December 21, 2018: Government Shuts Down Again

 

12/21/18: The president is preparing to escape Washington D.C. for a sixteen-day vacation at Mar-a-Lago. If all goes well, fleeing the capital will allow him to hang with those folks we see in red MAGA hats at all his rallies. 

At least those who can afford to pay the six-figure fee to join and the five-figure annual fee to remain a member of his club.

 

We do know the president needs a rest. First, he has proven totally unable to convince Mexico to pay for his wall. Nor are Democrats in Congress inclined to ask taxpayers to foot the bill. 

There is, however, a GoFundMe page launched by Trump fans, to fund the wall with donations. Failing to grasp basic math, his fans are stoked to raise $10.9 million in the first few days. One anonymous donor chips in $50,000 all by him- or herself. 

At Fox News, where ever story focuses on right-wing success, they point out that the fund is already “a full hundredth of its way to its goal of $1 billion.” Which reminds me, I need to watch my diet. But I’m already a full hundredth of the way to losing that ten pounds I’ve been meaning to lose for the last two decades. 

Time to celebrate!

 

Anyway, the president doesn’t want to wait for the donations to pile up, so that he can start construction on the wall. Unless Congress can sort out the mess, he promises he will cancel his trip to Mar-a-Lago and shut down parts of the U.S. government and hold his breathe until he turns orange. 

(The fund to build the wall, using private donations is later alleged to be a scam. Not to mention the part that does get built soon starts to fall into the Rio Grande. See: 7/11-12/20 and September 1, 2020.)

 

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FRIDAY NIGHT the final shoe falls. Democrats refuse to give Trump the billions he wants to build his favorite wall. 

With that, large parts of the federal government run out of money and the president orders them shut down.

Monuments in Washington D.C. will be closed to tourists.

December 22, 2018: For a Third Time, Trump Shuts Down the Government He Is Supposed to Run

 

12/22/18: Americans wake to the realization that for a third time since reciting the oath of office, the Big Orange Buffoon is throwing a tantrum and the government is partially shuttered. Naturally, Trump blames the Democrats, even though days earlier he said he’d be “proud” to shut the show down if that’s what it took to get funding for his big, beautiful wall. 

Press Secretary Pinocchio is forced to go before reporters and say that anyone who doesn’t support building a wall really wants the Huns to invade Texas and march north to sack the nation’s capital and carry away all the virgins.

The Huns approach!

 

The rest of the day the bad news piles up for the embattled president. Brett McGurk, the top State Department envoy coordinating the fight against ISIS, quits in protest of the president’s spur-of-the-tweet-decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria. 

In an email to staff, McGurk explains: 

The recent decision by the president came as a shock and was a complete reversal of policy that had been articulated to us by [National Security Adviser John] Bolton and others. It left our coalition partners confused and our fighting partners bewildered with no plan in place…

 

“ISIS is on the run, but it is not yet defeated,” McGurk adds. He had worked to “help manage some of the fallout” from Trump’s impulsive decision, but “ultimately concluded that I could not carry out these new instructions and maintain my integrity at the same time.” (See: 12/23/18.)