Not all Texans are Republicans. San Antonio is actually a majority Democratic city.
So is Austin, and I would assume most of metro Houston. But Texas is a large state, and this country is divided very clearly between people who live in urban and rural areas. For instance, I live in one of 3 actual cities in North Dakota, but their size isn't anything compared to Minneapolis/St. Paul in neighboring Minnesota, where I grew up. There is no real difference between states like Illinois and Minnesota when compared to North Dakota and South Dakota except for the fact that the Twin Cities and Chicago are WAY bigger population centers than the largest cities in the Dakotas.
Incidentally, some news came down this week in North Dakota. The main reason I am not very bullish on the Democrats winning the Senate in November is because of Heidi Heitkamp. She won in 2012, but it was very close. The main reason she won is because the Republican, Rick Berg, happened to be the owner of a rental property management company that is universally despised in the city I live in by anyone who has ever rented an apartment in this town. I wouldn't have hesitated to call him a slum lord. Word getting out that he was the head of this company sunk his votes here. However, I would maintain that Heitkamp could be easily beaten by any generic Republican because the rest of the state is so red. So it surprised me to find out that Kevin Cramer, North Dakota's House Representative, isn't going to run against her. Keep in mind, in North Dakota, there is no differnce between a House and Senate seat, since it only has one. The House race is state-wide, just like the Senate seat. At this point, they still haven't fielded a candidate, which is bizarre considering it is the most vulnerable seat Democrats are protecting. Personally, Heitkamp's politics are WAY to the right of mine, but I can't say she doesn't represent the state, because her votes I disagree with mostly come on gun and oil issues, and voting against either would be suicide here. She has been a leader on combating human trafficking, which saw a major uptick in the Western part of the state because of the oil boom. I still think Republicans could put literally ANY name on the ballot and stand a 40% chance of taking back the seat, but the fact that someone as high profile in the state as Cramer is refusing to run for a much more secure and high profile position seems very strange.
Not all Texans are Republicans. San Antonio is actually a majority Democratic city.
So is Austin, and I would assume most of metro Houston. But Texas is a large state, and this country is divided very clearly between people who live in urban and rural areas.
I can personally attest to these facts. Dallas/Dallas County, Austin/Travis County, Houston/Harris County, San Antonio/Bexar County, and the counties which border the Rio Grande all typically Democratic enclaves. Despite these urban areas having population concentrations, though, the rest of the State has typically voted Republican for about the last 20 years and there are enough people outside the areas listed above that the overall State results for Presidential elections have gone Republican during that time.
A lot of people in recent years have left California because they cannot afford to live there and one of the top three places for them to resettle has been Austin. These days, Austin is "California lite", at least at the local and county level. It is still a decent enough town--I interviewed for a couple of jobs there about 7 years ago after my previous employer got bought out and was going to move there if I received an offer--but the traffic is hideous.
This is indicative of the trend everywhere in the nation, though--urban centers vote heavily Democratic while the rest of the area generally votes Republican. As noted, in Texas the non-urban areas are populous enough to outweigh the urban centers but in States like Illinois if you carry Cook County you carry the entire State, from a Presidential election point of view.
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I see the Senate is going to vote today to pass a budget resolution which will end the shutdown and re-fund the government...for three weeks. Be still, my beating heart. That isn't a solution--that is a piece of duct tape designed to hold the wheel on the car so it can get back on the highway and do 120 kph.
Finally, in economic news, it appears that Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warrent Buffet together have as much wealth as the bottom 50% of the United States (about 160 million people). Jeff Bezos recently became the wealthiest human being in all of recorded history with a net worth calculated at over $100 billion.
I see the Senate is going to vote today to pass a budget resolution which will end the shutdown and re-fund the government...for three weeks. Be still, my beating heart. That isn't a solution--that is a piece of duct tape designed to hold the wheel on the car so it can get back on the highway and do 120 kph.
Finally, in economic news, it appears that Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warrent Buffet together have as much wealth as the bottom 50% of the United States (about 160 million people). Jeff Bezos recently became the wealthiest human being in all of recorded history with a net worth calculated at over $100 billion.
CNN money had an article yesterday about how $8 out of the $10 dollars created last year went to the top 1%.
This was before the tax cuts lowering corporate rate in half and lowering overall rates and doubling the estate tax exemption to $22 million per couple.
People were rewarded for being wealthy not for working.
