I'm not sure Trump ever thinks ahead, but he's facing a real dilemma soon. It seems all but certain that he'll be implicated in crimes either related to the campaign or his businesses. As long as he's president I don't think the DoJ will ignore past precedent, so it is unlikely that he'll be indicted, but he will face the risk of indictment as soon as he is no longer the president. At this point the chance of he or another Republican is not something he can count on. His best way out is a presidential pardon, ala Ford, but time is running out the longer he fights. Watergate came to a head two years before the next presidential election. Trump isn't going to have a lot of time to fight before he's run out of time for a pardon.

So now he's also proposing a guest worker program of some sort? Who's in charge of coming up with the details of that?

(sorry for the paste, but for some reason I can't embed tweets anymore)

I'm honestly shocked he didn't put 'whine' country. He sucks.

I wouldn’t count on it.

I agree. Unfortunately, I'll bet there's going to a large part of the 40% that will keep on listening to him.

So the Trump campaign sent out an email saying how Trump has come up with a brilliant idea to make Chuck and Nancy listen to Americans about the Wall.



If you donate $20 or more to the re-elect Trump campaign they will send a brick to Chuck and Nancy to prove that walls work! They have a goal of making $100,000 on this stunt.



Isn't that clever?

Dems going after Sec Nielsen now-asked the FBI to open a case on her for lying to Congress about not having a family separation policy. Senator Merkley says they have new proof she lied to Congress about this.

Ooooh-Trump making a major announcement tomorrow about humanitarian crisis at the border and the shutdown tomorrow at 3pm. I can hardly wait!

90% of America don't want to think about politics on a (sometimes 3 day) weekend. Dope.

How does this stunt, if successful, not result in 5000 bricks delivered to the White House lawn with a note reading, "Okay, here's your wall materials. Now how about opening the government?"

Charlie Kirk or somebody was already running that grift. lol

Well darn ... hold the presses.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/18/polit...eed/index.html

Yeah that's really strange that the special counsel would comment on this article with all the stuff that has been written about in the investigation. I don't get it.

I'll admit it's at least entertaining to see people that were 100% against the Special Council suddenly accept what it says.

This would be a 4d chess move if Trump did something similar.

Fuckin Buzzfeed man.

Sat 3pm, can't hardly wait.

Hopefully there will be some significant concessions for $5B Wall/Barrier funding. But my guess is it won't be enough.

I like he is trying to reach out to a broader base (some) and reinforcing his existing, almost seems "presidential". I don't think Pelosi has unlimited timeline though, longer it goes, the more shared blame there will be when more and more people get fed up.

Lost opportunity in his first 2 years.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/18/polit...own/index.html

Both clever. It would be great!

He thinks has something that will make people's opinion shift and start blaming the dems. Let's see if he is right.

Sounds like he's offering DACA and Bridge Act protection (currently tied up in courts already) for his $5.7 billion. Must be doing this on Saturday before Ann and Rush tell him no.

Holy cow, George Will...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.5102bd518967

Worth cuddling up with the ol' Websters and working your way through it. It's not exactly new, but in his usual way, his precision here is awfully impressive.

I am reading not DACA, just the Bridge Act. That is a big difference. Bridge only protects people that qualify for DACA for 3 years, and doesn't give a path to citizenship. So he gives the appearance of giving something, while not really giving much.

And that took a month. Let's not elect non-politicians from now on. We could have reached this stage in 6 hours.

If that's the case, it's a pretty savvy political move.

Well, that didn't work out as planned.


https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-...r-future-wars/

It's good, but this line is funny in the context of Will's writings on Trump:

Make no mistake, Mr Bolton won't be quenched until he gets his war with Iran.

So in advance of his big announcement, the white house is trying to soften up the crowd by issuing statements that are in no way ever uttered by Trump:

1. @realDonaldTrump: The beauty and majesty of citizenship is that draws no distinctions of race, or class, or faith, or gender or background. No matter where our story begins – whether we are 1st generation or 10th generation – we are all equal!
   
   493 replies 806 retweets 2,559 likes
2. 
   The White House‏Verified account @WhiteHouse 19m19 minutes ago
   
   
   .@realDonaldTrump: As Americans Citizens, we are bound together in love, loyalty, friendship and affection. We must look out for each other, care for each other, and always act in the best interests of our nation – and all citizens living here today.

