Day: January 11, 2019

Declaring an Emergency Would Be a Loss, Not a Win

Buck Banks

But taking away disaster-relief money? We have no idea what kind of electoral effect that would have because no president has ever done anything that stupid. (Okay, I can think of one possible equivalent, President Jimmy Carter’s ill-fated grain embargo before the 1980 election. It’s hard to say how much that hurt him, but emulating Carter’s famous mistakes really isn’t something to be proud of.) Let’s just say that if there’s anything voters might remember that long and actually punish above and beyond their normal voting behavior it would be taking away tangible benefits from them in a time of need. … That’s all on top of an unpopular shutdown over an unpopular policy by an unpopular president.

— Jonathan Bernstein

Trump’s Approval Dropping

Buck Banks

41%

According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 41.0 percent approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 53.9 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -12.9 points). That’s a drop from one week ago when, 41.4 percent of Americans approved and 53.4 percent disapproved of the president (a net approval rating of -12 points). And it’s an even greater decline from one month ago when he had an approval rating of 42.1 percent and a disapproval rating of 52.6 percent, for a net approval rating of -10.5 points.

Why Congress Is So Dumb

Buck Banks

“Our decay as an institution began in 1995, when conservatives, led by Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), carried out a full-scale war on government. Gingrich began by slashing the congressional workforce by one-third. He aimed particular ire at Congress’s brain, firing 1 of every 3 staffers at the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Research Service and the Congressional Budget Office. He defunded the Office of Technology Assessment, a tech-focused think tank. Social scientists have called those moves Congress’s self-lobotomy, and the cuts remain largely unreversed.”

— Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), writing in the Washington Post

Giuliani Wants Chance to ‘Correct’ Mueller’s Report

Buck Banks

“As a matter of fairness, they should show it to you — so we can correct it if they’re wrong. They’re not God, after all. They could be wrong.”

— Rudy Giuliani, telling The Hill that President Trump’s legal team should be allowed to “correct” special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report before Congress or the American people get the chance to read it.

Trump’s Shutdown Has Tied the Longest Government Shutdown at 21 Days

Buck Banks

21

“The ongoing partial government shutdown hit a new milestone on Friday by matching the record for the longest government shutdown in US history,” CNN reports. “Today marks the 21st day of the partial shutdown that started days before Christmas over a standoff between President Trump and congressional Democrats over funding for the President’s long-promised border wall.”

Pelosi: Trump Doesn’t Want a Wall, He Wants a Distraction

Buck Banks

“I don’t even know if the president wants the wall. I think he just wants a debate on the wall. And he’s having some difficulty with it.”

— Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), asserting that President Trump’s border wall push has nothing to do with border security, but is instead designed to energize his conservative base and distract the country from the various scandals dogging his administration, The Hill reports.

TV Show from 1958 Featured a Con Man Named Trump Selling a Wall

Buck Banks

This is amazing: In 1958, CBS aired an episode of “Trackdown” in which a con man attempted to sell a town a “wall” in order to protect them from the fake threat of a meteor shower. The con man’s name was Trump. The show’s main character ultimately exposes Trump as a fraud who was plotting with the town’s sheriff to sell the wall. His final words: “You’re under arrest Trump.”

— Alex Hirsch on Twitter