Trump Dump: Internal Policy (Thread I)

[FaxModem1]

How long until we get a large scale mutiny desertion, if armed forces personnel start missing their salaries.

Seriously, this is governing 101, especially for would be despots- keep the guys with the guns happy.

Everyone non-Coast Guard still has their salaries. However, I'm sure that if they're acquainted with anyone CG, they're probably not happy about it. Or if they're on food stamps, and those disappear next month.

[bilateralrope]

How many times in history has refusing to pay the armed forces not led to an uprising attempt against the government ?

[Dominus Atheos]

I can't tell if that's a rhetorical question or not.

Like half the roman emperors were deposed that way. A whole bunch of times in other empires too.

[bilateralrope]

Slightly serious. I'm curious if the count is zero or just a very low number.

[Broomstick]

For all the military worship that goes on in the US I think a lot of people consider the Coast Guard less serious or less a part of the military than the other branches.

Also, Trump seems determined to screw actual border security - not paying Coast Guard, TSA, etc. I have to wonder if that's in hopes of Something Terrible happening so he can use it as an excuse to further his agenda (if he even has one).

[The_Saint]

...
Also, Trump seems determined to screw actual border security - not paying Coast Guard, TSA, etc. I have to wonder if that's in hopes of Something Terrible happening so he can use it as an excuse to further his agenda (if he even has one).

I have wondered if Trump's thought process goes something along the lines of:

Anyone: "look coast guard/DHS/border security are running short of personnel THIS IS A CRISIS"
Trump: "We wouldn't need all of them / quite so many of them ... if we had a wall"


Maybe this is a cost cutting exercise... that's what you do in business right?

Step 1: cut resources
Step 2: cut staffing
step 3: ... (take money from staffing and resources and put in executive bonus fund)
Step 4: PROFIT

Maybe it's gut services > saves money (somehow?) > HAS money > build a wall with money >aren't I amazing, I said I'd do a thing and I've done that thing > get re-elected

[Knife]

It'll get worse. Those paychecks are now not going to the local grocery store or the local restaurants. The local barbers who cut their hair to regs, the dry cleaning places who clean their uniforms aren't getting that business right now. Any local business those CG peeps usually go to they probably aren't now. Any where this is a Coast Guard base or installation, the surrounding economy is going to be hit hard.

[LaCroix]

It also means that scheduled maintenance will not happen, and result in more expensive repairs down the line if equipment fails.
Because boats and copters need a lot of attention to keep running properly, but they can't afford to not use them.

[Elfdart]

How many times in history has refusing to pay the armed forces not led to an uprising attempt against the government ?

Mugabe got the hook for just that.

[FireNexus]

I think Mitch is unwilling to open the gov because he is unwilling to do any legislation that will cause a veto override. 67 senators overriding a Trump veto will lend legitimacy to calls for impeachment.

[Crossroads Inc.]

So not surprising, Trumps “BIG ANNOUNCEMENT“ to get the government reopened, is basically the exact same deal, but with a “temporary” extension of DACA, which he broke in the first place

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/19/68687660 ... wall-money

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm relieved, because I had honestly expected today to be an announcement of a "state of emergency" and militarization of the government to bypass Congress. Instead, we get perhaps the first clear sign that Dickless is blinking first.

Pelosi preemptively rejected the deal, which on the one hand... I agree, its a shitty deal, reopening the government should not be conditional upon ANY funding to the Wall, and in any case Trump cannot be trusted to keep any deal he makes. And I am delighted that Pelosi seems to have finally found her backbone. But I do worry that she's overplaying her hand here, that as people become more and more frustrated and desperate over the shutdown, it will become easier for Trump to play this as the Democrats being partisan and unwilling to come to the table.

[mr friendly guy]

I have heard about the financial hardships of government employees due to the shutdown. Depending on who you ask, the number of Americans who live pay check to pay check is between 1/3 to as high as 80%. My question is, how often do Americans usually get paid? I get paid fortnightly, and if someone had to live pay check to pay check that would be bad. If one gets paid monthly, its not so bad.

[darkjedi521]

Working for various companies, my pay has been weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, and monthly. Hourly tends to be the first two, salary the last two.

[The Romulan Republic]

Currently living in Canada, but I get paid by the hour, and I get paid twice a month: once in the middle of the month and once at the end of the month (or the closest business day). That seems to be a fairly typical scheme here- IIRC my brother gets paid twice a month as well.