And before he can even talk about it, Pelosi has a response:


Pelosi Statement on Trump Speech - Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Be funny if that was a subtle attempt to nudge him into going "I'll show HER. HA!" and proposing an actual DACA solution just to make her look bad.

"Well, okay, egg on my face, but it made him do the thing I wanted him to do in the first place, soooo..."

Yeah given you are never quite sure what's going to come out of Trump's mouth until he says it, that was a risk to get in there first.

So basically the concessions he is offering are things the courts are going to make him do anyway.

MAGA 1: "We have a problem. Apparently some ostensibly serious people out there are STILL contending that 'Build the Wall' has something to do with border security and isn't just distilled unalloyed racism."

MAGA 2: "Really? I mean, yeah, that's our 'defense,' but people weren't supposed to actually believe it. It's going to dilute our message if people start getting confused about what 'The Wall' means. Any ideas on how to really get our point across?"

MAGA 1: "Maybe we could have some Hitler Youth start screaming it at Native Americans? I mean, people couldn't keep thinking that it has anything to do with border security after that, could they?"

MAGA 2: "I guess we'll see."

..and done through the executive branch, so Miller can be the Lucy to the Dems and pull the agreement after Trump has his money.

And he didn't budge on the Wall, or ask for less money-some compromise eh?

He also didn't offer anything new. He offered the same things a month ago, and was told no. So it makes sense for Pelosi to have a response already.

What I get from the offer (which I think was a smart move politically):

The GOP Senators (at least the ones in purple states up for 2020 election) are getting a decent amount of pressure from their voters to Do Something.

The GOP Leadership and Trump are not ready for this to end.

So they made a non-starter offer which McConnell will put up for a vote early next week and the GOP senators will vote for (and probably a few Dem senators from red states).

DACA is confusing. And if you really look at the offer here, it is laughably one-sided. But the sound bite is going to be "GOP offered DAVA concessions in exchange for the Wall, and Pelosi called it a 'non-starter.'"

That's a good GOP sound-bite. And if they can keep Trump away from Twitter and from a TV camera for 48 hours, it might actually stick.

Overall, I am distressed, though, because the Dems have no incentive to take this offer, and the fact that the GOP made it means that they are still more interested in the fight than in ending it.

And the clock ticks for 800,000 Americans who's only sin was wanting to serve their country.

Interesting way of clouding the issue since his offer does not include a pathway to citizenship, which was included in the 25 billion dollar offer made a month ago.

I do think Trump's decided to make this announcement on a Saturday afternoon of a long weekend hurts the ability of the narrative to take hold outside of the base. By the time people pay attention, the value of any sound bite will be diminished for all but the base.

Apparently it was the black Muslims that made them do it.

That incident wasn't really touched on here outside of this comment, but one of the moms' response explains that situation entirely.

Not Muslims. They are part of the wacky Black Israelites cult. They have a similar business model as Westboro Baptist.

Wait, seriously? That's lol stupid.

Look them up. They're every bit as batshit as Westboro, and they seem to survive largely on provoking people to violence and then suing.

I have been largely ignoring that story, as I think it would just make me mad for one reason or another.....but as I now understand it, the three groups involved were: a group of protesting Black Israelites, a group of vacationing catholic school boys wearing MAGA gear, and a traditional native american elder.

These truly are absurd times.

Now, according to conservatives, the presence of the Black Isrealites excuses the maga kids for the bizarre stare down, the tomahawk chopping, the war chants, and other disrespectful behavior. I shouldn't be surprised, everything has to be a partisan issue. I'm sure the centrists will be along to shake their head disapprovingly with their 'both sides' takes and the cycle will be complete.

Anything to muddle the conversation, or avoid holding anyone accountable.

If nothing else, it is 100% American.

I do think there is some jumping to conclusions re: the MAGA hat kid(s). Per below, some additional context on the incident. Here's from the kid's point of view.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/21/us/ma...deo/index.html

So there are 3 groups - Hebrew Israelites, Native American Indians, and School kids. My guess is

1. Hebrew Israelites starts confrontation by name calling etc.
2. Kids back away and come back later with their school/haka chants/dance (I read haka dance from somewhere)
3. American Indian(s) come into the space to try to make peace
4. Kids think its more of the same from the American Indian(s) with their drum beating

The picture of the smirking kid is not good but somewhat understandable if no. 4 is correct.

I can also understand the American Indians thinking the school/haka chants/dance was mocking them.

