In a more quaint time, government shutdowns and playing chicken with the debt limit were common tactics to take something away from people.  Now it’s committing international human rights atrocities to get what they want.  This new tactic is nothing but hostage taking.  In the 1980s, Reagan used several government shutdowns because the budget contained spending he didn’t like.  Newt Gingrich used government shutdowns trying to get slashes to Medicare, public health, and education spending.  The 2011 budget drama caused S&P to actually downgrade the US’s credit rating for the first time ever due to the irresponsibly of the Congressional Republicans’ continuous brinksmanship.  In 2013, they tried it again when brand new Senator Ted Cruz whipped up the House to shutdown the government in an effort to take healthcare away from millions of people.  All this screwing around never works, but Republicans continue using showdowns over the debt limit and budget to kill everything from healthcare, social spending, to funding Planned Parenthood.

Which brings us to now.  Donald Trump lied in a continuous stream about many, many issues, but one of his biggest lies was that he was going to build a “big beautiful wall” to keep dark-skinned people out of the country.  The most outrageous part of that promise was that, through his singular strength and negotiating prowess, he was going to make Mexico pay for it.  The notion was and is idiotic, and everyone but his biggest sycophants dismissed the promise as extreme hyperbole.  As expected, Mexico shot Trump the finger, and former president Vicente Fox makes sport of regularly poking him in the eye over the issue.

Having failed at destroying healthcare for millions of people and after blowing a gigantic multi-trillion dollar hole in the nation’s budget passing out tax cuts to billionaires, he’s now trying to keep his most outrageous promise by pushing funding in the federal budget and taking money from parks and military budgets to build his wall, but the Democrats have planted their feet saying no.  So, to put pressure on the them, Trump’s in-house white supremacist, Stephen Miller, with the help of a few other deplorables, cooked up the scheme to start holding dark skinned people hostage on the border.  As is typical for extremists, Miller miscalculated, but Trump and Jeff Sessions stupidly blundered into this political and human disaster.

Sessions defended this new hostage taking plan and continues to do so, even in the face of loud and getting louder opposition.  This tactic is also the reason that Trump’s newly assigned talking point blames the “Democrats’ terrible law” that’s forcing him to take hostages.  As we all know, there is no law.  He’s taking thousands of children hostage, in violation of international human rights laws attempting to force the Dems to fund his stupid wall.  It’s familiar territory for him, since he’s connected so closely to the Mob.  You know that line, “Cute kid – it would be a shame if something bad happened to her.”  That’s PRECISELY what Trump’s doing.  To force Dems to fund his wall, he’s doing irreparable damage to thousands of children and even more parents.

How anyone could support a politician who so regularly takes hostages is beyond me.  Such a tactic is not only immoral, it costs US taxpayers billions of dollars and destroys our standing on the world stage.  A government shutdown that merely costs jobs and damages the economy is one thing.  This tactic is literally costing lives. The Dems should stand fast, and we should back them doing that.  Like the Mob, extremists don’t compromise; they destroy and threaten until they get their way.  It’s time to take that tool away from them.

So, Samantha Bee calls Ivanka Trump a “feckless c***” for remaining silent while her father directs a policy that tears immigrant families apart and imprisons small children in converted big box stores.  The walls of these big box prisons actually have Soviet style murals of Trump complete with quotes from his book, The Art of the Deal.  Fake outrage over Bee’s verbal attack resulted in her forced apology for being unkind to Princess Ivanka.

Last weekend, Robert DiNiro shouted, “F*ck Trump!” several times during his few moments on stage at the Tony Awards on national television.  Again, que the right wing noise machine that whipped up fake outrage over DiNiro’s denouncement, but luckily, he doesn’t work for anyone and doesn’t care what they think.

Then came Frank Bruni of the NY Times, who did what most progressives, including Michelle and Barack Obama, do, and that’s chant the “when they go low, we go high” mantra.  His article this week tut-tutted, finger wagged, and warned ominously that getting mad and saying so will re-elect Trump and his cronies.  That advice is STUPID and exactly the tactic that got us Al Gore and John Kerry.  I’m sorry, but that is just plain wrong and stupidly puts artificial limits on good people’s ability to get pissed off.  Several of my progressive friends reposted the op-ed on Facebook, imploring all of us to take to the high road, because some mouth breathing, drooling knuckle dragger in Columbia Mississippi won’t like our anger and will decide not to vote for the Democrat.  That’s an idiotic notion.  Said mouth breathing, drooling knuckle dragger will NEVER vote for the Democrat.  Wake up.

Let’s think about what’s actually occurring every day in the United States.  Jeff Sessions, who is a lifelong hater of all people with dark-pigmented skin, has started a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal immigration and is jailing thousands of people.  Because all these people, including mothers of young children fleeing gang violence south of the border, are being jailed, their children are being torn from their parents, and imprisoned.  That should piss you off.  Ivanka Trump?  She’s using her father’s corruption to expand her own brand around the world, often using child labor, to stuff her Gucci purse full of millions.  Foreign dignitaries are pouring millions of dollars into Trump’s pockets through his hotel just down the street from the White House.  As I pointed out this week, Trump is also selling his own likeness on cheesy memorabilia peddled to the public using 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as the address of the business.  Trump’s corrupt cabinet members are working 24/7 to erase all progress made under Barack Obama while enriching themselves on the backs of the taxpayers.  He’s turned US diplomatic policy on its ear, attacking Canada as a “security risk” while French kissing the most evil and murderous dictator on the planet.