[LadyTevar]

I have heard about the financial hardships of government employees due to the shutdown. Depending on who you ask, the number of Americans who live pay check to pay check is between 1/3 to as high as 80%. My question is, how often do Americans usually get paid? I get paid fortnightly, and if someone had to live pay check to pay check that would be bad. If one gets paid monthly, its not so bad.

Most get paid every two weeks, but not for the work done that pay period, for the work done the payperiod before. This means people newly hired are often waiting four (4) weeks for their first paycheck. It's called "Withholding" and it's legal. When you quit/are fired, you get one extra paycheck.

Some government agencies only pay twice a month -- middle (15/16th) and end (30/31st).

[The Romulan Republic]

...
Also, Trump seems determined to screw actual border security - not paying Coast Guard, TSA, etc. I have to wonder if that's in hopes of Something Terrible happening so he can use it as an excuse to further his agenda (if he even has one).

I have wondered if Trump's thought process goes something along the lines of:

Anyone: "look coast guard/DHS/border security are running short of personnel THIS IS A CRISIS"
Trump: "We wouldn't need all of them / quite so many of them ... if we had a wall"


Maybe this is a cost cutting exercise... that's what you do in business right?

Step 1: cut resources
Step 2: cut staffing
step 3: ... (take money from staffing and resources and put in executive bonus fund)
Step 4: PROFIT

Maybe it's gut services > saves money (somehow?) > HAS money > build a wall with money >aren't I amazing, I said I'd do a thing and I've done that thing > get re-elected

Oh yeah, Orange Thing and his lackies/advisors are definitely trying to manufacture a crisis so they can militarize the government in the name of "saving" the country from the crisis they created.

Its like Palpatine, only stupider and more obvious.

[The Romulan Republic]

Some Democrats are apparently joining Republicans in calling for Trump to declare a national emergency. I DO NOT care for the "Both Sides" tone this article takes about a situation for which the Trump Regime is entirely and by its own admission responsible, but for lack of time and a better source:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/as-shutdo ... c-measures

President Donald J. Trump won most of the headlines this weekend for his non-starter offer to end the government shutdown with concessions on DACA, but his latest Hail Mary is seen by Democrats as pure optics without a tinge of substance.

With true negotiations stalled, some moderate Democrats are now joining the chorus of Republicans calling on Trump to just declare a national emergency, or for their party leaders to capitulate a tad and set up an outside commission to overcome this childish impasse.

Week four of this historic shutdown began with a bang as Trump surrounded himself with immigrant props in the Oval Office for a naturalization ceremony ahead of his address, in which he offered to grant temporary reprieve for the recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in exchange for his coveted wall. But that proposal was almost instantly batted away by most Democrats.

FOOL'S GOLD
Democrats Would Be Idiots to Support Trump’s Shutdown Deal

Frank Sharry

“Trump’s offer is not a serious offer. It has no chance of passing,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) texted The Daily Beast after the address. “It’s just not a serious proposal.”

That’s not good news for the hundreds of thousands of federal workers and contractors going without pay, let alone the millions of Americans who rely on them in one way or another. It means we’re now back to square one, and that’s not a good starting point for anyone.

“I think things look a little bleak right now,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), the chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, told a gaggle of reporters at the Capitol last week.

Even with the president’s speech and new offer, absolutely nothing has changed in the past few days and even weeks. While there have been bipartisan negotiations taking place at the Capitol, top Democratic and Republican leaders aren’t a part of them.

RELATED IN POLITICS

Trump Goes MIA in Effort to Win Dems Over in Shutdown Fight

Here’s How House Democrats Can Play Hardball With Trump

Big Trouble for Junior Trump
Shelby characterized those behind-the-scenes efforts by moderates to end this petty stalemate as “tilting at windmills” unless they force Trump and top Democrats back to the proverbial conference room table. But all sides are refusing to even entertain the thought.

STALEMATE
Trump Goes MIA in Effort to Win Dems Over in Shutdown Fight

Jackie Kucinich,
Sam Stein,
Asawin Suebsaeng

That’s unacceptable to moderate Democrats, some of whom are now encouraging Trump to declare an emergency at the southern border and then just let the courts figure it out while government employees start working and receiving their much-needed paychecks again. With powerful congressional leaders like Shelby dismissing the bipartisan talks out of hand, some are now calling for drastic measures to end the impasse.

