In a move akin to putting a loaded shotgun to your foot and threatening to pull the trigger, lawless liar and crime boss Donald "Rump" Trump (a.k.a. "Individual 1") has been threatening to shut down the Federal government if Congress doesn't give him many billions of dollars to fund the 12th century technology wall (that Mexico was supposed to pay for, remember?). The Government's current funding expires on December 7. He must know that even the lame duck Rethuglican Congress will overrule him, so now he's lying that the death of former President George H.W. Bush has prompted him to delay a shut down for two weeks. He knows that with a Democratic-controlled House starting in January, he'll be the one to be shut down as far as the wall is concerned.
If it were a painless exercise to shut down the Government, we'd quote Br'er Rabbit and say, "please throw me in that briar patch," since Rump and the Rethuglicans would be blamed. Unfortunately, the most vulnerable suffer during shut downs, not the elites. In the past year, the Rethuglicans have learned the hard way that they lose the public opinion battle when they halt Government services, disproving their hoary canard that everybody wants "small gub'mint."
We can expect Rump to engage in more distractions to feed his base the red meat of fear, xenophobia and racism as the Mueller investigation's noose around him and his criminal cohort tightens. This particular distraction may the least potent yet.
(photo: Rump sums it up in a sentence.)
