My wife used to be a poll worker. Then they demanded extensive ID info including SSNs, to work at the polls. She told them, I’ll give you my SSN when you start demanding SSNs in order to vote, .. not before.

Dana Perino has claimed to have been significantly inside the G.W. Bush inner circle. She once stated that Bush felt that his biggest and most crowning achievement was selecting and installing Roberts as the Chief Justice. Sheesh!

I would be willing to work as a poll watcher in 2020 if they want me. I still suspect that the Mexican drug cartels are running the Democrat Party, at least in Arizona.

Maybe J.J. is right. Dems just like to vote as a block (magically it seems), and GOPers are individualists. Alternatively, perhaps there is a sizeable block of Republicans in the House and Senate who sit around and divvy up the tens of millions of campaign cash when it comes in from the US Chamber of Commerce and the Bus. Roundtable, etc., and then they draw straws to decide who is going the kill the conservative initiatives and receive the hate mail. Beats working for a living.

Who knows? But I do know that Trump has gotten a bit less than half of his promises so far. I am semi thrilled with his performance, really. He has and will boast and overstate his accomplishments. Obamacare is still fully the law of the land as soon as Trump’s exec. orders are reversed. The wall will never get built unless he declares an emergency AND ignores lower court rulings.

But I have no desire to torpedo any GOP efforts. I give money to the RNCC because the number of candidates is too large to manage otherwise. I do not donate to Mitch McConnell’s pals (and the horrific Thad Cochrane, now gone) and instead send money directly to people like Tom Cotton and Martha McSally.

Remember, if we were all loyal GOPe stalwarts over the last few years, we’d be living under the rule of Hillary Clinton right now, and we’d start ramping up the support for Jeb Bush in 2020 again, or maybe George P. Bush. We’ve broken the mold and we got to keep breaking it from time to time. The history of the GOP and the major political battles really is one of Lucy van Pelt and the football.

Keep your eyes open, consider all the possibilities, and guess as wisely as you can. And guess you must, because you don’t know what happens behind closed doors and that’s where the action is. It is the worst system, except for all of the others. (Churchill wasn’t just being cute.)

You got the times backwards, but you just go on with your games.

Why do you waste your time here? Don’t you have something better to do than to troll—often very stupidly—here?

Ok, the 50-49 cloture vote was last year. But it still indicates that Repubs could’ve mustered 51 yeas thru reconciliation. Googling around, I see that at least one Republican was making that case in October.

So the question is why didn’t they. Maybe you’re right. McConnell knew he didn’t have the votes. I haven’t seen any public evidence of that but its possible.

What I have seen public evidence of is that Trump was no longer serious about the wall. IIRC:

1. General Kelly said on two occasions that the wall, at least as originally planned, was dropped very early in the Trump admin due to logistical issues.

2. Trump started making various claims that the wall was already build. This included trying to pass of wall or fence that Obama built as his own. Brietbart swung back hard…with one of their reporters publicly challenging Trump’s press secretary in the briefing room.

3. Trump had already agreed to a budget that did not include a wall in Dec. He blindsided McConnell after Ann Coulter and others revolted.

This indicates to me that Trump’s strategy was to claim success without actually delivering. He’s gotten away with claiming that N.Korea is denuclearizing when it isn’t, so he figured he could pull that con again.

But it looks to me like he’s having a bit of a Gail Wynand moment.

The House bill I linked was passed in December of 2018. In other words, this past December. Here’s the link again.

The Senate vote you’re discussing, and the link you provided in this comment of yours, occurred in January of 2018. About a year earlier. This is the article you linked.

Two separate events—unless you think that McConnell is some sort of time traveler.

As to why McConnell voted as he did:

But in the end, the Senate was unable to muster the 60 votes needed to cut off debate on the measure, falling short, 50-49.

McConnell voted against the measure so he could bring the measure back up for reconsideration.

As with the Obamacare repeal, the margin in the Senate for the GOP (for Trump’s first 2 years in office) was paper-thin, and McConnell very likely knew (and conveyed to Trump) that they didn’t have the votes to pass the measure involving wall funding. And after the 2018 election, they didn’t have the House.

He didn’t. You don’t understand Congress. Ask your runners in the DNC to explain it to you.

Meanwhile, the Mexican drug cartels are running the Democrats.

Interesting thread on what is going on.

The House actually passed a bill funding the wall (see this) but the Senate would not approve because of a few RINO holdouts. That was the problem right along.

Ok, so the bill with wall funding passed the Republican controlled house but failed a cloture vote in the Senate, 50-49. According to Roll Call, “McConnell voted against the measure so he could bring the measure back up for reconsideration.”

Based on this, had Trump prioritized his number 1 promise, he had a high probability of winning thru budget reconciliation, where there is no 60 vote cloture threshold. The 115th House was a gimmie.

But now he’s lost the House. The numbers aren’t there and the mandate, however subjective, is gone.

So, why did he wait?