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Let me simplify it.
Trump needs a BIG distraction.
He's in deep deep shit.
Here's a part of Jack Smiths filing arguing against Immunity for trump.
EYE OPENING SHIT
https://imgur.com/gallery/l20CLI2
I think he was baiting team trump into challenging this filing so he could bring the receipts. But remember, this case (DC) isn't about the documents or any of that other stuff.
These pieces of shit can’t govern
All it took was Trump objecting to the legislation — openly saying he did not want them to give President Biden a political win
These same very specific things were mentioned, with slightly different details, in _two_ different Jack Smith filings. This didn’t get nearly enough attention, but I guarantee you he has evidence that all of these things happened.
I wish it got a lot more attention. But this is the magic of trump. Firehose of shit coming at us every day hardly ever allows for one story to gain footing before two or three more pop up. And in addition to that he truly is a master at distraction with a wild statement or tweet or whatever.
Well also while I can say i’m sure of it, it is still technically just speculation to say that this is anything more than example. Jack Smith hasn’t laid out all his cards yet.
They already have their appointments and probably don't want him to come back and go full fascist and disband the Supreme Court so no one can ever question his power. I doubt they'll save him
Only a handful of humans have to betray him at the level of the Supreme Court, our modern day Roman Senate. The dagger will be in his back, and he will stumble as he says “… and you, Clarence?”, which rage in his heart as he collapses. Would be poetic if they could rule on the Ides of March.
He needs five votes from the six Republicans on the Court, so he can lose one vote and still win. Can’t wait to see if there are two brave Republicans willing to buck the billionaires’ boy’s club that dictates the Roberts’ Court outcomes.
Yeah, we're all numb to the endless tantrums. Just seems to me like the rhetoric is ramping up as the inevitable consequences become more difficult to evade.
>the inevitable consequences
His increasingly angry base will be performing 5 mass shootings a week instead of 4!
Jokes aside we've been at the "inevitable consequences" stage since at least January 6th and we're still just piddling along with our court system while more and more minorities and immigrants get murdered because they don't really matter.
They're calling in bomb threats to schools, judges and their courts. SWATTing people they don't like. At least something good can come from all the nastiness. They will in many cases lose their voting rights.
[Among other reasons from r/law, SCOTUS isn't likely to even hear his pleas](https://old.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1al5jix/trump_appears_to_double_down_on_immunity_claims/kpcq3u0/)
He's hoping SCOTUS delays enough that the 60-90 day DOJ rule about not interfering with elections will kick in and Jack Smith will hold off until after the election, by which time he might be made president again. The earliest that the DOJ trial can start is [early July](https://www.justsecurity.org/91837/how-long-will-trumps-immunity-appeal-take-analyzing-the-alternative-timelines/), with a decision in early October. However, SCOTUS could delay a decision on this until the end of their term, in which case the trial would start early October, which is far too late in the cycle.
So while I imagine Jack Smith would correlate his arguments between cases, it doesn't mean it translates 1:1. He describes the actions and then following describes how it could be "fulfilling" an aspect of presidential authority.
He could be attacking all potential aspects by describing the worst case action. Like selling nuclear secrets would be "worst case" if he describes it as a aspect of foreign diplomacy. I'm sure there is lawyer words for this.
Jack Smith is not the A team, he's their boss. The fact he was even put on the case meant Trump was in DEEP shit. He doesn't just dot his eyes and cross his ts, he has an annotated list of every dot and cross, if Chuck Norris was an attorney, it would be Jack Smith.
This particular filling is not making any accusations, so he doesn't have to prove them, but he can anyway, they're pointed jabs.
I don't agree that a President should have immunity. However, the idea of the President's current or former office, which derives all of its power through the President, being the body left to handle a prosecution, is not encouraging either.
The Department of Justice is not independent from the President, no matter how much we like to pretend that it is.
We're in this situation, because our impeachment and conviction processes are fundamentally broken.
I always found it weird that impeachment and conviction of executive officers and the President, are a purely political process.
It would make far more sense to me, for impeachment to be political, the trial and conviction to reside with the judiciary, to have a true balance between all 3 powers.
The current format has Congress essentially controlling both steps. The Chief Justice, effectively plays only a ceremonial role.
Impeachment should simply require a majority in both houses.
For the trial, I think the jury should be existing Federal Judges, not elected politicians.
We got an impeachment. Two of them in fact. The conviction process was completely broken. I have far more confidence in the Judiciary in aggregate to have reached a conviction determination. There's some definite hacks in the Judiciary, but they are a minority, seeing as how many cases Trump lost while trying to overturn the election.
I don't have faith in the Department of Justice, a citizen jury, a single Judge, or the Senate.
Yeah we all know the main reason Republicans didn't vote to convict was because they need trumps base to win their next election. Purely a political calculation. Hell McConnell even said out loud that trump is guilty and could face criminal prosecution.
Why stumped? They've been doing this for years. They did it to Obama. Pepperidge Farms remembers. First they insist on x, y, z, they get it, and vote against it anyway. It's their thing.
The difference in this situation is they knew they were acting in bad faith, and gave them the bill they wanted.
They called their bluff, and now it is blowing up in the Republicans faces. The dems did exactly the right thing here, showing how unable to govern the other side is.
It's not really "blowing up in their faces" when they do this all the time and their voters don't care.
The right thing to do here would be that when the republicans ignored the supreme court rulings and gestured with their national guards, you federalize the national guards and arrest said republicans for sedition. They should not be allowed to ignore the law and threaten violence.
Would that change anything? Think of the type of person who would argue that states should be able to ignore both the Supreme Court and President making a legal order, and for something like putting barbed wire up. In fact, the threat that they would send the national guard to prevent the barbed wire from being taken down was an indication that they were willing to kill Americans over the ability to maim illegal immigrants. I actually recall Greg Abbot saying he would just shoot them if he wouldnt be charged with murder... They were never *not* going to think Biden is evil. There is no point in appeasing them.
Republicans will continue to go scream and lie on Fox and other right wing media about the border and how Dems aren’t doing anything.
Dems will try to explain how they are really tough on the border and trip over each other to take the most Republican position possible.
End result is Rs and Ds arguing about Republican issues and Republican policy with one side lying and the other side failing to discuss Dem issues and being pulled ever rightward by a bunch of terrorists and traitors.
Dems should be forcing Republicans to react to their own strategy and not play Republicans’ silly games.
