Who knew?  We did.  Normal people did.  Many of us felt like we were standing in front of a train hurtling towards a cliff screaming, “STOP! STOP!” while it sped up as it reached the edge.  Well, we’re reaching the edge, and it is virtually 100% Trump induced. When he got his gigantic tax cut rammed through, the business community cheered.  When he started his trade war, the business community was concerned, but his base cheered.  Then he pissed off our closest allies and estranged us from NATO while cozying up to Putin.  He’s now pushing lifting sanctions against Russia.  And worse?  We’re now in our 32nd day of an unprecedented government shutdown, Trump holding a gun to the head of 800,000 workers and the entire US economy.

As this disaster drags on, adults in the room have gone from reluctant questioning to full fledged alarm.  Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan says a long shutdown could wipe out the entire first quarter of economic growth.  Worse, some economists are worrying about a global slowdown, especially since China is also suffering from the trade war (even though their trade surplus with us has exploded since Trump started his idiotic trade war).  The invertebrates in DC, led by Ol’ Scratch McConnell, do nothing but make fundraising calls for re-election.

And the American people are helpless to do anything.  Representatives’ and Senators’ voicemail boxes are full, no one is taking calls, and emails get canned responses.  Trumpists cheer as Rome burns.

And the real problem?  You can’t negotiate with kidnappers.  If the Dems cave to Trump’s demands, this will become his normal negotiating tactic.  He’ll skip congress all together and just shut down the government every time he can’t get what he wants.  The result is that, unfortunately,  this is a game of chicken that the Dems can’t lose.

Last Thursday, during the photo op on the border with His Orangeness, Dan Patrick offered Texas taxpayers’ money to build his idiotic wall.  That’s right, folks – the most powerful man in Texas offered the most powerful man on the planet OUR money to build HIS wall – and pay us back later.  We can’t afford to fund schools and teachers, but we have enough money for this kind of folly.  Swell.

This is what happens when Americans are so goddam stupid that they elected a hate radio screamer and a cheesy reality television star to high office.

Disaster.

Trump beat all odds two years ago, winning the presidency by appealing to the working class, who fell for his schtick of being a man of the people, never mind the fact that he was a spray painted reality television star whose cheesy branding included gold plated everything and a nude model from Slovenia to whom he was married.  The irony in his common man appeal is that he has a decades-long record of screwing the common man by not paying his bills and being “litigator in chief”, using the courts as a weapon to fend off legitimate bill collectors.

USA Today has published a report that documents a pattern of unreasonably withheld payments by the Trump Organization, driving many contractors into financial distress and even bankruptcy.  This behavior goes all the way back to the 1980s, and continued even after Trump started taking billions from Russian oligarchs. Trump has been the subject of over 3,500 lawsuits, many of which are over unpaid or underpaid contractors.

This report rings very true to me since I have a friend who told me a story two years ago that he had done work for the Trump Organization over a decade before, running up a $40,000 bill.  Trump refused to pay.  After months of arguing, one of his lackeys told my friend that if he wanted any money, he’d have to sue, so he gave up.  Months later, Trump’s people had the gall to call him for another job, telling him that if he’d do this next job, they’d pay him for the first.  My friend wisely told them to go to hell.

Not paying bills, especially to individual contractors, is the worst of the worst.  Trump has demonstrated for decades that he is just that.

Trump stormed out of negotiations yesterday when Nancy Pelosi refused to cave to his stupid wall.  He’s starting to figure out that the advice he got from the White House Resident Nazi, Stephen Miller, to shut down the government was not any more smart than separating tender-aged children from their parents at the border.

The wall is idiotic and will never happen.  Think about it; even when Trump controlled the WH, House, and Senate he couldn’t get the wall funded.  Even the invertebrates in Congress refused to acquiesce to such folly, so Trump decided to turn to his mafia upbringing to extort what he wants.  First, it was the government shutdown.  Second it was threatening to declare a national emergency to get what he wants.  After Pelosi just sat there staring at him yesterday, Trump stormed out and went straight to twitter, announcing he was shutting down FEMA funding for California wildfire relief funding.  Never mind that he probably can’t do that, the tactic is clear.

Trump is running the US government like a crime family, not the open and free society that we are.  He sees himself as the absolute authority.  If he doesn’t get what he wants, he turns Full Mafia, threatening millions of innocent Americans with cruelty never before seen in a US president.  What he’s saying to Pelosi is, “Nice little state you have there; it would be a shame if something bad happened to it.”  That is the only explanation of Trump’s bizarre behavior that makes sense.  Watching this train wreck reminded me of Sean Connery’s explanation to Kevin Costner about “the Chicago way” in the Untouchables.

https://youtu.be/xFWfOBfTQLg?t=60

Trump’s problem is that he’s so goddam stupid he doesn’t understand that Mafia tactics only work in the dark.  In the light of day it is completely ineffective.  If he thinks that Pelosi will clutch her pearls and suddenly cave in to his threats in fear of his retribution against her constituents, he’s dumber than he looks, and that’s pretty goddam dumb.

Trump’s Mafia tactics will simply not work with the sole exception of seriously damaging millions of Americans and the Constitution that he swore to protect and defend (before the largest inauguration audience in history) on January 20, 2017.  This episode won’t end well for anyone.

As we roll into the new year, a few observations:

As of this moment, we have no Attorney General, no White House Chief of Staff, no Interior Secretary, no Director of the EPA, the Secretary of Education is a religious nut trying to destroy education, the VP is a religious nut who believes women should be subjugated, the Secretary of State is a political hack helping cover up the murder of a Saudi journalist, the Director of National Security wants to bomb Iran, 18 countries have no US ambassador (including Australia), half of the positions in the State Department remain unfilled, the stock market is down almost 3,000 points, China now owns Pacific rim trade, the US is the only major power to NOT be in the Paris accords, the entire world is either terrified or laughing at us, and the president has shut down the government for the last 10 days over his 5th century solution to a 21st century problem. Notice I didn’t mention anything about everyone convicted, in jail, or on the way to jail, or Trump’s current average of telling over 500 lies per month.

This is great? Are we tired of winning yet?

I’m just tired.

Happy New Year

#myattorneygotarrested #pleasetellmethisisanightmare #ITMFA #gotemoluments? #trumpresign

The New York Daily News is reporting that a New Jersey attorney representing undocumented former employees at Trump’s National Golf Club in Bedminster turned over to Robert Mueller fake green cards and social security numbers given to them by managers at the club.  The fake credentials were used to make the employees appear to be legal to work in the US.

While Trump has the government shut down over his idiotic wall, his own criminality continues to come to light as the clock relentlessly ticks.