Sidebar: Poll Watch: The Not-So-Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Yesterday's Poll Watch looked at how registered voters responded to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, focusing on their perceptions of the president and some of those who want to be president.   Today, I wanted to share some of the opinions these voters have on the issues that are currently bubbling to the top, with the caveat that the survey was done before all the news about impeachment took over the media cycles.

A majority of all voters favor DREAMers being allowed to stay legally; an opt-in to Medicare; student loan debt forgiveness after a history of payments; tuition-free public colleges and universities; 100% renewable energy use by 2030; and, somewhat ironically, oil drilling off the US coast.

Smaller percentages of us favor ending fracking, building a wall on the border, getting rid of the Affordable Care Act, implementing Medicare for All (M4A) and getting rid of private insurance, and giving illegal immigrants government health care - which has the lowest level of both overall and strong support.

None of the issues reaches even 45% strong support.

Things look a little different if you look at the opinions of Democratic voters in the survey. Again, there's majority support for DREAMers, for the Medicare opt-in, for repayment and then forgiveness of student loans, tuition-free college, and renewable energy, but then things change.

Health care for illegal immigrants, Medicare for All (M4A), immediate forgiveness of student loans, and ending fracking also have majority support from Dems. 

Only a handful of the issues - DREAMers, the Medicare opt-in, student loan forgiveness tied to a repayment plan, and tuition-free college - have strong support from a majority of Dems; all the rest of the issues fall below 50% on the strength of support.

The key takeaway from this data? Moderate positions have greater overall support among all voters, and among Democratic voters, than do the more 'progressive' positions.

So if you're a fan of the more moderate Dems, including Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar, this may be good news. On the other hand, if you're a fan of the 'burn the house down' theories promoted by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (to a slightly lesser degree), this might not be good news for you.

I know there's a school of thought out there that everyone will be more extreme during the primaries and then they'll move to the center for the general election, but we saw how that worked in 2016, particularly for the Dems. As I recall, among the reasons why people didn't like Hillary Clinton is because they didn't trust her to keep her word, and they couldn't tell where she stood on the issues because it seemed she changed her positions so frequently.

I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have a candidate that has convictions and the courage of them, one I can count on to say the same thing to me in October 2019 as they'll say to me in October 2020.

TGIF 7/26/19

Time for our look at good weeks and bad weeks.

Robert Mueller had a mixed week. On the one hand, he testified for six or seven hours before two House Committees and managed to make both Democrats and Republicans look silly. Mueller said his report was his testimony, and he generally stuck to his guns on that. And in doing so, he made a mess of the ulterior motives of both parties.

The Rs wanted to talk about the inception of the investigation, and of course Mueller was not allowed to talk about that, even if he had been so inclined. The Ds attempted to get him to read his report to them;for some reason, many still haven't read the darn thing. That approach failed beautifully, as he had them read key sections out loud instead of the other way around.  I don't know what the Dems were hoping to accomplish with the hearings, but all they got was confirmation of what was already documented in the report, and in the statement Mueller made back in May.

On the other hand, Mueller came off as bit befuddled, they say, asking for questions to be repeated, or being unable to quote chapter and verse about footnotes that were in the 400+page report, or for sounding less than clear in his responses. Next steps are also not clear, now that they made him do what he didn't want to do.

While the House fiddles, the 2020 campaign burns, or something.

Trump in Transition (v39)

As you probably know, lots of people like to fact check the president, who, as you probably also know, plays fast and loose with the facts on a pretty regular basis - whether he needs to or not

In my opinion, he lies automatically, without any regard to anything. He lies when he has absolutely no reason to, as much as he does when he thinks he does have reason to lie.

The Washington Post does a lot of work on fact checking the president, and at some point they started counting his lies and misleading statements, probably when they realized that the volume of them was unprecedented.

Anyway - here's an update from the WaPo on the fact-checking.

It took president Trump 601 days to top 5,000 false and misleading claim in The Fact Checker's database, an average of eight claims a day. 

But on April 26, must 226 days later, the president crossed the 10,000 mark - an average of nearly 23 claims a day in this seven-month period, which included the many rallies he held before the midterm elections, the partial government shutdown over his promised border wall and the release of the special counsel's report on Russian interference in the presidential election.

Pretty impressive numbers - even more impressive than the reduction in the unemployment rate, the boost in the economy, or even the increase in military spending, for Pete's sake! These are historic numbers! The best ever! See how easy it is to be just like him?

The article notes that reaching the 10,000 milestone seemed "unlikely" back in the beginning when Trump was only making less than five false claims or lies a day - which means in a full four year term, he'd only end up with around 7,000.  But here we are -  and,

...the tsunami of untruths just keeps looming larger and larger.

Let's see what that tsunami looks like.

Poll Watch: The Economy, 2020, and More

Think you have your finger on the pulse of the republic?  Let's see how you stack up with a Fox News poll from last mid-March.

First, the small print: the survey was taken via landlines and cellphones, with interviews of 1,002 randomly selected registered voters March 17 - 20.