“Well, if that’s the case then I’m begging the president—please declare a national emergency,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) told The Daily Beast. “Please do it Mr. President, because we are in a political meltdown.”

Manchin supports more border security funding than other Democrats, but he also doesn’t necessarily think the emergency declaration is legal. Still, he says it’s time for Trump to do it.

“The courts are there—equal powers are there. Three branches of government are there for a purpose, and we have the courts intervening a lot: constitutional, unconstitutional, this and that. So this would be no different than that,” Manchin argued.

Trump’s top allies at the Capitol say he just wants a win—anything to show his base that he delivered.

“He’s not going to agree to open it back up and then have Speaker Pelosi say, ‘Thank you very much. You get nothing,’” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told reporters at the Capitol.

Some have floated reopening the government for a few weeks—or even just a day so government employees can get their back pay, which Kennedy laughs off.

“You know when that’s going to happen? When you look outside your window and see donkey’s fly. It’s not going to happen,” Kennedy said. “It’s just not going to happen.”

DEAD ON ARRIVAL
Trump's Latest Shutdown Offer Is a Non-Starter for Democrats

Gideon Resnick

That’s why Manchin isn’t alone in his call for an emergency declaration that he doesn’t even necessarily support.

“I don’t think it’s important that the president loses,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) told The Daily Beast. “We don’t want to build the wall, the wall is stupid and inefficient, but there is some way that he can save face.”

Beyer says he agrees with the current Democratic strategy, which is to open up as much of the government as possible and save the wall negotiations for last. But as party leaders keep moving further apart, he also thinks an emergency declaration by Trump is now politically warranted, even if he doesn’t think it’s constitutional.

“That’s a way, I think, for him to claim a win and yet get the government open,” Beyer added. “And let the courts figure it out.”

The GOP’s rank and file are also growing more angsty.

“My frustration is, honestly, this should have been done last year. We all know that,” Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) told The Daily Beast. “This ought to have been all hands-on deck—nobody does anything else til this gets done. I mean, this is a five-alarm crisis right now.”

Lawmakers’ offices are still getting flooded with calls, but conservatives say this is different than what they’re used to with high-profile political issues. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) says the calls to his office have been roughly split in half from opponents and supporters of the wall, which is odd.

“It just tells me that both sides are truly eager to make their wishes known, and for the first time, at least in a longtime, that both sides are equally represented,” Scott told The Daily Beast. “Typically when you have issues like this 80 percent of the folks who call in are in opposition to it. This time you have a lot of people that are calling in who are in support of it.”

To Scott, Chairman Shelby is spot on when he calls the current atmosphere in Washington “bleak.”

“It suggests to me that people are dug in, and they want their representatives to stay where they are,” Scott continued.

How do you get leaders from either party to budge when their core constituencies are promising to punish them if they move an inch? Some Democrats say it’s time to allow both sides to save face by just setting up a bipartisan commission of sorts to hammer out a serious compromise.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) has floated a proposal to set up a panel of six people—two appointed by Trump, two by the House, and two by the Senate. Something along those lines may give the president the out he needs, according to some lawmakers.

“Trump can [then] declare victory, but let’s actually use the science and facts to figure out the best way to protect the border,” Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA) told The Daily Beast.

A simple panel, which has effectively worked in the past, is merely kicking the can down the road, though it also gets the government operating again. But Trump isn’t like past presidents.

“Any other normal president would step up and say, ‘Look, I see the country suffering. I’m going to be the bigger person here. I’m going to open the government up, and then I’m going to ask the Democrats to come back to the table,” Bera said. “And then he can declare victory, because that’s what a leader would do, but he is who he is. So...”

Knowing that makes even the growing number of more moderate Democrats who are clamoring to find a way out of this political shit show stop short of being upset with Democratic leaders. They argue that it’s been impossible to negotiate with this reality-TV-star-turned-commander-in-chief who has changed his position regularly throughout this manufactured ordeal.

“That’s a part of the problem, I think, our leadership has in terms of negotiating, is just not knowing what he wants to do today,” Bera added.

While Democratic leaders and Trump continue to try and out perform each other on cable and social media—like with Pelosi’s call to delay the State of the Union address or the president’s petty rebuttal of canceling her military escort to visit troops in a war zone—many moderates are pushing their leaders to get more creative, even as they recognize that both parties have backed themselves into corners that are hard to escape from without receiving an intense backlash from their respective bases.

