Did you see Donny wandering off during his visit to Japan? He tried to look very intense and solemn doing it, wandering, but the serious look on his face was really at odds with him wandering, alone, across a room, while the brand new Prime Minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, looked on in disbelief. She had to catch up to him and redirect him to where he was supposed to be.

Don’t you think somebody briefed him before the event? Big somebody, brave somebody, tears in his eyes and said, “Okay, Mr Greatest President of All the Presidents in the History of Presidenting, you’re going to walk with that woman up to the flags. Do you see the flags, sir? No, the two great big ones at the front of the room. No, sir, THOSE flags. Yes, very perceptive of you, sir. Nobody could have found those flags better than you, no sir.

“You salute the American flag and then take one step to the right. Yes, the hand you write with. That’s right, one step. Yes, sir. ONE, sir. The woman is going to bow to her flag. Yeah, you got something she can bow to right here, yes sir. Good one, sir. Anyway, you take one step to the right, let her bow, then the two of you turn around together and you’ll walk to the raised platform for a photo-op, got it?”

He didn’t have it. I’ll give him points for not trying to have sex with the flag this time. He saluted, she indicated the one step to the right, he wandered off aimlessly. The look on Prime Minister Takaichi’s face? Priceless. I can’t say, for sure, he would have walked straight into the wall, but I can’t say, for sure, he would not have, either…

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Well, here goes nothing. I guess I should say, ‘here comes nothing.’ And I DO mean ‘nothing.’ That is, if you’re an American citizen. And why would an American President look out for American citizens when he has Argentinians he can care for? If you’re Argentinian, you’re about to gain a boon – up to $40 billion dollars for your country and America importing (apparently diseased) Argentinian beef – even though that harms American ranchers. A new ballroom for the boss, no food for everyone else.

But if you’re an American? Starve, bitch! Let them eat cake! The GOP will be cutting off Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits as of Saturday. That’s money people have needed and counted on for a long time. It’s just… gone, now. Happy Thanksgiving. That will certainly destabilize things. The GOP message? “Eat Tiny Tim. Solve two problems at once…”

The official story is that it’s all about the budget battle. I suspect the GOP was planning on doing this anyway, because it’s cruel and it hurts millions. The shut-down simply became a convenient excuse. Now they get to shut down SNAP AND use it as an excuse to take away health insurance, too. That’s a pretty good deal for the GOP.

The Republicans will try to blame the Dems by claiming they can’t issue SNAP payments because the government is shut down. Democrats will retort that SNAP has a rainy-day fund for just such an eventuality. That is to say, Congress could authorize the payments. They just don’t wanna. And why not?

Cons* think authorizing the payments takes political pressure off of Chuck Schumer. The GOP plans to starve American children in an effort to apply political pressure. And what do they want Schumer to do? Why, vote for their Continuing Resolution to fund the government but not the Affordable Care Act subsidies for millions and millions of Americans is all.

Allow me, please, to summarize.
GOP: “We’re going to gut your Affordable Care Act by taking away the subsidies needed by so many to cover premiums.”
Dems: “We oppose that idea. We not going to support your efforts.”
GOP: “Then we’re going to starve babies. We have no choice. See what you made us do?”

Americans know that this is the one moment, their only opportunity, the only leverage the Democrats have. If they don’t fight back right now, they won’t be able to fight back later. The GOP is claiming that if only the Dems will open the government, THEN the GOP will come back and negotiate in good faith. Uh-huh. I’ve seen this movie before.

The psychopath is holding a gun to the head of a hostage. The psychopath orders the cop to surrender his gun or the psychopath will shoot the hostage. The cop relinquishes his gun. The psychopath murders both the hostage AND the cop. It’s the whole ‘psychopath’ thing and there’s a whole group of them running the show, these days.

Meanwhile, MAGA has been convinced by their conservative corporate media that the DemocRATS are responsible because they keep trying to protect the interests of the citizenry. Starting Saturday, the debate moves from theoretical to practical. People will simply have no food. Empty stomachs will belong to both left and right. Interestingly, though, more red stomachs will suffer than blue.

Don’t get me wrong, there are millions and millions of needy people who depend upon government assistance to make ends meet in this, ‘The richest country on Earth™.’ But more of them wear red hats than don’t. In order to convince his supporters they need to let him take away their health insurance, he’s taking away their food, too.

The saddest part about that whole reality? MAGA is going to keep cheering for him. “Yes, Precious! Beat us! Starve us! Make us suffer! We love you!” I’m just shaking my head…

* I haven’t explained this in awhile, so really quickly: I use the term “cons” to describe conservatives often. It IS shorthand for ‘CONservative,’ but in my mind, it also correctly identifies the movement of ‘CONfidence men,’ AND identifies them as ‘CONtraians.’ It’s a three-fer! It was only later that I learned that it’s a three-fer with a bonus. In French, ‘Con’ is a slang term for ‘Asshole…’

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I sure do wish he would stop challenging people to take cognitive tests. Remember when he said America was a laughing stock? Obviously, it wasn’t at the time, but it is now. It’s just straight-up embarrassing. He genuinely doesn’t know these aren’t IQ tests. The thing about being an evil dictator nobody is allowed to challenge and certainly not correct, is that nobody can TELL him he’s challenging people to see if they can identify elephants, too. If HE thinks he’s taking IQ tests, everybody around him will pretend he’s taking IQ tests.

But the rest of the world knows he’s being tested for dementia on a regular, on-going basis. Doctors don’t do that without a reason. You don’t just get a brain scan as part of a standard physical. As I watch him wander aimlessly in Japan, I understand: there’s a reason…