State of the Union

I'm sure we're all looking forward to Our President's State of the Union address, wondering how he'll manage to put a positive spin on recent events, and ready to count how many standing ovations he gets from the Republican side of the aisle.  They'll do their best to look enthusiastic, I suppose, despite the damage he's done to their party — not to mention their country.

I confess that the shutdown lasted twice as long as I expected: it turned out that McConnell was more adroit at ducking the blame than anticipated.  Eventually, though, there were enough pointing fingers to poke him into action.  Plutocratic fingers, of course, are especially pointy — and McConnell's first and foremost goal as Leader has been to keep the dark money flowing (and dark.)  It's not unreasonable to suspect that some of those extra-pointy fingers started poking pretty hard.

I won't presume to predict what will happen when the temporary funding bill expires.  Will the Congressional conference committee toss Our President enough crumbs to save a smidgen of face?  Will Tr*mp decide a "state of emergency" will shore up his base and distract attention from the Mueller inquiry?  Will some brand new craziness emerge over the next three weeks?

I don't know about the first two options, but number three seems like a safe bet. The state of the union, as I'm sure you've noticed, is wack.

The Shutdown

When is a wall a penis?

Shortly after the current government shutdown began, Nancy Pelosi suggested that Our President viewed the battle over the Great Wall of Tr*mp as a test of his manhood.  All indications are that she was right on the mark.

The border wall, from the first days of the Tr*mp campaign, has been more symbol than substance.  Anybody who pays attention understands that migration is driven primarily by push factors — intolerable conditions in the migrant's country of origin.  When one escape route is shut down, migrants inevitably find others.  Neither concrete nor steel slats nor pits filled with crocodiles will stop them.

A wall is a powerful symbol, though.  For Tr*mp's xenophobic base, it embodies Fortress America, protection against the terrifying Other threatening its comfortable concepts of all that is good and true (and white.)  To Tr*mp himself, it really has come to embody his aggressive, hyper-macho, and increasingly threatened sense of self.  If he didn't happen to be President of the United States, it  would be pitiful.

To the 800,000 government workers currently going without pay — plus who knows how many private contract workers who never will be paid for their lost hours — that presents a major problem.  How long will it take before Our President tires of flashing his increasingly shriveled little penis at the world?  And how long will it take before Democrats offer whatever token concessions he'll need to at least tuck himself back in, if not zip his fly?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Why they do it

Okay, the government is somewhat defunded, and it probably doesn't make that big a difference except to the 800,000 or so who won't be paid for a while.  The rest of us can live without the Lincoln Memorial for however long it takes — which is to say, no later than October 17, when the debt ceiling comes down on us.

So, we look at those involved in the current "crisis," seeking their motivation.  Sometimes it's obvious.  Some. like Michelle Bachman, Louis Gohmert, and Steve King, are just idiots.  John Boehner is afraid of losing his beloved Speakership, even though he knows better.  Ted Cruz is a self-promoting little piece of crap.  Others are from "safe" (gerrymandered) Republican districts where they just hate Obama (and all the other uppity niggers as well.)

Then, there are the funders.  Some say the Koch brothers are motivated by having read Ayn Rand back when they were in high school — but, clearly, it's just greed.  They're super-rich, and certainly don't want to pay their fair share of taxes.  They're oil men, and have little tolerance for environmental regulation.  They have extraordinary senses of entitlement.

It's possible that the idiots, the self-promoters, and the greedy will push Boehner into pushing the USofA into default.  I sincerely hope he is willing to throw himself on his sword, and save us by calling for an up-down vote when the time comes.