Building on what Adam and Betty have posted this today, let me state without equivocation that this is exactly what needs to happen. Senate Dems need to just fucking YOLO and release documents like Feinstein did. House Democrats on the Nunes cover-up committee need to do the same. And we don’t need to make any deals to get DACA through- 83% of the country want it done. Republicans run the House and Senate. They have their guy in the White House. If the government shuts down, it is on them.
What Democrats ALSO need to do, and this is very, very, important, because our media is a fucking colossal waste of space, is every single time they are questioned about a government shutdown, they need to stop and state loudly and clearly- “The Democrats do not have control of the House, Senate, or White House. If there is a government shutdown, for whatever reason, that is the fault of the Republicans.”
The other day, I was watch Rep. Joaquin Castro being interviewed by Kasie Hunt (who I believe was at one point Ron Fournier’s protege), and she asked the following question:
Hunt: “Is there any circumstance in which democrats could accept a wall on the Mexican border to pay for that wall in exchange for help these kids or do you think the government should shut down over that.”
Rep. Castro then went on to offer a “reasonable” answer. BZZZZZTTTT. Wrong. This should have been his response:
“I don’t support shutting down the government, nor do any Democrats, but we are not in charge of the House, Senate, or White House. If the government shuts down, this is because the Republicans chose to shut it down.”
And you say that over and over and over again, and even challenge the reporter to state that this is in fact correct. Because it is! The Republicans are terrified of being blamed for the inevitable shutdown when their caucus shits the bed, so they are already setting the stage to blame Democrats. If you need evidence, here is a clip of Sen. Tom Cotton doing just that:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Are we going to have a government shutdown at the end of January?
COTTON: I don’t expect to have one. I certainly don’t want to have one, but if the Democrats want to shut down the government because they can’t get amnesty for illegal immigrants, then they’re going to have to defend those actions to the American people. They didn’t do that last month, and I suspect they didn’t do it because they know that amnesty for illegal immigrants without any real reform is not popular, and that it would be unhelpful to their cause.
You will not be surprised to learn that Stephanopoulos did not challenge him on this assertion. The time for niceties is long gone. It’s time for some scorched earth, and it’s time to stop letting the media and Republicans get away with this.
rikyrah
tell it, Cole.
TELL IT!!!!!
PHUCK YEAH!!
PS-I’m serious. I’m watching the Dems, about the transcript, and I was like – JUST LEAK IT!
Now, leak Don Jr and Kushner’s testmonies TOO
Just the Facts
Dems will cave.
Water is wet.
Trump became President today.
satby
I want to email this post to every Democrat in office.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Just the Bullshit:
Fuck off
trollhattan
@Just the Facts: Oh god, there’s a BRINKS TRUCK in the neighborhood, hide the kids.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@trollhattan:
No windows and locks on the outside with an ice cream truck livery. You bet you better hide the kids.
SiubhanDuinne
Fuckin’ A, John.
Fuh
Kin
A
Frankensteinbeck
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
I thought for sure the ‘Trump became President today’ line meant this was a deliberate satire comment. That line is pretty much the new ‘Good news for John McCain.’
Yarrow
YES!
Aleta
Feinstein proposes clean DACA bill. Trump agrees.
Repubs panic and jump in. https://mobile.twitter.com/davidmackau/status/950798611587174401/video/1
gene108
How do we get your simple message to Democrats in Congress? The media needs to be beaten over the head with the fact Republicans control government and not getting things done is their fault.
Jeffro
Seconded on all counts here, JC. Oppose everything. Point out that the GOP is in charge of everything. And above all, air EVERYTHING that they know and/or have been testified to about Russia.
El Caganer
Perhaps I’m too cynical, but if Democrats take this approach Our Liberal Media will simply stop talking to them – too confrontational and angry, don’t y’know. And I’ll be damned if I can think of a single member of Our Liberal Media who, when tasked with queries such as that in the post, would challenge Tom Cotton or Foghorn Leghorn or whatever fucking Republican was being interviewed to admit error. Would be delighted to be completely wrong and banished to the Island of Broken Blog Commenters.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Aleta: the MSNBC junior leaguers were falling all over themselves to describe this as an impressive performance and an argument against all those rumors about sundowning
The Simp in the Suit
I know that this is semantics, but it’s not that a shutdown would be “on” them, which implies that a shutdown is something that happens naturally and needs to be worked at to prevent.