Democrats are going to provide the votes for a 3 week stop-gap in exchange for a promise on a DACA vote and solution. McConnell, Ryan, and Trump will not follow-through with this agreement. Democrats are making a big mistake. Beyond that, we're going to be in the same situation halfway through February. Again, Republicans have NO intention of honoring this agreement, and nothing can force them to. This is why Democrats get rolled so often. No balls.
Now there is word if no DACA vote takes place by Feb.8th, it may trigger another shutdown. What's really interesting is the Democrats who voted no on this deal: Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Corey Booker and Chris Murphy. You may be looking at your Dem primary line-up based on this vote.
Well this looks like a win for Republicans again. They will spin this as "those obstructionist democrats want to shut down the government for illegal aliens! They are stopping making unmericuh great again! Vote more Republicans into office!" As if the Democrats actually had any power here. They can mess around in the Senate but then they'd have to rely on the House and President to do the right thing - lets just say that's unlikely. So really there's not much they could do here - unless they were willing to stick to their guns. They weren't.
To Democrats it's a lose/win. They can tell their supporters who wanted them to do this "hey we tried to do something about DACA. Sorry it didn't work out and they were deported, we gave it the old half-hearted effort. If you want us to actually be able to do something then vote Democrat." Pretty weaksauce.
And things will go back to how they were with the chaos of Republicans running the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. They get to go back to trying to run the government with a fractured majority (Extreme Right Freedom Caucus vs Far Right Republican Establishment). The only thing they can agree on is that they must totally ignore Democrats and try and run everything themselves. But they can't even agree with themselves so nothing will happen.
So pretty damn likely we'll play this dance again in 3 weeks. You can bet Mitch McConnell is devising whatever he can to ensure immigration is doomed. He'll try anything at all except compromise.
I see the Democrats coming out as the good guys here.
1. They compromised while backing the Republicans in a corner. No good faith vote by Feb. 8 and the government shuts down again. When that happens there is only party to blame. 2. CHIP also allegedly gets 6 more years with this bill passing, that's a win for the Dems. 3. If the DACA bill passes and Trump vetos, Democrats will just shut down the government again come Feb 8. They will vote against any bill put forth until Trump signs the thing. 4. If DACA votes and it fails (which on its own, I don't see it doing), they can still vote against any Budget until it is added to it as previously required.
Republicans can keep breaking promises, but if they keep doing it and Dem's keep playing the shut the government down card when they do, they won't hold that many seats come November as it shows the American people they can't govern.
What's really interesting is the Democrats who voted no on this deal: Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Corey Booker and Chris Murphy. You may be looking at your Dem primary line-up based on this vote.
I concur. They are looking farther into the future than next month's vote.
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129 of the Disrupt J20 protesters from last year have had the charges against them dropped. The remaining 59 still face felony charges.
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Five months' worth of text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Strong, covering the time period 14 Dec 2016 and 17 May 2017 have been lost (or, at least, "were failed to be preserved", which means the same thing). Curiously, 17 May 2017 is the exact day when Mueller was put in charge of the special investigation. The expectation is that this will lend credence to the argument that the special investigation was tainted even before Mueller took over but there is no telling what, if anything, the Trump Administration may do about it. My advice: do nothing, let the investigation continue as is no matter how painful it may become. If, as they claim, there isn't anything to find then they can wait until it is over and say confidently "see? we told you there was nothing to find". Trying to stop the investigation will definitely make it look like they have things they need to hide.
Normally, I do not agree with the philosophy of "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" because that line of reasoning is generally used by heavy-handed law enforcement agencies to keep citizens in line via fear. However, I do agree using it when politicians are being investigated--because they want to be in charge of other people they need to be held to higher standards.
What's really interesting is the Democrats who voted no on this deal: Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Corey Booker and Chris Murphy. You may be looking at your Dem primary line-up based on this vote.
I concur. They are looking farther into the future than next month's vote.
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129 of the Disrupt J20 protesters from last year have had the charges against them dropped. The remaining 59 still face felony charges.
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Five months' worth of text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Strong, covering the time period 14 Dec 2016 and 17 May 2017 have been lost (or, at least, "were failed to be preserved", which means the same thing). Curiously, 17 May 2017 is the exact day when Mueller was put in charge of the special investigation. The expectation is that this will lend credence to the argument that the special investigation was tainted even before Mueller took over but there is no telling what, if anything, the Trump Administration may do about it. My advice: do nothing, let the investigation continue as is no matter how painful it may become. If, as they claim, there isn't anything to find then they can wait until it is over and say confidently "see? we told you there was nothing to find". Trying to stop the investigation will definitely make it look like they have things they need to hide.