“There’s a lot of people that have been involved, that want to be involved and move it forward,” Sen. Manchin of West Virginia said. “But if it’s just ‘No,’ ‘No’ and ‘Hell, no!’, it’s just hard on either side.”

Fuck these Quisling scum. Are they really so short-sighted, so cowardly? That they are encouraging Trump to simply ignore Congressional oversight by using the military to carry out his edicts, so that they can avoid having to take a hard stand? Do they not understand that a state of emergency is not a way out for Trump to save face (as bad as that would be), but part of the intent behind this shutdown? That its goal is to centralize more executive power to himself, and neuter Congress's ability to conduct its Constitutional role as a check on the President? Or are they that overconfident that the Supreme Court would rule against Trump?

I want to know the name of every one of these "Democrats", I want them primaried, and frankly I'm not sure I could condone voting for them in the general election, even if it means a Republican victory (which is a very hard thing for me to say). Because they are talking about conceding to Trump the power to effectively declare martial law. And that is unforgivable.

I also want to tell every single person who disagreed with me when I said that Democrats should not vote for Manchin after the Kavanaugh vote, even if it meant losing the seat to a Republican, "I told you so." Because here we see him openly calling on Trump to declare a state of emergency he himself acknowledge may be illegal, willingly sacrificing the entire system of checks and balances on which the American Republic is founded for an easy way out of a temporary political impasse.

I have argued and will continue to argue against "Bernie or Bust" style bullshit, and arguments that Democrats collectively are "no different than/just as bad as" Republicans. I don't demand a perfect nominee who agrees with me on every issue. I don't demand purity. But there has to be a line somewhere, and if its not giving Trump the power to illegally bypass Congressional oversight by using the military to carry out his whims, then where the fuck is it? There has to be a line somewhere, or there is no opposition- just different shades of collaborator. Any Democrat who supports this should be denied party support. Let them run under Republican colours if that is their view. Our party will be better off without them.

[Jub]

Hey, TRR not to belittle your efforts, but aside from posting here and looking for thumbs up from the echo chamber, what are you doing about this IRL? You seem very passionate about getting rid of Trump, so I'd love to hear less terrible news about Trump and more about the local political groups and write in campaigns you're a part of. Maybe we could start a political activism thread where we share what we're doing about these issues instead of just posting here and getting mad/sad/whatever in a forum where nothing we propose matters or creates a positive change.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hey, TRR not to belittle your efforts, but aside from posting here and looking for thumbs up from the echo chamber, what are you doing about this IRL? You seem very passionate about getting rid of Trump, so I'd love to hear less terrible news about Trump and more about the local political groups and write in campaigns you're a part of. Maybe we could start a political activism thread where we share what we're doing about these issues instead of just posting here and getting mad/sad/whatever in a forum where nothing we propose matters or creates a positive change.

You think this board is a political echo chamber? That's cute. I guess you haven't participated in any discussions of Trump/Russia, US foreign policy, whether all Westerners are innately evil/all actions by non-Westerners are innately justified, Bernie Sanders/the 2016 primary...

But leaving all that aside... I don't like to boast, but since you ask:

I am, as I have mentioned many times on this board, a member of and volunteer for Democrats Abroad. I have admittedly not been very active lately due to other concerns which have been taking up my time, but I attended a number of rallies/marches last year, attended voter registration drives, and donated 100 dollars last year to Democrats Abroad. And in non-US politics (I am a dual citizen currently residing in Canada, but I regard the fight against Neo-Fascism as a global one), I volunteered for and donated to the BC Green Party in 2017, and last fall ran as a candidate for my local Municipal Council as a democratic socialist (a campaign to which I contributed a significant amount of my own money, while working at barely above minimum wage). I have also attend and actively participated in various local political meetings/town halls/council meetings over the last few years.

No doubt I could have done more, but I doubt most people on this board have done more.

As to your suggestion of a "political activism thread", I strongly support it.

Edit: And frankly, if I'm going to get chewed out for posting news articles, why do we even have a news and politics forum? Why not just shut the whole board down if no one wants to talk any more?

[Broomstick]

Let's see...

Federal workers are now multiple pay periods without a check. As I predicted, they are starting to be unable to pay their bills.

The last of the food stamp allotments will go to the states on February 1. After that, whether or not the eligible continue to get food stamps will depend entirely on what state those folks live in.