First up: Trump's approval rating was 46%, with 51% disapproving, for a net -5 overall. However, his 'strongly approve' rating of 27% was well below the 'strongly disapprove' rating of 42% (-15).

Questioned on Trump's handling of four key issues - the economy, taxes, immigration, and health care, only on the economy, at +8, did he have a net positive. On taxes (-7), immigration (-13) and healthcare (-15), his approves were below his disapproves. Even worse, the numbers on his signature piece of legislation, the Christmas tax cut, are down from a year ago.

There were several questions on the economy, including one asking whether the respondents are confident, nervous, mixed or don't know. Here are the results from the current survey, along with last year's.

• Confident: 37% (-3)
• Nervous: 43% (-4)
• Mixed: 17% (-6)
• Don't know: 3% (even)

Let's look at some of the even more interesting details.

OrangeVerse XLI: Wonders of the World

It's been a while since I've shared any presidential poetry with you, and for that, I'm truly sorry. So - without further ado, here's some free verse -- so free, and so versey, you couldn't pay me to write this stuff myself. This all came from the president's remarks with his counterpart from Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

In and Within
It's a great honor to be with President Al
Sisi of Egypt. 
We have many things to discuss
as you can imagine: military, trade. 
And I have to say
a lot of progress has been made i 
a lot of different ways
in terms of terrorism and other things
in Egypt and withing Egypt. 
It's really incredible what's happened
especially in certain respects
that we've already talked about.  Again
we have very very important things
militarily, to talk about. Also about
trade. A big trading partner. 
We do a lot of work
together we work together.

Big Pointy Things

Before we perhaps take a 

couple of questions,

the First Lady was recently in Egypt. 

She was treated beautifully.

But maybe even more importantly,

what she saw

with the Pyramids was - 

you could call it the

seventh wonder or the eighth

wonder of the world. 

She thought it was incredible.

She thought it was one of the most

incredible things she's seen. 

And we have lots of pictures,

and that was a great day

and a great moment

to see the Pyramids -

the Great Pyramids.

So hopefully

a lot of people

will be going

and looking at them.

But she's not easily impressed;

she was very impressed.

Housecleaning

Well, I never said I'm "cleaning house."

I don't know who came up with that expression.

We have a lot of great people over there.

We have bad laws...

And so we're fighting

the bad laws, the bad -- 

the bad things that are coming out of Congress. 

You have a Democratic Congress that's obstructing.

You talk about obstruction - 

the greatest obstruction anyone has ever seen.

Laws I Can Name

We have the worst laws of

any country anywhere in the world

whether it's 

catch and release

or any of them. 

I mean, I could name - 

I could sit here and name them

but if you got rid of 

catch and release

chain migration

visa lottery -

you have to fix

the asylum situation

it's ridiculous.

Don the Builder

So we are building

 a lot of wall

It's getting built.

Some of you saw that

last week

when we went -

we had a great presentation of a new stretch. 

But we're building

a lot of wall

and we're being

very strong

on the border.

Lie With Me...

...we're bucking

really bad things

with Congress - 

with the Democrats in Congress

not willing to act.

They want to have open borders

which means they want to have crime;

they want to have drugs

pouring into our country. 

They don't want to act...

They want open borders

They want to have millions

of people pouring

into our country. 

They don't even want to know

who they are.

Ranting and Raving (v3): Solving the Immigration Problem

It's been interesting watching the president's minions deflect questions about the president not making a statement against anti-Muslim terrorism, or why white supremacists find Trump to be an ally, and instead turn the conversation to how hard the president is working to protect us from terrorists of all kinds via his emergency declaration at the southern border.

I've addressed the racism and hatred in several recent posts (here, here, and here) as well as multiple times in the past but today I want to talk about immigration - the wall, and immigration beyond the wall. 

First off, show us the detailed map of where the proposed new wall is to be built, and what kind of wall it will be, along with the impact statements showing why those areas were chosen. Those impact statements would include information on illegal crossings that will be abated when the wall is built, the impact on local landowners, their crops, and their animals; the impact on the environment (such as the kind of flooding that has been experienced in Arizona since part of the wall was put up) and wildlife and the economic impact, if any, that will come from the wall being built. 

This information has to be available, and it should be shared with any interested party - meaning, any American who wants to read it. If it's unavailable, say, because no one has done this detailed study, shame on them. And shame on us. Cease work on the border wall unless and until the information is available. 

And why don't we spend the money Congress previously allocated that has not yet been spent, and the new money just authorized, and see how things are different after those sections of fencing are built? Show us the results from the actions taken, some of which should be immediate, if there is in fact a national emergency? 

Now, here comes the hard part. With the same level of enthusiasm as that being expressed by the president and his supporters, whether elected or otherwise, for building the wall: 

• let's actively get to work finding a way to identify, track down, and deal with the visa over-stayers, who make up a significant percentage of illegal immigrants in the US. This would include delivering them back to their home countries via a formal transfer, not just a "run along home, now" type of message.

• let's make sure the immigration courts are fully funded, fully staffed and aggressively resolving the massive backlog of criminal cases first, and then immigration-only cases that have existed for years. 

