been offered by who on CHIP or DACA or anything else and yet I COMPLETELY blame the republicans for the situation and I am positive that any bad outcomes on CHIP or DACA or otherwise are ENTIRELY their fault. (Am I blaming the republicans in the House? Senate? White House? All of the above!) I feel very comfortable in this judgment.
The guy who's been taking credit for the Dow for a year isn't responsible for a shutdown? In the minds of the crazy 27%, sure, but generally I think he gets tagged.
I would ordinarily say that I think Dem senators cave at the last minute -- Ryan is trying to force this -- but they've been hearing from a bunch of people that caving on DACA now will neither be forgotten nor forgiven in November. Who knows how real the threats are, but we're in a place where both sides are much more worried about turnout of their base than about talking to undecideds.
Has their been a motion to proceed vote yet? Last I heard there was no certainty of 50 Republican votes. If they don't have Lindsay Graham, they can hardly blame Democrats.
They don't have Flake either, according to the Post.
I will say it infuriates me how much the Democrats have allowed the immigration debate to be reduced to the DREAMers, as if a win there would make our restore justice to our broken and unjust immigration system. "Restoring DACA" should not be the left edge of the national immigration debate.
I think the deal with DACA is that most Republicans have paid lip service to wanting it to happen. It's incredibly popular, and Republicans aren't opposed to it on principle.
I am terrible at details of what's happening in this kind of negotiations -- I'm always four days behind and confused -- but as far as I can tell, what's going on is that Democrats are holding out for two provisions that the bulk of the Republican legislators claim to support, CHIP and DACA. The only reason why it's a sticking point now, at the only point where Democrats have leverage, is that Democrats (reasonably) don't trust Republicans not to either reneg on their support entirely or to attach it to intolerable conditions if either issue comes up when Democrats don't have leverage.
But if I've lost the plot on this, someone should straighten me out.
Restoring DACA is not the left edge, it's the centrist wedge that demonstrates how unreasonable the right edge (which controls the agenda) is being.
It's not an edge, it's a wedge, he hedged.
LB's 26 is right in all its essentials. Trump already promised to support DACA relief and reneged once, so the fear that the leadership would refuse to negotiate in good faith once the pressure's off is even more than usually well founded.
24: Yeah, Flake--who often talks a good game and then caves, so take it with a big grain of salt--says he is angry about Trump blowing up his bipartisan DACA agreement, so he won't vote for the CR without it. So you've got Graham and Flake saying that they want DACA back, McCain and Cochran out for medical reasons, and Mike Lee historically a "no" vote on CRs for procedural/ideological reasons; add Manchin back in, and McConnell only has 48-49 votes. That's why Schumer was telling him to call for cloture last night, to demonstrate that McConnell doesn't have a bare majority, let alone 60 votes.
30 is correct; Trump said he would sign a bipartisan agreement for a DACA extension plus border security funding. The Gang of 14 produced such an aggreement. Trump then, without additional explanation (that rhymes with Stephen Miller or possibly John Kelly), blew that up by saying that it additionally had to satisfy Tom Cotton, who sees himself astride a balcony in 2028. Graham and Flake seem genuinely pissed from inside the stomach of the Dignity Wraith that ate them.
32: You can't blame them. You can't do a deal if you counterparty doesn't have a consistent position to negotiate toward.
Sure, Trump and the Republicans are allegedly onboard supporting DACA and CHIP. And yes, they are lying about that. The question is, what do the Dems do?
If Graham and Flake don't flake out, then the Republicans will kill the deal and it's out of the Democrats' hands. But if the Dems allow the House bill to go through the Senate, that would remove a Republican bargaining CHIP at the expense of 30-days delay. Seems like a trade worth making.
But I am far from expert in this stuff, and would happily be educated. What's the downside of just accepting the House bill, beyond the 30-day delay? Or is the argument being made that the delay itself is properly a deal-killer?
32: But the House has committed to a position that the Dems are in a position to accept, if they want to. If Trump vetoes, well, nobody can blame the Dems for that.
35: Why are the Democrats on the hook to accept the Republican negotiating stance if the Republicans can't provide a majority of votes on their own? I don't get it. Dems + Graham + Flake are 51 votes, and they already hammered out a deal. McConnell won't let them bring it to the floor. Why is McConnell therefore not on the hook to demonstrate that he has 51 votes for the House version? This seems like "Charles Schumer won't preemptively give away his negotiating leverage, therefore this is Schumer's fault".
