Four Letter Words
WALL
The President tweeted this morning – no surprise there.
“Republicans should stop wasting their time on immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/Women in November. Dems are just playing games, have no intention of doing anything to solve this decades old problem. We can pass legislation after the Red Wave.”
The Republican controlled House failed to reach any solutions to the immigration issue this week. The Goodlatte Bill, considered a conservative response to the issue, included a legal status for Dreamers, an end to child separation at the border, and the full $25 Billion funding for the President’s Wall. Every Democrat voted against the bill, but the bill’s fate was decided by the Republican Freedom Caucus. Forty-one Republicans voted against the bill, including many of the hardline caucus members.
The key complaint of the Freedom Caucus – an eventual path to citizenship for the Dreamers.
A second, more moderate Republican alternative was pulled from consideration by Speaker Paul Ryan. The Freedom Caucus has united to stop it, and even though there would probably be enough Democratic votes to overcome the block, outgoing Speaker Ryan is unwilling to violate the unwritten “Hastert Rule.” The Republican rule states that if the bill cannot pass with Republican votes alone, the Speaker will not put it on the floor for consideration. The unwritten code puts a group like the Freedom Caucus, with enough members to prevent a Republican majority, in control.
Ryan is unwilling to risk revolt in his last few months as Speaker by negotiating with Democrats for needed assistance.
And while the Senate is considering some narrowly written bills regarding child separation, the House is unlikely to vote on any of them without getting their Wall funding. This failure marks the end of the “Zero Tolerance Maneuver” strategy from the White House, who hoped by creating the crisis on the border, they could force through immigration legislation. While the policy may continue on the border, its prime goal has failed.
DON’T
I Really Don’t Care – Do U?
First Lady Melania Trump, rumored to have influenced the President’s decision to end the “child separation” strategy, went to visit a care center in Texas yesterday. The optics of the visit were great, as she asked significant questions of the care workers, and showed great concern. Yet the carefully crafted message of a “caring” First Lady was completely blown up by a bizarre jacket choice. Mrs. Trump, on a humid eighty-degree day, wore a $39 raincoat with a large-writ message on the back: “I really don’t care – do U?” While she took the coat off upon arrival in Texas, it was back on for the flight back to DC.
So the question is: did the First Lady want to send the message that she didn’t really care about the kids? The President later tweeted that she didn’t care about the “fake news media,” but that seems like a convoluted means of sending that message. Perhaps she was sending a message to the President, but whatever the thoughts were; the jacket definitely overshadowing her intended message.
She obviously knew what she was doing – just the fact the former fashion model was wearing a “cheap” jacket proves that. So either there was a huge staff controversy about her decision prior to the trip, or someone on the staff needs to be fired. Maybe they were the same staffers who plagiarized Michelle Obama’s text for her “Be Best” book, or the convention speech. They should definitely hear the President’s trade-marked phrase.
CAMP
“Since more illegal immigrants are rushing the border, more kids are being separated from their parents and temporarily housed in what are essentially summer camps, or as the San Diego Union-Tribune described them today as looking like basically boarding schools,” – Laura Ingraham
Fox commentator Laura Ingraham decided that since there were tents and cafeteria-style meals served, the detention facilities for the children taken at the border were “summer camps.” This as contrasted to:
Senator Jeff Merkley – concentration camps
First Lady Laura Bush – internment camps
Attorney General Jeff Sessions – concentration camps is an exaggeration.
So if they are like summer camps, except for the fences and the detention, then Laura wouldn’t mind if parents could get their kids back? No job consequences were announced for Ingraham.
WOMP
“Womp-Womp” – Corey Lewendowski
Corey Lewendowski, Trump advisor and former campaign manager and currently employed by Vice President Pence’s political committee, was in a heated discussion on Fox News about child separation at the border. When his “opposing” debater mentioned a ten-year old girl with Down’s Syndrome separated from her mother, Lewendowski responded with the universal adolescent sign for indifference: “womp-womp.” The phrase, best known from cartoon character Bart Simpson, enraged the opposite speaker, but didn’t seem to faze the moderator.
The Vice President Pence had no comment on the “womps.”
