Kevin Dowd: close the border, eliminate regulations, end the war on fossil fuels, cancel electric vehicle mandates, do a little dance

 

 

 Kevin Dowd takes over for Maureen Dowd on Thanksgiving, here:

 

Trump promises a return to common sense and has been given the tools to accomplish it with an electoral mandate and all three branches of government on his side. He cannot squander it. He must not get bogged down in petty disputes and perceived slights. ...

There are things he can do right away to make a difference: close the border, eliminate regulations, end the war on fossil fuels and cancel EV mandates. ...

He should move forward without rancour or grievance, fuelled by the joy of the Trump Shuffle, his robot-like dance that has broken out at UFC fights and across the NFL. I’m going to have the younger members of the family teach it to Maureen on Thanksgiving.

Four things she ran on which Kamala Harris says she no longer supports for some reason: Medicare for All, A Fracking Ban, Border Funding Reductions, Mandatory Firearm Buybacks

What could the reason be lol?

 

 

Mark Penn: Voters are "awash in fears about economic security, border security, international security and even physical security"

inflation

nuclear war

illegal immigration

crime 

American Voters Haven't Been Afraid Like This in Long Time...

 

After passing NDAA whopper funding The Military Industrial Complex and The Swamp, US House passes another $1.4 trillion in spending in two bills to let Trump say he didn't sign another Omnibus spending bill

TRUMP IS WORKING WITH THEM AGAINST US YOU IDIOTS.

The House passed a $1.4 trillion federal spending package that averts a government shutdown and maintains some funding for a southern border wall. The measure passed Tuesday despite the objections of liberal Democrats and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who said they opposed the $1.375 billion allocated for the construction of a southern border wall as well as other border security provisions. The spending bill would provide funding through the rest of fiscal 2020. It passed in two different measures in order to avoid sending President Trump one “omnibus” package, which he had vowed to reject. 

More here.

Joe Biden 2008: Increase funding for border patrol

Biden for President 2008:

Joe Biden supports increasing border security – finding out exactly who is coming in and out of our country – and expanding resources for border patrol.

The illusion of accomplishment: Trump's had just 3 quarters out of 8 with real GDP at 3% or higher, and no new wall

Trump works to maintain illusions of progress, as his main promises go unfulfilled:

President Trump, now in the third year of his term, is struggling to maintain the illusion of accomplishment as some of his biggest promises remain unfulfilled. ... Trump wrote in his book “The Art of the Deal” that he “plays to people’s fantasies.” He still does. ... “He kind of talked himself into a corner in promoting the wall all the time and gave Democrats an opportunity to stymie him just by refusing to pay for a wall,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Krikorian, whose group supports more restrictive immigration policies and thus is allied with Trump on some issues, disagrees with the president’s portrayal of a wall as critical to border security. The president felt he had to declare a national emergency “because he has made the wall such a high-profile objective,” Krikorian said. “It's important, but it’s not job one and it’s certainly not the reason we have a crisis at the border.”

The border deal is being rammed through as we speak, a $1+trillion package no one has read, least of all Trump

The Senate overwhelmingly passed a compromise bill on border security Thursday to fund the government past the Friday deadline and avert another shutdown. The measure, which was approved by a 83 to 16 broad bipartisan vote, is expected to pass in the House Thursday night and be signed into law by President Trump.

If Democrat Pat Leahy thinks the budget deal funding border security is a good deal, it's a bad deal

Sen. Patrick Leahy: Border Security Agreement Is "A Good Deal For America"

"[W]e have got a good deal for America."

Rush Limbaugh 12/20/2018: "Trump had better not sign that", 10 minutes later gets instant message

Lol, Rush is pretending again today that it's just a coincidence he got the instant message right after warning Trump on 12/20:

The President Tells Me It’s Money or Nothing

... If it’s that, then Trump had better not sign that. There has to be some serious appropriation. So, I mean, it’s time for applause. (clapping) Yes. This is a great, great first step. But it’s not a full-fledged veto. Not that we want a veto; don’t misunderstand. This is simply the president telling the Republicans, “I’m not signing this. There’s no border security in it.” So now the Republicans are gonna go back and put some border security in their version of the continuing resolution. We’ll know what that is soon enough.

Then when they finish doing that and they vote on it — and it will pass — they’ll send it over to The Turtle, Mitch McConnell in the Senate, and then they will deal with it. The Senate was very happy to have not a penny in this CR for border security. So it looks like the onus now is… It looks like it’s on the House, but it’s actually gonna be on the Senate, because we have to assume the House is gonna put something in this. Meadows was dead serious about this. Ryan? I don’t know. But it’s still his House. He’s still speaker for a while. So that’s where we are. But it’s great news that the president refused to sign this.

Now we have to keep our eyes on what they come up with as border security.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, folks, this is good. This is interesting. I just got a phone call. Well, I got an instant message. It’s the equivalent of you getting a phone call. That’s how people communicate with me, particularly during the program. It’s impossible to use the phone during the program. Anyway, I just said less than 10 minutes ago in my translation of what’s happened here, “The president told Republicans he’s not going to sign this. It’s not a veto yet, but he’s not gonna sign it until there’s border security in it.” ...