• let's first make sure that the private landowners who are going to lose access to their property and perhaps their livelihoods where the new wall is supposed to be built are compensated for their losses. 

• let's solve DACA. That doesn't mean sending teens and twenty-somethings "back" to a country they've never lived in, either.  It means citizenship, plain and simple, barring a criminal record (other than that they were brought here illegally by their parents).

• let's have a public discussion on 'merit' visas, such that we don't find the need to award special privileges to supermodels. 

• let's figure out why we are so hungry to bring in foreign parking valets, bartenders, and housekeepers to work at golf clubs, wineries, and resorts owned by the president- president's sons and other companies. Those jobs should go to Americans. If they need training, the properties can train them - on their own dime, not with taxpayer dollars.

• let's figure out why we want foreign doctors and foreign engineers and so on, all those foreigners who want to love America (but who don't come from shithole countries, of course), instead of making sure that Americans can get an education and that there are funded positions for them to help solve our doctor shortage or engineer shortage or other highly-skilled position shortage.  

• let's make sure that all border crossings are fully equipped with all of the tools and staff they need to effectively identify and interdict the drugs and the murders and rapists and all of those duct-taped women that are flooding our border. 

• let's make sure we've got lots of Americans ready to do apprenticeships with migrant workers so they can learn how to pick crops so that businesses won't be tempted to hire foreigners to help them put food on our tables. 

• let's make sure that we're not allowing asylum seekers to become victimized at the holding centers we put them in, and let's make sure we're not 'losing' children who are taken into custody at the border. 

• let's act like we at least understand what it is that draws people to America, the beacon of hope and justice - and then act with decency towards those who want a part of that. 

• let's make sure that we are supplying adequate funding to the countries that are the main sources of illegal immigration, rather than threatening to cut it, so that they can build up their own countries and make it less appealing for people to make the journey to potential freedom in America. 

• let's figure out if there's any way that we can mitigate the damage to plant and animal species along the border.  

• let's see the negotiator-in-chief shame American wall contractors the same way he shames Boeing and Lockheed Martin into giving us a better price. 

• let's see if we can't come up with something on the border other than a simple wall, something that would, I don't know, produce energy, create permanent jobs (other than law enforcement), empower people on both sides of the border - and maybe let's see if we can partner with Mexico, instead of battling with them? 

• let's see if we can't stop the lying and the fear-mongering and maybe start acting like adults.

None of what's written above says, in any way, that every person who shows up here needs to be allowed to stay. None of it says that we should get rid of ICE or have totally open borders or that walls are immoral or anything like that.

What it does suggest is that we cannot attack a complex problem with only the simplest of solutions, because we have seen time and time again that this does not work. And that's what the wall is - the simplest solution that solves only one part of the 'incoming' problem, and does nothing about any of the other issues that make up "immigration" in the United States.

I'm not pro-crime, pro-gangs, pro-drugs, or any of that other happy horse poop we hear from the president all the time.  I am also not anti-immigration.

I'm all for legal immigration, and I am for treating people who are legitimately seeking asylum here with dignity - and in accordance with international law.

Both parties, all leaders, all members of Congress - every last one of them, regardless of where they sit relative to the proverbial aisle, must look beyond their next election, and stop feeding the beast. They need to do what we sent them there to do, and if they are unwilling - or unable - they must go.

It's that simple. It's as simple as building a wall. 

Sunday School 2/17/19

Only time for one lecture this morning, as I'm in day three of a partial technological shutdown here at veritable pastiche. In advance, I thank you for your patience and for sticking around until all issues are resolved.

Today's classroom? This Week with George Stephanopoulos, with co-host Martha Raddatz handling the interviews. I chose this one primarily for William Weld, who says he will primary president Trump for the 2020 Republican nomination. But first, a couple of highlights from the other guests.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra told Raddatz that his state would "definitely and imminently" be filing a lawsuit challenging the president's declaration of  a national emergency, noting it was not a surprise. Raddatz wondered about any harm being done to California, since Trump's focus was on Texas. She asked (without irony) if Becerra was

...confident your state has concrete standing to challenge this? What harm is he doing to California with this declaration?

 Becerra's response?

We're confident there are at least 8 billion ways that we can prove harm. And once... all the different states are clear, what pots of money that taxpayers sent to DC he's going to raid, which Congress dedicated to different types of services; whether it's emergency response services or whether it's fire or mudslides in California or maybe tornadoes and floods in other parts of the country, or whether it's our military men and women and their families who live on military installations that might - that might have money taken away from them, or whether it's money taken away from drug interdiction efforts in places like California, a number of states, and certainly Americans will be harmed. And we're all going to be prepared. 

Becerra talked about how strong the border is, in the words of DHS, and that entries "by those that don't have permission" are lower than in 20 years or so, therefore

...it's clear this isn't an emergency, it's clear that in the mind of Donald Trump he needs to do something to try to fulfill a campaign promise. That doesn't necessarily constitute a national emergency that would require us to essentially stand down on all sorts of federal laws and also violate the US Constitution. 

TGIF 2/1/19

The first TGIF of February, and it's all good news - how does that sound?