Although denied (and not heard on the video), I can easily believe there were some kids that chanted Build the Wall and Trump 2020. However, likely not the entire group.

One big mess but I do think its too soon to condemn the MAGA kid (or rest of them) yet. There's enough uncertainty IMO.

EDIT: Here's sampling of the video. https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/19/us/te...rnd/index.html


.

Yes on the absurd but probably not much different than (insert year) The one difference being the video cameras and social media. 30 years ago they probably would have gotten their asses kicked. Much like the mass shooting stuff I try to deflect too much from the personal responsibility of the principal actors but also wonder why as a public we choose to get wrapped up into these media generated controversies. (Mass shootings not as much the act but the obsession on making the people involved infamous)

Best to ignore as these stories serve only one real purpose... division.

Shocking-Trump has no events scheduled today for MLK Day.
Equally Shocking Pence compares Trump to King in the most sickening suck-up yet.

A couple main thoughts from this:
1: Why all the attention from the media? And why the quick rush to judgement to condemn a bunch of high schoolers?

2: I thought the kid handled himself pretty well. If some guy marched up to me and started banging a drum in my face (and this was after another group was hurling vile hateful rhetoric for some time) I probably would've done something less media friendly then stand there and smile.

3: Why is there not more attention on the Black Israelites. What they said and did was far worse than anything the high schoolers are said to have done. For example one guy with a microphone can be heard saying "You have 'In God We Trust' on the dollar bill but you still give rights to f******".

Let me get this straight. High school kids go to DC. They go to a memorial. There is a black hate group shouting at them. The kids begin to do school cheers. Then some native americans march towards them for some reason, march up to this one kid who has no idea what to do and the kid essentially looks at him for 3-4 minutes while the native american beats his drum. Yet, the kids are at fault?

Look, I have no doubt, there were probably one or two kids saying crap. But, in the 10 minute video I watched, I heard much more, "What is happening?" or "What is going on?" than anything else. Yet, the narrative is that these kids are vile, reprehensible people. If you look at the chatter on FB, half the comments are along the lines of, "They are wearing MAGA hats, nothing else needs to be said."

Is this what we have come to? No one bothers to do their own digging. Their minds are immediately made up based upon the looks of things. Additionally, the diocese these kids are from are so anxious to not make waves, they immediately throw the kids under the bus.

What the hell?

This wasn't a memorial - they were basically shipped in as part of a pro-life march (by their school apparently), not a memorial .... why a school would put teenage kids into what is going to be a divisive situation is beyond me, why they would have them dress with hats which are likely to encourage confrontation is also beyond me.

That being said free-speech is a good thing and while I believe people have the right to decide what happens to their own bodies, I understand a section of society would prefer to dictate to others and having those beliefs is their right ...

With the confrontation itself I think all three sides made mistakes, I think the native American while well intentioned could have done things better (trying to talk to the kids might have been helpful for instance), I think the black protestors were behaving incredibly poorly and I don't think the kids are quite as sneaky clean as they make out either.

This. There really isn't a need to pick good and bad guys.

Except the black Israelites, those guys are in the same category as the Westboro Baptist creeps.

Did you miss the warchanting and tomahawk chops? It's at the beginning of this video and I think it was shortly after the Phillips group walked over.

MAGA Kentucky Covington Catholic High Boys mock Native elders - YouTube

My daughter and her friend were called whores by anti-abortion protesters when they were walking to school from her friends house. They weren't the only ones that day. The next day, a large group of kids counter protested. They treated the anti-abortion assholes better than these kids treated the Native American group. It was a weird reaction by the Covington group.

Apparently Trump's immigration "compromise" includes unannounced major restrictions and limits to the asylum process for Central Americans.

Well because it doesn't fit the narrative...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/21/opini...ey/index.html?

A-fucking-men

dola, "mostly-white" is an understatement. 100% of the teachers are white and over 90% of the students, with reports of unrelenting bullying and transfers away from the school from minorities that go there.

I don't think so. People in East coast cities probably have experience with these cultists, they hang around monuments, subway stops, big events, etc. In short, for people living there they are normal and the Native American and kids were the things out of place. If it were just about a narrative, why is almost everyone with the power to push narratives apologizing and backing off?

I think this is absolutely correct.

