Trump Shutdown Will End When...

    How will the shutdown end? Job action, sick in, strike, walk-out by enough of the federal workforce to slow functions of their department or agency, and create a crisis for the airlines, the federal prisons, the IRS, the federal courts, food safety inspections, NASA, CDC..?..you name it. Your guess is as good as mine. Trump doesn't know or care about what the 800,000 federal workers do. He doesn't care about them or their families. He doesn't care about the services they provide, who they provide them to, or the lives and businesses of those in the private sector who have contract work with the federal government.  It appears it will take a major crisis in air travel... law enforcement,... tax collection... IRS functions...border patrol/ICE..FAA... for Trump, McConnell and most important,  the Republican base, to bring this to an end.  None of these GOP folks give a damn until the sheet hits the fan and empties their wallets, affects their job or lifestyle, or threatens their political career.

    One thing we know about Republicans in government: they go merrily along serving the rich, until a crisis develops, usually due to their own irresponsible actions, at which point they begin to recognize there is a big problem, and they look to Democrats for help in getting through it.

    No telling what will break the dike on this attempt at legislative extortion by Trump, but it is likely to be a siezing up and collapse of some part of the federal government. Caused by workers tired of being used as unpaid pawns.

    WASHINGTON — President Trump and congressional leaders failed again on Friday to break a deadlock that has kept the government partially shut down for two weeks, and the president acknowledged he threatened to keep agencies closed for “months or even years.”

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    The one thing President Trump has not talked about publicly during 13 days of the partial government shutdown is the 800,000 federal workers who are not being paid because of it. 

    Mr. Trump’s apparent indifference to the Transportation Security Administration agents, correctional officers, scientists and other federal employees caught in the cross hairs of a political standoff presents a remarkable contrast with how other presidents have made a point of trying to demonstrate their empathy during other shutdowns. In 2013, for instance, President Barack Obama wrote an open letter to the workers affected when the government was closed.

    “None of this is fair to you,” he wrote, adding, “You and your families remain at the front of my mind.”

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    From furloughs at the Justice Department to confusion in the courts, to prison officers working without a paycheck, the shutdown has challenged the nation’s courts and criminal justice system and those whose livelihoods depend on them, slowing some cases while throwing others into disarray.

    Federal district courts are still operating because they have revenue from court fees and other sources aside from congressional appropriations. But those funds may run out as soon as next Friday,

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    Flying back after the holidays, I detected that TSA workers were not happy about working without pay. Woe unto you, if you had your bag pulled for inspection. They were not discourteous, just slow.


    Teachers in Republican controlled Oklahoma went on an "illegal" strike with the Red for Ed movement, which spread Republican controlled Arizona. They got some action from the GOP. TSA could end this thing in a couple of days with job action that caused mass flight cancellations, and who would blame it on the.unpaid workers?


    CNN - it's happening already:

    First on CNN: Hundreds of TSA screeners, working without pay, calling out sick at major airports...TSA officers are telling the union they will find another way to make money. That means calling out to work other jobs."


    That's probably just a few democrats. I'm sure the republican TSA agents are happy to work without pay for months if not years to support the Trump shut down.


    If the Führer Trump calls and commands, each of us must obey without question, whatever he may say. With Trump we are everything, without him we are nothing.   Hermann Göring. Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, John Cornball, Lyin Ted, Little Marco......


    offered without comment, I was wondering so I googled: IRS Employee Emergency News


    OK. What has the IRS done for Trump..? ...or for the GOP 'Mar-a-Lago donor class? Just askin'...

    It's the GOP Dream to end the income tax, and end Social Security,  but....keep the (SS) payroll tax so there is still fed money for doling out as political patronage.  The big shots, of course,  don't  pay a payroll tax.


    No great significance but I recall when  "OPM" was sacred to every Bank cashier , standing for

    Other People's Money, their holy charge until the Saving & Loans were deregulated  by RR as a trial run for the sub prime liberalization.

    A fairly self rule is when your banker starts praising the next round of liberalization some one's soon going to be 

    crouched  over a subway grill quoting Yip Harburg's 

     " It was Al all the time......

    Hey don't you remember

    I'm your pal

    .Brother  can you spare a dime"

    And of course  that Philosopher ColePorter  pointed out that

    "The world belongs to men and  women 

    But the banks belong to men"

    Wonder who'll be the merry minstrels 

    this time.

    Maybe it'll be different.

    And pigs can fly.

