extortion

Deal, no deal on federal government shutdown

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In December, the Senate approved unanimously by voice vote a spending bill that had been approved by party leadership to which President Trump had agreed.

But then racist polemicists Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter told the president that he was done with his white nationalist racist base if he did not build the “big beautiful wall” on the Mexico border that Mexico was going to pay for, as he had promised his gullible MAGA supporters. Trump then reneged on the deal he had agreed to with his party leadership.

House Speaker Paul Ryan dutifully substituted a bill which contained $5 billion dollars for a border wall, a round number which Trump simply pulled out of his ass, which the lame-duck losers of the Republican caucus who had just been tossed out of office by the largest Democratic landslide since the post-Watergate 1974 election voted for the bill on their way out the door. Good riddance.

The new Democratic majority Congress that took office in January passed the Senate bill to which President Trump had previously agreed (before reneging on his deal), and sent it back to the Senate where it should have been a no-brainer to pass (it already passed the Senate unanimously).

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Trump’s ‘compromise’ is a bait-and-switch sham

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Compromise is impossible with someone incapable of acting in good faith, who repeatedly lies and reneges on agreements, never intending to follow through on any agreement. It’s like nailing jello to the wall.

President Trump and Republican leaders are engaged in a hostage taking demanding ransom to release the hostages: $5.7 billion for Trump’s “big beautiful wall” on the Mexico border in exchange for ending the government shutdown.

Make no mistake, extortion and hostage taking are criminal acts, not mere policy disputes. It is criminal misconduct that cannot be rewarded (which Democrats have regrettably done in the past in order to end GOP shutdowns of the government) because it only encourages further criminal misconduct.  There is a federal debt ceiling extension pending in March, and the federal budget due at the end of the fiscal year on September 30. Trump and Republicans will do this again.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argued Tuesday that President Trump made a “bad faith” offer to end the shutdown over the weekend, and is still holding federal workers hostage to his border wall demand. Schumer: Trump using ‘hostage tactics’ in shutdown talks:

“It was not a good faith proposal. It was not intended to end the shutdown,” Schumer said on the Senate floor, adding that it’s only intent was to “shake things up” in negotiations. “The president’s proposal is one-sided, harshly-partisan and was made in bad faith.”

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Just in time for Christmas, a government shutdown over Trump’s ‘big beautiful wall’

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Oh for the love of God, are we really going to do this again?

Just in time for Christmas, our white nationalist racist-in-chief is threatening a government shutdown over his “big beautiful wall” on the Mexico border.

Someone just give him a MAGA building blocks set for Christmas to occupy his infantile mind (yes, this is a real thing) and let’s get on with the serious adult business of running the federal government.

POLITICO reports Stalemate on Trump’s wall amid threat of shutdown:

Congress just can’t help itself: With a partial government shutdown potentially two weeks away, Democrats and Republicans are dug in, each side upping its demands and vowing not to buckle to the other.

President Donald Trump is pressuring Republicans to obtain at least $5 billion for his border wall, far more than what Senate Democrats are prepared to give. Democrats in turn are considering pushes for legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller and the elimination of a citizenship question from the next census, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

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Trump asserts dictatorial powers: ‘we don’t need no stinkin’ due process!’

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Every day in every way, Donald Trump becomes more dictatorial, enabled by authoritarian TeaPublicans who also do not support our constitutional democracy.

Our always insecure egomaniacal Twitter-troll-in-chief continued his assault on the judiciary, the rule of law and fundamental constitutional rights by asserting that “we don’t need no stinkin’ due process!”

The New York Times reports, Trump Calls for Depriving Immigrants Who Illegally Cross Border of Due Process Rights:

President Trump unleashed an aggressive attack Sunday on unauthorized immigrants and the judicial system that handles them, saying that those who cross into the United States illegally should be sent back immediately without due process or an appearance before a judge.

“We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country,” Mr. Trump tweeted while on the way to his golf course in Virginia. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.”

Spoken like a true tin pot dictator from a banana republic — or his pal Putin.

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America faces a moral crisis of its fundamental values

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The Washington Post editorial states it concisely, The Trump administration created this awful border policy. It doesn’t need Congress to fix it. As Senator Lindsey Graham said, pick up the damn phone and make the call.

But as the New York Times interview with White House crypto-fascist white nationalist adviser Stephen Miller makes abundantly clear about what is happening, “they want this” (h/t graphic: Rachel Maddow Show). How Anti-Immigration Passion Was Inflamed From the Fringe:

It was Jeff Sessions who ordered prosecutors to take a new “zero tolerance” attitude toward families crossing into the United States, part of his plans to reshape the country’s law enforcement priorities to limit immigration. It is Stephen Miller who has championed the idea inside the White House, selling President Trump on the benefits of a policy that his adversaries have called “evil,” “inhumane” and equivalent to child abuse or the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

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Asked if the images of children being taken from their parents would eventually make the president back down, Mr. Miller was adamant.

“There is no straying from that mission,” he said.

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In the recent interview, Mr. Miller dismissed as ignorant the hand-wringing of Republicans about the family separation controversy.

“You have one party that’s in favor of open borders, and you have one party that wants to secure the border,” Mr. Miller said. “And all day long the American people are going to side with the party that wants to secure the border. And not by a little bit. Not 55-45. 60-40. 70-30. 80-20. I’m talking 90-10 on that.”

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