First up,  a shout-out to new Congressman Anthony Brindisi, who represents the district next to mine here in Central New York. Brindisi was named one of the co-chairs of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of 27  moderate-to-conservative Dems. In his role, he'll be the whip, the one responsible for helping ensure members stick together - and vote together - in support of the caucus's ideals:

The Blue Dogs are dedicated to pursuing fiscally-responsible policies, ensuring a strong national defense for our country, and transcending party lines to get things done for the American people.

Brindisi's already made a dent in his first few weeks in Congress - first, he kept his commitment and did not vote for Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker; and he and John Katko, my Congressman, managed to spend bipartisan time recently calling for an end to the #trumpshutdown.  Good on both of them for that.

TGIF 1/25/19

Wow -- what a week this one was!

I don't know about you, but I got a little tired trying to keep up with who was staring down who, and who was or wasn't blinking, and stuff like that.  Let's take a look.

Covington Catholic had a down and up week when a video appeared to show their #MAGA hat-wearing, women's rights-protesting students engaged in what appeared to be a racist, tomahawk-chopping, chanting in the face of a Native American elder and Vietnam War veteran.

Even their diocese pounced on them, promising a full investigation of their behavior.  And then, more video cropped up, and the race to condemnation turned away (somewhat, but not completely) from the kids and onto the vet, and more particularly onto the media.

There was lots of condemnation to go around on this one, for sure. In the end, the kids were not the instigators; the veteran was of the Vietnam War era, but never served out of the country, and the media? Well, yeah, there's still plenty of condemnation for them, all around: for the original reporting, for being too slow to respond when additional videos were made public, for their treatment of the Native American elder, for their interview with the start of the protest, and for their explanations and apologies, or the lack thereof.

No one was happy, I think - or, maybe I should say no one should be happy.   I expect the students will be invited to the White House, as survivors of the war on religion AND the war against the #fakenews.

But someone definitely had a worse week than the entire city of Covington, Kentucky.

Trump in Transition (v35)

As expected, everyone's fact-checking statements made by the president while he read tweets from the Oval Office last night on national television, and by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, speaking from a hallway somewhere, I think,  after Trump was done.

You can check out the AP, WaPo, NY Times, Fox News, CNN and Politico fact-checking yourself - not a lot of new ground broken in any of this, because there wasn't a lot of new ground in any of last night's comments. That said, it seems there's consensus that we don't really have a security crisis at the southern border.

In addition to the fact-checking, pretty much everyone is also chiming on 'how he did' or 'who won' in last night's series of uncomfortable conversations. Trump was obviously constrained by having to look and act presidential, instead of being able to unleash his rally-carnival barker persona, the one we hear from most days. For their parts, Chuck and Nancy did their best to appear stern, as if disciplining a misbehaving child, which to a large degree, they were.

Let's take a look at what folks are saying.

A Crisis by Design

The national news media has succumbed to the threat of being yelled at by the biggest bully in the whole damn valley, and all of the major networks will give free airtime to the president so he can tell us all about the crisis at the southern border that, frankly, is entirely by design - his design.

Now, don't get me wrong - we have long had an immigration problem, and it needs to be fixed - about that, there should be no question. But, that immigration problem is not defined by the need for a wall, and it won't be fixed by the construction of a wall, whether it's a big beautiful concrete one (about which the president knows more than anyone) or some variation on a theme of steel slats that is equally aesthetically pleasing (about which the president knows more than anyone) or even just concertina wire and chain link fence (about which the president surely knows more than anyone).

Since he announced his candidacy, "Build That Wall" has been the cry around which his supporters will reliably rally, because we are meant to fear the dark skinned people who cross the southern border.

It matters not whether they have crossed legally or illegally really - because just by looking at them, we are unable to tell which is which, just like we can't tell a good black person walking down the street, or shopping in a store, or making a phone call in a hotel lobby, or swimming in a pool, or hailing a cab, or driving down the highway or doing any number of other things that human beings do, from a bad one.

That's the point of fear. And that's the basis of this 'crisis' that the president has created, embraced, and exacerbated, and which he now must trying and convince us is real.

OrangeVerse XL: Cabinetry

You've heard, I'm sure, that the president had a cabinet meeting last week. You may have heard that he was all over the map with his comments, both in the pre-meeting discussion and also in the portion of the meeting when he invites the press to play along with him.

What you probably didn't hear that his being all over the map makes for great poetry.  Here's how some of it looked during his statements. We may take a look at the portion where he took questions from the press, and at how poetic his cabinet members are, as well.

Thanks for Coming

It's going to be a very exciting year. 

I think it's going to be a very good year.

Some people think

it'll be controversial and tough

and it probably will but

we're going to get a lot done.

The 1st Part About the Shutdown

We're in a shutdown because Democrats

refuse to fund the border security. They try

and make it like it's just about the wall, 

and it is about the wall.

I said, over the weekend, 

to a number of people that, you know

the wheel, the wall - 

there are some things that never get old...

If we had a wall - and we will.

