Does this government shut down business chap your ass or what!  Do you really want to hop on an airplane right now?  The real shitty thing here is that this mess could be fixed in a day, or it should never have happened in the first place.  Mitch McConnell could easily submit an unamended bill (clean CR) to fund the government temporarily.  No  member of congress who wants to get re-elected would vote no on a simple bill that would re-open the government, right?  If the president won’t sign it, I can not believe there are not enough votes out there to override a veto. (A veto by the way would pretty much validate the Democrat’s point that Trump is willing to hold government workers hostage in order to extract his victory.)  Geezuz people get off your asses and go to work.  You might actually be required to perform your constitutional prerogative of checking executive power in order to ensure  the will of the people, and the will of the people is quit fucking us over!

Immigration reform is a whole different animal.  That will require difficult  debate.   A bill that would give quick resolution to the government shut-down will go nowhere if immigration is attached to it.  Although the president can not seem to elucidate any clear policy and is unfortunately manipulated by right wing political commentators, to the president’s credit he seemingly is indicating he is serious about addressing comprehensive immigration reform, something that has stymied every administration before his.  I think that was his mind set when he astonishingly let Pelosi and Schumer back him into his intractable immigration policy corner.  When you say you will own something on national television, you pretty much do own it.

That faux pas underscores how ineffectual he is as a leader, and worse for him, a deal maker.  On the one hand Trump has decided he is going to fix immigration once and for all.  Undeniably that is admirably courageous.  On the other hand,  the great deal-maker let one opportunity after another to accomplish that slip through his fingers, until we incomprehensibly ended up in this partial government shut down.  Since that point he has made an offer that is basically the one he most recently proposed that the Democrats already refused.  The idea behind a negotiation is to understand what each side wants and find common ground.  Failure to comprehend that makes you wonder if Trump ever was the great deal maker he has always claimed himself to be.

Trump could actually accomplish something historic.  It seems to me the two sticking points are fairly clearly established.  Trump wants at least 5 billion for a physical barrier, the Democrats want DACA recipients protected permanently.  Get the government opened up, and then bear down and get a bill passed that deals with these two issues and everything possible in between.  It will probably require some fifteen hour days from congress, but Washington is way over due to impress.  Solving our immigration problem will likely take the skills exhibited by one of our great political leaders and deal makers like FDR or LBJ.    One thing for sure.  If DJT is truly the great deal maker he thinks he is, this deal is DOA if he lets Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter dictate the terms for him.  I must add I don’t believe a physical barrier is  necessarily immoral.   Let’s end the petulance and park the egos.  Show Putin our constitutional form of government has not collapsed into a total shit show after all.

Here is another thing that really pisses me off.  The Witch Hunt that Wasn’t  It’s your lucky day- Two-Fer-Tuesday.  I know it’s Wednesday but the more I thought about the above subject the more my fingers kept going until it turned into Wednesday. I like the sound of Two-Fer-Tueday better than Two-Fer-Wednesday.  So if you don’t like it bite me.

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