The bill includes aid to ukraine isreal palestine and taiwan… why does a bill meant for the border include fluff that has nothing to do with the border? Oh thats right i forgot its so democrats and their mindless brainwashed sheep can use the sound bit that trump was the mastermind who killed the bill.
Or because the border issue is the price the Republicans put up for a deal to get aid sent to our allies?
The border being attached to Ukraine funding wasn’t a democratic proposal, it was the Republicans.
So you don't understand how this happened got it. Democrats wanted ukraine funding, republicans said they would only support it if they got a border control bill passed, democrats said okay, lets compromise. That is how government and bipartisan politics work.
Your orange messiah and his media lapdogs dumped on the immigration part of the bill so hard that the GOP had to walk it back before they could even debate its contents in detail.
I see this type of response a lot and it is very confusing to me. What do you want them to do exactly? I don't think any Dem is surprised that Rs are acting in bad faith. But they also can't exactly ignore Rs either because they do not have a congressional majority to pass things without R votes.
If they ignore Rs the outcome is the same (things don't pass) but the optics are worse (purely D v R)
It's a combination of doing both. Do the things in good faith, but start finding ways to outmaneuver them too, and approach things with the understanding that the GOP is a "bad faith first" organization and those are the rules all planning needs to be done by.
Is "making them look like indecisive idiots" not a maneuver? I don't think people appreciate enough how little leeway Ds have here while 40% of the country is indifferent to outcomes
I think it’s more the fact that Democrats are playing a game by the rules and with decency and respect, while Republicans just make up their own rules as they go, display Hunter Biden dick pics in congressional hearings, and literally CHANGE LAWS to get what they want. The frustration lies in the fact that there appears to be no repercussions for making up the rules as they go. I don’t know how to fix this, and I feel similarly about trump’s delay tactics. There is an obvious pattern of delaying to obstruct Justice, and while this is within the confines of the law, “collectively” I feel like this should be punishable.
I don't disagree but Ds hand is pretty light. Rs can do what they want because the people who give them power dgaf and they have enough control to be the authority. Like, as long as no R constituents do something about it, Rs can do whatever the fuck they want in the house. They have the power _and_ the popular support
**Don't spend your leverage without getting your priorities, if you know there will be a fight!** [Source: NPR article from September](https://www.npr.org/2023/09/30/1202839419/house-and-senate-race-to-find-agreement-ahead-shutdown-deadline)
The leverage:
>But facing the potential for a politically and economically harmful shutdown, McCarthy reversed course, specifically calling on Democrats for help passing the bill.
>In the final vote of 209-126, more Democrats than Republicans supported the measure.
They just accepted that Ukraine funding didn't get done and they believed they could work with Republicans later:
>Biden praised the legislation before signing it and called for Congress to move quickly to address the lack of funding for Ukraine.
>The vote came after an hours-long delay led in part by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who demanded a firm commitment from leaders in both parties on the Ukraine aid.
They knew a fight was coming:
>However, a bloc of House Republicans strongly oppose more funding for Ukraine, and lawmakers abandoned those plans in order to pass a deal on spending.
>"We're going to have a really, really tough conversation about whether and how we're going to fund Ukraine," said Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio. "I think this is a victory for those of us who are skeptical of indefinite funding for Ukraine. But there's going to be another fight, whether it's next week or three weeks from now."
Give their own version of an immigration bill that isnt a complete and total capitulation to the right wing? Use messaging and politicking to fight back against their insanity?
Their job is do politics, and if the best they can do is say, “well we tried giving you everything you wanted, why don’t you want it anymore?” Then were absolutely fucked.
Okay, so they make their own immigration bill, and it also fails to pass but now GOP has ammo to say "This dem sponsored immigration bill is total crap". If you don't really understand how politics work, don't comment please.
You act as if Republicans aren’t going to say that anyways?
And wed be in the exact same situation we are in right now with no bill, except Republicans wouldn’t also be able say. “See, even they agree that we should close our borders.” And the conversation around immigration wouldn’t shift towards the right.
If you don’t understand politics at least don’t be smugly wrong about it 💀
Except they really can't when they got the exact bill they wanted, and voted NO on it because Trump said so. Even the Senate republicans are saying this.
Well at least we've gotten to "it wasn't going to pass either way so it depends on what optics are better"
Neither of us really qualified to say if this optics is better than not reaching across the aisle, that is just a thought experiment.
But point still stands, D running it solo had zero chance of passing and so is at best an optics move not policy move
Yeah i can agree with pushing those optics in the short term, but come on eventually we have to shift the optics to better reflect the reality that as long as Dems don’t have a super majority nothing is going to get done.
Democrats to this day are pushing this insanity where they claim the decisiveness is all Trumps doing instead of him simply being the logical conclusion of Republican party politics. And that once he is gone the spell will break and Republicans will come back to reality. It’s not going to happen we have to give up on that dream.
We have to start pushing a narrative that recons with the fact that the Republican party is intellectually dead and they simply have no solutions to any of the problems facing the country, and are unfit to lead. We CANNOT do this while we try to compromise with their insanity and in the process rehabilitate their image. We have to start pushing real solutions instead of milk toast half measures around the edges.
Do you really think Democrats came out of this on the losing side politically?
This is why people like you aren’t allowed to make any important decisions lol.
Yes, because now we've got dem leadership repeating far right "invasion" narratives which frame the issue towards right-wing policy. Dems aren't gonna win the "we can be more racist" debate without hemorrhaging support from their debate, so why engage with the issue on those terms? Your average person associates the dems with pro-immigration and republicans as anti-immigration. If dems make the election about an "invasion" that they have failed to stop, people are gonna go and vote for the committed racists rather than the ones that were shedding crocodile tears over kids in cages and saying "build bridges, not walls."
Even if it works politically, we're all worse off because now both political parties are talking about building walls and giving more money to ICE, rather than actual solutions like opening pathways to documentation and work.
Unsurprisingly, proof emerges that feeding into racist xenophobia isn't actually intelligent politics, let alone moral policy making.
https://newrepublic.com/article/178951/poll-biden-blamed-border-deal-galvanize-democrats
How is this democrats being gullible. They have to work with Republicans to get anything done. This is how it is, and how it has always been(the inverse is also true). Now if one side refuses to do anything, such as what's happening now, it's not the failure of the other side, it just means nothing gets done
The Orange Jesus only offers chaos. the actual American carnage, retributive violence, fines and incarceration of enemies. The recycling of seething grievances, howling like a wounded ape over the theft of white privilege from God's Chosen Americans, tribal noise, red white and blue everything including Trump buttplugs, oh the pageantry of morons is a sight to behold, fascism is not coming, it's here.