The correct meme is that Republicans control all of government right now. If the government shuts down, it is because Republicans shut it down. It’s because Republicans actively created a shutdown. They don’t need to prevent a shutdown and they sure don’t need Democrats to help them prevent a shutdown. They need to do their jobs, which means not shutting down the government on purpose. Which is apparently what they plan to do.
If the Republicans, who are 100% in charge, shutdown the government, it’s because THEY shut down the government. It will be intentional and it will be 100% caused and controlled by Republicans.
schrodingers_cat
Non-cooperation, say no to everything.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Frankensteinbeck:
No, it’s a troll in the same vein of “My Truth Hurts” and UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH!!!!
Villago Delenda Est
I agree.
This is war. The Democrats need to repeat that anything that happens, or fails to happen, is because of the GOP.
Yutsano
@Frankensteinbeck: Nope. That’s the occasional resident MAGA troll. I thought he got hammered awhile back.
Another Scott
@The Simp in the Suit: This.
Well said.
Cheers,
Scott.
satby
@satby: actually, just did the best thing I could, sent this post and this specific statement
to Nancy Pelosi here.
I invite you all to join me.
Thoroughly Pizzled
I was conflicted about the government shutdown, but I’ve come around. Trump created this mess by ending DACA, it’s not up to us to dress his self-inflicted wounds.
satby
@gene108: and again, here’s Pelosi’s email as Democratic Party Leader.
Just the Facts
Don’t be angry with me for stating the obvious.
Instead, channel your rage into action.
You are the ones you have been waiting for.
d58826
FACTS NOT IN EVIDENCE —- a spinal column belonging to even one democrat in Congress
Mary G
Proud of my senator. Democrats need to demand equality in the media and not Bernie Sanders, who is not a Democrat.
Belafon
@satby: Thanks. I was wondering that as well.
satby
On boy, here come the trolls.
donnah
I love the quote, John. I just sent it to my Senator, Sherrod Brown. I had already emailed him once today about the DACA being held hostage by the Republicans, and now he’s going to get my opinion about the shutdown.
Republicans own it.
Gravenstone
@satby: Pie today! Pie tomorrow! Pie forever after!
geg6
@The Simp in the Suit:
Exactly.
SFAW
@d58826:
Normally, I appreciate your comments. But, JFC, aim that shit at the Rethugs — e.g., Collins, Flake, Corker — not at the Dems who have been pretty much united in their opposition to Lying Littledick, ZEGS, and Turtle.
geg6
@d58826:
Unbelievably, DiFi showed some spine today. So…theory disproved.
Gravenstone
Aaaand .. the fucking RNC got their long standing consent decree lifted today. Republican electoral rat fuckery, shift to overdrive!
Calouste
@Gravenstone: One crust, one filling, one pie!
ruemara
How do you get this message to your congress person? Uh, it’s right at the upper right hand side of the blog. And provide a good reason why not. Not anger, not “you guys are too stupid to do this thing”. Tell them that any compromise you make to get CHIP versus DACA is probably not going to actually materialize and won’t be long lasting. There’s no more good faith with this GOP. They’re opposed to democracy in full. So Democrats need to understand it and stop feeding the media beast that only jones for bullshit bipartisanship statements from democrats, not republicans.
kindness
The MSM is a problem Democrats need to address. After everything Hillary had done as a Senator & SoS the MSM turned on a dime and we were back to the 90’s Clinton rules. And then the media denied they had their thumb on the scales.
Fight! Fight like it’s our life on the line because it is.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@kindness:
We can’t do much about it, so I prefer to think of it not as a problem we need to address, but an obstacle we need to account for. Maybe we can fix it when we bring back the Fairness Doctrine and break up the oligopolies.
jl
Thanks for good post. Democrats need to challenge passivity, and tacit validation of GOP BS like that of Stephanopoulos. Call them on it.
Democrats also need to be more aggressive in calling out patently absurd GOP and Trumpster BS, such as:
@ddale8
NYT: To pay for The Wall, Trump is proposing to cut funding for border surveillance, radar, patrol boats and personnel:
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/950724556217634816
Edit: found via Josh Marshall’s twitter
AnotherBruce
@satby: I did, it was easy. I don’t know if I’ll get a response, but that’s ok maybe I don’t need one.
schrodingers_cat
@kindness: Mark Shields said last Friday that the Ds are in such a mess because they forgot the working class.
