Tag Archives: government shutdown

International news, national news

The Wall becomes a metaphor

Donald Trump promised to build a “big, beautiful wall” if voters would elect him president of the United States.

He got elected. Then he kept hammering home a related promise, that Mexico would pay for it. Mexico  won’t pay for The Wall.

Trump has continued to hype The Wall, which has become the reason he shut down part of the government, furloughing hundreds of thousands of federal employees, putting them in financial peril; oh, but the billionaire says he can “relate” to them. Uh, huh. You bet.

Now The Wall has become something else. It’s no longer going to be a concrete wall. It’ll be made of steel. It will be made of see-through slats. Steel will be “more expensive” than concrete, Trump said.

So, is The Wall going to be built? Or not? Will it be an actual wall? Or will it be a metaphorical symbol?

I am confused. I am baffled. I cannot wrap my noggin around what this goofball is trying to say and do.

Meanwhile, that damn government shutdown continues with no apparent end in sight. Those federal workers are still without any income. Their families’ financial peril is deepening. Donald Trump is trying to make hay out of a fabricated “national emergency.”

What in the name of political insanity am I missing?

Let’s just try to keep this item at the top of our attention: The president pledged that Mexico would pay for it. Now he is demanding that you and I fork over the money — as much as $5.6 billion — to build a barrier that won’t solve a thing.

The president has shut down part of the federal government in order to break one of his signature campaign promises.

This is not how you make America great again!

national news

You can ‘relate’ to furloughed workers? Really, Mr. POTUS?

Listen up, Mr. President. I should not have to explain this to you, but I will anyway, because I have the time to do so.

Don’t try to fool us into believing that ridiculous claim that you can “relate” to American federal employees who have been furloughed because of the partial government shutdown that you initiated with your insistence on money to build The Wall.

I read your remarks to reporters today, about how you supposedly can relate to the misery that’s been inflicted on these dedicated public servants.

Let me remind you, sir, of a key difference between you and them.

Those employees work because they have to work. They need the income to feed their families, pay their bills, keep a roof over their heads and maybe — if there’s money left over — to take a vacation once in a while.

You, Mr. President, are working for free because you chose to forgo the presidential annual salary of $400,000. You did so because you are so fabulously wealthy (or so you keep telling us) that you don’t need the pittance the government pays you to “make America great again.”

I’ll be clear on this point: I appreciate your willingness to give up the presidential salary. I also applaud your decision to donate the money each year to various charities. They need the cash more than you do . . . apparently.

However, do not attach this idiotic form of false equivalence to what you are foisting on federal employees and your decision to voluntarily give up your salary.

You cannot possibly “relate” to what they’re enduring.

As for whether those furloughed employees agree with your decision to shut down the government and deprive them of their paychecks, hmm . . . I’d bet real American money they don’t.

national news

Why not reopen government . . . then dicker?

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U.S. Sens. Cory Gardner and Susan Collins, both Republicans, have pitched a perfectly reasonable temporary solution to the impasse that has shuttered part of the federal government.

Gardner, a Colorado conservative and Collins, a Maine moderate, suggest that the government reopen for a period of time and then the two sides can enter into serious negotiation regarding The Wall, which Donald Trump wants to build along our southern border.

Why not? That’s my answer.

Gardner said he backs the president’s call for The Wall. Collins likely isn’t in the same camp. They both want the same thing: a return to work for the 800,000 or so federal workers who have been furloughed — without pay! — while Trump and congressional Democrats haggle over The Wall.

I am not a party to the negotiating, to state the obvious. I dislike intensely the idea of erecting The Wall along our border. I do support enhanced border security.

The shutdown, though, has produced serious collateral damage in this fight between the sides. The federal workers who are now having to live without their income are caught in a vise. They are being whipsawed and kicked around. They deserve better from the federal government that employs them.

Will anyone in D.C. listen to reason? Sens. Gardner and Collins are emerging as lonely voices seeking to be heard above the noise.

national news

Mitch McConnell is MIA

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s absence at Donald Trump’s Rose Garden press conference was so very conspicuous it has become a serious back story in the government shutdown drama that goes on and on and on.