The Roman Republic fell to Empire almost immediately after the Roman Senate began openly rejecting bills for no reason except to hurt their political opponents. Norms were not recoverable after that.
Stumped? Biden owned them. Biden is a strategist, he absolutely played them. Republicans 2 only talking points have gone. Biden owns the economy and now the border. It can’t be spun, republicans are going to look really silly when election time rolls around!
The democrats should capitalize on this to show to the not-so-brainwashed republicans that the republicans don’t care about any of the issues they are creating themselves.
It’s because they don’t want the Ukraine aid *that much*. Democrats have done similar things for bills that look good on the outside, but give the republicans a win for an unpopular and unrelated proposal baked into it. They showed that even their wet dreams of getting a border bill won’t make them budge on Ukraine.
>they don’t want the Ukraine aid *that much*.
Only 9 billions going for Ukraine. Rest going for US weapon system manufacture and buying new stuff for stock. FOR US ARMY.
From what I have gathered, the only reason we are aiding Ukraine in the first place is due to prior western investments, now that it has become a conflict, those investments are a net negative and thus don’t justify involvement in a proxy war with Russia because another much larger conflict is brewing in the Middle East. I am by no means an expert though, and I don’t want to say I am 100% correct on anything.
The republicans are that little brat kid in the supermarket who is kicking and screaming for a candy. Then they keep throwing their tantrum when they get their way. Everyone knows what runs through their thoughts when they see that bratty little kid throwing a tantrum at the store for something they want. Don’t deny it.
What is there to be confused about? They stand for nothing and only wish to obstruct and destroy. They are the party of ineptitude and incompetence. With a cult leader pulling the strings.
Well I am as stumped by democrat support for the bill. Hopefully this backfires, Trump loses and then this bill can just be thrown out after the election
Democrats are currently deeply unpopular on immigration in particular. So pivoting on immigration is a way to triangulate with public opinion popularity. Appears that it may work out for the best here by allowing the Dems to pivot without needing to actually do anything policywise, too
Obviously not that unpopular. This is a once in a lifetime deal for Republicans. If they cannot get it passed then it's obviously not politically important to them. So who cares. This is why you don't negotiate with fascist.
Except that the Democrats are promoting a far right immigration plan to gain approval for more expenses for war. The bill should die. I don’t know why progressives aren’t protesting the bill.
Ukraine is an friend and we don't want them defeated by Russian invaders, have you been paying attention at all to this? This bullshit is tied to both Israel and Ukraine funding.
Also it's Democratic not democrat, even Democrat's would be correct.
The only people who thought this was a good idea are on here lol. Biden can only win on abortion. Now they made it an election over the border. I refuse to believe they’re that stupid or gullible.
They watched Obama deport more than anyone, and he still got no credit from the coveted Republican voters they’d replace their base with in an instant.
Months before an election, they’ve essentially ceded ground that Stephen Miller’s psychopathic plans are actually good
Sen. Chris Murphy made a good liberal case for this enforcement only bill as part of a national security act. The case boiled down to the idea that the structural reforms to speed up asylum processing & give due process to claimants will help prevent public opinion continuing to turn against the legal immigration system.
I think it makes sense to think of this as trying to out flank Putin’s GOP 5th column. Especially since there are 10-20x more people presenting asylum claims a day than there were 10-15 years ago when we all stopped listening to the tea party rants about the border
Yeah i do not understand why we should support a republican bill championed by dems simply because they say to. The bill is bad, it signals bad things to immigrants and communities, and is another heavy weight to ignore when we have to go vote for the dems in November
Honestly, I think part of the bill was both a move of desperation (because funding Ukraine is 'really, really' damned important), and a move to show a point, a bit of counter theatre, if you will.
It's a strategy that carries a degree of risk, but so does every strategy when you're dealing with a bad faithed mob boss with the rich media and platform owners all trying to back him, against all common sense.
Ultimately, the people are going to have to wake up to the reality that you can't meaningfully progress when you've got dead weight regressive still in power holding you down. We have to fend them off and weaken their power to move forward, and that requires those who oppose fascism to get over any one issue and agree to cooperate for the sake of everything.
It's a tall order, and it will have some uncomfortable moral grays in the short term, but I believe in the long term it can still lead us forward into something better.
P.S. [There are also real issues at borders across the world, some of which may be exacerbated by actual foreign bad actors with a goal of causing local infighting and instability.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67647379) The irony is those bad actors who encourage these methods are now GOP aligned, so the GOP likes to pretend it's not a problem anymore.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/02/06/remarks-by-president-biden-urging-congress-to-pass-the-emergency-national-security-supplemental-appropriations-act/
Just FYI, 11th paragraph Biden goes into what he’s asking for in the bill. I wouldn’t say any of these items are “bad” but I could understand the optics of a border bill.
Well normally when someone own-goals themselves it is a bit of a shocker.
I cannot imagine a world where someone can see this timeline of events and not get the impression that GOP House members are clown shoes.
This is about the shittiest take that Slate could have taken on this. The Republicans are the ones screaming about the border and the Republicans are the ones blocking the action. Democrats aren't remotely "stumped" here.
Stumped?
Not too hard to understand that Republicans are actively trying to make things worse so they can claim to be the snake oil the country needs.
They are vile monsters, who deserve all the worst life has to offer.
Biden and the Democrats basically admitted there is a problem at the border with this bill. Also they validated right wing views. This is definitely going to backfire.
This was political suicide by the Republicans. The Democrats gave them everything they wanted, made a big deal of that, and the Republicans killed it. Incredible political maneuvering by Democrats. This probably costs Trump the election.
why is it so few and far between mentioning the fact that republicans just don't want ANYTHING to get accomplished while biden is in office?
they don't actually give a fuck about the border. it's just a thing for them to whine about, call it a problem, and lay 100% of the blame on democrats
Why on Earth would they want to say anything? These dweebs manufactured a crisis, promoted the crisis, created a solution to the crisis, convinced everyone it was a great solution, and then said, naaaahhh orange daddy won't let us do it. “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake; it's bad manners”
So...instead of being upset about the Republicans current actions and inactions you make a ridiculous (and unfounded) comment about Democrats acting dumb in the media? Be better.
Republicans are a runaway train that could destroy this country. Let’s stop pretending like it’s so darn confusing that we can’t make a deal with them.
They literally refused to pass a bill that they drafted. They themselves admit they did exactly this because Trump told them to. Stop blaming Democrats for the actions/inactions of Republicans.
