Tag Archives: government shutdown

national news

Coulter offers disgusting response

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Ann Coulter disgusts me in the extreme.

After the president of the United States caved in on The Wall demand he had said was essential to protect Americans and which forced the partial government shutdown, Coulter — the conservative firebrand — offered a hideous Twitter message.

Coulter offered a form of “congratulations” to the late President George H.W. Bush, who she said is “no longer the biggest wimp” ever to serve as president.

The nation recently honored the 41st president for his courage in service to his country during World War II, for his statesmanship, for his decades of dedicated public service as vice president, CIA director, congressman, U.N. ambassador, special envoy to China and as president.

Then this loudmouth gasbag commentator calls him a “wimp.”

Ann Coulter makes me sick.

International news, national news

The government shut down for this?

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Let me see if I have this straight.

Donald Trump insisted on building The Wall. He rejected proposals that lacked any money for The Wall. He threatened to shut down the government.

Then he did.

The partial shutdown thrust potential fiscal catastrophe for about 800,000 federal workers. It caused heartache, headaches, anxiety and angst among these Americans. The shutdown compromised our transportation security system, our aviation safety. It forced essential employees to stay on the job without getting paid.

Today, though, the president accepted the proposals he had rejected. The government will reopen. There won’t be any money for The Wall.

Which now begs the question: Why in the world did we have to shut down part of the federal government and put those federal employees into the state of confusion?

This wasn’t worth it.

You want some more bad news? We well might go through this all over again in three weeks when the funding measure expires. If we don’t have a deal on border security on the table by Feb. 15, there could be another partial government shutdown, or the president might declare a “national emergency” on our southern border, he’ll order the military to build The Wall and he might transfer money for The Wall from other departments’ budgets.

This doesn’t make America great again.

national news

Trump accepts deal he once tossed aside

So, let’s see what the heck happened today.

Donald Trump said he was happy to announce a deal to end the partial government shutdown. The government will reopen fully for the next three weeks.

The deal doesn’t contain a nickel for The Wall, the element he told us incessantly was essential for any path to reopen the parts of the federal government that had been shuttered.

He rejected earlier Democratic congressional efforts to broker the deal that didn’t include money for The Wall.

Then today he said he would do precisely what he refused to do. He refused to accept the Democrats’ demands. He closed part of the government down, boasting that he would be “proud” to take responsibility for shuttering the government.

Conservative talkers such as Ann Coulter (pictured), political pundits and lawmakers are now saying that Trump “caved.” My goodness! I thought the president was the toughest man in the room, the guy no one messed with, the man who could cut the greatest deals in human history.

I believe we are being “led” by a wimp.

International news, national news

Dealmaker in chief backs down

So, the government is going to reopen for at least the next three weeks, right?

Donald “Master Dealmaker in Chief” Trump backed down from Democrats’ demands. We’re getting our entire federal government back in action — with no money for The Wall.

I don’t know whether to laugh or scream in disgust.

There’s nothing for the president to cheer. For that matter, I wouldn’t bet that Democrats are jumping for joy, either.

Why? They need to get to work. They have three weeks to hammer out a long term budget deal that includes some form of border security. Democrats aren’t likely to cave on The Wall. As for the president, no one seems able to predict what he’ll do.

Trump had held out for $5.7 billion for construction of The Wall along our southern border. If he doesn’t get cash for the structure by Feb. 15, he is pondering whether to declare a national emergency along the border and then ordering the military to build The Wall with money he would pilfer from other governmental accounts.

Let me think about this. It will prompt an immediate legal challenge by those who will contend that the president is acting unlawfully.

Was this a win for the president? Not even close! Have the Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer won anything? Nope.

Let’s . . . get . . . busy.

International news

Border Patrol: shutdown collateral damage

Talk about an unintended consequence.

Donald Trump said he would shut down the government over construction of The Wall along our southern border to increase border security.

So, part of the government shuts down. The U.S. Border Patrol continues to do its job, which is to secure the border. Except that the shutdown is depriving these valuable officers of their pay. It’s putting enormous stress on those officers.

Thus, it is — let’s see — oh, endangering national security. A stressed-out Border Patrol officer cannot do his or her job as well as someone who isn’t suffering from the pressure caused by a shutdown that deprives them of income.

How’s that security enhancement goal working out, Mr. President?

I’ve got the answer: Not worth a damn!

International news, national news

POTUS moving ball slowly toward compromise

I’ve been rolling Donald J. Trump’s latest gambit on this government shutdown nonsense around in my noggin.

Here is what I’ve come up with: The president seems to be inching ever so slowly toward compromise with congressional Democrats who do not want to build The Wall along our southern border.

I don’t want The Wall built either. Or whatever form it takes: slats, chain-link fence, steel wall, concrete. None of it sounds appealing to me as an American who hates The Wall but who supports the notion of enhancing border security.

Trump, though, has pitched an enticing notion: He is willing to grant illegal immigrants who came here as children a three-year “amnesty” that enables them to start walking down a “path to citizenship.” We call ’em Dreamers. They came here when their parents entered the nation illegally. They formerly were protected under a program called Deferred Action for Children Arrivals, or DACA. Trump rescinded that Barack Obama-issued executive order.

Now he’s budging a good bit on giving DACA recipients a break.

That is progress. It’s not enough to suit Democrats. Interestingly, the president also has pi**** off hardliners on his far right who don’t want DACA recipients to get a break, even though they did nothing wrong on their own to get here; many thousands of them have grown into adulthood knowing only life as de facto Americans. They have become productive residents of the United States. Many of them have excelled scholastically and have contributed greatly to life in the Land of Opportunity.

So . . . what now?

