BTRTN: Time for Republicans to Build a Tunnel Underneath Trump's Wall

[reggieandlee]

Born to Run the Numbers offers Republicans a way out of their self-imposed shutdown madness:

http://www.borntorunthenumbers.com/2019/01/btrtn-time-for-republicans-to-build.html

Excerpts:

"Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi isn’t even breaking a sweat to flummox the Lummox-in-Chief. For starters, she realizes that Trump’s tiny head is in an internecine vise within his party, and she is letting those competing forces do her heavy lifting. Trump cannot retreat from his $5.7 billion demand for a border wall without triggering a ghostly visitation from the terrifying Coultergeist, the right wing fanatics who will deal Trump a full-on Lorena Bobbitt if he flinches. Trump has now learned that his fallback plan – to declare a national emergency in order to commandeer funds for his wall from other government budget lines – scared the crap out of the Freedom Caucus, whose members quickly realized that establishing such a precedent could embolden a future Democratic President to declare a national emergency for sweeping action on climate change. Finally, Trump’s belief that he can wait out the Democrats on the shutdown is perilously flawed, as public opinion is overwhelmingly placing the blame for the shutdown on Trump...

"It all raises a very simple and relevant question for Republicans: when you find yourself stuck behind a gigantic wall, what do you do?
Do you sit there and just hope it goes away? Do you hope somebody else comes and removes it? Or do you just do nothing, and allow it to defeat you? United States Border Patrol officials will give you an answer. People in the former East Berlin will give you a similar one..."

[PJMcK]

1. Quite a good column

There's an excellent suggestion towards the end that tells Republican lawmakers to do their jobs out of the spot light, quietly make veto-proof deals with Democrats, pass the legislation and let Trump veto it (to preserve his "credibility" with the far-Right), then override the veto. It's kind of a win for all sides.

But this part about Giuliani cracked me up:

At this point, you’d expect that if rumors were to emerge that Mueller’s team actually has a copy of a “golden showers” video tape that Christopher Steel alleged to exist in his famous “dossier,” Rudy would careen down to CNN headquarters and get into a high testosterone shouting match with Chris Cuomo, ranting, “Now, Chris, I have not seen the tape, but heaven’s sake, Chris, watching a Russian prostitute urinate on your bed is not a crime! It’s not collusion, Chris! And collusion isn’t even a crime, Chris! So if some Russian prostitute urinated on some bed in Moscow, Chris, I can’t imagine why it is even relevant to anything at all!”

Such an exchange would of course only serve to convince America that the tape must exist. It must be real. Hiring Rudy Giuliani for damage control is like vacuuming your carpet with a fertilizer spreader.

That's an excellent explanation of how Giuliani has become such a freak and weirdo.