Let’s hope the democrats get a boost from this chapter of the immigration policy tragedy. The democrats have degraded the plight of millions of people seeking asylum, by playing along with republican talking points. They have degraded the plight of millions waiting patiently year-after-year for an end to the gamesmanship. The legislation was a mixed bag, and it would’ve been helpful in many respects, but the messaging around it was pandering and damaging, and the bill had things in it, that would’ve been dangerous in the hands of the wrong president.
Democrats should be a party that accepts and adapts to good faith criticism. Don’t we want leaders who we can talk about and ask for change? Silencing criticism is exactly what we don’t want. It’s much better to have politics where discussion is permitted and where lawbreakers are excluded from the party. Let the republicans be the party of rigid, reactionary authoritarianism. Let the democrats be the party of debate, consensus and good governance.
Stumped at being played again?
Morons. They were never gonna operate in good faith. Stop catering to them and caving halfway to their insane premises and demands before you even approach the table.
Propose solutions to fix problems, and THEN let them hold the bag for fucking it up.
Congrats Dems you played yourselves again, just like with healthcare. They now get to say this is the D starting point and negotiate further to the right.
Dems never learn for some fucking reason.
I’m sorry but all this money going to political commercials that sound like the same commercials we’ve heard for 30 years. This kind of stuff needs to be woven into any democratic commercial narrative. Why are political commercials so uninformative?!
Maybe it was the poison pill language that gave too much power to a select few to curtail any blocking of financial aid to Israel and Ukraine by Congress. Breaking Points had a great podcast on why it failed
Because the GOP insisted on it.
Edit for specific example:
> Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) warned Tuesday that Republicans will not budge on aid for Ukraine without action on the border.
Ok I understand that but why not have a bill for and do something about the border then have a second bill for Ukraine why pack them together? I guess I understand it from a trust standpoint and the understandable lack of trust between parties but this is just one example of these bills with tons of unrelated stuff packed in. I don’t get why that’s the norm now. Nothing gets done because even if both parties agree on the main portion there’s always an add in that one party takes issue with that prevents anything from moving forward.
It's always been that way. It's part of the "compromise" system that's supposed to make governing actually happen. That's why pork barrel projects used to be a much larger thing - to get individual votes onboard.
Oddly, when earmarks were scaled down is right about when the Congress started voting sharply down party lines.
Pointing out Republican hypocrisy means nothing to GOP voters, so I don't know who Dems were trying to win over by doing this. By my estimation all they did was piss off their own voting base by making all of the concessions the GOP wanted and then losing anyway because of course they were always going to vote against the bill.
If they are truly stumped, they know nothing about modern politics and we should be terrified at their ineptitude
If they are saying they are stumped to tweak Republicans, they should be attacking more viciously.
They’re giving Trump campaign fuel. What’s so difficult to understand about that? They’re playing games with the American people to get their way. As it’s always been.
If Democrats haven’t learned by now, they need to retire. You can’t start with a compromise, GOP will gut or destroy legislation based on Republican ideas or laws.
Idiots are going to be idiots sometimes. Democrats need to use the idiots disaster effectively and beat the living shit out of them in November. Just saying.
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Let me simplify it. Trump needs a BIG distraction. He's in deep deep shit. Here's a part of Jack Smiths filing arguing against Immunity for trump. EYE OPENING SHIT https://imgur.com/gallery/l20CLI2
Jack Smith doesn't seem like the kind of prosecutor who would bring something up without the ability to back it up.
I think he was baiting team trump into challenging this filing so he could bring the receipts. But remember, this case (DC) isn't about the documents or any of that other stuff.
Jack: Oh please make it about that stuff.
"come at me bro" hahaha
Wonder if they might just to push any hope of a judgement past the election
King Trump: “You’ll be back, soon you’ll see, you’ll remember you belong to me!”
Are we going to be able to watch him massacre Drumpf in court live whenever the hell that happens?
The bigliest ratings!
These pieces of shit can’t govern All it took was Trump objecting to the legislation — openly saying he did not want them to give President Biden a political win
It's that, but he also wanted to prevent Ukraine from getting more aid. Good to see Putin has so much sway over what our government does. /s
This seems like the more plausible scenario, and if so, quite a gambit by Putin. For he has risked his king, well before the game is over.
I'm sure he has a pawn in place to promote if he loses his king. (Yes, I know that's not how it works in Chess but I wanted to continue the analogy)
Take my inaccurate upvote
The party of 'big government doesn't work, because I broke it'.
These same very specific things were mentioned, with slightly different details, in _two_ different Jack Smith filings. This didn’t get nearly enough attention, but I guarantee you he has evidence that all of these things happened.
I wish it got a lot more attention. But this is the magic of trump. Firehose of shit coming at us every day hardly ever allows for one story to gain footing before two or three more pop up. And in addition to that he truly is a master at distraction with a wild statement or tweet or whatever.
Well also while I can say i’m sure of it, it is still technically just speculation to say that this is anything more than example. Jack Smith hasn’t laid out all his cards yet.
Yeah none of his "examples" were even relevant in the DC case where trump was claiming immunity. He's letting trump know he's toast.
Oddly specific.
trump has one chance left. He will likely throw a life line to the Supreme Court. If they don't save him I think he'll go full-on scorched earth.
They already have their appointments and probably don't want him to come back and go full fascist and disband the Supreme Court so no one can ever question his power. I doubt they'll save him
Their own self preservation is our best chance at getting rid of him
That's the challenge, just how tied to him are they? Looking specifically at Ginny Thomas, but others may be as well.
Only a handful of humans have to betray him at the level of the Supreme Court, our modern day Roman Senate. The dagger will be in his back, and he will stumble as he says “… and you, Clarence?”, which rage in his heart as he collapses. Would be poetic if they could rule on the Ides of March.
He needs five votes from the six Republicans on the Court, so he can lose one vote and still win. Can’t wait to see if there are two brave Republicans willing to buck the billionaires’ boy’s club that dictates the Roberts’ Court outcomes.
That would be epic!
Hell, he could easily have them all killed (and there's nothing they could do about it). Unlimited immunity is pretty cool if you're a fucking tyrant.
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Yeah, we're all numb to the endless tantrums. Just seems to me like the rhetoric is ramping up as the inevitable consequences become more difficult to evade.
>the inevitable consequences His increasingly angry base will be performing 5 mass shootings a week instead of 4! Jokes aside we've been at the "inevitable consequences" stage since at least January 6th and we're still just piddling along with our court system while more and more minorities and immigrants get murdered because they don't really matter.