The 2nd Part About the Shutdown

We're in the shutdown because of the fact

that the Democrats are looking to 2020.

They think they're not going to win the election. 

I guess a lot of signs point to the fact

that they're not going to win the election.

And I hope they're not going to win the election.

But they view this as an election point for them.

I actually think it's bad politics, but I'm not thinking 

about the politics. I'm thinking 

about what's right and what's wrong. 

And we need a physical barrier. 

Everything else is bells and whistles. 

I know more about drones than anybody.

Sunday School 12/23/18

Again this week we have two discussions with the same representative of the Trump administration.  Last week it was his attorney Rudy Giuliani, and this week we've got Office of Management and Budget Director and Acting Chief of Staff designee Mick Mulvaney visiting the ABC and Fox classrooms.

First, his conversation with John Karl on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He updated us on the status of negotiations with Congress on the funding for the wall, which some Dems have said will not be forthcoming no matter what.

Karl focused on the president's promise (threat?) that Mexico would pay for the wall.

JK: Mark his words. Now, the president has forced a government shutdown because he's insisting that the American taxpayers pay for the wall. What gives?

MM: And if you ask the president, he'll point you immediately to something that didn't get a lot of news in the last couple of weeks, which is this new US-Mexico-Canada agreement, the USMCA which is so much better than the NAFTA deal that America workers are going to do better, the government is going to do better and you could make the argument that Mexico is paying for it in that fashion

JK: but boy, he's asking for billions of dollars from American taxpayers right now. Hasn't he broken one of the central promises of his campaign?

MM:  Let me finish, because another story that I don't think you covered this week, and I don't know why no one did, is that Mexico has now agreed, for the first time in history, to keep asylum seekers, folks who are trying to get into the USA, on the Mexican side of the border...They're actually doing more for border security than many Democrats in Congress. So we really think we're in a good place in terms of getting the wall built and also getting Mexico to participate in our border security.

JK: But one of that is Mexico paying for the wall. Let's just be clear about this --

Yes, let's be clear: to suggest that American workers "doing better" and Mexico holding asylum seekers on their side of the border are in any way equivalent or even remotely related to Mexico paying for the wall is absurd.

Mulvaney also talked about the budget, growing deficits, Syria and the resignation of General Mattis, and about the Chief of Staff position, and how long he expects to stay.

I don't know, I talked to the president about that. And I think, first of all, every position in the administration is temporary. We all serve at the, at the will of the president, he could fire all of us tomorrow and everybody knows that... But I think what we'll just do is take a couple of weeks, a couple months and see if he likes the way I'm handling the job, if I like the job.

In his discussion with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, he offered many similar comments: we've moved away from $5B, we need them to move away from $1.3; he mentioned a $2.3B figure here that he didn't mention in the other interview.

He talked about the shutdown with a little more detail:

It's Sunday right now, and government shuts down mostly on Sundays anyway. Government's shut down tomorrow anyway because it's a federal holiday and Tuesday is Christmas, again, another federal holiday. So, Wednesday is really the first day that this kicks in. The paychecks will importantly go out on the 28th. I want everybody to understand, no one is working without getting paid... The next pay period that is impacted is January 11th. I think that - it's very possible that the shutdown will be on the 28th and into the new Congress. 

And, he talked about the new wall, nothing like the old wall, it's not a wall at all, he said.

MM: The president tweeted out a picture yesterday, the steel fence, steel slatted fence with a pointed top and so forth, that's what we want to build. And in the Democrats' mind, that is not a wall. So they have offered this $1.3B to build the barrier that we want but then they go on TV and say there's no money for a wall. We've already told the Democrats we want to build what the president tweets out. It doesn't have to be 30-foot-high concrete. 

CW: So, you think that they would approve $1.3B to build this picket fence? 

MM: Exactly. Well, the steel barriers that the president tweeted out... 

As to when a deal might be done, Mulvaney was clear.

I think it's  really good question as to whether or not this deal can be cut before the new Congress comes in. I think there is an implication here for Nancy Pelosi's election for the speakership. I think she's in that unfortunate position of being beholden to her left wing where she cannot be seen as agreeing with the president on anything until after she is speaker. If that's the case, again, there's a chance we go into the next Congress. 

Mulvaney tried to explain away Wallace's question about Trump being proud to shut down the government, saying that he was "proud to have the fight' with the Dems, but that the ball was in their court since Mulvaney and Pence made them an offer and they have to decide what to do.

There was more here too, about Mattis and who the people listen to, and what not. At the end, Wallace talked about all the things that are going on.

CW: Does the president understand that there is growing concern in Washington, even among some people in his own party, that his presidency is in crisis?

MM:  No, I don't think there is concern that the presidency is in crisis..This as -- as I said at the outset, this is what having a president who is nontraditional, who's a different kind of president, looks like. He is not going to be an ordinary president and that's not what people wanted when they elected him...

Is it going to be a rocky road with the president who is willing to mix things up to change Washington to benefit folks back home?

Yes.  

See you around campus.