34 As noted, other than getting royally flamed by the left half of the coalition for caving again -- like we always knew they would -- the downsides are probably manageable.
But at a certain point, and maybe Shithole Miller is the embodiment of that point, they have to stand up.
I mean, Graham gave an interview this morning where he said that he is a no vote on a 30-day CR. Schumer can provide McConnell all the votes he needs, and the cost is a DACA extension. I don't understand the stance of "give them 30 days and then rely on things to work out differently then because reasons".
34: The point is that CHIP as a concession is a red herring. DACA was always the real issue. Trump explicitly said when he voluntarily terminated DACA that the reason he did it was to use it as a bargaining chip to get the democrats to provide funding for the border security (the Wall). They have agreed to that deal.
Separately, Ryan could've brought a clean CHIP extension for a vote at any time since he became speaker, and it would've passed easily. He could still do that this afternoon.
Now, he wants to substitute CHIP -- which everyone allegedly wants -- as the concession for border security in place of DACA, thereby winning the point that republicans want at no actual cost to them. If Dems agree to this, why would the Rs come back and make a deal for DACA next month? Because they promised? Ha, ha.
Apparently now Schumer is heading over to the White House, which seems like a waste of everybody's time.
I don't get it. Dems + Graham + Flake are 51 votes, and they already hammered out a deal. McConnell won't let them bring it to the floor.
Right. 34.2 may not have been clear, but that's what I was trying to say there.
As noted, other than getting royally flamed by the left half of the coalition for caving again -- like we always knew they would -- the downsides are probably manageable.
But that's a 30-day flame. Whatever rabbit the Dems can pull out of their hats on this seems to be no less likely to be achieved 30 days from now. No?
There's a hard deadline on March 5. If they agree to a 30-day CR now, they're relying on Republicans to be good-faith partners in negotiation and their ability to push things through the House in less than three weeks in order to prevent Dreamers from getting deported having already demonstrated that they'll cave.
no less likely to be achieved 30 days from now.
Well, except that there's one more data point for Dems' spinelessness, which will make Ryan&co less likely to respect them in any negotiation (in addition to infuriating the left).
And as far as I can tell there's absolutely no reason to think any good outcome is *more* likely 30 days from now, to justify making hundreds of thousands of people suffer for yet another month.
39 is very helpful but only reinforces 21.
Isn't the ideal congressional Republican outcome no DACA, no wall, and letting CHIP through? Take CHIP off the table now, and go for the shutdown in 30 days. So it's not a 30 day flame: they'll hear for months that if they hadn't caved in January, just like they did in December, they'd have gotten the deal.
Remember when Susan Collins voted yes on the tax bill on the condition that there would be a vote to contain the damage to the finances of the ACA? Boy, did she let herself get ganked on that.
That's probably what the leadership wants, but I like to think the rank-and-file Republicans in Congress want to hurt poor American children with locally-born parents just as much as they want to hurt children whose parents immigrated here.
Of course the Republicans are at fault if there's a government shutdown. Qui bono?
A government shutdown is bad for many Democratic core constituencies and good for exactly none of them. As for Republican voters, it's bad for the rural white racists who gave Trump a narrow edge in four states, but they've been voting against their interests for decades, I wouldn't expect them to start now. It's good for churches (obviously individual churches vary but I'm talking about the powerful, conservative, politically active churches that throw their weight around); a shutdown means less interference with their schools and stuff. As for the business community, in the short term a shutdown means uncertainty, which is bad for them, but in the long term it means slower and less effective regulation and taxation, which is good. Republicans have wanted the federal government to be less powerful and organized, i.e. to shut down, since roughly the New Deal. The only reason they're slightly divided about it at the moment is that doing so would be unpopular and it would be obviously their fault. If they can't get a compromise within their own party to keep the lights on, it's clearly not a priority.
I'd be happy to blame Democrats for a government shutdown if they were talking about how much they'd like to drown the government in a bathtub. Does that sound crazy? It should.
46 I tend to go with perp rather than victim on that one.
45: Basic decency toward poor children is no kind of Republican priority at all, as best as I can reckon. CHIP strikes me as a hostage that the Republicans are holding -- not one that the Dems are holding.