I would hope those on the left and the right would seek a way to understand that Trump has begun moving the ball just a little bit.

It’s an effort to end this shutdown, which has thrust 800,000 Americans into the ranks of the unpaid and unemployed. They need relief. They need to get back to work.

This shutdown, precipitated by Donald Trump’s silly boast that he would be willing to take the heat for the consequences, needs to end. If a three-year reprieve for DACA recipients can end this stalemate, then I am all in.

International news

Fly ‘commerical’ to Kabul? You bet, Mr. POTUS

Donald Trump’s decision to cancel the military flight for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a congressional delegation to Europe and Afghanistan was fraught with protocol breaches as well as a nonsensical travel recommendation.

The president responded to Pelosi’s request that he postpone the State of the Union speech until after the government is reopened. He acted petulantly by canceling the military air transport planned for the delegation; hey, he’s the commander in chief so he can do that sort of thing.

However, he blew Pelosi’s cover that she wanted to fly to Afghanistan to visit our troops, to show them her support for the work they are doing to keep us safe from international terrorists.

That was a violation of protocol. These flights into combat zones are kept secret for an obvious reason: to protect those who traveling their from possible attack from our enemies.

Oh, but then Trump offered this idiotic recommendation: Why not fly “commercially” to Afghanistan? What? Does he even know about how dangerous that would be? Moreover, is there even any commercial air travel to Afghanistan available?

The president’s bald-faced ignorance of so many aspects of government and history and protocol suggests to me that he fired off that response without giving any of a moment of thought.

Weird.

military news

PR stunt? Of course it is! They all are!

Donald Trump canceled a trip overseas by Nancy Pelosi, contending that her visit to Afghanistan is a mere “public relations” event.

Wow! No sh**? Of course it was intended as a PR stunt. I mean, the speaker of the House wanted to visit with our troops who the commander in chief thrusts into harm’s way. She wanted to tell them the nation supports them and that despite the partial shutdown of the federal government that the politicians who run the government won’t let them down.

Sure it’s a PR event. However, there is inherint value in it.

It’s as much of a public relations production as the one that the president and first lady performed when they flew to Iraq right after Christmas. The president took selfies with troops, schmoozed with them, hugged their necks, told them he loved them. Then he and Melania flew back home to the chaos that awaited them.

Yeah, these trips are PR events. That’s what commanders in chief and other leading politicians do when they fly into combat zones.

I won’t get into the goofiness of Trump’s cancellation of the Pelosi venture, which looks for all the world to be a retaliatory strike in the wake of Pelosi’s request that Trump delay his scheduled Jan. 29 State of the Union speech before a joint congressional session.

However, for the president to say that the speaker of the House’s planned visit to our troops serves no useful purpose other than it being a PR stunt denies the obvious benefit it brings to the troops who get to see and talk directly to the politicians we elect to ostensibly “run the government.”

national news

Trump lobs a grenade back at Pelosi

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted to lead a congressional delegation to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan. It was supposed to be secret, in keeping with standard policy regarding official trips into a war zone.

Then the president of the United States, Donald Trump, pulled the plug on the trip. As commander in chief, he has the power to ground military aircraft for these congressional trips. So he did.

Then he released a letter to the public disclosing that Pelosi was going to Afghanistan, which flies directly in the face of normal protocol. The Pentagon, Congress and the White House don’t reveal in advance about trips into these combat zones.

As former Secretary of State John Kerry said via Twitter: The President of the United States just compared visiting our troops in a war zone to a “public relations event.” Another sad day for our nation when that’s how the Commander in Chief sees such a visit.

Kerry is correct to suggest that such trips aren’t just a “public relations event.” The speaker of the House, as the No.2-ranking official in line of presidential succession, reportedly was going to Afghanistan to speak to those troops, to tell them their country stands with them. It’s not just PR. It’s part of what members of Congress — as well as the president and Cabinet officials — do as part of their jobs.

Trump is trying to get Pelosi and other congressional leaders to negotiate an end to the partial government shutdown.

This back and forth is driving me batty. I want the shutdown ended, too. The men and women who have been furloughed and denied their income are suffering needlessly.

Pelosi wants Trump to delay his scheduled State of the Union speech. So what does Trump do in response? He blows the speaker’s cover by grounding a military jet that would have taken her potentially into harm’s way.

I’ve heard a term to describe this rhetorical exchange.

Sophomoric.

national news

Is pressure mounting for POTUS to cave on shutdown?

Sitting as I am out here in the middle of Trump Country, I am in no position to state with absolute knowledge about what happens in Washington, D.C.

Still, I cannot stop thinking that pressure may be building to some sort of spontaneous combustion concerning this partial government shutdown.

Eight hundred thousand federal employees are without paychecks. They are starting to rumble. They are demonstrating. They are demanding action by the president and Congress. The speaker of the House has pulled back her invitation to the president to deliver his State of the Union speech in the House of Representatives, citing security concerns created by the government shutdown.

The president has ordered some federal employees back to work, but without pay! That order well might be unlawful, which could prompt yet another lawsuit against the president.

Donald Trump wants to build The Wall along our southern border. He wants to spend about $5.7 billion for The Wall. Congressional Democrats are resisting him. Trump said he would take responsibility for shutting down the government; then it happened, but now Trump is blaming Democrats for the shutdown.

It’s not going well for Donald Trump. There might be some weakening of his position, even though he’s still talking tough.

The government needs to reopen. Those hundreds of thousands of employees need their income restored. Yes, we need to negotiate some form of enhanced border security.

Is there a semblance of humanity and common sense to be found anywhere in Washington? If so, then it needs to present itself, the government needs to return to full functionality and both sides need to actually talk to each other about how they can find some common ground.

That is how you govern.