OrangeVerse XXXVIII: We'll Have a Shutdown

The president met this week (with a transfixed, mesmerized or catatonic Vice President Pence at his side) with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a free-wheeling, free-speaking, free-versing, free-range conversation.

I think the whole thing bordered on craziness, until it finally hit the wall and the fighting was over. Or maybe that was just my head hitting the desk, not sure.

The Easy One

And then we have the easy one, 

the wall.

That will be the one

that will be the easiest of all.

What do you think, Chuck?

Maybe not?

So we're going to see

but I will tell you

the wall

will get built.

We'll see what happens.

It's not an easy situation.

How Big Is It?

So.

A lot of wall

has been built.

We don't talk about that.

But we might as well start.

Because it's building - 

it's being built right now

big sections

of wall. 

And we will continue

that and one way

or the other it's going to be built. 

Don't Make Me Do it, Chuck

So I'd like not

to see a government closing,

a shutdown.

We will see what happens

over the next short period of time

We're going to keep it open

if we have border

security. If we don't

have border security

Chuck

we're not going

to keep it open.

Border! Border! Border!

We need border security

And I think we all agree that

we need border security

The wall is part of

border security

Yeah.

We need border security

the wall is part of

border security

you can't have very good

border security

without the wall no.

you know what

we need border security

that's what we're going to be 

talking about

border security.

If we don't have

border security

this country needs

border security

the wall is part of

border security

it's a big part of it.

we need to have

effective border security

we have to have

border security

we have to have the wall

as part of 

border security

but we have to have

border security

#shutdown firster and damn proud of it

I - no no no no no

the last time, Chuck

you shut it down

and then you opened it up

very quickly.

You want to know something?

Okay, you want to put that on my --

I'll take it.

You know what

I'll say?

Yes

if we don't get

what we want 

one way or the other

whether it's through you

through a military

through anything 

you want to call

I will 

shut down

the government

Absolutely.

And I am proud --

and I'll tell you what -- 

I am proud

to shut down

the government...

So I will 

take the mantle.

I will be the one

to shut it down.

I'm not going 

to blame you for it.

The last time

you shut it down

it didn't work.

I will take the..

I'm going to shut it down...

Gumballs and Immigration

Have you see the Gumballs, World Poverty and Immigration video that's making the rounds lately?

This examination of the immigration problem, from 2010, hit my social media pages a few times in the days since things boiled over with the Trump Administration's policy of zero tolerance and family separation at our southern border.

The cases where it's been shared with me (or directed at me, in one case) were to defend the Trump practice of arresting people crossing the border illegally, and taking their children from them, holding them someplace (NY? Minnesota? Washington State?) other than even anywhere near their parents.  The point the video is supposedly making, if I listen to the folks who have shared this, is that the video clearly shows America can't take in everyone who wants to come here and we have to stop taking them, unless they're willing to come in legally.

The unspoken reason to share this is a whole 'us vs. them' thing. As in, "I have no money, my kids have nothing, I have to work and pay taxes so they can have free health insurance, why are we spending all this money on them?" There's also a little bit of "they are coming here and taking our jobs," which I'll believe only on the day I see 50 - 75 white folks lined up at the crack of dawn for the chance to hop in the back of a rickety pickup truck to go out into a field and pick something or plant something.

If you stick with it past the first couple of minutes, you see pretty quickly that the video makes a completely different argument - one that the president does not appear to believe in and, to be honest, one that the people who shared the video have yet to acknowledge.

This issue? There will always be more people living in abject poverty in other countries than the US can take in. And that is true, no question about that. From the video:

The impossibility of making even a dent is actually worse than it looks here because, last year when we took in one million immigrants, these countries added, birth over death, 80 million more people into the impoverished population. And this year, Congress is bringing in a million legal immigrants.

And this year, according to the United Nations, these countries are expected to add another 80 million people... 

We can take 5 million a year but we'd never get ahead of what's happening in these countries. Not in this century. 

Can't argue with that, right? One million is less than 80 million,Captain Obvious, whether you're talking about legal immigrants, people who sneak across a border, or gumballs. Or Skittles.

But you can argue about our immigration system, which was never designed to solve world poverty or (equally obviously) to allow every single person who wants to come to America to actually come to America. That's never been our goal, because immigration and world poverty are vastly different things. Equating them is as absurd as is thinking that we'd be able to handle a few million immigrants each year.

Here are a couple of other key points in the video that seem to be overlooked when it's shared:

And we may be really hurting the impoverished people in the world, because the million that we do take are amongst the most energetic, often the better educated, certainly the most dissatisfied people that if they did not immigrate would be the agents for change to improve the lot of all the people of these countries.

The true heroes in the global humanitarian field are the people in these countries who have the wherewithal to emigrate to another country, but instead stay in their countries to apply their skills to help their fellow countrymen. Unfortunately our immigration system tends to entice this very type of people to abandon their countrymen.

Wow - our way is a bad way? Someone should tell the Trumpsters, who would love us to have only the best and brightest come in - you know, doctors, scientists, economists, supermodels and the like - via a merit-based immigration system. And they're not alone: you'll recall Mitt Romney talking about stapling a green card to the diplomas of these foreign students, keeping them here to do good, and to do well.

