Shutdowns and Parades

We're just hours away from a potential government shutdown. Donald Trump wants one. He said he did during one of his many televised meetings a few days ago. "Shut it down, shut it down, shut er down", he exclaimed at least six times. Blaming Democrats for not giving him what he wants, whatever that really is. When a lone Republican Congresswoman from Virginia stood up to him and said, "no, we don't need another shutdown, there is bipartisan support for a deal." Trump shut her down and informed her she was wrong, that no matter what she thought, there was no support from the Democrats.

Once again the chorus must point out that the Republicans are in complete control of the government and continually blaming the opposition party for your failure to govern is whiney.

The fact is there is bipartisan support for avoiding a shutdown and actually funding the government for more than a few weeks at a time and do an up or down vote on DACA, at least in the Senate. In the House, it's problematic, because Speaker Ryan doesn't want to actually lead. He has a group of Republicans in his caucus that basically don't want to vote for anything except returning the U.S. Government to it's scope and size of about 1790. Ryan has continued the artificial and farcical Hastert Rule put in place by Speaker Dennis Hastert, the convicted child molester, which says you don't put a bill on the floor that doesn't have the majority support of the majority. It is not a law and it certainly isn't in the Constitution. It's just stupid and Paul Ryan is not bound by it. He can easily cut a deal with the Democrats, put a bill on the floor and pass it with bipartisan support.

When the government shuts down it costs the economy billions of dollars and demonstrates to the world we are a bunch of idiots. But Donald Trump doesn't care about that. He's certainly an unreliable partner for the Democrats but even more disturbing, he's not a reliable partner for his own party. They do not know what he wants because he changes his mind multiple times a day, his word is worthless, just like it was in the private sector.

Will we shutdown? We'll soon find out.

Trump wants a grand military parade and the Department of Defense is currently working on a group of options for the President's consideration. We all know what he really wants, he wants tens of thousands of troops, tanks, planes, missile launchers and horsies. He wants to be seen as the great conqueror reviewing his mighty imperial forces. He wants it for T.V. ratings, he wants it because he's historically ignorant of such things, mostly he just wants to see all the shiny toys he now views as his. The estimated cost of the parade is 22 million dollars, that seems low to me and in my opinion not one red cent of taxpayer money should be spent when there are people in this country going without healthcare, food and shelter, many of them veterans. If Trump wants a parade, he should pay for it himself, he is purported to be a billionaire. If that's not acceptable to him then he should use the huge amount of money that was raised for his inauguration, the largest amount in history, of which only a small amount was used and the rest remains in some nebulous unknown account. Pay for the parade Mr. Trump!