They want more money even through we spend 700 billion/year already. WTF? But not one red cent for education, healthcare or helping people right here in America.

by increasing military funding.

They are the usual hypocrites which is why they have always been called "astroturf". They are fake.

More money to what Ike called the military industrial complex, simply because companies within that complex make generous campaign contributions and dole out lavish "jobs" for former Congress critters. Poor kids and Dreamers? Not so much.

the next day will be "Democrats shut down Government". The repugs are experts at spinning the message to their advantage.
I don't know what the answer is, but this move scares me.

this would be the first time in history that a shutdown ocurred when one party controlled ALL of the branches. In the past, the shutdowns happened with a Democratic President and GOP (one or both chambers) legislature.

Polls have consistently shown that the majority of the public want "both sides" to negotiate and that has not been happening this year. The closest they got to a bipartisan agreement was the immigration piece that out of nowhere, got shot down by Drumpf. And his ill-timed racist rants about "shithole countries" sealed the death of that deal.

if the government gets shut down the repugs wont blame the democrats and the news outlets will NOT indicate that it was because the Democrats voted against it? I'm not being contentious, I really want to know.

That is their default position. But the thing is in this case, the average, somewhat non-engaged person will say - "But the Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Why couldn't they just pass it on their own?"

(because the average person doesn't know how a bill becomes a law and neither does the current occupant of the WH)

that the "average American" even knows that the repugs control all three branches of government. They will ONLY see the headlines. "Democrats vote to shut down Government".

I sure hope I am 100% wrong on this.

With biggies scheduled for this weekend on the 1st anniversary of the inauguration.

The 35% "base" might "blame the Democrats" but the 65% "everyone else" knows what is up.

but I am not, thus my first thought was, after reading your post, "then why did we lose the election?"

Thanks for your cordial responses. It's nice having intelligent discourse.

Think of it this way - after the 2013 shutdown engineered by Ted Cruz and his "Green Eggs and Ham" rendition, "Why did the GOP TAKE OVER the Senate in 2014"? HE fired up THEIR "base".

One of the biggest critiques here on DU is that "Democrats have no spine". Here is the opportunity to show it. It will be something to "fire up our base" for a change.

Will shutting down the gov'ment, costing the country billions of $$'s "fire up the Democratic base"? Again, I do not know how we can get this right without compromise on both sides and the repugs normally don't compromise.

If we are envisioning one day taking back Texas and taking Nevada or Arizona - let alone Florida (now with an influx of Puerto Ricans), there are people in those states who are voting citizens but who may have family and/or friends about to be deported. THIS is why the push to get something solidified and increase our "base".

And as a note, there WAS a "compromise" (the Durbin-Graham one), where Steve Miller poisoned the well by getting Drumpf's ear to reject it and initiating that insane "shithole" rant. I expect that they could attempt to ressurect that compromise again however. And as a note, it included additional funding for border security (and I think even some wall downpayment) that Drumpf wanted, in addition to the DACA thing. If THAT can pass the Senate, then enough Democrats could make up the difference from the teabaggers rejecting it in the House.

That would be a nice compromise if we could get it to happen.

means 50% plus one in the House, while it means 60% in the Senate. Unless they do away with the filibuster rule on continuing resolutions, etc., like they did with votes on judges.

The story will come out as "Democrats favor illegal aliens over American citizens" or at least it will be that way on Fox News. It remains to be seen as to who the public will blame for a shutdown.

They don't give a shit about what needs "50 + 1" or what needs "60 votes for cloture" (let alone not knowing what the hell "cloture" is).

They just want them to "do their damn jobs".

Yes Faux will ALWAYS "blame the Democrats". But in this case, it is harder to do because "on paper", the GOP is "in charge" across the board.

that the Rethugs will articulate what having sixty votes means, and without using the word "cloture".

It would be more meaningful if they have all of their Senate caucus voting for the bill, but I don't see that happening. I fear that the Democratic Party will lose more from this shutdown than the GOP will. I hope I'm wrong.

when you have polls showing the public wants "negotiation" and they are seeing how that has not happened thanks to the trigger happy tweeting from the dunce in chief.

Sometimes there comes a time when Democrats have to just try the Hail Mary because OUR "base" needs to be kept fired up and this issue is something that would do it.

(and I say this as a retired fed who went through several shutdowns - and was furloughed under the last one that went for 16 days)

but if that does not come to pass, there is then the assignment of blame.

We'll see how that goes. I hope it goes our way, but I have my doubts about that.

It may have to be tweaked but as long as it has some CHIP & DACA stuff in it, I think Democrats would be willing to bolster border security stuff.

after the last shutdown caused be the pugs they were rewarded for it, taking the house, senate and the presidency. Its time for the dems to draw the line, stop the fascists from passing anything. Its a fascist country now, we need to make their world as painful as possible before things can change for the good.

but I sure hope it can be done without making things painful for average American citizens.

We have a pivotal election coming up in less than ten months. We have more seats to defend than the GOP. And, we have a number of Democratic seats in states that Trump won to contend with.

We had better get this right.

WE have many more people running - including in districts where the GOP incumbent never had an opponent. So THEY are going to be doing a lot of defending of seats. And note how many GOP reps have decided to "retire" or not run again - including the likes of Issa!!!! They know what is about to happen.

So far (at least as of 1/9/18) there were going to be 31 GOP retirements and 15 Democratic retirements. Of the Democratic ones, only 3 were in districts that voted for Drumpf. But for the GOP retirements, there were 5 that voted for Clinton and 4 more that were close (<10% difference or more swingish).

The Senate has Democrats with more defense needed for seats HOWEVER if you have a fired-up Democratic base and a demoralized GOP one (given they currently "run everything" ) then you have a trade-off - PLUS Democrats are targeting a couple seats - most vunerable being NV.

Democrats let CHIP die on the vine.

"Blame the Democrats!"

its no longer a democracy, who cares who gets the blame, its got to be smashed before it can be fixed.

let them take the blame. Its 100% of them

and the dems who voted to pass the bill in the house should be replaced with dems who have a spine

I've lost track.

which should be a non-starter as well.