And now the beginning of the end has commenced.
The FAA has halted flights into LaGuardia. A major Eastern seaboard airport has suddenly become inaccessible to outside airlines because of safety concerns over air traffic controllers.
Here’s what it comes down to: a crash is inevitable. Or someone will sneak a bomb on because of depleted security. The bottom line is that Trump’s shutdown will no longer simply have a count of 800,000 workers who aren’t getting paid. It’s going to have a body count.
Does everyone understand that? People are going to die because Trump is holding the country hostage over his useless bid for a wall. People. Will. Die.
Tell me, Donald…how many are worth it?
Seriously, how many lives? If ten people are killed in a small jet plane, is that acceptable? How about a hundred? How about two hundred and fifty? How many people is it okay to see killed because of your dámņáblë wall and your utter inability to even understand how the government works, much less actually do it?
Obama, whom you hate so much…you know how he got health care? By forming committees and selling it to Congress. He held no one hostage and got it approved the way one is SUPPOSED to do it (and I swear to God, people, do NOT start coming at me bìŧçhìņg about health care because I will trash all such postings. I have HAD it with you.)
1). Suck it up.. That is basically how Trump’s people are instructing the screwed employees to deal with the fact that for a solid month they’ve received no paychecks. His daughter in law, Lara Trump, described workers who can’t pay their rent or buy food for their children as dealing with “a little bit of pain.” No, you idiot, they are dealing with fear that they’re going to be homeless and starving. And then there’s the secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, who suggested people get loans. He cannot fathom the idiocy of the plan: of the length of time a loan requires, of the necessity of collateral, of the fact that repayment of the loan is problematic because people still aren’t getting their income, plus they’d also have to pay interest. How can this turtle of a man who purports to be in charge of commerce be that ignorant of commerce?
Their reactions have been compared to, upon hearing that a famine was depriving the peasants of bread to eat, Marie Antoinette declaring “Let them eat cake,” and although she didn’t actually say that, the fundamental comparison is valid. Trump’s people, and of course, Trump himself, are as insensitive to the struggles of the people as the French aristocracy was to the problems of the peasants. It is instructive to recall exactly what happened to the aristocrats as a result of that insensitivity.
2). Wait for it. So what is happening meantime with people seeking asylum? Until now they’ve been living in the US, waiting for their cases to move through the legal system. The vast majority of them do indeed show up for their court dates. But now Trump wants to make sure that they wait in Mexico instead.
See, that’s the thing the anti-immigrant crew can’t seem to wrap itself around. They’re totally against people sneaking into the country unlawfully. That’s fair. But the country is now determined to make it impossible for people who want to come in by the rules to gain access. Americans who have food, clothes, and security can’t wrap themselves around people who are so desperate for a new life that they will sacrifice everything in order to come to this country.
Indeed, perhaps that is what links them the most strongly to Trump. Trump’s most distinctive trait is his utter lack of empathy. That same lack of empathy is shared by his supporters who absolutely don’t give a crap about people so forlorn with their lives that they need to start over. Don’t get me wrong: there are still plenty of people out there who give a dámņ and want to help others. Still, the swelling number of racist bášŧárdš who only give a crap about themselves and detest anyone with brown skin is enough to make any reasoned individual despondent over the future of this country.
Did he do anything right?. Yes, and you all know what it was. He gave in to Nancy Pelosi and resolved to postpone the State of the Union until after the government has been opened again. Of course, he claims that Pelosi is “afraid” of the speech. No. There is a difference between being afraid and not wanting to give a known liar a venue to spew more of his lies during a crisis that he himself created and took credit for…until he attempted to shift the blame.
The bottom line is that the Democrats’ behavior during this situation has been completely right. If they give in to Trump, he will do this again and again. This time it’s $5 billion, next time $10, $20 after that, and so on. Israel is correct: you don’t bargain with terrorists. And Trump who claims that he is concerned about terrorists coming over the southern border, is in fact the most powerful terrorist this country has ever faced.
PAD
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Spot on my friend!!
LaGuardia is in New York. New York gave exactly zero of it’s Electoral College votes to Donald Trump. So the entire state could die, and it would not change the calculus one whit.
(As for the moral calculus, L.A. is Sodom and NYC is Gomorrah. I have no doubt there are plenty of people for whom the deaths would actually be a positive thing.)
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or you genuinely mean it. If it’s the former, then well done. If it’s the latter, you’re really sick.
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PAD
I do believe David Oakes was attempting to describe how Trump et al would view the situation, not his personal perspective. At least, I HOPE that was the intention.
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And I think it is a more than accurate evaluation of Trump’s mindset. Why would Trump care if an airport in NY closes. In his eyes, no one in the region supports him, so yeah, I could totally see him writing off any deaths that would happen in the region as “not mattering.” Is it sick? Of course, it’s Trump. But it’s accurate in that it IS how his “moral calculus” would play out.
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In any case, it’s irrelevant since the orange moron folded like a card table.
One would have thought by now that the regions that still support him would have woken up to the fact that Trump doesn’t give a rat’s ášš about anything other than their adulation of him, but alas.