Normally, I do not agree with the philosophy of "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" because that line of reasoning is generally used by heavy-handed law enforcement agencies to keep citizens in line via fear. However, I do agree using it when politicians are being investigated--because they want to be in charge of other people they need to be held to higher standards.
I think the missing texts, if they're like the other ones, will be like "Trump sucks and so does donna brazille! Ur kinda hot!" Riveting stuff.
Has anybody mentioned Stormy Daniels here lol? The pornstar that confirmed, in an unpublished article from around 2002 or something, that she carried on an affair with Trump a couple months after Barron was born to Melania. Trump apparently liked to be spanked with Forbes and told her he liked that she looked like his daughter, Ivanka. A month prior to the election Trump's lawyer formed a shell company and paid her 130k and had her sign a non-disclosure statement so she's not talking about it now. The details and allegations came out from the Conservative Wall Street Journal and the unpublished article I'm not sure where that came from. Apparently, from Fire & Fury, Bannon says Trump had paid off "hundreds" of women to keep them quiet. Well, we do know he loves his non-disclosure agreements.
Why would personal text messages between two people having an affair have had an expectation of being preserved?? Are FBI agents required to never delete personal messages??
I see the Democrats coming out as the good guys here.
1. They compromised while backing the Republicans in a corner. No good faith vote by Feb. 8 and the government shuts down again. When that happens there is only party to blame. 2. CHIP also allegedly gets 6 more years with this bill passing, that's a win for the Dems. 3. If the DACA bill passes and Trump vetos, Democrats will just shut down the government again come Feb 8. They will vote against any bill put forth until Trump signs the thing. 4. If DACA votes and it fails (which on its own, I don't see it doing), they can still vote against any Budget until it is added to it as previously required.
Republicans can keep breaking promises, but if they keep doing it and Dem's keep playing the shut the government down card when they do, they won't hold that many seats come November as it shows the American people they can't govern.
Fight isn't over yet. But even if McConnell allows a vote (BIG if), Paul Ryan likely won't. But you are right, getting CHIP for 6 years out of a 3-week stop-gap is a net-win for now. But these DACA recipients are inching closer to total legal limbo every day. But, let's again ask how pathetic it is that the government cannot be funded for more than a month at a time. It's unsustainable.
I see the Democrats coming out as the good guys here.
1. They compromised while backing the Republicans in a corner. No good faith vote by Feb. 8 and the government shuts down again. When that happens there is only party to blame. 2. CHIP also allegedly gets 6 more years with this bill passing, that's a win for the Dems. 3. If the DACA bill passes and Trump vetos, Democrats will just shut down the government again come Feb 8. They will vote against any bill put forth until Trump signs the thing. 4. If DACA votes and it fails (which on its own, I don't see it doing), they can still vote against any Budget until it is added to it as previously required.
Republicans can keep breaking promises, but if they keep doing it and Dem's keep playing the shut the government down card when they do, they won't hold that many seats come November as it shows the American people they can't govern.
Fight isn't over yet. But even if McConnell allows a vote (BIG if), Paul Ryan likely won't. But you are right, getting CHIP for 6 years out of a 3-week stop-gap is a net-win for now. But these DACA recipients are inching closer to total legal limbo every day. But, let's again ask how pathetic it is that the government cannot be funded for more than a month at a time. It's unsustainable.
What's next? Day to day funding? I guess it's a small win that Trump couldn't personally appear at his Florida mansion to fundraise and overcharge tax payers for the privilege.
Has anybody mentioned Stormy Daniels here lol? The pornstar that confirmed, in an unpublished article from around 2002 or something, that she carried on an affair with Trump a couple months after Barron was born to Melania.
Not as far as I know because she is irrelevant. Do you know how many politicians currently in Washington, D. C. have had (or are currently having) affairs with porn stars? A lot, I am certain. Ms. Daniels simply isn't "news", only "par for the course".
re: the Strzok/Strong texts.... The fact that *some* of the text messages were relevant to the investigation means that some of the missing ones could be, as well. They probably aren't, to be certain, but they *could* be and in that game perception sometimes matters more than reality.