Yes really. There is no pundit more useless than he is.
Mike in NC
That pencil-necked fucker Tom Cotton started to measure the drapes to the Oval Office on his very first day in Washington.
Major Major Major Major
@Mary G: Hear hear.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@kindness: I think John Kerry was the last national Democrat to have internalized the idea that the MSM was their friend. He thought they would push back against the purple bandaids. I suspect ol’ back-slappy Joe Biden might fall into it if he’s not retired. A Dem who could figure out how to mock the press, what we call the Village, would be doing the party and themselves a great favor.
AnotherBruce
@Gravenstone: Well, maybe we should have some “poll monitors.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: Shields is a Kennedy Democrat in the worst sense of the phrase. He doesn’t understand a damn thing that’s happened since 1965
The Lodger
No es mi circo. No son mis monos. That’s all the Dems need to say.
rikyrah
When Congress Paid Its Interns
The same institutional penny-pinching that has devastated congressional staff has all but wiped out paid internships, with pernicious consequences for Washington and for American democracy.
by Saahil Desai
Legislative privilege: By failing to pay interns, Congress narrows the opportunity to the white and affluent, which means fewer minorities in the ranks of paid staff.
When I met Kendall on a November Sunday afternoon in a downtown D.C. bar, she had just finished her shift serving appetizers and drinks for a catering company. An energetic Southern California native, Kendall splits her time between the serving job and the one she actually came to D.C. to pursue: an internship on Capitol Hill.
Kendall, who is being identified by her middle name so she can speak openly about her internship, is just the type of young person any congressional office should be eager to employ. She’s articulate, shrewd, and a voracious reader (when we first met, she was paging through a tattered copy of The Culture of Narcissism, by the late political theorist Christopher Lasch). Kendall—whose father sells orthopedic implants and whose mother is a babysitter—grew up in La Verne, in far east Los Angeles County, excelled at school, and attended Pomona College with significant financial aid, graduating last May. The work she’s doing in Congress, for two California Democratic House members, is mostly clerical—compiling news clips, sorting mail, answering calls from constituents. But she has also been given some higher-order tasks that put her closer to the action. “It was really cool to see a press release go out with what I had written,” she said.
The internship, however, is unpaid, and because her parents can’t afford to bankroll her, she has had to make sacrifices to make her stint on the Hill viable. To cut down on expenses, Kendall takes a grinding hour-and-a-half commute, on two separate buses, from the Arlington, Virginia, apartment she shares with two roommates to the Rayburn House Office Building, where she works. She could take the Metro and zip to work in thirty minutes, but during rush hour that would cost $3.25 each way, while a weekly bus pass costs her just $17.50. On days when she works her second job, she might not get home before 11 p.m.
Her parents try to help out when they can, but still Kendall says that she spends just $25 per week on
groceries—“I eat lots of pasta,” she said. And the requirement that she wear business attire every day has strained her thin budget even more. “For me, it was hard because I didn’t have much of a business wardrobe,” she said. “So I went to the thrift store and bought a blazer for $8. It didn’t fit me right, but it was the best I could find.”
Up to 40,000 interns flock to the nation’s capital annually, working temporary stints in government, journalism, think tanks, and lobbying. By far the highest concentration of interns is on Capitol Hill. Visit on a muggy summer day, and you’re sure to see “Hillterns” in their recognizable ill-fitting suits, struggling to find the nearest Metro station.
Nationwide, about half of all internships are unpaid, even as they are now a nearly mandatory credential for gaining an entry-level job in many white-collar professions. Congress is especially bad: in the House, only 8 percent of Republicans and 4 percent of Democrats compensate even one of their many interns, according to Pay Our Interns, an advocacy organization that tracks payment for interns on the Hill. The partisan difference is partly due to the fact that the GOP is in the majority and can allocate more funds to its members, but it’s still a bad look for liberal politicians who claim to stand for fair pay and higher wages. The situation is better in the Senate, though the disparity isn’t, at least not by much: fifty-one Republicans and thirty-one Democrats offer at least a stipend for at least one intern each year. Still, the great majority of Senate interns are unpaid, and among the minority who are paid, the level of compensation varies widely by office. Bernie Sanders admirably pays all his interns $15 an hour, while Republican Orrin Hatch pays half that, just $7.50 an hour.
