Did he really get out of the limo, or did he just send Pence with the wreath and a cardboard cutout to the statue? Think of what the wind and water would do to his 'do!
2
I was reading an article about the Trump offer and it sounds like it has a multitude of poison pills that actually are hidden in the details. It’s not an offer. It’s propaganda piece that grabs news headlines saying they made an offer but if passed would in reality hugely benefit them in all manner of ways. There is no way the democrats will even consider it after the details are known.
Maybe the news media should rename this so called offer to more represent the poisoned regressive aspect it truly is.
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We regular citizens would like to help out the unpaid government workers with meals, pizza, vouchers, gift cards, etc., but it appears that government workers are not allowed to accept these kinds of gifts. Sad.
2
i love the following American paradox : all these marvelous citizen which on a side spend their time to celebrate the love of the nation and on the other side vomit their hate of the state, symbolized by the federal administration, despite the fact the federal administration is the real cement of the USA, as the shut down shows us.
I have never understood why so American hates the federal administration, one of the most powerful and efficient organization in the world.
A nation is not only a flag, there is no nation without administration, without civil servants
10
@pierre
The problem is that many conservatives, especially those who don't read up or research their stuff, have somehow mistaken small government for no government. They dream of a return to the old Westerns of yester-century, where each town was self-governed, or believe that everything can be solved via tax cuts and privatization. Besides, the right-wing media is always spewing nonsense about a deep state when none of them have ever worked as a public servant.
The fact is, government is an essential part of any country, because its purpose is to serve the public trust, whereas the purpose of every private company is to make money - everything else is secondary. Government should should do everything necessary to ensure the well-being of its citizens, yet it should not be overly bloated or intrusive into the life of the individual. It can be bureaucratic, that is true, but try giving an example of a large MNC that isn't just as bureaucratic.
Heck, I like low taxes too. Who doesn't? But you know, it's not like all of it goes into some mysterious black hole, never to be seen again. At least some of it goes to our fellow Americans who are doing good work for the public good, and that in itself should be reason enough to pay one's fair share of taxes.
3
A timeline would be very helpful, starting with the bills considered during the last session of Congress, even before the (nearly) unanimous Senate vote in December that Paul Ryan never presented to the House.
That was the first bill, identical to the Senate's, passed by the House in this session, under Pelosi as Speaker. McConnell did not bring it back to the Senate to reconfirm its earlier vote.
Please give us that timeline, in an ever-present link so no one is confused any longer.
In two years of Republican control of the House, Senate and Executive, there was no vote for the President's wall. He waited to insist on it when Democrats took control of the House. This is his test of his control over a Democratic House, nothing more. He uses the United States' economy and its civil service as pawns in his test of power.
Does anyone win here, other than our adversaries?
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How is forcing people to work without pay different from slavery or involuntary servitude? Why isn't it forbidden by the thirteenth amendment?
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@george
Technically, it is. All federal employees affected by this should file a class action suit against Trump and McConnell (not against the government, against them personally, and not as a union action - a personal class action suit against those men directly, because that's what's allowed legally) for violating the employees' civil rights under the 13th Amendment.
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@JustJeff
Technically, it's not, and this approach has been tried & tested before. But setting all that aside, if it WAS possible to sue someone for this shutdown mess, Pelossi and Schumer should be the ones on the hook. They've flat-out rejected the most recent proposals and allowed this to drag on at a cost much higher than the funds requested for border security (which incidentally is less than a tenth of 1% of the federal budget).
@Terry
To be fair, Trump offered something that the Supreme Court has already given - temporary protection for DACA recipients. That ship has sailed.
3