The Senate majority leader once all but guaranteed that there wouldn’t be a partial shutting down of the government. Indeed, he and the president reportedly agreed on a deal approved by the Senate unanimously to fund the government until early February.

Except the measure didn’t have money for The Wall that Trump wants to build along our southern border. Trump got a gut full from right wing talkers, so he changed his mind.

Yep. He stabbed the majority leader in the back.

Which makes me wonder if McConnell and Trump are at each other’s throats yet again.

He wasn’t standing with the president as Trump talked about the meeting he had with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer. He hasn’t spoken publicly for several days about the status of the shutdown, other than to say the Senate would not take up the House bill that Pelosi promised to send to the Senate.

Aren’t he and Trump big-time pals these days? Don’t they stand together in favor of The Wall and opposed to any measure that doesn’t include money to build it?

He should have been in the Rose Garden. Mitch McConnell is missing in action. Given that no one seems able to talk sense to the president, then maybe McConnell is planning a mutiny.

national news

Is this what my congressman hoped for?

Welcome to Washington, D.C., Van Taylor, the place that defines political dysfunction.

Taylor, a Republican, is my shiny new congressman, representing the Third Congressional District of Texas. He succeeds a legendary North Texas pol, Sam Johnson, a fellow Republican and a former Vietnam War prisoner — and  man I still hope to meet one day.

I like that Taylor is one of the many veterans who were elected to Congress this year. He is a former Marine who saw combat during the Iraq War.

Taylor came to the Congress after serving in the Texas Senate, a body that functions a whole lot more efficiently than its congressional counterpart.

He’s now working in a government that is partially shut down. The Democrats who run the House that Taylor has joined don’t want to spend public money to build The Wall; the president insists on it. He says he’s prepared to keep part of the government shut down for as long as it takes until he gets money for the wall.

I am hoping Van Taylor is ready for the sideshow that he has joined.

Taylor, by the way, says he stands for increased border security. His policy statement on the issue posted on his website doesn’t mention The Wall specifically. However, given that I understand that Taylor is considered to be one of the more conservative members of the House, he well might stand with Donald Trump on getting money for The Wall.

OK, I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s been quiet, unlike some of his Democratic colleagues who’ve been whoopin’ and hollerin’ over their newly re-found majority status.

Indeed, my new congressman is going to have to get used to serving in the minority, which is something he didn’t experience during his time in the Texas Senate.

Welcome to the loony bin, Rep. Taylor.

national news

‘It would make me look foolish’

A statement attributed to Donald Trump screams loudly to us at a couple of levels.

The president said that accepting a deal to reopen the entire federal government from U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer would “make me look foolish.”

I’ll set aside the snickering that developed at the idea that the president long ago began looking “foolish” by uttering the things he says and doing the things he does.

The idea of negotiating a deal with House and Senate Democrats is not a “foolish” gesture. Brokering such a deal would be the result of compromise, which is an essential element of good, smart and effective governance.

As I heard Speaker Pelosi today when she took the gavel from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, I thought I heard her say she planned to return a Republican-sponsored and endorsed measure to the Senate; she intends to force senators to vote on a measure they already have approved and which the president pledged initially to sign into law.

You know what happened. When the president made that pledge, which included agreeing to sign a bill that didn’t provide money for The Wall, right-wing talkers went nuts. They accused him of betraying the GOP base. Hearing that, Trump back-pedaled. He reversed himself. He stuck a shiv in the back of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Mike Pence, both of whom said the president would support the spending bill that passed the Senate by a virtually unanimous vote.

Foolish? Does that make Donald Trump look foolish? Yeah. It does.

The bigger issue is whether he’s willing to wheel and deal with Democrats.

Pelosi said she wants senators to re-endorse the measure they already have backed. The pressure now is on them and on the president.

Negotiation is part of legislating. It’s part of governing. It is the essence of how you move the country forward. Refusing to consider a compromise is the prescription for looking “foolish.”

national news

Democrats taking Trump insults personally?

A part of me wishes congressional Democrats had stuck around Washington to knuckle down in search of a solution to the government shutdown instead of scurrying for the tall grass; Donald Trump managed to forgo his Florida getaway to stay in D.C., after all.

