This morning I phoned my friend, the former Republican member of Congress.

ME: So, what are you hearing?

HE: Trump is in deep s**t.

ME: Tell me more.

HE: When it looked like he was backing down on the wall, Rush and the crazies on Fox went ballistic. So he has to do the shutdown to keep the base happy. They’re his insurance policy. They stand between him and impeachment.

ME: Impeachment? No chance. Senate Republicans would never go along.

HE (laughing): Don’t be so sure. Corporate and Wall Street are up in arms. Trade war was bad enough. Now, you’ve got Mattis resigning in protest. Trump pulling out of Syria, giving Putin a huge win. This dumb**s shutdown. The stock market in free-fall. The economy heading for recession.

ME: But the base loves him.

HE: Yeah, but the base doesn’t pay the bills.

ME: You mean …

HE: Follow the money, friend.

ME: The GOP’s backers have had enough?

HE: They wanted Pence all along.

ME: So …

HE: So they’ll wait until Mueller’s report, which will skewer Trump. Pelosi will wait, too. Then after the Mueller bombshell, she’ll get 20, 30, maybe even 40 Republicans to join in an impeachment resolution.

ME: And then?

HE: Senate Republicans hope that’ll be enough -- that Trump will pull a Nixon.

ME: So you think he’ll resign?

HE (laughing): No chance. He’s ****ing out of his mind. He’ll rile up his base into a fever. Rallies around the country. Tweet storms. Hannity. Oh, it’s gonna be ugly. He’ll convince himself he’ll survive.

ME: And then?

HE: That’s when Senate Republicans pull the trigger.

ME: Really? Two-thirds of the Senate?

HE: Do the math. 47 Dems will be on board, so you need 19 Republicans. I can name almost that many who are already there. Won’t be hard to find the votes.

ME: But it will take months. And the country will be put through a wringer.

HE: I know. That’s the worst part.

ME: I mean, we could have civil war.

HE: Hell, no. That’s what he wants, but no chance. His approvals will be in the cellar. America will be glad to get rid of him.

ME: I hope you're right.

HE: He’s a dangerous menace. He’ll be gone. And then he'll be indicted, and Pence will pardon him. But the state investigations may put him in the clinker. Good riddance.

The Crimson Cyclone wrote:this is McClatchy but...

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/invest ... 16820.html

Cell signal puts Cohen outside Prague around time of purported Russian meeting

Grotewold wrote:Pence would get trounced in 2020

Grotewold wrote:Pence would get trounced in 2020

a contractor employee in Loveland, Colorado, who operates a large federal data center said the agency wants the servers turned off to avoid overheating. ... The agency believes it can’t pay the electric utility so the cooling equipment, and hence the servers, will have to be shut off.

[That’s bad enough, but...]

Trouble is, with the agency closed no federal employees can go on site. So the contractors can’t go in and do the power-down.

DoD completely removed seven Military Housing Areas from its COLA-eligible list for 2019 based on the latest survey data. Those include:

- Los Angeles, Marin and Sonoma counties in California
- Nantucket, Massachusetts
- Indian Head Naval Ordnance Station, Maryland
- Port Angeles, Whidbey Island and Yakima, Washington

The 2018 calculations also included COLA adjustments for 38 separate counties that aren’t formally designated as Military Housing Areas. But those are being pared back to just four (4) counties in 2019.

To decide the COLA locations each year, DoD hires a contractor to gather market-by-market statistics on how expensive it is to live in a particular locality, taking into account transportation, goods and services, federal income taxes, and “miscellaneous expenses” — but not housing costs, since those are already accounted for in members’ basic allowance for housing. If a location’s cost of living is deemed to be at least 8 percent more expensive than the nationwide average, it’s eligible for at least some COLA adjustment.

Pittfan03 wrote:I probably won't get paid for about a month. I want to getting this paycheck coming up on the 1st, and hopefully I get the one on the 15th assuming that it's resolved in time. Both sides of this are absolutely #$!&@ idiotic.

06hawkalum wrote:

Pittfan03 wrote:I probably won't get paid for about a month. I want to getting this paycheck coming up on the 1st, and hopefully I get the one on the 15th assuming that it's resolved in time. Both sides of this are absolutely #$!&@ idiotic.

Get the #$!&@ out of here with this "both sides" baloney. Congress passed a bipartisan bill to keep you paid. There is exactly one person that is #$!&@ you over and his name is Donald J. Trump.

06hawkalum wrote:

Pittfan03 wrote:I probably won't get paid for about a month. I want to getting this paycheck coming up on the 1st, and hopefully I get the one on the 15th assuming that it's resolved in time. Both sides of this are absolutely #$!&@ idiotic.

Get the fuck out of here with this "both sides" baloney. Congress passed a bipartisan bill to keep you paid. There is exactly one person that is fucking you over and his name is Donald J. Trump.