Tag Archives: government shutdown

economic news, national news

Federal workers ‘favor’ the shutdown? Hardly!

Donald Trump says many members of the federal work force “favor” the government shutdown that has put many of them out of work and has taken money from their pocketbooks.

Yep, that’s what the president said.

The president’s assertion, quite naturally, has been rebuked by union leaders, who say Trump’s statement is, shall we say, way off the mark.

Think of it. You work for a federal agency that is deemed “non-essential.” Members of Congress and the White House cannot agree on spending priorities. The government runs out of money approved by Congress during its most recent continuing resolution.

So the government shutters itself. Your agency is one of them that goes dark. You’re furloughed without pay.

And you favor shutting down the government? Sure thing, and the sun will rise in the west tomorrow morning.

Trump is trying to insert The Wall into this discussion. Well, whether employees favor construction of The Wall along our southern border is beside the point. They might actually support the president on that one.

It doesn’t mean they want the government to shut down and they want to deny their families an income upon which they demand for things such as, oh, keeping a roof over their head and putting food on their table.

national news

Democrats plan to provide Trump with an immediate test

Suppose this government shutdown lasts until the new Congress takes office in early January. Republicans will maintain control of the Senate, but Democrats take over in the House of Representatives.

The new House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is going to do the following: She is going to urge the House to approve a budget deal that doesn’t pay for The Wall that Donald Trump wants to erect along our southern border. The House will send it to the Senate. She will dare the GOP Senate majority to kill the bill the House will enact.

If the Senate discovers its spine, it well could send the bill to the president’s desk for his signature. Or, it might approve a different bill and the legislation could be hammered out in a conference to reconcile the differences.

Either way, Donald Trump is going to face a serious challenge when January rolls around. It’s only a few days away, folks.

Pelosi is no one’s fool. She is fully capable of engineering this House deal, of getting Democrats to hold the line and shoving this government shutdown issue squarely onto the GOP’s lap.

As the saying goes: Elections have consequences.

Put another way: Karma’s a bitch, man.

military news

Trump misses chance to buck up wounded vets

Think for a moment about an opportunity that Donald Trump let slip past him.

The president who’s entangled in a showdown over The Wall, shutting down part of the federal government, could have gone to Walter Reed Army Hospital, or to a nearby military installation to visit our troops.

He could have told them in person that despite the standoff and the government shutdown, the commander in chief was standing with them. Their government would not turn its back on the men and women in uniform.

Trump didn’t do that. No, he became the first president to not visit troops at Christmas time since 2002. President Bush didn’t visit American service personnel in 2001 or in 2002; 9/11 had just occurred in 2001 and the president was in the midst of preparing to launch the Iraq War the following year.

He visited every Christmas holiday for the remainder of his presidency. As did President Obama, who would visit with Marines in Hawaii during his annual Christmas vacation from 2009 until 2016.

Donald Trump had time on his hands. The government is shut down. He spent Christmas Day reportedly moping around the White House, firing off Twitter messages bitching about those nasty Democrats and his failure to obtain money to build The Wall along our southern border.

The president missed a chance to tell the troops that he supports them, that he’s got their back, that the government won’t let them down.

Oh, well, Maybe next year? Hmm, Mr. President?

national news

Trump shows smallness with Christmas greeting

Presidents of the United States routinely offer Christmas or other holiday greetings with an ample measure of good cheer and happiness. They wish us well, perhaps inject a little faith into their greetings. We feel good hearing from our head of state.

What did Donald J. Trump do today? He fired off a Twitter message that talks of the “disgrace” that infects our political world . . . but then offered a Merry Christmas greeting. It looked for all the world like a throwaway line.

He said: “It’s a disgrace, what’s happening in this country. But other than that I wish everyone a very merry Christmas.” Warm and fuzzy, yes?

I want to suggest that the tone and tenor of the president’s message today reflected a smallness, a bitterness and a pettiness in the man who holds the nation’s highest office, who commands the world’s greatest military and who (supposedly) represents the world’s most indispensable nation.

I wish he could have just — for once! — followed the norm set by all his predecessors. He could have simply offered his fellow Americans a heartfelt holiday wish and saved the political malarkey for another day; I’d even settle for him returning to the fight the day after Christmas.

He didn’t do that. He invoked the fight that has shut down part of the federal government. He suggested the “disgrace” is augmented by his fight with members of Congress over construction of The Wall he wants to erect along our southern border.

