Subject: Re: Trump: I Would Encourage Russia...
Again, that's an essential feature of any good messaging bill. You put a ton of things in the bill, making sure that there are at least some provisions that the opposing party will not ever vote for, and at least some provisions that no rational people can oppose. That way you can state in your campaign that the opposing party objected to the most anodyne provisions (like CBP officers having radios), rather than the "poison pill" provisions (like amending the statute to authorize family detention, so that you can keep minor children locked up).

HB2 has some really good provisions in it, so I don't accept the notion that it was a messaging bill.

Neither of these things are true. Oh?

The bill *was* terrible. Locking in 4,999 as a number before you're allowed to assert control over your own border is insane. To add insult to injury even the ability to close the border off sunsetted after a while. The bill sucked.

Secondly, how many statements of "The GOP won't ever get a deal this good again" have we read in this and other threads? They're literaly all over this board and in the media. Nope, I'm spot on with both.

The bill was the most restrictive immigration proposal that's come forward in the last thirty years or so -
You realize that bar is so low its height is measured in grains of sand, right?

Democrats were uniquely motivated to abandon some of their principles and interests in ensuring positive treatment of migrants, a set of circumstances you won't see repeated for decades.

Depends. I've not shown you all the cards yet.
The democrats abandoned no principles for this except for backing off on amnesty for DREAMERS. Otherwise, they stood to gain quite a bit from that bill.

First, Democrats are getting blamed for the border because Biden's the President; when Trump's the President, Republicans are going to start getting blamed for the border. Because the voters (generally) will blame the person in charge when things go wrong - whether that's fair or not.

You're missing some context. There's literally no one in the country who can say with a straight face that Trump wants to be soft on the border. The democrats made all sort of hay with the very comments that Trump made when he descended the escalator in Trump tower and said that other countries weren't sending their best people over here. The democrats aren't going to convince ANYBODY that Trump is soft on border issues.

And since they can't do that, they're not in a position to loudly and publicly claim they're not going to work with the GOP on border issues. Not if they want to hold on to border state Congressional seats, they don't.

Abbott gave the GOP a winning hand, and all they had to do was play it to cash in. Instead, they folded and got up from the table.

Nope. Here's the mistake you're making.
You don't get into a poker game to win one hand. You get into to it to win the pot.