Call me crazy, but maybe the politicians incapable of negotiating the deal shouldn't get paid when **** shuts down. Them not doing their job lead to the freeze, but they keep cashing checks while other publicly funded employees not in any way responsible for their ineptitude go without? LOL Murika.

How many in Congress depend on that check? I doubt it's more than a handful if any at all.

A big part of the problem is these guys don't suffer consequences for their actions.

Politics is hard

I really don't think it was as bad as you guys are making it sound. Its not like Paul Ryan is gonna wake up after weeks (or months) of a shutdown government and be like "welp... time to pass the DREAM act". All a long shutdown would do is fire up both bases and probably make DREAMers less sympathetic to moderate Rwpublican voters. And all they gave up was what? 3 weeks of time? They can do it again in 3 weeks (or on the debt ceiling) and at least create a narrative that they aren't Ted Cruz and they're negotiating in good faith if (when) McConnell/Ryan/Trump screw them over

Agree 100% w/ 425

So I think a small part of the problem is that Ds somehow underestimated what sick, despicable liars Rs are, somehow weren’t ready for their rhetoric, and Ds weren’t willing to strongly say what they were actually fighting for.

Think I’ve got it figured out, Ds video next shutdown should be titled “It’s happening here....”. “Trump claims he is trying to stop criminal illegals, but this type of false dehumanization tactic has been used by some of history’s worst people. The simple fact of the matter is that DACA recipients are here legally and a clean history is a prequisite to participate in the program. These are our neighbors, our members of the military, our doctors, our nurses [zoom in on sad looking faces]. Trump and Rs want to destroy their lives and there is only one apparent reason..... It’s time to tell Trump we are done with his hateful agenda.

Republicans have more money, a bigger and better organization and they're better at huddling. Basically, they control the narrative better. Heck, they've already convinced their base that the intelligence community is a cesspool of liberal conspiracies.

Democrats on the other hand are more fractured and yanked of balance by a hardliner left that demands an ideological purity that simply doesn't exist.

So you end up with a situation where republicans can get away with almost anything and democrats next to nothing. I'm not saying this is unique to them, but it is what it is now. Democrats had something similar with Bill Clinton, as evident by his rise in popularity after admitting to the grand jury that he had been lying for 7 months.

I think the simple truth is that when all spirit of cooperation is gone, democracy (or a representative republic, the distinction is unimportant here) just slowly (and painfully) grinds to a halt as it ceases to function. We get annoyed and angry when looking at all these minor bits becoming dysfunctional, but the big picture is probably a lot scarier.

Repubs get away with it b/c the refuse to negotiate. They know the Dems care about others and will fold sooner or later rather than see people suffer.

I mean you had Turtle saying that the #1 priority was to make Obama a one term POTUS. The core base LOVES this ****. They live for it. You can't negotiate with it. It's like trying to compromise w/ the Terminator.

Hindsight thoughts on Harry Reid as majority/minority leader?

from reading your posts, I get the sense that you are just completely out of touch with reality. only a small subset of americans actually care about cruelly deporting dreamers. many democrats actually support it, if not relish it like the deplorables. and most of the rest just dont care that much. sure, they think its sad but oh well, "they have been here long enough", "no line cutting", "not real citizens."

thats why the democratic leadership is caving.

exactly this. so many people are just way overestimating how much ppl care about others. esp when they can rationalize it. this has happened over and over in society since the beginning of time.

This, in so much as it is true, is far more a failure of Democratic messaging than anything else. The Dreamers, with any decent messaging simply framing the issue as it is, are not a political liability. Completely the opposite.

IE. http://pollingreport.com/immigration.htm

ABC News/Washington Post Poll. Jan. 15-18, 2018. N=1,005 adults nationwide. Margin of error ± 3.5.

"Do you support or oppose a program that allows undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States if they arrived here as a child, completed high school or military service and have not been convicted of a serious crime?"

Support - 87%
Oppose - 11%
Unsure - 2%

The problem with that poll is that it misses that most of that support is just support in a vacuum.

The Republican supporters don’t really care if these people are deported or not - especially if protecting them requires them to sacrifice something. They also support really dumb and racist immigration policies.

The ‘middle’ isn’t all that better.

And that’s why this support disappears when the alternative is a shutdown. And it’s why Republicans can probably get a bunch of bull**** things (wall, immigration restrictions, etc.) in any bill that they bring forward.

re: showing the videos of trump blaming obama for the government shutdown in 2013

obviously trump wasn't blaming obama on the basis of any knowledge. he was personally very upset that our country was represented by a black president and he lashed out at every possible opportunity. trump never served in the senate. trump never even interned for a senator one summer 50 years ago, he has zero experience or knowledge about the situation from which he could begin to form an opinion. instead of rebutting his "points" intellectually the media should fasten him in a straightjacket with a muzzle and wheel him around like hannibal lecter

This is a fair and honest point. Supporting DACA and supporting DACA enough that being inconvenienced by a government shutdown is ok with you are two different questions.

Boycotting or walking out on the State of the Union are good plays.

Would have to be a walkout, if they boycott the Rs would just put staff in the D seats.

CHUCK needs to say over and over again "The American people are not going to pay 1 cent for the wall because THE DONALD told us 100,000 times that MEXICO is paying for the wall."

The leftists here hate the D's taking superficially right wing positions to troll.

Still waiting for (any) Democrats to explain what they are for and why people should vote for them.

"Look how bad the other team is" isn't working fellas

If you don’t think there’s a reason to vote Democrat right now, you never will and are a lost cause.

And it’s working pretty well for Democrats right now. They’re way more popular than Republicans and are currently on track to do as good as they can probably do in 2018.

When one party has gone bat**** crazy - it seems pretty good to have someone saying they’ll not do that.

They got CHIP funded. You're welcome.

FOX had an article that said the same thing as you except the parties were flipped... go figure.

These shutdowns are kinda lol.

Did you read the MSN article that literally over the weekend at the congressional GYM where lawmakers were working out were ANNOYED because of the lack of fresh towels due to the shutdown...

I mean HONESTLY how ****ing out of touch with reality are the people we elect on BOTH sides....who gives a **** about towels...oh rich people without a care in the ****ing world....TOWELS not people living here for 60 years being deported, not gangs, rape, or the kardashians......TOWELS

The fact that most Congress people don’t live in the real world is a problem. That a large percentage of Congress people become extremly wealthy while in Congress is a real problem.

Not surprised they would cry about not having fresh towels. They are unable to relate to their lives of 98% of their constituents.

Govman, I honestly couldn’t care less what Fox says. If they said the Republicans are on track to do well in 2018 then it’s just one more lie they’re telling.

Seriously. Anyone who is still trying to be convinced that the democrats are better or less worse than the republicans is a terminally broken human being.