Donald Trump in Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shutdown”
This Weak in Politics, Vol. 164
January 3, 2019
The government shutdown that Trump is proud to own is about to enter its third week. The world’s largest company is saying that a trade war is hobbling its sales, the Dow Jones, after suffering its worst December since 1931, continues to plummet, and a Trump loving, Kelly Temp Services employee/arms dealer and self-identified Russo-phile is being held in Russia on espionage charges in response to US prosecutors indicting the NRA’s illicit Russia conduit on charges of acting as a Russian agent in the US without notifying authorities.
Or as Donald Trump likes to say it, “So much winning.”
Let’s get right to it. The United States House of Representatives is under new management. Well, new old management. They are the management team that hasn’t been the management team since 2011, so that sort of counts as new. Or “pre-owned” as the US auto industry would call it.
With the passing of a gavel on Thursday afternoon, Nancy Pelosi became the Speaker of the House of Representatives. This cements her place in history, as Pelosi was already the first and only woman ever elected Speaker, and is now the second Democrat ever to regain a Speakership after losing a majority. With Pelosi being sworn in as the Speaker of the 116th Congress, she also becomes the best Speaker since the Speaker of the 111th Congress. Authorities have been unable to determine who was the Speaker for the 115th Congress.
We kid. It was Paul something or other.
We shouldn’t give him a hard time. On the bright side, Hastert was worse. (Let that be a warning to you 5 knuckleheads who voted for Jim Jordan for Speaker.) Ok, that was uncalled for.
For those of you that don’t know, Dennis Hastert was a congressman from the Great Lakes region of the country who was a strident family values conservative, but was embroiled in a sex scandal involving youth wrestlers.
Jim Jordan, on the other hand, is a congressman from….hmmm. Well, Jordan is younger.
Back to the House — the Democrats are finally back in charge, which will give them committee chairmanships and their attendant subpoena powers.
Nancy Pelosi as Speaker will also bring a significant cultural change to the power structure in Washington, that should be self-evident to nearly everyone save for these guys:
Not to put too fine a point on it, but take a look at this week’s situation room briefing on border security:
So Nancy Pelosi’s historic retaking of the gavel has Democrats in a festive and unified mood.
Or so you would think. But, Democrats being, well…Democrats, they instead broke off into internecine (dig that word, @KatyTurNBC?) warfare, as the more traditionally liberal Democrats desperately wanted to preserve a sacred rite of theirs — passing things without paying for them. The younger members of the new caucus are trying to get the offsetting revenues provision scrubbed from HR1, and the older members are saying “leggo my paygo,” which ironically, the young members don’t get.
The Young and The Feckless
This is likely just the first of many proxy wars being waged in what is a larger generational battle. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the 4 party leaders of the House and Senate are, combined, 33 years older than the nation. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won’t be 33 years old until the first mid-term election of the next president.
Though age doesn’t mean maturity. Look at the White House, for example. The supposed “adults in the room” of the Trump administration were Rex Tillerson, John Kelly, and James Mattis. Three guys who, respectively, called the president a fucking moron, was fired/resigned but feels his success was stopping the president from doing things, and one who was “essentially fired.”
That leaves Mick Mulvaney as the adult in the room. Mulvaney, in case you are unaware, had been serving as the president’s Budget Director, as well as the head of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.
Just last month, Mulvaney was introduced as the president’s acting Chief of Staff at a ceremony in Washington.
The Republican Party outside of the White House is in much the same position. By virtue of an op-ed this week, Mitt Romney became the backbone/conscience of the Republican Party. Let that sink in.
When Mitt Romney becomes the backbone of your party it might be time for a dexascan.
Yeah, that was a bone mass density joke. Sue us.
Seriously though, Mittens J. Romney, IV — the new face of the Republican Party.
If the new face of your party was born before disposable diapers and transistor radios were invented, you may want to send a telegram out for some help.
Brazil Nut. AKA a Recife for Disaster
In international news, Brazil has sworn-in a new president, signaling a hard rightward shift in the nation. And it was not without controversy.
Seems that the new president, Jair Bolsonaro once said of a congresswoman that he wouldn’t rape her because she wasn’t worthy of it, and he once pushed a female journalist questioning him. Bolsonaro’s behavior is so deplorable, that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went directly to Rio de Janeiro to tell the new president that he and Trump had a set of shared values that would bring the nations closer together. And Nikki Haley (remember her? The good one?) called Bolsonaro’s election “great.”
Finally, in economic news, the Dow Jones is experiencing massive hemorrhaging, including the aforementioned devastating December. Today, it shed another 650 points. A year ago on this day, the Dow stood at 24,824.01. The market closed today, one year later in the Trump economic miracle, at
22,686.22, earning Donald Trump yet another nickname:
And that’s the way the weak spent the week in a nation where the markets are tanking, there’s talk of instability, possible impeachment and even a recession, we have a drunken baboon with his tiny fingers on the nuclear button, and our national parks are currently covered in trash and feces, and yet 30% of the nation thinks we need to build a wall around this thing to keep undesirables out.
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