43: Certainly the Dems are subject to blame regardless of what happens. The question is: What is the method of achieving the best outcome?
If the Dems shut down the government and withhold CHIP from kids, are the Republicans or Democrats better positioned to hold out for the long haul? Seems like the Republicans have the cards.
49: Right. No one's that dumb, that repeatedly.
The dumb is like a muscle, it gets stronger if you exercise it.
If the government shuts down, how many R voters get shafted, and how quickly? Specifically, do retired people start dying from unpaid Medicare bills? Or get bankrupted? Why can't Democrats take hostages too? And for the love of god please no-one tell me it's a bad precedent. All the precedents are gone already.
Washington Post says the public would blame Republicans in the event of a shutdown. That certainly strengthens the Democrats' hand.
No. Old people will get their shit first.
53: The problem with the Dems taking hostages is that they care about a significant percentage of voters, many of whom vote for Republicans. The vast majority of Republican politicians are beholden to a small percentage of their own voters -- and none of the Dem voters.
The problem with hostages is Democrats have fewer constituents who are willing to suffer economic pain to punish other people.
Seems like the Republicans have the cards.
Except they will be devastated by visuals of Trump playing golf at Mar-a-Lago as the government is shut down. Not to mention what happens when he opens his mouth.
He only opens his mouth for two reasons, to tell a lie or eat McDonald's food.
59: You forgot about begging to be spanked.
55: Elaborate? Is that a joke?
57: But the pain would be inflicted by the Republicans, no? They are responsible for the standoff and the bad faith dealing.
56: Ok. Which donors where are living off which subsidies? There have to be shitons of them.
60: Ooh, what if she has video?
I mean the agribusinesses in the Delta are aware that their plantations will wash away if the Corps doesn't fix the levees. Etc.
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I don't understand this trailer at all. Is this a Heathers for Trumpian youth?
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61.1: Medicare and Social Security come first.
I'm afraid to click on the link now.
I'm looking forward to nursing homes having that movie poster with Winona Ryder and Christian Slater displayed like a loving couple because the people decorating the home just googled for romantic pictures from the 80s and have no idea what the movie is about.
And the staff will wonder why all the patients with dementia mutter "I love my dead gay son" to themselves.
The staff won't wonder. They'll just assume those wacky Gen X people were politically correct enough to care about their kids regardless of sexual orientation but not enough to learn "Inuit."
61, 66: Social Security and Medicare are "mandatory" spending that isn't subject to the regular budget process. They're unaffected by any of this.
Is this a Heathers for Trumpian youth?
It's certainly neutralizing the element of the satire that tied popularity to aspirational WASPness. I doubt the new Veronica is MAGA-motivated, though. Probably more like an unholy synthesis of Heathers and South Park.
72: Wow. It's almost as if someone rigged the process to insulate a subset of voters from fiscal brinksmanship. Who agreed to that formula?
The 80s were a different time. Free-ranging herds of old people would try to turn over the cars of members of Congress while the members were in them.
What the hell even is going on. Though I also hated/hate the original Heathers.
8 is happening right now. "Seeking Concessions, Democrats Block Bill to Fund Government" with at most 47 Republican votes.
47? You could get 49 to fuck a goat.
If anybody wants to start riots, I'm drunk, full, and listening to the Clash.
Jameson, the official beverage of political violence.
Deadline just passed. There are a bunch of Senators milling around the Senate floor with their thumbs up their butts.
Tell them that the Waterboys are pretty good.
Now McConnell is going on about how the Democrats are filibustering CHIP. What a shit-eating shit eater.
Schumer says he but the border wall on the table in negotiations with Trump, but Trump wouldn't take the deal.
I'm not sure what deep character flaws this reveals, but I kind of enjoy watching the Senate. It's a good thing I don't have a TV.
Anyway, just watched the last bit of theater. McCaskill moved to keep paying soldiers, McConnell objected; Tester moved for a 3 day delay in the shutdown, and McConnell objected again. It's hard to see how he doesn't own this.
83. Scottish/Irish folk rock band based around a guy called Mike Scott. Been around off and on since the early 80s. IIRC good but not earth shattering.
8- "Seeking concessions, Democrats block bill to fund government."
Democrats block bill Republican only have 45 votes for is some very fancy math.
The NYT has stockholm syndrome.
