Everything here has been said before. Even what you wrote!
True. So, did the 2018 election change anything for the better?
How can you even ask that? Are we spending 25 billion on a useless wall? Did the GOP somewhat gamble that they’d have more control than they actually have when people realize how weak their Tax Cuts really are for a lot of people? Is Trump waking up every morning just pushing through random shit he dreamt up last night through a bunch of cowering GOP members in Congress?
I mean it’s not like a blue wave meant Trump would be led out in handcuffs the next day or that we wouldn’t wind up with the GOP in the presidency even if that happened. They still have the Senate and that seat.
We have a path to improvement, long-term, if we don’t strangle ourselves with dumbshit like ideas like let’s tell everyone in the suburbs to screw off, move to the cities and take their homes so urbanites can brag about gig economies, making sure no one uses cars anymore, and ensuring that newly minted Tax Cuts start sounding really good in-comparison to what’s coming, from the Democratcs… which of course is how it is already playing out in certain areas of the the country, right now, in daily conversations while Democrats bicker over whether or not we won enough with that latest budget or not.
I think the general public will mostly be relieved that the government will remain open, people can move on with their lives, and look forward to more exciting things like national emergencies and two conflicting Democratic groups bickering over New York City, there’s that grand city life being pushed front and center for not at all the selling points discussed about earlier.
That doesn’t count. We didn’t spend 25 billion last year either.
I’m perfectly prepared to accept that we need to be patient for a win.
Haha! Hey I’m on your side on this one. It was kind of lonely so maybe I’ll let you take the incoming fire for a while!
I agree. There will be better places to make a stand.
They got to keep the government open and they got less money for the border crap than they would have gotten in December. On top of it, there ar huge restrictions on how the money can be used. Insisting on zero money for the wall and letting the government shut down would have been an awful idea. Likewise, they weren’t going to get any huge concessions without giving up way more money. Your expectations seem unreasonable to me.
The fine print may be really interesting. This is an 1,100 page bill written by a bunch of people who don’t really want a wall. They just want Trump to sign something. Here’s a quote from a conservative magazine on some of that fine print:
Liberal local officials have veto power over wall: Actually, on second thought, it’s likely that not a single mile of fence will be built. Section 232(a) of this bill states that “prior to use of any funds made available by this Act for the construction of physical barriers” the Department of Homeland Security “shall confer and seek to reach mutual agreement regarding the design and alignment of physical barriers within that city.” With whom must the feds consult? “The local elected officials.” Now you can understand the brilliance of limiting the wall to the Rio Grande Valley. These are the most liberal counties on the border (thanks to demographics of open borders itself!), and there is practically no local official who supports the wall in these counties.
What are the consequences? This bill stipulates that “Such consultations shall continue until September 30, 2019 (or until agreement is reached, if earlier) and may be extended beyond that date by agreement of the parties, and no funds made available in this Act shall be used for such construction while consultations are continuing.” Thus, all the Beto O’Rourke type of politicians in that region have de facto veto power. There’s a reason why they didn’t authorize fencing in conservative counties like Cochise and Yuma in Arizona.
Here’s the link, if you don’t mind wading through some bile:
My expectations are that Democrats somehow improve on the status quo before they took the House.
Keeping the government open is the status quo. The money Trump gets for a wall is also the status quo.
Democrats certainly don’t need to insist on zero money for the wall, nor a shutdown. That’s because I don’t expect Democrats to succeed immediately, it might take time and I can be patient. I don’t want to see a tactical error. But at the same time, they don’t get credit for success until some positive change happens.
I would be happy if Democrats gave up way more money and got huge concessions in return. My goal is to improve the environment, reduce inequality, etc. My goal is not to make Trump or Republicans unhappy, and I think that sort of calculus is toxic. If my goals make Trump unhappy, then that’s just an unfortunate side effect. Ideally we could find a deal that makes us all happy.
The new restrictions on building through butterfly refuges are … good. That’s a win. A minor win, for me. Conceivably a major win to someone more interested in butterflies. There might be more minor wins buried in the fine print, and they might add up to something really praiseworthy. I honestly do hope that Democrats will surprise me with something more significant than right wing tears.
I don’t think any of this is unreasonable.
?
Tackling the environment, despite what the young let’s go get it approach of the new elects might think, in a lasting way is going to be small steps as well as slamming something called a Green Deal on the table. I don’t know if Mr. Butterfly idiot will ever change his mind, but if he starts to think twice about how easily his best GOP pals were ready to screw over his little sanctuary, maybe, just maybe he and those like him might think twice the next time they vote. that’s something.
Also…
You’ve given them like… no time at all… i mean a good chunk of the new House has a lot of learning to do. They need to learn how to actually do their jobs because they can do it well. All the plucky attitudes in the world isn’t going to shortcut that. Patience looks very different to me than for you, apparently. This is a step towards a very long journey.