So I get this direct message: “You tell Rush that if there’s no money in this, it’s getting vetoed. If there’s no money — if there’s no money for a wall — I’m vetoing this, plain and simple.” This was the message that I just got, and I trust it and I believe it to be the case. By the way, it’s a legitimate question. I mean, the way the media reports this — and it was not just the media. It was Paul Ryan saying, “The president cares deeply about border security. So we’re gonna go back and we’re gonna get some border security in this thing.

Trump's imbecilic shutdown over immigration ends paychecks for immigration enforcers

As we said would happen.

Dumb.

Sad!

The art of the stupid.

Border security workers miss paychecks because of shutdown over border security

Ann Coulter: The media are trying to convince Trump that if he abandons the wall, he’ll be a statesman . . .

Bush 41 accepted the Profiles in Courage award from Democrats for abandoning his Read My Lips No New Taxes pledge, many years later of course, proof that the voters were right to turn out the bum in 1992 for his betrayal.

Will Trump follow in his footsteps?

Coulter: Please, No More ‘Border Security’:

Nearly every Republican presidential candidate tried to con voters with these meaningless catchphrases about “border security.”

Here are The Des Moines Register’s summaries of some of the candidates’ positions on immigration a few weeks before the 2016 Iowa caucus:

Jeb Bush: “has called for enhanced border security.”

Marco Rubio: “proposes … improved security on the border.”

John Kasich: “believes border security should be strengthened.”

Chris Christie: “urges … using technology to improve border surveillance …”

Rand Paul: “would secure the border immediately.”

Carly Fiorina: “would secure the border, which she says requires only money and manpower.”

They all lost.

The guy who won: “Trump has said many illegal immigrants are rapists and are bringing drugs and crime to the United States. He has called for building a wall along the southern border, and has said he would make Mexico pay for it. He said he would immediately terminate President Barack Obama’s ‘illegal executive order on immigration.'”

Trump got more votes than any other Republican in the history of presidential primaries. No one was falling for “border security” then, and they aren’t now.

But instead of doing what he said and building a wall, Trump has hired people who don’t even grasp that the point is to make it unattractive to break into our country.

Lindsey Grahamnesty points out that the Gang of Eight bill was tougher on border security than Trump is now

Suddenly the Gang of Eight bill is conservatism. Trump is now to the left of the entire Republican primary field of 2016 on immigration, begging for just $5 billion and willing to take less.

What suckers he takes us for.

Lindsey Graham: "The Wall Has Become A Metaphor For Border Security," Democrats Supported In The Past:

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: What I can tell you is Democrats have voted for 700 miles of the Secure Fence Act that had double-layered fencing. Call that whatever you'd like. In the Gang of Eight bill we had $42 billion for border security, including $9 billion for physical barriers. 

The wall has become a metaphor for border security. And what we're talking about is a physical barrier where it makes sense. In the past, every Democrat has voted for these physical barriers. It can't be just about because Trump wants it we no longer agree with it. 

There is nothing immoral about a physical barrier along the border in places that make sense. There will never be a deal that doesn't have money for the physical barriers that we all in the past have agreed we need.

So why did Trump appoint a Secretary of Agriculture who doesn't support The Wall?

The only other explanation than the one below is that Trump isn't really serious about The Wall and never has been, and is only interested in how he can play the politics of The Wall.

Donald Trump can fund the border wall without congressional approval:

Opposition to the wall within Trump’s own administration has prevented progress on this issue, which is wildly popular with the GOP’s conservative base and is the consequence of the president surrounding himself with establishment advisers who have worked to thwart his populist agenda from within. For example, after being briefed on the concept of selling USDA commercial paper to pay for border security, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s then-Chief of Staff Heidi Green shot down the idea by curtly stating, “The secretary does not want the wall.”

Hey Trump! Money for border security is weasel words!

Money for a border wall isn't.

The country's a triangle apparently, and has a north coast: Nancy Pelosi oddly omits the east coast in border security statement

And you thought that 57 states thingy and hundreds of millions of Americans enrolling in Obamacare was just Obama.

Democrats evidently have spatial relations thinking impairment.

Pelosi: Democrats Are Not Going To Fund Trump's "Immoral" Border Wall:

We have a responsibility, all of us, to secure our borders, north, south, and coming in by plane, on our coasts -- three coasts, north, south and west. And that -- that's a responsibility we honor, but we do so by honoring our values, as well.

The Rush Limbaugh lie of the day: "Drain the swamp" is why Trump was sent to Washington

"Drain the swamp" was a late development in the campaign, courtesy of the libertarian Steve Bannon and former Cruz campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, also a libertarian. Arguably if Trump had dropped that rhetoric and pretended to make nice with the Establishment after he'd won we'd see far more of the things Trump ran on accomplished by now than we do.