74: I'm not sure shutdowns were a thing when Social Security and Medicare were made "mandatory" spending not requiring annual appropriation, but I'm sure that decision in some way reflected their privileged status as the white middle class side of welfare.
"Democrats Seem Set to Block Bill to Keep Government Open'"
"Senate Democrats kill bill to keep government open past midnight"
Who the fuck is running that place?
4: During the last shutdown, contractors at my workplace were divided into essential and non-essential. A lot of the non-essential classified folks were kind of insulted. The designations were based on whether the US gov't would incur significant property/financial loss if they did not go in to work (eg they were acquiring data on animal studies with a multi year time frame). Those contractors got back pay after the shutdown ended but no pay during. The remainder were told by their employer to cash in personal days to continue being paid or to take unpaid time if they didn't have any paid time off accrued. It varied slightly by employer, but it was shitty for everyone. Government employees typically get back pay, but it's not guaranteed. They also are divided into "essential" and "non-essential." Our lab of about 25 had five essential staff, I think. Some sites lock out employees; some left badges active. I was able to get in, so I just went to work. They did a few sweeps with security in the cafeterias to check IDs, but not lab by lab.
Anyone at the women's march today? Photos from dc show a big crowd. Kind of sorry I didn't go-- hanging out with my kid.
97: I forgot all about it and then walked right into it on my way home this afternoon. The turnout level here looked pretty good.
Here in DC. Good march. Bigger than I think they expected but no idea of how big.
2-3,000 here. Strong #MMIW focus.
I'm in Juneau for the state Democratic party central committee meeting, which adjourned for an hour to go to the Women's March. The march went well, which is more than can be said of the SCC meeting.
Have you tried banning analogies?
That would be a good idea, so of course not.
I helped a friend write her women's march speech on healthcare access, but then the setup for the March changed and they notified her Thursday night that she'd have to give her speech from the ground because there wasn't going to be wheelchair access to the stage. Jfc. I was busy at the time and already only planning to attend the Black Lives Matter counterprogramming because the women in charge had been so callous and clueless throughout this whole process, but it meant instead I got to help this friend craft her statement for that event, where she spoke on behalf of our DSA chapter. I know several of you are anti-schism but in our case I think the blame lies with the mainstream organizing committee. Many people at the BLM event had also been at the march, since they were deliberately scheduled not to conflict.
YOU CALL THAT A SCHISM?
101: Just here for half the day. Going to Renwick for the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Deaths and potentially the Holocaust if we still have the energy.
Anyway, I'm losing my temporary optimism and becoming re-convinced that the Trump voters won't lose control of the government until they've done enough damage that I'll not live long enough to see it fixed to baseline, let alone what might have been without Trump.
109: Same, sadly. Buoyed by the march yesterday, but media coverage of the shutdown bringing all the bad feels.
Reading the list of things that will keep functioning, why would "Freedom" Causcus reps ever vote to open the government again? All enforcement including ICE, CBP, FBI keep running; military; social security and Medicare; and this time visible things like parks are staying open. Diplomats, EPA inspections, education, labor, housing, interior mostly or all closed. It's like their ideal version of the government (stated at least, I don't doubt their constituents might start bitching if the water became poisonous- but then again with no one to test it who would know?)
Yeah, that's a GOP ideal. But not so much for the people who are required to work. They aren't getting paid. There was/is a move to get them paid during the shutdown. That would relieve pressure to end it. And then, we'd have the GOP ideal.
Why? WHY Why are they such deeply terrible people and if they are going to be, why can't they just stay in bed?
Going to Renwick for the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Deaths
I thought this was a cool concept, but, as my sister said of this thing on a separate occasion "It would be perfect for me if I also liked darkened rooms and crowds and had any patience for people to move out of the way. But I don't so I am out front on a bench."
I hope it was better for you.
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I have a dumb bleg, please! I'm afraid it's time to migrate my personal blog off LiveJournal.
I have a couple Wordpress blogs under my real name, mostly work-related. If I set up Heebie-geebie under my Wordpress account, will there be a firewall between my real name sites and Heebie blog? Or will a nosy user be able to see one name from the other site?
thanks you nerds.
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Reading the list of things that will keep functioning, why would "Freedom" Causcus reps ever vote to open the government again?
This is absolutely right, of course. The only pressure on them to back away from their ideal society involves people pointing out that it's suicide for longer-term Republican prospects. People will indeed (eventually) notice that lapsed government functions are impacting their lives in significant ways. A lot of that pointing-out will happen at the state level, I imagine.