Has anybody mentioned Stormy Daniels here lol? The pornstar that confirmed, in an unpublished article from around 2002 or something, that she carried on an affair with Trump a couple months after Barron was born to Melania.
Not as far as I know because she is irrelevant. Do you know how many politicians currently in Washington, D. C. have had (or are currently having) affairs with porn stars? A lot, I am certain. Ms. Daniels simply isn't "news", only "par for the course".
re: the Strzok/Strong texts.... The fact that *some* of the text messages were relevant to the investigation means that some of the missing ones could be, as well. They probably aren't, to be certain, but they *could* be and in that game perception sometimes matters more than reality.
Hey if Bill Clinton can get impeached for a BJ then what's paying off a porn star for a year long affair?
It's kind of a moot point now that Mueller got rid of them.
It's not a moot point to conspiracy theorists on fox news and conservatives, those missing texts could bring to light an entire scheme to bring down the Trump White House! Those texts probably forced Don Jr. to attend the meeting with the Russian lawyer representing the Kremlin.
Could some helpful soul explain simply to non-American me what is the deal with that government shutdown is? How does it work? It's not like US declares bankruptcy, right? Pretty please.
Could some helpful soul explain simply to non-American me what is the deal with that government shutdown is? How does it work? It's not like US declares bankruptcy, right? Pretty please.
The effect is more like maxing out all your credit cards than declaring bankruptcy.
One of the checks and balances of the US government is that Congress controls the government's money. Every year, they're supposed to create a budget that allocates how much each department can spend, along with what they can spend it on. If there's no budget, then most of the government can't spend any money. This includes not being able to pay government employees. There's some exceptions, but that's the short version.
The Republican controlled Congress is so dysfunctional, they can't agree on a yearly budget, so they keep passing short-term "emergency" funding bills to keep the government functioning for a little while.
Heh. I am sure it looks even worse to an outsider than myself, but my thinking is that the whole lot of em should be fired for having that happen in the first place, as all (yeah right- all two) parties involved are responsible in some way. If it's all about accountability these days and firing the person in charge, somebody needs to go. Not next week, not in the next election, but now.
We have a problem melding old and new technology for alert system in some places still (Hawaii and others) AND we shutdown the guv'ment and paying for training exercises for reserve military personnel. I imagine it takes a quite a bit of cash for some folks to take time off for training and travel, plus the logistics for getting all the equipment there in time costs a bit as well.
Embarrassing is what it is, if I had to give it a one word description.
The shutdown isn't over, it's just been delayed (again). The 9 million children the GOP had been holding hostage in regards to CHIP have been released. The question now is if, on Feb. 8th, the public and (especially) the media will hold Republicans accountable for not sticking to a promise they are almost certainly going to break. If I see more of this both-sides stuff after that happens, I think I might vomit.
Hey if Bill Clinton can get impeached for a BJ then what's paying off a porn star for a year long affair?
Not very much these days--remember that Clinton's problems were 20 years ago so times have changed a little. Or people just don't care as much. Or Congress doesn't already have it out for the sitting President--if the House during Clinton's second term had been majority Democrat I highly doubt any of those problems would have occurred.
Question: I see a lot of people blaming Democrats for the shutdown. So, HOW can they force a shutdown? Don't Republicans have enough of a majority to block anything the Democrats might attempt? I don't see how they really have any influence, unless I'm missing something.
Question: I see a lot of people blaming Democrats for the shutdown. So, HOW can they force a shutdown? Don't Republicans have enough of a majority to block anything the Democrats might attempt? I don't see how they really have any influence, unless I'm missing something.
It's in regards to the fact that the Senate bill needed 60 votes. Mind you, McConnell has waived that threshold for everything from judges to the tax bill. But he didn't waive it here. But moreover, if you are the ruling party, and you don't have the necessary votes (which they didn't anyway, because 5 Republicans voted against it too), it takes alot of nerve to approach the party you have consulted on NOTHING for a year and demand they supply you votes when you aren't offering them anything in return. That doesn't even take into account the fact that the White House sank two separate bipartisan compromises at the last minute.
They need 60 votes, but there aren't 60 Republicans in the Senate. However, it's my understanding that McConnell can waive that requirement and pass a budget by simple majority, which would be easy.
This whole mess seems unnecessary. DACA and especially CHIP are not abominable programs.
