DogofWar1

Welcome to the Capitals, where the defense plays offense, the offense plays injured, and the goalies are legally blind.

I see we're trying to mirror the NBA out there.

2012 Romney would fight (and beat the crap out of) 2019 Romney. 2019 Romney is a damn wuss. Also Lindsay Graham should not be allowed to speak in public unless it's to answer where Len Blavatnik's $800,000.00 donation to Graham's PAC came from. I don't think this really moves the needle. It's a PR stunt, and I think that has been sufficiently discussed to keep the public from swinging too hard. It's too easy to point out that this deal is basically Trump offering back a small portion of something he himself took away. However, if it were up to me, I'd have had Pelosi do an instant televised reply like the last time Trump did this, and drop the "DREAM ACT + HR1 for 5.7B" counter offer on him. You know DREAM Act makes it a non-starter for President Miller, but considering DREAM Act and HR1 (or its component parts at least, since direct polling on HR1 hasn't really been done) are both very popular, you basically win that battle from the get-go.

Also, passing of HR1. If Trump passes DREAM Act and HR1, give him his 5 billion. Hell, give him 10 billion. End the F-35 program and we come out ahead on costs, while getting two huge victories, and it's not like the wall would get built with that money anyway. Total costs will probably be 50B if not more, repair costs per year would be huge, and not to mention, Trump has no plan to actually build the thing. No contractors, no sourcing, no nothing. He'll get his money, throw a party, and then waste all the money laundering it to about 200 people, with, if he's lucky, some number of miles in the double digits being completed of the wall.

Nah, Trump's Michael Cohen is MichaelCohen212. I don't think they were "mad" per se, but I do think they wanted to make clear they didn't leak, and that Buzzfeed's two LEOs were not SCO people (probably SDNY). That and I suspect the story got something wrong, but based on how much lawyering language the SCO shoved in there, guessing it was something unrelated to the central premise. Like "we didn't find any emails supporting the suborning of perjury but everything else is right" or something.

Pretty sure he has to declare an emergency at this point. His polling is tanking. He is no closer to a budget with the money than he was before his speech. He also can't just give in. At this point to make an announcement that doesn't fundamentally change the status quo is just going to broadcast all the more that he has no clue what he's doing. He has to change the situation. Only thing that will do that is declaring an emergency (and immediately getting roflstomped in court but that's a separate matter).

Boston Globe wants to win 2019 ratio award.

Manchin should just be ignored. He's in the Senate, so his commentary on the House is pointless. Further, until Mitch reopens the Senate for business, he's basically just sitting on his hands commentating from the sideliines.

Things can only get so bad for Trump/GOP before one of two things happen: 1. Senate GOP caves and a veto proof majority sends a bill to his desk, then overrides the veto 2. Trump caves. So Trump can throw whatever tantrum he wants, and he's counting on the hope that polls will flip back to hurting Dems, but if they don't, then he also needs the GOP to not act like politicians. Some of them will happily take down the US for this wall/Trump hill, but I think enough won't. There's a reason Mitch McConnell is going full autocrat to prevent a vote. He knows if one makes it to the floor he is screwed.

I mean, I think the answer might be "indefinitely," so long as polls hold. I mean, we basically just found out that the President, who started this shutdown bc some Foxhead said the deal he got wasn't good enough, was suborning perjury to Congress, and, depending on written answers to Mueller, may have committed it himself. Trump's numbers have been dropping pretty badly throughout. At the start of the shutdown his net approval was like -10, and now it's about -15. Dems have no incentive to cave to the hostage taker. They're winning. People (rightfully) blame Trump. If polls start to shift, then sure, Dems have to reevaluate, but if things hold, there is zero reason to come to the table. It'd be like negotiating a peace treaty with Germany in January 1945.

What's that Lassie!? Mitch McConnell is drunk on power and preventing democracy from functioning!?

Damn shame Barr's hearings ended yesterday. Someone drag his butt back in there and ask him a couple Qs, we got some new information.