Tom Toles for February 11, 2019

PUTIN WINS! Поздравляю! (Congratulations — thank you, Google translate)

What more could Putin possibly want? Total decimation of infrastructure, Justice department, White House credibility, etc.

Just look at the return Vladimir Putin has gotten on his investment, which has cost him less than one nuclear missile to buy a U.S. president and a senate majority:

• The government of the United States — Putin’s greatest adversary — SHUT DOWN three times in less than a year while Trump’s party is in full control. Unprecedented!

• Western alliances in disarray — including a puppet president who is trying to get the U.S. to withdraw from NATO.

• Trump literally spouting Soviet and Russian talking points regarding Syria and the justifications for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

• Trump trusts Putin more than the heads of his own intelligence agencies, all of who HE appointed.

• Trump GAVE TOP SECRET CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to top Russian diplomats IN THE OVAL OFFICE, which was covered by Russian media and photographers since U.S. media was shut out.

• Trump — with no prior diplomatic experience or expertise — holds multiple secret ONE-ON-ONE meetings with Putin that he conceals from even his own staff, with no official notes or memoranda, even confiscating and destroying interpreter notes, while Putin is free to preserve HIS interpreters’ notes and possibly even makes recordings good for future kompromat.

• Total chaos in the White House.

• Tariffs that make U.S. exports less desirable and Russian exports more desirable (China no longer importing U.S. soybeans and Putin rushing to fill the Chinese demand for soybeans that used to be met by American farmers so that U.S. soybean sales to China will never come back.)

Trump doesn’t care about shutting down the government, because it is not the one he works for.

Bottom line:

Barack Obama was the first BLACK male president.

Donald Trump is the first BLACKMAILED president.

Make Things Matter Again!

Is there going to be another partial government shutdown again this week???

I’m surprised there’s not a general strike of federal workers.

I’m sure the Trump will mention infrastructure during his border speech tonight. Walls are infrastructure aren’t they?

This is a perfect assessment of the current situation. Well done Mr. Toles.

From the viewpoint of disestablishment politics, everything is going as planned … it’s just that the anti-American plan does not seem to have been designed by some who cares even the slightest for a constitutional democratic republic with a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The repairs will start as soon as the New Democratic Senate and President are Sworn in after the 2020 elections.

Toles didn’t cite “integrity” because it’s absent everywhere.

After two years of Republican hate talk rule, the USA is in shambles.

If the government shuts down again I think that many fewer Federal workers will be willing to work without pay this time.

Whatever you do, don’t blame the GOP. It’s all the fault of the Extreme Liberal Dems. Whoever they may be.

FDR: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

DJT: The only thing we have is fear itself.

I look forward to seeing Beto O’Rourke’s counter speech in El Paso. BETOgether!

Unfortunately, too true!

He’ll fold like a cheap suit. The RNC got what they wanted (lower taxes and the ability to overturn Roe vs Wade assuming RBG crosses the Styx soon) so the party will attempt to make him compromise. Then he’ll declare victory and move on.

I might be paraphrasing a little, but here’s a classic Wiley poem from “BC” about the Earth:

“Little earthworm in the ground

You see no sight, you hear no sound

Gnawing tunnels down beneath

Without the benefit of teeth

You have no feet, no arms, no hand

We are behooved to understand

Just how, with attributes so few

They named a planet after you"

Can you imagine the fun Joseph Heller could have had with Trump?

I’ll be unsurprised if any infrastructure work that actually happens is mostly to fix things like highways that are part of the larger problem. Though I have recently come to find out that even including freight and delivery trucks, agriculture and making cement contribute way more CO₂

Trump doesn’t want to do infrastructure. He wants to build something he can put his name on

The grating of America.

Republicans want the Private sector alone to “do” infrastructure.

Given how many great Democrats are running, they could actually have a counter rally at every Trump rally.