It's (ostensibly) day 21 of the Schumer Shutdown. I woke up and my heart was still beating. My legs still worked and carried me to the bathroom to do my business there. I could still hear when my wife said something about junk stores (junk is my word, not hers) and antique places here in Alamogordo. The TV in the motel still lights up and makes noise. The maid came and went. We went to a laundromat, a few thrift stores, Burger King (she wanted Burger King and I wanted Del Taco, so we "compromised"). All of the traffic lights were working. We were still charged tax on purchases. We went to Las Cruces, and the Border Patrol people were working at the checkpoint along the highway just like all of the other times we returned from there.
So I turn on the TV and hear Congress has gone home for the weekend already. I knew they usually did that, quitting on Thursday most weeks, but I forgot about it until I heard it. Yesterday they said the shutdown that I don't even see is a crisis that needs to be fixed, but the President refuses to accept their unconditional demands to get everything they want ("compromise" being defined in their usual fashion: you give us everything we want, we'll let you take 100% of the blame when it goes sour). So I take their absence to mean there's no crisis.
Yet on TV they keep calling it one. CSPAN 2 had Tim Kaine on earlier (probably old footage at least a day old) calling it one and blaming Trump and Republicans for it.
So what am I missing? Is it still going on? I can't tell other than media claiming it is. Because everything around me is doing what it always does. (This time of year White Sands tourist park is usually closed anyway.) They're still taking my taxes. I still hear noisy DemocRATs who stand no chance of even getting the nomination announcing they're running for the presidency so they can get a lot of donations to spend on themselves for vacations and bigger houses and summer homes and so forth. They're still wasting money to prove collusion with the Russians by somebody who didn't collude while ignoring all of the people who did (including Mueller).
So is it on? Or did my calendar also jump ahead 3 months to April 1 when I changed time zones and they're pulling my leg?
So I turn on the TV and hear Congress has gone home for the weekend already. I knew they usually did that, quitting on Thursday most weeks, but I forgot about it until I heard it. Yesterday they said the shutdown that I don't even see is a crisis that needs to be fixed, but the President refuses to accept their unconditional demands to get everything they want ("compromise" being defined in their usual fashion: you give us everything we want, we'll let you take 100% of the blame when it goes sour). So I take their absence to mean there's no crisis.
Yet on TV they keep calling it one. CSPAN 2 had Tim Kaine on earlier (probably old footage at least a day old) calling it one and blaming Trump and Republicans for it.
So what am I missing? Is it still going on? I can't tell other than media claiming it is. Because everything around me is doing what it always does. (This time of year White Sands tourist park is usually closed anyway.) They're still taking my taxes. I still hear noisy DemocRATs who stand no chance of even getting the nomination announcing they're running for the presidency so they can get a lot of donations to spend on themselves for vacations and bigger houses and summer homes and so forth. They're still wasting money to prove collusion with the Russians by somebody who didn't collude while ignoring all of the people who did (including Mueller).
So is it on? Or did my calendar also jump ahead 3 months to April 1 when I changed time zones and they're pulling my leg?
All too many expensive political plums are funded by taxpayer money and need to be swept out of the nation's budget.