I might as well just sign up for a heebie-geebie wordpress account. Pixels are cheap.
Republicans who love government [contract, grant, etc.] handouts would eventually tire of the small government. Or I guess pledge fealty to Trump, allow their possessions to be redirected for the greater glory of their lord, and kiss the plastic caviar spoon with grateful bashfulness.
The problem is that the Republicans who need government to function are entirely capable of not noticing that until after things get bad enough to seriously hurt them, which will be very much later than when decent people start getting hurt and is entirely likely to be after too much civic trust has been destroyed for things to be fixed.
I'm starting to wonder how they avoid overheating the economy and making the 2008 recession look like a minor blip. Bunches of old white people can keep selling stock to each other with exuberance until they actually need to exit the market to retire/die/play off the porn star.
115: I hope it was better for you.
Heh. Unfortunately not too much better; and I also ended up on a bench out front.
Went right as it opened, but it was the last weekend it was scheduled to be there, the last day before an almost certain shutdown, and a day with large out-of-town contingent...
I appreciated what I saw of it.
An exhibit tailor made for controlled, timed tickets.
109-111: The (completely unsurprising) offhand coverage of the marches (in national political media anyway) is adding somewhat to my low-grade despair. Guess we'll have to wait until someone gets out to a Kentucky diner before we get anything in depth...
Of course, the willful ignoring of the pre-Iraq marches was even more blatant.
122: Well, I hope you at least got to go upstairs to see the room with the trippy ceiling. That was cool.
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Just a quick note that the recent Sword and Laser podcast #315 read my emailed correction to them on air, and discussed it for a couple of minutes starting around 13:00 in (at the start of their Barrier Sword segment on feedback from the audience). Apparently other people noted the same correction, but weren't quite as nice about it. You can read the email itself on their podcast page linked above*. Sword and Laser is a podcast that discusses a different Fantasy or SF book each month (among other things), and Frankenstein is their January book this year in honor of the 200th anniversary of its publication.
*Or, heck, I'll put it here for those who don't want to take the time to click through:
Hi, Tom and Veronica. Love your show, which I found by looking through the long list of last year's Hugo nominations for other worthy podcasts to listen to.
In your podcast #314, you speculated on the opening of Frankenstein being influenced by Moby Dick. That seems really unlikely, unless Mary Shelley had a time machine, since Moby Dick wasn't published until 1851. Nice try, though.
Dave W.
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Mary Shelly totally had a time machine. How do you think she was able to name her monster after the famous mad scientist character from the Golden Age of movies?
"Call me Frankenstein. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no survivors in my lab, and nothing particular to interest me at home, I thought I would pursue through northern lands the monster I brought into the world."
Setting an sf novel in the arctic in 1819 was about as surprising as setting one in space in 1967. Polar exploration was huge and polar explorers were celebrities.
I'm starting to wonder how they avoid overheating the economy and making the 2008 recession look like a minor blip.
A prolonged government shutdown is a pretty surefire way to prevent overheating.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man, in possession of little or no fortune, and with nothing to interest him on shore, must be in want of a berth on a whaler.
We were somewhere around New Bedford on the edge of the Atlantic when the hypos began to take hold...
125: Well, I hope you at least got to go upstairs to see the room with the trippy ceiling. That was cool.
Yes, I saw at my leisure. Adopting a different strategy than my wife and daughter I went upstairs first in the (vain) hope that burst of people at opening might thin out. I did eventually go see some some of the setups bu not in detail but soon retreated to the bench where I sat counting people arriving vs. leaving towards the faint chance that my initial theory of things thinning out might come true. All it did was make me think bad thoughts about innocent people. (I blame it on being within the malignancy zone of the Shithouse.)
According to this, the Senate made a deal. I'm wondering several things:
1. Who won?
2. Will Trump veto it?
3. The deal expires Feb. 8. Even if Trump does sign it, does this just happen again in two and a half weeks?
https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/955493172880306176
138 to 137.1
I can't imagine Trump vetoing this.
138/9: Let's hope Cohn and you are right. Genuinely don't have much opinion on it myself at this point. The link I posted was the result of hitting F5 on Google news and I hadn't seen any other analysis of it so far.
Tremdnous good news. If anybody reading this had anything to do with the case, thank you.