A couple things because the amount of incorrect information has been staggering. The memorial is the Lincoln memorial, where this took place. The actual March was on Friday, so I would imagine spending time in the capital for HS Juniors is probably a pretty cool idea. You already take US History as a Junior and tjeu probably already finished studying the Constitution. So the can probably double up on things by going to the March (they are all over on Friday) and then see DC. So being at the Mall isn't really out of character to have HS Juniors in the area, a lot of high schools go. I can't verify, though maybe you have a link, but I haven't seen where the school allowed or made them where those hats. You can buy them on any corner on the Mall I bet, when I wasthere last, vendors were everywhere. The kid claims, and it hasn't been refuted, but that was the gathering spot for the bus back. Who knows if that's true and a chaperone/teacher probably should have been the only other adult in the area, but I'm going to bet there were probably only parents around to monitor them at the moment and they were probably indifferent at best. I would imagine this was probably an extra cirricular activity, school trips usually are, but being so close to DC and being a private school, it could have very well been rolled into the cost.

Children from Kentucky probably do not have experience with those cultists. Why is there little to no discussion about racist, hatred speech towards children from a group of black extremists?

The power to push narratives comes from the mainstream media which is overwhelmingly biased towards a certain party.

Speaking of the Black Isrealites, over here in Pasadena, we had a group called the Black Jesus's. They would stand on the sidewalk with a bunch of speakers, shouting at anyone and everyone. The main guys would speak loudly and belligerently, though no threatening. But they had other people who would talk more respectfully to passer bys. Spoke with them on multiple occasions and they had some rather thoughful beliefs on the appearance of Jesus, but I think in the end, they were disappointed I wasn't bothered that Jesus might not have looked like the way he is often portrayed, as light brown hair with blue eyes. That was like 20 years ago and I havent seen them since, which means the leader probably passed away.

We had a similar group that would setup outside the main strip of bars at our oceanfront. They were very "militaristic" with one main leader who would yell commands for the rest of the group. They setup cameras and relentlessly screamed hatred towards any white individuals or any POC that was associating with a white person all in the name of their "religious beliefs". We had to prevent countless fights as a result. I'm not in patrol anymore so I have no idea if they are still out there.

The funny thing is one time I unknowingly pulled a group of them over on their way to their hate spot, and they were one of the most respectful groups of people I stopped.

Oh my.

You have this completely backwards. The right wing PR machine swung into full action on Sunday. Scott Jennings wrote the kid's response.

There was a twitter storm on Saturday that the media followed. Yes, some on Twitter took it too far. There will always be people on Twitter taking it too far. Then the right wing PR gets called in and the media reverses its story and now we get a full dose of both sides just as predicted.

Yes, the black Isrealites are shitheads but the maga hat kids were shitheads too. I don't think we are going to have any luck changing the black Isrealites but maybe if conservative adults stop acting like the following video... maybe, we can expect better behavior from teenagers on school trips in maga hats.

When my kids act like assholes, I punish them and try to teach them personal accountability instead of running to PR firms to shelter them.

But I'm not a MAGA conservative.

Has your kid ever received death threats? I'm not sure how I would handle that as a parent.

The other thing I am missing is that maybe these parents are disciplining their kids out of the public eye.

Certainly, when my kid acts up in public, I tend to wait until we are in private before punishing him, in part because that's private family business and in part because I don't think that public shaming is an effective component of punishment.

So I should not have been as harsh in my post because I am assuming a lot (that these parents are ok with their kids' actions) about something that is their private business and that I have no idea about.

All of this could have been avoided if the adults would have moved the kids as soon as they started to engage with the black Israelites. I still don't understand why no adult stepped forward to move the students to a different area.

I have purposely been avoiding all conversations and responses, despite the fact that red MAGA hats cause me to have a negative opinion of those wearing them, and that the group in question is associated with organized religion, and that the school in question exists about 15 minutes from my house, I have waited.


I guess my thoughts on it are this:


No accusations in this situation have gotten anyone shot, drug behind a car and/or lynched; and that for a very large portion of our American population, those realities are very much a genuine fear.

The real conversations that should be taking place start with examining the how and why we got here, to deal with the issues, not the noodle lashings in the aftermath looking for a great sound byte. Those conversations are deep, hard, complex and basically avoided because they involve real hard, fucking work and they take time, cooperation and trust. Piling on at this point, on either side, is simply lazy, and not worthy of being taken seriously.

Yeah, agree with this. Where were the teachers/chaperones?

