It’s been an exciting few hours on the Mahablog. After several days of thrashing around, several terrifying minutes when the site disappeared, and spending too much money I finally got an SSL certificate installed. This may not seem like a big deal, but it was quite an accomplishment, and as a result the url has changed from http:// to https://. Your old links will still work. This was necessary, I am told, because it makes the site more secure. My suspicion is that it’s just a way to squeeze more money out of us small website owners. Hosting is cheap, but you pay through the nose for security.
Anyhoo, Martin Longman has some ideas about what Mitch McConnell is up to.
Over the last several years, he has usually ranked as the least popular senator in the country with his own constituents. In the latest Morning Consult poll, only Jeff Flake and Claire McCaskill had higher disapproval numbers, and neither of them survived the last election cycle. The thinking goes, then, that McConnell simply cannot afford to buck the president.
There’s definitely some truth to that, but it’s also important to think about McConnell’s concern for the Republican Party’s majority in the Senate. He does not want hurt the reelection prospects of his colleagues because it could send him back into the minority. So, he has very little interest in passing a bill that Trump will criticize and veto. He suffered that fate once already before Christmas, and he’s not keen to experience a repeat. It’s also key to McConnell’s current thinking that Trump had signed off on the deal last December before suddenly reversing himself once he received criticism from people like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. He doesn’t have any reason to take Trump’s word that he’ll stick with any deal that is negotiated.
The best way of looking at this is that McConnell is angry with the president. He was double-crossed. He wasn’t consulted. He doesn’t believe in the wall. He doesn’t believe that Trump’s strategy will work. He doesn’t want to take ownership of a deal that the president will characterize as insufficient or weak. He doesn’t even want to appear with the president in front of the cameras.
McConnell is not going to take a leadership position to end the shutdown until something else happens. The something else could be an incident resulting from a breakdown in airport security, or a sharp downturn in public opinion against Republicans, or something breaking in the Mueller investigation. And then maybe he’ll step forward to push a bill through to open the government. Otherwise, he’s going to let Trump bang his head against a wall until either he or Nancy Pelosi breaks. And I don’t think Nancy Pelosi is going to break.
See also: Trump’s phony “compromise” has now been unmasked as a total sham by Greg Sargent, and Trump’s So-Called “Compromise” Is Loaded With Poison Pills by Nancy LeTourneau.
Today McConnell introduced a Senate bill that incorporates Trump's offer on Saturday. People do not think that it will pass the Senate, but McConnell has publicly joined Trump against Pelosi, officially uniting the Republicans.
Tragically, I think something horrible has to happen before Mitch does the right thing.
Some catastrophe, like a TSA work stoppage with some resulting terrorist activity, or a plane crash, or any number of potential horrors.
All, for a useless wall.
All 'cause he was born with a tiny… Tiny hands. Yes. Tiny, tiny hands.
My view of the situation might be a little biased considering I know that Trump is a big lying bag of shit. But if I was to put myself in McConnell's shoes and view the situation without any bias toward Trump, I'd still be able to reasonably deduce the fact that Trump is a political Jonah. And I'd also conclude that aligning myself, and my future political prospects with Trump, will only end in a bad situation.
In assessing the power dynamic in play Trump should realize that Mitch McConnell is his best hope to fend off an impeachment attempt. I don't think Trump giving Mitch the Jeff Sessions treatment would be in Trump's best interests. Add to that the idea that with the Mueller investigation heading to where it looks like it's going, Trump has got the sword of Damocles hanging above his head. I wouldn't invest in him if I was Mitch McConnell.
Actually, if you want the Red State residents roused into major action to call their sniveling Senator's, let the unpaid federal prison guards threaten to open the gates and letting the inmates go free!
The cell towers would explode!!!!!!
Cundgulag you got it!
I wanted the air traffic controllers to say 'no mas' but you have the best idea.
The cruelty to working people and disregard for reality one would wish would bring people together. Stories continue to surface of Trump's inability to do the job. Sure suits Putin to have our country paralyzed.
Gulag: more likely that the air traffic controllers don't show up to their unpaid work, so the airports have to shut down.
There isn't a great necessity for https on a site like this that doesn't involve financial transactions. However, https is becoming the default standard for all websites, and some browsers may not allow connections to http sites in future.
The shutdown is a violation of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. Getting paid down the road after the shutdown does not make the violation presently taking place less of a violation. And, then, there is the waste of taxpayers' money by paying all furloughed employees a salary for not working, which is supposed to be abhorrent to true Republicans. Of course, we can also add the taxpayers' money used to build his stupid wall as waste, fraud, and abuse.
@ c u n d gulag
I would not worry about airport security as much as overstressed, unpaid, and unsupported airxcontrollers. A catastrophic mid-air collison of a couple of airliners over a major US city is not inconceivable.
I'd not discount the possibility of, say, a massive food contamination outbreak with not enough staff on hand to contain it, and the list goes on.
Trump is just far too stupid to understand the risks and McConnell is either too cowardly or too interested in party advantage to actually consider his duty to the American people.
I'm not sure that Mitch "believes" anything in the ideological sense. He just wants his gang in power and will do anything to achieve or maintain that.
Labor without pay is enslavement. Therefore I propose that all unpaid essential workers get overtime back pay once the shutdown ends.
Also, furloughed workers should get vacation back pay.
There is a power play in that there was no wall crisis until Nancy pelosi became speaker. There is a power play over the podium of the house. He is bent on dominating pelosi as he cowed ryan even more so because she is a woman. This is about dictatorship.
" there was no wall crisis until Nancy Pelosi became speaker "
Yeah I'm not sure why those are not the first words out of any democrats mouth while talking about the shutdown. Trump never shut down the government when he controlled both the senate and the house and still got $0.00 for his wall? Apparently tRump has sent a letter to Nancy explaining that he will be doing the SOTU as planned at the house despite her having dis-invited him? whats he going to do have his SS bust down the door at the capital?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm3K_68el80
https://www.yahoo.com/news/lara-trump-thanks-furloughed-workers-sacrifice-know-hard-184850591.html?.tsrc=jtc_news_index
Now we'll be able to say to veterans..Thank you for your service. And to government workers.. Thank you for your servitude.
The bag of shit has got to be stopped.. I pray that Nancy Pelosi has the strength, and the commitment of those under her leadership to — politically speaking — drive a wooden stake through Trump's heart and put an end to the vampire that is sucking the life out of America.
Update: Nancy told liddle donnie to go fuck himself, again!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-hell-deliver-state-of-the-union-at-the-capitol-despite-pelosis-request-to-postpone/2019/01/23/d171dfae-1f33-11e9-8e21-59a09ff1e2a1_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.946344f77b2e
Free SSL certificates here: https://letsencrypt.org/
Raven: Thanks, but I’ve already got an SSL certificate. And “free” does no good if one’s hosting service won’t install third party certificates, and mine won’t. I lack the technical skill to do it myself.
Pelosi won! 🙂
Unfortunately, many Trump supporters who suffered economically by the shutdown will support him only more strongly now. (They will tell themselves that their suffering was worth it. See cognitive dissonance.)
Hopefully, though, politicians will be more reluctant in the future to use government shutdowns as a tactic.