I'll also point out something obvious that is being missed by almost everyone in the media. If the Republicans had been serious about keeping the government open, Mike Pence wouldn't have been on a Middle East trip, and would have been in DC to break a potential tie if they waived the 60 vote threshold.
Again, the GOP waived 60 votes on every important vote this year. Gorsuch, ACA, tax cut. But not this one.
@BillyYank - thanks. Quick follow-up question: does that mean that government employees are working for free during shutdown? Because... government can't simply stop working, right?
@BillyYank - thanks. Quick follow-up question: does that mean that government employees are working for free during shutdown? Because... government can't simply stop working, right?
In a shutdown, non-essential workers don't go to work and usually won't get back-pay.
Comments
Incidentally, some news came down this week in North Dakota. The main reason I am not very bullish on the Democrats winning the Senate in November is because of Heidi Heitkamp. She won in 2012, but it was very close. The main reason she won is because the Republican, Rick Berg, happened to be the owner of a rental property management company that is universally despised in the city I live in by anyone who has ever rented an apartment in this town. I wouldn't have hesitated to call him a slum lord. Word getting out that he was the head of this company sunk his votes here. However, I would maintain that Heitkamp could be easily beaten by any generic Republican because the rest of the state is so red. So it surprised me to find out that Kevin Cramer, North Dakota's House Representative, isn't going to run against her. Keep in mind, in North Dakota, there is no differnce between a House and Senate seat, since it only has one. The House race is state-wide, just like the Senate seat. At this point, they still haven't fielded a candidate, which is bizarre considering it is the most vulnerable seat Democrats are protecting. Personally, Heitkamp's politics are WAY to the right of mine, but I can't say she doesn't represent the state, because her votes I disagree with mostly come on gun and oil issues, and voting against either would be suicide here. She has been a leader on combating human trafficking, which saw a major uptick in the Western part of the state because of the oil boom. I still think Republicans could put literally ANY name on the ballot and stand a 40% chance of taking back the seat, but the fact that someone as high profile in the state as Cramer is refusing to run for a much more secure and high profile position seems very strange.
Shame about that gerrymandering that has it split up like a pizza pie to be majority-Republican represented though.
Edit-Furthermore. Texas may be red, but it's got a sizable amount of Democrats.
Likewise, California may be deep blue, and shit on by Faux News and conservatives DAILY, but it still had like 30% of it's population vote for Trump.
A lot of people in recent years have left California because they cannot afford to live there and one of the top three places for them to resettle has been Austin. These days, Austin is "California lite", at least at the local and county level. It is still a decent enough town--I interviewed for a couple of jobs there about 7 years ago after my previous employer got bought out and was going to move there if I received an offer--but the traffic is hideous.
This is indicative of the trend everywhere in the nation, though--urban centers vote heavily Democratic while the rest of the area generally votes Republican. As noted, in Texas the non-urban areas are populous enough to outweigh the urban centers but in States like Illinois if you carry Cook County you carry the entire State, from a Presidential election point of view.
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I see the Senate is going to vote today to pass a budget resolution which will end the shutdown and re-fund the government...for three weeks. Be still, my beating heart. That isn't a solution--that is a piece of duct tape designed to hold the wheel on the car so it can get back on the highway and do 120 kph.
Finally, in economic news, it appears that Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warrent Buffet together have as much wealth as the bottom 50% of the United States (about 160 million people). Jeff Bezos recently became the wealthiest human being in all of recorded history with a net worth calculated at over $100 billion.
This was before the tax cuts lowering corporate rate in half and lowering overall rates and doubling the estate tax exemption to $22 million per couple.
People were rewarded for being wealthy not for working.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/21/news/economy/davos-oxfam-inequality-wealth/index.html
Now there is word if no DACA vote takes place by Feb.8th, it may trigger another shutdown. What's really interesting is the Democrats who voted no on this deal: Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Corey Booker and Chris Murphy. You may be looking at your Dem primary line-up based on this vote.
Well this looks like a win for Republicans again. They will spin this as "those obstructionist democrats want to shut down the government for illegal aliens! They are stopping making unmericuh great again! Vote more Republicans into office!" As if the Democrats actually had any power here. They can mess around in the Senate but then they'd have to rely on the House and President to do the right thing - lets just say that's unlikely. So really there's not much they could do here - unless they were willing to stick to their guns. They weren't.
