Thursday, January 24, 2019

Tell me again

Whenever Trump does something outrageous, it's not attributed to his mercurial temperament or his blatant incompetence, it is attributed to his genius, and called a "distraction."  But how can it be a distraction if everyone sees it and identifies it and talks about how it shouldn't be a distraction?  Sleight of hand doesn't work like that; it works like this:

The Senate will take two votes Thursday to reopen the federal government and end the longest shutdown in history. Both votes are expected to fail. The shutdown will continue.

The pageantry of failed floor votes has become one of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s calling cards in the Senate over the past few years. They’ve proven a potent tool to defuse awkward standoffs and to navigate stalemates. It used to be that a failed bill on the Senate floor signaled weak leadership, but McConnell has used them to his tactical advantage in a highly polarized Washington.

McConnell has used this gambit before in high-pressure situations. Some Republican lobbyists in town have called it a “show them a body” strategy: holding votes you know will fail in order to break the impasse over a given issue.How this doesn't come down to one person.  

Looks like Mitch McConnell has outsmarted his opponents again, doesn't it?  But only if you ignore the context of this vote; only if you weren't paying attention yesterday:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked legislation on Wednesday that would reopen most of the government currently closed during the partial shutdown.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) went to the Senate floor to ask for consent to take up the House-passed bill that would fund every agency and department impacted by the partial shutdown, except the Department of Homeland Security, through Sept. 30.

McConnell, however, objected. It's the fourth time he's blocked the bill to reopen most of government. He has also blocked, as recently as Tuesday, a House-passed bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 8.

The hand doesn't have to be quicker than the eye if they eye is lazy and doesn't pay attention.  Or if you don't notice that the devil is in the details:

The proposed bill includes some big changes to U.S. immigration policy that were not included in the president's public announcement, such as a provision that would sharply limit asylum applications for children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

"It's a Trojan horse filled with many extreme immigration proposals," said Kerri Talbot of the Immigration Hub, an immigrants' rights organization, during a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. "The bill includes the most extreme proposals on asylum I think that I've ever seen," Talbot said.
"Good faith," it turns out, is rather faithless:

When he announced his proposal on Saturday, Trump said it includes "critical measures to protect migrant children from exploitation and abuse," including a new system that would allow Central America minors to apply for asylum in their home countries.
But the president did not mention that the proposal would in fact require migrant children to apply from their home countries and prevent them from applying in person at the border. In addition, only migrant children with a "qualified" parent in the U.S. would be permitted to apply for asylum — a sharp break from current policy.

"This historic change in asylum law would categorically block tens of thousands of children from ever applying for asylum," said Greg Chen, government relations director at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

When Trump announced the proposal over the weekend, he said the bill would provide "three years of legislative relief" for recipients of DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. DACA protects about 700,000 young immigrants, including DREAMERs, who were brought to the country illegally as children, from deportation. He also said the bill would extend protections for 300,000 holders of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS.

Protections offered to immigrants under both DACA and TPS have been targeted to end under the Trump administration, though federal courts have stepped in to extend both programs for now.

But on closer inspection, immigration experts say, the Senate GOP bill would likely cover fewer immigrants than are currently protected under DACA and TPS.
So who is at fault for this impasse, and what is the fight over?  Watch the donut, not the hole.



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