I was just coming by to say I don't know what to think. I guess they conceded this was the Schumer shutdown and therefore they should tinker with the storyline?
Schumer read pf's comments above, and decided to act on them.
I think it's probably for the best, or at least not bad. This is a game being played not for my benefit but for some suburban fuckwit who might be persuaded to not bother voting if they aren't excited enough.
I have come around somewhat. Chip, (but would have liked 10 not 6), and next shutdown should be more crisply about DACA and the Republicans.
My guy voted against the deal, which is something. Not because of DACA, he says, but because government by CR is bullshit.
145 I have too, and a predictable outcome is that McC renegs. Oh sure, he renegs all the time, but this time there'll be people arguing it, not just your Flakes and Collinses looking hapless and/or guilty.
I think the Democrats did as well as could be expected on this. They got CHIP off the table while also making Trump miss his special party at Mar-a-lago. The shutdown was short enough to not cause an excessive amount of damage, but long enough to be an effective show of force. And in three weeks they will be in a better position to take on DACA.
I see a lot of dumb takes saying they got rolled, but I don't see it.
And in three weeks they will be in a better position to take on DACA.
That is my thought also. Or hope. Whichever.
A better position on DACA is still very weak. It's now really clear that notwithstanding what Trump has said since before the election, he doesn't have the fortitude to stand up to the Nazis in his employ, much less his coalition. Without him pushing, the House won't do anything, even though there's a solid majority for a DACA bill.
Maybe the next shutdown does something. Maybe it'll be mass deportations.
I was listening to NPR yesterday, and the coverage was maddening. Very clear blaming of the Dems, and a bizarre switch to the passive voice when talking about how efforts to pay the military [by whom, we weren't told, although hearing VP Pence inveigh against cutting off military pay one might draw the wrong conclusion] "were blocked." Apparently by Democrats. Or somebody. No mention of the actual guy who actually prevented the measure from coming to a vote. Yelling at the radio is pretty strongly deprecated in my household, though.
NPR is almost as bad as the NYT.
150: Yes; you would think listening /reading mainstream media that only Dems/liberals possess actual agency, everyone else--voters and politicians alike--are compelled by the power of their righteous and justified resentment. (So many elements of the Pence thing were maddening--such as little comment on such an explicit political riff in front of troops overseas.)
151: NPR is almost as bad as the NYT.NPR is almost as bad as the NYT.
Yes, several NYT reporters lead the charge on Firday night on pushing this as purely a Dem shutdown and then engaging in their now trademark aggressive defensiveness on Twitter when challenged on it in the least.
The Repubs count on precisely this cynical regurgitation of contrived political theater, and they almost always are rewarded for it.
Tag lossage cleanup: Only 154.1 should be italicized.
I say 'almost' because I don't think NPR is actually intentionally malicious. But still I wonder.
153 is what gets me also. Like it's my job to reassure white assholes.
143: Hey, don't blame me. I saw on CBS this morning that the Democrats "backed down," and in the newspaper that Schumer "caved." I didn't want the Dems to back down or cave, I wanted them to fight and win a six-year extension of CHIP, leave their options open on DACA, give up nothing but a few weeks, and require McConnell to issue a promise under the full glare of the media. I didn't want the Dems to just surrender, and now that I find out that they did, I'm enraged!
I'm no legislative strategist, and I'm willing to be persuaded that the Democrats fucked up here, but the anti-Democratic arguments are really horrible.
Witness Osita Nwanevu in Slate.
No discussion of how past shutdowns have succeeded in achieving partisan legislative goals. No description of what the Dems lost in allowing for a few weeks of negotiation with the government open. No scenario for giving Trump and the Republicans a way to back down -- and little justification for the idea that a shutdown would have forced the Republicans to cave.
Nwanevu finally gives away the game here when he discusses what would be gained by a shutdown now, as opposed to two weeks from now:
Substantively, this intransigence might have extracted concessions. Or it might not have. Either way, the Democrats would have both lifted the morale of the DACA enrollees ... and galvanized an activist base.
So following Nwanevu's strategy, the Dems might have gotten concessions. Or maybe not. But the real point is that they would have conducted theater that (somehow, even in defeat) would have boosted morale.
Oops. This bit is bad, and I didn't understand it previously.
NYT:
Mr. McConnell said he would have the Senate take up immigration legislation by mid-February if the issue had not been resolved by then.
