So Trump and the Democratic Party leaders had a meeting this week to solve the government-closing crisis and he did what any spoiled brat would do. He took his toys and stomped out. This from a sleaze that claims to have written (he didn’t) a book called Art of the Deal. This is Trump’s idea of how to negotiate? What got done? Nothing! After the meeting Mike Pence and Kevin McCarthy pulled their noses out of Trump’s ass long enough to brag about the fact that he brought candy to the meeting. Candy? How about bringing brains?
So almost a million government workers don’t get paid this week. Many of them will hit a financial wall. Mortgages, school tuitions and medical bills are due. Most people won’t be able to go to millionaire daddies to bail them out. They will be the victims of a spoiled, egomaniacal asshole who thinks about nothing other then what he wants, who considers nothing unless he thinks will help him, who fights for nothing unless it will will make him money and who never, ever, considers the good of the people that elected him unless it is in direct convergence with what will advance his foul desires.
Trump doesn’t want a wall because he thinks it will make our southern border more secure. That’s his bullshit excuse. He wants it because he told his brain dead followers that he would give it to them. They were dumb enough to believe him and now he figures he has to deliver or he will lose them, and that, in his mind, is something that just can’t happen. It is, after all, almost impossible, outside of a cult, to find such a large group of people, so incapable of rational decision-making that are willing to follow a madman over a cliff. Jim Jones used up most of them years ago and even if he didn’t, they severely drained the Kool-Aide supply.
I was looking through a couple of Right Wing blogs yesterday and almost all the repeatable comment was: “Don’t give in to the socialist traitors, build the wall,” None of it seemed to indicate any knowledge of why we should build such a wall, only that we should foil Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. This is the same mentality that led to them voting for Trump to prevent a Hillary win rather than because he actually had something to offer.
Meanwhile, with two years of complete Republican control of the government, for some strange reason we haven’t, built the wall. How is that possible? Could it be that some GOP Senators and Representatives realize what a colossal waste of money such a wall would be? Could it be that even some wrong headed GOP clowns realize that the wall wouldn’t add to border security but would subtract from it by wasting money that could alternately be spent on the right security measures? So where are these losers now? Well, some of them are emerging from the swamp, but not fast enough or in large enough numbers.
There is a solution if the GOP will get off their asses and do the right thing. The government can be reopened without Trump’s signature on a bill if the numbers are high enough. Of course that would mean a lot of Republican Senators would have to show a little gumption
The GOP Senators are not the ones who stood on stages all over the south in 2016 and brayed about how they were gong to build a concrete wall and that Mexico was going to pay for it. They were not the ones who lost in the last election because they were backed by that braying beast. Those suckers are gone The ones who remain, however, are the ones who will lose in the next election if they keep the government closed just to mollify the fat liar in the White House.
It seems the meeting with Schumer and Pelosi ended because Trump asked the only intelligent question he has come up with in the recent past.
If he agreed to open the government would the Democrats allow the wall to be built? Pelosi spoke honestly, something that Trump has no experience with. She told him, “NO”. So he picked up his candy and went home.
Of course, the reasonable question, which should have been asked long ago, is what does the border wall have to do with paying the salaries of government employees. The answer is nothing! But that doesn’t take into account the political aspects of the situation or Trump’s version of how to make a deal.
Trump doesn’t consider a deal a deal unless he has cheated the other guy of everything and then stiffed him on what’s due. For Trump, a deal in which each party walks out having given something and received something is a failure. Trump likes to bully and take hostages. That works with people like him, cowards and bullshit artists but when he runs into someone who has a sense of right and wrong and some backbone it falls on its face.
That’s what happened with Schumer and Pelosi. They know the wall has no viable reason for being. It’s an enormous waste of money, that will steal funds that could be better spent, and the only reason it is being discussed at all is that Trump rashly promised it to his dunder-headed base to make them pay attention.
It appears that Chuck and Nancy feel that they will eventually get enough votes to pass the reopening of the government from the GOP members that are currently on the fence and that the longer the shutdown goes on the more votes will transfer from the GOP to he Dems but that doesn’t help all those workers that aren’t getting paid, pay the bills.
Trum may try to declare a “national emergency” and use money from other government pockets, primarily the defense budget to fund the wall. That might get him out of the current bind by allowing him to sign a bill to open the government again. It won’t work long term because the Dems will sue to stop the process and they will win. What it will do is move the problem down the road until, he hopes; all those government workers he screwed have time to forget it. Maybe by that time he will have been impeached and the wall will no longer be an issue.
If Trump wants to talk about a national emergency, let’s give him a real national emergency. Let’s get all the Air Traffic Controllers and TSA agents to walk off he job. Yes, it’s against the law for them to strike, but if the boss refuses to pay, you aren’t striking you’re avoiding slavery. Why stop at those jobs? Why should the workers at the Treasury Department work for nothing? Why should the Secret Service? Leave the fat liar and his Kriminal Klan to fend for themselves just like he is leaving government workers to fend for themselves.
The NY Times published a long article about how the FBI might be conducting an investigation into whether or no Trump is an agent of the Russians. Really? Didn’t I write a column a week or so ago about the new Manchurian Candidate? I’m not prescient. There is so much material pointing to that conclusion that one has to be deliberately blind in order to keep from being confronted with it.
What’s really interesting is that much of the material that links Trump to the Russians comes directly from Trump. The big baby just can’t keep his lying mouth shut.
When he fired James Comey, Trump said quite plainly that he did it because of the way Comey had handled the Hillary Clinton email debacle. It was early in the big lie cycle so most people accepted that as a legitimate reason but not long after that, Trump, in an interview with Lester Holt, stated that he fired Comey because Comey wouldn’t deny he was looking into Trump’s associations with the Russians. All of a sudden ears at the FBI were standing at attention. From then on Trump seemed unable to get his own story straight. One day it was Hillary’s emails and the next it was complicity with the Russians. It was hard not to pay attention, not to ask, what the hell was going on.
Former Acting Director of the FBI Frank Figliuzzi has stated definitively that there is evidence tat not only our FBI but also intelligence agencies from other countries have reason to believe that Trump has acted in conspiracy with the Russians to their benefit.
One day after he fired Comey, Trump met with Russian ambassadors Sergey Lavrov and Sergei Kislyak in the White House and told them that he had gotten Comey off his back. This led Malcolm Nance former counter intelligence professional to state on Rachel Maddow’s Show that Trump was an asset of Putin and as such was a direct threat to the security of this nation.
And it’s not like Trump has done anything to avoid or push this kind of accusation aside. His positions in direct support of Russia in both Afghanistan and Syria are detrimental to US policy and goals and are supportive of those of Russia.
It must be understood that to this point no one, nor any agency, has made a direct accusation that the President is an asset of the Russian government. But it must also be understood that the FBI investigation along with Mueller’s have not had a direct accusation of any kind as their goals. Both were revelatory up to now. The FBI investigation, from what could be learned from those who revealed it, has a counter-intelligence motive. That is; it is looking to turn what may be a Russian advantage into an American advantage but not necessarily to arrive at a prosecution. The Mueller goal is to reveal the evidence and suggest the next step, whether or not it may be prosecution.
Now that is all coming to a head. Trump can see it coming and maybe because of the Times story he has seemingly pulled back from his wall position. The next couple of days should be very revealing. It appears that Trump has already dug his grave. It becomes a matter of conjecture as to whether or not he will jump in and yull the dirt over his head.