Oh, and then he tweeted this message on Christmas Eve: I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security. At some point the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more money than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy!

The more he claims to be a big man, the more he sounds like a small man. The larger the boast, the smaller he becomes.

Donald Trump is one strange dude.

national news

Merry Christmas to you, too, Mr. POTUS

Donald Trump sort of offered a mixed Christmas wish to his fellow Americans.

He wrote: “It’s a disgrace, what’s happening in this country, but other than that I wish every a very merry Christmas.”

Geez, thanks, Mr. President.

His greeting kind of reminds me of how someone might have greeted Mary Todd Lincoln: “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”

The “disgrace” Trump referenced is the border wall standoff and the partial shutdown of the federal government. I get that it’s a disgrace what is happening, except that he’s a principal party to it occurring in the first place. He insists on $5 billion for a wall that stands as a waste of money that the government doesn’t have; we are in debt up to our armpits, after all, right?

Trump once promised/pledged/committed to forcing Mexico to pay for the wall on our southern border. It ain’t happening. That means you and I could be stuck with the tab.

Still, the president’s Christmas greeting offers the faintest of good wishes.

I’ll accept the “Merry Christmas” part of it with some reluctance. The “disgrace” element? Well, that’s on the president as much — if not more so — as it is on everyone else in government.

national news

A Christmas wish for our politicians

I am in the spirit of bestowing Christmas wishes. I won’t bore you with what I wish for members of my family . . . besides, it’s personal.

I’ll bore you instead with what I wish for those politicians who work for us, you and me. We are the bosses, folks, not the party leaders, or those who call the shots in Congress or the White House. Every member of Congress — as well as the president — answers to us. We call the shots.

My overarching wish is for our politicians to stop this idiotic game of shutting down the government every few months. They need to approve long-term federal budgets that include money for vital programs upon which we all depend.

This “continuing resolution” nonsense has to end. Now would be a good time to end it.

The federal government is shut down for some undetermined length of time. Some of it is still operating. However, the halls of Capitol Hill are silent. The national parks are quiet.

Sure, members of Congress are surrendering their paychecks while the government is shuttered. Not all of them have signed on to that pledge. The president doesn’t take a paycheck for whatever it is he does in the White House, so he’s already clear of that particular shame.

I realize this Christmas wish of mine is a pipe dream. It won’t happen, more than likely, while all sides seek a way out of the mess they’re in.

However, in the Christmas spirit, I offer this request with the hope that somehow, somewhere, in some fashion our employees — the men and women who do our bidding (supposedly) — can find a way toward a permanent solution to this idiocy.

So, I’m on the record. You work for me, folks. Get the job done!

International news

The Wall becomes a symbol, nothing more

Let’s just call it “The Wall,” with capital letters. It has become a sort of comic book characterization.

Donald Trump wants to build The Wall because he promised to do while campaigning for the presidency. He says The Wall will stop illegal immigrants from “pouring” into the country bringing crime, disease, evil intent.

His foes — and you may count me as one of millions of ’em — say The Wall is pointless, it is unnecessary, it is un-American. We consider The Wall to be a symbol of a mindless, feckless, pointless campaign pledge. It went over well with the base of supporters who bought the candidate’s assertion about the scourge that was pouring over our borders.

The reality is that the government is shut down partially because Trump and congressional Democrats (and a few sensible Republicans) are quibbling over how much money to spend. Trump wants to spend $5.7 billion; Democrats are countering with an offer of less money, about $1.3 billion.

Oh, and then there’s this: Trump also promised that Mexico would pay for The Wall. Mexico won’t do it. Trump cannot make them pay for it.

The United States has plenty of options that do not require construction of The Wall. It has drones. Electronic surveillance. We can deploy more Border Patrol agents. We have all manner of resources available to stem whatever illegal immigration is occurring. We also have immigration laws that we can enforce; we can put additional teeth into those laws.

Donald Trump has dug in behind The Wall. He wants it built. He has shuttered the government because he has inflamed a problem, scared the daylights out of millions of Americans.

It’s only a symbolic gesture intended to make him look good to those who still are swilling the snake oil he’s peddling.

The government is shut down as a result.

This is not how you make America great again.

national news

Government shutdown: it’s on Trump

Here is where we stand with this partial shutdown of the federal government.

Donald Trump and some right wingers in Congress want to erect a wall along our southern border. The rest of Congress won’t give them the money to build that wall, which Trump pledged would be paid by Mexico.