     

     


    Smart stable geniuses don't pay taxes, so the government runs on OPM.


    Some  of us , a number  significant when weighted by wealth , passionately  believe the government's principal job is to protect them. Period. And  particularly  against their  having to pay their share.

     


    Trump's Base 110% backs the wealthy not paying taxes...Trump would declare a national emergency to keep it that way, but didn't have to thanks to the recent Republican Congress gaming  reconciliation to provide tax relief to billionaires and millionaires.


    Maggie has the goods, just posted the evidence that what he's doing now is using what he thinks is his most reliable ace-in-the-hole when things look bad for the narcissist-in-chief:


    The blurb that explains everything:

     


    Trumpco, they are playing favorites somehow.Comes to mind, it'd be good if people helped make this one go viral, given that it's the A.P. and not the "librul media" writing it:


    Trump's deep lizard brain psyche is hoping heavily armed Guatemalan ISIS terrorists applying for asylum in California sneak by understaffed unpaid TSA agents at the SF airport and create a hostage situation so Pelosi has to leave DC to lead negotiations.

    He's holding out meanwhile, convinced it won't be long.




    Agree with Nyhan that this is a seriously interesting thought:


    more Crazytown stuff I missed (just can't keep up with it all! surprise):

    Breathtaking story in the @washingtonpost about how one reason that Team Trump was so ready to shut down govt was: they had no idea what the govt does https://t.co/HejeGCqjTg pic.twitter.com/hJt3nezvia

    — David Frum (@davidfrum) January 5, 2019

    Edit to add: note that today Frum thinks:


    THE WORKERS WANT THE WALL NOT PAYCHECKS!!!! 

    It's a workers strike! Trump says so!


    He has such a rich fantasy life, eh? Just always thinking up new "stories" This was less than a month ago. Reminds me so much of a classic character in movies, the grade school playground bully who is always boasting and telling stories to be king of the hill. Coulter and Limbaugh kids challenge his authenticity of power and he just has to make up a new story.

    The question that continually bothers me: how is this not mental illness that is doing harm to others? We really are in the situation like in other movies where a crazy guy has been elected and a coup therefore needs to be executed, the grownups have to step in and take over. And that's not democracy. But it is what it is. There are no grownups willing to execute a "coup". Who are the real culprits here? Got me thinking: the Justice Dept. is doing its job continuing what they can by the law. Who is not doing their job? His doctor, the vice president, the chief of staff, everyone in the White House who is not speaking out publicly, everyone who left the White House jobs who is not speaking out publicly....to say: the president is a mentally disabled child.


    Senator Cornyn



    Wonders will never cease on disagreements about how to effectively lie as a Trump groupie:

    White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Monday downplayed the Trump administration's misrepresentation of the number of suspected terrorists apprehended at the southern border, arguing press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made "an unfortunate misstatement" a day earlier.

    Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked Conway if the White House's inability to get its facts right on immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border hurts its credibility after Sanders said on "Fox News Sunday" that "nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally, and we know that our most vulnerable point of entry is at our southern border

    Anchor Chris Wallace challenged Sanders on her comments, noting that the State Department had said there haven't been any terrorists found coming across the border and that most were captured at airports.


    When Communications Chief Coulter is not happy with your spin, y'all better scramble

    Dumbest argument for a wall: "There are terrorists in the caravans!” How many Americans have been killed by terrorists who got in through our Southern border compared to Americans killed by Mexican gangs, heroin & drunk drivers?

    — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 8, 2019


    P.P.S. None of them know shit, they're all worthless, he'll show ya how to do it:

    Hard to get crayon off the teleprompter screen https://t.co/OJaCosxHN8

    — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) January 8, 2019

    Reminds me of this a few months back: Did Trump Color an American Flag Wrong During a Photo-Op With Ohio Kids?


    worthless! 

    cheeky


    Trump would have to repeat Kindergarten.

    If Coulter is counting dead Americans whatabout battlefield weapons legally sold to psychopaths, the Awesome GWB Iraqi Adventure which she supported or thosands dead of overdoses of opioids ....giving huge profits of big drug companies....? It's OK by Coulter to be murdered by American psychos or Wall Street drug/war profiteering?


    FWIW, she liked it. A lot. Why not, she basically helped edit it, figuratively if not literally:


    Senate Dems just now:


    Erick Erickson warning his buddies @ RedState.org:


    oops deleted; wrong thread!


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