RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Democrats force a government shutdown over DACA

Democrats and Republicans played the blame game for a government shutdown Saturday -- with both sides unable to come to an agreement on Democratic demands for language to protect illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

The shutdown kicked in at midnight Friday after Senate Democrats blocked a month-long short-term resolution to keep the government open.

While the bill would have funded the government, as well as given a six-year extension of funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Democrats rejected it as it did not include a legislative fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

That Obama-era program was repealed by Trump in September, with a March deadline for Congress to come up with a fix. While separate bipartisan immigration talks had been underway, Democrats demanded a DACA fix as part of the continuing resolution (CR), requiring Republicans to cobble together 60 votes to overcome the filibuster.

The subsequent 50-49 vote fell largely along party lines, with five Republicans voting no, and five Democrats voting yes.

On Saturday, although both the House and the Senate were in session, both sides seemed focused on pushing their respective narratives about who was to blame for the crisis.

Democrats pointed the finger at Republicans, arguing that they could not blame Democrats for the shutdown when Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., took aim at Trump, saying he had earned an F for "failure in leadership." She said Republicans are "so incompetent and negligent that they couldn't get it together to keep the government open."

“Happy anniversary Mr President,” Pelosi said. “You wanted a shutdown. The shutdown is all yours.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, said on the Senate floor that in a White House meeting on Friday, he offered Trump funding for a border wall in exchange for a DACA fix. He claimed that Trump seemed open to a deal, and they came close to an agreement but hours later he made further demands that Schumer said were untenable.

“Republican leadership can't get its tumultuous president on board with anything,” Schumer said. “The breakdown of compromise is poisoning this Congress and it all comes down to President Trump.”

Republicans, meanwhile, blasted Democrats for what they saw as holding the government “hostage” over illegal immigration. President Trump accused the Democrats of “holding our Military hostage” over their desire for “unchecked illegal immigration.”

The White House pushed back on Schumer's account of the White House meeting. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said at a briefing that Schumer had in fact offered only $1.8 billion in funding for the wall, far short of the approximately $20 billion Trump wanted. Mulvaney said Schumer still told Trump that he was giving him everything he wanted.

“Does it even become profitable to work with someone like that?” Mulvaney asked reporters.

A sign of the bitterness of the blame game came from the White House comments line, where a voicemail blamed Democrats for users being unable to use the line.

“Thank you for calling the White House, unfortunately, we cannot answer your call today because congressional Democrats are withholding government funding, including funding for our troops and other national security priorities, hostage to an unrelated immigration debate. Due to this obstruction, our government is shut down,” the voicemail said.

Both sides seemed unable to find common ground on the central issue of disagreement, DACA. Congressional lawmakers and the White House said they were not budging on DACA until the government was funded.

“The President will not negotiate on immigration reform until Democrats stop playing games and reopen the government," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

On the Democratic side, in addition to Schumer's remarks about wall funding, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., said that while he would not vote for a CR that did not include a DACA fix, he would vote for one that included a DACA fix and a border wall.

“At this point, I’m not supporting any CR that doesn’t include a fix. Now what I am telling you is, if that fix includes a wall, I’m ready,” he said.

Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement that he believed that a compromise was close and suggested a compromise that would fund the government through Feb. 8, with a commitment for the Senate to move to an immigration debate.

“After my discussions with numerous senators on both sides of the last night it is clear to me a commitment to move to immigration after February 8th is the key to ending the government shutdown and finding resolution on all the outstanding issues,” Graham said.

___________________________

Fox News’ Joseph Weber, Ed Henry, Chad Pergram, Jenny Buchholz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The federal government will be open for business Tuesday after President Trump signed a bill funding the government until Feb. 8.





Trump signed the measure Monday evening, hours after the House and Senate approved the package by wide margins as Senate Democrats backed off their opposition.

Democrats agreed to re-open the government after Republicans assured them the Senate would soon consider legislation that would protect illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children. It was a stark contrast from the Senate Democratic position just a few days ago.




“In a few hours, the government will reopen,” Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on the Senate floor on Monday.

The Senate then voted 81-18 to break a Democratic filibuster on the stalled government spending bill. Several hours later, the Senate approved the bill by the same margin and the House followed suit, 266-150.

"I am pleased that Democrats in Congress have come to their senses and are now willing to fund our great military, border patrol, first responders and insurance for vulnerable children,” Trump said in a written statement.

During Monday’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the administration expects the bill to make it to the president’s desk late Monday and the government to open at full capacity on Tuesday morning.

Sanders pushed back against the notion from Democrats that Trump wasn't doing enough behind the scenes during the shutdown. She said Trump was busy working the phones with lawmakers and Cabinet officials.

