At Trump’s February 5th State of the Union address, he said “In the past, most of the people in this room voted for a wall, but the proper wall never got built. I will get it built…simply put, walls work and walls save lives,” But saying walls work and walls save lives is like saying ‘life vests work and life vests save lives’, so is everyone supposed to now wear a life preserver whenever they go outside, and especially if they cross a bridge or walk next to a lake? Did the Great Wall in China keep out the plundering hordes from the north - which was its intended purpose? Did the Maginot Line in France keep out Germany in 1940? If you want to get Biblical, did the walls at Jericho protect them from Joshua’s army?
Trump claimed ownership for the shutdown in his Jan. 31st Oval Office press conference, “If I didn’t do the shutdown, people wouldn’t know — they wouldn’t understand the subject. Now they understand the subject. They realize what a humanitarian crisis it is.” The shutdown was an educational opportunity for Trump to help Americans understand what a humanitarian he was by drawing attention to his manufactured emergency subject ---> Mexico hasn’t held up their end of Trump’s campaign promise so Trump decided it is only right that Americans should come up with the Border Wall money instead! Maybe somewhere, somehow, some way, someday, Mexico might reimburse us, who knows? This stupid semantics game needs to end. The issue is not about ‘border security’ even though that’s how Trump and the GOP try to frame it. The issue is about who pays for Trump's big beautiful wall.
Not one U.S. penny should be spent on a wall Trump boasted, bragged, and guaranteed his crowds that Mexico would pay for…gladly.
Still, Trump has used the past few days sugar-coating the fresh fecal material that he was feeding his base after losing the government shutdown confrontation. The ‘president’ then insinuated he’d won…
…by issuing a threat.
“If we don’t get a fair deal from Congress, (‘fair deal’ means you give me what I want) the government will either shut down on Feb. 15, again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and Constitution of the United States to address this emergency,” Trump said Friday.
Dammit, one of you reporters should have immediately asked him to cite where in the Constitution he is granted those powers. It’s guaranteed he wouldn’t have been able to do it. (It’s in Article II.)
But there is no emergency.
None.
He is shouting “fire” in a crowded theater where there is no fire.
Trump even states he is "prepared to shut down the government again if my demands aren’t met.” Does this sound like a negotiator or a Mafia boss? So once again the nation's safety has to be put at great risk, government functions grind to a halt, and federal employees are forced to go without paychecks because no one is giving in to the demands of the petulant five-year-old-acting president. Trump frequently sounds like a child arguing with his mother.
The fact that Trump doesn’t recognize the emergency right now, or at any time during the 35-day shutdown, attests to the lack of a crisis.
This past record-breaking shutdown was entirely based on a campaign promise Trump couldn’t keep. It was done by Trump to placate his bruised ego.
The Congressional Budget Office released a report showing Trump’s shutdown cost taxpayers an additional $11 billion tacked on to the federal deficit. Think about what we COULD have used that money for.
With all this Trump-induced chaos, one has to wonder what we’re going to miss if Trump declares his National Emergency. We’ve been so distracted by the daily Trump-inflicted wounds on America that we’ve lost sight on what’s going on in the Middle East, Central and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. This distraction has only helped our adversaries. They can see what is happening across the nation and they are taking full advantage of it. We’re going to pay a lot for that negligence down the road.
And it’s all because of Trump.
