All you have to do is dream!
What a week it has been, bookended by DACA related news coverage. First, the government went into a brief shutdown Saturday, January 20 because Congress could not come to an agreement largely because the Democrats were insisting that the budget approval be contingent upon the continuation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. If DACA were allowed to expire, the 800,000 illegal immigrants who arrived in the US as children, the so called “dreamers”, would face an uncertain status as President Trump has discussed plans to phase out the program.
Interestingly enough, the Democrats continued to insist upon tying the budget resolution to a plan for DACA despite the fact that recent polling indicates that the majority of Americans believe that saving DACA is not worth a government shutdown. According to a CNN poll which was taken between January 14-18, 56%of Americans believe that “approving a budget to avoid a shutdown is more important than continuing the DACA program”.
The shutdown which was dubbed the “Schumer Shutdown” after the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (apparently the alliteration makes it catchier than a “Trump Shutdown”) ended on Monday January 22 with the Senate voting 81-19, and the House voting 266-150, to re-open the government and continue funding through February 8.
So what did the Democrat DACA dance accomplish? Nothing. In fact, it failed to deliver upon its primary objective, hijacking the media attention away from President’s Trump’s one-year anniversary in office. By Thursday January 25, it was President Trump humming “California Dreaming” when he announced his new immigration proposal. The plan includes a pathway to citizenship for as many as 1.8 million dreamers, $25 billion in spending to build the border wall and also calls for an end to chain migration and the visa lottery system.
Of course, Minority Leader Schumer and other Democrats have wasted no time in lambasting the president’s proposal with Dianne Feinstein describing President Trump and the Republicans as “using the Dreamers as a bargaining chip for their wish list of anti-immigrant policies”.
How is proposing a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants “anti-immigrant”? And as for the $25 billion to build the wall, the liberals jump all over this because they don’t like the concept of an actual physical wall because they perceive it as excluding people. These same liberals have no problem with living in gated communities and paying exorbitant fees for country club memberships etc. Aren’t those barriers to entry also?
Money Money Money
President Trump made more headlines this week with his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, making him the first sitting president to participate in the event since President Bill Clinton attended in 2000. Davos turned out to be a tailored-made public relations moment for President Trump where he was able to deliver his message that “America is open for business” and tout his successful implementation of policies to invigorate the US economy including the creation of 2.4 million jobs, the passage of the most significant piece of tax reform legislation since the Reagan Administration which includes the reduction of corporate taxes from 35% to 21%, and his stunning ratio of cutting twenty-two regulations for every new regulation implemented.
Trump also took on the global elites by saying that “America first does not mean America alone.” Once again, President Trump was the rock star at Davos with country leaders, corporate executives and journalists lining up to listen to him speak. And speaking of the media, even the New York Times conceded that the trip was a success. In an article titled “Trump arrived in Davos as a party wrecker. He leaved praised a pragmatist.” Peter Goodman and Keith Bradsher say that “there was a rough consensus” at Davos that the Trump Administration is “more pragmatic than advertised” and that many of the individuals present at the forum “view the President’s most extreme positions as just aggressive bargaining postures”.
Really? Hasn’t that been Trump’s platform all along that he is going to apply business principles and tough negotiating skills to the management of our country?
It’s not the text. It’s the subtext.
The week also included the revelation of yet more uncovered texts between FBI love birds, agent Peter Strzok and attorney Lisa Page. Strzok and Page reportedly exchanged 50,000 texts on FBI issued mobile devices over a two-year period while engaged in an extra-marital affair. Recent evidence indicates that they were also using personal devices to communicate about government business. Many of these texts which reflected an anti-Trump, pro-Hillary Clinton bias were exchanged before the 2016 election and while Strzok was a top investigator on Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State. Yes, that’s right. Strzok was investigating Clinton for using a personal device for government business while committing the same policy violation. Strzok and Page also briefly served on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.
Recently, a batch of missing texts from the five-month time period of December 14, 2016-May 17, 2017 surfaced. The texts were originally described as missing due to an alleged technical problem with the FBI issued mobile phones. The treasure trove of texts which were recently released by the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, reveal beyond a shadow of a doubt that both Strzok and Page were concerned about aggressively investigating Clinton. In a text dated February 25, 2016, Page writes to Strzok: “She might be our next President” … “The last thing you need (is) going in there loaded for bear.” Page went on to say, “You think she’s going to remember or care that it was more (DOJ) than (FBI)?”
Now if that is not a Watergate moment, I don’t what is. Furthermore, how did Strzok and Page have so much time to text? Didn’t they have enough work to do?
Seems Like Old Times
I have this bizarre sense of déjà vu. It is as if we are back in the 2016 presidential campaign. In one corner we have President Trump issuing new policy and celebrating his economic achievements on the world stage. In the other corner, we have the Democrats holding the budget hostage and hiding biased incriminating texts.
photo credit: Gage Skidmore Donald Trump via photopin (license)