To Democrats it's a lose/win. They can tell their supporters who wanted them to do this "hey we tried to do something about DACA. Sorry it didn't work out and they were deported, we gave it the old half-hearted effort. If you want us to actually be able to do something then vote Democrat." Pretty weaksauce.
And things will go back to how they were with the chaos of Republicans running the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. They get to go back to trying to run the government with a fractured majority (Extreme Right Freedom Caucus vs Far Right Republican Establishment). The only thing they can agree on is that they must totally ignore Democrats and try and run everything themselves. But they can't even agree with themselves so nothing will happen.
So pretty damn likely we'll play this dance again in 3 weeks. You can bet Mitch McConnell is devising whatever he can to ensure immigration is doomed. He'll try anything at all except compromise.
1. They compromised while backing the Republicans in a corner. No good faith vote by Feb. 8 and the government shuts down again. When that happens there is only party to blame.
2. CHIP also allegedly gets 6 more years with this bill passing, that's a win for the Dems.
3. If the DACA bill passes and Trump vetos, Democrats will just shut down the government again come Feb 8. They will vote against any bill put forth until Trump signs the thing.
4. If DACA votes and it fails (which on its own, I don't see it doing), they can still vote against any Budget until it is added to it as previously required.
Republicans can keep breaking promises, but if they keep doing it and Dem's keep playing the shut the government down card when they do, they won't hold that many seats come November as it shows the American people they can't govern.
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129 of the Disrupt J20 protesters from last year have had the charges against them dropped. The remaining 59 still face felony charges.
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Five months' worth of text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Strong, covering the time period 14 Dec 2016 and 17 May 2017 have been lost (or, at least, "were failed to be preserved", which means the same thing). Curiously, 17 May 2017 is the exact day when Mueller was put in charge of the special investigation. The expectation is that this will lend credence to the argument that the special investigation was tainted even before Mueller took over but there is no telling what, if anything, the Trump Administration may do about it. My advice: do nothing, let the investigation continue as is no matter how painful it may become. If, as they claim, there isn't anything to find then they can wait until it is over and say confidently "see? we told you there was nothing to find". Trying to stop the investigation will definitely make it look like they have things they need to hide.
Normally, I do not agree with the philosophy of "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" because that line of reasoning is generally used by heavy-handed law enforcement agencies to keep citizens in line via fear. However, I do agree using it when politicians are being investigated--because they want to be in charge of other people they need to be held to higher standards.
Ur kinda hot!" Riveting stuff.
Has anybody mentioned Stormy Daniels here lol? The pornstar that confirmed, in an unpublished article from around 2002 or something, that she carried on an affair with Trump a couple months after Barron was born to Melania. Trump apparently liked to be spanked with Forbes and told her he liked that she looked like his daughter, Ivanka. A month prior to the election Trump's lawyer formed a shell company and paid her 130k and had her sign a non-disclosure statement so she's not talking about it now. The details and allegations came out from the Conservative Wall Street Journal and the unpublished article I'm not sure where that came from. Apparently, from Fire & Fury, Bannon says Trump had paid off "hundreds" of women to keep them quiet. Well, we do know he loves his non-disclosure agreements.
re: the Strzok/Strong texts.... The fact that *some* of the text messages were relevant to the investigation means that some of the missing ones could be, as well. They probably aren't, to be certain, but they *could* be and in that game perception sometimes matters more than reality.
Pretty please.
One of the checks and balances of the US government is that Congress controls the government's money. Every year, they're supposed to create a budget that allocates how much each department can spend, along with what they can spend it on. If there's no budget, then most of the government can't spend any money. This includes not being able to pay government employees. There's some exceptions, but that's the short version.
The Republican controlled Congress is so dysfunctional, they can't agree on a yearly budget, so they keep passing short-term "emergency" funding bills to keep the government functioning for a little while.
If it's all about accountability these days and firing the person in charge, somebody needs to go. Not next week, not in the next election, but now.
We have a problem melding old and new technology for alert system in some places still (Hawaii and others) AND we shutdown the guv'ment and paying for training exercises for reserve military personnel. I imagine it takes a quite a bit of cash for some folks to take time off for training and travel, plus the logistics for getting all the equipment there in time costs a bit as well.
Embarrassing is what it is, if I had to give it a one word description.
This whole mess seems unnecessary. DACA and especially CHIP are not abominable programs.
Again, the GOP waived 60 votes on every important vote this year. Gorsuch, ACA, tax cut. But not this one.
Because... government can't simply stop working, right?