I think if at any point in your life you have to use the phrase “I am not a sociopath”, it is already too late.
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But I will take solace in the fact that even I am not so clueless as to seriously suggest just taking out a loan will solve everything.
Wow…
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I’ve seen a lot of politicians hold press conferences to have a pat-me-on-the-back victory lap moment before now. Until today, I have never seen a politician hold a press conference to have a pat-me-on-the-back failure lap moment.
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But, hey, at least the government employees will get paychecks and the government will reopen for now.
The key words being, “For now.”
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I’ve summarized his speech today this way:
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“One of my guys was arrested yesterday. So…surprise! I’m reopening the government without wall money. For three weeks. But by then, you better give me what I want, or I’ll screw over 800,000 people again.”
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–Daryl
I’m giving him 70 to 30 odds that he will shut things back down on February 15th.
Especially since in a memo he sent out relating to his “declaration of emergency options” he would have no problem culling the $7 billion from funds already in place. (This in an article on CNN)
$7 billion.
Nice little hike from the $5 billion that became 5.7 billion when it became clear the House wasn’t going to play along. And he’s already laid down his line: Pass the wall in February or I will declare an emergency or shut down the government again. He hasn’t lost this fight. He dropped back 5 yards for a punt.
I worked in the aerospace industry for almost 20 years. You don’t cut corners when it comes to aerospace safety and security.
I’ve been on “remain recovery” details in the USAF, the FL everglades to be exact.
If something goes wrong, you can’t just park it on a cloud and call an Uber.
Preach on Brother David!!!
“Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as president of the United States.” — Ann Coulter, the outspoken conservative commentator, in a tweet.
Tell me, Ann…how many are worth it?
A poll by historians places Donald Trump firmly in the top fifty U.S. Presidents ever! Most placed him as high up as #45 from the top!
Haha! I love it!
That’s hilarious!
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Although technically speaking, he should be as high as #44, because Grover Cleveland really shouldn’t count twice in something like this lol
Mike Murphy, you quoted Ann Coulter.
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I despise the entitlement attitude of the Bush family, another branch of which, the Walkers, equally entitle themselves here in St. Louis.
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However, it cannot be denied that G.H.W.B. was the youngest U.S. Navy aircraft carrier pilot of World War II, who was shot out of the sky, had to climb out of the airplane, parachute into the ocean, and rode a life raft until the U.S. Navy submarine U.S.S. Bowfin beat an Imperial Japanese Navy surface ship coming to capture him.
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Of political writers today, Ann Coulter is one of the few still so ignorant of the circumstances to deny the courage of carrier pilots, a few of whom were so good at it that they later went on to earn the privilege of going to the Moon.
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Ann Coulter herself has written of the fear, and even greater annoyance, she feels when she is “forced” to ride D. C. Metro commuter trains, germed up by people who leave their newspapers on the seats.
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Wimp is as wimp does.
Insanity. All of this was just insane. And aside from revealing the lack of empathy sadly, it also revealed that in some situations the system has to crash (or come to the edge) for them to do ANYTHING. You think if an office is being overworked but manned only by 5 people and stuff still gets done – they will hire more? No. They will exploit the 5 until they quit and MAYBE hire 6 the next time. You are classified as ‘essential’ which SHOULD mean you are so important you HAVE to get PAID regardless but in reality it means you have to go to work REGARDLESS of getting paid? It’s like not buying the cow because you get the milk for free. What’s the incentive? Nothing was gonna get fixed until ALL TSA and ATC just don’t go. And why the fed gov unions didn’t negotiate language in contracts clarifying that essential employee means during abnormal situations they have priority for salary payments – or at least tried to put that language in contracts and failed – I’ll never know. It’s not like closing the government and leaving people without payment hasn’t happened before. This reliance that ‘they’ll get the back pay’ shouldn’t be the fall back anymore.
My mother used to be a state WIC Director… because of furloughs and hiring freezes and whatnot, she was effectively doing the job of three people for the last decade or so she worked there. And even when there wasn’t a hiring freeze, she wasn’t allowed to hire anybody because “you’re doing just fine on your own!”
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When she finally “retired” (read: pushed out after having a bit of a breakdown due to overwork and her sister committing suicide) Health & Human Services ended up needing to hire *four* people to replace her.
I was shocked when this happened before. It seems insane to me (a Brit) that this can happen. I know you have unions in your country what do they have to say about all this? I am glad that at least the government is open for now. I couldn’t believe that guy when he said about ‘take out a loan.’ Here’s my idea why don’t he and the the other Billionaires ‘lend’ the money to these people. When the employees finally get their back pay, the loans get paid back. The key thing here is the loan must not have any interest added to it no matter how long the shutdown lasts for. I know, I’m a idealist although in an ideal world there wouldn’t be a shutdown and Trump would not be anywhere near the White House. Well we Brits are well on our way to a now deal Brexit so maybe we will know what it is like to experience our own type of government shutdown. I work for local government so I have no idea if my pay will continue if the worst should happen. Scary times.