An AZ state rep is proposing that all computers sold in AZ be blocked from porn, but that buyers could pay 20$ to restore access. All money collected would go to help build a border wall.

Usually on these trips you need an admin and a teacher, while the rest tend to be parents. Probably either tracking down the bus or on their phones or just not worrying about it. Total fail on their part.

That is a glorious level of fail wherein just about every single tenet would, if enforceable, be the proper responsibility of the federal government, not the Arizona state government.

So, this rep believes in Ted Stevens' internet tubes?

Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote ends the hold on Trump's transgender ban while litigation takes place in the lower courts

It was reported the kids asked for permission to do their pep rally/haka/chants etc. So I think there were some adults around that saw what was happening

A group of white kids from KY doing a fake Polynesian war chant has problems all on its own.

That is true. When I read "haka" somewhere I thought that would be cool to see. When I saw the video, somewhat disappointed.

So much wrong with the BS with these KY kids.

First, I spent 6 years in DC as a kid. I lived in SE DC and went to Jr High in NW DC. On the school bus every day I rode by all of the monuments, etc and I saw every type of protester at one time or another. So, none of this stuff with the protesters is new.

Second, I firmly believe in sticking up for yourself when needed, but any responsible teacher/chaperone in this situation is an idiot to let these kids engage with these protesters. You have to be responsible for these kids and not let them escalate the situation.

Lastly, the only reason this is a story in 2019 is because the kids were wearing MAGA hats combined with the way the internet works today. It is very easy for something like this to blow up like it did.

I'd like to think that at some point the over reaction to these types of things will get old eventually and we'll find something else to worry about.

I'm fine with getting back to worrying about the government not being open.

Brutal polling on the shutdown today for Trump and the GOP. Any other President would be scrambling to get out of this mess as soon as possible.

We need a law saying that if the government is shut down for a month then new elections are required for every house and senate seat, as well as for president.

I'd also be fine with a law (1) eliminating the debt ceiling (it does nothing to reduce the debt and as long as it is around, there's a risk it will cause global depression); and (2) saying that if Congress does not renew a CR or a budget (lol, I know), then it automatically resets with an across-the-board 3% COLA increase. Congress would always have the right to pass spending bills to re-allocate money and change things, but the default for political paralysis would be to keep things running as they are.

This would just encourage the party not in power to shut down the government all the time.

If the public blamed them then they would just lose more seats.

Sure, but we both know that won't happen.

Do you know anyone that would have voted republican but won't now because of this shut down (or the other way around)?

I can't claim to know how'd they vote, but I do know some former military who are very upset that the coast guard is working without pay.

My personal idea was an Amendment (because we can't cut their pay) where everytime it shuts down there's no money or perks for the executive and legislative branch, and the only things that can be voted on are declarations of war, impeachment hearings, or funding to reopen the government. Personally, I'd lock them all into the Capital with nothing but bread and water until they're done but I'm not sure how to put that in legalese.

It’s interesting how the US doesn’t have a provision to reenact the previous year’s budget until a new one is drafted.

We have that over here. No new projects get funded since it’s just assuming the same from previous year, but it makes sure that bills and government salaries get paid.

It also prevents either branch to hold government employees hostage with deferred salaries.

We are terrible at passing budgets:

20 Years Of Congress’s Budget Procrastination, In One Chart | FiveThirtyEight

Pelosi putting some flamethrowers on the Oversight Committee (i.e. the thorn in the President's side committee).

With every passing day, I can understand why the GOP was so excited by the idea that Pelosi might not become Speaker. They knew.

We are terrible at picking who we want to run the country. We should replace them all with people that give a damn.

Agreed - my point is we have been terrible at electing people for a long time now.

Republican attacks on her during midterms should have been a sign that's she's the perfect person to lead the House. If she wasn't good at her job they would have cheered her being selected.

So when is the breaking point to run with Obstruction of Justice? Is it when a witness delays testimony for fear of retribution from the President and his merry men?

It's helpful that she knows how government and procedure works. These letters today...

This isn't a direct response to your question, but it is a good reminder:

Impeachment is a 100% political process that is entirely given to the House and Senate. Fair, right, wrong, criminal, non-criminal, just, unjust, ain't got nothing to do with it:

Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - POL - the whole spying mess

Cohen cancels his appearance before the House citing threats against his family by Trump and others. Dems say they will subpoena him.