Someone should explain to Republicans that the reason people like being Democrats is that you get to do good things for people -- that are also popular with voters!

So if Beto O'Rourke shows up when ICE dumps a huge bunch of previously-detained migrants in his district, he's using moral authority AND campaigning. Got it, wingnut clone?

"I firmly and passionately believe 94% of immigration could be solved in an afternoon, because everybody agrees. But you've got people on the far right and far left who raise hundreds of millions of dollars every year using this as a wedge issue," Matheson said. (Um, Brad? I think you're confusing Democrats with the NRA. Also confusing truth with lies, but hey, you're a conservative!)

"We've also seen Beto O'Rourke's done his presidential advertising, it's already started. We've got to get beyond that. As Americans, we need to expect more, not less, of both sides of the aisle. I'm going to be the equal opportunity offender today (Editor's note: Whenever a Republican says this, you know he's about to drop a carefully-prepared bullsh*t talking point) because this is wrong. It's wrong for the American people, it's wrong for those federal workers that you've been talking about, Morgan. We can do better. We need to expect more."

Yes, we do, Boyd. Yes, we do. That's why we voted in all those new Dems.

"And Boyd, I have to say, I think it's this sense of procedural secrecy that really seems to be bothering people. They don't want these things done under the cloak of anonymity. When you talk about this blame game, we know there's brand-new poll numbers from Reuters that show that blame on the Democratic side, 47% actually blame the president for the shutdown but only 33% are actually blaming congressional Democrats. Kimberly, should Republicans be shaking in their boots when it comes to these numbers?"

Kimberly Atkins (who works for the wingnut Boston Herald) swats him down easily.

"I think Republicans have a very big problem in this case when it comes to President Trump," she said. "And I would -- while I agree that Congress has not done its job properly for a long time and that's one reason that we're here, I would disagree that this is a problem, this current problem, is because Republicans and Democrats are so dug in," she said.

"It's a problem because of the president. The last time we were here, in January, with another threatened shutdown over the issue of immigration, there was a bipartisan deal that was struck and at the 11th hour, it was President Trump who walked away from that deal because he didn't want to back a bill with DACA in it because he thought that it would be seen by his base as amnesty. He walked away from that deal in a meeting which included a report of him using a very colorful name to talk about Haiti and African countries. So that is the problem here.

"We have a president who is dug in, who is demanding a wall as part of a CR, knowing that he won't get it, trying to say, hey, let's strike a deal with Democrats. It's like a kid asking for a piece of cake before dinner, the parents saying no, and the kid trying to negotiate by saying, what about half a piece of cake? It's not going to happen. It's certainly not going to happen as part of this funding. So this is a battle that the president is waging in large part by himself, and he is tying the hands of the Republicans."