Unpaid internships are burdensome anywhere, but especially so in Washington, D.C. For renters, D.C. ranks as the seventh most expensive city in the world. The total cost of a three-month unpaid internship in cities like D.C. and New York can inch toward $6,000 once you factor in such variables as rent, food, and transportation.
As a result, Capitol Hill internships are increasingly opportunities that only young people from affluent families can afford to take. This fact has not escaped Kendall’s notice; she talks about a fellow intern who goes out for lunch on his parents’ credit card while she eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at her desk.
…………………………………….
By failing to pay interns, Congress not only dissuades children of the non-affluent from becoming interns, but also limits the talent pool from which it draws most of its paid staff. “Whenever we had an opening on our staff, we would always hire from the ranks of former interns above everyone else,” said John Weinfurter, the longtime chief of staff for Joe Moakley. Nicholas Larson, a legislative correspondent for Representative Jim Himes and a former intern himself, estimated that 40 percent to 60 percent of entry-level staffers were previously interns.
This pinching of the talent pipeline has another downstream effect: fewer minorities in the intern pool—a direct consequence of not offering payment—means fewer minorities in the ranks of the paid staff. In 2015, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found that among the 336 top staffers populating Senate offices, only twenty-four were minorities. House staffers aren’t much more diverse—as of 2010, the most recent year for which data is available, 82 percent of chiefs of staff, 77 percent of legislative directors, and 80 percent of legislative correspondents were white. “While I was an intern, one of the biggest things for me was walking down the halls of Congress and not seeing anyone that looked like me,” said Carlos Vera, founder of the group Pay Our Interns, who is Latino. “Actually, the only people that looked like me were the janitors.”
rikyrah
this is inhumane.
Today, I have to call my parents and tell them that they have 18 more months legally in this country. After that they must leave my US citizen sisters ages 13, 7, 3 or be deported. To the other hundreds of thousands families going through this: I don’t know how but we’ll get thru https://t.co/E4SmZXuCkm
— Katherine (@Kitty_tweeting) January 8, 2018
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
The Republicans planned it that way and are enjoying it. The cruelty is not a side effect — it’s a major part of the actual plan.
RP
“It’s time for some scorched earth…”
Telling the truth is scorched earth? Are we victims of Stockholm Syndrome?
The Moar You Know
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Obama made some critical mistakes. Not many, but the very few were whoppers.
One of the non-whoppers, your garden-variety mistake, was not revoking Fox’s press credentials the day he was sworn in.
Before you reply, don’t say “well, they just would have made up horrible shit about him” because they did that anyway.
The next Dem president needs to throw those fuckers out of the press room on day one. They’re not a news organization. The courts have said so. So toss ’em.
efgoldman
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
We will all ascend to Valhalla on golden thrones long before that happens. And it never applied to cable networks.
Peale
@The Moar You Know: He did try to push back against Fox and call them by name, and the MSM simply rallied around them. Because Rupert has money and they all want to work there someday.
gene108
@rikyrah:
The economic impact of hundreds of thousands of people going out of the country will not be small.
Think about it.
You are going to be deported and maybe never come back the USA. Are you going to finish paying off your car? Or honor the term of your lease? Or pay your mortgage?
There are going to be a lot of companies getting their loans defaulted on because of this.
Aardvark Cheeselog
> It’s time for some scorched earth, and it’s time to stop letting the media and Republicans get away with this.
I called my congresscritter to say basically this, and also used my (D) Senator’s web message form to do the same thing (since they’re not answering the phone).
stinger
You are so right, John Cole. The Dems need the same kind of centralized, universal talking points, hammering them into every conversation, as answers to every question, etc. Tapper may have cut Miller’s mic, but Miller still got 2 minutes of air time for his talking points. We need to do the same, but on the side of the good. Any corporate spokesperson learns the same thing. Stick to your talking points, answer every question succinctly and in the same phrases as used by every other Dem politician. Unanimity.
Paula
Yep!
gene108
@The Moar You Know:
He tried to single out Fox News as right wing propaganda in 2009. The rest of the media rallied behind Fox News and wouldn’t tolerate Obama singling out one agency like that.
The Moar You Know
@Peale: He did nothing but say a few comments about their coverage, and promptly folded with the first hint of pushback. I hate to say it, but if you want an object lesson in how the next Dem president should handle the media, look to Trump. He bullied and overtly threatened them, when they tried to fight back he had his flying monkeys come after them with physical threats, and it totally worked. They ate that shit up and can’t want to come back for more cuffs and kicks.
ruemara
@gene108: Amazing the levels of amnesia.
lowtechcyclist
Actually, I’d love to see the Dems take credit for shutting down the government if they did it right.