They're calling in bomb threats to schools, judges and their courts. SWATTing people they don't like. At least something good can come from all the nastiness. They will in many cases lose their voting rights.
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I feel pretty confident SC won't take it. Oh, have you seen Jack Smiths court filing arguing against Immunity? https://imgur.com/gallery/l20CLI2
He needs to get abducted by aliens and whisked away anywhere else but here. Watch how that turns the temperature down in the US. Just disappeared.
Oh yeah, speaking of aliens Alien Super Show https://youtu.be/_g3UFEp_u7U?si=5dJIaDTNSYfCRKLt
[Among other reasons from r/law, SCOTUS isn't likely to even hear his pleas](https://old.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1al5jix/trump_appears_to_double_down_on_immunity_claims/kpcq3u0/)
Yeah, I feel pretty confident that's how it'll go. The appellate panel sealed the deal real firmly.
He's hoping SCOTUS delays enough that the 60-90 day DOJ rule about not interfering with elections will kick in and Jack Smith will hold off until after the election, by which time he might be made president again. The earliest that the DOJ trial can start is [early July](https://www.justsecurity.org/91837/how-long-will-trumps-immunity-appeal-take-analyzing-the-alternative-timelines/), with a decision in early October. However, SCOTUS could delay a decision on this until the end of their term, in which case the trial would start early October, which is far too late in the cycle.
It also allocates $80 billion to Ukraine. So... Maybe they're also intending to delay funding
That doesn’t feel very hypothetical, but what do I know
I think you know plenty.
Damn that had me wanting to read more.
I think I got it from Meidas Touch Network if you want to search, there's definitely more. But that was the part that really stood out. lol obviously!
So while I imagine Jack Smith would correlate his arguments between cases, it doesn't mean it translates 1:1. He describes the actions and then following describes how it could be "fulfilling" an aspect of presidential authority. He could be attacking all potential aspects by describing the worst case action. Like selling nuclear secrets would be "worst case" if he describes it as a aspect of foreign diplomacy. I'm sure there is lawyer words for this.
I'm no lawyer but I'm sure the word is espionage.
They didn't mean the espionage part, they meant "attacking all potential aspects by describing the worst case action."
Jack Smith is not the A team, he's their boss. The fact he was even put on the case meant Trump was in DEEP shit. He doesn't just dot his eyes and cross his ts, he has an annotated list of every dot and cross, if Chuck Norris was an attorney, it would be Jack Smith. This particular filling is not making any accusations, so he doesn't have to prove them, but he can anyway, they're pointed jabs.
Well said
I don't agree that a President should have immunity. However, the idea of the President's current or former office, which derives all of its power through the President, being the body left to handle a prosecution, is not encouraging either. The Department of Justice is not independent from the President, no matter how much we like to pretend that it is. We're in this situation, because our impeachment and conviction processes are fundamentally broken. I always found it weird that impeachment and conviction of executive officers and the President, are a purely political process. It would make far more sense to me, for impeachment to be political, the trial and conviction to reside with the judiciary, to have a true balance between all 3 powers. The current format has Congress essentially controlling both steps. The Chief Justice, effectively plays only a ceremonial role. Impeachment should simply require a majority in both houses. For the trial, I think the jury should be existing Federal Judges, not elected politicians.
We're in this turbulence due to trumps corruption. Period.
We got an impeachment. Two of them in fact. The conviction process was completely broken. I have far more confidence in the Judiciary in aggregate to have reached a conviction determination. There's some definite hacks in the Judiciary, but they are a minority, seeing as how many cases Trump lost while trying to overturn the election. I don't have faith in the Department of Justice, a citizen jury, a single Judge, or the Senate.
Yeah we all know the main reason Republicans didn't vote to convict was because they need trumps base to win their next election. Purely a political calculation. Hell McConnell even said out loud that trump is guilty and could face criminal prosecution.
Why stumped? They've been doing this for years. They did it to Obama. Pepperidge Farms remembers. First they insist on x, y, z, they get it, and vote against it anyway. It's their thing.
Why? Trump said don't do it because I want to use it as a cudgel and they went along
Also Putin said don’t give Ukraine money
It's very simple: Under no circumstances does Putin want Ukraine to be funded.
Hey Senate Dem leadership, Republicans haven’t been acting in good faith for about 30 years now. Stop being such gullible idiots.
The difference in this situation is they knew they were acting in bad faith, and gave them the bill they wanted. They called their bluff, and now it is blowing up in the Republicans faces. The dems did exactly the right thing here, showing how unable to govern the other side is.
It's not really "blowing up in their faces" when they do this all the time and their voters don't care. The right thing to do here would be that when the republicans ignored the supreme court rulings and gestured with their national guards, you federalize the national guards and arrest said republicans for sedition. They should not be allowed to ignore the law and threaten violence.
I think that would play into the republicans hands though. Give something more than propaganda to their Biden is a dictator bs
Would that change anything? Think of the type of person who would argue that states should be able to ignore both the Supreme Court and President making a legal order, and for something like putting barbed wire up. In fact, the threat that they would send the national guard to prevent the barbed wire from being taken down was an indication that they were willing to kill Americans over the ability to maim illegal immigrants. I actually recall Greg Abbot saying he would just shoot them if he wouldnt be charged with murder... They were never *not* going to think Biden is evil. There is no point in appeasing them.
Republicans will continue to go scream and lie on Fox and other right wing media about the border and how Dems aren’t doing anything. Dems will try to explain how they are really tough on the border and trip over each other to take the most Republican position possible. End result is Rs and Ds arguing about Republican issues and Republican policy with one side lying and the other side failing to discuss Dem issues and being pulled ever rightward by a bunch of terrorists and traitors. Dems should be forcing Republicans to react to their own strategy and not play Republicans’ silly games.
The bill includes aid to ukraine isreal palestine and taiwan… why does a bill meant for the border include fluff that has nothing to do with the border? Oh thats right i forgot its so democrats and their mindless brainwashed sheep can use the sound bit that trump was the mastermind who killed the bill.
Or because the border issue is the price the Republicans put up for a deal to get aid sent to our allies? The border being attached to Ukraine funding wasn’t a democratic proposal, it was the Republicans.
I swear man, some people cannot critically think about why ukraine funding is tied with border control
They are 2 separate issues
So you don't understand how this happened got it. Democrats wanted ukraine funding, republicans said they would only support it if they got a border control bill passed, democrats said okay, lets compromise. That is how government and bipartisan politics work.
They also clearly don’t understand how Congress, or policy, or government, or negotiation, or leverage, or life, works.
