The Geriatric Kindergarten

Now in its 20th day, the Federal government shutdown has tied the record for the longest such closure in U.S. history. There is little likelihood that it will conclude today, January 11, 2019. As a result, nearly 1,000,000 federal workers are furloughed and will not get their first paychecks of the New Year.

What is particularly appalling is the contention of President Donald Trump that there is a “national emergency” at our border with Mexico. Trump has railed at the Democrats, who he claims are in favor of open borders and who allegedly don’t care about security. If his worries about safety and security for the American people are so high, why hasn’t he agreed to reopen the government so that ICE agents, Customs and Border Patrol agents, and others would be in a position to monitor and enforce our border protection?

The reason, of course, is that Trump’s concerns about safety/security are not at all genuine. He only gave lip-service to them as part of his ego-massaging pretense to fight for “the Wall,” his talismanic campaign promise going back three and a half years. Trump claimed, repeatedly, that “Mexico’s gonna pay for the Wall,” even though such a claim was absurd the moment it initially passed his lips. Then, he changed the narrative to suggest that “Mexico’s not going to write us a check or pay for it directly, but they’ll pay for it indirectly, as the result of…