The government has shuttered some agencies. All’s quiet in many federal agencies, along with Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, Democrats and some reasonable Republicans are blaming Trump for this monumental government cluster-flip.

But as Politico reports, Trump is OK with that.

I want to stipulate something that I believe is the reason behind this shutdown: It’s all about whether to build the wall; it has nothing to do with the overall scheme of “border security.”

Democrats want to secure the border as much as those rigid Republicans. They just don’t to erect a wall. They keep saying they support border security in the form of implementing and augmenting existing technology. Thus, they are willing to appropriate a sum of money that pays for those techniques.

That’s not good enough to suit Trump, members of that far right coalition called the Freedom Caucus and a handful of Fox News commentators and right-wing radio talkers. Indeed, it was the radio blowhards who got to Trump and persuaded him to renege on the pledge he made to Senate Republicans to sign the bill they approved.

That, my friends, is the sign of a mealy-mouthed weak leader. Yet the president pretends to be a strongman when in reality he is a tool, a puppet being manipulated by the right-wing element of his political base.

This shutdown might last a while. Or, it might end if senators and House members can come up with a compromise that everyone — including Donald Trump — can endorse.

This is an unacceptable state of play in Washington, D.C.

Donald Trump pledged to take control of government, to “drain the swamp,” to “unite” a nation torn by political division, to make the “best deals ever seen.” He is an abject failure.

He told congressional leaders in the Oval Office he would be proud to take ownership of a government shutdown. He’s got one now. Trump seems proud, all right. He also is acting like an ignoramus.

Despicable.

International news

NORAD’s Santa Tracker still on duty . . . despite the shutdown

This is good news for children around the world.

The Santa Tracker who works for the North American Aerospace Defense Command will be on duty Christmas Eve, despite the partial shuttering of the federal government.

Yep, NORAD will continue to track Santa Claus’ progress as he makes his way south from the North Pole to deliver his gifts to anxious children everywhere.

You have no idea how happy this makes a lot of little ones, even if they don’t quite grasp the circumstances surrounding Santa’s annual worldwide trek this year.

We have a little one in our family who’s expecting Santa Claus to visit in the next little while. Emma, our granddaughter, isn’t up to speed on the government shutdown kerfuffle. It doesn’t matter to us. Her parents won’t tell her; nor will her brothers; you can rest assured that her grandmothers and grandfathers — all four of us — will remain mum on the subject of shutting down the government while we are in her presence.

As National Public Radio reports: Despite gridlock in Washington, more than 1,500 military personnel and volunteers in an air force base in Colorado will be hard at work Christmas Eve, tracking Santa Claus and answering children’s calls.

We can all breathe a little more easily over the next day or so while we await the Jolly Old Man’s arrival. NORAD is on top of the situation.

national news

How will POTUS sell his leadership in 2020?

Let’s presume for just a moment or two that Donald J. Trump is going to campaign actively for re-election in 2020.

Yes, I know that is increasingly problematic . . . but humor me.

How does the president seek to sell his “leadership” skills to the American voting public? I ask the question as the nation enters its third federal government shutdown in the less than two years that Trump has been president of the United States of America.

Yep. This great dealmaker, swamp drainer and the man who surrounded himself with the “best people” has presided over three government shutdowns.

What makes this so weird and so unbelievable is that the same political party has controlled both congressional chambers and the White House. Yet they cannot — either on Capitol Hill or the White House — manage to govern effectively enough to prevent the government from shutting down.

How does Trump seek to sell his leadership, therefore, to Americans who he suckered in 2016 into believing he could actually govern?

Good grief! This individual has burned through numerous key White House staffers, at least seven Cabinet officials and assorted other mid- and lower-level functionaries. He has pi**** off allies in Europe, the Western Hemisphere and Asia. He criticized his predecessor for playing too much golf while in office and then laps the field in the number of golf outings he has taken while serving as president.

He kowtows to dictators. He denigrates previous presidents’ leadership skills while praising the leadership of the dictators he admires.

All this while presiding over three government shutdowns less than halfway through his first — and I hope only — term as president.

Is this carnival barker actually going to seek to persuade Americans that he has made America “great again” through this stumbling and bumbling?

I believe he will. I am going to hope for all it’s worth that this individual does not snooker us a second time. You know what they say about “fool me once . . . fool me twice.”