House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stood behind the podium in the Rayburn Room for a second time on Tuesday morning, this time to announce her support of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement and tossing a massive legislative victory to President Trump.
Is this Treaty that good for Dems to give Bone Spurs a BIG victory like this ?
And with the USMCA announcement on Tuesday, Pelosi and the rest of her caucus effectively squelched Trump’s predictable “Do-Nothing Democrats” line of defense against impeachment.
That’s one way to look at it. Another way is to say Team Pelosi apparently doesn’t seem to understand that it’s counter-productive to give Trump a legislative victory on the same day Articles of Impeachment are announced.
With Dems like these…
And he snatched it like a dog?
“Trump’s targeted Pelosi for the stall in approval, but the speaker said on Tuesday that the administration’s version of the deal needed serious work.”
What the heck is going on here? Is this all just Kabuki theater?
Still another way would be that you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about.
Such as that the government is due to shut down again next week, this is most certainly part of the bargaining chips on the table to get the budget crap passed.
With NAFTA-lite he can take a victory lap and give up the do-nothing Democrats-punchline. Win-win. It’s a nothingburger.
Oh, for fuck’s sake! You mean that she should show how much we really hate him by refusing to play our role in the work of governing at the same time we are nailing his ass to the wall for being derelict in playing his role appropriately?
the problem here isn’t that the Dems signed off on the deal after getting some concessions from Trump…
Its that the Dem leadership never made a big deal about how awful Trump’s version of NAFTA was — so that today’s announcement doesn’t seem like a Dem victory at all.
Again, this was an opportunity missed – and once again, it was because the Dem leadership cares more about keeping dog whistle Democrats happy than about competent and effective national leadership.
So this trade deal is a significant improvement over NAFTA? How are they different?
meanwhile…
the question I have is why is there even an issue? Why is the leadership resisting the changes that progressives want to see? Why is there a question about making Medicare-negotiated drug prices available to people without insurance, for instance? Why the fuck would Pelosi et al not put that in the bill immediately – and apologize for not thinking about it first?
Because the only reason that I can come up with is that they are beholden to Big Pharma campaign cash…
Thanks for that.
The Trade agreement could be credited to Trump and he will still be Toast-worthy after what’s coming for him arrives
Cynical Hipster: “Pelosi won’t do what I want!”
(Speaker does what Cynical Hipster wants.)
Cynical Hipster: “Pelosi isn’t doing it quickly enough!”
(Speaker expedites action.)
Cynical Hipster: “Pelosi will fail!”
(Speaker wins.)
Cynical Hipster: “Pelosi didn’t do it for the right reason!”
(Rinse; repeat)
Giving Toadglans a win, especially now, is easily the Worst. Idea. Ever.
Rick Wilson nailed this one:
“Democrats need their base voters fired up and turned out. They need to harness and channel the energy that motivates their most passionate voters to knock on doors, make calls, and show up at the polls in record numbers in 2020. That energy is the natural reaction to Donald Trump’s corruption, criminality, and evil. Why squander and dilute it?
“What flavor of dumbfuckery inside the Democratic consultant class thinks playing happy families and singing Kumbaya with a President who lacks every moral and political scruple works to motivate their base?”
Well, she is Queen of the Donor Class, after all.
Let alone that nobody actually gives a shit about it. NAFTA was a big deal because that was an upheaval to the order of things. This just tweaks shit around the edges and, other than a few economics wonks, the average person just isn’t going to notice a difference.
Drink!
(Vodka, preferably.)
(We love irasdad’s comments)
Cynical Hipster: “You are just a bunch of corporate bankster warmonging blue dog democrat shills!”
the differences are astonishingly minor. For instance, a larger proportion of the parts used in the assembling of cars in Mexico now have to be American made to avoid tariffs. Under NAFTA, that percentage was 62.5%. Under Trump’s version of NAFTA 2, it was to go up to 75% by 2023.
Some increases on how much mexican auto workers must be paid are also included – but really the whole thing is just a tweaking of NAFTA, and not a new trade agreement.
this is about messaging, not about actual economic impact. And this is the problem with the Democratic leadership and its lemming-like followers – they don’t understand that peception of results is as important, if not more important, than the results themselves, and consequently have no clue about messaging and narrative.
The “white working class” have been told for years that NAFTA was the reason why “good paying jobs” have disappeared – and they bought into that. Trump promised to trash NAFTA, and come up with something much better.
He hasn’t of course. But what he has done is trash NAFTA, and successfully rebranded it as something much better – and that success is his because the Dem leadership let him get away with it.
This is a huge victory for Trump – he can now tell “white working class voters” that he accomplished something huge for them – and by the time they realize that nothing has changed, the election will be over.
I had some well-honed claws awaiting students who pulled that in my classes.
Hint: in my day, it had a spiral holding the pages, lots of lines and lots of numbers on those lines.
And letters.