Maybe I’m Jumping the Gun …
I might be jumping the gun but my reaction right now is …
Progressives are hammering Sen. Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) for his agreement with Senate Republican leadership to end the government shutdown on Monday.
Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has spoken out against the deal, saying there was no reason to support it.
“I don’t see that there’s any reason — I’m speaking personally and hearing from my members — to support what was put forth,” Pelosi said at a press briefing shortly before Schumer signaled Senate Democrats would agree to it.
There is one sign of hope.
“The Majority Leader’s comments last night fell far short of the ironclad guarantee I needed to support a stopgap spending bill,” said Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) “I refuse to put the lives of nearly 700,000 young people in the hands of someone who has repeatedly gone back on his word. I will do everything in my power to continue to protect Dreamers from deportation.”
Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) all voted against closing debate on the agreement.
It is a three week CR. The Hastert Rule on the Republican side will prevent the presentation of DACA relief. In the meantime the CHIP kids get a six year funding promise. I see some strategic thinking. The next shutdown vote will be cleaner.
1Schumer is another DNC-Centrist(i.e. Republican Lite) that wouldn’t recognize a principle if it bit him on the ass. He postures a lot but when it comes down to actually standing for something he sells out every time.
2Well, I really don’t want my sister (or her paycheck) being held hostage either. So I am going to vote for some responsible adults who (I hope) will understand that this is no way to run ANY successful organization – my God, if I tried to run my house this way (..) -and then maybe we can ADDRESS some of these problems instead of kicking the can down the road again. I think the Rethugs have about kicked it into a dead end alley so we should get a crack at it. I have no quibble w piecemeal immigration reform either: we can start the process by granting the Dreamers permanent citizenship status, because that is what they are: permanent citizens!
3Remember that as far as schumer is concerned wall street money men are his constituents voters are a nothing more then an irratating nuisence.
He got played but he wanted to get played.
4Hey, what’s the problem? Mitch McConnell said “trust me.” j/k
We did get CHIP which is good. However, we lost big on DACA. The only thing ‘funnier’ than Mitch saying “trust me” is Lyin’ Ryan saying those words. Despite what he says, he is not being held hostage by the FreeDumb Caucus. Not even a mild glimmer of Stockholm Syndrome there. He really is as st00pid as he looks and can’t count to 30 much less beyond. There are 30 alternative fact freaks in the House, so don’t look now Paulie but Leader Pelosi has a pool of 193 votes comprised of reasonable people. So puh-leeze don’t continue whining about not being able to bring reasonable legislation to a vote. Go Hastert Rule yourself, Paulie.
5No reason in the world to ever trust Chinless Wonder McTurtle or Lyin Ryan EVER, but.
Lless’s point that they’re voting on only a 3 week CR matters. This is not law enacting legislation and that does make a difference. Let’s see what becomes of this.
6mcconnell and demented donnie are already taking victory laps bragging about how they suckered shumer.
7Now they say the Russian Twitterbot-verse is ginning things up to blame the shutdown on the Dems. We need to start campaigning on Sovereignty (against those damned Russians, not Mexico!!) and Security (cyber, y’all) plus jobs and health and all the things Juanita said on a previous post. I don’t know what these wise-a$$ Rethugs are playing at, but this “brinksmanship” does not equal “fiscal responsibility” now or at any other time!
8How long will it be before the DSCC sends out fundraising letters to support the Schumer Surrender? I’m speechless.
9If you think it was a surrender, maybe you need new reading glasses. Just sayin’.
And yes, I do know how both my esteemed senators voted (and I’m mighty proud of them).
Now, get back to work and turn Congress blue come November. Me, I’ve got postcards to write for GOTV, special elections March 13.
10I think it’s frustrating, but with CHIP off the bargaining table, I think in many ways Ds have more leverage now. McTurtle will be the public scapegoat if he doesn’t deliver the clean vote.
11CBS news just reported that it was a major victory for Republicans. Maybe it was not a surrender, but it was certainly a rout.
12The McConnell promise, I think, is good not because he’s liable to keep it, but because he’s liable to break it. This allows for an easy to understand (that being a requirement to get our media to state the situation correctly) narrative: the Republicans broke their promise, the shutdown is on them.
And CHIP is okay. I’ve seen several people say that the Republicans would have to find CHIP sometime anyway, but if that were the case, why haven’t they dealt with it all these months? And even if they had let it slide for additional months and then, for no particular reason, funded it, millions of kids would be screwed in the interim.
I think Chuck Schumer did okay here. I also agree with several bloggers I’ve read who point out that the California pols who denounced the deal live where doing so is politically advantageous, and Warren and Gillibrand occupy special positions where denouncing it is advantageous as well. From a position of virtually no leverage we got CHIP funded for years and have a narrative-changing setup vis a vis the McConnell promise.
13Should have been “fund CHIP”, not “find CHIP”, in my comment above.
14I am disappointed. I am heartily sick of these “reasonable Democrats,” speaking without passion, without a stirring delivery. Schumer. I had an opportunity to meet him at a street fair in Brooklyn a year or so ago, and I decided , um no, I’m good. I have never liked him and now I think of him as a piece of taffy, taking on the shape of whatever he is wrapping around and ultimately being eaten. I know a lot of people are saying this is not so bad, that we must look ahead to what’s next, but crap, I am disappointed in yet another capitulation. As usual. Damn Schumer to hell anyway.