Don't they know that's the opposite of what we need to be doing? Back to the video for reinforcements:

Don't you see?

Immigration can never be an effective or significant way to deal with the suffering people in the world. They have to be helped where they live. 99.9% of them will never be able to immigrate to a rich country. There is no hope for that. They have to bloom where they're planted. They only place that 99.9% of these people can be helped is where they live.

Let's help them there.

Well, OK, let's do that. I'm all for it! I'll buy what the video is selling!

Except, the Trump administration, in pushing their #AmericaFirst, borderline isolationist agenda, is looking to cut foreign aid to other countries, because everyone else is not doing their fair share and because we have to take care of our own by also proposing huge cuts in national programs, but hey, we're not supposed to pay attention to that, right?)

Knowing that the aid we provide amounts to about 1% of the total budget, which is really a handful of gumballs in the overall scheme of things, here are some of the changes recommended or implemented in the past 18 months or so:

• there was the proposed slashing of 1/3 of the US AID budget;
• there was the 'friends only' proposal, where we would give aid only to specific countries that abide by our ideology or or something;
• there was the 'cut everything that has anything to do with contraception' plan, because we're a bunch of Puritans still, 240 odd years since our founding certainly family planning wouldn't have any impact on that annual 80 million birth-over-death figure; and
• the expansion of the global gag rule.

There's more, but you get the drift. So, let's review.

Trump wants the best and brightest to come here, and we don't want to pay to help other countries so much, at the same time we brag about how great our economy is, and how big our heart is.

And we in particular are directing cuts to the very things that could help the most - family planning efforts, including contraception and yes, safe abortions and referrals, in the countries where those options are critical to helping reduce poverty, population, health crises, climate crises, environmental crises, human rights violations, and more.

So yes, let's share cute videos of gumballs, and ignore the most important message: that we're going about this whole immigration thing all wrong.

TGIF 6/15/18

Thank freaking goodness it's Friday!  Have you had enough of this week yet? I sure have - let me count the ways.

First, we had the painful G7 meeting in Canada, in which, we're told, president Trump said that he could send 25 million Mexicans to Japan and Prime Minister Abe would be out of office in no time; that all the terrorists are in Paris, and of course, all the nonsense about Canada, and attacking our other allies, and suggesting that Russia get back in, and that Obama is to blame for, well, pretty much everything.

Net neutrality officially ended, leaving it open for service providers to slow down traffic for people who don't want to pay more for faster moving bits and bytes; block or otherwise demote content from competitors, and so on -- all things the Trump administration argued were ridiculous and would not hurt consumers because they probably wouldn't even happen so we need to just let net neutrality die.

Then we had the highfalutin' rootin-tootin' holy salutin' summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, of whom the president said, he's a great negotiator. Coming from the Artist of The Deal, them's some pretty strong words of praise. And it must be true, because it doesn't appear Kim gave up anything in return for a lifetime of handshakes  - and that salute - and a movie trailer. Don't forget the movie trailer. Now, the fact that North Korea has previously promised some level of the 'denuke' process that Trump says we will get. And there was that whole war games comment. All I could think of was Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy and that computer...

We had the pro-net neutrality administration all up in arms when a federal judge decided that an AT&T-Time Warner merger was just fine (even with Fake News CNN in the mix) and it wouldn't hurt consumers in the least, honest.

We've got all those kids in detention along the border, because the Bible tells us it's OK or something like that. Or maybe it's because it's the Democrats' fault, not the Bible's. The story changes so many times in a day or two, it's hard to keep track. But as long as we fully fund the border wall that Mexico's going to pay for, it's all good.

And the IG report - the one that proves that there was "no collusion" even though the report had nothing whatsoever to do with determining whether or not there was collusion? Yeah, that happened too.

Finally, I think every single media outlet said something along the lines of 'Trump said numerous things that were misleading' or 'not totally accurate'  or 'maybe incomplete', with only people on Twitter calling out the lies - repeated lies - about North Korea, kids ripped out of the arms of their parents, and the IG report, among other topics.

And only people on Twitter were calling out the media's complicity in allowing Trump to lie with impunity each and every day. Today was just like the first 500 or so days of this administration, after all.

I don't know about you, but I could really use a drink. Or, whatever it is that Rudy Giuliani's having.

TGIF.

TGIF 4/13/18

Happy Friday the 13th, Spring 2018 edition. And yes, there is another one this year - in July, in case you want to plan ahead.

We know the president is gung ho on the southern border wall, going so far as to suggest that repairs to portions of the existing fence near San Diego are 'his wall' even though, you know. 

Also gung ho on the wall is boxer Rod Salka, who wore red, white and blue trunks emblazoned with a wall pattern and a America First waistband is too. Sadly, he was defeated by Francisco Vargas, a Mexican boxer.

Who else did not have a great week? How about Elliot Broidy, a person most of us who are not big in Republican circles have never heard of - until now.  It seems Broidy, who was deputy chair of the Republican National Committee, had a fling with a Playboy 'model', a woman to whom he committed to pay $1.6 million to not talk about their affair. Or, I mean, to help her out.