“The president was putting pressure and standing firm on exactly what he was willing to do and what he wasn't,” Sanders said. “And it very clearly worked.”
The funding and reopening of the government would allow U.S. military personnel to be paid, end the furlough of nearly 1 million federal workers and resume all federal services and operations.

After days and weeks of blaming and finger-pointing, a bipartisan group of senators met Sunday and brokered the deal in which rank-and-file members would provide the 60 votes in exchange for Senate leaders' promise to immediately proceed to immigration reform.

Democrats largely had opposed the stopgap spending bill because it did not include provisions to protect the illegal immigrants from deportation under former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order. Trump last year set a deadline of early March to end the protections, but has indicated he wants to provide permanent protections for the young illegal immigrants -- along with border security, particularly funding for his U.S.-Mexico border walll.

Under the apparent deal to end the filibuster, Schumer said Monday they would negotiate on immigration, and immediately consider such legislation if there’s no agreement by Feb. 8.

With Republicans having just 50 senators available to vote Monday, they needed the support of roughly a dozen Democratic senators to break the filibuster. They got 33.

The 18 senators who didn’t vote to end debate included Republican Sens. Mike Lee, of Utah, and Rand Paul, of Kentucky.

The 15 Democrats in opposition were Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, both of Connecticut; Cory Booker and Bob Menendez, both of New Jersey; Catherine Cortez Masto, of Nevada; Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York; Mazie Hirono, of Hawaii; Patrick Leahy, of Vermont; Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, both of Massachusetts; Jon Tester, of Montana; Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both of Oregon; and Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein, both of California. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, also voted in opposition.

Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain did not vote because he’s home fighting cancer.

Poor Chuck-you Schumer. He's even got Jimmy "Crying Vagina" Kimmel mad at him now:



At least he still has MEM...

... but as I said before I didn't see any winners...

by Larry Elder
April 6, 2006


"We can't infringe upon the right of people to move freely within our territory," said Mexican President Vicente Fox during President George W. Bush's recent visit. Earlier, Fox said he stood by the statement he previously made to the BBC: "I dare say that in 10 years, the U.S. will be begging, will be pleading with Mexico to send it workers."
Does Mexico practice what it preaches?

First, Mexico put its military and police forces on its porous, zigzagged, mountainous, crime-ridden southern border with Guatemala. Chiapas -- the South Carolina-sized southern Mexican state that shares the longest border with Guatemala -- is Mexico's poorest, most illiterate state. About Chiapas, one United Nations human rights commissioner said, "Mexico is one of the countries where illegal immigrants are highly vulnerable to human rights violations and become victims of degrading sexual exploitation and slavery-like practices, and are denied access to education and health care."

Typically, when Mexican authorities catch illegal aliens, they place them overnight in a detention center, then bus or fly them back to their country of origin. Despite the fact that Mexico militarized its border and deported 203,128 illegal immigrants in 2004, many illegals get through by bribing corrupt military and police.

Do Mexicans appreciate the way America has allowed so many poor, Mexican illegals to enter the United States? No. According to a recent Zogby poll, 73 percent of Mexicans call Americans "racist"! When asked whether the United States' wealth comes from freedom and "plenty of opportunity to work," 70 percent of Americans agreed, while only 22 percent of Mexicans agreed. Sixty-two percent of Mexicans said America became wealthy because "it exploits others' wealth."



While Americans, according to the poll, see Mexicans as hard-working (78 percent), Mexicans think of Americans as racist, intolerant and not very hard-working.

Racist?

Mexico should look in the mirror. According to the Houston Chronicle's Rachel Graves, around the turn of the 17th century, Mexico imported more African slaves than anywhere else in the New World. As a result, tens of thousands of blacks (no one knows for sure -- the Mexican census does not recognize them) live in Mexico, mostly in destitute villages in its poorest states. An estimated 30,000 to 40,000 blacks live in Costa Chica.

How do they fare? According to the Houston Chronicle, many are illiterate, struggling to get a decent education for their children from government schools. One Costa Chica missionary says, "The kids here are considered by their teachers to be largely unteachable." When stopped by the police, Mexican blacks are often instructed to sing the Mexican national anthem to prove their citizenship!

If so many Mexicans consider Americans racist, why do polls show that nearly half of Mexico's inhabitants say that their lives would improve if they could work here illegally?

Intolerant?

America legally accepts about one million immigrants per year, with perhaps as many as 12 million people living here illegally, about half of whom come from Mexico. Many estimate that 500,000 or more people enter the country illegally every year. California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante is Hispanic. So is the man who holds the powerful position of speaker of the California Assembly. Los Angeles, America's second-largest city, has a Hispanic mayor, and of the 54 members of California's congressional delegation, nine are Hispanic. The former governor of California once proposed granting driver's licenses to illegals. And in California, under some circumstances, an illegal alien can apply for the cheaper in-state college tuition. Many predict the Hispanic governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, former Clinton Cabinet member, will run for president.