He’s still president. He’s also a moron with a track record of being easily influenced. Of course there is no lack of members.
So, Speaker Ryan is the one who got you the 1000+ page plus spending bill for $1.3 trillion that is about to be signed? Do you even have an idea what is included in that bill, beyond the $1.3 billion funding?
Most people don’t - which is understandable given the size of this thing - but if you’re going to airily dismiss weeks of hard negotiating as pointless and the satisfaction of the Democrat caucus with the bill, you should at the very least base it on a serious analysis. The analysis I’ve read so far all point to lots of things which Democrats should favor (including, e.g., overturning Trump’s pay freeze on Federal workers from December - itself worth around $3.3 billion as well as important restrictions on how the wall money gets used). Further analysis in the coming days will no doubt show a lot more triumphs for the Democrats - as well as places where they bowed to Republican priorities. That’s the nature of a budget process in any divided government.
Almost more important is the media narrative - which at this point is solidly that this was a massive defeat for Trump. It can hardly be otherwise, when he starts out loudly asking for $5,7B, gets offered $1.5B, and has to settle for $1,3B. He ends up looking like the putz that he is, and that is almost more important than the actual facts.
They’re all going to screw off anyway. It’s a question of how, and when.
Yeah, dealing with climate change in any kind of useful, longterm way, is probably going to require a political party to essentially commit suicide to ram through a package of proposals and laws more complicated and overwhelmingly transformative than the ACA, because it’s not a problem that we as a species can afford to deal with slowly and piecemeal. That approach has gotten us to the suicide cliff we’re all dangling five feet beyond in open air, Wile E. Coyote style.
It’s one of those issues that democratic government feels ill equipped to deal with. The necessary solutions are complex, must be held to firmly for decades straight and constantly reevaluated by rigorous scientific processes, and are going to have immediate and deeply unpleasant effects on almost every life in the country / world. So much of what we do and are used to is radically unsustainable, and we’ve gone so far in the wrong direction that we require even more radical course corrections that will cause genuine and undeniable suffering and outrage. Just see France from last fall for the simplest of examples.
Immortal Techlich Mecha-Gore, come and conquer and rule us with an iron, skeletal fist for a hundred years that we might find salvation from ourselves.
Edit: or, more directly, fuck you no, you can’t have a big house all to yourself, or a car you putter around in everyday, or eat meat or most seafood, or, I dunno, ever use plastic. Maybe someday we’ll develop sustainable, safe ways for large amounts of people to enjoy those things. But for now, they, and the industrial processes that enable them, are killing us. And I know that any party trying to legitimately grapple with those truths has no chance in hell of surviving, but if someone doesn’t, and worldwide, and thirty years ago, then…that’s probably it for our current envisioning of human society. Or so Cockroach Herodotus will someday record.
This is really in the wrong thread, let’s take it over to the climate change one.
Back to the Wall, what happens with this emergency declaration?
I think the courts will try to shut it down, at least at the lower court level.
What happens at SCOTUS is harder to predict. My guess is they will say the law gives the President broad discretion in deciding what is and isn’t an emergency, and that courts should be reluctant to second guess a President on matters of national security, and that if Congress wants to constrain a President in this area they have the power to do so. In which case Trump does have some freedom to act, since I don’t see McConnell allowing any effort to block him.
On the other hand, suppose SCOTUS strikes down the emergency declaration or some of the actions stemming from it? At this point does Trump do his tweet version of John Marshall has made his ruling, now let him enforce it? Does he simply ignore the court?
Not to the US government. It’s practically nothing.
The budget is $4.4 trillion. With a fucking T. The money Trump got for this is 0.036% of the budget.
This is what I expect too. (Until a Democrat tries it, then it will be ruled as gross abuse of executive power.)
This piece on emergency powers from Lawfare is, well, startling. I had no idea that the emergency Carter declared during the Iran hostage crisis was till in effect, having been renewed by every President since then, and is the basis for US sanctions on Iran.
Congress has basically surrendered their power to the executive branch.
Is Ann Coulter on to something here?
I think it is clear he can declare the national emergency. Where it might get murky is how the funds are appropriated within that emergency, and how local issues like eminent domain are handled.
Trump also has no idea how to get anything actually done that isn’t just shouting at people, and he also has almost no political capital to spend on this, even internally, so I imagine an Emergency Declaration of dubious legality is going to be slow-rolled by the people supposed to execute everywhere it’s possible to do so. It’s going to be very weird if it happens.
I kind of imagine Trump just shouting “National Emergency!” and then literally nothing else changes. He’s already pretending his wall is being built, he’ll just keep pretending.