HUD is not moving any money. That means Section 8 (subsidized) housing vouchers are not being paid. Tenants reliant on Section 8 are now facing landlords demanding the full, unsubsidised amount of rent and being threatened with eviction.

Also due to HUD not moving money various types of shelter housing are facing being shut down - that's homeless shelters, battered women shelters, etc.

Probably more Bad Stuff happening, but we're on our way to hungry homeless hordes.

I am not feeling good about any of this.

[Crazedwraith]

US Supreme Court allows Trump military transgender ban

The United States Supreme Court has allowed President Donald Trump to enforce his policy of banning certain transgender people from the military.

The court voted 5-4 to grant a Trump administration request to lift injunctions blocking the policy while challenges continue in lower courts.

The four liberal judges on the court opposed the ruling.

The policy prohibits "transgender persons who require or have undergone gender transition" from serving.

What is the transgender policy?
The president announced on Twitter in 2017 that the country would no longer "accept or allow" transgender Americans to serve in the military, citing "tremendous medical costs and disruption".

Former defence secretary Jim Mattis refined the policy to limit it to transgender individuals with a history of gender dysphoria, or when a person's biological sex and identity does not match.

He said the new policy would make exceptions for several hundred transgender people already serving openly or willing to serve "in their biological sex".

There are currently some 8,980 active duty transgender troops, according to Department of Defence data analysed by the Palm Center, a public policy nonprofit.

Gen Mattis in his memo argued that "by its very nature, military service requires sacrifice," and that those who serve "voluntarily accept limitations on their personal liberties".

The move is a reversal of an Obama administration policy that ruled transgender Americans could serve openly in the military as well as obtain funding for gender re-assignment surgery.


What are the legal challenges?
Several trial judges around the country had issued injunctions blocking the ban.

One injunction was reversed in a federal appeals court earlier this month, with a three-judge panel ruling the policy was not a "blanket ban" on transgender troops, and so the courts should defer to the executive branch's military decisions.

Pentagon spokeswoman Lt Col Carla Gleason said in a statement that the military treats "all transgender persons with respect and dignity" and the new policy was "based on professional military judgement".

She said the "proposed policy is NOT a ban on service by transgender persons. It is critical that [the defence department] be permitted to implement personnel policies that it determines are necessary to ensure the most lethal and combat effective fighting force in the world."

The Trump administration had also appealed for an expedited ruling on the case, which the Supreme Court declined to take up.

While Mr Trump's rationale for banning transgender troops was financial, according to estimates by the RAND Corporation, a policy think tank working with the US Armed Forces, transition-related healthcare costs are between $2.4m (£1.8m) and $8.4m per year.

In 2017, defence data viewed by the Palm Center indicates that cost was in fact lower, at $2.2m.

What is reaction?
The top court's ruling has sparked outrage and frustration online.

Charlotte Clymer, a transgender Army veteran, tweeted: "This is a hateful and cowardly policy."

Others, however, said the ban just meant transgender troops must "conform to dress code/physical standards like everyone else".

Democratic lawmakers were quick to criticise the Republican administration. California senator and 2020 presidential hopeful Kamala Harris called for a reversal of the policy. Her fellow senator, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, echoed similar sentiments.

More links and images at the article location.

[The Romulan Republic]

Shame on the Supreme Court. A few years ago it was a guarantor of civil liberties and equality. Now it is increasingly become (as it was prior to the mid-20th. Century) a tool of bigotry and discrimination.

[The Romulan Republic]

Pelosi hits the Donald where it hurts- in his audience:

https://globalnews.ca/news/4882153/dona ... ion-delay/

U.S. President Donald Trump said in a late night Tweet on Wednesday that he would delay a State of the Union address until the government shutdown was over, responding to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s move to obstruct his plans for the speech.

Earlier in the day, Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives floated the idea of ending the partial government shutdown by giving Trump most or all of the money he seeks for security along the Mexican border but for items other than the wall he wants.

WATCH: Trump — Construction of border wall would reduce crime in the U.S. by 50 per cent

As a shutdown that has left 800,000 federal workers without pay hit its 33rd day, Pelosi effectively disinvited Trump from delivering the annual State of the Union address in the House chamber until the government is fully opened.

The Republican president responded to the Democrat speaker with a tweet.