Another part of me thinks that Trump is handling this standoff poorly while he dishes out Twitter-fueled insults to his political foes.

He needles them to come to the White House, but uses that snarky tone — along with the demagogic rhetoric about favoring “open borders” — to make whatever point he wants to make.

How can Democrats not take this constant barrage personally? How can they put all that crap aside as if the president never said anything of a smart-alecky nature?

For instance, Trump fired off this tweet: I am in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come on over and make a deal on Border Security. From what I hear, they are spending so much time on Presidential Harassment that they have little time left for things like stopping crime and our military!

See what I mean? He has to say something about Democrats having “little time left for things like stopping crime and our military.” That’s the stuff of a demagogue.

He continues to play exclusively to his base, which cheers him on blindly. The rest of us? He couldn’t care less. This is the guy who said he’d be a “unifying” president, that he would seek to be everyone’s head of state, head of government and commander in chief. He is nothing of the sort!

The partial government shutdown now figures to hang around for a while. Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in a few days. Maybe something will change. Maybe they can persuade their GOP colleagues in the Senate to pass the word on to the president that his insistence on building The Wall is a non-starter.

If only they can get over the personal insults that emanate from the president’s Twitter account.

economic news, national news

Nice timing on pay freeze, Mr. POTUS

Donald John Trump isn’t exactly the master of impeccable timing.

He helps shut down part of the federal government, forcing the furloughing of thousands of federal employees; thus, they are not getting paid while their agency is shut down because the White House and Congress are arguing over money to build The Wall along our southern border.

What does Trump then decide to do? He signs an executive order freezing wages for federal employees! They were slated to get a 2.1 percent pay increase. No longer will they get it. Trump said the budget cannot support it. Imagine that, will ya?

The budget deficit has exploded since the president and congressional Republicans enacted that tax cut, depriving the government of revenue that might have helped minimize deficit growth.

At least, though, the pay freeze doesn’t have an effect on the 2.6-percent pay increase granted to our men and women in the military.

Still, as the saying goes: Timing is everything.

Nice timing, Mr. President.

International news, national news

Trump stays put, unlike congressional leaders

I have to say it out loud: I disagree mightily with Donald Trump’s reasons for shutting down part of the federal government, but I agree with his decision to stay put in Washington while needling his foes to find a solution to the stalemate.

Meanwhile, congressional leaders — Republican and Democrat alike — are nowhere to be found in D.C. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is gone; so is Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer; Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell also are MIA.

I get that the two sides are miles apart. Trump wants money to build The Wall along our southern border. Democrats are having none of it. But the two sides cannot talk to each other face to face if one of the parties is absent, correct?

We don’t need The Wall to shore up our border security. We can accomplish that feat without erecting The Wall, whether it’s an actual wall or an unreasonable facsimile.

At least the president is on scene. I wish those who run the legislative branch of government were there, too.

national news

Trump politicizes suffering of fed employees

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What in the name of human decency — which he doesn’t possess — is Donald J. Trump trying to assert with this latest idiotic declaration?

He said this week that “most federal employees are Democrats” and said they are those who are most concerned about the partial shutdown of the federal government. They have been furloughed, not getting paid, which I guess in Trump’s mind means that congressional Democrats are more liable to support those workers because of their party affiliation. Is that what he means?

The president’s idiocy prompts a couple of questions.

What difference does it make which party they identify with? Why does it matter whether they’re mostly Democrat, mostly Republican, mostly socialist, communist or Whig?

Is the president trying, therefore, to lay all the blame on Democrats as a way to deflect the criticism that is coming directly at him and those in his political party?

Let’s recall briefly an element that preceded this shutdown.

Senators voted 100 to zero to approve a spending bill that did not contain money for The Wall. They sent the bill to the House of Representatives, where House leaders agreed in principle to send the measure to the president’s desk. Then the president got a snootful from right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh and right-wing gadfly Ann Coulter. Then Trump changed his mind and told GOP lawmakers that he wouldn’t sign the bill after all.

Now this goofball is fabricating some phony scenario that suggests that “most federal employees are Democrats.”

I have to ask: To what end does he intend to take this ridiculous assertion?