US Politics December 2018: ~very legal and very cool~

https://apnews.com/ec2ed217357048ff998225a31534df12

jfc !

2019 is going to be a terrible year for Trump. and quite probably, us as well.

but we'll have the tax returns

“The talking points were very firm,” said one of the officials, explaining that Trump was advised to clearly oppose a Turkish incursion into northern Syria and suggest the U.S. and Turkey work together to address security concerns. “Everybody said push back and try to offer (Turkey) something that’s a small win, possibly holding territory on the border, something like that.”

Erdogan, though, quickly put Trump on the defensive, reminding him that he had repeatedly said the only reason for U.S. troops to be in Syria was to defeat the Islamic State and that the group had been 99 percent defeated. “Why are you still there?” the second official said Erdogan asked Trump, telling him that the Turks could deal with the remaining IS militants.

With Erdogan on the line, Trump asked national security adviser John Bolton, who was listening in, why American troops remained in Syria if what the Turkish president was saying was true, according to the officials. Erdogan’s point, Bolton was forced to admit, had been backed up by Mattis, Pompeo, U.S. special envoy for Syria Jim Jeffrey andspecial envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition Brett McGurk, who have said that IS retains only 1 percent of its territory, the officials said.

Bolton stressed, however, that the entire national security team agreed that victory over IS had to be enduring, which means more than taking away its territory.

Trump was not dissuaded, according to the officials, who said the president quickly capitulated by pledging to withdraw, shocking both Bolton and Erdogan.

Caught off guard, Erdogan cautioned Trump against a hasty withdrawal, according to one official. While Turkey has made incursions into Syria in the past, it does not have the necessary forces mobilized on the border to move in and hold the large swaths of northeastern Syria where U.S. troops are positioned, the official said.

The call ended with Trump repeating to Erdogan that the U.S. would pull out, but offering no specifics on how it would be done, the officials said.

this is insane !! Erdogan is even taken aback at how fucking stupid this turd is

The Democrats now own the shutdown!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2018

I mean I know we always say "lol guys nothing is gonna sink this guy" but ignoring decorated military brass and going rogue, refusing to defeat ISIS is something that has even GOP politicians shook.

Not all of them, naturally, like I doubt the Freedom Cockfarmers care, and not necessarily enough to publicly criticize him, but even McConnell seems spooked.

I wouldn't be shocked for Trump to then say "welllll, ok so we're not leaving NOOOOOW, but...". Mattis won't reverse course naturally but I mean bad press, ,esp in Fox News, often causes Trump to change his mind.

oh yes, we own the shutdown, good one

Dem senators will not cave on this ,right ?

not 9 of them, no

Fox News and liberals united on American war policy

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/422426-fox-friends-co-host-trump-just-refounded-isis-by-pulling-troops-out

plus there will be no-shows for the vote

oh they totally will xp

yeah I am not at all optimistic about this Senate vote

I know it's humorous to pretend that the Democrats are the biggest weenies at every opportunity, but since this is only a partial shutdown, and 75% of the government is funded through September, and this is a move that caused even the GOP consternation, no, there will not be 9 Democrat Senators who vote yes on this shit. they no longer have a midterm election to worry about.

more likely is the Senate takes up the House bill, strips out the 5 billion for the border wall, and sends it back to the House.

HOW IS THIS STILL UP

Since everyone is just now realizing his staffers role in the #RussiaHoax We have been asking questions! John McCain Still Refuses to Answer Questions About His Role in the Dossier https://t.co/acsVdH1GTq

— Katrina Pierson (@KatrinaPierson) December 21, 2018

feel like that was an accidental repost? if you click the link, it shows the article in question that she wrote was from 11/2/2017.

oh actually what I think she was doing was showing that they'd previously asked questions in the past and stupidly linked to an old article to prove that

lmao

I’ve done more damage to ISIS than all recent presidents....not even close!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2018

"If we don't get what we want ... I will shut down the government. And I am proud to shut down the government for border security.... I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I'm not going to blame you for it."

this should be the only dem response to the shutdown

People should post that tweet on the door of every closed government office.