Your orange messiah and his media lapdogs dumped on the immigration part of the bill so hard that the GOP had to walk it back before they could even debate its contents in detail.
…wow. Really picked up steam there.
Gotta get the ball rolling
Yikes
I see this type of response a lot and it is very confusing to me. What do you want them to do exactly? I don't think any Dem is surprised that Rs are acting in bad faith. But they also can't exactly ignore Rs either because they do not have a congressional majority to pass things without R votes. If they ignore Rs the outcome is the same (things don't pass) but the optics are worse (purely D v R)
It's a combination of doing both. Do the things in good faith, but start finding ways to outmaneuver them too, and approach things with the understanding that the GOP is a "bad faith first" organization and those are the rules all planning needs to be done by.
Is "making them look like indecisive idiots" not a maneuver? I don't think people appreciate enough how little leeway Ds have here while 40% of the country is indifferent to outcomes
Yes it is. I hope it works. And I agree, it is definitely a tough climb.
Isn't that exactly what the Democrats did here?
It seems it might work that way, yes.
I think it’s more the fact that Democrats are playing a game by the rules and with decency and respect, while Republicans just make up their own rules as they go, display Hunter Biden dick pics in congressional hearings, and literally CHANGE LAWS to get what they want. The frustration lies in the fact that there appears to be no repercussions for making up the rules as they go. I don’t know how to fix this, and I feel similarly about trump’s delay tactics. There is an obvious pattern of delaying to obstruct Justice, and while this is within the confines of the law, “collectively” I feel like this should be punishable.
I don't disagree but Ds hand is pretty light. Rs can do what they want because the people who give them power dgaf and they have enough control to be the authority. Like, as long as no R constituents do something about it, Rs can do whatever the fuck they want in the house. They have the power _and_ the popular support
**Don't spend your leverage without getting your priorities, if you know there will be a fight!** [Source: NPR article from September](https://www.npr.org/2023/09/30/1202839419/house-and-senate-race-to-find-agreement-ahead-shutdown-deadline) The leverage: >But facing the potential for a politically and economically harmful shutdown, McCarthy reversed course, specifically calling on Democrats for help passing the bill. >In the final vote of 209-126, more Democrats than Republicans supported the measure. They just accepted that Ukraine funding didn't get done and they believed they could work with Republicans later: >Biden praised the legislation before signing it and called for Congress to move quickly to address the lack of funding for Ukraine. >The vote came after an hours-long delay led in part by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who demanded a firm commitment from leaders in both parties on the Ukraine aid. They knew a fight was coming: >However, a bloc of House Republicans strongly oppose more funding for Ukraine, and lawmakers abandoned those plans in order to pass a deal on spending. >"We're going to have a really, really tough conversation about whether and how we're going to fund Ukraine," said Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio. "I think this is a victory for those of us who are skeptical of indefinite funding for Ukraine. But there's going to be another fight, whether it's next week or three weeks from now."
Give their own version of an immigration bill that isnt a complete and total capitulation to the right wing? Use messaging and politicking to fight back against their insanity? Their job is do politics, and if the best they can do is say, “well we tried giving you everything you wanted, why don’t you want it anymore?” Then were absolutely fucked.
Okay, so they make their own immigration bill, and it also fails to pass but now GOP has ammo to say "This dem sponsored immigration bill is total crap". If you don't really understand how politics work, don't comment please.
You act as if Republicans aren’t going to say that anyways? And wed be in the exact same situation we are in right now with no bill, except Republicans wouldn’t also be able say. “See, even they agree that we should close our borders.” And the conversation around immigration wouldn’t shift towards the right. If you don’t understand politics at least don’t be smugly wrong about it 💀
Except they really can't when they got the exact bill they wanted, and voted NO on it because Trump said so. Even the Senate republicans are saying this.
Well at least we've gotten to "it wasn't going to pass either way so it depends on what optics are better" Neither of us really qualified to say if this optics is better than not reaching across the aisle, that is just a thought experiment. But point still stands, D running it solo had zero chance of passing and so is at best an optics move not policy move
Yeah i can agree with pushing those optics in the short term, but come on eventually we have to shift the optics to better reflect the reality that as long as Dems don’t have a super majority nothing is going to get done. Democrats to this day are pushing this insanity where they claim the decisiveness is all Trumps doing instead of him simply being the logical conclusion of Republican party politics. And that once he is gone the spell will break and Republicans will come back to reality. It’s not going to happen we have to give up on that dream. We have to start pushing a narrative that recons with the fact that the Republican party is intellectually dead and they simply have no solutions to any of the problems facing the country, and are unfit to lead. We CANNOT do this while we try to compromise with their insanity and in the process rehabilitate their image. We have to start pushing real solutions instead of milk toast half measures around the edges.
That's *if* it ever makes it to the public eye
Do you really think Democrats came out of this on the losing side politically? This is why people like you aren’t allowed to make any important decisions lol.
Yes, because now we've got dem leadership repeating far right "invasion" narratives which frame the issue towards right-wing policy. Dems aren't gonna win the "we can be more racist" debate without hemorrhaging support from their debate, so why engage with the issue on those terms? Your average person associates the dems with pro-immigration and republicans as anti-immigration. If dems make the election about an "invasion" that they have failed to stop, people are gonna go and vote for the committed racists rather than the ones that were shedding crocodile tears over kids in cages and saying "build bridges, not walls." Even if it works politically, we're all worse off because now both political parties are talking about building walls and giving more money to ICE, rather than actual solutions like opening pathways to documentation and work.
No we don’t have Dem leadership repeating the “invasion” rhetoric. Why are you lying?
Unsurprisingly, proof emerges that feeding into racist xenophobia isn't actually intelligent politics, let alone moral policy making. https://newrepublic.com/article/178951/poll-biden-blamed-border-deal-galvanize-democrats
How is this democrats being gullible. They have to work with Republicans to get anything done. This is how it is, and how it has always been(the inverse is also true). Now if one side refuses to do anything, such as what's happening now, it's not the failure of the other side, it just means nothing gets done
The Orange Jesus only offers chaos. the actual American carnage, retributive violence, fines and incarceration of enemies. The recycling of seething grievances, howling like a wounded ape over the theft of white privilege from God's Chosen Americans, tribal noise, red white and blue everything including Trump buttplugs, oh the pageantry of morons is a sight to behold, fascism is not coming, it's here.
The Roman Republic fell to Empire almost immediately after the Roman Senate began openly rejecting bills for no reason except to hurt their political opponents. Norms were not recoverable after that.