Trump distinguished himself from every other candidate in the primaries by making the border with Mexico the central issue from the time he walked down that elevator until mid-August 2016, which, when solved, would help to solve many other problems, like drugs, disease, and crime. After Bannon and Conway came on board replacing Manafort, however, that message began to be played down, to the point that Trump's campaign nearly cratered in the Arizona town hall in late August with Sean Hannity when Trump wavered badly on the issue, polling the crowd for its opinion. That was not the same man we had been seeing for an entire year.

Rush Limbaugh is also a libertarian, and characteristically doesn't give a damn about the border. He never has. He just licked his finger and checked the wind in his support of border security under Trump. But illegal immigration was never on Rush's radar, just as it wasn't on Ted Cruz' either. Rush was for that dual citizen, remember?

Here is Rush today, still trying to co-opt the Trump base:

That’s why at every Trump rally, what is the No. 1 sign they see, outside of Make America Great? What’s the number one sign you see at a Trump rally, Mr. Snerdley? (interruption) Nope. “Drain the swamp.” “Drain the swamp” is the No. 1. “Build the wall,” No. 2. (“Lock her up” is really a chant.) But “drain the swamp” is why Trump was sent there, and declassifying these documents would be a giant step for mankind in draining the swamp. 

Wikipedia gets some things right:

In the final month of his campaign, Donald Trump used the phrase "drain the swamp" in his rallies, pledging his supporters to "make our government honest once again." Trump said he originally "hated" the phrase, but when people reacted positively to it, he began "saying it like I meant it".

Senate passes massive spending bill in the middle of the night, sends it to Trump

CNBC reports here:

The Senate passed a massive $1.3 trillion spending bill in the early morning hours of Friday, sending it to President Donald Trump's desk for his signature.

Congress approved the more than 2,200-page legislation swiftly with a midnight Friday government shutdown deadline looming. The plan was released only Wednesday night. The House approved the bill Thursday afternoon by a 256-167 vote with bipartisan backing. ...

[Trump] reportedly threatened to veto it days ago, but tweeted his support for it Wednesday night after a discussion with House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. ...

It would put $1.57 billion in new funding toward fencing along the border with Mexico and border security technology such as aircraft and sensors. Trump had sought billions more in funding for a physical barrier on the border after he promised to build a wall as a candidate.

Republican profligates happy to spend an obscene $1.3 trillion, but none of it on The Wall

Fully-funding The Wall would come to just 1.7% of this gargantuan spending bomb. Republicans don't give a damn about border security, so I no longer give a damn about Republicans. Our new country isn't going to be great.

Talk radio and Republicans are trying to defend this latest indefensible continuing spending resolution

When Democrats took control of the Congress under Obama in 2009, they promptly added about $700 billion to Bush's outlays in the middle of his last fiscal year, and successfully made the new level of spending the baseline for the rest of Obama's two terms. This was done in the name of rescuing the country from the financial/housing crisis.

They sold it as an $800 billion stimulus, but it was in reality the most outrageous expansion of federal spending ever: $5.6 trillion over 8 years. The sum is $1.28 trillion in excess of Obama's entire dollar GDP increase for his presidency. It means we spent $1.30 for every $1 of Obama's GDP.

But you have heard nothing about it because Republicans are co-dependents in government spending.

Spending soared overnight from $2.8 trillion to $3.5 trillion, and stayed at that level right through the final days of the Obama administration, despite Republicans taking the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.

Now that the tables are turned, Republicans are claiming "the rules" mean they have to compromise with Democrats and continue spending on Democrat items under the Christmas Tree, like Planned Parenthood, sanctuary cities, border security without The Wall, and a variety of non-defense spending items, in order to get what they want in the $1.1 trillion continuing spending resolution, which basically boils down to a big increase in defense spending, but not much for what Trump advocated and promised the people.

Disappointed doesn't begin to describe our displeasure with this disgraceful pack of spendthrift bastards occupying The Swamp.

And they appear to have eaten Donald Trump.

Trump's Mick Mulvaney is letting the Senate's 60-vote rule stand in the way of funding The Wall

Screw the 60-vote rule.

It's a rule dating to 1917, last revised by the Democrat-controlled Senate in 1975.

It's not in the constitution, and the Senate can change the rules any time it wants.

Now would be a good time, but Trump, McConnell & Co. seem content to leave some water in The Swamp, the better to bog down what the people want, my dear.

Mulvaney, quoted here:

MICK MULVANEY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT & BUDGET: Yes. The problem is the Senate rules, people forget this sometimes, that the spending bills are different than the budget. The underlying budgets sort of move through the House and Senate differently. Anything that passes on reconciliation moves differently. But most bills, including spending bills, take 60 votes in the Senate.

TAPPER: So you need eight Democrats. 

MULVANEY: Got to have eight, which means that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats have a place at the table. We recognize that. But that's why we just can't do it on our own.

TAPPER: A source close to efforts to avoid a government shutdown tells CNN that the Republican proposal in the House will not include funding for President Trump's border wall with Mexico. 

Is President Trump willing to sign a government spending bill that does not include that money? 

MULVANEY: Yes, because I think the bill -- at least the offer that we received from the Democrats the last couple of days included a good bit of money for border security. The Democrats said they would go to the mat and shut the government down over the border wall, the bricks and mortar.