The Border Debate is Groundhog Day All Over Again

DB Daily Update ^ | David Blackmon

[EyesOfTX]

So here we go again. – Well, it’s like Groundhog Day – we keep waking up in the morning to listen to congressional Republicans use the same tired old talking points on the border issue. “The Democrats should do the right thing,” they say, followed by “they should come to the table and negotiate in good faith.”

Yeah, like that’s gonna happen, right?

Invariably, the Republican speaking is some Chamber of Commerce guy or gal who secretly likes open borders for all the cheap labor that provides to all the business interests that fund their campaigns ever two years. The real elephant in the living room on this border is the same as it was on Obamacare repeal: establishment Republicans refusing to follow through on promises made during their campaigns.

The most valid question in the entire mess is “hey, you Republicans just finished two solid years of having the presidency along with majorities in both houses of congress – if we have a real border emergency, how come you didn’t do anything about it when you had the chance?” And don’t give me the standard crap about their needing 9 Democrat votes in the Senate: If it’s a real emergency, you find a way to get it done through the budget reconciliation process (where only 51 votes are required) and take care of it.

So now all the government workers – without whose presence it took a full month before even the slightest impacts on the American public were felt in a handful of our nation’s airports – are back at work and getting paid to do whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing, and we’re all supposed to say “yay!” for that. Awesome. Yay.

And for the next three weeks we’re going to be treated to yet another round of D.C. Swamp Kabuki theatre in which both sides will preen and posture and recite talking points written both other people and nothing real will get done. At the end of this latest act, President Donald J. Trump had best either refuse to sign the atrocity of a bill he is presented – because it surely will not contain the $5.7 billion border security funding for which he has been advocating – and shut the government down again, or sign the damn thing and declare his long-promised and long-delayed national emergency.

I say he’d better do one of those two things, because the only other option he is going to have left to him will be to sign whatever bill he is presented and try to declare whatever pittance it contains for border security and pretend that it is some sort of “win”. The thing about that is, nobody’s going to buy it, not even his most fervent fans. If President Trump capitulates on this issue, his presidency well and truly over, and he might as well resign and go back to public life.

Here’s the good news: He won’t capitulate. That’s not in his makeup. Come Feb. 15, he’ll be out there fighting just like he always has, and we’ll all be able to see pretty clearly which Republican members of congress are really out there with him.

There won’t be many, and the ones who aren’t – like Marco Rubio – are the real problem here.

About that State of the Union… – Speaking of D.C. Swamp Kabuki theatre, where is it? The government’s back open, so where’s that letter from San Fran Nan renewing the invite to the President to come and enthrall the congress and all of us out here in Flyover Country who all the coastal sophisticates think have nothing better to do on a Tuesday evening?

Ok, honestly, I really don’t give a damn about the State of the Union, and would just as soon see it go away entirely. But that isn’t going to happen, and as things currently stand, this represents another real missed opportunity for the President.

He should be out there somewhere giving a speech tomorrow night. It could be on the National Mall, or as I discussed a couple of weeks back, in one of the great Red State cities like Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Antonio or even down in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

As it has traditionally been carried out, the entire ritual around the State of the Union has become an incredibly tiresome exercise with pretty much no utility at all for real people. In her despicable fit of petulance, San Fran Nan has handed the President a golden opportunity to change its entire nature and bring it out to the people he constantly claims to be his sole focus in office.

If he misses this opportunity, it will be a real loss for his presidency.

That is all.

Follow me on Twitter at @GDBlackmon

[wastoute]

I was sort of startled to see the head guy from the Chamber of Commerce on Fox the other day straight up admitting they want all the cheap labor they can get from open borders.

[vette6387]

“I was sort of startled to see the head guy from the Chamber of Commerce on Fox the other day straight up admitting they want all the cheap labor they can get from open borders.
“

I guess you don’t watch Lou Dobbs on Fox, because he reads off the list of bad actors starting with the Chamber of Communists, Business Roundtable and the Koch Bros. every damned night! Why is this a surprise to you?

[twoputt]

Nancy Pants doesn’t want the SOTU for two reasons:

1.) She’s afraid the President will give major butthurt to the Dems during his speech, and

2.) The Supremes are invited to the speech of which they’ll be missing the sickly RBG. That’s bad optics for Nancy and the Dems.

I hope the President does go ahead and make the speech even at another venue.