"By mid-February."
I had understood McConnell to be committing to something before the Feb. 8 shutdown. I still think there's some PR value in it -- the Dems can shut things down for a week or two and blame McConnell for lying about the vote. But his promise was weaker than I thought.
They're going to fuck over the Dreamers and there's not the slightest thing anybody can do about it until after 2020. The only point is to make them fuck over the Dreamers in a way that makes them lose in 2018 and 2020.
I had understood McConnell to be committing to something before the Feb. 8 shutdown.
So had I. This seems to be even more worthless a promise (or now, it seems, an "intention") than it seemed before. At least before they could put pressure on the House ahead of actually shutting down the government, but now they're going to have to shut down the government basically on spec.
I really don't understand the tactics here. I'm not sure they were wrong to make a deal, but I really don't see why they're in a better position now than they were on Friday. It's a good thing for the country CHIP funding got passed, but I don't see how it helps the Democrats that it got passed this way.
It's a good thing for the country CHIP funding got passed, but I don't see how it helps the Democrats that it got passed this way.
There is a core disagreement about the role of CHIP in these negotiations. I think CHIP was held hostage by Republicans, who used it to force Democrats to the negotiating table. That hostage has now been freed, removing some of the pressure on Democrats to abandon DACA.
Others think keeping CHIP in the negotiations helped the Democrats' negotiating position because ... well, nobody seems to be able to finish that sentence.
And at the risk of being naive and insufficiently attuned to realpolitik, getting CHIP through isn't about helping Democrats. It's about helping kids.
Well, sure. That's why I said it's good for the country. But CHIP was something both sides said they wanted and that was in the bill that got voted down on Friday. Why was it better to shut down the government, then reopen it for a worthless promise, than to pass it and save the bluff for the next CR deadline?
Republicans don't want the government to do anything to benefit children unless they can be sure it will benefit as few immigrant children as possible. I don't see how DACA survives, and the hope of at least getting more Republicans on record as monsters who believe infants brought to the US without documentation are part of a long game invasion force and deserve nothing better than a POW camp in the guise of a detention center seems gone. DACA and CHIP are popular enough that the Republicans who didn't just let the bills pass know not to say what they believe. As long as responsibility looks diffused, they can keep pushing ahead.
he hope of at least getting more Republicans on record as monsters who believe infants brought to the US without documentation are part of a long game invasion force and deserve nothing better than a POW camp in the guise of a detention center seems gone.
How is that hope gone? There's going to be another confrontation in two weeks, and Republicans have lost one of the positions they were taking, which was that Dems needed to choose between CHIP and DACA. Now that CHIP is off the table, Republicans are going to commit to blocking DACA.
It is perfectly possibly for Democrats to fuck the optics of this up when it comes to a head in two weeks, but I don't see what makes you think the hope of pinning it on Republicans is gone.
163: I'm not sure what "bluff" you're talking about here.
But if you're comparing Friday's proposal to Monday's resolution, then the Dems got a shorter deadline for the next CR, plus continued functioning of the federal government. From Friday to Monday, they came out unambiguously ahead.
In my opinion, the real gain they made was in getting to Friday's proposal, which I thought would be okay for them to accept. I don't share the liberal view that the length of the delay is a central issue, but it's not nothing, and on balance, it seems like the Dems did well to get a concession there at no cost.
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Jesus but Chrome is really sluggish af these days. What's up?
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What OS are you using? I'm not finding any probs with Chrome at the moment (Win10). Nor is Mrs y sat next to me with an Android tablet of some age.
Same, Win10, and I fixed my previous update problems. Think I'll move to Firefox.
If your internet is slow, it means all your neighbors are streaming pron.
Gotta have a VPN here to do that and you can't get a VPN here unless you get one when you're out of the country. So yeah, probably all streaming porn.
Meanwhile I'm streaming STD.
165: Yes. If there is any gain it is in the clarity of the issue for the next go round.
But if you're comparing Friday's proposal to Monday's resolution, then the Dems got a shorter deadline for the next CR, plus continued functioning of the federal government. From Friday to Monday, they came out unambiguously ahead.
But they'd have got continuing functioning of the government if they'd just accepted the Friday deal. The only thing gained is a worthless vote. And the "bluff" is willingness to keep the government shut until a DACA bill is put to a vote in the House and Senate. That bluff was called.