15Now it will be Dems love illegals more than US citizens who need help after a disaster. Bastards have been sitting on this for a month and a half already – it would have passed the senate but they withheld it as leverage on the CR, immigration, and budget deal.
16The Dems are in the minority, and the GOP chained up 800,000 children in their basement four months ago, along with taking Dreamers hostage.
Hold out for DACA and you get the messaging the GOP was starting with already: Democrats want to protect illegal immigrants [I hate that phrase] instead of helping sick children.
Go the other way, and the GOP says “The Democrats don’t care about our homeless vets” (they’re doing that now, and the GOP didn’t give a hoot when I was homeless as a vet).
Go for both at the same time, and you get nothing.
Chuck Schumer chose to free the children chained up in the basement. The GOP no longer has that as leverage (which is why they did it in the first place; they gave that away on television some time ago).
Now we go back for the rest, and have McConnell on record as saying a DACA bill will come up before the next CR, which is in only one month.
In any case, the House Freedom (Nihilist) Caucus version of the CR was to declare Dreamers “temporary residents,” which would allow mass deportation at any time.
Schumer’s been at this quite a while. It’s hardly time to throw in the towel over him not doing a hail mary pass on first and ten.
17Unfortunately, McConnell was thinking when he pulled this stunt. He can even keep his promise this time and still be home free.
Raise your hand if you think RYAN will let DACA come to a vote in the House.
Yeah, me neither.
Then McConnell’s hands are clean. “Gee, Dems, **shrug** I tried.”
It seems we’ve hit on the only way to get a Dem to grow a spine. Let them get White House stars in their eyes and they actually begin to stand for something.
And @ JDM — I think the R’s have been keeping CHIP in their back pocket for just this situation: “OK, Dems, who do you care about? American kids? Or ‘illegals?'”
And that is why Schumer blinked. He was afraid of the narrative the Republicans were putting out there.
The one thing snacilbupeR are good at: painting Dems into a corner.
18Of course the Rs “won” — they hold majorities in both Houses, and the Presidency, and SCOTUS. This outcome is not what we wanted, but I’m not sure I see what additional passion and a longer shutdown could have accomplished for the Dems. Chloe is right — the Rs knew this was coming, and took hostages.
Notice that all the Dems who might be Presidential candidates in 2020 were free to vote No — Schumer arranged that, by lining up the votes he needed elsewhere. So passionate Dems get their heros, and the deep game continues.
As it stands, SCHIP is funded for six years, so can’t be held hostage next time around. We’ll have another shutdown confrontation Feb 8th
I can’t predict whether McConnell will keep or break his “promise” (he’s had little compunction about breaking promises to Collins and Flake), but the Dems will get either some form of DACA or a talking point out of the next round.
The chaotic evil in the whole deal was of course Trump, who created much of the original problem by scuttling DACA as an executive promise, and throwing it into Congress, then stupidly agreeing to a deal and then reneging with a bait-and-switch on Shumer. It’s interesting to me that he played no role in the final resolution, except to sign his name — I think his party is learning that he can’t be allowed any agency because he can’t be trusted to understand what the fuck he’s doing.
CNN’s take on things is about as reliable and clear-eyed as that of Fox News. No matter what happened, they’d have reported it as a Republican win.
19Wow.
I know a bunch of y’all are trained political operatives, etc. blahdeblahdeblah. But I think your level of savagery against Schumer is a tad overwrought.
Yes, the Republican are crowing. But that was inevitable. Dems are outnumbered; how the hell were they ever supposed to carry the day?
But Schumer did one thing that’s invaluable. He got the GOP terrorists to give up their biggest group of hostages – the CHIP kids. And while that may make it more difficult for the DACA kids, I don’t think it will. Not having to worry about getting CHIP funded should actually free up the Dems to maneuver a bit more. And if DACA gets trashed, it will be because the GOP never intended any other outcome. McConnell has promised a public debate. If he reneges, that can be thrown back in his face every day. If the public truly does support DACA at over 80%, it will be at center stage, and they can make their feelings known to their representatives.
Schumer isn’t a fool, and he’s not a sellout. How much he can salvage from this train wreck of a Congressional session remains to be seen. But public castigation by legions of his own party members is not helpful. Cool your damn jets.
20I think we know now who is actually running the country: that sociopath Steven Miller who can’t get over getting swirlies in junior high. As for Schumer, he is dammed if he does and dammed if he doesn’t.
21Chess, people. Chess. It’s a long game. A very long exhausting and frustrating game. The child hostages are FINALLY freed, and getting a commitment to allow a vote on DACA in the next three weeks is about as good as Schumer was going to get. Everyone is watching. Make a lot of noise about DACA to your MOCs.
22Let’s all calm down, raise your hand if think the R’s are going to pass a budget that everyone can live with between now and Feb. 8. This was only part one, CHIP is taken off the table. Can’t use the kids anymore as a bargaining tool. The R’s are claiming they won, they won battle not the war.
23Willing to bet Schumer has something planned for Feb 8. Also remember McConnell also needs the democrats help to pass any budget period or any other trump related agenda.