The McConnell (Republican) amendment to the appropriations bill which would have funded government, including funding for a border wall/fence, failed to pass the Senate.
One Democrat Senator (Joe Manchin) voted to support the republican plan.  Two Republicans (Mike Lee and Tom Cotton) voted against the Republican plan.
Next up…. The Chuck Schumer (Democrat) amendment to the appropriations bill, which would have funded government without including funding for a border wall/fence, also failed to pass the Senate.
However, six republican senators joined the Democrats: Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, Corey Gardner, Lisa Murkowski, Johnny Isakson and Mitt Romney.
No Democrats voted against their plan.
(more…)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have come to a UniParty agreement to advance two simultaneous bills to end the government shutdown.
The first bill contains the Trump priority agenda; the second bill contains the Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell priority agenda.  The senate will get to vote on both bills individually.  It is possible, perhaps likely, both will fail. However, watch the defectors. If history is a guide, any defectors will come from the GOPe side of the equation.

(Washington DC) […]  The first vote will be on President Trump‘s proposal to to reopen the government, provide $5.7 billion in funding for the border wall and extend legal protections to some immigrants for three years. If that fails, the Senate would then vote on a three-week continuing resolution (CR).

(more…)

It looks like Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi has no intention of allowing the House chamber to be used for a State of the Union address.
Speaker Pelosi has informed the House Sergeant at Arms that no executive branch official will be permitted entry into the Capitol building.
Earlier Fox News reported Pelosi cancelled a walkthrough last week, and a second request for reconsideration from the White House is expected to meet the same fate. The House Speaker controls who is, and who is not, permitted entry to the House floor. Until Speaker Pelosi calls for a vote to support a joint session of congress, the President cannot enter the chamber.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley discusses the status of the current shutdown negotiations and the likelihood a SOU address will have to take place outside Washington DC.

There are two distinct narrative angles that are intersecting in the current weekend talk venues.  One is the government shutdown and how the resistance is attempting to gain maximum political benefit against the White House.  The second is how the larger ‘shutdown narrative‘ is being deployed as cover for revelations within prior testimony showing how the Obama DOJ and FBI weaponized against their political opposition.
In this regard, the shutdown (as planned by Speaker Nancy Pelosi) serves a dual purpose; it is helping to construct a larger oppositional narrative while burying a story the MSM are desperate not to cover.  The two narratives are intertwined and it would be against the interests of Pelosi, Cummings, Schiff and Nadler, to reach a shutdown agreement.
HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff appears after VP Mike Pence on FtN and highlights this intended dual purpose. Schiff immediately transfers from the shutdown into a discussion of using Michael Cohen: the two narratives are intertwined.

*Note*:  It’s important to remember the democrat strategy is planned out.  Oversight Committee (Cummings), builds to HPSCI Committee (Schiff) who ultimately leads to Judicary Committee (Nadler).   Jerry Nadler is where they hope to initiate the ‘impeachment‘ angle.
(more…)

White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley appears on Fox News with Jeanine Pirro to discuss the current partial government shutdown and the impasse between the White House and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

(more…)

30 Minutes before President Trump began to outline his compromise proposal (4:00pm, from the White House), Speaker Nancy Pelosi auto-published the response position of Democrats, NO DEAL:

(From The Speaker) “Democrats were hopeful that the President was finally willing to re-open government and proceed with a much-needed discussion to protect the border.
“Unfortunately, initial reports make clear that his proposal is a compilation of several previously rejected initiatives, each of which is unacceptable and in total, do not represent a good faith effort to restore certainty to people’s lives. It is unlikely that any one of these provisions alone would pass the House, and taken together, they are a non-starter. For one thing, this proposal does not include the permanent solution for the Dreamers and TPS recipients that our country needs and supports. (read more)

President Trump outlined a common-sense bipartisan solution to reopen government.  Nancy Pelosi took a zero-sum position and rejected the proposal.  Without pressure from ‘moderate’ democrats (if any exist), the impasse continues.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Leader Steny Hoyer and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are on pre-scheduled vacation until January 25th.
(more…)

President Donald Trump will be making a widely anticipated announcement on the government shutdown and border crisis from the White House today.  The speech will likely outline a proposal to end the partial government shutdown.
The president is anticipated to outline a proposal for $5.7 billion for physical border security in exchange for “The Bridge Act” which would extend protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and legislation to extend the legal status of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders.  Anticipated start time 4:00pm EST.
UPDATE: Video Added

(more…)

Showcasing the severe political resistance objectives of Democrats, speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has sent a politically crafted letter to the White House requesting that President Trump cancel his State of the Union address.
The pretense of the letter surrounds the ongoing partial government shutdown and a concern for security.  However, DHS and the Secret Service have stated nothing in the letter is factually correct; and they were not contacted by Pelosi with questions.
In short, it’s a political stunt by Speaker Pelosi and Democrat leadership.

(link to letter)

Not surprised.

Senator Lindsey Graham appears on Derp TV to discuss the latest in the government shutdown and his request for President Trump to declare a state-of-emergency to build the southern border wall.  Senator Graham notes he spoke to President Trump approximately 30 minutes prior to this interview:

(more…)

In October 2015 the DOJ announced it was dropping the investigation into the IRS, Lois Lerner, and the unlawful sharing of taxpayer data in the IRS targeting investigation surrounding True The Vote et al.

As a direct consequence of the DOJ decision, congressional inquiry into the IRS targeting matter seemingly dropped from the radar.
However, if you draw a line from the original intent of the entire enterprise, the post-2010 mid-term “shellacking”/”secret research project“, forward to the 2016 election cycle an interested observer might still be left asking:

“why did the IRS, through Lois Lerner, deliver the 1+ million pages of tax filings, to include the entire donor list of Tea Party and patriot groups, through 21 CD-ROMs and not by electronic data transfer. Information that was specifically sent to Eric Holder and the U.S. Department of Justice”?

This is an obvious question which, despite the numerous congressional hearings on the matter, was never asked – nor answered.
The entire scheme is riddled with complexity; almost too complex for the average person to understand, and seriously difficult to summarize. However, when you boil it down here’s the essential components that are no longer suspicion or supposition, but factually provable: (more…)