For Christ’s sake, Frank, what the hell does it take to piss you off?  Over the last 30 years, Republicans have proven that vicious anger works.  They’ve also proven that outrage over fake issues works like a charm.  That’s why you get gay bashing and racist attacks on right wing media just as election seasons get started.  That’s why the phony “war on Christmas” gins up anger among Fox Noise loyalists every year.  It works.  Keeping people outraged drives them to the polls.  Democrats don’t get that, and never have.  The result?  Republicans control all three branches of the federal government.  They control 33 governors’ mansions, and 66 of 99 legislative chambers.  Radical gerrymandering has cemented in these gains to protect them from changing demographics.

On Thursday, one writer got it right. Drew Magary of GQ Magazine hit Bruni right between the eyes, calling his nonsense nonsense.  He said of Bruni, “…once a wonderful restaurant critic and is now one of the most singularly inane political columnists working today…”.  And his rant was a long drive straight down the middle.  He put it this way:

“Bruni is far from alone in smarmily crying out THIS IS WHY TRUMP WON! every time a liberal gets angry about something they ought to be angry about. It is the laziest, stupidest theory, one that posits that the only possible way to take down Trump from his evildoing is to keep your voice so quiet that everyone else can opt out of hearing it. It’s also a clear case of naked pandering from newspapers that skew liberal but still yearn—whether for financial reasons or out of sheer vanity—to appear fair to both sides. This is how you end up with two sets of rules for each party. Republicans can be openly racist, nationalist, corrupt, and horny. Democrats have to be GOOD, because Americans apparently crave goodness even though 60 million of them voted for Donald Trump.”

The White House Gift Shop was created in 1946 by order of President Truman to sell presidential merchandise to visitors and the general public.  It is 100% non-partisan, sells memorabilia from past presidents as well as White House specific merchandise.  The funds raised from the sale of merchandise supports the uniformed Secret Service at the White House.

The Gift Shop now has a competitor.  True to his cheesy form, Trump now has HIS OWN gift shop, selling all things Trump, from autographed portraits to replica “signing pens” that he’s used for his nonstop effort to erase the Obama presidency.  Even MORE cheesy?  He lists the address of the shop as 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  So, to be clear – Donald Trump is running a private enterprise OUT OF OUR WHITE HOUSE to cash in on this elected office. Don’t believe it?  Here’s a screen shot of the bottom of his merchandising email for his flash sale of his replica “signing pen”.

That’s right, the address of this business is Donald J. Trump, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC.  It doesn’t get much worse than this.  It seems the least he could do is put the shop address as his hotel down the street where he’s raking in millions of dollars of money paid by foreign government officials trying to curry favor.

Hurry! Only 15 more hours left to buy your replica signing pen!  Or, how about a genuwine autographed portrait of Melania (sorry, she’s clothed in these pics; I’m sure for the right price you can get one of her nude shots).  Or, how about a framed front page of inauguration day?  If you want cheese, here’s your chance.

As we all are painfully aware, Trump wrecked the G7 summit by attacking our closest allies, and picked a fight with Canada over trade tariffs.  On top of all that?  Trump’s reasons to attack Canada is 100% based on lies.  Steve Rattner was on MoJoe this morning and talked about the idiocy of Trump’s tariffs.  Here are the facts:

We don’t have a trade deficit, we have a trade surplus with Canada. Also, Canada’s tariffs are the LOWEST in the developed world. Third, Canada’s tariff on dairy is a tiny piece of trade between the two countries. Lastly, since Trump put tariffs on Canadian lumber, price IN THE US have increased 27%.

You can watch it here.  It’s very informative, even with Joe S. interrupting Rattner every 15 seconds which is his most irritating habit.

Article I, Sec. 8 – 

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

The Founders established a balance of power that limited the power of the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial branches.  Until gerrymandering, the terminal cancer on democracy, the system worked well.  Now, the legislative branch is fossilized, full of ignorant, corrupt morons who see their only job as keeping their job.  In the House, the ruling party picks its constituents.  In the Senate, protections of the minority have been stripped away.  The resulting political Frankenstein is a Congress that literally does nothing, including setting international trade policy and war-making.  Because of this abrogation of constitutional authority, our entire governmental stability now depends on the character and basic decency of the person sitting in the Oval Office.

And then came Trump.  Because our system of government depends completely on the basic decency of the person occupying the office of president, as well as an adherence to over two centuries of tradition and custom, we’re not prepared to counter the actions of a president completely devoid of character and who is corrupt to the core. Combine that corruption with the abrogation of congressional authority, we are now completely exposed to the catastrophe that we witnessing today.  The President of the United States, unchecked by offsetting institutions, is actively undermining longstanding alliances, destroying trade relations among allies, and advocating alliance with our biggest enemy, Russia.

And ALL of these actions by Trump and his enablers are based on lies.  Our allies are NOT trading unfairly.  The markets among the major economic powers are open and free.  All trade agreements, at least before the regime of Cheeto Jesus, were openly negotiated.  Trump is poking our longstanding allies in the eye for no other reason than propping up the support of his ignorant, mouth-breathing, bigoted base.

If our members of Congress don’t stand up on their hind legs and stop this lunatic, he’s likely do set off a global trade war…FOR NO REASON.  Call your senator and congressman and tell them to stop screwing around and do their goddam job.  Our democracy depends on it.

Today, Trump announced he is pushing the G7 to re-admit Russia to the group of allies.  Russia was expelled after Putin lead the military intervention in Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014.  Trump has already estranged the US from the G6 by imposing tariffs and poking the other countries in the eye.  Now, in a blatantly pro-Putin move, he has urged the group readmit Russia.  Just another outrage – it must by Friday.