I’m not the one that first said “mainstream Democratic opposition”. That was a direct quote from steronz’s challenge. You understand that, right?
And if what you really want is “powerful members of the Democratic party”, I started by providing a quote from Nancy Pelosi (they don’t get much more powerful than her) and then followed it up with a Politico article that said “Democratic leaders are now united around delivering the president no increase over last year’s fence funding.”
So let me ask you directly, do you consider that sufficient evidence that there is “mainstream Democratic opposition to that budget proposal”?
ETA: I’m somewhat sympathetic to your “many more of them actually are in conflict with “mainstream Democrats””. I mean, WTF does “NY4WHALES” care about a wall on the southern border? What jackass thought having them sign onto the letter was a good idea?
What do you mean? In the post where steronz issued his challenge, he quoted (and bolded) “DHS proposes $1.6 billion to support the construction of 65 miles of new border wall system”. In their opposition letter, the progressive groups wrote “no to $1.6 billion”. I’m pretty sure those are all referring to the same proposal.
Then you should use it as it would be commonly understood, not as you want to twist it to score points.
Of course, you quoted her completely out of context and simply refused to admit that you did.
You are finally getting closer to making a point. Of course, “no increase” simply means that there will be a whole lot of money committed, again. There was no claim that any funds would be cut.
If you mean the $1.6 billion that the Democrats agreed to, omitting the same stupid wall demand that the GOP Senate omitted before Trump insisted it be added, I hardly consider that “opposition” to anything other than Trump’s lies and temper tantrums.
I mean it sounds like one big attempt at prevarication, in which Democrats who oppose allocating funds to Trump’s vanity wall (and it is a wall, as Trump has consistently described it for years) get accused of indifference over border security in general, which is clearly untrue.
And yet, that $1.6 billion got a lot of Democratic votes.
HD, you are relying on a bullshit tactic of picking and choosing who speaks for the Democratic Party. When it is convenient for you, you choose one or two loopy elected officials on the fringe of the party. When it’s convenient for you, you select some random progressive groups to be the arbiter of Democratic thought. This is when there’s a damned voting record of Democratic politicians to refer to!
So I ask you to use your brain - I really do believe you are a clever guy - and knock off this really flimsy cherry picking debate strategy you’ve embraced.
Dodge and Weave. “Trump’s Wall” is the closure of the entire Mexican border. Refusal to fund that boondoggle, not every effort to secure the border, is what Trump, (and Hannity and Coulter and Limbaugh, etc.), mischaracterize as not wanting a secure border.
(Does it not make you feel put upon to have to defend that pack of liars?)
Democrats have already agreed to the $1.6B in committee. What happened was that Trump decided that wasn’t good enough and started negotiations over with $5.7B as his starting point. Democrats, predictably, have rolled back the previous agreement and have started their negotiating at $0B.
If you want to characterize standard negotiation tactics as opposition then have at it, declare your rhetorical victory and pat yourself on the back. But the fact that Democrats have already agreed to $1.6B for wall suggests to me that they’re not opposed to it. I’m 100% convinced that, absent Trump’s current tantrum, congress would go back to the negotiating table come up with a bipartisan plan that included <drumroll> the $1.6B for new barrier construction that DHS requested. And wouldn’t that be a good thing? The government opens, DHS gets their money for border improvements which makes us all safer, everyone wins! Except Trump. And we’re all losing now because of this nonsense.
Well, as much as you people might want to pin this on the Democrats, the Republicans had two whole years of solid majority control in which they were in a much stronger position to build whatever they pleased. Trump didn’t see any reason to pitch a tantrum or shut down the government. I’m waiting for someone to explain to me why not.
It is blatantly clear that when Republicans go two years without building a wall, Trump didn’t care. Now that Democrats control the House, it has suddenly become a national emergency. If it wasn’t important in the last two years, I don’t see why it is important now.
I also remember being told Mexico would pay for it. Why should our Congress authorize money for a wall Mexico is supposed to pay for?
Well, he spent his first 2 years fully occupied with trying to impede the Mueller investigation. That was no small amount of work in between golf vacations.
(ETA: By the way, isn’t it nice to be able to talk about aspects of the Trump presidency in the past tense? I think it is.)
That bit as usual leaves a lot of context:
[From the first link]
In essence: Trump changed the deal that was made before (11/27/18)
This is excellent in the sense that you pointed to yet another item of why we are in this Trump shutdown, that was more evidence that shows why Trump can not be trusted.