and on the butt of every Senator

"I’ve long said that eliminating the legislative filibuster would be a mistake," said outgoing Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in a string of tweets explaining his position.
"It’s what’s prevented our country for decades from sliding toward liberalism. It’s inconvenient sometimes, but requiring compromise is in the interest of both parties in the long term," Hatch said.

oh fucking drop dead of heart failure already

"sliding towards liberalism" naturally the thing I am reacting to

carne asada otm

i put it into a text file and repeated it a thousand times, then took a screenshot and replied to trump with it

let's see what he says to THAT

he is a horrible person, but he is not wrong on that point

xp

he said "mmmmdafdagh dsh god chrkan" in between bites of KFC crispy strips

civil rights bills would have passed in the 40s if it wasn't for the filibuster

xp

he's not wrong on the point of why eliminating the filibuster is bad, I was just objecting to his snide "it's the thing that has stopped us from heading towards godless liberalism!"

I mean it's true but it's not a virtue obv

Senate Republicans rejected President Donald Trump's entreaties to eliminate the Senate filibuster to fund his border wall, the latest turn in a fraught battle over funding the government past Friday night's shutdown deadline.

Senators were called back to Washington Friday to vote on the House’s spending bill and its border funding, a futile effort in the face of a Democratic filibuster that will leave the government on the brink of a partial shutdown. Trump called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for a White House meeting on Friday to hash it out.

Trump already thought he had a solution: urging McConnell to get rid of the filibuster to fund the border wall, even though McConnell has said repeatedly that would not happen.

“Mitch, use the Nuclear Option and get it done! Our Country is counting on you!” Trump tweeted on Friday morning.

Republicans hold 51 Senate seats and need at least nine Democrats to pass most legislation, including funds for the border wall. Yet changing the filibuster rules in the waning days of GOP unified control would offer limited short-term gain and major long-term pain whenever Democrats take over on Capitol Hill. And conservatives have historically wielded the filibuster to slow down progressive legislation.

But there are insufficient votes to change the Senate voting rules to a simple majority. Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said they won't vote for a rules change, and neither will Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).

"I want to put a stop to this practice of the Senate breaking its rules to change its rules. I will not vote to turn the Senate into a rule-breaking institution and I hope that my colleagues will not," Alexander said in a statement.

he couldn't have seriously thought Mitch would do the nuclear option. he was just saying that again so that he could have someone else to pin it on when the bill fails.

he is just saying it because he thinks it sounds cool

"it's pronounced nucular"

like he obviously doesn't care to know the implications of it he just loves to say big tough taglines

he's got big boy words to go with his big boy pants!

Nancy Pelosi learned two things today," Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) said in a statement Thursday night. "First, it’s not 2009 anymore. Second, hubris is not the same as leadership – you don’t get to march into the Oval Office and dictate your demands without compromise."

3) in three weeks you will be her bitch

4) what a Pyrrhic victory is

some gop house idiot was on npr this morning and his vote was basically a fuck you to pelosi and a show vote to the base. dude had no concept about how law making actually fucking works.

I think you could limit the scope of your inquiry to just the last twenty-four hours and still come away with the correct conclusion that Donald Trump is one of the stupidest motherfuckers on the planet.

yeah, the House GOP crowing about it today makes it abundantly clear that Pelosi's shot across the bow at the Trump meeting really stung, and they were eager to prove her wrong. They still had 8 defections and 11 no shows, but the rest jumped on-board out of party loyalty, a hatred of Pelosi, and probably (at least for some, the non-Freedom Caucus death cultists anyway) some consolation in knowing that it was a show vote doomed to failure.

xp

Whoops!

Michael Cohen brokered mysterious .8 million loan to pool boy that Jerry Falwell Jr and his wife befriended https://t.co/UdoTFFb2zC

— Raw Story (@RawStory) December 21, 2018

can't help picturing Chris Elliot as "Pool Boy"

Trump is the pool boy

wearing cutoff shorts and a tiny white t-shirt

RBG apparently went under a successful surgery for lung cancer. lord she is badass.

Doesn't the term "pool boy" strike anyone else as demeaning and belittling?

pool person

No xp