Like I say, I'm not particularly angry about this, in the way that some of the headlines on TPM etc are suggesting. I just don't understand what they think they're doing. Especially if the vote they are supposedly going to get isn't even until after the next shutdown deadline.
But my political prognostication instincts are terrible. My sense was that a CHIP extension would ultimately have gone through regardless, given the political costs to the Republicans of not doing so, despite their personal inclinations. That may be wrong.
Another difference between Friday and Monday is the defection of Graham and Flake. Once they decreed McC's promise good enough, that left Schumer hanging there alone, and so long as the fucking media refuses to report the straight up truth that it was McConnell, not Schumer, who prevented soldiers from getting paid, nothing could be done about the optics.
I know polls taken over the weekend put responsibility on Trump, but I think that could well have changed as a week goes by without soldiers getting paid.
People who talk about the energy of the base are assuming victory at the end. If there wasn't victory at the end, a week long shutdown, or 2 weeks, would have been even worse than a 3 day shutdown. The question whether this is a two week story, of course, depends on what happens in 2 weeks. I think DACA probably doesn't get passed, but also think that was baked in back in September, if not November 2016.
Related: America is now a third world country given that the Republicans made paying the soldiers a partisan, political issue.
My guess is that Schumer's best play is to keep offering Trump more and more of what he wants, and Trump still not going along with anything, because his Nazis can't acquiesce to DACA showing that he really is throwing in with them, despite all the rhetoric.
They need to try everything they can to put DACA people in front of the media. Sending them to diners in rural Pennsylvania even. The "Polish" doctor's wife/kids ought to be unavoidable to anyone with a cable connection (even though, I guess, that isn't even DACA).
The actual rural Pennsylvanians are all dining at Sheetz.
Speaking of optics, it was no mistake at all that they picked McCaskill to make the motion on soldier's pay, and choreographed it as well as you can make Senate debate into a sound bite. There was some effort to make it go viral -- you could see this on both twitter and FB -- but the Village just wasn't having it.
What amazes me as always in these discussions is the level of confidence people have (in any direction) that they have a deep understanding of what the right choice for a pretty complicated tactical political bargaining move was. I mean I follow politics reasonably closely, I have a very close relative who works in the Senate, etc, and I have no idea at all exactly what the right political deal was to be struck right now. Most Congressmen don't. That's not to say that the deal that was struck was good (or not!) just that the uberconfidence of people who have never even been close to major political negotiations for anything is always amazing. For me, I know that extending CHIP was good, getting rid of DACA bad, and that's about it. The rest is weird tactical politics as sports viewership (but a sport that's not a simple game with clear rules, and where 3/4 of the action isn't shown on TV). I guess it's psychologically understandable but still.
I mean I argue for a living, I could come up with 5 arguments immediately on why it was a good deal or a bad one, but the reality is I don't particularly know and sorting out those arguments is about as valuable a window into reality as is the Skip Bayless/Shannon Sharpe show.
So while people are trying to figure out who won, if that means anything, does it affect matters at all to know that Feb. 8 is during the Democratic Retreat? This is kind of inside baseball, but the point is, Democrats have pressure to have things done before than that Republicans don't.
177: Truth.
179: Which is why my default rule is to trust Pelosi, who seems to be right a lot.
I guess it's psychologically understandable but still.
Kevin Drum agrees.
How is that hope gone? There's going to be another confrontation in two weeks, and Republicans have lost one of the positions they were taking, which was that Dems needed to choose between CHIP and DACA. Now that CHIP is off the table, Republicans are going to commit to blocking DACA.
I guess I'm not confident McConnell's promise is going to lead to anything clarifying. Maybe DACA will really get an up and down vote, on its own, not tied to any other essential need that can dominate the headlines. I thought there would be more brinkmanship over the debt ceiling but that hasn't happened (so far), so what do I know.
Halford's right.
The story yesterday that Senate Dems are agreeing to decouple DACA from the next CR (or an actual FY omnibus?) is certainly demoralizing. I suppose they really just don't have the votes.
People can cite national polls all they want -- and they're not completely irrelevant on this or on other things -- but obviously polling in eg North Dakota and Missouri is of greater concern than polling in California or New York.
I can't shake the feeling that Trump wants a shutdown, if only for the dramatic news coverage.
I have come here from the future to applaud gensym's assessment of the situation.