___________________ was not prepared for the meeting.
Fill in the blank with your favorite Oval Trailer character……
Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA): “So what we want to do is make sure that the last person he hears is somebody who has heard from us.”
I’ve said it before, he’s a goldfish. The little plastic castle is a surprise every time.
Not the air-blowing diver?
They don’t even try. None of them. I hope they’re preparing a special room in hell for Kelly. What a friggin’ disappointment he turned out to be, on every score.
Channeling Ani Difranco:
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/anidifranco/littleplasticcastle.html
Our president wants to make color choices for the composition of the country? He’s the color of a Nacho Flavored Dorito.
“… Kelly gave them no clear indication of what the White House is willing to support on an immigration deal, and did not himself know the details of the bipartisan plans put forward in the House and the Senate.”
That’s because Trump is simply gonna sign whatever is put in front of him and call it “winning”.
“The problem is not the ability to have a cordial conversation, the problem is having a substantive conversation where we learn what the administration wants in return for saving the DREAMers,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) complained
As has been copiously noted by dozens of observers, Congress has accepted and acquiesced to the fact this is not a bipartisan effort to find a solution, it is a hostage negotiation. The new normal.When asked what he hears when Kelly uses the term “merit-based,” Gutierrez replied: “The president has been pretty clear that they want people from Norway and not ‘shithole countries’—and he mentioned Africa and Haiti. So that’s what I hear. Now the veneer has been ripped away about what they really mean. They don’t really mean it’s about security. They don’t really mean it’s about jobs for Americans. It’s about the color of people’s skin and what places they come from.”
Dems must continue, relentlessly, to peel the veneer away from Republican dog whistles. Fortunately for us, T rump, et al is making that task quite a bit easier by revealing what they really think in mixed company. Those stupid shitholes!
Frankly he is meeting expectations.
Kelly has come out of his closet and revealed himself as a full-blown racist.
End of that story.
Guys.
Treat Rump as if he will sign whatever passes. Whatever he says is subject to change by the next 3:00 am tweet cycle.
Get Ryan to pass the Dream Act. If he doesn’t, give his opponent Randy Bryce a bunch of DCCC money to make a good campaign ad out of it. Trying to get Rump to persuade Ryan is a fool’s errand.
“I’m sure some people expected sparks to go off, but we just left that alone, because we didn’t see that as moving the agenda of the DREAMers forward… ”
WRONG. Not standing up for other immigrates makes the hardliners job easy.
“Kelly gave them no clear indication of what the White House is willing to support on an immigration deal, and did not himself know the details of the bipartisan plans put forward in the House and the Senate.”
“A White House chief-of-staff stood up, and in a long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, talked about how he was utterly clueless and unprepared to even discuss the basics of those bills.”
I honestly wonder like… how’d John Kelly ever get his “adult in the room” reputation? He’s a Trumper through and through.
Should this issue bring you guys to the point of a government shutdown, well, you have the one phrase that needs to be repeated, ad nauseum: "It’s about the color of people’s skin and what places they come from”.
They’re threatening to shut down the government to help achieve the goal of a white America. Sometimes an effective political message is 100% the truth. This is one of those times.
I like “Post-Shithole talk” !
Several lawmakers independently confirmed to TPM following the meeting that Kelly came unprepared to discuss either of two bipartisan immigration proposals recently put forward
But he knew enough to discuss the meeting beforehand with Miller, who he knew would call Cotton, Perdue, and Goodlatte. Kelly doesn’t care about policy; he’s a racist.
This episode encapsulates the whole White Policy apparatus in microcosm. That is: there isn’t one.
Trump’s attitude is that he expresses his whims, sends out some tweets, and Congress’s job is to come up with something for him to sign. It went the same with the failed ACA repeal and the tax bill. Nobody knows what Trump wants except that he wants to look good and gets “wins.” When it comes to needs like leadership and using political clout to shepherd important legislation the White House is a black hole.
Frankly, it’s the typical modus operandi of a shitty CEO: give some direction but make it vague enough so that if it goes off the rails you have plausible deniability and can blame someone else. Likewise, if it’s a smashing success it was your strategic vision that made it all happen.