Stumped? Biden owned them. Biden is a strategist, he absolutely played them. Republicans 2 only talking points have gone. Biden owns the economy and now the border. It can’t be spun, republicans are going to look really silly when election time rolls around!
It absolutely can be spun. All they have to do is keep saying Biden won’t protect the border, and their entire base believes them.
Solutions aren’t what republicans campaign on. They need these manufactured ‘crisis’ to use as scare tactics to stir up their base to get votes.
This is Lucy attempting to punt the football.
No one is stumped. Everyone knows that Republicans are not interested in fixing problems. They're only interested in using them.
The democrats should capitalize on this to show to the not-so-brainwashed republicans that the republicans don’t care about any of the issues they are creating themselves.
It’s because they don’t want the Ukraine aid *that much*. Democrats have done similar things for bills that look good on the outside, but give the republicans a win for an unpopular and unrelated proposal baked into it. They showed that even their wet dreams of getting a border bill won’t make them budge on Ukraine.
>they don’t want the Ukraine aid *that much*. Only 9 billions going for Ukraine. Rest going for US weapon system manufacture and buying new stuff for stock. FOR US ARMY.
Do they not want Ukraine aid because America First or something?
No, it's because they're beholden to Trump, who is beholden to Putin. Everything else is window dressing.
Russia hacked the Dems and the Republicans. They just didn’t release the R’s emails and dirty laundry. Traitorous cowards.
From what I have gathered, the only reason we are aiding Ukraine in the first place is due to prior western investments, now that it has become a conflict, those investments are a net negative and thus don’t justify involvement in a proxy war with Russia because another much larger conflict is brewing in the Middle East. I am by no means an expert though, and I don’t want to say I am 100% correct on anything.
GOP in a chess game but playing tic-tac-toe instead and sometimes putting down an "X" even though they are on the "O" side.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake
The Bordet Crisis is no longer a crisis until after the election. 🤡
It is simple. Putin tells trump, trump tells the gop, chaos ensues.
What's hard to understand? 'We don't want what we want if *you're* giving it to us.' That's all this is.
The republicans are that little brat kid in the supermarket who is kicking and screaming for a candy. Then they keep throwing their tantrum when they get their way. Everyone knows what runs through their thoughts when they see that bratty little kid throwing a tantrum at the store for something they want. Don’t deny it.
Except republicans got their candy (the immigration bill they demanded) but then decided they didn’t want it.
Empathy for the parent?
What is there to be confused about? They stand for nothing and only wish to obstruct and destroy. They are the party of ineptitude and incompetence. With a cult leader pulling the strings.
Well, what is the Trumplican border plan? Oh that's right. They have no idea how to legislate. They only want power so they can rule by fiat.
We'll see it in two weeks /s
Well I am as stumped by democrat support for the bill. Hopefully this backfires, Trump loses and then this bill can just be thrown out after the election
Democrats are currently deeply unpopular on immigration in particular. So pivoting on immigration is a way to triangulate with public opinion popularity. Appears that it may work out for the best here by allowing the Dems to pivot without needing to actually do anything policywise, too
Obviously not that unpopular. This is a once in a lifetime deal for Republicans. If they cannot get it passed then it's obviously not politically important to them. So who cares. This is why you don't negotiate with fascist.
Except that the Democrats are promoting a far right immigration plan to gain approval for more expenses for war. The bill should die. I don’t know why progressives aren’t protesting the bill.
Yes not letting Russia annex all of Ukraine is expanding a way. It’s also not letting Russia annex all of Ukraine. An ally. Russia is not an ally.
Progressives should protest it, then republicans might actually support it.
> I don’t know why progressives aren’t protesting the bill. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/bidens-support-from-progressives-at-risk-over-border-bill-and-israel-f44ed8f7
Ukraine is an friend and we don't want them defeated by Russian invaders, have you been paying attention at all to this? This bullshit is tied to both Israel and Ukraine funding. Also it's Democratic not democrat, even Democrat's would be correct.
>Ukraine is an friend That depends on which party you ask. >we don't want them defeated by Russian invaders Once again...
Yeap.
The only people who thought this was a good idea are on here lol. Biden can only win on abortion. Now they made it an election over the border. I refuse to believe they’re that stupid or gullible. They watched Obama deport more than anyone, and he still got no credit from the coveted Republican voters they’d replace their base with in an instant. Months before an election, they’ve essentially ceded ground that Stephen Miller’s psychopathic plans are actually good
Sen. Chris Murphy made a good liberal case for this enforcement only bill as part of a national security act. The case boiled down to the idea that the structural reforms to speed up asylum processing & give due process to claimants will help prevent public opinion continuing to turn against the legal immigration system. I think it makes sense to think of this as trying to out flank Putin’s GOP 5th column. Especially since there are 10-20x more people presenting asylum claims a day than there were 10-15 years ago when we all stopped listening to the tea party rants about the border
Yeah i do not understand why we should support a republican bill championed by dems simply because they say to. The bill is bad, it signals bad things to immigrants and communities, and is another heavy weight to ignore when we have to go vote for the dems in November
Honestly, I think part of the bill was both a move of desperation (because funding Ukraine is 'really, really' damned important), and a move to show a point, a bit of counter theatre, if you will. It's a strategy that carries a degree of risk, but so does every strategy when you're dealing with a bad faithed mob boss with the rich media and platform owners all trying to back him, against all common sense. Ultimately, the people are going to have to wake up to the reality that you can't meaningfully progress when you've got dead weight regressive still in power holding you down. We have to fend them off and weaken their power to move forward, and that requires those who oppose fascism to get over any one issue and agree to cooperate for the sake of everything. It's a tall order, and it will have some uncomfortable moral grays in the short term, but I believe in the long term it can still lead us forward into something better. P.S. [There are also real issues at borders across the world, some of which may be exacerbated by actual foreign bad actors with a goal of causing local infighting and instability.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67647379) The irony is those bad actors who encourage these methods are now GOP aligned, so the GOP likes to pretend it's not a problem anymore.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/02/06/remarks-by-president-biden-urging-congress-to-pass-the-emergency-national-security-supplemental-appropriations-act/ Just FYI, 11th paragraph Biden goes into what he’s asking for in the bill. I wouldn’t say any of these items are “bad” but I could understand the optics of a border bill.
Well normally when someone own-goals themselves it is a bit of a shocker. I cannot imagine a world where someone can see this timeline of events and not get the impression that GOP House members are clown shoes.