By ‘doing it right’ I mean demanding a bunch of stuff that Americans all want as the price of keeping the government open.
I’d like Schumer and Pelosi to say something like, “we want DACA, we want a multi-year extension of CHIP without any pay-fors, and we want an immediate $1/hour increase in the minimum wage. We shouldn’t have to threaten anything to get these things done for the American people. But since Republicans bitterly oppose them all and have to be forced at gunpoint to pass them, we’re forcing their hand. The government shuts down until they pass DACA, CHIP, and raise the minimum wage. If they pass them now, it stays open.”
trnc
@The Simp in the Suit: Excellent point.
sharl
@Peale: Ah yes, that brings back the memory of the 2009 stirring defense of Fox News against those meanies in the White House, by none other than Jake Tapper, recent hero of a media battle against undead ghoul Stephen Miller.
It’s best to not expect reliable and regular high-minded output from these folks; Upton Sinclair and all that.
Elie
Sent email to Pelosi to stand up against tyranny and let the Republicans own this thing. It’s war for our country!
cain
@El Caganer:
Fuck em, don’t ask the dems. Let it be Republicans all the time. But meanwhile, we’ll start blowing shit up in the Senate and the House. They’ll eventually want to come to us for “access”. Yeah, I got your access right here, motherfucker.
cain
Democrats should also let us know which motherfucking “Democratic consultant” they are talking to. I’m am SURE we have some Republicans masquerading as Democratic consultants eager for Dem capitulation.
SteveinSC
I just sent an email to Grassley and called him a “fucking traitor.”
cain
@efgoldman:
I’m afraid he’s right. I was also pro fairness doctorine, but the cable companies are not using the public airwaves and so they are not using “public resources”. Anything the federal govt does at that point would be against the 1st amendment.
gene108
@Peale:
I think it’s more a First He came for Fox News and I said nothing and then he came for me and there was no one left instinct in the media, with regards to what Obama did.
d58826
@SFAW: It seemed self – evident that the GOP would be kicked out of any self respecting colony of pond scum.
cain
@SteveinSC:
You’re better offf telling him that you’ve turned into an activist, and that you’ll be working to get more people voting against him. That is a much better credible threat.
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
WaterGirl is tired of me gloating about this, but that’s why I love that Wolff did this. He’s an outsider to that insular world of the Beltway media and he showed them all up. ???????
Scotian
@Mnemosyne:
And watching NEW Day this morning on CNN Maggie H and the hosts all trashing him, you could realty see how much that argument cuts them all to the quick, but especially the Trump Whisperer. She showed herself quite nicely for what she was, for all that she was claiming high moral values as a defence, her vibe and feel in her tone and body language was less well controlled than her words IMHO.
Looks good on them all. When I start seeing equal treatment for all poltiicos regardless of party, and clearly weighted in terms of responsibility to those who ACTIUALLY hold the power in whichever institution they belong to, then maybe I might have a shred of sympathy for them. Until then though? They are traitors to those principles of a free and fair press acting as a check on the powerful the Constitution of the USA set them out to be with that 1st Amendment thing. It was comfort the afflicted and afflict the powerful once upon a time, now of course it is quite the opposite. More than time to take the semantics war back to their doors and ram it down their quisling throats IMHO.
Tokyokie
I was listening to NPR today, and some reporter, when asked to explain why der Trumpenführer decided to rescind TPS status for 200K Salvadorans, started trying to explain the policy nuances behind the decision. I immediately turned off the radio. The one and only reason for the decision is because der Trumpenführer is a stone-cold, unapologetic, mean, cruel, ignorant, racist tub of vomit (as are his hard-core supporters). That’s the truth, and trying to make him seem reasonable is lying to the radio audience. Which became one listener fewer today.
SFAW
@d58826:
Understood, no disagreement. I’m just saying the aiming your fire at Dems, instead of Rethugs, seems counterproductive. There may be some Dems who lack spines (“MAY be???” I can hear you say), but there are others — Adam Schiff in general, DiFi today, Dingell in the past, for example — who are OK.
Ithink
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Like why bro? He did become President over a year ago, SADLY!!