“This is her prerogative – I will do the Address when the Shutdown is over. I am not looking for an alternative venue for the SOTU Address because there is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber,” the president said in the tweet.

“I look forward to giving a “great” State of the Union Address in the near future!”

Other leaders in the Democratic-controlled House said they were drafting a funding offer they will likely make to Trump in a letter.

WATCH: Trump — Democrats have become ‘radicialized’; Chuck Schumer gets ‘dominated’ by Nancy Pelosi

Representative James Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat, said Democrats could fulfill Trump‘s request for $5.7 billion for border security with technological tools such as drones, X-rays and sensors, as well as more border patrol agents.

Representative Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, said Democrats also would discuss “substantial sums of additional money” for border security as part of a possible deal. He did not say if it would amount to the $5.7 billion sought by Trump.

The president triggered the shutdown last month by demanding money for the wall, opposed by Democrats, as part of any legislation to fund about a quarter of the government. Clyburn’s offer would be a significant monetary increase over bills previously passed by Democrats, which included only about $1.3 billion for this year in additional border security, with none for a wall.

READ MORE: ‘Stop the Wall, Open the Government’ day of action set for Jan. 29

“Using the figure the president put on the table, if his $5.7 billion is about border security then we see ourselves fulfilling that request, only doing it with what I like to call using a smart wall,” Clyburn told reporters.

Republican Representative Tom Cole, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, told reporters the Democratic proposal could help.

“Any movement, any discussion is helpful,” Cole said. “We’ve got to get past this wall-or-no-wall debate.”

WATCH: Pelosi — Trump holding his own party hostage over border wall demand

The battle over border security and government funding spilled over into a parallel dispute over the president’s State of the Union address. Trump sent a letter to Pelosi on Wednesday saying he looked forward to delivering it as scheduled next Tuesday in the House chamber. Pelosi previously had asked Trump to consider postponing it because security could not be guaranteed during the shutdown.

But Pelosi told Trump on Wednesday the House would not consider a measure authorizing his address until the shutdown ends. “Again, I look forward to welcoming you to the House on a mutually agreeable date for this address when government has been opened,” Pelosi said to Trump in a letter.

In a sign Trump may be bracing for a long shutdown, a senior administration official said agencies without funding had been asked to give the White House a list of programs that could be hurt “within the coming weeks” if the funding lapse continues.

Senate plans votes

The U.S. Senate, controlled by Trump‘s fellow Republicans, planned votes for Thursday on competing proposals that face steep odds to end the shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans a vote on a Democratic proposal that would fund the government for three weeks but does not include the $5.7 billion in partial funding for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Its prospects appeared grim. The House has passed several similar bills but Trump has rejected legislation that does not include the wall funding. McConnell previously said he would not consider a bill that Trump did not support.

READ MORE: Donald Trump’s approval rating hits all-time low amid shutdown — poll

McConnell also planned to hold a vote on legislation that would include wall funding and a temporary extension of protections for “Dreamers,” people brought illegally to the United States as children, an offer Trump made on Saturday. Trump‘s 2017 plan to rescind protections against deportation for hundreds of thousands of “Dreamers” has been blocked by the courts.

Democrats have dismissed the offer, saying they would not negotiate on border security before reopening the government, and that they would not trade a temporary extension of the immigrants’ protections in return for a permanent border wall they have called ineffective, costly and immoral.

Barclays economists said on Wednesday they reduced their outlook on U.S. economic growth in the first quarter to an annualized rate of 2.5 percent from an earlier projection of 3 percent as a result of the shutdown.

Furloughed federal workers are struggling to make ends meet during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Many have turned to unemployment assistance, food banks and other support, or have sought new jobs.

Pelosi raised the possibility of doing this earlier, to which Trump retaliated by leaking her travel plans for an official trip to the Middle East (twice), creating a security risk and forcing her to cancel- an act which in my opinion borders on Treason. Pelosi, however, went through with the threat, and Trump will be the first President disinvited to hold a State of the Union address.

Good for Pelosi. This mess is entirely Trump's fault, and while I don't know what cause Pelosi to suddenly grow a spine, she has in the last couple months done more to stand up to him effectively than anyone save perhaps Robert Mueller has done previously.

[The Romulan Republic]

The symbolism is significant too- the State of the Union speech is a symbol of the Presidency. By denying it to Trump, Pelosi is in some way almost denying his legitimacy as President.