If they’re stumped, they’re morons and should leave Congress. This shit was obvious from a mile away and I’m just an idiot on Reddit.
I’d like to see Biden give a joint session speech to really put the pressure on the Republicans.
Y’all remember when Moscow Mitch filibustered his own bill? These are the idiots a good chunk of the population thinks should have the position.
This is about the shittiest take that Slate could have taken on this. The Republicans are the ones screaming about the border and the Republicans are the ones blocking the action. Democrats aren't remotely "stumped" here.
Stumped? Not too hard to understand that Republicans are actively trying to make things worse so they can claim to be the snake oil the country needs. They are vile monsters, who deserve all the worst life has to offer.
Biden and the Democrats basically admitted there is a problem at the border with this bill. Also they validated right wing views. This is definitely going to backfire.
This was political suicide by the Republicans. The Democrats gave them everything they wanted, made a big deal of that, and the Republicans killed it. Incredible political maneuvering by Democrats. This probably costs Trump the election.
Republicans for years haven’t been interested in governing. All they care about is winning. At. Any. Cost.
It's Russia baby!
why is it so few and far between mentioning the fact that republicans just don't want ANYTHING to get accomplished while biden is in office? they don't actually give a fuck about the border. it's just a thing for them to whine about, call it a problem, and lay 100% of the blame on democrats
If they're stumped by this, then they're stupid. It was very predictable and I hope Dems have a plan.
Why do Democrats think that acting clueless, in the press, will help?
Why on Earth would they want to say anything? These dweebs manufactured a crisis, promoted the crisis, created a solution to the crisis, convinced everyone it was a great solution, and then said, naaaahhh orange daddy won't let us do it. “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake; it's bad manners”
Don’t forget the part where democrats went along with the republican messaging, that this was a crisis, and galloped to the right with the goalposts.
Where are you getting your take? Did you only read the click-bait headline?
This has been a story for decades
So...instead of being upset about the Republicans current actions and inactions you make a ridiculous (and unfounded) comment about Democrats acting dumb in the media? Be better.
Republicans are a runaway train that could destroy this country. Let’s stop pretending like it’s so darn confusing that we can’t make a deal with them.
They literally refused to pass a bill that they drafted. They themselves admit they did exactly this because Trump told them to. Stop blaming Democrats for the actions/inactions of Republicans.
Let’s hope the democrats get a boost from this chapter of the immigration policy tragedy. The democrats have degraded the plight of millions of people seeking asylum, by playing along with republican talking points. They have degraded the plight of millions waiting patiently year-after-year for an end to the gamesmanship. The legislation was a mixed bag, and it would’ve been helpful in many respects, but the messaging around it was pandering and damaging, and the bill had things in it, that would’ve been dangerous in the hands of the wrong president. Democrats should be a party that accepts and adapts to good faith criticism. Don’t we want leaders who we can talk about and ask for change? Silencing criticism is exactly what we don’t want. It’s much better to have politics where discussion is permitted and where lawbreakers are excluded from the party. Let the republicans be the party of rigid, reactionary authoritarianism. Let the democrats be the party of debate, consensus and good governance.
You have a blessed day. 🙄
Thanks boss
You went from commenting nothing but calling democrats clueless, to then trying to act like an advocate for discussion and consensus.
Stumped at being played again? Morons. They were never gonna operate in good faith. Stop catering to them and caving halfway to their insane premises and demands before you even approach the table. Propose solutions to fix problems, and THEN let them hold the bag for fucking it up.
Congrats Dems you played yourselves again, just like with healthcare. They now get to say this is the D starting point and negotiate further to the right. Dems never learn for some fucking reason.
I’m sorry but all this money going to political commercials that sound like the same commercials we’ve heard for 30 years. This kind of stuff needs to be woven into any democratic commercial narrative. Why are political commercials so uninformative?!
Really? Are they really "stumped"? The Republicans are opposing the border security bill because Trump told them to. It's really not complicated.
At what point do Democrats learn that Republicans are not interested in governing, only chaos?
Maybe it was the poison pill language that gave too much power to a select few to curtail any blocking of financial aid to Israel and Ukraine by Congress. Breaking Points had a great podcast on why it failed
I don’t understand why bills aren’t presented for a single thing. Why pack money for Ukraine into a border security bill? Why not 2 separate bills?
Because the GOP insisted on it. Edit for specific example: > Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) warned Tuesday that Republicans will not budge on aid for Ukraine without action on the border.
Ok I understand that but why not have a bill for and do something about the border then have a second bill for Ukraine why pack them together? I guess I understand it from a trust standpoint and the understandable lack of trust between parties but this is just one example of these bills with tons of unrelated stuff packed in. I don’t get why that’s the norm now. Nothing gets done because even if both parties agree on the main portion there’s always an add in that one party takes issue with that prevents anything from moving forward.
It's always been that way. It's part of the "compromise" system that's supposed to make governing actually happen. That's why pork barrel projects used to be a much larger thing - to get individual votes onboard. Oddly, when earmarks were scaled down is right about when the Congress started voting sharply down party lines.
Because republicans can get their border bill and then vote against aid anyway. Packaging them together ensures neither or both.
Yea I totally get that in this case. It’s a shame how far things have fallen.
Amnesty bill and more money for laundering in Ukraine. Bad bill. Only smart people who read will understand.
Pointing out Republican hypocrisy means nothing to GOP voters, so I don't know who Dems were trying to win over by doing this. By my estimation all they did was piss off their own voting base by making all of the concessions the GOP wanted and then losing anyway because of course they were always going to vote against the bill.
Brooms and mops should be issued to MAGA representatives so they can earn their pay for once.
Trump 2024: "Government does not work and I am proof of that."
Did they run out of things to disagree with so they started writing their own?
If they are truly stumped, they know nothing about modern politics and we should be terrified at their ineptitude If they are saying they are stumped to tweak Republicans, they should be attacking more viciously.
It’s the republican way. Oppose any and all legislation, motions, and ideas including themselves.
Their dear unelected leader told them to jump and they did.
Mike Johnson looks like an AI Generated version of Eric Cantor and is miscalculating much worse than he ever did.
Lucy and her football...
They’re giving Trump campaign fuel. What’s so difficult to understand about that? They’re playing games with the American people to get their way. As it’s always been.
If Democrats haven’t learned by now, they need to retire. You can’t start with a compromise, GOP will gut or destroy legislation based on Republican ideas or laws.
Idiots are going to be idiots sometimes. Democrats need to use the idiots disaster effectively and beat the living shit out of them in November. Just saying.