I acknowledge I had a consensual relationship with a Playboy Playmate. At the end of our relationship, this woman shared with me she was pregnant. She alone decided that she did not want to continue with the pregnancy and I offered to help her financially during this difficult period.

Two years worth of payments, to "help her" keep quiet about their affair. With one of those handy non-disclosure agreements orchestrated by Michael Cohen, Trump's 'under criminal investigation' personal attorney, who is still officially involved with the RNC himself.

And that agreement? Supposedly the names used in the document are Peggy Peterson and David Dennison, the same names in the Stormy Daniels NDA. Must be John Doe and Mary Roe were too boring for Cohen?  I'm guessing anyone with the same name as our friends Peggy and David are not having a good week, either.

The president decided to skip the Summit of the Americas, so he could stay in Washington and tweet about not telegraphing his decision on what to do about Syria, which he had tweeted about earlier in the week, and of course to tweet about James Comey and Andrew McCabe. And to Pardon Scooter Libby.  And who knows, maybe to fire someone - Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein are probably at the top of his list.

In fact as I write this, the president is speaking from the Diplomatic Room at the White House, announcing the military, economic and diplomatic response against the Assad regime we are undertaking with our British and French allies.

TGIF, everyone.

OrangeVerse XXXII: H.R. 1625

No time for Sunday School today -- I was busy reading poetry and stuff.

As you know the president signed H.R. 1625 on Friday.  H.R. is the $1.3 trillion spending bill, as you know, and you also likely know that the president threatened to veto this HR, just as he vetoed his National Security Advisor, HR McMaster, the day before

Anyway, in addition to have a couple of his cabinet folks drop a few words in the 22 minutes or so of  remarks, it was all Trump, in all his I-wish-I-had-a-uniform glory.  Let's take a look at how he views his spending plan.

Wanna Trade?

Thank you very much, everybody.

We have a lot of good news

 to report. Some 

tremendous trade deals

are being made

with various countries. 

We're negotiating

very long, very hard, but

very quickly.

And the deal with South Korea

according to Secretary Ross and

Bob Lighthizer, is very close

to being finished.

And we're going to have

a wonderful deal with a

wonderful ally.

Um, I Think We've Moved On.

The last time we negotiated

something like this -

and as you know it's

always been a problem for our country.

They get together and

they crate a series of

documents that nobody has

been able to read

because it was just done.

Now you tell me who can read

that quickly. It takes a 

long time to read it.

Hallowed be Thy Readiness

For the last eight years

deep defense cuts have

undermined our national security, 

hallowed our - and they just  -

if you look at what's taken out,

they've hallowed our 

readiness

as a military unit

And put America at

really grave

risk.

My highest duty is

to keep America safe.

Nothing more important.

The omnibus bill

reverses this dangerous defense.

As crazy as it's been

As difficult as it's been

As much opposition

to the military as we've had

from the Democrats

and it has been tremendous.

Listen... Listen

I try to explain to them,

you know the military

is for Republicans

and Democrats

and everybody else.

It's for everybody.

But w have tremendous

opposition to creating, 

really what will be 

by far - by far

 the strongest 

military that we've 

ever had.

We've had that

from the Democrats.

So if we take something

for the military, 

they want something for

in many cases

things that are really

a wasted sum

of money and it's not right

and it's very bad for our country.

This Land is Our Land

We're looking to do funding

for our final fight

in certain areas

As you know

we've gotten just about

a hundred percent or

our land

back from ISIS.

We have troop increases

necessary to accomplish what

we have to do and we have

very importantly a pay increase

for our troops. And this will

be actually the largest pay increase 

for our incredible people

in over a decade.

We're All Building The Navy Submarines, the Navy Submarines...

It increases total defense spending 

by more than $60B from last year 

and funds the addition of critically

needed ships planes helicopters tanks 

and submarines.

We have submarines being built

the lines of which there's

nothing anywhere in the world like

the submarines we build...

First and Last Times

But I say to Congress: I will

never sign another bill

like this again.

I'm not

going to do it again.

Nobody read it

It's only 

hours old...but 

in this case, it

became so big because 

we need to take care of 

our military and because

the Democrats

who don't believe in that

added things that

they wanted in there 

in order to get votes.

Full-o-bluster

We have to get rid of

the filibuster rule.

We have to get rid of

the filibuster rule

and go to 51 votes

 in the Senate

if we're going to have

really sustained

continued success.

To prevent the omnibus situation

from every happening again

I'm calling on Congress

to give me a line-item veto

for all government spending

bills and the Senate must end.

Poof!

They must end

the filibuster rule

and get down to work.

We have to get a lot of

great legislation approved

and without the

filibuster rule

it will happen just like magic.

I'm going to end it there, even though there was more after that, including the president itemizing our military spending - this many dollars for this type of equipment, and this many dollars for some other equipment, and nuclear subs, and on and on.  And of course, the border wall. And the military being the strongest it's ever been, the most well funded it's ever been, and oh yeah, we have a great country.

The only thing missing? #MAGA.